Author Archive
By Deb Cupples on Dec 31, 2008 in Banking Institutions, Bush/Cheney, Congress (House & Senate), Current Affairs, Economy, George Bush | View Comments
Earlier, I posted about how executive pay can drain companies and destroy jobs. Today, I cannot help thinking about how our politicians have committed to funneling billions of tax dollars to some of the same executives who managed to personally enrich themselves while driving their companies (and our economy) into a ditch. Naturally, this led [...]
By Deb Cupples on Dec 30, 2008 in Banking Institutions, Current Affairs, Economy, Mortgage Crisis | View Comments
During the past three months, our nation has lost 1.2+ million jobs: 533,000 in November; 320,000 in October; and 403,000 in September (USBLS). Two months ago, the New York Times reported that major companies were thinking about cutting jobs, including giants like Alcoa, Bank of America, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Merck, and Xerox. [Bank [...]
By Deb Cupples on Aug 17, 2008 in Corruption, Tax stimulus package | View Comments
Based on IRS records, a recent GAO report indicates that many corporations claimed to owe $0 in U.S. taxes from 1998 – 2005: roughly 28%-53% of large foreign-controlled and 23%-38% of large U.S.-controlled corporations. [The GAO considers a "large" corporation one with at least $250 million in assets or $50 million in gross receipts.] This reminded [...]
By Deb Cupples on Aug 14, 2008 in Hillary Clinton, Media Bias | View Comments
Sometimes, I just don’t understand New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. She’s a successful, intelligent, gifted word smith — and gorgeous to boot. Talk about having it all. When she writes about actual issues, she often makes sense, and millions of readers praise her. When she talks about certain politicians, however, Ms. Dowd’s logic leaves [...]
By Deb Cupples on Aug 12, 2008 in Barack Obama, Clinton, Current Affairs, Hillary Clinton | View Comments
I just read an article based on some emails, memos, and notes leaked to The Atlantic by one (or more) of Hillary Clinton’s former presidential campaign staffers. When I first read the pre-publishing-date hype about the impending article, I thought: Why does this matter? Hadn’t they heard that Hillary publicly threw her support behind Barack [...]
By Deb Cupples on Aug 3, 2008 in Barack Obama, Gas Prices, Off-Shore Drilling | View Comments
In June, presidential candidate Barack Obama said that he opposed drilling for oil off the U.S. coastline, explaining that 1) it would take 10 years to produce any oil at all, and 2) that said oil would not do much to lower gas prices anyway because our nation consumes such a high percentage of the [...]
By Deb Cupples on Jul 18, 2008 in Bush/Cheney, Constitution, George Bush, impeachment | View Comments
Two days ago, the House voted to send Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s “latest impeachment effort” (H.R. 1345) to the House Judiciary Committee (CQ). Merely impeaching President Bush would not remove him from office: removal would require a conviction by two-thirds of the Senate members present. (Constitution, Article I, sections 2 & 3) Given the Senate’s current [...]
By Deb Cupples on Jul 15, 2008 in Bush/Cheney, Foreign Affairs, Lobbyists | View Comments
Many people around the world suspect that the Bush Administration is excessively fond of cash, but it’s strangely comforting to find real evidence supporting that suspicion. Actually, I’m more alarmed than comforted. Britain’s Times Online has a great article and a four-minute video clip of lobbyist and Bush Pioneer Stephen Payne — who was appointed [...]
By Deb Cupples on Jul 14, 2008 in Campaigns & Campaign Financing, Obama | View Comments
Campaign finance junkies tend to believe that dollars from big donors reflect favors that candidates will owe to those donors — especially money given by corporate employees or bundled by lobbyists. Such perceptions might be why Barack Obama’s campaign staff has done numerical gymnastics trying to create the impression that the campaign is mostly funded [...]
By Deb Cupples on Jul 14, 2008 in 4th Amendment, Clinton, FISA, Obama | View Comments
I was in our nation’s capitol from July 3 – 10. Among the highlights of my week-long visit was coffee at the Mayflower Hotel with NQ’s Larry Johnson. It was even more fun conversing with him than reading his blog posts. Another highlight was watching the FISA votes from the Senate visitors’ gallery at the [...]
By Deb Cupples on Jul 2, 2008 in 1st Amendment, Associated Press, Bamboozling, Barack Obama, Obamatopia | View Comments
Some of our Founding Fathers had a colorful way of speaking. Thomas Paine, for example, said this about the separation of church and state: "Soon after I had published the pamphlet `Common Sense’ in America I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the system of government would be followed by a revolution in [...]
By Deb Cupples on Jul 2, 2008 in 4th Amendment, Barack Obama, Keith Olbermann, MSNBC | View Comments
Monday, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann dropped his pompoms and attempted to re-reverse himself by doing a "special comment" about Barack Obama’s recent reversal on FISA (Crooks & Liars has the video and transcript). Mr. Olbermann made two major mistakes: 1) He said that Sen. Obama has a second chance to fight FISA 2) He indicated that [...]
By Deb Cupples on Jun 28, 2008 in Campaigns & Campaign Financing, Current Affairs, Obama | View Comments
The short answer is "very carefully." Last week, when Sen. Barack Obama decided to opt out of public financing (and bizarrely attempted to link his decision to our nation’s Declaration of Independence), he offered an odd statistic: "The Obama campaign highlighted Thursday the fact that 93 percent of the more than three million contributions it [...]
By Deb Cupples on Jun 21, 2008 in Campaigns & Campaign Financing, Current Affairs, Economy, FISA, NAFTA, Obama | View Comments
It’s been a painfully interesting few days for progressives who were cock positive that Barack Obama would prove to be an agent of capital-C Change –for those who truly believed that he was new and clean and would fight against corrupt, self-serving, old-style Washington politics. The biggest clue that such capital-H Hopes were not rooted [...]
By Deb Cupples on Jun 17, 2008 in Barack Obama, Current Affairs, Economy | View Comments
I get nervous when politicians lead cheers for the so-called "Free Market," because the phrase is nothing more than a euphemistic slogan that actually means "government should let big corporate players do whatever they want." That said, Naomi Klein at The Nation wrote this last week: "Barack Obama waited just three days after Hillary Clinton [...]
, the basis for the Best Motion Picture Nominee (Golden Globes) starring Brad Pitt.
, the novel by John Le Carre, a new motion picture starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth.
by 
* (Included in the 
* 
.by David Fredosso who wrote 2008's 
- You'll have access to 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, magazines, and books, as well as ultra-fast Web browsing with Amazon Silk -- faster than iPad. Full e-mail and document access and a keyboard. Fire can transmit what is on your screen onto a connected TV or monitor without an accessory. It runs Flash (iPad doesn't). 
