Category Archives: Politics

Politics

The results are in…

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Well…this one may be long and convoluted but I really wanted to get to the Michigan budget crisis now that there are real numbers to be put with the plans that were presented by Gov. Snyder…..I’m not going to bore you with listing specifics because those numbers are readily available elsewhere and I just don’t want to swamp you with minutiae. So, let’s get to it….business gets their 1.8 billion tax break….and let’s be clear right away…no study has shown that tax breaks, in the absence of a rise in demand, result in an increase in jobs. With the retained profits of companies already a their highest point in history, why would you think that giving them more profits would result in hiring of more workers? It just doesn’t work that way and yet the faith-based economics of the repubs continue to throw money at business that just ends up padding the wallets of those at the top. The right way to do it would be to ensure there is an increase in demand by tax incentives or higher wages for workers…folks, this is econ 101 stuff that everyone seems to know but the repubs and it exposes this governor’s plan as driven by ideology more than economics. Did you expect anything else from a governor whose only claim to fame was to take his golden parachute worth hundreds of millions while shipping all of the jobs at Gateway to China?

Now, let’s get to who is going to pay for these business tax cuts….the analysis out today, and it is in the right leaning Detroit News, is that the majority of the “shared sacrifice” comes from retirees and the working poor…those who are the least able to afford this huge tax increase…and, make no mistake, this is being done because the repubs always make people pay that have no power or influence…the tax effect for the wealthy here in Michigan would be an increase that is, on average, 77 dollars a year while that of the retirees an working poor would be in the thousands….this is morally reprehensible but true to form for these thieves. Next, let’s get to the the idea of the Michigan film tax credit, that Snyder has proposed be limited to 25 million dollars a year. Under the current plan, for every dollar of tax credit, Michigan sees 6 dollars of economic activity and has resulted in the only area of job growth in the state; diversifying our economy and starting many new businesses that actually employ people…not just giving more money to the rich. But, as we all know, the film industry is a little more liberal leaning than the general population and it is payback time here in Michigan….Snyder will do anything, just like the rest of the repubs, to crush the opposition even if it means putting people out of work and destroying one of the only bright spots in Michigan’s economy.

Okay, I’m running out of steam here but you can see from just these few instances that “shared sacrifice” means shared by the poor and working people, imposed by the rich, benefiting the rich, and everyone else can go to hell….geez…

Politics

More repub craziness…and thievery…

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Well… this is going to be a short one, just had a couple of thoughts about things that popped up in this morning’s news that does a couple of things; one points out the craziness and lack of moral character that the repubs have, and the second sheds light on the real agenda of the new theftocracy that is called the republicans. First, yesterday in Georgia, at a town hall meeting held by Paul Broun a repub rep, a questioner asked this idiot “who is going to shoot Obama?” and the reaction of rep Broun was to change the subject…not address it as being so out of line and using it as a teachable moment, but just moving on; giving the questioner the tacit approval of his silence. These are the people you’ve elected folks…doesn’t anyone else see anything wrong with his response? Especially in light of the shootings in Arizona, this idiot should have been taught right then and there that violence has no place in our political process…but the repubs have benefited by their violent rhetoric so why would they want it to stop?

The next one is about a neat little trick buried in the bill that will strip workers of their rights in Wisconsin…this bit of thievery gives the governor the absolute ability to sell any and all public buildings, powerplants, or any other public property to whomever he pleases without any oversight, bids or recourse for the citizens of the state. Yep, that’s right…this guy that got elected by the Koch brothers and the tea party who railed and railed about dems doing things by unelected regulatory bodies, have just taken away the rights of the people of Wisconsin to have any say in the disposition of government property that they paid for…the czar of Wisconsin now gets to do whatever he pleases with the people’s property….all I have to say is watch…the real agenda of these folks is becoming clear…the lip service they paid to representative government and upholding the constitution was just that, nothing but lies to get elected and to give them the chance to steal everything else they haven’t already given to business and the rich.

Politics

Democracy died in Michigan yesterday…

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Well….I am so outraged by the actions of the repub controlled house here in Michigan yesterday that I can barely think straight….democracy of, by and for the people died here with the passage of the emergency financial bill that would let appointed boards fire elected officials across the state. Yep, you heard it….this new set of six bills would allow non-elected boards, appointed by the governor to fire mayors, school boards, city managers and a whole host of other elected officials if the governor decides they are not toeing his cost cutting line. These thugs have nothing on the commissars of the old Soviet Union who regularly removed politicians that got out of the lock step of communism….these are the people that were elected on the guise of getting government out of the way? Well..with this legislation they can get people out of the way that don’t agree with them and yours and my votes no longer count here….where the hell is the outrage people? Where are you tea party…you who rode to election on the pages of the constitution just to tear it up once elected…if the previous governor had proposed anything of this sort and a democratic controlled legislature passed these bills, you repubs would have been out in the street with your pitchforks and torches screaming at the top of your lungs that socialism had taken over. It has here in Michigan….but more than that, it is totalitarianism; no different than any of the states in the middle east that are now in flames….and our Mubarak or Gadhafi is named Rick Snyder….

Politics

Manny is still a shill….

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Well…just a short one to talk about something I read in the Detroit News by our favorite shill for the repubs, Manny Lopez. In this one, one of the things he bitches about is the media coverage of the protests across the midwest, and his rationale is that since there are only about 12% of the working population in unions, the media should not cover the protests of these “sign carrying, bullhorn toting” crowds. Oh, really Manny? You thought that coverage of events like these was just peachy when it was the tea partiers carrying the signs and toting the bullhorns, and at the time you thought it was wonderful uprising of ordinary folks “taking back their government”. What’s the difference here Manny? These are ordinary working folks trying to keep the government from taking away their right to collectively bargain and if this was happening at a tea party rally, you would be right there with them. This is just another instance where the right shows its intellectual and moral bankruptcy…funded by the Koch brothers….geez….

Politics

Why are people voting to give up their workplace voices?

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Well….the attack on labor in this country continues with yesterday’s vote in the house to defund the NLRB, pushed by the repubs, of course. If you don’t know what the NLRB does shame on you, but I’ll give you a capsule here….it is the government organization that conducts union elections, but more than that, it rules whether business tactics like lockouts and intimidation of workers trying to organize are legal or not…one of the basic protections that labor has here in the US. One thing I just can’t understand is why do people keep voting for the repubs when they want to go back to the bad old days where workers were told to shut up and just cope with unfair labor practices and dangerous workplaces. I think I have to agree with some of my friends on this issue; that Americans are just getting more and more stupid as time goes on. When did people stop voting in their own economic self interest? I’m going to come back to this one in a bit…just wanted to get the idea down before I read the rest of the online papers….

this one is going to be a little disjointed because ideas are coming to me that way today….one that I did want to comment on was the Gallup poll from yesterday that showed that almost two-thirds of Americans want to retain the ability of labor to organize in both the public and private sector…this cuts across the entire political spectrum and raises another question for me: if the people that voted for the repubs don’t want this union bashing to continue, who are they doing it for? Really shows you that business is calling the shots with the repubs and the people that voted for them are just pawns in the con game they are running on the US….

Politics

Make no mistake, this is war…

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Well….just did my state taxes and that put me in a kind of crappy mood, but I really don’t mind paying taxes to keep the society running…and this comes from an unemployed guy who is quickly going broke…so what is the excuse for the richies to not want to pay theirs? But, that’s not what this one is about….I just need to make sure you understand that the attacks on organized labor by the repubs is war, it is an attack on all of us that have tried to drag ourselves up out of poverty and have found that the only way you can stand against the moneyed interests in the US is to organize. I have some questions to ask those non-union folks who are so adamant that the unions have become greedy and unresponsive to the needs of todays economy…do you like your 40 hour workweek? Do you like your employer paid health insurance? Do you like your vacations? Do you like your pension or 401K match? Well…all of these are a result of the unions standing up for all of the workers here in the US…not just their members. All you right wing union bashers out there, do you think your companies would just give you these things out of the goodness of their hearts? If you do…you are even more delusional than you sound in the message boards. Make no mistake….emboldened by the billionaires who bought this last election for the repubs, these same repubs have been told to wage war on labor and the middle class…it’s a take no prisoners game in which all of us need to decide what side we’re on….billionaires or your neighbors and friends..geez…

Politics

Michigan, it’s a scam….

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Well…I have a couple of predictions on the new budget proposals that have been put forth by the “CEO of Michigan”, and the idea that to keep our state solvent, we all need to “share the sacrifice” in lessening of services, higher taxes on individuals, and lowered expectations. Of course, the right wing press and the Chamber have come out salivating that one of their own is now governor and the proposals reflect their input…my question is: where was the people’s input? When did these folks talk to anyone but business? The answer is, they didn’t because they just don’t give a damn about you and me. This is just another example of the “long con” that the repubs are working on the people of Michigan and the rest of the US that purports to have the best interests of the people in mind, but any thought of the middle class is just a smoke screen to allow business to steal the rest of the country that they and their rich buddies don’t already own. For example, as I said yesterday, the proposed budget here in Michigan gives business a 1.8 billion tax break while raising taxes on individuals that same amount, another huge transfer of wealth from the workers to the rich, but that’s not the worst part of it. The new budget and the governor also say that they are going to phase out tax credits to retain and lure businesses to Michigan. But you and I both know that is a lie….the first time a business bitches about losing these credits, the repubs are going to fall all over themselves trying to give them more, more, more; so business taxes will continue to fall to zero while we’ll all pay for it. The repubs do nothing but lie, lie, lie, why would anyone believe them now?

This is an organized scam where business and the repubs have mapped it all out over a few year span…play on the patriotism of the people of Michigan to get them to buy into the “shared sacrifice” and then pay off business with larger and larger tax breaks and higher and higher profits so these repub legislators will have their next jobs assured after term limits force them to stop stealing from the people here….geez…

Politics

The hypocrisy disease has spread to Michigan…

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Well…I hope you got the chance to read some of the news coming out of Michigan today…Gov Rick Snyder unveiled one of the primary ways he proposes to balance the budget here…and guess whose backs that one is going to be carried on? While proposing the repubs cut taxes on corporations here, his new proposal raises taxes on every retired person in Michigan by raising taxes on pensions, IRA’s, and Social Security. Nope, I’m not making this up folks, the tax cuts for the rich party, who blew a gasket when Granholm proposed higher taxes as a part of the deficit solution, now propose that people that worked their whole lives to get their meager pensions subsidize business by paying more taxes. And, that is exactly what this is, you and I and the rest of us workers are being asked to build better roads, utilities, and other infrastructure for business to take advantage of while they get to retain more of the highest profits in the history of the world as they continue to send jobs overseas and ask for more, and more, and more, concessions from you and I. Where is the outcry from the right who constantly spew that taxes are too high and who sabotaged the Granholm administration for 8 years ensuring we’d end up with an untenable financial position?

I hope this bunch of hypocrites are seen for what they truly are, lying shills for business who will be taken care of by business when they leave…..to make millions from the companies they have just rewarded…geez…

Politics

This one’s a mish mash…

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Well…I’ve got a bunch of things running around in my head today and they are stating to itch so I thought I’d get a few down here in what I call a mish mash of ideas and thoughts. First, I am really surprised at the industry of revising history that has arisen around ole GW….the latest idea that is being floated is that Mubarek leaving in Egypt can be attributed to GW’s policy of freedom and democracy for the Arab world. I am stunned by the gall of these folks, what’s next, are they going to take credit for the snow melting here in Michigan? For the record, the Egyptian uprising was not, and I’ll repeat, was not a result of anything that GW or his cronies did…I think it was set back by their inept and simplistic foreign policy and can only be the result of the Egyptian people saying enough and having the social media tools that allowed them to move faster than the Egyptian government could. No cigar for GW….

Next…you should be appalled at the focus of the cuts in government that are coming from the repub house…as always, these are going after the poorest and least powerful with these cuts…where is there proposed cut to the subsidies for the oil industry that total almost 20 billion dollars a year? What about the subsidies for the factory farms out there and the one for ethanol? They cry and cry about letting the market control this stuff but when it comes to doing whats right, money talks and you and I get screwed. People need to wise up to these lies…and I don’t mind cutting wasteful spending, but let’s not cut early childhood education and subsidies for college students while the rich keep getting theirs….they are setting us up for long term failure as a nation where only the rich will be able to afford the education we need to compete….okay, that was only two topics…don’t think that qualifies as a mish mash…I will have a couple more later….have to have lunch first…

Politics

How can one guy be wrong all of the time?

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Well…I do hate to pick on one person all of the time..no that’s not true, I love to call out the idiocies and inconsistencies on both the right and left…but if you’ve been here before, you’ve noticed I do tend to to go after those on the right more…but I should because they are the ones that have taken idiocy to a new level that I could not have imagined a few years ago. This morning I was reading the Detroit News again (I know, why should I keep reading that right wing rag?) and our boy Nolan Finley is at it again…taking the president to task for going to the chamber and asking them to take part in the recovery by hiring. Well..old Nolan goes on either to lie, or to show his ignorance of economic reporting saying that companies are not going to hire until they are profitable when, as you and I and almost everyone else in the US knows, retained corporate profits are at their highest level in the history of the world. He goes on to assert that they are not hiring because of the repub talking point about uncertainty keeping business from being able to plan and know what their costs are going to be down the road. Nolan, Nolan, Nolan….the only uncertainty that business cares about it whether or not the billions they spent buying a republican house is going to give them free reign to steal more from the pockets of workers. You guys have created the uncertainty about the healthcare law….spending almost all of your time since the new congress started trying to repeal the law when you know it won’t happen and snowing your business buddies that the money they gave you is going to get them something; all the while collaborating with them to keep from hiring to make sure you have a new talking point.

But that’s not the worst of it….here in Michigan the earned income tax credit for lower income folks is being eliminated while business is given a huge tax cut…this is a tax increase no matter how the right tries to spin it…and these guys are held up as fiscally responsible when any time the previous governor asked for more taxes to help cut the deficit she was tarred as a tax and spend liberal. I guess it’s okay if you raise taxes on those that have no money, power or lobbyists…another example of the hypocrites that reside in the modern repub party….geez…