Extended UIBs to End Courtesy of Republican Slimeballs… Over One Million to Be Thrown into Penury by These Anti-Christian Greedsters

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More than 1 million Americans are bracing for a harrowing post-Christmas jolt as extended federal unemployment benefits come to a sudden halt this weekend, with potentially significant implications for the recovering American economy. A tense political battle likely looms when Congress reconvenes in the new midterm election year. Nudging Congress along, a vacationing President Obama called two senators proposing an extension to offer his support. On Friday, the White House said, that Obama pledged to push Congress to move quickly next year to address this “urgent economic priority”. For families dependent on cash assistance, the end of the federal government’s “emergency unemployment compensation” will mean some difficult belt-tightening as people lose their average monthly stipend of 1,166 USD (38,000 Roubles. 1,250 CAD. 1,315 AUD. 850 Euros. 708 UK Pounds).

Jobless rates could drop, but analysts say the economy might suffer with less money for consumers to spend on everything from clothes to cars. Having let the “emergency” program expire as part of a budget deal, it’s unclear if Congress has the appetite to start it anew. An estimated 1.3 million people would lose benefits when the federally-funded unemployment payments end Saturday. The Labor Department said that some 214,000 Californians would lose eligibility, a figure expected to rise to more than a half-million by June. In the last 12 months, Californians received 4.5 billion USD (146.7 billion Roubles. 4.8 billion CAD. 5.1 billion AUD. 3.28 billion Euros. 2.74 billion UK Pounds) in federal jobless benefits, much of it ploughed back into the local economy. In addition, more than 127,000 New Yorkers would get the chop this weekend. In New Jersey, 11th among states in population, 90,000 people would immediately lose out.

Started under President George W Bush, the benefits were supposed to be a cushion for the millions of American citizens who lost their jobs in the Great Recession and failed to find new ones whilst receiving state jobless benefits, which in most states expire after six months. Analysts expect another 1.9 million people across the country to exhaust their state benefits before the end of June. However, Obama has no quick fix. He hailed this month’s two-year budget agreement as a breakthrough of bipartisan cooperation whilst his administration worked with Democratic allies in the House and Senate to revive an extension of jobless benefits for those unemployed more than six months. The Obama administration said that those payments kept 11.4 million people out of poverty and benefited almost 17 million children. The cost of them since 2008 totalled 225 billion USD (7.34 trillion Roubles. 241 billion CAD. 254 billion AUD. 163.8 billion Euros. 136.5 billion UK Pounds).

At the depth of the recession, laid-off workers could qualify for up to 99 weeks of benefits, including the initial 26 weeks provided by states. The most recent extension allowed a total of up to 73 weeks, depending on the state. According to the Congressional Budget Office, restoring up to 47 extra weeks of benefits through 2014 would cost 19 billion USD (619.5 billion Roubles. 20.4 billion CAD. 21.5 billion AUD. 13.8 billion Euros. 11.5 billion UK Pounds). House Democrats led by Sander Levin (D-MI) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) sought to include an extension through March by offsetting the costs with potential farm bill savings. The Republicans rebuffed them. Senate Democrats and some Republicans plan another push in 2014. Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Dean Heller (R-NV) introduced a bill offering a similar three-month extension and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) promised to bring it up. However, as with much in Congress, an extension is no sure thing. In phone calls on Friday, Obama told Reed and Heller that he was glad that they were working together to address the problem. Obama economic adviser Gene Sperling said in a statement, “It defies economic sense, precedent, and our values”.

Earlier this month, House Speaker John Boehner spoke with Obama about an extension. Boehner and said his caucus would consider the possibility “as long as it’s paid for and as long as there are other efforts that’ll help get our economy moving once again”. He said that the White House has yet to introduce a plan that meets his standards. For other Republicans, the bar is higher. Many of them look at signs of economic growth and an unemployment rate now down to 7 percent and expected to drop further as evidence the additional weeks of benefits are no longer necessary. For decades, there’s been a fierce debate on the effect of jobless benefits on the unemployment rate. To qualify, people have to be seeking work. Tea Partiers such as Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) argue that the payments aggravate rather than relieve unemployment. The benefits allow some jobseekers to hold out for higher wages. Without the benefits, they might accept lower-paying jobs, reducing the unemployment rate. Others may be looking for work only to keep the benefits flowing and would drop out of the job market entirely once the checks stop. In theory, that also would push the unemployment rate lower.

In addition to alleviating suffering, the flip side is that the benefits get spent on consumer goods, stimulating the economy, and creating jobs. Maurice Emsellem, policy co-director at the National Employment Law Project, argued that extended unemployment insurance “is really a lifeline to help pay the bills, put food on the table, and put gas in the tank, so people can look for work”. Michael Feroli, an analyst at JPMorgan Chase, said ending the extended benefits would lower the unemployment rate by half a percentage point as the long-term unemployed leave the labour force. Whilst that statistical change might look good superficially, Feroli cautioned that a similar decrease in consumer spending could accompany the drop. That would also hurt clothing retailers, car dealers, and other Main Street businesses. On the other hand, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that extending the programme would boost GDP growth by some 0.2 percent and increase full-time employment by 200,000 next year, but at the price of increasing government debt. Advocates of extended benefits say communities hardest hit by the recession would feel the sudden loss of cash in circulation the most. They cite a set of their own troublesome figures… three jobseekers still competing for each opening, some 4 million people in the ranks of long-term unemployed, and unemployment lasting on average 37 weeks, two months longer than most states provide insurance.

Bradley Klapper

Associated Press

http://news.yahoo.com/1-3-million-losing-unemployment-benefits-saturday-172757185.html

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Gross War Spending 1962-2015

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Per Capita War Spending 1962-2015

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Editor’s Note:

The Republicans are liars… full stop. There’s plenty of “give” in the budget. However, the Republicans want to enrich the Affluent Effluent at all costs… if that means that people of little means get smashed in the process, well, so be it. Let them die and decrease the surplus population! The Republicans wish to give MORE to a class that REFUSES to invest in the USA, a class that hides its money in overseas tax havens… but demands the right to dictate American economic policy. In short, a criminal and unpatriotic class leads the Republicans by the nose. When Marx said, “Capital has no homeland”, he meant that crapitalists don’t give a damn about their homeland… they’d sell it out for filthy lucre, as Wet Willy Romney did (and received the Republican nomination for President as a reward).

Look at the above graphs… there’s PLENTY of FAT in the DoD budget. It’d be simple to find 19 billion USD… but Congress won’t… for it’d mean that fatcat corporate donors would lose business. You see, if the fatcats lost business, their political running dogs would lose some of their bribes and “campaign donations”… and that can’t be! Do note that war spending is UP, compared to the Cold War. Where’s the money going? It’s going to political and corporate corruption, on both sides of the aisle, but more so on the Republican side.

I’ll tell you what angers me. The men who die and who suffer grievous wounds in current wars are mostly men from families of small means, whilst the Affluent Effluent doesn’t shoulder any of the burdens of service. As Dick Cheney put it, “I had better things to do”… and Willy Romney hid in France for two years during the height of the Vietnam War. That should tell you something of the character of the Republican Party (or, rather, its lack of same).

Orthodox people should beware Victor Potapov, Alexander Webster, Rod Dreher, John Whiteford, Patrick Reardon, and Josiah Trenham… they all cheerlead for the Godless Amoral Right… yet, they deck their idol in the robes of the Church, thereby blaspheming Our Lord Christ and what He really did (do recall that the powers-that-be tacked him up for being a pesky rebel). They’re in total opposition to HH and Pope Francisco, who see eye-to-eye on social justice matters.

You can follow the above-named worthies or you can follow HH… I choose His Holiness… who’s friends with Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz and who just gave a high Church decoration to Iosif Kobzon. The Church is NOT a friend of the Right… no matter how much the contemporary teabagger chernosotentsy konvertsy rant and rave. Keep it focused and don’t let the bastards grind you down…

BMD

 

28 November 2013. Why Does The Right Distort Our REAL History?

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One of the most disturbing aspects of the last thirty, “deregulated“, years has been the mendacious and blatant distortion of history by the right. Of course, the most blatant abusers are Fox (Non-) News and Rush Limbaugh, but the rightwing publicity machine, along with “Evangelical” propaganda, also played their roles in this dirty little game. In many ways, it continues the failed 1950s McCarthyite scam… but with collusion from the government. Many things allowed today under “deregulation” were rightfully unlawful and criminal prior to 1981. Yes, kids… most of the crapitalist nonsense tactics allowed in the contemporary USA were ILLEGAL prior to Slobberin’ Ronnie. The Republican Party deteriorated to the point were it nominated an open tax cheat (with MILIONS in offshore accounts) and draft dodger (his corporate daddy bought him a dodgy “clergy” deferment during the Vietnam War) as its presidential candidate. That is, it nominated not only a non-patriot, it nominated an anti-patriot. Wet Willy Romney incarnates Marx’s dictum, “Capital has no homeland”. That is, “Capital despises patriotism, family ties, and hometown loyalties”.

 Look at the above posters from World War II. At that time, the USA had a semi-socialist government. That allowed the USA to mobilise its resources efficiently… it allowed the USA to outproduce the Axis all on its own. In short, socialism not only works, it works wonderfully. Mind you, had the USA had a full socialist system, the miracle of production would’ve been GREATER. Don’t listen to rightwing rubbish that socialism is a “failed system”… the fall of the USSR had nothing to do with that, it succumbed to a coup carried out by a bunch of nutters… it had nothing to do with socialism per se. Gorbachyov gambled… and lost. Nevertheless, his gamble had nothing to do with socialism itself, it was a failed attempt to overhaul the USSR‘s governmental apparatus, which is entirely different.

Understand this… the USA of today isn’t the USA of World War II. It’s degenerated into a kleptocracy run by corporate interests. We’re no longer the “Land of the Free”… Bush saw to that with PRISM, black sites, Guantánamo, and the TSA. We’re no longer the country that moves and lights the world (in the industrial sense)… selfish oligarchs gutted our industry, sent it abroad (in search of cheap labour), and put their added profits in offshore banks, refusing to invest in this country. In short, the platform of the Republican Party is nothing but rapine for the sake of the One Percent… an enterprise that’s not only criminal to the bone (for it WAS illegal prior to 1981), but also sinful and immoral (according to both Pope Francisco and HH).  Note well that some Orthodox clergy support the Republican Party and “bless” its immoral criminal programme. They’re modern chernosotentsy… they’re the same sorts who brought down the persecution on the Church in the homeland (God DOES see and judge).

It’s time to go back to the future and end our dalliance with evil. Trust me, the enabling of crapitalism in the West is a far worse thing than abortion is… it’s far worse than ANY moral problem out there. You see, if we don’t tackle greed, we don’t tackle sin at all. Greed is the root of all evil… if we forget that, we forget EVERYTHING that Our Lord Christ taught us. Think on that…

BMD 

24 September 2013. You Can’t Make Up Shit Like This… Obama Pushes Back on Putin, Insists “America is Exceptional”

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Editor’s Foreword:

This is disgusting bunkum that one would expect from a drooling Yahoo scratching his ass with a cake of Lifebuoy. It’s disgusting and beyond the pale. America’s nothing special… it’s not overly good… it’s not overly bad… its just sinful ginful human like the rest of us are.

BMD

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On Tuesday, US President Barack Obama pushed back against President Vladimir Putin, insisting that “America is exceptional” because it’s prepared to fight not just for its own national interests, but for the rights of people in other parts of the world. In an address to the UN General Assembly, Obama acknowledged that American “engagement” in the Middle East met hostility from some, but argued that American disengagement from the region would create power vacuums no one else could fill and would present a bigger threat to world security. He said, “Some may disagree, but I believe America is exceptional… in part, because we have shown a willingness, through the sacrifice of blood and treasure, to stand up not only for our own narrow self-interest, but for the interests of all”. Many saw his remarks as a direct response to an op-ed piece by Putin published earlier this month in the New York Times, in which the Russian leader, referencing earlier comments by Obama, said, “It’s extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation”. Putin’s comments… that one in particular… triggered an emotional backlash from American politicians and also sparked a continuing public debate about the American approach to foreign policy in general and preconceptions that underpin that approach. The USA and Russia are working on a plan to ensure the destruction of chemical weapons in Syria. Washington is pushing for a UN resolution containing a threat of military force if the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad doesn’t comply with the plan, an approach that Moscow rejects.

24 September 2013

RIA-Novosti

http://www.en.rian.ru/russia/20130924/183699012/Obama-Pushes-Back-on-Putin-Insists-America-is-Exceptional.html

Editor’s Afterword:

This is rubbish from top to bottom. It sounds as though it came from Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, the National Review, or the Weekly Standard. Let’s recapitulate… America interfered in Federal Yugoslavia, destabilised, and, in essence, overthrew the Socialist state there. In Iraq, the USA waged a classic war of aggression. In Afghanistan, the USA installed a client state that enforces Islamism with the noose. In Kosovo, the USA interfered in a low-level insurgency in Serbia to install an Islamist puppet. In Libya, the USA waged a war of aggression to topple a leader it disliked and to destroy the socialist state there. In South Ossetia, the Bushies fomented a war… but it blew up in their faces. Don’t forget, the USA stood behind a baby-faced dictator who didn’t cavil at firing Grads at sleeping civilians (but he did go to an American college and kissed America’s naked bum for all to see). Gee… none of the American interventions of the last twenty years “[showed] a willingness, through the sacrifice of blood and treasure, to stand up not only for our own narrow self-interest, but for the interests of all”. In all of these cases, the USA spent billions to advance the interests of the American Affluent Effluent and to hell with everyone else.

Barack Obama’s kissing the naked arses of the righties… or, is this, the REAL Barack Obama? Still, in an imperfect world he was better than both John McCain and Willy Romney… both of those troglodyte creepo supremos would’ve had us at war already. Why is Barack Obama going out of his way to humiliate Vladimir Putin, who’s done his best to pull Obama of his self-imposed mess? That’s unfathomable… time will tell us.

We need a REAL LEFT party in the USA. It’d win, especially, if it abandoned idiocies like Political Correctness… this situation makes me want to hurl.

BMD

Putin Uses New York Times Op-Ed to Warn USA Against Syria Strike

CNN Whitewashing Bahrain Dictatorship

Carlos Latuff

2012

CNN is doing it again… it REFUSES to report the enormities committed by the Syrian opposition against Christians, Shiites, and Alawis… none dare call it EVIL…

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President Vladimir Putin warned in an op-ed that he wrote for the New York Times that a potential American strike on Syria is fraught with dangerous consequences. Currently, Washington is contemplating a strike on Syria as retaliation for a deadly 21 August chemical weapons attack in a Damascus suburb, which it attributed to the régime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian government blamed the attack on rebel forces; Russia tentatively backed its long-time ally, whilst calling for further investigation.

Putin said in his op-ed, entitled A Plea for Caution from Russia, posted on the NYT’s website Wednesday, “Recent events surrounding Syria prompted me to speak directly to the American people and their political leaders. It’s important to do so at a time of insufficient communication between our societies. A potential strike by the USA against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope, would result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria’s borders. A strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism. It could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilise the Middle East and North Africa. It could throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance”.

Putin reiterated Russia’s position that we should resolve the Syrian civil war by peaceful means, saying, “From the outset, Russia advocated peaceful dialogue enabling Syrians to develop a compromise plan for their own future. We aren’t protecting the Syrian government, but international law. We need to use the UN Security Council and believe that preserving law and order in today’s complex and turbulent world is one of the few ways to keep international relations from sliding into chaos”. He emphasised that international law only permits use of force “in self-defence or by the decision of the Security Council”, adding that all other ways are “unacceptable under the UN Charter and would constitute an act of aggression”.

Putin noted, “no one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria. The gas was used not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would side with the fundamentalists”. On Tuesday, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said that his country was ready to give up chemical weapons and join an international convention banning them.  On Thursday, US Secretary of State John Kerry will meet with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Genève for hastily-organised talks on a Russian plan to prevent an American attack on Syria by placing the war-torn country’s chemical weapons under international control.  Speaking on the al-Mayadeen pan-Arabist television channel, Aleksandr Zasypkin, the Russian Ambassador to Lebanon, said Moscow handed over to the UN Security Council evidence that rebel forces used chemical weapons in Syria.

Putin voiced concern that “military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the USA”. He expressed doubt that it could be in America’s long-term interest and added that many people worldwide “increasingly see America not as a model of democracy but as relying solely on brute force”. Putin noted that his working and personal relationship with US President Barack Obama was “marked by growing trust”, he said, “I welcome the president’s interest in continuing the dialogue with Russia on Syria”. Putin said that he and Obama “must work together to keep this hope alive. If we can avoid force against Syria, this would improve the atmosphere in international affairs and strengthen mutual trust. It’d be our shared success and open the door to cooperation on other critical issues”.

12 September 2013

RIA-Novosti

http://www.en.rian.ru/politics/20130912/183372698/Putin-Warns-US-Against-Potential-Syria-Strike.html

Editor’s Note:

One must note that since 1991 the American Right, in particular, along with so-called Humanitarian Interventionists (an oxymoronic and evil construction if there ever was such), has advocated the first use of force in all situations where the USA is stymied, as they believe that the USA is the “sole superpower”. Today, that becomes more suspect for two reasons. Firstly, Russia and China are in close alliance due to American aggression and self-righteousness. That is, the two most powerful states on the Eurasian World Island are now in concert due to American stupidity, hubris, and self-centredness. That’s why you hear so much hate against these countries spewed in the Western media (especially by conscienceless filth like Christiane Amanpour, who attacks VVP whilst whitewashing the massacre of Syrian Christians by the Syrian rebels). Note well that the first casualty of American aggression was the death of the Sino-American rapprochement brought about by Richard Nixon.

Secondly, the USA believed its own propaganda. Washington really and truly believed that American power had no limits… that it could intervene wherever it wanted and do whatever it wanted to anyone, everywhere on the globe. Besides that, Americans as a society are juveniles… they require constant adulation or they turn peevish and cruel. Look at Guantánamo… the USA holds people in indefinite detention in contravention of all their laws and pretensions, that is, it holds political prisoners under conditions not even seen in the GULag. You see, if you were in the GULag, at least, you had a definite sentence; it was part of a judicial process. At Guantánamo, there are no such niceties. It’s simply that America doesn’t like you and that you’ll lose your freedom consequently. In any case, American aggression over the past twenty years emptied the Treasury; it led directly to the Bush Meltdown (along with his munificent tax cuts to his rich pals). There ain’t no more juice in the jug… wars are expensive, and wartime is a stupid time to enact tax cuts.

In short, the USA isn’t going to strike Syria. The present political kabuki is for the benefit of the Saudi and Israel Lobbies. Barack Obama isn’t stupid like George Bush, John McCain, Sarah Palin, or Willard Romney. Powerful interest groups call for intervention in Syria… and Obama can’t go against them publicly. It would’ve been worse with McCain or Romney… both are pugnacious ignoramuses. Actually, I think that Obama and Putin orchestrated this at the G20 meeting. Obama doesn’t need new war and the country doesn’t need more military spending… Putin is his figleaf. Watch for a compromise to come out of Genève… remember, the age of untrammelled American aggression died in 2008 with their defeat in South Ossetia… it was a “Bridge Too Far”. The American people have had enough of “glory” in foreign parts.

For Orthodox people, do notice who’ve supported the warmongers. For the konvertsy, this is a “put up or shut up” moment. They’ve always supported the Looney Right; they’ve always bought into the lunatic “City on a Hill” pabulum spouted by Slobberin’ Ronnie and his ilk. Any road, they should stand with the rest of us in supporting Syria, or, they should leave us (it’d be their first honest act in their lifetimes). I’ve had enough of their hubristic posturing… I’m not alone in that. The Orthosphere is a reality… Orthodoxy isn’t just a religion… it’s a little bit more, as all REAL Orthodox know. We’re NOT Westerners… we’re Orthodox who live in the West (not the same thing… our ethos comes from the Orthosphere, not from the West). The konvertsy must internalise this or leave. It’s quite that simple.

Remember Ma’loula… may my right hand wither if we don’t…

BMD