Todd Akin: Symptom of a larger issue

Yes, another post on Todd Akin, as if we didn't give this jerkoff enough attention already, but he's just the gift that keeps on giving.

Despite the stupid remarks he made about "legitimate rape" (as if there is such a thing) and his subsequent backpedal ultimately culminating in an apology ad for his blatant misunderstanding of human female anatomy. Mr Todd, "the liberal media is after me" Akin is still in the race for the Missouri Senate seat occupied by Democrat Claire McCaskill.

Yep, he's still running after being urged by both Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan to drop out, Even Fox news host Sean Hannity has urged Akin to drop out on his show.

So why the hell is the right wing eating one of its own despite the fact that the Republican party platform is right in line with Akins beliefs?

Because Akin has committed the cardinal sin of Republican politics, honesty.

This wasn't a gaffe, it was honest admission to how little Republican politicians in Washington know and care about women's bodies, and their rights to make their own decisions about them.

See the Republican party believes that women should have rape babies, and possibly die from unhealthy pregnancies. That's not pro-life, that's destroying one life at the expense of another.

They also believe that once a woman has that baby that she shouldn't get government assistance, cause, ya know, big government and all.

Republicans know that Akins' position is extreme, and extremely unpopular, which is why even though they believe the same thing they know it's politically toxic. Why else did Scarborough call his own party the "Stupid Party."?

Because as a Republican it's stupid to tell the truth.

That's why they run as progressives or outright lie, throwing out words like socialism, marxism and even comparing the Democratic party as full of freedom hating communists and nazis. While they continue to take positions that look more and more like 1930's Germany (anti-abortion, anti-union, anti-gay, anti-liberal, pro-war, anti-worker)

That's why demonization of the other party is a central tactic of the Republicans. "Obamacare will create death panels, Obama wants to raise your taxes, Obama wants to give your money to people on welfare who don't work." All of this shifts the focus away from their own massively unpopular policies, like cutting taxes for the rich, privatizing Social Security and making Medicare into a voucher system.

And they wrap it all up with words like "free markets" "capitalism" and "small government"

There's nothing small about a government that forces itself into a woman's Uterus.

But I guess that's not considered legitimate rape.

Flat Tax: Flatly Unfair

So I had an interesting discussion this morning with a conservative, a nice fellow overall but he had some rather poor notions about certain things our government is doing. Now I can go on about the poor things our government is doing right now but that's a different article for a different day.

Our discussion grazed the topic of spending, debt and welfare programs, specifically Pell Grants. As a college student and someone who doesn't have a full time job yet I depend on Pell grants to help offset the costs of college when I graduate. While talking about these programs that help the poor we eventually made our way into taxes. I mentioned to him that Mitt Romney paid only 13% in taxes in the returns that he has released, and under the Romney/Ryan plan he proposed people like Mitt would only pay a whopping 0.82% in taxes. This is only for people making over 1 million dollars a year and by dropping capital gains taxes to zero. Ultimately benefiting the richest among us at the expense of everyone else.

He preceded to tell me that I was mad at Romney for his success, and that taxing rich people is a "punishment" for their success.

I'm always astounded how a larger tax rate on millions of dollars is a punishment, I'd love to be in the position to be punished the way the wealthy supposedly are. Give me 20 Million and then tax me at 50%, who cares I'd still have 10 MILLION dollars.

If you can't live comfortably off $10 Million then there is something wrong with you, and it's not the tax code.

And after he uttered that little right wing talking point gem, he said something along the lines of; "and that's why we need a flat tax, so everyone pays the same."

Everyone pays the same?

I've heard this argument before, and it always bugs me, simply because it's a distorted version of fairness that is so simple, so easy to believe but in reality makes no sense and doesn't account for the massive inequality it would create. Just like other right wing policies I know of.

A flat tax is not a fair tax, and it's not something that works in reality, at least not if you want a strong middle class. It makes the poor pay more, and the rich pay less. The rates may seem fair, but the impact is disproportionate. The rich will simply get richer and the poor, poorer.

Not only that but the loss of revenue from the rich paying less will not be made up by the broadening of the tax base. This will lead to massive cuts in social programs that also impact the poor as they are the ones who rely on those programs.

Talk about kicking people when they're down, all so Mitt Moneybags Romney can get a tax cut?

Fuck that.

The poor: Silent Minority

Today I want to share a topic that is rather close to me, Poverty. I choose to write about this because I am one of the 46 Million people who live under the poverty line here in America.

With the 2012 election season now in full bloom this is the best time to bring this issue to the forefront of our politics. Before I get into the politics and policy aspects of this, I want to share some of my personal story.

As a Michigan resident, I knew for a long time that we were the car making capital of the country. Detroit was the motor city, home of the big three. So much of our local economy was based on manufacturing, mostly car parts, but there were other industries too.

My first job out of high school was at Electrolux building refrigerators, my father worked his way up the ladder, from the factory to the office. From hourly to salary. No I didn't get any special treatment, nor did I want any. I worked as hard as any other person there. I was a temp for the summer, and ended up not getting asked to come back the next summer, (though I already had another job elsewhere) so it didn't bother me.

My next job was at a union shop making truck parts, hitches and bumpers for the big automakers. I worked there a good few years making good money, but health problems related from the smoke ended that as I was fired for too many health related absences, they no longer accepted doctors notes from numerous visits related to breathing trouble. I was also in school then and when I lost my job I had to drop out and now I still have the bill to pay for that.

A couple of minimum wage jobs later I found myself in a non union plastic injection molding plant working for $10 an hour.

What does my work history have to do with poverty?

Quite a bit actually.

Not because I had been part of the working poor, I made enough money in those jobs by myself to stay just over the poverty line, but because those jobs have become less and less available now. Electrolux moved to Mexico, leaving 3,000 people without work, the bumper shop went bankrupt and was bought out by a foreign corporation who closed at least one the two shops in the area, and everywhere else factory jobs have  reduced pay and benefits for workers, often relying on temp services that pay minimum wage up to $8.25 an hour for the same work I was paid $10/hr for years earlier.

Not to mention my last job laid me off after I was hurt during work hours, I was making around $9 building pontoon boats. I like many there got the job through a temp agency. After being hurt, and laid off, I realized the only chance I had for a better future was to try college again.

So I here I am, a college student, racking up debt, living with my wife on $12,000/yr with $93 a month in food stamps, sure I could be eligible for more, but I would have to drop school.

Like many using the safety net to get by, I worked for a living, paid into the system, have had some hard luck and health problems that have forced me to retrain and retool, not to mention take on massive debt, and turn down further assistance in order to be successful in the future.

Yet according to the GOP people like me who are poor are simply lazy, we just want our welfare checks so we don't have to work.

This leads me to a very excellent encounter that happened last night when I had the opportunity to speak to Tanya Wells on Facebook. For any of you #Uppers fans out there, you may have seen the wonderful segment in which she shares her story about going from $100k a/year to just $18k due to the recession. After seeing her story I noticed that we find ourselves in similar situations, having to depend on student loans, and food assistance while going to school and having to turn down other programs so we can continue training in an effort to get good middle class jobs when we graduate.

We also felt the same demonization from the political class, from being called lazy on twitter and on other social media, or that we should just try harder to find work, despite the fact that its hard to even get a call back from prospective employers. (My last interview was a couple weeks ago, damned if I didn't try to impress him with examples of my work.)

We also spoke about getting the rest of us poor people to band together to fight for the benefits that sustain hardworking people like us who are trying to get that training to get back in the job market. That involves voting, and becoming more involved in matters of policy, as well as fighting back against the rhetoric of being called welfare queens, lazy, & people who don't want to work but stay home, smoke pot and collect handouts from the government. Nothing could be further from the truth. I maintain honors in my classes and Mr. Wells, Tanya's husband is maintaining a 3.98 GPA!

It's these things people need to know.

So earlier I mentioned I would get into the policy aspect of poverty.

Well for starters the Romney/Ryan plan for the budget calls for cutting 62% of the funding for services that help people like me and Mrs. Wells, that includes food stamps, pell grants, and Medicaid. Not to balance the budget mind you, but for tax cuts for people like Romney. In fact Romney would benefit immensely from his own tax plan as he would only a pay a 0.82% tax rate.

So while the poor people like me, would bear the brunt of massive austerity, Romney would become that much richer. How does this happen?

Because people ignore the poor, we do not have money to contribute to superPACs, we do not have connections. It's also much easier to blame the poor for being poor, because people don't like to think they can become poor. People like to think "Hey I work hard, I won't lose my job if I keep working hard, those poor people didn't work hard enough so that's why they're poor, that wont be me." It's easier to demonize people than to fix the system, easier to be selfish than to to pay it forward and help those who need it.

Also take into account that because of Ronald Reagan, and Newt Gingrich, many think the poor are just welfare queens, taking your hard earned money because they don't want to work.

This rhetoric works, it makes us turn on each other, while they shift more and more money to the top from everyone else, squeezing the middle class which makes them blame the poor even more. It's genius really, making the middle class and the poor fight while robbing us both to enrich the top.

This is why we need to stop fighting each other, and start protecting each other by ensuring safety net programs and encourage college training, and vocational schools so the poor can move up to the middle class, and the people who fall from the middle class can climb right back up. We can do this, we can afford it. After all we apparently can afford to subsidize oil companies that are the most profitable industry in the world right?

We also have to realize that we can all end up like Tanya and I, and only then will we elect those who will try to save the safety net for everyone.

Lyin' Ryan: Why the GOP goldenboy, is a hypocrite.

One week, it's been one week since the selection of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's VP choice, and just like Sarah Palin, it seems Ryan has not been well vetted.

Which is why videos like this have been showing up lately.

Videos like these show how much Ryan was railing for stimulus during the last Administration to help his own district. There have also been letters to the energy department where Ryan asks for money from the stimulus to help create jobs.

I thought Paul Ryan hated stimulus. Apparently only when Barack Obama does it.

There are numerous articles and videos of Paul Ryan calling Keynesian economic measures a failure, and waste. Yet because of these measures and despite the debunked myths spread by the right. the economy dug itself out of a free-fall.

These Republicans just keep getting more brazen in their absolute hypocrisy. Yesterday Paul Ryan even made a nice trip to Florida to speak to some seniors, seemingly guaranteeing their Medicare benefits while throwing everyone under 55, under the bus. That is a Mitt Romney style pander, he learned from the best. What is worse about this, and Chris Hayes pointed this out on his show, that Medicaid under Romney/Ryan would be massively cut, and those same seniors he pandered to today, often rely on Medicaid to cover what Medicare does not.

Fail.

Paul Ryan is hypocritical in others way too. He once touted Ayn Rand as someone who got him into politics and helped form his belief system, as well as having his Catholic beliefs influence his policies. Both of which are absurd. Ayn Rand, was an Atheist, no problem there right, except that Paul Ryan is a Catholic, who believes that his religious morals should be a bigger part of government. Especially on matters of abortion and contraception. Which is completely the opposite of Rands view on religion.

Rand even states that, “[Faith] is a sign of a psychological weakness. . . I regard it as evil to place your emotions, your desire, above the evidence of what your mind knows.  That’s what you’re doing with the idea of God.”

When people began to point him out on his hypocrisy Ryan began to run from Ayn Rand, saying that he didn't know her philosophy until later and complete disagrees with her objectivism.

So what about his Catholic beliefs? You know the moral center of his policies. Like feeding the poor, clothing the naked blah blah blah. Surely he calls for increased benefits to help the poor like food stamps and unemployment insurance and medical care right? Except he doesn't. His plan cuts 62% of funding for programs that actively help the poor, and shifts the money into....tax cuts for people like Mitt Romney, who would pay a whopping 0.82% tax rate on his $20 million fortune.

Oops!

His budget is so out of step with the beliefs of the Catholic church that there are a group of Nuns,  have called his budget "immoral".

Go get him nuns.

So if Paul Ryan doesn't lead by his faith in the Church, or his so called admiration for Ayn Rand, who does he work for?

Those who pay him. The Koch Brothers, Karl Rove, and other super rich people who have nothing better to do than figure out ways to make more money off the backs of the poor and middle class.

At least there's good news for Paul Ryan, he has made a friend of Mitt Romney, who he shares so much in common with, at least after they both lose badly in November they'll have plenty of time to go Jet Ski-ing together, hell maybe Ryan can get Romney on the P90X program. Move over Arnold, here comes Muscle Mitt.

Mediscare? GOPs new lie

We all know the senior vote is extremely important, especially in key states like Florida. And we all know that there is one thing seniors left or right care about. Medicare.

One of the most popular of the new deal programs in existence. A long with Social Security, Medicare has always been in the forefront of issues with senior citizens. It's popular because it works. Since its inception medicare has always been a guaranteed benefit for those who have worked hard all of their lives and have been old enough to qualify.

With the inclusion of Paul Ryan on the Romney ticket the campaign has refocused onto "entitlement" spending, most notably Medicare.

What astounds me about this is that Romney and Ryan see this as their winning issue.

Huh!?

Yes, it's true. Romney and Ryan are now casting themselves as the saviors of Medicare, protecting it from the evil Obama and his socialist "Obamacare". Never mind the fact that Medicare IS socialism, but I digress. The thing about the Romney/Ryan plan for Medicare is nothing short of completely changing it, not for seniors of course but for people like me who are not yet seniors.

To back up their role as the saviors of Medicare they have sent out surrogates, like Tim Pawlenty and John Sununu (that is a fun name to say) to spread the new talking point that Obama stole $716 Billion from Medicare to fund Obamacare.

Without even touching on the racial angle of this obvious lie, I want to explain first why it is such a boldface lie.

Sununu says that it takes from seniors and cuts their benefits. Yeah, not really. Instead this $716 Billion is from projected cuts in the amount of over-payments to hospitals insurance companies that would have been made. The ACA actually limits over-payments and instead makes insurance companies and hospitals take less in Medicare reimbursement. They agreed to this because of the influx of new patients from the Mandate. But those pesky details never get in the way of a good lie.

So let me say this again, no reduction in benefits, decreased spending from no longer overpaying insurance companies and hospitals for your care, and other small cuts to eliminate waste.

On the other hand you have the Ryan Plan that turns Medicare into a voucher system (for those under 55) which will shift the burden of costs onto future seniors, like me.

I sincerely hope the current crop of seniors consider their grand kids on Nov, 6th, and send Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan a little message

Should The Presidency Require Business Experience?

In a word, No.

In two words, fuck no!

Let me explain why this makes no sense to me.

Conservatives argue that in order to be a good president that you must have a background in business, and some even say you need military experience.

That's utter crap, here's why.

Government is not a business, it doesn't run as a business and it shouldn't ever be run as a business. See people tend to forget that a government is really a contract between the government, and the governed.

Business however is different, it exists to make profit, usually by providing a good or service in exchange for something of value. They're not really similar at all.

To prove my point I turn to the founding fathers.

"Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it."

John Adams: Thoughts on Government, 1776

I love that quote.

Business exists to enrich the owner of said business, or as John Adams says, the private interest of any one man, family, or class of men.

What I am saying is if government is ran by a businessman, and is run like a business, it wouldn't favor the common good, it would work for the interests of a few people, a few wealthy, powerful people.

That's called an Aristocracy.

Another difference between government and business is how they work. Businesses are run by a CEO, usually put there through a board of investors (this is obviously in the case of a large business) Those investors let the CEO do what he needs to do to make money and will not usually interfere too much so long as the business is profitable.

Government works through a careful system of checks and balances so no branch gains more power over the other, there is no de facto leader in a government as each branch depends on others in order to get things done. If the business loses money it cannot function, and must downsize or run the risk of not being able to pay its stockholders, creditors and workers. Government however is able to run a debt and continue, not indefinitely of course but nonetheless it can function while running a deficit without going under.

Of course it's best to run make a habit of running deficits, which is why we have taxes, unlike business. I think Mr. Hamilton addressed this one...

"As to Taxes, they are evidently inseparable from Government. It is impossible without them to pay the debts of the nation, to protect it from foreign danger, or to secure individuals from lawless violence and rapine."

Alexander Hamilton: Address to the Electors of the State of New York, March, 1801
So why shouldn't business experience be required to be president as Mr. Romney had once said? Because they are different. They are run differently and have different goals and ways to get there. One should never run government like a business, one should never even consider it, and one should most definitely NOT merge government with business.

I think there is a word for that.

Obfuscation Nation

With the Romney/Ryan campaign now fully underway and with the excitement for campaign politics renewed in the press, I just want to note once again how many are forgetting about the issue of Mitts tax returns and how much of his money he is hiding in the Caymans. Luckily my good followers on Twitter as well as many others have not forgotten to press him on the returns, lest he gets away with shifting the focus away from his most likely absurdly low tax rates and the possibility that he received amnesty for illegally hiding his money in Switzerland.

This whole campaign shift just serves to remind me of how much politicians in general hide from public scrutiny. These days we know so little about the people in power or who want to be in power. We have super-pacs that are not required to disclose donors leading to unlimited dark money going to campaigns from who knows where. Eccentric & often shady billionaires like the Koch's sinking millions of dollars into right wing causes, think tanks and bribing foreign governments. 
Not to mention the huge amount of Koch money that went to Scott Walker in Wisconsin.

What we live in today is an era of dark money, shady billionaires, and bought politicians. A blip in the news cycle last week showed just how much influence Goldman Sachs has on even the Obama administration. Goldman testified before the Michigan senator Carl Levin about how the emails showing that Goldman execs knew they selling toxic crap securities to customers that were packaged as good deals. Yet Goldman denies wrongdoing for its role in the 2008 housing bubble crash. Though Goldman denies any wrongdoing for its role in selling a "shitty deal" to investors they still paid a $550 Million fine for it.

Who the fuck pays a fine if they didn't do anything wrong?

Eric Holder, the AG for the Obama Administration denied finding what they did to be wrong and therefore will not prosecute Goldman Sachs, so according to Holder, lying to investors, packaging bad securities, and helping to crash the economy is perfectly legal so long as you pay a token fine (They can easily afford it, since they made billions off it and through free money from the Fed) I should note that Goldman Sachs was one the largest contributors to the Obama campaign in '08, but has jumped ship to support Romney and Ryan.

This is an example of how another veil thrown onto those who have the money and power to placate the people. Thing is, the people aren't stupid, we're catching on to how things really work, and we're going to try and put a stop to it.

Let the Medicare attack ads begin

Now that the Ryan pick has been confirmed, like I said last night Liberal pundits are high-fiving each other all over the country. Ushering in a direction to this campaign with Romney saying that his campaign will be focused“American aspirations and American ideals.”

It's a big change from talking about Bain and the economy, or hiding from his tax returns. It's no secret the Obama campaign has been hitting him on his time at Bain over and over, like the Joe Soptic ad that talked about his wife dying from cancer because they didn't have health insurance, as well the many good paying middle class jobs that were lost while Romney and Bain walked away with millions.

The Ryan pick in my opinion is the result of a desperate need to change the narrative in the media, to Medicare, where they can hit Obama back for his supposed $500 Billion in cuts to Medicare in the ACA which is crap that easily debunked the non-partisan CBO. It does make for some good politics though, going after the Tea Party "get your gubmint hands off my Medicare" crowd, which is ironic at its best.

Another reason I think for the Ryan pick is that it shifts the focus off of Romneys tax returns, after today few people will be talking about what is in his returns because they will be so focused on this VP pick.

That's not to say this isn't important, choosing Ryan like I mentioned will change the narrative, whether it works in Romneys favor is yet to be seen, but Ryan like Romney has a bunch of baggage that can and will be scrutinized.

Lets start with the fact that Paul Ryan used Social Security to help him get through college, and now he wants to privatize it so that Wall st. can get richer. Wow, big surprise. He wants to turn Medicare into a coupon that does not automatically change in value if healthcare prices increase, that's not saving Medicare that is shifting the cost the seniors while giving them lip service. We'll continue that Paul is Ayn Randian follower who gave out copies of Atlas Shrugged on Christmas. (Thank goodness I'm not on his Christmas card) Ayn Rand is famous for being a staunch libertarian but not so well known for taking Social Security and Medicare benefits near the end of her life. How fucking hypocritical are these assholes? Talk about burning bridges.

The Ryan plan cuts government spending, by a lot. It also repeals the Affordable Care Act, which has been gaining popularity since the supreme court decision upheld its constitutionality. Like I mentioned it changes Medicare into a coupon, privatizes Social Security, lowers corporate taxes, and promotes drill baby drill.

The plan is awful, it takes from the poor, and the elderly, and gives it to oil companies and corporations.

Lastly I think the Ryan pick is there to excite the conservative Tea Party base. Ryan has been a rising Tea Party star in the House and is the perfect person to unite the Teabangelical base with the moneyed establishment. It also gives the Romney campaign some help overcoming the trust issues conservatives have with Romney. Before the Ryan pick conservative voters only backed Mitt because he was the anti-Obama, they never trusted the one who implemented Romneycare in Massachusetts which then became the model for Obamacare. They never trusted the "I will be to the left of Ted Kennedy on LGBT issues" Mitt Romney, and the Romney who was in favor of not overturning Roe v Wade, combine that with the fact that 68% of independents polled say that Mitt Romney represents the rich.

This is why both sides are thrilled about the Romney/Ryan ticket, it gives the Obama team ammunition to use (and lots of it) while giving Romney a chance to change the narrative as well as excite the base and help ensure high turnout on Nov. 6th