Blog Catalog

Monday, September 29, 2014

Go KC!


The Kansas City Chiefs and Kansas City Royals and Kansas City, really, getting some kudos and attention, what with handling the Patriots tonight and the Royals in the playoffs.

Then Sporting Kansas City is the current reigning champions for pro soccer and the Kansas City Comets just won the indoor soccer championship.

Go KC!

(Suck on that, Tony).



Our Obscene, Huge, Immoral Defense Spending


Think our government spends too much? 

Sure you do.

So let's cut the spending that is the biggest, most wasteful, most irresponsible segment of all that spending. 

Fight to cut funding for the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). It's absurdly bloated, it's immoral, it's obscene, it isn't even accounted for, they get so much money. They cannot and do not even account for all they get and spend.

On Us--and the Universe


The Blatant Immorality of America's Economic System (guest post)


When Republicans talk about morality, they talk about God and redemption. But they don't mention the immorality of one in five of American children being impoverished, of cuts in food stamps that are causing many to go hungry, and of reduced education funding that’s condemning them to lousy schools. They don't talk about the immorality of declining worker incomes when corporations are making record profits and CEOs are taking home record pay. They leave out the immorality of billionaires flooding our democracy with money to elect candidates that will make them even richer. We are in a moral crisis but it has nothing to do with private redemption. It is a crisis of public morality, and the redemption of America.

--Robert ReichAmerican political economist, professor, author, and political commentator

Quote of the day -- on the job creators


The real job creators are not CEOs or corporations or even entrepreneurs. The job creators are the middle class and the poor, whose purchases cause businesses to expand. If the middle and poor don't have enough purchasing power, businesses won't hire. Which explains why America's job picture continues to be so bad, with the lowest share of the working-age population now employed than in over three decades. Almost nothing has been trickling down to the middle class and poor. 

We don't need tax cuts for the wealthy or for corporations. We need a higher minimum wage, an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit, and stronger unions.


--Robert Reich American political economist, professor, author, and political commentator



Friday, September 26, 2014

Kansas City Art Institute Gets Some Really Bad Press


Yessirree, bob, the old KCAI got a really dubious distinction with a rating this week on this list:

These Are the Worst Colleges in America

Many of these colleges are dropout factories, where students are unlikely to graduate and prices, debt levels, and student loan default rates are high.

Check the rating:


Mind you, they're in last place but still, they're on the list.

Of course it's also art, not computer science. Who's to say what's great art, let alone wildly successful, profitable art?


Kansas City gets some high profile recognition


Here it is, one more list Kansas City is on---and this time we hit it rather big. The number one spot over at the Huffington Post:


America's Top 5 Cities To Keep On Your Radar
kansas city

What they said about us (after using our own Eric Bowers' photograph, no less):

Get to the Green Lady Lounge for some jazz, eat awesome BBQ at Q39, and don't forget to check out the historic City Market. The food is amazing, nearly everything is affordable, and the people are nice.

Sure, it's brief but hey, we got big exposure, some nice things said about us and we're in this number one spot.

So now go out there and be nice, people.

Have a great weekend.



To explain the Middle East for you



Why Congress and so, America, is dysfunctional


Thank you to all Republicans in Congress.

Jobs/infrastructure bill?  Oh, hell no.

Photo

These Are the People Who Want to Run Our Government


Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., House Majority Leader-elect Eric Cantor of Va., and House Speaker-designate John Boehner of Ohio, leave a news conference, on Capitol Hill in Washington Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2010, where they talked about their meeting at the White House with President Obama. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

This is rich. I got an email from Prince Reibus--I mean Reince Preibus--Chair of the Republican Party, saying we should abolish the IRS.

Right.

This is the head of one of two of our political parties and naturally they want to run our entire government, but this is one of the "solutions" they have our nation.

Right. Abolish the IRS.

How, exactly are we raise the money required to run this nation without the IRS? How does that work?

Fact is, it doesn't. It doesn't work, it can't work. fun as that sounds, doing away with the IRS--it's like thinking we could all just not go to our jobs one day--it's not a solution. It's not realistic. It can't work.

We have a nation of over 315 million people. How do you run such an organization with no money brought in? How does that work? In what alternate universe is that possible? All nations have infrastructure that must be built and maintained in order to function. It's with taxes we do that.

These people want to run our government but first, they seem to hate that government and second, they want to dismantle it. Well, they want to dismantle it when they don't want to, as President George W Bush and Ronald Reagan, both, did, grow it incredibly.

They've been quoted as saying they still want to do away with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. One, Mitch McConnell, was recently quoted saying that very thing to a crowd he though he was speaking to privately.

That's not to say our tax system doesn't need fixing, not at all, far from it. But to fix it, we need to end the ability of corporations and the wealthy to purchase whatever laws and tax laws they wish, to the nation's peril, by ending campaign contributions. Until we do that, nothing will change.

They don't deserve another chance with our government. They don't deserve another chance with our nation. They don't deserve another chance with us.



Quote of the day -- on perpetual war


It's up to us to change it.


Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Huge, Ugly, Breaking Missouri News


According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Editorial: Missouri's hunger problem gets worse and worse


If you are poor, hungry live in Missouri, you don’t need a report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to tell you how bad things are. Those Missourians who are more fortunate need to know.
Every year, the USDA issues its “food security” report, which analyzes hunger problems across the country. In Missouri, the news is very, very bad.
In a state that is getting used to ranking poorly in things that count — like education funding, poverty and health-care outcomes — Missouri is No. 1 in a dubious category for the second year in a row.
Over the past decade, as a percentage of population, more Missourians have fallen into hunger, defined in the report as “very low food security,” than in any state in the nation.
All of Missouri’s rankings in the hunger report got worse in 2013 compared to 2012.
Nearly 17 percent of Missourians reported being food insecure, meaning at least once last year, in most cases several times, they skipped meals for lack of money. That’s the fifth-highest percentage in the nation, up two spots from 7th the year before.
Worse, more than 8 percent of Missourians reported more severe hunger, defined as “very low food security,” second only to Arkansas in terms of the dubious ranking.
Here’s where the numbers get really bad, and they don’t show up in the USDA report: Over the past year, as Missouri’s hunger problems got worse, fewer Missourians had access to food stamps to help feed their families.
_______________________________
Worst hunger in the nation. Two years running. Got worse last year.
Not Mississippi.  Missouri
Those are some sick, sick statistics, Missouri. We need to do things about this.
Come November 4, vote blue.
For starters.

Schools or Prisons---Our Priorities



Quote of the day --- Poignant


True then, just as true now, today.  We have to relearn this lesson.

Fight to kill campaign contibutions, folks. Fight to get the big, ugly, corrupting money out of our election and political systems.  Let's get our government back for the people.

Photo

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Entertainment Overnight -- Guitar


From the New York Guitar Festival





What our do-nothing Congress just did


And we thought we couldn't get any less work from this Congress:


Absolutely true.

This Congress had been out on recess, came back to "work"--for 8 whopping days--and now just voted to give themselves yet more time, way more than a month, off work. A vacation. Yet another vacation.

Don't you wish you had such options?

Yes, after a bone-crushing eight days of work, House majority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has announced that effective today, school’s out for mid-terms. They’re returning to work on November 12th, one day after the elections. McCarthy himself washes his hands of the matter:
“Unfortunately, while our nation continues to face tremendous economic challenges, House and Senate Majority leaders decided to adjourn Congress early and leave town. This was an unfortunate change in schedule for the American people and small businesses across the country.
My colleagues and I, including more than 40 Democrats, were ready to have a real debate and vote on making sure we have stable tax rates moving forward so that small business owners can plan for the future. However, Congress departed without passing legislation to extend our current tax code and prevent massive tax hikes that arec oming January 1, 2011. Congress also failed to consider a real budget for Fiscal Year 2011.”

So if any of you were expecting, say, a jobs/infrastructure bill because, oh, I don't know, Americans need the jobs and our infrastructure needs the updating and improving (think I-70 alone) and the economy needs a boost?

FUGGEDABOUDIT.

What I'd like to know is, for all this time--I figure 53 days off--what does one do as a member of this Congress, either chamber, to either disappear or to appear as though they're actually doing the "people's work" and earning their pay?

How many county fairs are open right now?



Check out this totalitarian state


Check out this chart.  And if you only compare two nation's statistics, look at Russia's incarceration rate vs. ours, here in the US.

Who's the totalitarian state now?

Another thing we Americans don't believe about about ourselves.

The NFL, Socialism, Intelligence and Fairness






Quote of the day -- Sunday Edition




Quote of the day -- Sunday Edition




Saturday, September 20, 2014

The NFL, taxes and WHAT THE HELL ARE WE DOING?


I won't even ask, I'll just say it--this makes no sense whatever.

Not only is the NFL a huge profit maker but the owners are, every one of them, multi-millionaires or multi-billionaires.

Why in God's name do we let these filthy rich moochers not pay any taxes whatever?

To whom does this even remotely make sense?

When they want their stadiums redone and updated and made more luxurious--again, mostly for the wealthy, with their skyboxes--they come to the county and city and state with their hands out, wanting money and then they're non-taxed, too?  Last time around, they asked for, no, blackmailed us for one quarter of a billion dollars.  And they got it.  We gave it to them.

And think about it, too.  It goes further.  Each and every one of the franchises is a monopoly, for God's sake. They have a monopoly on this sport in their area, they make millions, if not billions and we let them be tax exempt.  This is better than the big church scam.

This sh*t's gotta' stop.  And we're just the ones to do it.