The next time the Republicans have a majority, they will dump the filibuster. They have set a precedent that has destroyed the Senate as an institution. Were the Democrats to use the "nuclear option" now, to take back its law-making ability as given by the Amercian public -- the mainstream media would howl in horror.
The Republicans, however, will likely elicit nothing more than a sigh or outright support from the corporate fourth estate.
Just now, heard Jay Lawrence (right-wing tool on KTAR radio) saying racial profiling is justified, because he knew when he heard of the latest attempted airplane bombing the suspect would be a Middle-Eastern male.
Forgetting that a personal anecdote is pathetic "evidence" that we should overturn civil rights for an entire group of people; does anyone else out there really believe this asshole knew the bomber would be from Nigeria?
"* And by the way, if anyone wants to see some real incoherence on this subject, consult the right wingers who are defending the policeman today, but who also believe that anyone has the right to shoot first and ask questions later if they "feel" threatened in their own home. By their lights, Gates should have been arrested for behaving "tumultuously" but would have been within his rights to shoot Sgt Crowley. This is why conservatives have no standing to discuss anything more complicated than Sarah Palin's wardrobe."
If you don't Wall Street is destroying America, read about just one firm here.
Here's a taste:
And here's the real punch line. After playing an intimate role in four historic bubble catastrophes, after helping $5 trillion in wealth disappear from the NASDAQ, after pawning off thousands of toxic mortgages on pensioners and cities, after helping to drive the price of gas up to $4 a gallon and to push 100 million people around the world into hunger, after securing tens of billions of taxpayer dollars through a series of bailouts overseen by its former CEO, what did Goldman Sachs give back to the people of the United States in 2008?
Fourteen million dollars.
That is what the firm paid in taxes in 2008, an effective tax rate of exactly one, read it, one percent. The bank paid out $10 billion in compensation and benefits that same year and made a profit of more than $2 billion - yet it paid the Treasury less than a third of what it forked over to CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who made $42.9 million last year.
How is this possible? According to Goldman's annual report, the low taxes are due in large part to changes in the bank's "geographic earnings mix." In other words, the bank moved its money around so that most of its earnings took place in foreign countries with low tax rates. Thanks to our completely hosed corporate tax system, companies like Goldman can ship their revenues offshore and defer taxes on those revenues indefinitely, even while they claim deductions upfront on that same untaxed income. This is why any corporation with an at least occasionally sober accountant can usually find a way to zero out its taxes. A GAO report, in fact, found that between 1998 and 2005, roughly two-thirds of all corporations operating in the U.S. paid no taxes at all.
