Sad That Sen. Snowe Is Leaving

It's sad that Sen. Olympia Snowe is leaving the Senate.  She has been a moderate, responsible voice there.  It's worse that she cited the worsening political stalemate as a reason for her leaving.  It's a sign of America's decline as a great nation.  She's leaving uneducated, hateful, unwashed rabble  behind in the Senate, which once used to call itself the world's greatest deliberative body.  Now it's a cesspool.  Poor America!

Obama Tax Cuts

Obama's proposal to cut the corporate income tax rate to 28% is just another present for the richest 1%. It will help more than the 1%, but most of the beneficiaries will be relatively rich, and will probably benefit more than the regular people will from their payroll tax cut. It's arguable that that the corporate rate cut will provide needed stimulus, but the rich are already pretty well stimulated.

One reason interest rates are so low is that rich have plenty of money are are not investing. Thus relatively few people are borrowing to start businesses, etc. The current wisdom is that banks are not lending, but mainly that means not lending to regular people. The rich can get loans; they just don't need or want them.

Obama's going to help them out anyway, because they will give him money if he does. Of course, they will end up making a lot more money than they contribute to his campaign, but he'll get his cut.

Syria Is Another Religious War

The article in today's New York Times and Tom Friedman's column of several days ago make it clear that Syria is yet another religious war between the Sunni and Shiite Muslim sects.  Syrian President Assad's Alawite sect is Shiite, a minority in Syria; most of the protesters are Sunni, who are the (oppressed) majority.  So the Shiite Iranians are going to help Assad, and the neighboring Sunnis are going to help the protesting rebels.  The NYT says that the Iraqi Sunnis, who used to rule Iraq, until they were overthrown by the US invasion, now support their rebelling colleagues in Syria.

In the Iraq war, the US overthrew the Sunni government and set up a Shiite government that is best friends with Iran.  Now, the Republicans, who defeated Iran's worst enemy, Saddam Hussein, want to send in American troops to die overthrowing the Iranian government that was strengthened by the US invasion of Iraq.  I guess the important thing is that the American government wants to foment sectarian warfare in the Middle East.  It may well be coming next in Egypt.