News and Politics // Current

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Cold Day In Hell: Fox News' Sean Hannity Apologizes To Jon Stewart

Fox News' Sean Hannity responded to Jon Stewart Wednesday evening after the Daily Show host called out the network for using... more

atomiclegion
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Shelly Goldstein sings Stupid Callous Homophobic Hateful Legislation

sung to the tune of Mary Poppins' "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" Hilarious!

Waymon_Hudson
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The WWJD Hate Crime Inciters are Getting Some Support for their DC "Protest"

I posted the rather unbelievable story last week that got a lot of you talking about Pastor Gary Cass of the Christian... more

Waymon_Hudson
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Australian special forces dog found after roaming Afghanistan for 14 months

"An Australian special forces explosives detection dog has been found after going missing in action in Afghanistan 14 months... more

Chod77
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Ex-soldier gets names of 232 Afghanistan dead tattooed onto body

A former soldier, Shaun Clark, commemorated Armistice Day's two-minute silence by getting the names of all 232 British troops... more

richjm
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Feds Move To Seize 4 U.S. Mosques, NYC Building

Federal prosecutors took steps Thursday to seize four U.S. mosques and a FifthIn what could prove to be one of the biggest... more

vincius
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Prison inmates find drugs in fruit donated by police

Inmates at a state prison discovered some illicit produce last week while unpacking a fruit crate in the facility’s kitchen,... more

TravG73
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Mike Tyson arrested for "punching photographer"

Ex-boxer Mike Tyson, a man known for his calm exterior and steely restraint, has been arrested and detained on suspicion of... more

richjm
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Gay marriage loses In Maine

I was there in the ballroom with the No On One campaign watching the results come back. I was there with friends of mine who had... more

asherp
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PETA passes out McCruelty meals to kids

Parents in Albany, New York are upset with the prominent animal rights group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment for Animals)... more

Manatee_man
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U.S Seeks To Seize Skyscraper, 4 Mosques Possible Ties To Iran

NEW YORK - Federal prosecutors Thursday took steps to seize four U.S. mosques and a Fifth Avenue skyscraper owned by a nonprofit... more

IndieArtist
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Ex-Pharmaceutical Rep. Speaks Out

CarolynGillis
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Jon Stewart Catches Sean Hannity Falsifying Footage To Make GOP Protest Appear Bigger (VIDEO)

The tea party protests continued last week, as Congresswoman Michele Bachmann held an anti-health-care-reform rally on the steps... more

slarabee
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Student Stuns Iran By Criticizing Supreme Leader To His Face

BEIRUT — An unassuming college math student has become an unlikely hero to many in Iran for daring to criticize the... more

elsonwvu
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New immigration system for the UK

Gordon Brown unveils tougher immigration rules... more

decadence_ri88
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Obama Issues New Medical Marijuana Policy

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration will not seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they conform... more

current89
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Lou Dobbs Quits CNN

CNN's Lou Dobbs is leaving the network at the end of his show Wednesday night, the controversial anchor and commentator... more

TheEmpireGuy
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Have the mega-rich achieved victory in their class-war?

How rich—and powerful—have today’s rich become? Some numbers can help tell the story. In 1974, the most affluent 1% of Americans averaged, in today’s dollars, $380,000 in income.

Now let’s fast-forward. In 2007, the most recent year with stats, households in America’s top 1% averaged $1.4 million, well over triple what top 1% households averaged back in 1974—and, remember, this tripling came after adjusting for inflation.

Americans in the bottom 90%, meanwhile, saw their average incomes increase a meager $47 a year between 1974 and 2007, not enough to foot the bill for a month’s worth of cable TV.

The bottom line: top-1% households made 12 times more income than bottom-90% households in 1974, 42 times more in 2007.

The numbers become even more striking when we go back a bit further in time and focus not on the top 1%, but on the richest of the rich, the top 400, the living symbol of wealth and power in the United States ever since America’s original Gilded Age in the late 19th century.

In 1955, our 400 highest incomes averaged $12.3 million, in today’s dollars. But the top 400 in 1955 didn’t get to enjoy all those millions. On average, after exploiting every tax loophole they could find, they actually paid over half their incomes, 51.2%, in federal income tax.

Today’s super rich are doing better, fantastically better, both before and after taxes. In 2006, the top 400 averaged an astounding $263 million each in income. These 400 financially fortunate paid, after loopholes, just 17.2% of their incomes in federal tax.

After taxes, as a group, the top 400 of 2006 had $84 billion more in their pockets than 1955’s top 400, $84 billion more they could put to work bankrolling politicians and right-wing think tanks and Swift Boat ad blitzes against progressive candidates and causes.

How could America’s super rich have so little, relatively speaking, back in 1955 and so much today? What has changed between the mid 20th century and the first decade of the 21st? We have lost, simply put, the economic checks and balances that so significantly discouraged grand concentrations of private wealth in the years right after World War II.

[more after the jump]How rich—and powerful—have today’s rich become? Some numbers can help tell the story. In 1974, the most affluent... more