Sunday Night Charts & Graphs – Corporate Tax Rates

November 25, 2012 by Leave a comment

Over Thanksgiving I had the rare opportunity to see a cousin of mine who lives on the East Coast and works in the arenas of business and political consulting. He’s a smart fellow and I certainly respect his opinion. And just as Rachel Maddow predicted, we wound up talking about the so-called fiscal cliff.

My cousin pointed out that the United States’ corporate tax rate is higher than that of other countries, including western Europe.

“Really?” I asked. “What’s the corporate tax rate of the Scandinavian countries?”

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Friday Night Video – Rachel Maddow’s Reaction to Clint Eastwood’s Senior Moments

August 31, 2012 by 4 Comments

RACHEL MADDOW: That was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen at a political convention in my entire life.

And in case you missed the original, ThinkProgress compiled a highlight reel…

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Want to Save an Easy Trillion Dollars? Step One, Cancel the Bush Tax Giveaways to the Rich

August 27, 2012 by Leave a comment

ThinkProgress has a short post up which includes this graphic from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, demonstrating how allowing the Bush tax cut for the wealthy to expire would save nearly a trillion dollars over the next ten years.

I would like to point out that this is a slightly conservative option. A centrist option would aim to recover the revenue that we lost from having these tax cuts in the first place. A progressive option would aim to recover the lost revenue and then cut the deficit even further through additional tax hikes on those who can afford it.

As is usually the case, the progressive option would be the most fiscally responsible, but the children in the beltway would rather clap their hands harder so that one day Reaganomics will work.

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Catalist on Republican-Led Voter Suppression

August 4, 2012 by Leave a comment

ThinkProgress highlights research by Catalist which reveals that voter purges led by Republicans disproportionately target the urban, the elderly, the young, and minorities.

That is, of course, the point.

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Republicans Against Open Democracy

June 12, 2012 by Leave a comment

Whether it’s conservative activist judges on the Supreme Court or conservative activists in Congress, their love for big corporations spending big money on campaigns is not about free speech. It’s about controlling speech, as evidenced by the latest Republican move to try and obscure just who is paying for those political ads we see on TV.

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Tuesday Night Charts & Graphs – Spending, Taxes, and the Deficit under Obama

May 15, 2012 by 5 Comments

Michael Linden, the Director for Tax and Budget Policy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, has provided a terrific chart for ThinkProgress. Turns out that spending, taxes, and the deficit are all lower under President Obama than they were when he took office. I’d rather that strategic spending went up in order to recover from the depression, but hey, it’s nice to have a few facts introduced into the political discussion on deficits and the like. If you know a way to get the mainstream media to pay attention, please let me know!

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Friday Night Chart – Private vs. Public Jobs Under Obama

May 4, 2012 by 3 Comments

Given today’s lukewarm jobs numbers, it’s worth taken a look at the following chart, which accompanies a ThinkProgress article written by Michael Linden. Could Democrats please start arguing with more force for the positive role that government can play? (Thank you very much.)

Under President Obama, the private sector has experienced a relatively robust recovery, and is now back to where it started when he took office. The public sector continues to shed jobs, and as a result, the overall jobs picture in the US remains weak. If you want to understand why conservative efforts to slash funding for teachers, firefighters, cops is bad for the economy, look no further than this graph.

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Saturday Night Pic – How Excited Are Young Voters?

April 28, 2012 by 6 Comments

There are times when Mitt Romney shows his age, such as when picking his favorite tunes — or when speaking to college students. ThinkProgress just did a comparison of President Obama’s visit to the University of Iowa versus Romney’s speech at Otterbein University.

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Conservative Court Consequences

March 15, 2012 by 4 Comments

Antonin Scalia’s remarks last week serve as a helpful reminder of how conservative our activist courts are.

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Antonin Scalia Falls Flat on Facts and Substance

March 12, 2012 by 7 Comments

ThinkProgress posted an article Saturday about a speech given last week at Wesleyan University by ultra-conservative Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia. They focused on Scalia’s lack of knowledge when it comes to the landmark Bush v. Gore decision, in which the conservative Court handed the presidential election to George Bush the Junior, quite literally deciding that the votes didn’t matter.

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The Bogus Rush Limbaugh / Bill Maher Comparison

March 8, 2012 by 2 Comments

The conservatives are rushing to defend Limbaugh by saying “other people have said bad things, too!” and their number one example is comedian Bill Maher. The comparison is bogus, because…

1. it discounts the extent of Limbaugh’s lengthy attack against Sandra Fluke,

2. it ignores the fact that Fluke was testifying as a private citizen, and

3. it fails to account for Limbaugh’s decades-long pattern of misogyny.

Rush Limbaugh as drawn by Rex Lameray in July ...

Image via Wikipedia

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