Well….there have been some things happening in Wisconsin that I wanted to comment on today starting with the new polls that are out today showing that the likely challenger to ole Walker is leading in the polls…a small lead to be sure, but still in a lead in spite of the huge amount of outside money that has come into the race. Over the past couple of weeks ole Scott’s billionaire buddies, starting with the Koch brothers, have spent over 13 million dollars trying to keep this idiot in office and all it’s done is to make his approval ratings continue their downward slide. This is one thing that I find so repugnant about the big money that supports this guy and other repubs like him across the country…they will spend countless millions trying to influence the vote to install their radical right-wing agenda…but when it comes to paying their fair share of taxes to allow us to start to repair our infrastructure and educate our children, they are nowhere to be seen. So, this is one to watch over the next month, to see if we can start to take back democracy from the people who think that those who work for a living are just numbers on a balance sheet…not people that are just trying to live and raise their families in the face of this onslaught of the rich…geez….
Category Archives: Politics
The new do-nothing republicans…
Well….it has been an interesting time since the repubs took control of the House in 2010 and this congress is shaping up to be one of the most do-nothing congresses in the history of the country. Where are the jobs bills that will help put people back to work? Where are the infrastructure projects that will start to repair our crumbling country? Where are the forward thinking ideas that will help us compete in the future economy? The answer is nowhere…since it would go against the repubs stated goal of tearing down the government that is so “intrusive”…do they really believe that the private sector will take up the slack and build and repair the bridges, roads, and rural high speed internet that the country needs to prosper? This is the first time in my long life that I see this country going backward led by a party that, when you really take a long look, wants the country to fail for purely political gain and can’t see past party to do what’s right for all of us, not just their large donors. Maybe it’s a good thing that the House is not doing anything since the ideas they bring to the table are so far out of the mainstream that they would be laughable if the press would just say so….let’s remember that the repubs are the party of can’t do, who would like nothing better than to use policy to cement our status as an also-ran country while they profess to protect traditional values…the traditional values of the US are innovation, leadership, and inclusiveness…just the opposite of what the modern repub party stands for…geez….
Maybe the tide is turning….
Well…it has been a while since I really had something to say about politics and you might say I’ve never had anything to say about it but I have to disagree….there was an interesting article last week in the WAPO by Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein that elaborated on what I have been saying for a couple of years now…that there is not any equivalence between the radicalism on the right and left…..even though the media, in some misguided paen to fairness, has been treating them as the same; that the dems are as responsible for the poisonous politics that now rule in Washington when it is just not true….in instance after instance, it has been the right who has held the country hostage to their radical, crazy worldview…I think one of my favorite passages in the article goes like this “the republicans are unmoved by the conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science…” sounds like willful ignorance to me, where faith trumps facts and political gain is placed above all else…even the good of the country. So, we may be seeing the first cracks in the wall of lies that the right has used to dupe the middle class into voting for them…my fear is that they have done such a good job demonizing “facts” that we may already be lost….geez….
Just a couple of things…
Well…I did have a couple of comments to make and wanted to make them before I forget so here goes…there was an interesting article in the WAPO today that makes the clear and evident point that the dysfunction in Washington today is the repubs fault and the false equivalence that the right tries to make that the left is just as responsible is laid to rest by a clear argument…one that I have made here more than a year ago…but it is nice when your ideas get confirmed by other writers….you should go there and read it…I think they even do a better job that I have…the next thing I wanted to say is about the dustup that Paul Ryan had with the Catholic bishops and others in the Catholic church when he claimed that his proposed draconian cuts to the social safety net fit with Catholic teachings…at least the way he sees it….but the bishops landed on him with two feet and in no uncertain terms told him he was dead wrong…that giving tax cuts to the rich and corporations and paying for them by cutting every program that doesn’t benefit the rich is not what the Bible teaches…but, as the overly self assure repubs do, ole Paul kept up his attacks saying that he was a better judge of the teachings of the church on social justice than the bishops are….what a huge load of hubris from this idiot….geez….
Eric Cantor’s math….
Well….read an interesting article in the post this morning about the small business tax cut that ole Eric is pushing as a way to create jobs and there is some math that I’d like to point out that makes the proposal just way too crazy to be taken seriously….the cost to the deficit of the cut would be almost 40 billion dollars a year…yep, that’s billion with a b….and it would create around 100K jobs in total…or even maybe up to 180K but I like to err on the low side….so, let’s divide the 40 billion by 100,000…and the math says that each one of these jobs would cost $400,000 dollars…so if each job costs $400K in avoided taxes, and the real cost to the small businesses is around $100K including pay and healthcare etc., that means that each business that adds even one job will make a profit of almost $300K per job added (and $300K into the owners pocket and another transfer of wealth to the 1%)….just another case of business welfare that the repubs are so fond of while tearing down the safety net for individuals. When are we, as a country, going to say enough of this nonsense? Geez…
I told you so….about Europe….
Well..in an eye opening set of events that have happened over the past quarter have proven Keynes and me right on the failure of the austerity programs in Europe to lead to economic growth. I do want to say “I told you so” just because Keynes predicted that cutting spending during a recession would lead to lower growth, but also because the repubs here in the US are advocating exactly the same policies here…which will lead to exactly the same results that we now see in Europe…that the economies like Spain and England, who have made some of the largest cuts, are falling back into the first double dip recession in 40 years. New predictions that I read somewhere today (it may have been in the Guardian or the Post) put the predictions of European growth with the austerity programs in place at -.3% to flat or no growth in comparison to the US’s predicted growth of 1.8 to 2.9%. This just shows the the general Keynesian rule of running deficits while in a recession or a slow growth period is absolutely necessary to jump start the economy and these can be paid for when the economy gets to sustainable growth. I just wish the repubs would open their econ 101 textbooks and read a little…if they can read, that is…geez….
More Republican nonsense here in Michigan…
Well….I’ve started to feel a little better so I thought I’d get at one that I have been thinking about for a few days…since the takeover of our government by the repubs here, the preponderance of laws that have been enacted by the legislature have been for immediate effect, which takes a 2/3 majority in the House…but, the repubs that are running things aren’t even taking the votes, they are just assuming that they have the votes for immediate effect but they don’t…the counts done by many news organizations along with the dem minority show that, in over 90% of the cases, they didn’t have the votes but put the laws in effect anyway. Now, lawsuits filed by the dems are being considered by the appeals courts here and the repubs are howling that it is activist judges that are usurping their authority. Authority for what, to break the law? The Michigan Constitution is clear on this point and the repubs are violating the constitution….but, what do you expect? These guys wrap themselves in the constitution until it becomes inconvenient and puts a brake on their radical, right-wing agenda…what happened to true conservatives that put tradition and the rule of law ahead of party and personal gain? This is what we have to look forward to if the repubs take the White House….geez….
Here comes the Romney flip, flops, and spins…
Well…not sure if this is going to be short or not since I always do these off the top of my head…and no, it doesn’t hurt…not really….the thing I wanted to talk about his morning is the immediate spin that ole Mitt put on his immigration stands since he became the presumptive nominee for the repubs….during the primary campaign, ole Mitt was adamant that there would be no pathway to citizenship for any illegal immigrants in this country, going so far as to call all of them criminals and proposing they all be rounded up and sent back to Mexico…or wherever they come from….but now, he trots out Marco Rubio and says that he will consider a form of the dream act if he becomes president that would allow illegals to stay here if they meet some requirements for citizenship that he has not defined yet…can’t anyone else see this as just and egregious case of pandering to a group that he needs to get elected? I know…big surprise that a politician is pandering to any group…but, this is just the latest in ole Mitt’s compulsion to say anything to anybody to get votes…what the heck does he really believe? Good luck with this change Mitt…you may gain a little with Hispanics, but your base is going to run for the hills…and you deserve it…geez….
More Wisconsin shenanigans…or so I thought…
Well…I was all prepared to work up a bunch of outrage today after reading an article about the recall election in Wisconsin and how the repubs there are running ‘fake” Dems in the primary to try to confuse voters and dilute the vote….and this is something to be outraged about….but the rest of what is going on; the urging of repubs to vote for the weakest candidate in the open primary to give Walker the best chance to retain the governor’s chair is just normal politics that goes on every day…and for me to be outraged about something that I have participated in here in Michigan, would be the height of hypocrisy…something that you know I really hate. So, I’ll save the outrage for things that are egregious and nefarious….don’t you just love that word?
Mitt Romney is still an idiot…or still a liar…you choose….
Well…got back into reading the papers today before I go out on the bike and I think that may be a good combo since the quiet time on the bike gives me time to digest what I’ve read and partially write some of these…and there was an interesting article in the WAPO this morning about the Romney campaign taking Obama to task for what they say is the collapse of small business creation on his watch citing a report that came out in the past few days…the only catch is that the authors of the report came back to rebut the claims of the geniuses on ole Mitt’s staff saying that they used the numbers wrong and interpreted it wrong…but, that didn’t stop ole Mitt’s guys from trying to tell the authors that they were wrong…this coming from the same team of idiots that gave us the financial meltdown, deregulation, and almost drove us into a depression. In case you didn’t know, almost the entire GW Bush economic team has moved en masse over to run ole Mitt’s campaign…so, if you loved the meltdown, the continued concentration of wealth, and the gutting of the middle class, you’ll love these guys…because what they propose for Romney is just more of the same of that crap. So, that leaves us with the title…what ole Mitt does not seem to understand is how most small businesses are created…with personal credit, home equity, and borrowing from banks, family, and friends….all avenues that have disappeared with the meltdown…but, ole Mitt just doesn’t get that…he thinks that everyone can just go to their account in the Cayman’s and get the money to start a business…and when the supposed “CEO” of America doesn’t understand that, it calls into question whether he understands anything about the economy…or, he’s just being the cynical liar that he has been throughout the campaign…neither of which qualifies him to be president.