Sunday, November 30, 2008

Karzai demands U.S. stop killing civilians

President Hamid Karzai has made an immediate demand of President-elect Barack Obama to prevent civilian casualties.

Kandahar province villager Abdul Jalil says he was hosting a wedding party for his niece when Taliban militants fighting U.S. forces took cover near his home. Jalil says 37 people were killed when U.S. warplanes later bombed the wedding party.

No Afghan officials could immediately confirm the number of casualties, which happened in a remote and dangerous part of Kandahar province. But Karzai referred to the incident at a news conference Wednesday held to congratulate Obama on his U.S. presidential election victory.

Karzai said he hopes the election will "bring peace to Afghanistan, life to Afghanistan and prosperity to the Afghan people and the rest of the world." He applauded America for its "courage" in electing Obama.

But he also used the occasion to immediately press Obama to find a way to prevent civilians casualties in operations by foreign forces. He then said airstrikes had caused deaths in the Shah Wali Kot district of Kandahar province.

"Our demand is that there will be no civilian casualties in Afghanistan. We cannot win the fight against terrorism with airstrikes," Karzai said. "This is my first demand of the new president of the United States - to put an end to civilian casualties."

The U.S. military says it is investigating the reports but a spokesman said "if innocent people were killed in this operation, we apologize and express our condolences."

The alleged airstrikes come only three months after the Afghan government found that a U.S. operation killed some 90 civilians in western Afghanistan. A U.S. report said 33 civilians died in that attack.

Friday, November 21, 2008

new cars being warehoused

Gleaming new Mercedes cars roll one by one out of a huge container ship here and onto a pier. Ordinarily the cars would be loaded on trucks within hours, destined for dealerships around the country. But these are not ordinary times.

For now, the port itself is the destination. Unwelcome by dealers and buyers, thousands of cars worth tens of millions of dollars are being warehoused on increasingly crowded port property.

[via chucks_angels]

Friday, November 14, 2008

Obama's challenge

Obama will soon face the problem of beginning to disappoint people all over the world, a problem built into his job.

... his Achilles' heel, as it was for Bush and for many presidents, will be foreign policy. He has made what appear to be three guarantees. First, he will withdraw from Iraq. Second, he will focus on Afghanistan. Third, he will oppose Russian expansionism. To deliver on the first promise, he must deal with the Iranians. To deliver on the second, he must deal with the Taliban. To deliver on the third, he must deal with the Europeans.

[2/18/09 -- see also The New President and the Global Landscape]

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Barack Obama elected President of the United States of America

Barack Obama, a 47-year-old first-term senator from Illinois, shattered more than 200 years of history Tuesday night by winning election as the first African-American president of the United States.

"The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America -- I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you -- we as a people will get there," Obama said in Chicago, Illinois.

Obama said he was looking forward to working with Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin "to renew this nation's promise in the months ahead."

McCain on Tuesday urged all Americans to join him in congratulating Sen. Barack Obama on his projected victory in the presidential election.

"I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face," McCain said before his supporters in Phoenix, Arizona.

McCain called Obama to congratulate him, Obama's campaign said.

Obama thanked McCain for his graciousness and said he had waged a tough race.

President Bush also called Obama to congratulate him.

Bush told Obama he was about to begin one of the great journeys of his life, and invited him to visit the White House as soon as it could be arranged, according to White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

With his projected win, Obama will become the nation's 44th president and its first African-American leader.

Saturday, November 01, 2008

How many don't pay income taxes?

I've seen a number of figures of the percentage of Americans who don't pay income taxes. Like in the mid-40s say the Republicans.

Googling brought this article from The Tax Foundation

During 2006, Tax Foundation economists estimate that roughly 43.4 million tax returns, representing 91 million individuals, will face a zero or negative tax liability. That's out of a total of 136 million federal tax returns that will be filed. Adding to this figure the 15 million households and individuals who file no tax return at all, roughly 121 million Americans—or 41 percent of the U.S. population—will be completely outside the federal income tax system in 2006.1 This total includes those who pay no tax, and those who pay some tax upfront and are later refunded the full amount of the tax paid or more.

And this article from Wikipedia

According to a 2007 report by the Statistics of Income division of the Internal Revenue Service,[5] in 2006 the Internal Revenue Service received 134,372,678 individual income tax returns, of which 90,593,081 (67.42%) showed that they paid or owed federal income tax for 2005. That is, 32.58% of those Americans who filed income tax returns did not owe any federal income tax at all for 2005.

However, the federal income tax is only one of several taxes Americans pay. Other taxes, like excise taxes, sales taxes, and especially the payroll tax (a.k.a. FICA), are regressive — that is, the poor pay them at a higher rate relative to their income than do the non-poor. Just because somebody does not pay any federal income tax does not mean that they are part of a “non-taxpaying class,” or even that they pay a smaller percentage of their income in taxes than someone who does pay federal income tax.

Who are these lucky duckies? They are the beneficiaries of tax policies that have expanded the personal exemption and standard deduction and targeted certain voter groups by introducing a welter of tax credits for things like child care and education. When these escape hatches are figured against income, the result is either a zero liability or a liability that represents a tiny percentage of income.

* * *

Didn't realize that there were so many "poor" people in this country. So the Republican solution is to give more money to the rich corporations so they can create more jobs resulting in less poor people. This is trickle-down economics. The question is whether the corporations will actually create more jobs or keep the money and become more rich. Probably both.

The alternative is to continue these "handouts" to the economically challenged which the conservatives say would reduce the incentive to work harder to get out of their situation.

FactCheck's Whoppers of 2008

The last five weeks have brought so many ads we feel like we're drinking from a fire hose – and we'll bet you're pretty saturated, too.

Since our first "Whoppers of 2008" piece, we've seen some of the same themes repeated. McCain's campaign doesn't tire of distorting Obama's tax plan, it seems, and in the process has whipped up at least 15 minutes of fame for sudden star Joe the Plumber. Obama continues trying to pull seniors into his camp by making deceptive claims about what McCain would do to Social Security, and he has new distortions about his opponent's plans for Medicare.

And there are some fresh deceptions gobbling up airtime, including false depictions of McCain's position on stem cell research, Obama's connections to former Weatherman Bill Ayers and the community group ACORN, and both candidates' health care plans. Then there's a new parlor game, pin-the-blame-on-the-candidate for the financial crisis that has gripped the country.

For more on these and other mendacities and misrepresentations we've found recently, please read on