Saturday, January 17, 2009

THIS JUST IN! JOE CANNON LIKES HIS BOOZE!

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
 
FOLLOWING UP ON OUR RECENT INTEVIEW WITH THE VAGRANT WHO GAVE HIS NAME AS "JOE CANNON," THESE REPORTERS WENT TO A JAIL CELL IN L.A. THIS MORNING WHERE A POLICE OFFICER ADVISED US, "CRAZY IS SLEEPING OFF A NASTY DRINKING SPREE."
 
"CRAZY" WAS INDEED "JOE CANNON" WHO, UPON WAKING AND SEEING THESE REPORTERS, BEGAN INSISTING, "I AM THE MALE SUSAN LINDAUER! I AM A POLITICAL PRISONER!"
 
JOE CANNON WIPED THE FOAM FROM HIS MOUTH LONG ENOUGH TO EXPLAIN TO US THAT "RACISM IS JUST MY COVER.  I AM ACTUALLY AN UNDERCOVER INTELLENGENCE AGENT."
 
THESE REPORTERS CONGRATULATED JOE CANNON ON HIS ASTOUNDING ABILITY TO HIDE ANY INTELLIGENCE FROM THE NAKED EYE.
 
"THANKS," JOE CANNON BURPED.  "I GET THAT A LOT.  SO THERE IS A PLOT TO KILL RONALD REAGAN AND I HAVE TUNNELED DEEP INTO THE LEFT TO FIGURE OUT WHO IS RESPONSIBLE."
 
THESE REPORTERS EXPLAINED TO JOE CANNON THAT RONALD REAGAN WAS DECEASED SO A PLAN TO MURDER THE FORMER PRESIDENT WOULD SEEM FUTILE.
 
"HE'S DEAD?  DAMN IT!  DAMN IT!  I BLEW IT!  I WAS SUPPOSED TO SAVE HIM!  ONLY I CAN SAVE HIM!"
 
WE NODDED TO JOE CANNON AND MADE TO LEAVE WHEN HE SCREAMED, "DO NOT FLY!  THEY ARE PULLING PLANES OUT OF THE SKY!"
 
JOE CANNON EXPLAINED U.S. AIRWAYS FLIGHT 1549 WAS "A TRICK TO MAKE PEOPLE FEEL SAFE.  BUT THEY'RE ABOUT TO START PULLING PLANES FROM THE SKY!  IN CARSON CITY, NEVADA, THEY HAVE THE DEVICE.  IT'S 3 MILES WIDE AND 100 MILES LONG.  MADE COMPLETELY FROM LEGGOS.  IT WILL SCOOP PLANES, HELICOPTERS AND EVEN THE OCCASSIONAL SPARROW OUT OF THE SKY.  IT'S A PLOT.  DON'T FLY THE LEGGO SKIES!"
 
WE NODDED TO JOE CANNON AND BEGAN WALKING OFF AS HE SNARLED THAT WE'D TAKEN "THE BLUE PILL" AND THAT THERE WAS "NO HOPE FOR HUMANITY!"
 
Susan Lindauer's
 
IN A
 
 
Turning to US politics, President-elect Barack Obama met with the Washington Post editorial board yesterday.  Here for Michael D Shear's text article, here for the sixty-one minute audio.  Warning for those listening to the audio, Barack's speaking abilities have not magically improved.  Sample: "Uh, obivoulsy military service is uh something we uh honor as a country [. . .] That's going to be something that we uh uh  . . ."  And four minutes, for those wondering, he takes his first swipe at African-American fathers.  Yes, it's Barack singing all his well known tunes. And mixing in a few new ones such as, "It's not something I've said publicly . . . but spending money wisely is not easy."  Mostly, the interivew will be remembered as the one where Barack declared War on Social Security.  Barack's replied to questions and made vague statements.  But, his Love Cult insists, that's just the Nice Guy Barry trying to make nice and get along.  He doesn't want to say, "Stupid crooks, Social Security is not going to be chipped away!"  Well, actually he does want to say that and he did say that.
 
We're dropping back to Sunday's This Week with George Stephanopoulos (ABC -- video and text):
 
STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me press you on this, at the end of the day, are you really talking about over the course of your presidency some kind of a grand bargain? That you have tax reform, health care reform, entitlement reform, including Social Security and Medicare where everybody in the country is going to have to sacrifice something, accept change for the greater good?
OBAMA: Yes. 
STEPHANOPOULOS: And when will that get done?  
OBAMA: Well, the -- right now I'm focused on a pretty heavy lift, which is making sure that we get that reinvestment and recovery package in place. But what you describe is exactly what we're going to have to do.
What we have to do is to take a look at our structural deficit, how are we paying for government, what are we getting for it, and how do we make the system more efficient?
STEPHANOPOULOS: And eventually sacrifice from everyone.  
OBAMA: Everybody is going to have to give. Everybody is going to have to have some skin in the game.
 
Barack was asked about it above.  With the Washington Post, he brought it up on his own -- and referenced George Steph's "grand bargain" -- so hopefully even his Love Cult can start to see a few realities.  He begins talking about his big "Fiscal Responsibility Summit" that will be held in February and include a motley crew that will "talk about waste."  He then seques into Social Security during this response (at approximately 16:14) and states the following:
 
We're also going to have a discussion about entitlements and how we get a grasp on those.  Uh and uh, you know, like i think everybody here is familiar enough with the budget problems to  know that as bad as these deficits that we're running up over the next --  that have already been run up -- have been and despite the cost of both TARP and the stimulus, the real problem in our long term deficit actually has to do with our entitlement obligation and the fact that historically uh if our revenues ranged between 18 and 20% of GDP they're now at 16. It's just not sustainable so we're going to have to uh craft  a uh what George Stephanopoulos called a grand bargain and I-I try not to use the word grand in anything that I say but uh but we're going to have to shape a baragain.  This, by the way, is where there are going to be some very difficult choices and issues of sacrifices and responsibilty and  duty are going to come in because what we have done is kick this can down the road.  We're now at the end of the road and uh we are not in a position to kick it any further.
 
Those are right-wing talking points and only the most historically ignorant of Barack's Love Cult will fail to grasp the declaration of war. 
 
 
Social Security is a program which ahs been traditionally run.  It looks like a retirement fund, and it is not exactly.  What it really is is a government program with a dedicated tax.  We take the payroll tax and it's used to pay benefits to retirees.  And 20-plus years ago, the commission led by Alan Greenspan said, you know, we are going to have this problem as the baby boomers reach retirement age.  We will have a higher ratio of retirees to workers, and we better get ready for it.  Social Security, the payroll tax was increased.  There were some other things, a small rise in the retirement age set in motion.  So that Social Security would run a surplus, which would be used to accumulate a trust fund, and this would tithe us over, some ways into the aging of the population.  And that on its own accounting is working just fine.  I mean, one of the things that we need to know is that the estimates of the day at which the trust fund runs out, just keep on receding further into the future, because the program is doing so well at running surpluses.  So, ten years ago, -people said it was going to run out in 2029.  Now the official estimate is 2042.  Realistically, it's probably going to go well into the second half of the century.  Now how does this become a crisis?  Well it becomes a crisis by changing the rules.  By saying, oh, well, actually that surplus that we're running because of the tax increase that was designed to prolong the life of Social Security, that's not real.  Because it's invested in government bonds which are perfectly good asset, for anybody else, but not for the Social Security administration. 
 
Barack's remarks to the Post's editorial board go beyond troubling.  There's no need to decipher them.  He brought it up on his own (he also refused to answer questions on the topic -- though he was happy to later say Sponge Bob was his favorite TV cartoon).  His words, transcribed with all the "uh"s he is so famous for.  It's very clear what he's pushing.  And that's why it's on the audio recording that few will listen to and not in the write-up that made the paper (the bits of half-sentences in the write-up are from his dancing around the direct questions on the topic, not from when he spoke at length about it without any prompting).
 
 
 

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