The Liberal Doomsayer My blog deals primarily with national politics in the U.S. as well as, on occasion, local politics in Pennsylvania. From time to time, I may have something to say about sports and entertainment as well. I try to interpret information that shapes the news and provide context to current events. I am definitely left of center politically, but as far as I'm concerned, neither major party is perfect. Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 2 0 54 4452

Articles from The Liberal Doomsayer

A Monday Thought (Or Two) 2007-12-03 08:21:00 (Hat tip to Prof. Marcus for this...)I didn't say much about last November 22nd, which of course was the 44th anniversary of JFK's assassination, partly because it fell on Thanksgiving, but I just came across this speech that President Kennedy gave concerning secret societies and our news media on April 27, 1961 (I don't agree with every single image juxtaposition here, but with most of them). While listening to it, I found it hard to determine the difference between us and our enemies at this point in time.John F. Kennedy Speech On Secret Societies - ...

Rudy's Legend Continues 2007-12-02 12:00:00 Hat tip to Atrios...Update: At least one of these almost made me sick, but it's still funny. ...

Taking It To The Next Level 2007-12-01 16:54:00 I know that, for the longest time, anyone who has visited this site (and as always, thank you for doing so) would immediately see the big orange graphic in the header with this guy’s face on it telling everyone reading it to boycott the Philadelphia Flyers and 76ers sports teams, as well as any Comcast-Spectacor events, with the stated reason being that Ed Snider supports Freedom’s Watch, which wants war without end in Iraq and also, according to this article by Bill Berkowitz, is now targeting Iran.I got rid of it for now partly to feature the Out of Iraq Caucus blogroll to the right (of which I am honored to be a member), and also because I thought most people reading it generally got the point, and though I never got feedback on it, it probably was a nuisance at times for people to scroll down from it every time they wanted to read my brilliant content (snark).But just because the graphic is gone for now, don’t think I’ve abandoned this cause. Far from it, actually.With the ...

Friday Videos 2007-11-30 23:25:00 Avenged Sevenfold ("Almost Easy")......Happy Birthday to Des'ree ("You Gotta Be"; always liked this song)......Happy Birthday also to Billy Idol (here's his interview by David Letterman on the old NBC show in 1984; Dave's reaction to Idol's answer about the drug dealers just slayed me)......and to commemorate what would have been the 92nd birthday of jazz legend Billy Strayhorn yesterday, here's Slide Piano Seth (??) performing "Take The 'A' Train," which Strayhorn co-wrote with Duke Ellington, of course (and don't worry, Seth, it definitely didn't suck). ...

Friday Political Videos 2007-11-30 22:48:00 Something to keep in mind as we all "fill 'er up" this weekend......and what a pal Rudy is here, people; I mean, gosh, just so happy and all that (before Judy, I believe)......so happy that he had to "share the love" on the dime of NYC taxpayers, of course (pucker up, Repugs). ...

Amazingly, Joe Only Makes A Little Dough 2007-11-30 17:45:00 By comparison, I should hasten to add…and I haven’t ventured into the world of sports for a little while now, but I’ll do so here (and I may do so again a little later – we’ll see).After I read here that legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno makes $512,000 a year, I thought I would hurl all over the pigskin, as it were. That is until I read this USA Today article from about a year ago that listed salaries for coaches at top-tier schools (the story mentions the at-that-time pending lawsuit over Paterno having to divulge his salary, which he should have had to do anyway as far as I’m concerned, given the fact that Penn State takes public money).The USA Today article tells us that the actual salary of these coaches comprises about 25 percent of their compensation, with endorsements and other income sources making up the remaining amount. And subsequent to that story, this post tells us that…Gary R. Roberts, deputy dean of Tulane University’s law school and direct ...

Score One For Hil 2007-11-30 15:45:00 CNN tells us here that Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton……announced a global strategy to combat AIDS and said as president she will strike one of the most controversial provisions of George W. Bush's global AIDS program — a requirement that one-third of disease prevention funds go to abstinence-before-marriage programs.This story is timely because World AIDS Day will be recognized tomorrow.And the centerpiece of Bushco’s AIDS effort is PEPFAR, standing for “The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief” (gotta love it the way this administration draws on its marketing background in the most annoying way possible).However (and you knew there was a catch, as noted here)..PEPFAR has been criticized by public health advocates outside the administration for its stipulation, mandated by Congress, that at least one-third of the money spent by the United States on disease prevention abroad should go to abstinence education programs.Bush administration offic ...

Not A Happy Anniversary For Some 2007-11-30 14:09:00 I failed to note that yesterday was the 60th anniversary of the decision by the United Nations to partition Palestine into both Arab and Jewish homelands (here), something I would consider to be a mistake with repercussions extending into infinity.Anyway, this timely and highly controversial opinion column was published in the Bucks County Courier Times yesterday written by Susan Abulhawa who, according to her bio, is a freelance writer, a member of Al-Adwa (Palestinian right of return), a writer for Palestine Media Watch and Dissident Voice, and founder of Playgrounds for Palestine (no online link is available for this column).(By the way, I think the timing of the publication was accidental, knowing what I know about how the paper operates with its opinion columns. Also, I’m sure I’m wading into a mess with this post, but I thought much of what Abulhawa said was too important to ignore.)In 1988, we gave up 78 percent of our homeland to try and pick up the pieces of our lives on t ...

I Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself 2007-11-30 11:51:00 The New York Times reports that John Edwards gave a speech at the Iowa City Foreign Relations Council last night, in which he stated the following…Then, from the crowd, a question about Russia. “What Putin has done,” Mr. Edwards began, then interrupted himself.“And I know Bush has looked into his eyes and saw his soul,” he said sarcastically. “That gave me great comfort. I wonder if he saw in his soul that he was going to completely take over the government.”And by the way, I thought the first comment to this Times post was interesting; regardless of how everyone not belonging to the investor class is “taking it in the neck,” the weapons industry will never have a thing to worry about with the guy taking up space in the Oval Office.Well, as it turns out, our fears about Putin have been well-founded, since our ol’ buddy Vlad has now decided not to abide by the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, as noted here…The 1990 arms control treaty set limits on the deploym ...

Thursday Videos 2007-11-29 23:03:00 Sick Puppies ("My World")......Happy Birthday to Ringo Garza of Los Lonely Boys ("Heaven")......I came across this item yesterday from Greg Mitchell of Editor and Publisher noting that the man who quite probably was the influence behind "Ballad Of A Thin Man" by Bob Dylan recently passed away (here), so this is Dylan performing the song in the mid-'60s (while everyone still fawned over him and his lyrics, of course)......and Happy Belated Birthday to Randy Newman ("Just A Few Words In Defense Of Our Country"; usually I can tell when he's being tongue in cheek, but not here - probably dead serious). ...

More News/Political Stuff 2007-11-29 22:39:00 An instructive video on immigration that should be viewed by all of us, particularly the Repugs......and since they're already showing "A Charlie Brown Christmas," I guess it's safe to start getting into the holiday spirit once more (God, here we go again) with "12 Days Of The War On Christmas, Fox Style" (from Brave New Films). ...

Another "Penumbra Of Angst," I See 2007-11-29 21:50:00 God, Willard Mitt, you truly are clueless (here - audio is a bit shaky, but loud enough, and the post title refers to this). ...

More On Patrick And The AMT 2007-11-29 17:07:00 The following letter to the editor appeared in the Bucks County Courier Times this morning...As a professional tax preparer and an IRS enrolled agent, I was pleased to see Congressman Patrick Murphy's vote to relieve a large number of taxpayers from the Alternative Minimum Tax.This tax was imposed in 1969 and revised in 1986 in order to prevent high-income taxpayers from sheltering huge parts of their passive investment income from tax. But the calculations were never indexed for the increase in the cost of living.In 1986, $125,000 to $150,000 was a very big income; in 2006, it was the yearly income for many two-wage-earner households. These folks are ordinary working people. The calculations for the tax are affected by high mortgage interest, real estate taxes, employee business expenses and number of dependents, as well as the high passive income it was designed to tax.In my practice, for many years no one paid the AMT. Then about eight years ago it started popping up in a few famil ...

Mike Chertoff’s European “Welcome” 2007-11-29 16:40:00 Gosh, I’m all red faced at the moment because I forgot to acknowledge DHS Secretary Mike Chertoff’s birthday yesterday.Fortunately for me, though, he’s in the news again today, this time in Dublin, Ireland to pitch his plan to develop “a global system of anti-terrorist screening” at U.S. and European airports.This is a good thing in theory, actually, but true to the Bushco “go-it-alone” ethos, he’s pitching this unilaterally throughout Europe instead of addressing his concerns at the United Nations, where agreements can be negotiated and brokered (you know, the whole “give and take” thing that Bushco does so well – snark).As this story tells us…When asked whether the United States considered a homegrown attack likely – the prevailing pattern in Britain, where British-born or legal residents have plotted or committed a string of attacks since 2005 – Chertoff said America needs to make the screening of international travelers a priority.“We have less of a pr ...

Two Important Updates 2007-11-29 13:20:00 First, we now know the person who dictated Joke Line’s horrifically bad column to him on the Dems’ RESTORE Act co-written by Rush Holt, and that would be Repug (of course) Rep Pete Hoekstra (pictured). And Christy Hardin Smith thoroughly dissects Hoekstra and his mendacity here.Update (to an update? I guess): On this and other matters, Hunter at The Daily Kos has some thoughts (gosh, I wish he'd tell us how he really feels).Second, it turns out that another reason why Mark Everson resigned as the head of the Red Cross was because the “female subordinate” he was carrying on with was a married woman who is now also pregnant (buried in the story – wonder what would have happened if we were talking about someone appointed by a Dem?).Stephanie Strom’s story in today’s New York Times also makes an important point about how the Red Cross board took 18 months to hire Everson and then chose to fire him for this; you could argue that a sanction would have been severe enough given ...