Tag Archives: republicans

A strange class warfare…

Well…I promise this one will be shorter but it is something I need to get down before I forget it. I was musing about the class warfare aspect of the fights that are going on in statehouses across the country and one thing struck me: that this is a new kind of class war…one that is being fomented by the rich and powerful and uses working folks as the soldiers, pitting powerless people who have seen their pay, benefits, and security decline by the fake necessity of givebacks against those who have found at least a little protection of their status by their membership in unions. And, the puppet masters who are pulling the strings have been masterful in getting people to vote against their own interests, and to believe the lies that all of the economic problems in this country are caused by greedy workers. You have to hand it to them…first they gut funding for education so they get an ignorant populace, then they overwork them so they have no energy left to even think about how badly they’ve been deceived…..and the downward spiral for labor continues while the rich sit in their clubs and laugh their asses off at you and I….

Why are people voting to give up their workplace voices?

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….

What happened to shared sacrifice?

Well…finally found a trend that has re-started the fires of outrage somewhat and it should do the same for anyone who believes there should still be a middle class here in America. This latest attack on the workers here in the US is led by the repub governors that were elected in the last election and who have made it an unstated, but nonetheless all too real purpose of their administrations to break the public sector unions. As a financial realist as opposed to an agenda driven repub, I too understand that there are costs in many of the states that are unsustainable…but this is not an act of god as the repubs would have you believe but is a direct result of the misguided (or I should say planned) repub bowing at the altar of tax cuts to ensure that they ‘starve the beast” since they don’t believe there is a need for government at all. The spurious numbers they use to support their contentions that slashing the pay here in Michigan is that public sector wages have gone up in the last 10 years while in the private sector, wages have been stagnant or falling. I think their logic is flawed but consistent with their overall goals; to destroy all unions and the one bright spot for the middle class in an environment where the richest have seen their compensation double in the same time period. So, why no cry that these folks are overpaid and should give back to the states where they reside? To ask middle class folks to give back when the rich are given tax breaks at the expense of you and I is morally reprehensible but goes to the agenda of the repubs….they will never be happy until the rich have it all and the rest of us are left to feed off the scraps that fall from their tables….

All of us should just say stop…let’s expose this agenda and start working together to ensure that you, I, and our children only share in the sacrifice to get this country moving again…not make all of it…geez…

Just a short one….

Well…just had a thought and I may have shared it before but I’m going to get this down again since I think it’s an important one. Did you notice that while the repubs are always screaming about “activist” judges and courts, it is the first place they turn when they don’t get their way? And, they always make sure that their lawsuits will get heard by judges that can be relied upon to tread the repub line when they are supposed to follow the law and precedent. This crap started with Bush V. Gore and continues to this day with the healthcare law that most of the people in this country don’t want repealed. But, the repubs want to undue the will of the people for their corporate masters, as always….I think they should be sued for malfeasance in office and have them have to pay damages to you and me…

The repubs and the CBO…

Well…I am laughing out loud at a fact that I just uncovered in the news this morning, something I probably should have learned a couple of weeks or months ago with all of the news I read….I know you’ve read about the concerted effort by the repubs to discredit the Congressional Budget Office…the non-partisan part of the government that calculates (or estimates) the cost of proposed legislation, saying that the 253 billion dollar savings from the healthcare law is just their “opinion” and is based on untrue assumptions. They are going so far as is the tired old phrase ‘garbage in, garbage out” to describe the process used to come to those conclusions. Well…guess what? Guess where the repubs got the figures that put job-killing in the title of the healthcare repeal bill that was just passed in the House? Yep, you guessed it…from the very same analysis that reported a net savings from the healthcare reform bill….go on, you can laugh, too….

Can’t these guys even try anymore? Geez….

They’re taking credit?

Well…here’s the shorty I promised…did anyone else laugh when one of the repub congressmen had the gall or chutzpah to get up on the floor of the house and claim that the recovery that is slowly building is because the repubs took control of the House? Nevermind that they haven’t done anything but bluster and waste time on the doomed repeal of the healthcare law since they took control. These guys are the most cynical type of politicians…those who oppose real reform and stimulus for the economy to play to their base and then, when it looks like they were wrong, come crawling out from under their rocks to claim that their actions in opposing this help was what has made the economy turn around. I just hope they keep this up, I hope they keep trying to repeal healthcare..especially when only 18% of the country wants this done…they will be exposed as the shills they are for the insurance lobby and maybe, just maybe, the American people will start to vote in their own self interests, not in the interests of the wealthy an powerful….geez…

George Will and the repubs….

Well…this one started to bubble after I read George Will’s column this morning where he goes on and on about the lack of self-control in the American populace and the fact that we supposedly lie to ourselves about everything….and this constant lack of self control is what is ruining the country. But, lies, obfuscation, and this lack of self control is only a problem when it is coming from individuals; when it is coming from the repub party; and it’s lies are for a political purpose, everything is just fine. Didn’t we hear this nonsense the last time the repubs were in power? That deficits don’t matter, that we can cut taxes and increase spending without any consequences? Now, they are treating facts as opinion again…calling the 230 billion dollar savings from the healthcare law (that was calculated by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office) just the “opinion” of the office…as if accounting principles now are like faith instead of math. They just loved the CBO when the numbers came up in their favor…but when the facts get in the way of their agenda, they are all too quick to discard them as partisan…think back to the Iraq war….reminds me of the lyrics to “Rocky Mountain Way” by Joe Walsh….”he’s tellin us this, he’s tellin us that, changes it every day, says it doesn’t matter….bases are loaded and Casey’s at bat, time to change the batter…”

I just want everyone to remember where “faith based” accounting led us the last time these guys were in power….two wars that were “off book” and not paid for…huge surpluses that were turned into the largest deficits in the history of the country….and a complete disdain for the truth that was not spun by their lies….fasten the seatbelts, here we go again…geez….

Working on the Placeholder….

Well…I just don’t get the repubs these days…never really have, I guess and their obsession with the healthcare reform bill passed last year is making it even worse. I know, I can look at it in the context of their complete disdain for anyone but the rich, but I think their constant attacks are going to be their undoing; especially since parts of the law are extremely popular and have proven to already be quite effective. What spurred this one was a short segment on “Countdown” last night that quoted an article in the LA Times (that I couldn’t find) that the tax credit included in the law has spurred a flurry of activity in small business; that thousands of them have started offering their employees health care since the credit makes it affordable to them. How are the repubs going to explain being against something that helps one of their core constituencies? In the last election, they rode the lies that they were the saviors of small business but I think it’s just another case of the repub disease; promise everything, deliver nothing, that has been their M.O. since the early 90′s. When are people going to learn that these guys don’t give a damn about anything but getting elected….I know, I’m becoming repetitive, but repetition helped the repubs turn lies into truth in the minds of some of the people…maybe it will work to keep the truth the truth…geez…

Here we go again….

Well…how much more depressing can the news get that the new repub controlled house is going back to the bad old days that gave us the financial meltdown….I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when they went back to the people that gave them money to construct their version of these regulations…but to have businesses and lobbyists come back to write their proposed changes to the ones enacted under the dems is just too much to bear…I mean, really guys? You couldn’t at least have made it look like you weren’t bought in the last election? I am astounded by the repubs going back to their old ways the first frickin day of the new congress…and, I don’t even feel good that I predicted this back in August when it looked like the repubs would be back in control…I really didn’t want to be right, I hoped and hoped that these idiots had leaned something…but, I guess the only thing they learned was that lies and giving the country to the rich works…for them…I fear for the rest of the country….

DADT…there goes another wedge issue….

Well…I think last Saturday’s Senate vote to repeal DADT will go down as a great leap forward in the cause of civil rights here in America. It’s about time that institutionalized discrimination in any form is eliminated from our society…I’ve lived through the slow march for civil rights here and I can say that as I was watching the vote live, I was again proud of the US…and I will give a hearty thanks to the 8 brave Republicans who let their sense of fairness override their party’s pressure to vote no. But the day was marred by the pathetic display from John McCain who has found that his voice for prejudice is being left behind by our society….I think the majority of the repubs were just livid since one of their wedge issues, that has won them elections in the past, is no longer effective….what do they have left? They have lost taxes as an issue with Obama’s compromise, they have lost DADT and other civil rights as issues to be used to divide the country, and I think when people start to see what their plans are for dividing country by changing the constitution for their narrow views of what the country can be, they will lose that issue as well.

All I have to add to the repubs is: enjoy the next two years…I think it will be your last….unless you can step up and be adults governing with the dems for the benefit of all Americans, not just the right-wing screamers and business….