DOWNLOADS: (142)

PLAYS: (1420)

Embed

A 69-year-old war veteran and former missionary was arrested over the weekend on the suspicion of killing a 22-year-old Cuban immigrant who mistakenly arrived in his driveway because of faulty GPS directions.

Gwinnett County jail records obtained by The Atlanta Journal Constitution indicated that Phillip Walker Sailors was charged on Sunday with the murder of Rodrigo Abad Diaz.

Friends who were in the car with Diaz told WSB-TV that they were trying to pick up a friend on the way to ice skating on Saturday but their GPS directed them to the wrong address. The friends said that they waited in the driveway for a few minutes before Sailors emerged from the house and fired a gun into the air.

Gandy Cardenas, who was in the car, recalled to WAGA that the homeowner made no effort to speak to the group before opening fire.

"He didn't talk to them, he just started shooting," Cardenas explained. "The first shot was in the air."

At that point, Diaz tried to turn the car around to leave, but Sailors fired another shot, striking the immigrant on the left side of the head. The group, which included a 15 and an 18 year old, said that Sailors held them at gunpoint until police arrived.

The arrest warrant suggested that Sailors had shot Diaz with a .22 caliber pistol. He was charged with malice murder.

WSB-TV's Tony Thomas reported that Sailors was a war veteran and a former church missionary.

DOWNLOADS: (155)

PLAYS: (336)

Embed

CNN's Fareed Zakaria laid out what could be a potential compromise with the Iranians and their nuclear program which would give them the right to pursue using nuclear technology for energy production while at the same time assuring they're not trying to use that technology to develop a nuclear weapon. What did not come as a surprise is who he noted might be the biggest obstacle to some sort of sane compromise with that country that doesn't involve dropping bombs on their heads -- Republicans.

ZAKARIA: But, first, here's my take. As many regular viewers know, I have been following the tense back-and-forth with Iran very closely. I continue to believe it is the single most dangerous crisis that we confront today and I'm struck by the pessimism surrounding it.

Everyone seems to believe that whatever the momentary ups and downs, there is unlikely to be a deal between Iran and the great powers that will avert war and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

But that's not clear. There is a path to a deal, if, as with any successful negotiation, both sides can come away with something. So what would a deal look like?

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (315)

PLAYS: (3309)

Embed

This was a breath of fresh air rather than the usual nonsense we're hearing from Republicans with more "drill baby drill" as a way to control the price of oil and gasoline we're seeing rise again right now. From Fareed Zakaria GPS, former Reagan budget director David Stockman hit the nail on the head; stop with the warmongering and threatening Iran.

ZAKARIA: Do you think that's - what do you think will happen with oil? Because the demand certainly doesn't justify $105 barrel oil. I mean, China is -

STOCKMAN: I think you can address this decisively by stop beating the war drums right now. And Obama could do that, and he could say the neocons are history.

The policy that they're talking about right now is the same thing we heard in 2001, 2002, and 2003. And he needs to clearly say that we're not going to attack Iran. We're not going to permit Israel to attack Iran. They are not part of the axis of evil. They're part of the axis of medieval.

In other words, these are backward people that aren't going to threaten the western world, and we need to get into a serious process of negotiation. If we do that, the price of oil will drop $30 within a few months, and all the speculators who are on the wrong side of the ship would learn a good lesson.

But as long as the war drums continue to beat, as they are now, we're going to see this kind of speculative fraud. It's not real. It's not supply and demand world today.

Now if we could get the hawks in the United States Senate to listen to him -- Senate Trying To Force Obama To Go To War.

Full transcript below the fold.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (172)

PLAYS: (852)

Embed

CNN's Fareed Zakaria apparently felt the need to give some cover to the Republican rebranding effort called the "tea party" by not mentioning the fact that they're just the extreme right wing of the Republican Party -- and they are Republicans. There is no "tea party" during his opening segment on CNN's GPS. Zakaria decried the level of partisanship in our government right now causing us problems, with another dose of the typical Villager "both sides are the same with catering to their base" nonsense.

Not surprisingly, Zakaria was not able to name a single example of anyone who is extreme on either side besides these right wingers who have forgotten that for government to function, there does actually have to be some level of compromise, whether any of us like it or not.

What was sadly lacking here is any recognition of just how far our politicians in both parties have moved to the right and how we've got a real problem with lack of representation for everyday working Americans with our bought-and-sold politicians. Our larger problem with our political system is not redistricting and safe seats in Congress as much as it is the media and Zakaria's buddies who do a terrible job of informing the voters on just how terribly their representatives are doing with looking out for special interests, and not their interests. That and the need to get the money out of politics so the have-mores are not continually corrupting the system, as they are now.

So-called "left wing" ideas about preserving our social safety nets, asking the rich to pay their share and wanting us to quit rewarding companies for outsourcing jobs overseas are not extreme positions. They're completely in line with that the majority of Americans believe and with what the progressive caucus in our House believes. And those ideas are not polarizing. What is polarizing are the social issues that the right loves to run on and what Republicans use to win the majority of their elections -- guns, god and gays.

And the other unmentioned problem with "both sides" by Zakaria is that "both sides" unfortunately have to raise way too much money to run for political office. And that "both sides" end up spending that money for advertising on networks like his in order to get elected -- and people like Zakaria and his cohorts are never going to speak out against it since that would mean a great deal of their revenues dry up.

Apparently it's just much easier to just go after Congressional gerrymandering and false equivalencies on how both sides' bases are supposedly extreme in their beliefs instead as a source of our problems as Zakaria did here.

Transcript below the fold.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (1964)

PLAYS: (3424)

Embed

On Fareed Zakaria GPS, George Soros responded to the attacks being made against him by Glenn Beck and Fox News and he weighed in on the so-called "tea party" members being duped by the big monied interests pulling their strings. Sadly the network this aired on isn't far behind Fox with the propaganda and the promotion of this astroturf Republican rebranding effort called the tea party.

ZAKARIA: So, George, Glenn Beck has been on this kick that you are actually the mastermind who is trying to bring down the American government. How do you react when you see this kind of thing?

SOROS: Well, I would be amused if -- if people saw the joke in it, because what he is doing, he is projecting what FOX, what Rupert Murdoch is doing, because he has a -- a media empire that is telling the people some falsehoods and this -- and leading the government in the wrong direction.

But, you know, by accusing me of doing that, it kind of makes it rather hard to see that it's really, he is working for the man who is doing it, which is FOX News.

ZAKARIA: But it's very personal. I mean, he talks about you as a 14-year-old boy and he accuses you of -- of essentially helping to round Jews up -- you're Jewish yourself. You've lost --

SOROS: Yes.

ZAKARIA: You lost many, many people in the holocaust. How did you feel when you heard that?

SOROS: Well, look, FOX News makes a habit -- it has imported the methods of George Orwell, you know, newspeak, where you can tell the people falsehoods and deceive them. And you wouldn't believe that at an open society and a democracy these methods can succeed.

But, actually, they did succeed. They succeeded in Germany where the Weimar Republic collapsed and you had a -- a Nazi regime follow it. So this is a very, very dangerous way of deceiving people, and I would like people to be aware that they are being deceived.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (387)

PLAYS: (1771)

Embed

Fareed Zakaria gave his take on CNN this morning on Obama's compromise with Republicans on tax cuts and why China is leaving the United States in the dust.

Obama should have gotten better deal on tax cuts:

President Barack Obama should have negotiated a more fiscally responsible deal with Republicans on extending tax cuts, analyst Fareed Zakaria says.

After insisting on the campaign trail in 2008 and through much of his first two years in office that extending tax cuts for high-income earners was irresponsible, Obama agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts for all Americans.

"Obama was exactly right to try and make a deal with the Republicans. But it does seem somewhat lopsided in that the Republicans got exactly what they wanted, which makes one wonder whether there was a better negotiating strategy that might have been adopted," Zakaria said. Read on...

Transcript from Fareed's Take in the clip above below the fold.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (990)

PLAYS: (12718)

Embed

Bill Maher sat down with CNN's Fareed Zakaria to discuss President Obama's first term in office and how he's reacting to the mid-term elections, the hypocrisy of the teabaggers and Glenn Beck's move from pundit to preacher among other things.

ZAKARIA: "Politically Incorrect" was the name of the show Bill Maher hosted in the 1990s. It's also an apt description of the man himself. Now host of eighth HBO's hit show "Real Time", I find Maher to be one of the sharpest observers of American politics and life in general out there. It doesn't mean I always agree with him. I always find him funny, though.

Several times over the past few years, he has asked me questions. This time it's my turn. Welcome to the show, Bill Maher.

MAHER: Nice to be here.

ZAKARIA: So Obama. How do you think he's responded to the shellacking so far?

MAHER: He looks beaten down. That's what disturbs me. You know, I thought when we elected the first black president, as a comedian, I thought two years in I'd be making jokes about what a gangster he was, you know. And not that he's President Wayne Brady. I thought we're getting Suge Knight.

And, you know, for him to be talking about compromising with the Republicans on the Bush tax cuts, where -- where are they going to draw a line in the sand? When are they going to remember who they are? I'm so disappointed and I still like him and still think there's hope. He could get it yet, but I'm so disappointed that he just seems to be another in a long line of Democrats that come across as wimpy and woozy and whatever word you want to as describe to it of not standing up for what they believe in enough.

The Republicans seem to continually stake out a position further, further to the right and then demand that the Democrats meet them in the middle except that that's not the middle anymore.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (486)

PLAYS: (3424)

Embed

As William Cohen noted, David Stockman continues to make the rounds after bucking with the Republicans on tax cuts for the rich last summer.

A Republican for Higher Taxes:

David Stockman has never been one to shy away from a roaring economic-policy debate. The former boy-wonder budget director in the first Reagan administration and the architect of Reagan’s supply-side economic policies, Stockman has been very busy lately rejecting the tax-cutting recommendations of Republicans in Washington and arguing that we must get our fiscal house in order or watch our way of life continue its decline. As an “imperialist power,” he says, America is in danger of being at “sundown.” Stockman, who turned 64 on Wednesday, has always been ahead of the curve on tax and fiscal issues, and it appears that he is ahead of it again this time, too. Read on...

Stockman continued his media appearances with CNN's Fareed Zakaria and went after the GOP for their single minded devotion to tax cuts.

Reagan Budget Director: GOP Has Abandoned Fiscal Responsibility By Adopting ‘Theology’ Of Tax Cuts:

As Congress prepares to take up extension of the Bush tax cuts during its lame duck session, Republican lawmakers have been unanimous in demanding that the cuts for the richest two percent of Americans be extended, claiming they are necessary for economic growth and that tax cuts (miraculously) pay for themselves.

While independent economists have shown these arguments to be false, today on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, President Reagan’s former budget director took on his own party for pushing this faulty logic. David Stockman, who led the all-important Office of Management and Budget under Reagan and was a chief architect of his fiscal policy, criticized today’s GOP for misreading Reagan’s legacy by adopting a “theology” of tax cuts. Stockman has spoken out before, but took perhaps his strongest stance yet against his own party today, saying “I’ll never forgive the Bush administration” for “destroying the last vestige of fiscal responsibility that we had in the Republican Party.”

Transcript below the fold.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (544)

PLAYS: (3702)

Embed

CNN's Fareed Zakaria sat down with economists Paul Krugman and Raghuram Rajan, and both men painted a very gloomy picture (to say the least) for what kind of shape the United States economy is going to be in if all we have is gridlock for the next two years, which Krugman believes is inevitable.

Krugman also thinks that we'll be facing at least one government shutdown in the next two years. And of course as Eric Cantor already said today, if that happens the Republicans will try to make political hay out of it and put the blame on President Obama.

Anyone who didn't realize what they were voting for when they put these TeaPublicans back into office are going to be finding out the hard way very soon. And if the Democrats don't start acting like they care about the working class in this country instead of catering to corporate "centrists" and Blue Dogs, they're not going to fare much better. It would be nice to see some Democrats who aren't Republicans with a "D" behind their name trying to get some of these House seats back we lost this time around. I know this blog and Blue America will be doing their part to see that it happens.

Transcript via CNN.

ZAKARIA: Paul Krugman wrote before the election that if Republicans took control of even one House of Congress it would be, quote, "terrible," unquote. Well, of course, that's what happened on Tuesday, so how terrible will it be?

"New York Times" columnist, Nobel Prize winner, Princeton professor Paul Krugman joins me now, along with Raghuram Rajan.

Rajan was the chief economist of the IMF, is now a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and his last book, "Fault Lines" won the "Financial Times'" Business Book of the Year Award. He and Paul Krugman have sparred in blogs and essays, but I believe this is the first time they will do so in person, if they do indeed spar. Paul Krugman, what is going to be so terrible about the Republicans coming to power?

PAUL KRUGMAN, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Mostly - well, first of all, there's almost likely, almost certain to be extreme clashes. I would put pretty heavy odds on - on at least one government shutdown during the next two years. This is going to be - you know, we're looking back fondly on the statesmanship of Newt Gingrich.

But, beyond that, it means no action. It means that we're probably going to see unemployment benefits, extended unemployment benefits, expire at exactly the moment when that would do the most harm. It means no chance of doing anything, really, to tackle the economy's problems.

So we're basically going to be uber -- Herbert Hoover-ing our economic policies at exactly the worst moment for - for the American public.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (493)

PLAYS: (1906)

Embed

Peggy Noonan did her best to try to portray the "Tea Party" movement as some kind of leaderless, spontaneous, grass roots movement on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS. She also really didn't want anyone to pay any attention to, as fellow panelist Charles Postel pointed out, the influence of Fox News and Glenn Beck have had in promoting the astroturf movement.

Noonan also tried selling the fantasy that this movement which is fueling the anger of the most extreme in the right wing base is somehow going to appeal to "centrists." Noonan knows full well that this movement has been co-opted by big business interests, that it's nothing but an effort to re-brand the Republican Party and that they're pushing the party further to the right.

You can read the transcript for the entire two segments here. Below are the portions highlighting Noonan's hackery.

ZAKARIA: Peggy, what do you think? Is this a garden variety --

PEGGY NOONAN, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: I think --

ZAKARIA: -- conservative movement? Something more?

NOONAN: I think it is conservative, but it has potential appeal to centrists. I think it has some of the -- the Tea Party has some of the style and -- and spirit, if you will, of classic populist movements. It is anti-establishment, it is anti-elite, it is broad, it is spontaneous, it is still evolving. It is not something that is set.

It is not part of the Republican Party. It is a critique of and challenge to that party, and we'll see how that goes, how that relationship plays out as the Tea Party evolves.

But I -- I think it's very much within American tradition, and I also think it is where the energy is on the political scene right now.

Continue reading »