Category Archives: Politics

Politics

Here’s the reason…

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Well…there has been idea gestating in my head over the past couple of days that is a response to the columnists here in Michigan who are decrying the pushback to gov Snyders budget proposals as just more of the same special interest excesses that have put us in this dire budget crises. But, in this case, I think most of the pundits have it wrong….where workers have done their part over the past twenty years to help make the economy viable by giving back on wages and benefits with the promise of those givebacks being temporary, they have now awoken to the true fact that their sacrifice was just a part of a larger con game being run on them by business and repubs. I also feel that it is past time for them to see that the ‘shared sacrifice” that is espoused by Snyder is a one-sided bargain where business gets everything they want in tax breaks and the restriction of workers rights and the rest of us pay for it. Why should the workers and retirees of this state believe anything these guys say when they have been lied to for the last 20 years?

I contend that this pushback is a logical response to the lies and rigging of the economy that the repubs have foisted on us; and is not equivalent to the naked greed that drives business and their partner cons…the repubs…geez…

Politics

More repub shenanigans…

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Well….it has been a revealing week both here in Michigan and in Wisconsin where the true colors of these thugs have come to light…in Wisconsin, where the repubs have been screaming about the dire fiscal effects that continuing to bargain with the unions has for the state, have used a lying, cheating, manuever to get the union busting bill passed. The only way that they could do it was to separate the two portions of the bill, taking the budget portion of the bill and making it separate….but the only way they could do that was to state that the union bashing part had no fiscal effect on the budget. So, Gov Walker, when were you lying? Were you lying when you said the state would go broke without killing the unions or when you said the union busting bill would have no effect on the finances of the state. These liars will do or say anything to push their far-right agenda no matter what the people of Wisconsin want…I hope you and your thugs like being elected for one term…that’s all you are going to get.

The same kind of lying and manipulating is going on here in Michigan by the repubs that control the government here. To ensure that there will be no voice of the people on the giveaways to business and tax increases on everyone else, the repubs have used a shenanigan that placed a 100 dollar appropriation in the bill which, by Michigan law, takes away the right for the voters of Michigan to vote on the direction of our state and rein in these liars. We are seeing the “nerd” that ran on transparency in government and decried the supposed back room deals that they tried to pin on gov Granholm do even worse; a concerted effort to attack working people and retirees using barely ethical political tactics. What are you afraid of gov Snyder? That once the people see you as just another thief that lied to the electorate to shield your true objective, like Wisconsin, that you will be gone after one term? You should be ashamed…geez….

Politics

Here come the musings….

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Well….was almost worked up into an outrage by ole Nolan in the News this morning but he really has nothing new to say except…nope, nothing new to say, just more of his same old schtick…greedy unions, put upon corporations, and shared sacrifice that is shared by everyone but the rich and those same corporations….I wonder how much he gets paid by those folks to keep spouting that nonsense? It must be really easy to write a column when you are given the talking points every morning…..and no, no one gives me talking points, although, I am repetitive at times and that’s why I’m not going to counterpunch today but just talk about a few things I see going on that need comment. I find it funny that rep King from New York would be holding hearings on Islamic radicalism in the congress right now…especially since he was a huge supporter of terrorist groups that funneled money and guns to the Irish Republican Army that was responsible for thousands of innocent people dying in northern Ireland. I guess it’s okay to support terrorism if it is a group you agree with but not if it is a group you can score political points demonizing. Typical repub thug….

Then, we had Michael Barone from the same right wing rag going after unions again (that’s right, it’s Thursday, attack unions day) and making the assertion that private sector companies that don’t have unions have been successful and their unionized counterparts have failed. Well, yeah, Mike, of course a business that can discard workers, offshore jobs, treat their workers like crap, and buy favorable legislation are going to thrive in your desired business climate….but the contention that unionized companies don’t thrive by sharing with their workers discounts the profits by all of the automobile companies over the last year. I can’t wait until the News gets into financial trouble and the first people to go are their older, more highly compensated columnists…and there won’t be a damn thing ole Mike and his ilk will be able to do about it….

Okay, there was some counterpunching here….but you know how it works here…I never know what I’m going to write until I get doing it….and that’s the fun….I hope for you and me….

Politics

Number 750…..

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Well…this one is kind of a milestone for me and this post…it marks number 750 and I don’t know if I should use it for musings on the past almost year of writing this thing or to go off on gov Snyder again…I am going to have to comment on him and the recent revelations of the detail of his budget, and I do want to comment on what I think the endgame is. So, I’m a little confused right now, but not in a musing mood so I guess I’ll take on Mr. Snyder…again.

If you’ve read anything of the politics here in Michigan, there is a battle going on with the makeup of the next budget with the repubs wanting to give unnecessary tax cuts to business paid for by increases in taxes on everyone else. This, in itself, is enough to show that the repubs don’t give a damn about you and me, but I think there is even a more insidious plan contained in this legislation; one that is being worked this minute in the guise of deficit reduction but whose ultimate aim is to destroy organized labor. I talked briefly about this last week, but the epiphany didn’t come until I was reading about the reductions in revenue sharing to cities and townships that is also included in this bill, and I made the connection to the new bill that would allow to governor to appoint “overseers” to take over municipalities that are in financial distress. Included in this legislation is the ability of the overseers to void union contracts and unilaterally prevent the union members from having any voice. Now…does anyone else see the conflict of interest here with having the governor controlling whether the municipalities end up in financial distress and then being able to force the undemocratic goals of the repub party on everyone? I have had enough of the repubs crying socialism whenever the dems want to do something that will help the middle class only to watch them do so much worse in governing by unelected and incompetent, faith based fiat. Geez…..

Politics

Why do the repubs always have to rig the system?

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Well…I know I’ve talked about the way that the repubs in Wisconsin and other midwestern states are trying to rig the system by taking away union’s rights to collectively bargain, but there is an even more egregious attempt at rigging taking place in states that have large college populations. In those states, the newly elected repub governors are changing voting rules that will effectively take away the right to vote from any college student that does not own property in that state, or whose parents don’t own property in that state. All of this is being done under the fake old problems that the repubs love to use when they lose elections: voter fraud. You and I both know the real reason behind these moves is to limit the voting of a population that normally does not vote for repub candidates, and it has been tried in many other guises to try to limit the voting of minorities who also don’t normally vote for repubs. Should we expect anything different from a party whose members have used a rigged system in education, economics, and politics to get everything they have?

When are we going to wake up and see these thugs for what they are, the most undemocratic party that has ever infested our political landscape and who will stop at nothing to cling to the last vestiges of power and privilege they now hold. Geez….

Politics

An inconvenient truth…

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Well…yeah, I know, I stole that from Al Gore but it does describe the situation here in Michigan where the misguided repubs are betting the future of job growth on tax cuts for business while raising taxes on everyone else. This idea came from a couple of columns I read this morning and caused some of the econ 101 memories to come back to the top of my head. One of the articles was by Brian O’Connor in the Detroit News…yeah, I know, with an article going against the repubs line, where is he going to go to work next? The article dealt with the repubs claim that tax cuts for business will cause the cost of labor to decrease so business will hire more people, and he used the example of a conversation with the owner of one his favorite pizza places; when asked the question, the owner wanted to know what corporation would be buying the extra pizzas he needs to sell to justify hiring new employees and expanding his business. With tax increases on everyone else, the first thing to go in discretionary spending is eating out, and without an increase in demand for his pizzas, no amount of tax cuts will make him hire even one more person.

This points to the inconvenient truth that the repubs don’t want anyone to think about…with tax cuts for business and increases for everyone else, demand is going to fall and no business is going to hire in the face of decreasing demand….gov Snyder might have made millions selling off Gateway, but he and his administration are acting like the truths of economics can be trumped by belief….a recipe for disaster for our state and country….geez…

Politics

A couple of funny things…

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Well…I just had to comment on the article by Rick Haglund in the GR Press this morning that supports my assertion (as do the numbers behind it) that tax cuts for business and for high income individuals do nothing to create jobs. But, as you know, I take it farther than that by following the money….that these tax cuts go directly to the bonuses of the ceos and board members and are paid by you and me by the increases in our taxes. The figures show that the tax burden for business has been falling for years in Michigan so where are the jobs? As I’ve said before, these tax cuts are ideology driven, not reality based as any economic policy should be.

The second thing I wanted to talk about this morning is the slap in the face to the repubs that came from the health insurance industry over the past couple of days. If you’ve been reading the news lately, you have seen that health insurance premiums have been skyrocketing over the past few months and the repubs have been trying to pin this cost increase on the healthcare law but the repubs had their legs cut out from under them when the industry tied the increases to increases in the cost of care instead. They went further to say that the increases would have been worse without the law. How do you feel about your buddies in the industry now repubs? So, any time you hear a repub talking about “Obamacare” and how it has increased costs, chalk it up to another lie from the liars…should we start doing a lie count everyday? Nope…the numbers would overwhelm me….

One last thing…when you hear any repubs talking about job growth and that cutting spending will create jobs…remember that the cuts they have proposed on the federal level have been projected to cost the country almost a million jobs in the first year….and that doesn’t take into account that these cuts are all politically motivated…do you see any cuts in the subsidies for business? Nope, you didn’t since they are not there….just cuts to the things that benefit the poor and middle class…can’t wait for 2012 to get here and we can send these idiots back to Fox news……geez…

Politics

One last one for the day…

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Well…just needed to comment on one last thing for today….I’ll try to be a little more calm about this one since the absurdity of it makes me laugh….after the announcement this week that the justice department will stop wasting money and defending the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, the tanned one (John Boehner), has stated that the House will now take it upon itself to defend the act in court. He goes on to state that it is unconstitutional for the executive branch to make that decision. Really, John? the last I checked justice department is part of the executive branch and choosing to not enforce discriminatory laws has a long history in the US. In this time of record deficits caused by tax cuts for the rich and the worst recession in a hundred years, these idiots will spend yours and my money on this folly instead of focusing on getting the economy moving again. But, did you expect any different? The repubs only govern for their base and don’t care that the majority of Americans want to move forward away from this divisive issue….geez….

Politics

Let’s remember a few things….

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Well…after reading all week of the deficits that plague both state and the federal government and the efforts to cut spending to match the depressed tax revenues caused by the recession, I find one part of the puzzle missing…the direct cause of most of the deficits. It’s one that the repubs don’t want to talk about anymore: the Bush-era tax cuts for the rich. Of the 1.4 trillion dollar federal deficit, 1 trillion of that is caused by the extension of the tax cuts for the rich and if Obama and the dems had some guts, they would have said no to that compromise that put us on the path of “starve the beast” that the repubs have been preaching forever.

This little tidbit comes from a front page article in the GR Press the other day where the Lt gov here in Michigan defended the budget proposals that give tax cuts to corporations by raising taxes on the poor and retired by saying “forget the present”…and put your belief in some vague future where tax cuts are supposed to spur business; never mind that they never have…never in history. What the problem with these guys is that they are saying trust us, trust that we know what we are doing and our budget process is not driven by ideology and lies. Well…Mr. Calley…the one thing that we are learning here in Michigan and across the country is that the repubs can’t be trusted…their entire reason for being is to transfer wealth from the middle class to corporations and the rich and to shred what little is left of the social safety net. What I want to ask you and your cronies is: “How much is enough?” Companies in the US have the highest retained profits in history…and they are not creating any jobs. So you propose to throw more money at them and say “pretty please, create some jobs”…you know where that extra money is going to go…right into the bonuses of the ceo’s…and you want the poor and retired to pay them? Geez….

Politics

More from the repub thugs in Wisconsin…

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Well…if you thought you’d heard it all from the crazy repub thugs in Wisconsin, yesterday brought us a level of crazy that even takes my breath away….and shatters their facade that they care about the constitution at all. The gist of yesterday’s outrage is that the repub controlled congress there is planning to pass a law that make it illegal for the dems that have fled the state to prevent the crippling of unions to stay away…yep, you’ve heard it right, the repub thugs there want to send the Wisconsin police across state lines to physically abduct the dem senators and force them by gunpoint, if necessary, to go back to Wisconsin and vote on the bill that will take away people’s right to collectively bargain. There are so many ways that this is unconstitutional that my jaw drops when I even think of it. What about the fourth amendment? These repub thugs now look like the leaders of any corrupt third world country that doesn’t get their way and are not above using force to change it. This idiot Walker should be recalled by the people of Wisconsin…I’m sure they didn’t vote for government by gunpoint…geez…

Okay…just read the latest in thuggery from the governor…he has threatened to lay off 1,500 workers if the dems don’t come back to the state….is this Wisconsin or Libya? Keep doubling down idiot….

I have to comment on the “elections have consequences crowd” that is casting the protest there as just sour grapes from the dems…I would agree with that if the repubs had not lied and covered up their real agenda, not to reveal it until after the electorate was duped into voting for them…the bait and switch that I talked about yesterday….