Common Dreams

I knew there was more to it than just being a movie when, for several days between Christmas and New Years, I watched Drudge implicitly trashing “Django Unchained” on his hard-right website.

An incredible opportunity is coming for America, starting in just a few weeks. The Bush tax cuts will expire. Pentagon spending will be slashed – although still hugely larger than it was just a decade ago. And, to make conservatives smile, funding for programs that keep poor and unemployed people alive and healthy will be cut. This is an opportunity for several reasons.

They’re up to it again – this time with what they call the “fiscal cliff.”

With or without a government shutdown, Republicans have already won the debate on our nation's budget. Why? Because the corporate media is on their side. Make the wealthy pay their fair share.

The New York Times today jumped on board with a classic Frank Luntz "Big Lie." Democrats in the House and Senate put forth a bill that would reduce taxes on the first quarter-million, and then, when that failed, the first million dollars of income for every single American. Somebody earning $100,000 a year would get a tax cut on all of their income. Somebody earning $250,000 a year would get a tax cut on all of their income with the Democrats first proposal.

During the time you're reading these words, somewhere in the world somebody is getting onto or off an airplane with a few ounces of cocaine, heroin, or diamonds packed into a condom and stuffed up their rear. The cocaine, heroin, or diamonds could just as easily be enough C4 plastic explosive to blow out the side of a plane, easily molded to fit into a condom. Easily removed in an airplane lavatory and detonated. Why isn't anybody discussing this?

Globalization is killing Europe, just as it's already wiped out much of the American middle class. Spain and Greece are facing immediate crises that many other European nations see on the near horizon: aging boomer workers are retiring with healthy benefit packages, but the younger workers who are paying for those benefits aren't making anything close to the income (or, therefore, paying the taxes) that their parents did.

"Gold is most excellent; gold constitutes treasure; and he who has it does all he wants in the world, and can even lift souls up to Paradise." -- Christopher Columbus, 1503 letter to the king and queen of Spain. "Christopher Columbus not only opened the door to a New World, but also set an example for us all by showing what monumental feats can be accomplished through perseverance and faith." -- George H.W. Bush, 1989 speech

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that "Executives and other highly compensated employees now receive more than one-third of all pay in the US... Highly paid employees received nearly $2.1 trillion of the $6.4 trillion in total US pay in 2007, the latest figures available."

This weekend, House Republican leader John Boehner played out the role of Jude Wanniski on NBC's "Meet The Press." Odds are you've never heard of Jude, but without him Reagan never would have become a "successful" president, Republicans never would have taken control of the House or Senate, Bill Clinton never would have been impeached, and neither George Bush would have been president.