Viya Con Dios Amigas e Amigos. May 29, 2009
Postcards from the Bunker is going on hiatus for now. Our work is done.... for now. The 30 years nightmare of the Conservative family values, republican "Reagan revolution - Trickle Down economics theory" has run it's course.... And we ALL see & feel what the results were. With the republican party leadership of RNC Rush, Newt, Cheney, & Sarah(AKA the smart one) directing the path for the right wing future, we can all rest easy that the republican party ideals will be relegated to AM talk radio. In the age of satelite cable tv & internet communications,... they've placed their future where they belong; AM Talk Radio ! What vision; what planning.
As the bloody bits of your IRA, 401k (now your 101k), & pension lay on the floor dieing (aren't you glad you supported all those tax cuts for millionares?) and we're looking at working 'til age 83 before we can retire, remember to thank the republican party for "Trickle Down Economics" . The GOP put the "NO" in inovation !
I'm just glad I lived long enough to see the republican party implode and start feeding on members of their own pack. Hopefully they will proceed to extinction.... well, maybe an endangered species pack will still live via AM Radio.
Until the GOP - Grand Obtructionist Party- can come up with a platform more significant than whinning what Pelosi does or her notes taken in a briefing.... or any of them vounteer to be waterboarded.... until then,.... there's nothing to report on..... Is there! There's no need for bunker; just see what GOP antics come up each week. When there's a special news event or story, bunker will be on it.
Thanks for all your feedback & comments, & all your touche moments(you were all good sports about the ribbing) -- the democrats sure have their problems--- although it's not anything the republicans can counter. Presently the republicans agenda for a comeback consists of
1. No idea or plan of fixing the economic mess they created.
2. Cheney defending torture. ?Weren't they warned of imminent attack?
3. Blaming Pelosi - for not taking notes. And it's really those damn Clintons fault
4. Teabagging parties. Need I say more
Hey... if that's the best they can do... can come up with.... then I can retire and enjoy watching the daily republican foot shooting.. Happy Trails.... while you enjoy your "Freedom Fries" ! ... like those stupid French people that had the wisdom not to follow us into the Iraq quagmire.
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Bunker thought for the road dept:
If Govt can't be trusted to run national health care-- WithOut making this country Socialist...
then why do you trust Govt to run the military? The govt takes/collects your/all our taxes to pay for a big military beauracracy.
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Breaking News dept:
If you were a cannibal, what would you wear to dinner?
Astronauts Complete Repairs, Upgrade of Hubble TelescopeBut forgot to remove lens cap.
Corporations Protest Obama
Plan to Crack Down on Tax
DodgingCall paying taxes “creeping socialism.”
Plan to Crack Down on Tax
DodgingCall paying taxes “creeping socialism.”
Republicans: No Reason to Probe Bush Administration Use of TortureThere was no oral sex involved.
GOP Congressman: 17 Socialists
In HouseBernie Sanders: “I wish!”
In HouseBernie Sanders: “I wish!”
Liz Cheney Defends Harsh InterrogationSays she was waterboarded and slammed into walls as a child “with no lasting effect.”
Crisis as Top Talent Leaves
Big BanksTo spend more time with their bonuses.
Big BanksTo spend more time with their bonuses.
Poll: Fewer Americans Planning Summer VacationsPlan to spend summer looking for jobs
How come we can't be friends with Cuba, but we're friends with a country [Saudi Arabia] that marries an eight-year-old girl? – Bill Maher
"Dick Cheney, the former vice president, said that President Obama went too far with the jokes at the correspondents' dinner. By too far, does Cheney mean like waterboarding a guy 183 times?" --David Letterman
“If you talk to God, you are praying. If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.” Thomas Szasz
| MEDIA | |
 | Losing Readers, Playboy Considers Radical Changes Like no more articles |
“Cheney, who had five deferments himself to get out of going to Vietnam, would rather follow a blowhard entertainer who has had three divorces and a drug problem (who also avoided Vietnam) than a four-star general who spent his life serving his country.” - Maureen Dowd, NYTimes
Agreement Reached With Mel Gibson in Passion of Christ Lawsuit
Jesus settles out of court.
Jesus settles out of court.
Tonights TV best bets:
Extreme Makeover: Foreclosure Edition (ABC): The coda to “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” in which a peppy group of demolition experts destroy homes built for families who couldn't afford them.
Waterboarding the Stars (CBS): Has-beens and almost-weres are lining up around the block to be part of this eagerly awaited reality series. Hosted by Dennis Miller.
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As a useful force in American politics, the Republicans have been dead for awhile now. But in the seven months since Sarah Palin's nomination, they have taken on an intriguing new role: providing much-needed comic relief during dark times, serving as the unofficial rodeo clowns of the Financial Crisis Era. - Matt Taibbi, "The Class Clowns."
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Affordable. No pre-existing conditions. More choices. Less waste. Pay less, get more. Peace of mind.
Single payer.
Demand it from your elected representatives.
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A recap of Republicanism on the March - week ending May 17th 2009
Gallup Polls says majority of Americans now call themselves Pro Life, 51 to 44. A ten point change! Though the polls to date show an even larger majority for stem cell research and choice through at least the 1st trimester. Republican Win
Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh face of the Republican Party with Colin Powell asked to leave. Republican loss
Barack Obama won the big game at Notre Dame this Sunday. As the nastiest of the Pro Life Republicans; Terry Randall (intolerance is beautiful) and Alan Keyes (Choice is worse than Hitler, Nazis and the Holocaust) leading the charge for Republican Big Government intrusion into our private lives outside the walls, inside the University the President spoke softly and intelligently to the abortion and other spiritural issues to ovation after ovation. Republican big loss.
For the second week in a row Republicans have managed to successfully change the issue from torture to whether Nancy Pelosi was or was not told about torture. This is Republicans using the hypocrisy issue. Republicans biggest issue is keeping big intrusive government out of our lives. While two of their central issues are about pushing big intrusive government into our lives; government denying equal rights to gays and criminalizing abortion. The Republican Party today flounders in such hypocrisy it's a wonder they haven't all descended into that 8th level of Hell. ( I looked it up, the 9th and last level is for traitors) Republican win.
Evangelical Christian homophobe, bigot and Republican Miss California, Carrie Prejean, was resurrected as a victim of the liberal bias gay loving media. No matter she spews her moderate beliefs in appearances on every Religious wingnut organization there is. But a good replacement voice for Joe the Plumber who recently left the GOP as a spokesman. Good to have some Donald Trump T and A in the mix doan ya know.Republican win.
Republicans for the third week in a row are laughing at EMPATHY. This week it was RNC Chairman Michael Steele who jumped on the GOP bandwagon of not only denigrating the concept of caring about anything other than oneself, but finding it laughable.Republican loss
Republican neo-conservative George Will penned a column defending greed and calling for more deregulation of markets. Greed's saving graces, By George F. Will, 05-18-2009 Republican loss
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Like the Republican Tea Parties, the Republican wingnut crap going down in South Bend over the past few weeks only helps put more Democrats into federal and state legislatures and insures Barack Obama a second term.
They cannot help themselves. They have to stick to their BASE of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Fox News wingnuts AND their BASE of horribly bad ideas - which are not only unpopular and wrong but recently proven to be unpopular and wrong.
They are still shrilling for unregulated free markets, tax breaks for the wealthy, religious intolerance, mindles jingoism and defending torture while saying NO to the concept of the stimulus spending, healthcare reform, immigration reform, gay marriage and a screeching laugable disgust at any form of EMPATHY other than toward their own sinking protfolios.
Add the OLD GOP stalwarts of Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich as the NEW FACE of the Republican Party and you can't help but wonder if they will ever bottom out. Before they soon throw Michael Steele to the wolves he should get on TV and throw in the towel.
Add the OLD GOP stalwarts of Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich as the NEW FACE of the Republican Party and you can't help but wonder if they will ever bottom out. Before they soon throw Michael Steele to the wolves he should get on TV and throw in the towel.
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It goes without saying that the Republicans are losing the young and the smart, but what is most interesting is that the majority in this poll finds SOCIALISM superior to REPUBLICANISM.
Wow! And the GOPs' entire polemic argument is based upon that word. They site Belgium and Sweden - and of course France - as examples of the kind of SOCIALISM that will destroy America. Countries where unemployment has not much changed with the recession, people are not losing their homes, there is little crime or poverty, and their health care systems are not only affordable, but result in healthier people who live longer than we do. And of course as Jon Stewart pointed out to Newt Gingrich, our military the Republicans love so much IS socialist big government.
Even better for Democrats we have Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich, and Rush Limbaugh out and about LOUDLY making sure there is no doubt that the Republican Party stands for war, torture, deregulation, lower taxes on the wealthy, religious intolerance, denying gays equal rights and not to forget that Evolution and Climate Change are hoaxes created by... You guessed it... The enemy of the GOP... SMART PEOPLE!
Even better for Democrats we have Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich, and Rush Limbaugh out and about LOUDLY making sure there is no doubt that the Republican Party stands for war, torture, deregulation, lower taxes on the wealthy, religious intolerance, denying gays equal rights and not to forget that Evolution and Climate Change are hoaxes created by... You guessed it... The enemy of the GOP... SMART PEOPLE!
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Rove warns Obama about Justice pick
May 6: Former Bush advisor Karl Rove told President Barack Obama that he better not mess up the vetting of his nominee to succeed Justice David Souter in the Supreme Court. Watch in Worst Persons in the World as Countdown’s Keith Olbermann reminds Rove how the Republican Party failed to pay attention to the vetting of Harriet Miers, whose nomination had to be withdrawn.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/30609473#30609473
May 6: Former Bush advisor Karl Rove told President Barack Obama that he better not mess up the vetting of his nominee to succeed Justice David Souter in the Supreme Court. Watch in Worst Persons in the World as Countdown’s Keith Olbermann reminds Rove how the Republican Party failed to pay attention to the vetting of Harriet Miers, whose nomination had to be withdrawn.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/30609473#30609473
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Official Unemployment Rate Hits 8.9%. 'U6' Now at 15.8%
Employment losses slowed in April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, with a decline of 539,000 jobs. That improvement, together with a rising stock market and other signs, has convinced many economists that recovery may come more quickly than was being predicted even a month ago. But such news won’t put many smiles on the faces of Americans who were laid off last month. Since December 2007, what is now the longest recession since the Great Depression has forced 5.7 million Americans out of work. That puts the official rate of unemployment - labeled U3 by the BLS - at 8.9%.
Of the 13.7 million people now officially unemployed, 27.2% have been out of work longer than six months, a record.
An alternative measure of unemployment, which the BLS calls U6, includes workers who have become so discouraged they’ve stopped looking for jobs as well as people forced to work part time because they cannot find full-time employment. That rate hit 15.8% in April.
The BLS revised upward job loss numbers for February, from 651,000 to 681,000, and for March, from 663,000 to 699,000.
The Labor Department reported Thursday that continuing jobless claims – that is, unemployment benefits drawn by workers in the week that ended April 24 - reached 6.35 million, another record. But new applications for jobless benefits were considerably lower than expected, prompting some economists to suggest that a peak may have been reached. Continuing claims have risen 14 consecutive weeks. According to the BLS, only about 36 percent of unemployed Americans received unemployment benefits.
State-by-state figures won’t be available until May 22.
For the fourth time in five months, enrollment in the food stamp program, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, exceeded the previous record. The government reported Thursday that 32.55 million people received food stamps at the latest count. The average monthly benefit is $112.82 per person. In his fiscal 2010 budget, President Obama seeks $60 billion for the food stamp program, a $6 billion increase over this year.
"Dr. Doom," economist Nouriel Roubini, who predicted much of the current crisis, thinks the economy is starting to heal, but he doesn’t see as many "glimmers of hope" as the general consensus of economists do. He believes recovery from a recession now entering its 17th month will be not be fast or smooth. And, while the consensus predicts a peak of around 10% unemployment before the jobless rate starts declining, Roubiniexpects that it may hit 12%, well beyond the 10.8% peak of the 1981-82 recession. That would make it the worst unemployment situation since the 1930s.
In testimony before Congress Tuesday, Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke conceded:
Even after a recovery gets under way, the rate of growth of real economic activity is likely to remain below its longer-run potential for a while, implying that the current slack in resource utilization will increase further. We expect that the recovery will only gradually gain momentum and that economic slack will diminish slowly. In particular, businesses are likely to be cautious about hiring, implying that the unemployment rate could remain high for a time, even after economic growth resumes.
In other words, even when net layoffs cease, job creation will be slow at best, and no quick rehiring will take place. If you look at the recession of 2001 from the perspective of economic growth, it lasted only eight months, March to November. But the recovery that followed was for more than three years a jobless one. During the year after the recovery began, 562,000 net jobs were cut, and in the year after that, another 193,000 net jobs were lost. Indeed, the BLS payroll survey's pre-recession job numbers were not surpassed until February 2005. During the remaining years of George Bush’s two terms, the official unemployment rate never returned to the 4.2% where it stood when Bill Clinton turned over the White House keys.
So, lots of jobs, including the best high-paying ones, are not likely to reappear for years, especially in key sectors – manufacturing, particularly automobiles, as well as housing and financial services. And if getting back to work wasn’t going to be tough enough in this Great Recession, many people lucky enough to get rehired at their old job or find a new one, will be working for lower pay and reduced benefits. Workers in their late 40s or older may find it impossible to fully recover the income they have lost even if they put off retirement
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And this is who the republicans listen to leadership? dept: ... or LOON watch dept:
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Econ junkies dept: scary situation we are in:
Given where we're heading, Warren Buffett warns that America is changing from an "ownership society" to a "sharecroppers' " one, no different than feudal serfdom. Economist Paul Krugman calls it "debt peonage," much like the post-Civil War South that forced debtors to work for their creditors.
Make no mistake, it's a corporate America scheme for a plentiful reserve army of labor no better off than in developing countries - at low wages, no benefits, weak unions if any, and government engineering the whole scheme. Even personal bankruptcy protection eroded under the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection of 2005 - benefitting lenders at the expense of borrowers by keeping them chained to their debts.
Reviewing Ellen Brown's "Web of Debt:" Part IV
Catherine Austin Fitts calls today's crisis "a criminal leveraged buyout of America (meaning) buying (the) country for cheap with its own money and then jacking up the rents and fees to steal the rest." She calls it the "American Tapeworm" model.
Catherine Austin Fitts calls today's crisis "a criminal leveraged buyout of America (meaning) buying (the) country for cheap with its own money and then jacking up the rents and fees to steal the rest." She calls it the "American Tapeworm" model.
by Stephen Lendman | 05.13.09
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In an interview with Rachel Maddow Tuesday evening, former Colin Powell aide Lawrence Wilkerson, a Republican, unloaded on Dick Cheney for his weekend attack on Powell, calling out Cheney’s five deferments to avoid serving in the Vietnam war.
Wilkerson, a Republican, said Cheney is "destroying what’s left of Republican Party" and needs to "go home and shut up." He also ridiculed Cheney's "five deferments" saying that in contrast to Powell, Cheney "never served a day in the military."
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One has to remember that though Ronald Reagan is responsible for handing America over to a hard line ideology of unregulated, free market, hate the government crap that got us into this mess, it was Newt Gingrich who put the icing on the cake. In 1994 he became Speaker of the House with the Right wing taking over congress which not only resulted in his personal irrational system of name calling and demonizing his opposition while handing this country over to the dumbest right-wing crazies in our history... TOM DELAY! BOB DORNAN! DICK ARMEY! SONNY BONO! HELEN CHENOWITH!
Also remember he shares with Rush Limbaugh the Character Matters Award for serving his wife divorce papers as she lay in a hospital bed suffering cancer, was cheating on his second wife while in charge of impeaching President Clinton for doing far less, and who spend most of his adult life in a state of adultery while championing family values and defense of marriage legislation. He is also the front runner for the Republican Party nomination for President in 2012.
Gingrich also has been more wrong about more things than anyone else living or dead.
Here are a few of his most famous quotes proving just that:
"If you sell them (drugs), we will kill you." Newt Gingrich
"(I am) The most serious, systematic revolutionary of modern times." Newt Gingrich on Newt Gingrich.
"We must expect the Soviet system to survive for a very long time. There will be Soviet labor camps and Soviet torture chambers well into our grandchildren’s lives." Example of New Gingrich’s prophetic grasp of the future.
"Kill jobs and lead to a recession, force people off of work and onto unemployment and will actually increase the deficit." Gingrich again waxing prophetic regarding President Clinton’s 1993 budget bill. Gosh, how wrong can a person be?" Newt Gingrich
"Public Broadcasting is a sandbox for the rich. The NEA and the HEH are simply enclaves of the left using your money to propagandize your children against your values." Newt Gingrich
"They still don’t realize that the appropriation is gone, that the game is over. The power of the Speaker is the power of recognition, and I will not recognize any proposal that will appropriate money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. What they should be doing is planning for the future." Newt Gingrich
"In Washington DC 800 babies are left in dumpsters a year." Newt Gingrich with a very big lie. It was not 800, it was four. But considering his views on abortion and welfare he may just help his lie come true." Newt Gingrich
"Put your baby in a dumpster, that’s Okay." Newt Gingrich explaining what liberals want when he was questioned about his plan to initiate 19th Century orphanages." Newt Gingrich
"Most People don’t realize it’s illegal to pray in school, most people somehow think that’s not true." Newt Gingrich with another flat out lie. Praying is allowed in public schools as long as it is not lead by government employees or so loud as to disrupt the education of others." Newt Gingrich
"Up to 25% of the White House, when they first came in, had used drugs within the past 4 or 5 years." Newt Gingrich just making stuff up.
"On Inauguration Day, they’re breaking the law and doing drugs. Two days later, they’re in the White House. This must be the most disciplined set of addicts in the world..." Poor loser Newt Gingrich making stuff up four years later regarding the Clinton Administration.
"The Federal government made a Danish heart pump illegal that was used in ambulances that kept 54% of people alive who would otherwise now be dead." Newt Gingrich with another flat out lie to further demonize the government. Official tests of the pump proved it to be of absolutely no benefit whatsoever.
"Give the park police more ammo." Newt Gingrich response to a reporter who asked what to do about the homeless a few days after the police shot a homeless man in front of the White House.
"The problem isn’t too little money in political campaigns, but not enough." Newt Gingrich on campaign reform.
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The right wing is mired in “make it up as you go along” mode. Ever since George W. Bush and Karl Rove decided that they were no longer obligated to conform to the bonds of reality the republican party has not so much resembled a rudderless boat adrift at sea, as a boat lost in space where trivial things like gravity, linear thought, or cause and effect can not only be ignored, they simply don’t exist. If the Constitution of the United States is merely a ”God damned piece of paper” why should the bylaws of “Candie’s Foundation” restrict one from taking a break from studying for a high school civics test with a session of hormone fueled, unprotected, birth control be damned, sex? This adds a whole new light on home schooling.
If Sarah Palin had been just a little bit smarter after tagging her daughter as Bristol Palin the others would have been Talladega Palin, Daytona Palin and Lowe’s Motor Speedway Palin, forever giving her a lock on the all important NASCAR vote.
Matt, unwed teenage mothering doesn’t happen among upwardly mobile republicans, rather to officially qualify as an unwed teenage mother one has to come from the wrong side of the tracks, belong to a social minority, not have been on the cheerleading squad, and most importantly, not have one or more parents functioning as a player in republican politics.
madhoosier
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Couldn't have said it better dept:
I came across an old Gingrich campaign ad on the net the other day. Newt won election to the House in 1978 running against Virginia Shapard, a married mother of two. His ad ran,
“Newt will take his family to Washington and keep them together; Virginia will go to Washington and leave her husband and children in the care of a nanny!”
What did Newt do a few months later after he had won?
He did not take his family to Washington, rather, he surprised his wife with divorce papers while she was in the hospital recovering from a cancer operation. Neither did he support her or his children with a nanny or any damn thing at all. In fact, his church had to support his family while he was busy porking bimbos inside the Beltway. All while he ran his political campaigns on the theme of family values. Newt Gingrich is a peach of human shit.
Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich now share the FACE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. Which makes Alaska Airhead Sarah Palin look real good!
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Andrew Winkler: Time to get them off that gravy train and hang them high Why can a crack pot drug addict work out where to buy drugs, but the police can’t? Or could it be that the drugs business is so cloaked in illusion because the authorities are so heavily involved? More ...
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Last word dept: we'll finish with this
by Dennis Rahkonen | May 28, 2009 - 12:37pm | permalink
article tools: email | print | read more Dennis Rahkonen
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article tools: email | print | read more Dennis Rahkonen
I'm stopped at a red light when a decrepit old Chevrolet pickup with its windows rolled down pulls into the adjacent lane.
Its radio is bleating Rush Limbaugh, and the rear bumper bears a sticker that reads, "My wife, yes. My dog, maybe. My gun, NEVER!"
The driver looks disheveled and haggard, making it very easy to surmise that here's the perfect example of an American totally screwed over by capitalism run greedily amok, decisively abetted by conservative ideology.
He's probably unemployed, has no medical insurance, no pension prospects, and is likely facing having sheriff's deputies put his family's belongings out on the sidewalk, following a heartbreaking eviction.
But he's got that radio tuned to right-wing propaganda, and he's so completely brainwashed that he thinks his greatest worry is gays getting married!
