frankilin roosevelt

It's not about being liberal or conservative anymore y'all. That is a hype offered by the fascist whores who want to confuse the people with lies while they turn this country into an aristocratic police state. Some people will say anything to attain power and money. There is no such thing as the Liberal Media, but the Corporate media is very real.


Check out my old  Voice of the People page.


Gino Napoli
San Francisco, California
High School Math Teacher

jonsdarc@mindspring.com




Loyalty without truth
is a trail to tyranny.

a middle-aged
George Washington



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Wednesday, 3 April 2013 at 18h 34m 20s

Driverless Cars

Who would have ever thought this discussion would ever have an actual basis? This is Blade Runner technology.

The Story below from Brad Plumer at the Washington Post, gives a good view of whether driverless cars would decrease or increase energy usage.

[SOURCE: Brad Plumer | Washington Post | 30 March 2013]


Wednesday, 3 April 2013 at 18h 23m 58s

Nothing wrong with borrowing

From Matthew Iglesias at Slate.com

just consider that there is some level of government spending that you consider appropriate. Imagine that level of spending is achieved. Zero money is being spent on wasteful or useless programs, and no good spending is being forgone. We're doing everything we ought to be doing. Now we need to finance that spending with some mixture of taxes and borrowing. The Cooper viewpoint is that it's always the case that the optimal mix is 100 percent taxes and 0 percent borrowing. But why would that be? If the future is going to be richer than the present, there's a strong prima facie case for borrowing. You don't pay 100 percent cash for your house or your college tuition, and there's no reason you should pay 100 percent cash for your national defense or vital infrastructure either. How much should you borrow? It has a lot to do with the interest rates. Not only is borrowing at a high interest rate expensive, but government borrowing at a high interest rates crowds out private capital investment. But if interest rates are low, then you don't need to worry much about crowding out, and the economic burden of repaying the interest is likely lower than the economic burden of higher taxes.

So you borrow some money. Ronald Reagan did it. George W. Bush did it.


[SOURCE: Matthew Iglesias | Slate.com | 3 April 2013]

In other words, sometimes that which is called "government debt" is really just a decision to include borrowing as a component of getting the necessary government revenue to pay for the things that we decide government should do, or the things that government should invest. Framing the argument as one of getting government to spend exactly what is raised from revenue without bothering to "envision" what it is government should be spending or investing is as ridiculous a proposition as tying a rope of unknown length around a tree of constantly changing width. The "serious" discussions of cutting government mingles with cutting taxes when the actual decisions should be agreement on what government should be spending and investing. Worry about how to pay for it once that agreement is made.

Alas, as I say all the time, this rhetoric is not serious at all. The goalposts move all the time. Cuts are made, but then "necessary" costs are added, and taxes are always cut (if only for the upper few). The overall balance of what government spends and invests is never made, but rather occurs in a myriad of byzantine subsidies or tax credits in the name of "creating jobs" or maintaining "competitiveness". Military costs and investments have almost no oversight. The budget is thus a compilation of various different interests. There is no guiding oversight.


Sunday, 31 March 2013 at 18h 10m 57s

Paul Craig Roberts is not a kook

Dr. Roberts is an American economist and a columnist for Creators Syndicate. He served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration. He is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Scripps Howard News Service.

So when he speaks about a 9-11 Cover up, you need to respect his point of view, and try to understand that governments and politicians form cliques and keep secrets. History is proof.

A haunting quote from the interview "If you lie to cover up incompetence, then you could also lie about complicity."

CLICK THE SOURCE BELOW.

[SOURCE: PaulCraigRoberts | The Corbett Report | ]

A brief list of histories great conspiracies:

  1. Vietnam advisors began during the Eisenhower administration
  2. Augustin Pinochet topples Salvadore Allende's Chilean government with US aid and planning assistance on September 11th ... in 1973
  3. The manhattan project during World War II
  4. The invasion of DDay -- the Germans thought it would come in Calais, 100 - 150 miles further North
  5. The USS Maine explosion in 1898 .. Admiral Dewey just so happened to have the US fleet off the coast of Manila in the Phillipines
  6. The Germans send (smuggle?) Lenin to Russia on a train, to precipitate Russian withdrawal from World War One and the beginnings of the Russian Revolution occur as an ancillary result
  7. Zachary Taylor had the American Army and Cavalry on the border of the Rio Grande, in what Mexico considered Mexican Territory and refused to leave ... under orders from President Polk who wanted to add Mexican Territory to the United States.
  8. Hawaii was turned into an American "protectorate" on January 17, 1893, in which anti-monarchial insurgents within the Kingdom of Hawaii, composed largely of American citizens, engineered the overthrow of its native monarch ... because the safety of the monarchy was in "danger" of being taken by the European "Imperialists"
  9. Julius Caesar stabbed by every Senator, called to the Senate under a ruse of national emergency -- "Et Tu Brutus" and the "Aides of March" are now legacies


Friday, 8 March 2013 at 4h 17m 7s

5 predictions for the coming MLB season

  1. The Boston Red Sox will have a better record than the Yankees
  2. The Kansas City Royals win more than 90 games and have a top pitching staff
  3. The Milwaukee Brewers will make it to the world series as Carlos Gomez has a 30-30 season and the pitching staff surprises everyone with a top 3 ranking
  4. Houston will win more than 60 games. Maybe 62.
  5. Seattle will challenge Oakland for the Western Division as both Texas and Anaheim fall apart

    Bonus prediction: the world series will be Detroit or Kansas City vs. Milwaukee


Friday, 15 February 2013 at 1h 49m 33s

Why did A New York Times Reporter Lie

This blows me away. A NY Times reporter is asked by Tesla Motors to test drive it's newest model electric car, and the reporter does everything possible to make the car malfunction and then writes a negative article about the car.

Then Tesla motors easily proves this happened by producing data from the car logs.

[SOURCE: Elon Musk | Tesla Motors | 13 February 2013]


Tuesday, 5 February 2013 at 2h 38m 40s

The Booblespeak Translations

This shit is helluh funny.

Click here for the Booblespeak.

Every Sunday, the self-appointed decision-makers and Washington conventional-wisdom acolytes all gather around a video conference room and create what is called "Meet The Press." Really, it's just a forum for politicians and elites to pursue their latest attempts at public relations.

Moonshine patriot put together this blog to satirically make this point. Each Monday or Sunday evening, Moonshine "translates" the dialogue on the Sunday "News" show "Meet The Press".

Here's a small snippet from yesterday (3 February 2013)

Meet The Press – February 3, 2012
Host: Chuck Todd

Guests:

Leon Panetta (Secretary of Defense)
Gen. Martin Dempsey (Chair, Joint Chiefs of Staff)

**********************************

Todd: omg the very liberal Republican Chuck Hagel faced tough questioning from the guy who lost to Barack Obama!

Todd: Leon does Chuck Hagel hate Israel?

Panetta: Israel? Dammit we're still fighting two wars!

Todd: Israel was mentioned 130 times which proves what is really important

Dempsey: cripes I got boys dying in Afghanistan right now

Todd: do you support Chuck Hagel?

Dempsey: he seems smarter than Graham or McCain

Todd: that's not saying much

Dempsey: I know that

Todd: we can't vote for a new Secretary of Defense until we have another hearing on Benghazi

Panetta: I love how insane these Republicans are

Todd: but Benghazi is the most important event since Gettysburg

Panetta: Chucky I heard you were a moron

Dempsey: we've learned a lot since Benghazi

Todd: what is that?

Dempsey: next time after an attack invade Grenada and no one will notice


Ronald Reagan "invaded" a small island in the Carribean called Grenada not long after the bombing of the Beirut embassy that killed 200 something marines. The event took the press off the criticism of the United States gradual escalation of involvement in Lebanon and covert assistance with Israel. The corporate media willingly followed the ball tossed to them.


Tuesday, 5 February 2013 at 3h 8m 20s

The student loan disaster

Students going to college nowadays are paying a whole lot of money for the promised ticket to a high paying job or satisfactory career. Going to Law School and Medical School after a 4 year college adds to the already large cost. And the percentages of interest per year is more than 7 percent, which means .07 times total debt divided by 12 is the minimum payment just to not increase the debt owed. After 4 years at undergraduate college, a typical student owes $30,000. Law and Medical school can add another $200,000.

In the lower end case, .07 times 30,000 is 2100, which is $175 a month minimum to make the interest payments. Paying 7 percent interest over 20 years results in an effective multiple of 128.982. Divide this into the money owed (30,000) and you get the necessary monthly payment for 20 years : $232.59. However, most student loans are set at 10 years. This is an effective multiple of 86.126 for 7 percent. Divide this into the money owed (30,000) and you get $348.33.

A student with a law school or medical school debt might have 200,000 in debt or more. Divide this by the 10 year effective multiple, and you get $2322 per month.

Yikes. Now consider this

About 48 percent of employed U.S. college graduates are in jobs that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) suggests requires less than a four-year college education. Eleven percent of employed college graduates are in occupations requiring more than a high-school diploma but less than a bachelor’s, and 37 percent are in occupations requiring no more than a high-school diploma

That means you get a first job that pays maybe 30,000 BEFORE TAXES -- and there are plenty of waitresses, bartenders, and cafe baristas that don't get that first job. Make the right career moves, go to nursing school, become an electrician or mechanic, be in the right place at the right time -- or have the right connections -- and you might move up above 50,000 and higher.

The overall median personal income for all individuals over the age of 18 was $24,062 ($32,140 for those age 25 or above) in the year 2005, and more than half of the population goes to college. 48% of college graduates are these jobs. You try paying $2322 a month on a salary less than 2 thousand dollars AFTER TAXES. Even $350 a month is tough on a $1200 a month budget.

Now I paid off all my student loans, but this is a national shame. And I would have owed FIVE times the $21,000 dollars in debt I had when I became matriculated at Tulane University after a 5 year education. The entire cost of my 5 years now doesn't even pay for a full year, but the median wage hasn't changed in 40 years.

We should have a national student loan commission that centralizes all student loans and sets the interest at 2 percent. Instead we have all sorts of private financing groups and big banks getting the interest on the loans at 6, 7, 8, 9 percent with the government guaranteeing the principal.

Why have private middlemen get an easy profit when they perform no valuable social service deserving of the high interest fees. What are these banks and financial syndicates doing with the interest they get on these loans other than making money to fuel further aspects of their business (or pay their upper level executives bigger bonuses.) The government already provides the principle. Why not make investments in our youth by providing a central location for low-interest loans. Not only would it be less expensive, but also easier to manage and run efficiently.

That same effective multiple for a 10 year loan would at 2 percent be 108.679, much better than 86.126, a 21% reduction in what the student pays overall. The government could also lengthen the payment options, and defer payments without applying the interest for a period of time due to hardship. Right now students that defer loan payments are still accruing interest.

[SOURCE: Paul Campos | Salon.com | 4 February 2013]
[SOURCE:  | Center For College Affordability | January/February 2013]
[SOURCE: US Census Bureau | Wikipedia | November 2006]

The entire pdf report can be located [-- here --]


Wednesday, 30 January 2013 at 2h 4m 45s

Conservativism is dead

Here Josh Barro takes aim at the conservative Thinker Ramesh Ponnuru. Josh politely slowly takes apart each part of the ideas Mr. Ponnuru has about Health insurance and Child Tax credits for Families. Mr. Ponnuru touts these ideas as new and fresh applications of vibrant conservative ideas.

Nope. They are the same failed ideas in new clothing. Josh does an incredible job making this obvious to all but the most willful. You have to read the piece.

Click here

[SOURCE: Josh Barro | Bloomberg News | 29 January 2013]

These ideas are merely smokescreens for the agenda of the large corporatists and elite financial kingpins who run Washington and rule the entire Republican party. But wary, they always take with one hand more than they offer with the other. They depend upon funds to work, but (like the leave-no-child-behind act and the Welfare reform) they always delay and defund and the promised money never happens. They expect people to have long-term priorities, when history painfully reminds us that people actually short-term considerations often to their own demise, and yet justify the mantra of self-regulation that never works out except by increasing monopolization. They preach "competition" but the actual creation of their "ideas" into the words of legislation furthers instead oligopoly and limited consumer protections. They like tax cuts and tax credits but they don't want to raise taxes to pay for them because they want to get rid of government in the long run, and in the short term distribute the functions of government to toddy and stooges who get hired for million dollar salaries when they leave government.

They want to take out the trash and have clean streets but they don't want to pay for the workers to do the job. They then get mad when the place stinks after a year because some citizens will have short-term priorities because of either low income or lethargy. Then they have to pay three times the cost of getting rid of the garbage then it would have cost if they had just taxed themselves and spread the burden over more people. The job would be guaranteed to be done and there wouldn't be any problems with trash accumulation. Good jobs would also be created. It's a win, win, win, win.

This ideology is bunk. It has been proven bunk time and time again. The ideology was always the banner underneath which ulterior motives resided, and that is why the ideology persists. Bad ideas will have their followers, especially when there are such individuals and institutions that benefit. It's easier to cling to bad ideas when their is no alternative but the subterfuge of the bad ideas is still very strong. They persist being stupid because the money is very very real. They get paid to distract the people with psuedo-battles over false principles because they don't want to people to realize the hollowness of their paradigm.

Not that Democrats are free of this corruption. The only difference is that most Democrats also believe in a government that works and want to actually do the work of good government more than they want to (or have to) participate in the handiwork of their paymasters and overlords. Almost all Republicans are obstructionist hypocrites. The very few who are different are suffering pains of conscience right now.


Sunday, 16 December 2012 at 22h 9m 41s

Mark Fiore : The 12 Days of Cliffmas


Wednesday, 12 December 2012 at 4h 6m 0s

Best. Takedown. Evah....

Charles Pierce rocks the magic thunder. He writes for Esquire magazine, and yes, once again in our nations history you have to get the non-elite opinion and the exposes of the truth from the magazines and publications set up by individuals (blogs). This is what happened in our country after the 1880s and 1890s. The newspapers were controlled propaganda organs for the most part. The exposes of the Standard Oil, trusts, corrupt State legislatures, the unhealthy production of food appeared in in monthly magazines. A few competiting small newspapers also provided real news that wasn't just puff pieces for the local elite politicos. Upton Sinclair's books (not just the jungle) were published by himself from a small publisher, sometimes by his own hand.

Also, here we are again today. The corporate media is the public relations front page of the corporatist mindset of the rich and powerful. The corporations are really just legal entities that are controlled by the very wealthy. We are still dealing with unhealthy production systems. What you see and hear in the corporate press (including the radio) is just the policy agenda of the elite and their acolytes.

Politico has a column called (according to Mr. Pierce):

Tiger Beat On The Potomac has been [an] enterprise ... dedicated totally to gossip, triviality, and Drudge-baiting to the exclusion of what's actually going on in the country to the people these politics are supposed to serve.

In a recent column, the writers basically put some window dressing on a lobbyists wet dream about what the large manufacturers and multinational corporations want the nation to believe. Namely,
The current tax-and-spending debate only flirts with what these insiders say needs to be done. Instead, top White House and congressional leaders talk privately of the need for tax reform that goes way beyond individuals and rates; much deeper Social Security and Medicare changes than currently envisioned; quick movement on trade agreements, including a proposed one with Europe; an energy policy that exploits the oil and gas boom; and allowing foreign-born students with science expertise to stay here and start businesses.

Here's a snippet of how Charles Pierce points out exactly how the mainstream funnels the beliefs of the elite to the masses:
Pierce: And to whom do these two brainiacs turn to for these bold policy ideas?

This is the clear takeaway from conversations we have had over the past three months with top lawmakers, officials, their senior aides and the CEOs who advise and lobby all of them. Many of the conversations were private but many were not.

Pierce: Of course, it's your "clear takeaway," you twits. You might as well troll meth labs to learn table manners. Ask dogs for recreational tips and they'll tell you to lick your balls. Ask monkeys about hobbies, and they'll teach you to fling poo. Ask the plutocrats, and the politicians who serve them, and the aides who serve them about what we should do about the economy, and the answer is always going to be "make sure we stay rich."


You need to read the entire screed.

This is how the media pushes and legitimizes the corporation agenda. Watch television and you will be convinced, your choices will become limited, the boundaries of the views will get smaller, and the size of the official participants diminishes. Every other point of view becomes either marginalized or labelled radical or extreme since it outside of the tiny room where all the legitimate discussion is supposed to take place. Political discourse is squeezed into a tube where one side is left and the other side is right. Repetition and reiteration is continuous and never ending, so you become so used to irrationality that you begin to forget how to think for yourself. But you won't realize it, and instead start to get uncomfortable every time you are reminded. After a while you begin to resent the reminders and then you begin to imbibe the entire package of what has been fed to your brain every time the television is pumping it with sights and sounds. You become infected with the virus and begin to spread it out to the world with your voice and the opinions that were created in your mind -- which no longer belongs to you by the way, since you willingly gave it up in the hopes of being endlessly entertained.

Pierce ends the takedown in utter demolition, or as the French say, J'accuse:

The longer this goes on, the more depressed I get. Clearly, a deal on the economy is being cut with the minimal amount of input from the people on whom the weight of the deal will fall most heavily. Sacrifice is being parceled out by people who will feel none of it. And elite journalism is presenting this iniquitous arrangement from the point of view of the grifters and thieves who will profit most from it. This piece is not about the current economic stalemate. It's about two Beltway foofs showing the red on their asses by demonstrating that they can get important people on the phone. This isn't economics. This isn't even really journalism. This is a brief in support of oligarchy. It is public financial star-fking.

[SOURCE: Charles Pierce | Esquire | 11 December 2012]




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