From Denny: Obama hitchhiking off President Bill Clinton's popularity to pull his fanny out of the fire on this disliked Bush Tax Cuts extension. The White House and a recent poll tried to claim that 70 percent of Americans approved of the tax cuts plan when just last week they disapproved by 70 percent. When you read the poll you find that Independents are two-thirds former Republicans and two-thirds of them wanted the plan along with an overwhelming majority of Republicans. Democrats were against the plan by 54 percent. What broke down inside the polls is that Republicans and Independents don't give a rat's butt about the unemployed and did not want unemployment benefits extensions. What they wanted were tax cuts extensions for the rich. Democrats wanted the opposite - in favor of unemployment benefits vs. against the tax cuts for the rich:
The Bush Tax Cuts extension plan doesn't make anyone happy. Republicans only want the tax cuts for the rich but don't want unemployment benefits to be given to desperate Americans. The Democrats, to a majority in the polls, don't want the plan because they don't want tax cuts to be given to the wealthy. Democrats also want unemployment benefits to be extended. The Independents are two-thirds former Republicans and so they side with the Republican world view.
The White House is claiming Americans are overwhelming in favor of Obama's Tax Cuts plan. The reality is that Republicans are overwhelming in favor of it - not Democrats, the President's own party for which he regularly disregards their wishes for why they put him in office in the first place.
The tax cuts plan did pass and was signed by President Obama yesterday. The $1.2 trillion omnibus government funding bill was also attached to this bill - along with an outrageous $8 billion in pork. That's the real reason the Republicans pushed so hard not to change a thing. If the Tea Party crowd had not howled in protest about the attached pork projects benefiting mostly the Republicans, we would be spending a lot more than the almost $900 billion just for the tax cuts.
Congress and their idea of justice:
TV talk show host Larry King finally retires - and looks like Bill Clinton might replace him, according to the world of cartoonists:
The Weeping Boehner cartoons (incoming Republican House Speaker come January):
A way to citizenship for illegal immigrants that is actually a good idea:
Big Banks continuing to foreclose upon millions of Americans in December, lowering the house value of everyone in those neighborhoods and cities. Either way we all lose. Stop the insanity and write your government representatives to stop the madness. Big Bank, Bank of America, actually went and hired Florida judges out of retirement to process the foreclosures. How fast are they delivering? At the rate of one foreclosure per two minutes. That's right; they don't read the documents nor check for accuracy. Many documents are pure fiction on the part of the mortgage companies. They know the homeowners cannot afford a lawyer so they bluff their way through the process. Yet, still our federal government stands by and enables Big Business to beat up the little guy - the voter.
Our politicians on both sides of the aisle have chosen their donors over their voters. The 2012 election will prove interesting to see if it plays out like this White House claims it will: "Democrats will sell a kidney to give them money to beat the Republicans and turn out in droves at the voting polls to defeat them." After the 2010 wipe out, somehow I doubt that scenario to become true.
The Republicans stacked the federal judiciary with their political puppets. Now a federal judge has declared the recent health care reform bill to be unconstitutional. He may have a point on one area: forcing people to buy a health plan and, if they don't, assessing escalating fines for every year they don't. It is obnoxious to order someone to buy a health plan, especially if they are out of work. The reality is there are no government programs to cover that. The simple thing would have been to extend Medicare or Medicaid to cover every American, creating a version of the public option. But then, where would Big Insurance be on that one? Out in the cold and not making billions of dollars every quarter, that's where. So, President Obama gave them their money while Americans continue to get terrible health care with escalating prices.
Santa and the TSA Dance at the airport:
Santa and his dance with the world economy:
Funny WikiLeaks:
Elusive World Peace:
One good piece of news today: the Senate finally repealed the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. At last, a segment of our society, homosexuals who serve in the military, finally receive equal civil rights. It will take several months to a year before all is normalized but at least the wrong has been set right.
*** For more cartoon fun check out: Funny Christmas Tech Cartoons - 18 Dec 2010 - Cartoonists have fun with how our social lives are so intertwined with technology.
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