Well…over the past 6 months or so, one of the topics that has been in the news a lot is the push to get the minimum wage raised across the country…some thing that repubs and the rest of the conservatives have fought with every tool they have…and, by tools I mean lies and economists who are in the tank for business. The latest one comes from an “analysis” of the wages at one Walmart in a North Dakota oil boom town where the shortage of labor has driven the price of labor even at Walmart to over 17 dollars an hour….and the first thing the “economist” from AEI (yep, Koch funded) says is “see, there is no need for a minimum wage if Walmart has to pay more in a tight labor market.” Now, either this PHd is stupid or he is just cherry picking numbers of one Walmart in one town to drive his political agenda…the political agenda of the Koch brothers who hate, just hate having to pay a minimum wage and have spent hundreds of millions trying to block any raise. His assertion only works in this tight labor market…in others where there is a surplus of labor, a minimum wage is needed or the surplus will drive labor cost continually down until it reaches essentially zero….now, this guy should know that…and I’m sure he does, he just doesn’t care and is lying his ass off to keep getting paid millions by the Koch’s…what a bunch of crap….
Category Archives: Politics
Still cheating…
Well…yeah, I know, not much of substance for the past week or so but I have an excuse…no I don’t….just haven’t been motivated to try to make sense of the craziness in this country….on the right, that is…we on the left are marveling about the new depths of crazy that the right shows everyday and wonder how some of these folks even live in the world…they are so scared all the time…scared of the bogeyman coming to get them so they have to carry guns everywhere…scared of children coming across the border so they have to threaten them and the states that have agreed to take them…and really, really scared that their white world is coming to an end….I just don’t see it that way…maybe I’m naive but with a little cooperation this country could be much better…oh, that won’t ever happen…geez…
It is to laugh….
Well….just read an article with a quote from ole Boehner saying that the repubs have no intention of impeaching the president, saying it’s all a plot by mean old Obama to get out the vote for the elections in the fall. As soon as I read that, the only thing that came to my mind was the old Daffy Duck quote: “It is to laugh” and I did laugh. One thing he didn’t say was that he intends to do it after the election…lying to the public again since he can see that even talking about it risks losing both the house and senate. So, let me get this straight….Obama is the one talking about impeachment and using his Jedi mind control to get everyone on the right to talk about it and push for it? Man…that guy is pretty fricking smart if he is thinking that far ahead…I think the more rational explanation is only that ole Boeher is scared of his own side and their rabid hatred for Obama and he is losing control of the narrative…or the truth is getting out and the general public just doesn’t like it….geez…
Bet they didn’t think about this…
Well…I am a little bemused today with the unintended fallout of the Hobby Lobby decision that gave corporations religious rights to refuse to cover contraceptives in their health plans…on the heels of that wrongheaded mess, the announcement today of the satanist church asserting that this decision gives them the right to ignore any state or federal law that restricts a woman’s right to abortion since their church has as one of its tenets that science and not religion should be the basis for all health decisions made me smile. The church asserts these ‘closely held beliefs” should be treated the same as those of the christians that own Hobby Lobby and to be treated differently would be unconstitutional and a violation of the 14th amendment. Which it is. These idiots on the supreme court thought that their ruling would only apply to christians but they can’t have it both ways…if one group is given special rights, then the rest of them get those same rights…I applaud the satanists for pushing back against this nonsense and their fight against the religiosity that is ruining this country…religion belongs in church, not in government…geez…
There are still good people in the southwest…
Well…after reading the stories of all of the hate directed at the refugees that have been coming across the southwest border of the US from some supposed “christians”, it was heartening to read an article a few minutes ago about the coalition of churches in Texas that have banded together to provide relief for these unfortunate people. That is what I grew up with in the UCC…although I’m an atheist now, I still appreciate the ideals that come from some of the teachings and it makes me feel good that there are still some good people in this country that don’t hate…that see the suffering of fellow human beings and feel compelled to do something about it….so I applaud these folks for living their religious principles….not many do anymore….
People are just stupid…
Well…I have been subjected to many of the inane political ads that are being aired while working out and one thing really strikes me…people must really be stupid to believe any of those from the right….the latest one I saw was against Mark Schauer who is running for governor…which had the woman holding a squirming baby going on and on about how Schauer raised taxes 10 million times as a legislator and blah, blah, blah….here, in a state with crumbling roads, failing schools, and cities in deficit they’re talking about that? In a state that ranked 37th in job creation they’re talking about that? When most of the fiscal problems in the state are caused by the failed policies of tax cuts for the rich and business, they want more tax cuts? I’d gladly pay more taxes if it would go to fixing the roads or taking care of people instead of straight into the pockets of CEOs whose companies got huge tax cuts…that is patriotism, to fund the society as those before me have done…but, not in republican minds…geez…
Another difference between them and us….
Well…with the refugee crisis that is occurring on our southern border where thousands of children fleeing almost certain death have crossed into the US, we can see another huge difference between the right and us….the right replied to the crisis by protesting and howling that these kids should be sent back to where they came from not caring that most of them will die if that happens and mistakenly picketing YMCA buses trying to prevent them from getting the care they need…all the while snarling that it’s not our responsibility to do anything for them…so, what was the response of us on the left to these children? Outpouring of aid and comfort and howling at the government for the appalling conditions these kids are being held in…a young Democrat group putting together a way through facebook to donate clothing and other necessities….once the word got out on Kos that we could help…Kos started it out with donating over 300 dollars and then the community kicked in with thousands more….and that continues now with hundreds of us doing our part to help these scared kids….so, we have the “christians” on the right ready to send them back to be killed while the atheists on the left see the problem as a humanitarian one and organize a way to help….that is just another difference between them and us…they profess to be caring christians but they’re not and they tar us as being godless socialists and we’re the ones that are looking for solutions that will save the lives of these kids….what kind of a person would allow kids to die for ideology? Geez….
This explains a lot…
Well…read an interesting study yesterday that compared how children raised in religious homes fared against those raised in secular homes in the necessary skill of discerning fantasy from reality….and the results explained a lot to me when they found that those raised in the strictest homes that teach their children that the bible is the word of god had a huge problem telling what is real and what isn’t since they are taught that that myth is truth….and, that explains why the religious adults on the right so happily believe the conspiracy theories and the lies that are spewed at them every day from the right wing media. I think this is the worst kind of child abuse that is covered by religion..who in their right mind would doom their child to a life without this critical thinking skill? Oh, that’s right, they don’t care about that…faith is all it takes for them in politics and economics…even when that faith is proven wrong on so many fronts…geez…
Everyone should read this one….
Well…I normally don’t link to other sites or articles but I read one by Laurence Lewis over at Kos today that everyone should read…it’s about how corrupt the supreme court has become with the advent of the conservative majority…I have railed about this same topic on numerous occasions but Laurence is in great form…go take a look…
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/20/1312504/-Born-of-corruption-why-would-anyone-expect-this-SCOTUS-majority-to-be-anything-but-corrupt
Looks like you’ll have to cut and paste…the links aren’t working for my site…
A progressive split…
Well…you’re probably not aware that there is a huge progressive shindig going on in Detroit this week where activists meet up to plan how to strategize to get progressive candidates elected…and to fight back against the billions of dollars that the owners of the rights politicians will spend to make sure that business and the rich continue to gut the middle class and poison everyone. This year, it was a pretty good meet up but there was one little bomb that was dropped near the end that has all of us on the left a little bewildered….the choosing of Arizona as the 2015 site for Net roots nation…as the meet up is called. This choice has split the progressive movement…well…maybe not split from the comments that I have read…but pissed us off..starting with the originator of the meetups, Kos, (or Markos Moulitsos) whose site, the Daily Kos, is the largest and most active of the progressive ones out there…with Kos going so far as saying they can go there without him or any support from his site or network. I agree with him…with all of the nasty, racist, anti gay crap that has been going on there over the past few years, to reward them by bringing millions of dollars into the state would just be wrong…we on the left have to live our principles and ensure that we don’t help the right wing asses continue to do what they do…hate and fear monger and get elected…it will be interesting to see if the decision sticks…with the outcry, I’ll bet that there will be another state chosen…one where the people are trying to restore the true American values of inclusiveness and cooperation to make this a better country for all…not just for the rich….geez…