Well…one of the funny things that came out of the repub debate from a couple of days ago falls under the heading of “can Mitt be this stupid” and made me laugh like crazy. When ole Mitt was spouting the usual talking points of repealing “Obamacare”, he made mention of a comparison that the left has been making for decades now…that every other industrialized country in the world pays less for healthcare than the US does…and he attributed the extra cost to the government being involved. But, what he fails to realize is that every other country that he noted has some form of a single-payer system that the government runs. So, now, Mitt…are you for or against a single-payer system? Or are you going to be against it today and for it tomorrow? Or, are you saying that the lie you and your repub cronies are spouting is just a cynical ploy to ensure that the insurance companies can continue to steal from the country?
Which is it, Mitt? Or,is it both…or is it neither? And, what will it be tomorrow?
Category Archives: Politics
Have to talk about the election…
Well…finally some good news for the country with the defeat of the radical right wing agenda in both Mississippi and in Ohio…in Mississippi…the people came to their senses and stopped the nonsense of “personhood” which would have set the cause of women’s rights back to the bad old 60′s….one of the right’s biggest goals…to repeal or continue to chip away at reproductive rights that women have had to fight with their lives for…in Ohio, the Koch brothers attack on organized labor and the middle class was soundly defeated by the overturning of the draconian law that the extreme right jammed through the legislature against the will of the people. It’s one of those things that the right just doesn’t get…that just because they win an election, it doesn’t mean they can only govern for their own supporters and the rich and corporations who bought them the election. With the advent of the “Occupy” movement and these election results…there may be a glimmer of hope that the 99% of us that can’t buy elections may be able to take our country back….I hope so anyway…
308 days and counting…
Well…just a short one for now…kind of a reminder of what the repubs think is important….they make quick work of the “In god we trust” resolution and other nonsense that has no meaning to ordinary citizens…like the two bills in the house and one in the senate that would instill “personhood” on a fertilized egg and restrict women’s rights to control their own bodies…but not one bill to create jobs or to help the middle class out of the crises that was created by their cronies..so, this may turn into a daily thing…but that would be cheating so I may just include this count up in the morning one….let’s say this together…it has been 308 days since the repubs have taken control of the house of representatives…and not one bill to help the un and underemployed here…geez….
More nonsense from the republicans here in Michigan…
Well…I think most of you should be glad that you don’t live here in Michigan with the nonsense that is going on in the repub controlled senate….in case you haven’t heard…a couple of repub senators inserted language into an anti-bullying law here that would allow bullying if it was a result of “a deeply held religious conviction”…yep, you heard it right…in a bone thrown to the religious conservatives here, these two idiots gutted the anti-bullying law that had support on both sides of the aisle just to make sure they continue to have the support of the tea party crowd…never mind the fact that religion should have nothing to with any law here in the US, these are the same people that introduced legislation preventing Sharia law from being used as the basis for any legislation here in the US…but, I guess it’s okay to have religious law if it is Christian law…again, nonsense and hypocrisy from the repubs here and across the country….
A placeholder on ole Herm and the repubs
Well…thought I’d come back and do this one up right but the outrage I felt last night has mostly dissipated…but not completely…I think the theme was something like this…over the past few decades, going all the way back to Nixon, the repubs have repeatedly shown their disdain for the law and have felt they only have to follow the ones they agree with…Nixon felt that he was above the law (I think his quote was “if the president does it, it’s not against the law”) during Watergate and this theme tracked through the signing statements of ole GW that asserted that he would only enforce laws that he agreed with. Now, we have the right rolling out the big guns to attack the women who have come forward to reveal ole Herm’s reprehensible behavior toward women. I find it funny that the “law and order” party abandons the law as soon as someone asks them to follow it….and that the repub controlled congress spent millions and millions of dollars investigating Clinton for exactly the same sort of allegations….can the right get any more hypocritical?
The one reason that people should be for unions…
Well…I know I said that I wasn’t going to do a political one today but this little thing popped into my head and I had to comment on it…to all of you out there that are in the working class and you are against unions, there is only one reason that you need to be for unions….they force companies to share the bounty of profits with everyone, with the hard workers that make the profits possible, not just the executive officers of the company. One of the reasons for the increasing disparity of income in this country is the decline of union membership over the past thirty years; form 25% down to the paltry 7% we have now.And, one of the worst offenders here in the US is Walmart who viciously opposes unionization of it’s North American workforce but allows it in every other country…well, not allows it but many other countries force them to allow their workers to unionize…or they are not allowed to be in those countries…not a bad idea for here, either…so, you tea partiers that have it in for unions and their members, it is you that is helping these thieves steal what is rightfully yours…..how does that feel you idiots?…..geez….
Still an “Occupy” supporter……
Well…from the start, I have been a supporter of the “Occupy” movement but I am starting to see some things I don’t really like…in Oakland yesterday there were some idiots who thought it would be a good idea to smash windows and do other acts of vandalism and I think it will hurt the movement in the long run if these folks are allowed to continue this lawlessness. It is a first amendment right to gather and protest, but it is just criminal behavior to allow these people to continue this nonsense. I don’t really place the blame on the “Occupy” organizers, since with any movement you get the outlier idiots that take it too far, but if they want to be taken seriously, some plan to find and remove these people should at least be in the works. I think we need to remember the right wing tricks of the sixties where people that were not members of the protests were sent in by the repubs to act badly and give the right excuses that could then be used to tar the whole movement. So, I would counsel vigilance at this point…to keep an eye out for this kind of shenanigan and to end it quickly when it happens….
The uncertainty boogeyman…
Well…I am getting a little tired of the…no, a lot tired of the talking point of the right that it is the uncertainty of the implementation of the healthcare law and other federal regulations that is keeping the economy from taking off. These assumptions are just a lot of hooey and speculation on the part of the right’s pundits and alleged experts…nothing more than a bunch of guesses that have no basis in history or fact. There is not one instance in the history of the American (or any other) economy that this type uncertainty has had anything to do with growth or job creation…in the face of slack demand that is rampant in our economy and the overcapacity that still exists, along with the productivity increases that have more than kept pace with that tepid growth….there is no reason for any business to hire anyone. But, the right is still using the lie of uncertainty to drive what is their main agenda…to remove any checks and balances and return us to the robber baron days of the early 20th century..or the deregulated financial days of the early 21st. This is just utter nonsense and ultimately highlights the lack of economic honesty in their arguments…it is all about demand…in this same environment of uncertainty, do you think that businesses wouldn’t hire if there were increased demand for their products or services? Geez….
More republican nonsense…
Well…I’ll bet you’re getting tired of my pointing out the nonsense that comes daily from the repubs, but someone has to do it and I really, really wanted to point this one out since it is so representative of the contempt the repubs have for the unemployed in this country. Instead of working on a real jobs bill that will help put people back to work, (and let’s not confuse the tax cut nonsense they are pushing for a jobs bill), the repubs in the house are going to waste the better part of a day this week on a resolution that will affirm that the “official” motto of this country is “In god we trust”. Yep, folks, I’m not making this up…in this one fell swoop, and in a bow to their evangelical base, these idiots are telling the 20% of us non-believers that there is no place for us here unless we allow the majority to force this bit of nonsense on us. When are we, as a country, going to stop voting for these do nothings whose only purpose in life is to make sure that the economy stays in the tank so Obama can’t get credit for it. And now, in an article that I just read….none of the senate repubs are going to vote for necessary infrastructure spending since it will be paid for by a tax of .7% on those whose incomes are over a million dollars a year. So, the rest of the nation is left to suffer crumbling roads, bridges, and schools just so the repubs can protect the unconscionable wealth of the 1%. I think their time is gonna come…to quote Led Zeppelin…geez….
The republicans are even ignoring business…
Well…this is going to be a shorty since I’m over my quota for the month and really don’t have a lot to say today…but, I did want to get to one thing…all of the repub candidates jobs plan consist of more and more of the same…tax cuts for business and the rich hoping that the largess heaped upon them will “trickle down” and create jobs; never mind that tax cuts have never created one job when there is no demand for the goods or services that job will create. Even business leaders are saying that it is not the tax burden that is holding back the economy but it is the lack of demand that comes from the falling real wages of everyone but the rich….on this point, there is plenty of blame to go around and the question I have for these same business leaders is “why would you expect rising demand when you keep cutting the real wages and benefits of your workers by outsourcing and not sharing the rise in productivity with your workers?” The real problem here is who goes first? People won’t start to spend again until they are comfortable that their rising wages will make it feasible to buy things again and business won’t raise wages or hire until demand is rising. So, as always, we’re stuck in a “Catch 22″ without any visionary person or company that will make the leap of faith necessary to break the gridlock…and on it goes….