Category Archives: Politics

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….

Politics

Here’s the difference…

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Well…I don’t know if I had an epiphany this morning or not…and I may have talked about this in earlier posts but I think it’s an important distinction that we have to keep coming back to…oh, I guess I just “buried the lead” like they say in newspaper business. What I’m trying to say is that we need to recognize the differences between the dems and repubs, and I think it can be boiled down to a few points…the number one being that the repubs are all about restricting peoples rights while the progressives and dems are all about enlarging them. It is odd that the repubs keep harping on limited government and individual rights on one hand, and then they always turn around and use the power of government to limit or even take away rights. We’ve seen this so many times in the past decade or so that I really don’t know why I have to keep bringing attention to these charlatans and their mendacity. Okay, I just love the word mendacity….look it up. While the rights of corporations have been on an arc of unlimited expansion with deregulation and the Citizens United decision, across the country the repubs are limiting the right of women to control their own bodies, limiting the right of association by making sure that unions have no power to represent people in negotiations, limiting the human right of loving and marrying whomever they choose…and the list goes on and on, and on.

The founders of this country envisioned that the rights of the people would continue to expand over time, and constructed a form of government that they thought would guarantee it….they always thought the greatest threat to the freedom of the people would come from within, when ignorant politicians and an uninformed populace would conspire by their action or inaction to bring us down…geez…

Politics

The bait and switch is not working too well…

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Well…I have to be heartened by the news here in Michigan and across the country that the electorate is starting to wake up to the odorous tricks that the repubs have used to get elected…specifically, the lies and obfuscations of the their true agenda that includes breaking all of organized labor and the continued transfer of wealth from the middle class to the rich. Here in Michigan, the people bought into the “tough nerd” label that Snyder used in his campaign and elected him, only to be shown that he is no different from any repub out there; with his tax cuts for the rich being paid for by the poor and the middle class. His approval numbers have plummeted since he revealed himself for what he is…just another millionaire businessman who does not care one whit about the people of Michigan..just about rewarding his cronies.

This mirrors the national trend in the polls where the majority of people do not support the draconian cuts to social programs that the repubs propose, and they also don’t support the dismantling of unions, the environment, or regulations designed to rein in the worst of the financial thieves. So, where do the repubs get the idea that the majority supports their agenda? Oh, that’s right, they don’t care…the public doesn’t elect them, big money does….there is finally a glimmer that the majority of us want a reasonable country where there are protections for the ordinary famliy, not just for people that have money and connections. Can we hope?

Politics

I made it!

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Well…it just dawned on me that I made it through February without once mentioning sister Sarah and her traveling circus of crazy…it wasn’t easy…well…it really was since the repubs always have newer and crazier people that are constantly stepping up to the plate to amaze and astound me….along with the golden oldies like Rush, Rick Santorum, and any of the other “leadership” that passes for deep thinkers on the right.

So….everyone is fair game again and I will promise you that I will have some substance over the next couple of days….it has been a weird couple of days and I can’t remember being so busy…

Politics

Here’s another fallacy…brought to you by the repubs…

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Well…man, things just keep coming to me today and I am having one of those flashes of creativity that don’t happen often enough, so I’m going to take advantage of it while it lasts. If you’ve been reading the news lately, one of the repubs talking points has been that the government shouldn’t be picking “winners and losers” in business and they have been choking on the regulations that have given an advantage to fluorescent light bulbs over incandescents for their energy savings. Here in Michigan, I don’t think they’ve gotten the memo because gov Snyder is deeply in the process of picking winners by giving tax cuts to his constituent businesses while eliminating them for businesses he doesn’t like or get support from….just another instance of the inconsistency….no that’s not true, they are being completely consistent in rewarding their supporters just like some third world country where nepotism runs rampant….geez….

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.