Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Republicans Voted to Raise Taxes!!!
Better late on this than never, Lawrence O'Donnell, along with Rachel Maddow, framed the original two votes the GOP made to RAISE taxes on the middle class the way the Democrats and Barack Obama should have all along. Oh well, another missed opportunity.
Tea Party Nation Pushing Property Owner Rights to Vote
Tea Party Nation might want to rethink its bizarre interpretation of the "Constitution" after the following statement by Judson Philips, that comes across so anti-American it's mind numbing. Chris Matthews, Pat Buchanan and David Corn expose the stupidity. Hey, maybe stupid people shouldn't vote, like the ones who thought Obamacare contained death panels?
Monday, December 6, 2010
Paul Ryan Extremism: Wanting it all!! David Brooks: Conservative Truthfulness.
Below are the points, counter points, in the Rep. Paul Ryan vs David Brooks "debate." If you don't have a lot of time, just watch the Brooks arguments, they tell the whole story. If you have the time to listen to Ryan, you'll notice how extreme and inflexible his world view is, how it flies in the face of those who don't want to change this countries established values.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Race to the bottom here for Wisconsinites, so what do you say we downsize or get rid of those big government safety net programs?
How would you like to be exclusively dependent on big business, with no other options? Do you think that will strengthen your hand when it comes to pay and benefits? Of course not, but that’s what Republicans have been pushing for years, but more so now without all that coded language.
As the deficit commission prepares us through the power of suggestion, that Social Security and Medicare will no longer pay all of our bills leaving us with the balance, our ability to spend continues to decline at an ever faster rate.
Will someone please ask; If government can’t afford it, what makes you think we as individuals can?
As the deficit commission prepares us through the power of suggestion, that Social Security and Medicare will no longer pay all of our bills leaving us with the balance, our ability to spend continues to decline at an ever faster rate.
Will someone please ask; If government can’t afford it, what makes you think we as individuals can?
Let’s be clear: Median family income plummeted 8 percent in two years!!! In ten years, can we expect a decrease of 20-40 percent? Do you feel lucky?Capital Times: A new analysis of Census Bureau Data from the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families (WCCF) shows the recession hasn't been kind.
Median family incomes in Dane County are down some 8 percent over the past two years -- dropping from an average of $62,745 in 2007 to $57,687 last year.
The unemployment rate in Dane County has climbed from 4.4 percent in 2008 to 6.2 percent in 2009.
Waukesha County, the wealthiest county in Wisconsin, hasn't been hit nearly as hard, according to the Census figures. Median household incomes there have fallen just 2.5 percent over the past two years, going from $74,539 to $72,667. The poverty rate in Waukesha County did climb, however, rising from 3.9 percent to 6.3 percent over the period.
It's the Re-segregation of our schools, under the guise of Vouchers. Big Surprise?
With radio grand dragon Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck stoking the flames of racism, the conservative public is again played as gullible and pliant suckers, a portrayal they’ll not doubt find offensive and completely untrue. Man up!!!
School choice conservatives have kept the message simple; vouchers give parents “who know better” choice, and are more effective than public schools. These two points are factually untrue, but never-the-less believed by an ideological public, fearful of a phantom liberal enemy.
What goes unmentioned; Vouchers will break up the teachers union, appeases the religious base and encourage white Americans will flee non-white schools. White flight returns, but under the radar.
School choice conservatives have kept the message simple; vouchers give parents “who know better” choice, and are more effective than public schools. These two points are factually untrue, but never-the-less believed by an ideological public, fearful of a phantom liberal enemy.
What goes unmentioned; Vouchers will break up the teachers union, appeases the religious base and encourage white Americans will flee non-white schools. White flight returns, but under the radar.
Now that we know the voter intent of vouchers, along with statistical data that indicates “choice” will only widen the racial educational gap, is it any wonder voucher schemes are catching on with even liberals who have bought into the propaganda.Saveourschools.com: A study published in the latest issue of the Review of Economics and Statistics is consistent with other studies of the impact of school choice on racial segregation in schools. The weight of evidence is that school choice leads to more segregated schools.
Other studies show that the racial composition of a school is a large determinant of the black/Hispanic-white gaps in student performance. Black and Hispanic students tend to achieve substantially better when they are in racially mixed environments. Thus, ‘white flight’ from racially-mixed schools is likely to increase inequity in education outcomes.
The study of voter intentions in California has found that universal voucher schemes are likely to increase racial and ethnic segregation across schools. White families tend to use vouchers to leave schools with a high proportion of non-white students.
The study found that non-white concentration in schools has a relatively substantial effect on the propensity of white households with children to support school vouchers. A 10 percentage point increase in the share of non-white students is predicted to increase support for the voucher among white households with children in public school by approximately 2.6 percentage points.
This effect is absent in non-white households. Non-white households appear less
likely to support school vouchers if their children attend schools with higher concentrations of nonwhites. Taken together, the two effects indicate that universal vouchers lead to more segregated public schools.Further detailed analysis showed that the ‘white flight’ intention was largely driven by the share of Hispanic students in schools who have limited English proficiency.
The new study used data on votes in a state-wide universal voucher initiative in California as an indication of voter intentions to use the voucher. This contrasts with other studies of school segregation which have used data from existing forms of school choice programs. It measured the extent to which vouchers will increase racial and ethnic segregation beyond current levels.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Ya' think Paul Ryan's so Smart? Think Again. David Brooks Exposes Ryan as an Extremist.
Here's a recent debate between conservative columnist David Brooks and Rep. Paul Ryan. This sad and ugly juxtaposition shows a radical Ryan excepting nothing but all the marbles, while Brooks replaces dollar signs with people. Heady stuff, with video of the whole thing or highlights soon to be posted.
Politics Daily: Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) debated New York Times columnist David Brooks Thursday morning at the American Enterprise Institute. The issue was ostensibly "limited" government versus a more "energetic" one.Want more proof, check out Ryan's all or nothing no vote for the Deficit Commissions draconian cuts to the most needy:
Ryan went on to say that "big government is lethargic government. We should not be asking, 'How big should our government be?'; we should be asking, 'What is our government for?' "
Brooks argued that his concern wasn't solely about policy. Criticizing Ryan, he said, "Paul's prose is sometimes at war with his policy. Brooks argued that reason is not as important as character, which is created by social bonds. As such, he argued that big or small government is a "meaningless" concept and a "distraction" -- what matters is whether government "builds character or erodes it." He argued this has
real-world implications because it means conservatives who are elected come into office with no governing philosophy.
Brooks said Ryan's framing of the issue is the problem -- that we face a stark choice between a free-enterprise-opportunity society and a European-style social democracy that will lead us down the "road to serfdom." He said it is journalistically wrong to assume Democrats want to create a European welfare state. "I just don't think they're as extreme as you make them out to be," he said.
Brooks then turned to Ryan and said if President Obama calls and says, " 'I'll take Ryan-Rivlin if you will take a top tax rate of 39 percent' -- I hope you will take that deal."
During the rejoinders, Ryan responded by saying that our nation has gone from assuming our rights were derived from God to assuming our rights come from government. "And so, I do believe that the idea of the role of government has changed," he said.
He also noted the urgency facing us today, saying that if we don't fix the debt crisis soon, interest rates will destroy us and we would then be just engaging in "managed decline."
And that’s Ryan’s absolutist plan. A plan that very plainly states that government can’t afford saving people, which begs the question, how can individual Americans afford it then?National Journal: Two lawmakers on President Obama's bipartisan deficit commission said they will vote in favor of the report the panel released earlier this week. Meanwhile, another member, Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, said he will vote against it. Ryan said he could not support the recommendations because they did not curb health-care-related costs to his satisfaction: "It not only did not address the elephant in the room, health care, it made it fatter."
"I just don't think this thing has the ability to last in policy … with the Boomers
starting to turn 65 this year, fix it once and for all so we can really get this thing fixed," he said.
Weak President and Democratic Majority End Checks and balances, Ushers in Shock Doctrine Policies.
With all the talk centered around the deficit commission, there are a few plans out there that make a lot more sense. Here, Keith Olbermann gets Ezra Klein and Heather McGhee from DEMOS to explain what's really going on.
By the way, Sundance Channel is offering up the movie Shock Doctrine, also On Demand. After watching it, you may feel as panicky as I feel right now about the reason why we're being told "everything is on the table," and the brutal similarities to the deficit commissions recommendations that favor to the wealthy and what has come before.
The state of the Democratic Party is summed up by this E.J. Dionne editorial:
The idea of freezing the pay of federal workers … an obvious element in any negotiation. But
By the way, Sundance Channel is offering up the movie Shock Doctrine, also On Demand. After watching it, you may feel as panicky as I feel right now about the reason why we're being told "everything is on the table," and the brutal similarities to the deficit commissions recommendations that favor to the wealthy and what has come before.
The state of the Democratic Party is summed up by this E.J. Dionne editorial:
The idea of freezing the pay of federal workers … an obvious element in any negotiation. But
Obama simply threw in the federal workers in exchange for -- well, as best I can tell, nothing. And in the short term, shouldn’t jobs and rising incomes be a higher priority than austerity?
Worse, every signal out of the White House is that it is prepared to cave in to Republican demands for a temporary extension of all of the Bush tax cuts … how can anyone take a deficit-reduction proposal seriously when the main order of business in Congress is to make sure we widen the deficit by keeping all of the Bush tax cuts alive?
What we are witnessing here is the political power that comes from the Republican Party’s single-minded focus on high-end tax cuts and the strategic incoherence of a Democratic Party that is confused and divided -- and not getting much help from its president.
Obama seems to have decided that showing how conciliatory he can be is more important than making clear where he stands. The administration’s strategy is rooted in a fear of what the Republicans are willing to do, which only strengthens the GOP’s bargaining position. The president figures the Republicans would be quite happy to let taxes on the middle class rise on Jan. 1 if that’s the price of continuing to fight for the tax cuts for the rich.
In a game of chicken, Republicans are willing to gamble -- even if the economy would take a hit.
Related articles
Obama's Big Weakness on Display, Inadvertently Moves Nation Further Right. Liberalism now considered fringe.
The Huffington Post's Howard Fineman pretty much said it all about Obama, who I now consider a horrifically weak president, after destroying the very idea of an opposition party.
There were some, including some in the media, who listened to President Obama's account of this week's meeting with Republicans and concluded that there was hope for a surprisingly bipartisan conclusion to the lame duck Congress.
My questions are: What planet do he and they think they are on? And have they paid any attention to Sen. Mitch McConnell?
McConnell and the rest of the GOP Senate leadership were beginning work on a plan to force the Senate to do just the opposite: a unified GOP threat to filibuster debate on anything but taxes and spending.
This morning, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was sounding upbeat -- even after news of the McConnell strategy had surfaced.
On the Hill yesterday, GOP aides privately could barely contain their contempt -- and their amusement -- at the president's declaration of a dawn of bipartisan optimism.
They know that Obama already in effect has conceded on a two- or three-year extension of all tax cuts.
Barack Obama and his crew have many good qualities. But that list does not include skill and guts at legislative combat with Republicans. They don't seem to really know the enemy or the game they are in, and the president's meager and glancing experience in the trenches of politics has caught up with him.
The Arrogance of the "Constitutional Conservatives."
Loved this piece in the NY Times today, which takes a look at the empty rhetoric of "Constitutional conservatives."
Sarah Palin used the phrase to campaign for limited government. Tea Party members call themselves constitutional conservatives. It is the new mantle in which Republican politicians are wrapping themselves. The challenge lies in understanding what, if anything, it actually means.
The phrase is used mainly in opposition: against health care reform; against the General Motors bailout; against President Obama’s policies. A year ago, conservatives focused on the gravity of economic problems. This election, their concern shifted to the danger represented by solutions.
The phrase is connected to a radical vision. It makes no mention of “We the people,” of forming “a more perfect union” or pursuing “the general welfare” — of equality arm in arm with liberty. Which Americans don’t want liberty, or support tyranny?
Justice Brennan summed up, “It is arrogant to pretend that from our vantage we can gauge accurately the intent of the framers on application of principle to specific, contemporary questions.”
Nevada Republicans Devastate State Economy; GOP Blocks School Meals; while they Inherit Improving Jobs Market.
The Republican pledge to never raise taxes will finally hit the wall in 2011. That should be fun to watch. Here are some other fun things to keep an eye on:
And just in time for the Republican House to take credit for saving the country, this news will make the GOP look good when they take credit for it later this spring. Just wait and see...
(AP) - A panel of financial experts on Wednesday projected Nevada revenues for the upcoming budget cycle at $5.3 billion, representing a $1.1 billion decrease … Republican Gov.-elect Brian Sandoval has said he won't raise taxes and will allow temporary tax hikes imposed two years ago to expire. He reiterated his stance after the forum made its projections, saying state government will need to close the gap with reductions.
(AP) - House Republicans have temporarily blocked legislation to feed school meals to thousands more hungry children. Republicans used a procedural maneuver Wednesday to try to amend the $4.5 billion bill … the GOP amendment, which would have required background checks for child care workers, was an effort to kill the bill and delayed a final vote on the legislation rather than vote on the amendment.Democrats will give up the moral high ground, abandon their base, and make the Republicans appear right (even though they’re wrong) on the issue of giving wealthy people another tax cut in a time of war. Whether you believe letting the Bush tax cuts expire would be a tax increase or not, we still have to borrow an additional $700 billion to pay for them.
And just in time for the Republican House to take credit for saving the country, this news will make the GOP look good when they take credit for it later this spring. Just wait and see...
(AP) - The economy is showing new life in the final months of the year. Factories are busier, construction spending is up, and auto sales are rising. And on Wednesday the stock market had its best day since September after a report that the private sector hired the most workers in three years. Investors were mostly responding to strong manufacturing data out of China and a report showing that small U.S. companies hired the most workers in three years. ADP Employer Services said employment at private companies jumped by 93,000 in November, the largest increase since November 2007 - right before the recession began.
Small businesses, which have struggled to get credit since the recession, had the biggest gains.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Fringe right-wing extremist group, Pro-Life Wisconsin, Exploits Jesus' Image at Christmas. Should be called Low-Life Wisconsin.
The authoritarian Republican government control over our medical freedom and liberty was not what the founding fathers envisioned.
The party of opposites decries big government, the liberal kind, but waves their own socialist brand of freedom squelching nanny state laws over our personal choices. Instead of getting out of our lives, they pound the bible and demand we follow their unconstitutionally adopted national religion. Isn't it odd how empowered these radical militant groups feel once the Republican Party comes to power.
The party of opposites decries big government, the liberal kind, but waves their own socialist brand of freedom squelching nanny state laws over our personal choices. Instead of getting out of our lives, they pound the bible and demand we follow their unconstitutionally adopted national religion. Isn't it odd how empowered these radical militant groups feel once the Republican Party comes to power.
Madison: The signs are the latest salvo in Pro-Life Wisconsin's stepped-up campaign---weeks after the election flipped political power in the state to Republican rule---to dismantle abortion rights in Wisconsin. Virginia Zignego, the group's communications director, told me a couple of days ago that the organization is also gearing up to try to get rid of a controversial state law passed last year requiring comprehensive sex education, including information about birth control, in Wisconsin schools. Supporters of the law claim it is desperately needed to combat an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases among teens in the state.
Two days ago I blogged about 13 Milwaukee billboards, also erected this week, which feature an image of a worried-looking black child and the words BLACK CHILDREN ARE IN DANGER TOO MANY ABORTED in block letters. Those signs, like the two in La Crosse, were also erected with help from out-of-state anti-abortion organizations.
At Last, the Age of Reason is Upon Us. “GOP to block all bills until tax cuts are addressed.”-MSNBC
The latest move by the Republican Party, to hold up other important public issues in Congress, can be fairly described as an extreme case of bullying. But why not, especially when the opposition party is as weak as Democrats are right now.
When signals are sent out from Democratic leaders that tax cuts for the wealthy are “negotiable,” and Obama has come right out and said that he will not allow the middle class tax cuts expire at years end, you get the following confident position by the party of bullying.
When signals are sent out from Democratic leaders that tax cuts for the wealthy are “negotiable,” and Obama has come right out and said that he will not allow the middle class tax cuts expire at years end, you get the following confident position by the party of bullying.
Despite the polls that say otherwise, Republicans are confident Democrats will fail to bring that up too, and give in without a fight.MSNBC: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced this morning that Republicans will block any legislation from coming to the Senate floor until two key economic issues are addressed: funding the government (the “continuing resolution” which must pass to prevent a government shutdown) and the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts.
McConnell said that members of his caucus are united in the pledge to use procedural votes to prevent any other non-economic issues -- including the new START treaty, the DREAM Act, or the defense authorization bill that contains a potential repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy – from coming to the floor for debate.
"Republicans have pleaded with Democrats to put aside their wish-list - to focus on the things Americans want us to focus on," McConnell said on the Senate floor. "They've ignored us. The voters repudiated their agenda at the polls. They've ignored them."
Uncertainty, from the American Families Point of View
An odd thing happened recently:
Why isn’t this major aspect of our economic depression ever talked about?NY Times: During a 75-minute discussion with five business leaders, Bernanke did emphasize the toll high unemployment was taking on families and on the share of the unemployed — more than 40 percent — who have been jobless for at least six months.
“Part of the barrier to faster growth and recovery is confidence in households that they will be financially secure and that they can make purchases and take chances in changing careers and changing locations,” Mr. Bernanke said. “With unemployment so high, that confidence is hard to come by.”
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