The debt-ceiling talks will continue to dominate the news more and more the closer we get to the Aug. 2nd deadline for defaulting. That, and the fact we're deep into summer, make it all the more important we don't let other stories fall by the wayside. Here are some of the stories that seem underbuzzed to me today.
- Ann Coulter's vile assault on Chris Hayes's mother illustrates just how low the Republican Party has sunk in the past decade. Not because it's an assault on someone's mother -- that's old school nasty politics. But because the basis for the attack is her work in public service. That used to be bipartisan cause for celebration. Serving one's country used to be something Republicans honored. Along with education, the rule of law and genuine fiscal conservatism. Good times.
- Austerity advocate Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) taste for $350-a-bottle wine has gotten a fair amount of press. But what's really telling here, I think, is who was paying the tab. It was a hedge-fund manager. Of course. But what's even better than that...is which hedge-fund manager.
- Ezra Klein makes a great point here. If Republicans can't agree on a tax package with President Obama and the Democrats, they forfeit their only hope (barring a Democratic cave, which, I know, I know) of winning another extension of the Bush tax cuts. The net result? They're actually opting for higher taxes.
- We all know government spending can't boost the economy. Which is why it's so weird that an end to some spending is already spooking people about the economic jolt at the end of this year.
- And while Michele Bachmann's campaign is wrestling with her endorsement of the claim that black families were better off when they were owned by white families, there's another Bachmann story that merits at least as much attention. Do we really want to give the button to someone who believes the end times are coming soon?
Those are my Underbuzzed for today. Share yours in the comments.
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I hope Ed covers all these stories. If either side has any common sense they would raise taxes and preserve our entitlements. It is that neither side wants to be the bad guy.
Go no farther....Ann Coulter is a questionable character, that no one, and I mean no one puts any value in what she has to say.
Just let Bachmann keep on talking and showing how stupid she is.....all of us people, black, white, yellow, tan etc will be in the ditch if the Reps have their way....I though slavery by the rich was the plan for the poor and middle class?
WOW, talk about common sense, you just said raise taxes for entitlements. Common sense to me says I am entitled to what ever I work for and I am not entitled to anything I didn't work for. I think your common sense meter is broke. When I here someone say they are entitled, what I hear is " I'm to lazy to get something for myself so I'll vote for someone who will still it from the rich guy and give it to me.
I do think that we should all pitch in and help those that are disabled, but NOT those that are just LAZY, The dem try to make you think that they are one and the same so we can't separate them.
Lazy? Do you know what it is to work hard for over 50 years and put money away like in SS, and because otherwise you are just getting by?.... but that money has been taken out of your pay check all that time and now that investment that caused you hard ship is not going to be there .....because some over paid Congress men stole it for the bridge they borrowed it for?..... Yet, they have not put the money back.....They just use the money that people working now and paying into SS to meet the debt that they created by stealing from the very flush fund if we could cash in their IOU's. You should get your head in order and look at the facts instead of accusing your up right fellow American citizens of being lazy. You can not place your generalization on a few, and try to make it sound true for the rest of us! Do you still live with your Mom and are you over 18?
@chemmd: your name sounds like you are a crystal-meth cook. I am talking about what most folk have paid in to most of their lives as the entitlements. You are one of those I got mine to hell with everyone else folks. I'll bet I have done more work in a month than you have done in a year boy so ... Thanks TM for the help.
Step lightly when you speak directly to a poster troll, or they will delete you or band you for a day or so. just a friendly word of warning.
Actually chem is because my first Degree was a BS in Chemistry, I spent 3 years doing biochemical research in the field of environmental toxin removal. Then I spent the next 4 years including most Saturdays, going to school to become a dentist, thus dmd. I started with nothing, my mother and father gave me $5000 dollars. Nobody gave me handouts. I started my own business from the ground up and have payed back every cent. the only help I got was loans. NO Hand outs.
Thankful mom, why would you want the government to take more of your money thru taxes, with the premiss of saving it and giving back to you, when they already took your money. As you stated "They just use the money that people working now and paying into SS to meet the debt that they created by stealing from the very flush fund if we could cash in their IOU's" I think you need to get your head straight, they stole from you once and you don't think they will do it again.
Louis David, If you are working that hard you need to become more effective in your work. I had this girl that would work her butt off for me, and she was useless, she would clean the counters in the office 4 or 5 times a day to look busy so she wouldn't have to do things she didn't like. Working hard is not always working smart. I have worked as a farmer, contractor, manufacturer, sales man, all while paying my own way thru school. Not only do I know how to work hard, I know how to work smart. If you have payed into something it is not an entitlement it is a savings plan. if the money isn't there then someone stole it. If you look you will find that Bill Clinton signed the bill that put SS into the General fund. Before that time it was in a separate saving account.
the only help I got was loans. NO Hand outs.
than why say they are hand out to others? well 5k i consider a hand out! even from Parents.
What ever happen to this once GREAT COUNTRY?
seem like not so long ago we where all this thing together, now its one treasonous(well maybe borderline but very close)side vs the US, and yes that side is the one betting and making money (cantor) from this shorting America.
Maybe went Fox/saudi/hate/Propaganda entertainment corp falls after the UK scandle we can get back to being a Great Country that supports and takes care of ALL AMERICANS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pilotshark . . .
It is VERY difficult to have grown up in this country . . . where there has always been two major parties and several minor parties who used to just agree to disagree . . .
To then see that Right-Wingers ( not all conservatives ) are in these times willing to destroy this country and all of its non-billionaire citizens . . . just to get what they want.
But, the Radical Right-Wingers are finally showing who they truly are . . . and what their sick agenda has been for dominating this culture and having us all walk in lock step with their Racist, Religious Fanatic ideology . . . and their agenda for having only a wealthy ruling class and a lower class to serve them coffee and pump their gas.
This is their last chance and they know it. They are in a panic over the fact that poll after poll shows now reviled they are. And then, as you say, we will finally move forward to being the great country we were always meant to be . . . that respects and honors and extends Liberty For ALL Americans . . . not just people who look and think and act in the reprehensible way that they do.
Really ED your going to bring up a $350 dollar of wine, what about the $1 billion the President Obama spent of Tax payers money to go to the Festival of Lights. And Ryan made the recipe available to another website, with mention of him paying for it with his own money. So if it was a hedge fund. which one? yet another BS claim form ED. Why don't you report on Fast and furious, or take up Andrew Willkows offer to debate him, he said he would do it with nothing but the Constitution in his hand. You issued the challenge on your show to any republican, but I think your scared of him.
$1 billion? REALLY? What is your source for this figure? You DO have a source, don't you? Or is this just some of YOUR BS?
$1 billion the President Obama spent of Tax payers money to go to the Festival of Lights.
and what about 200 million a day and 2 navy fleets to go to India!!!!
LMAO thanks for the Monday morning Belly laugh.
Please tell me there are more important things to talk about than wine and cheese?
look it up on google, you'll get 10,300,000 hits ( not all from Fox).
Figured it was just BS. That was debunked last November.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/nov/04/michele-bachmann/rep-michele-bachmann-claims-obamas-trip-india-will/
I did look it up......duh!
go to politicofact, with an O not an I, the one that has a Pulitzer prize not the lib knock off an look it up again, or look it up in the UK where they don't have a US political leaning. Obama doesn't even deny it. He was Proud of his trip
YOU make the accusation, YOU provide a link. I would hope you could handle THAT.
Ok, so President Obama didn't go to India, with a fleet of ships? a bunch of people? didn't spend any taxpayers money to get there? And India and its media are liars? How many vacations does he need on the American dollar. Most Americans get one maybe two a year. When he says we all need to sacrifice, does that mean we need to cut back so he can have more trips. Oh on the debunk in november as per your article was inconclusive, on offical # was released by the white house, i guess we were both wrong.
Where is the money we paid into SS, the reps and teapublicans have borrowed it to float their favorite causes......There is no money, only I, O. U.'s.
I wonder how many "Black Families" Ms. Bachmann has spent time with? She is so phobic about everyone and everything. If you ain't white, religious, wealthy and heterosexual she isn't interested in you.
She also had a hand in Jimmy Carters re-election failure. She was his campaign manager.
JC was just too nice, a lot like Obama. A good man. Didn't know she was around...you mean she was a Democrat, or a fake plant?
The debt ceiling will never be addressed because the GOP is in the back pocket of their special interests. The rich get richer. suggestions for managing the debt: 1) all of our elected NONrepresentatives take a huge cut in THEIR pay & benefits 2) term limits 3) stop the endless wars ($120B/yr just for afganistan) 4) bring our troops home 5) stop subisidizing other countries 6) stop military action in other countries unless we are attacked first 7) take care of business at home 8) eliminate the bush tax cuts 9) stop companies from off shore banking to hide their profits 9) no oil subsidizes 10) leave social security alone (we are struggling on are frozen income for 2 years while our cost of living is up at least 25% for gas, higher prices in stores, etc). Of ocurse our elected NONrepresentatives won't listen to the will of the people. Ryan and Johnson are the two GOP "representing" me. Johnson does not respond to his constituents, his office argues with you on the rare times they answer the phone and I have asked his office point blank just who he is representing with no response. Ryan is only concerned about his pathetic "roadmap" and could care less about our opinions which is reflected in his form letter responses which usually do not address the concern related. Some representation.
The fact that Bachmann and Santorum signed the "protect marriage" pledge with the stupid statement about slavery and black families just reflects that the two are so driven by dogmatic ideology that they are willing to put their name on anything that they think might help them appeal to evangelical America.
Clearly "marriage" needs to be our top priority because the nation has plenty of money, no one's out of work, the national debt is just nonexistant...
I think this is just another example that shows that people like Michelle Bachmann are only concerned with social engineering when what we need right now is somneone who can balance a budget. To be honest I'd like to say I'm surprised that she'd sign on to something this idiotic but coming from the woman who thought that the U.S. Constitution needed to be amended to make sure that the U.S. didn't adopt the yen as it's official currency, well I don't think I need to say anymore.
Dear Cynical Citizen . . .
Social Engineering is what the far Right are all about. They may cover it up in the Flag, the Constitution, and Economic Terrorism . . . but keeping people of color and liberal white people from moving up the ranks through the middle class is what they are all about.
Moving middle class jobs and their profits over seas, destroying public schools and replacing them with private, conservative boot camps, destroying middle class mortgages, destroying middle class upper education . . . all of this and more is absolutely the Radical, Social Engineering agenda . . .
To keep people of color and liberal whites from maintaining or gaining any kind of power in this society.
It isn't going to work though. They are on their last stand and they know it. That is why they are being so aggressive. They are in a panic because the polls show that most Americans know they to be the treasonous, hypocrites that they are.
Why is there not more dialogue about the deal Obama floated for the Republicans with the ratio of 1 to 3 or 1 to 4 for the amount of revenue increase to spending cuts. I am scared that the Republicans might decide to jump on it. Thank God they worship at the alter of the rich and are too stubborn or greedy to give in. I hope the Ed Show talks more about this issue. I am an Obama supporter and I have respect for the need to compromise, but I feel you look for equal gains on both sides and his negotiating give too much away too soon.
Also, why is there not more discussion of poll results showing that Americans are in favorite of generating revenue from the top 5% of millionaires who have done so well during this recession and the last 30 years. Most Americans can't believe that politicians would defend the tax loop holes favoring corporations, hedge funders, and the rich. People have got to become more vocal and demand more for our country.
I like Kathy 3666212 comments.
Public Servants represent our government and the last thing that Republicans want to support is our government ala the debt hostage situation where the far right is holding this countries future hostage unless the President continues the drive to the bottom that is the Republican Party of today. Of course managing to be "a servant of the people" and being wholly owned by the Corps is only possible is you are followed by the "know nothings II" (the group formerly know as Tea Baggers ;-)
We know where Bush & company took US and we know where Clinton an fair taxes took US and I'm with the Prez!
What's up with the "choked" judge? Why is this story so silent? If a woman had choked a man in front of others (OK, not the best, but there it is) and it just "drops" out of the news?
This "judge" should be in jail pending a trial as any other attacked would be treated (justice?) And what about our Supreme? He is taking money from the rich and after a brief stint of news, down that story goes!
Right wing justice is "blind" but only to mistakes on the right!
guess same reason that nut case in AZ didnt go to jail for pointing a weapon at a reporter.