louis c
louis c's JournalWhere's the common sense in the latest red meat, right wing welfare "facts"?
Common sense, people.
The new Fox News, right wing bull-shit line is that people make more on welfare than they do by working. Once the average American hears that line, they naturally assume the loafers on welfare are choosing to stay home rather than work.
Of course, the common sense way to look at that statement is not that welfare pays too much. It's that the average worker is paid too little. What we have here today is a corporate welfare system which permeates the private sector. Big corporations hire service workers (after all, we are becoming a service sector driven economy) at low wages and no benefits. The worker supplements his or her income with public housing, food stamps and government health care. It's not that these workers are lazy, after all they work and work hard for a living. It's just that corporations, which once had a social responsibility, used to provide a living wage, health care and pension benefits.
Those days are gone.
How about making sure anyone who works for a living gets a living wage (not less than $15 an hour) and health care benefits.
Remember in the 60's and 70's, that was a common way of life and we had a booming economy.
Strong unions, good middle class jobs and the wealthy didn't seem to suffer too much.
Let's use our heads when this nonsense gets repeated into the public discourse. Let's make work worth it, and there will be fewer people on welfare and subsidies.
The President Speaks About Injustice--June 11, 1963
I spoke to friends today and I couldn't believe that they thought President Obama was out of line in pointing out the injustice in the Martin-Zimmerman case. I reminded them that it is the duty of a President to point out injustice. I point to this speech as evidence to support my position.
JFK said in this speech, "the rights of every (person) are diminished if we deny those rights (to anyone)". And certainly an unarmed 17 year old boy, minding his own business, has every right to walk home safely, regardless of the color of his skin.
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/LH8F_0Mzv0e6Ro1yEm74Ng.aspx
Potential Korean Conflict and American Corporations
North Korea and their newly minted nut-case dictator Kim Jung Un are making all kinds of threats against the United States and it's allies, especially South Korea. A state of war actually exists. I hope it's all bluster. But for the sake of argument, let's say that this crack pot dictator really intends to create a conflict. Let's say he does lob a bomb into the South.
America is obliged to support and defend it's ally, South Korea and China is obliged to do the same with the North.
Where does that leave American corporations doing business in China? I'll tell you where, on the wrong side of a treason charge. How about Steve Wynn and Sheldon Adelson and their casinos in Macao?
No one wants to see a war, especially one that will bring in super-powers. But in the mean time, I wouldn't mind seeing some of these assholes squirm who outsourced our jobs or thought it was just peachy keen to do business with Communists while calling our President a Socialist.
Liberals are for equality all the time, Conservatives only when it hits home
I'm a life-long Liberal, who reached adult status in the late sixties and early seventies. I was born in 1952. I was always for equality. My Father was on Senator Ed Brooke's staff here in Massachusetts at a time when school integration was a hot topic in Boston.
I was brought up believing in equality for all. When gay rights was just becoming an issue, it was second nature for me to support that cause. Equal rights means equal rights, period. I don't have gay or lesbian siblings. If any of my friends are gay, I don't know it and I don't care. I just believe in equal rights and think that those who don't, have an unnatural philosophy. It makes no sense to me to pass judgment on people you don't know based on race, religion, ethnic origin, gender or sexual preference.
However, Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who once co-sponsored the Defense of Marriage act now believes in gay rights and same gender marriage. Of course the Epiphany is because Rob learned his son is gay. Welcome aboard the equality train, Rob. But where were you when the issue concerned other people's children?
Does anyone here at DU think for one moment that Dick Cheney would hold his enlightened position on gay rights and same gender marriage if his Daughter wasn't a Lesbian? Does anyone think that there is even one member of the "Log Cabin Republicans" who is straight or doesn't have a close family member who's gay?
See, the difference between us and them is that doing and thinking the correct thing comes naturally to us. It has to strike home for them to see the light.
Hugo Chavez is Dead....Reuters
Here's the link from 10 minutes ago (5:00 PM EST), via Australia.
Link;
http://www.smh.com.au/world/hugo-chavez-dead-20130306-2fjwq.html
AP at (5:11 PM EST)
Link;
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_VENEZUELA_OBIT_CHAVEZ?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-03-05-16-58-10
President Obama's Speech on Sequestration That He Needs to Give
Good Evening, my fellow Americans. As you know, we are facing some drastic budget cuts in the next few days that could hamper our fragile economic recovery, or even stop it all together. If these cuts take place, it could even cause us to enter a second recession in 5 years.
First, let me give you a little background on how we got here. We, as a nation, faced the prospect of not raising our debt ceiling in August of 2011. That result, according to nearly every independent economist, could have caused an economic calamity.
As a result of the deal I made with House Republicans, a bi-partisan group of Senators and Congressmen would try to come up with a compromise deal, or Grand Bargain. If they failed, these very drastic cuts would loom on the horizon. Cuts in defense spending, cuts to education, cuts that would reach the very heart of our safety net and weaken our security. A meat ax approach that we all agreed no one wanted. That would give us 18 months to reach an agreement. As it turned out, the bi-partisan Congressional Committee could not reach an accord, the 18 months have passed without an agreement, and we have now reached the horizon and another economic crisis fast approaches.
I have tried my best to reach a balanced agreement of closing loopholes for the very wealthy among us and I am open to agreeing on common sense budget reductions. Everything is on the table.
However, the Republicans want to rewrite history and try to play a "blame game". Speaker Boehner says the the sequester that we face was solely my idea. In fact, Speaker Boehner declared that the actual agreement gave him, and I quote "98% of what he wanted" http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-20086598/boehner-i-got-98-percent-of-what-i-wanted/.
However, If the Republicans want to disavow this sequester deal, than I suggest we just repeal it. I will recommend to the Senate to take up that repeal immediately, and if it passes the Senate and the Republican House, I will sign that repeal.
We can avoid sequestration, and with it the dire consequences it will bring, and reopen negotiations with a balanced approach to deficit reduction without threatening our recovery. All it takes is common sense and a will to reach a common goal.
Thank you for listening. Good Evening and God Bless the United States of America.
Question--Who are the 5 (R) Senators that put Hagel through the filibuster?
The report out of Washington is that there will be an attempt at filibustering Chuck Hagel's nomination.
Assuming all the Dems stay in line, I can count McCain to vote against the filibuster (but against the nomination on the floor vote). What other Republicans have made a public statement that he or she will vote to break the filibuster?
We Need Higher Wages for Middle Class, Not Just Higher Taxes on the Rich
Redistribution of wealth, what an ugly phrase. It has all the connotations of Socialism and Communism.
In fact, what we need is income fairness. The same fairness we had in 1970's, when America's Middle Class was thriving.
How do we achieve it? The same way we achieved it in the 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's, with a strong union based private employment sector.
The trade imbalance, the outsourcing, the race to the bottom and the reduction in the average wage of American workers can all be traced to the devastation of America's Labor Unions.
When NAFTA and GAT first appeared, the Democrats (or more specifically, Bil Clinton) compromised with the Republicans (Free Trade was a Republican idea). The US Chamber of Commerce were staunch supporters. So were Banks, Multi-Nationals and almost every other organized group in America. Who was opposed? Speaker Dick Gephardt and Independent Ross Perot. But the only united group who warned of the devastation of these trade agreements and the decline of the American economy was organized labor. Now, we, as a group, are being punished for being correct, and the American middle class is suffering.
When we hear of the many individuals and families on food stamps or relying on Medicaid for their health-care, most Americans conjure up in their minds free-loaders and "takers". In fact, a vast majority of people on public assistance work for a living. The problem is that $10 an hour (or less) cannot subsist a family, even at a full-time job. Fewer and fewer businesses provide health care or benefits. Individuals at the work-place have no voice, as labor unions make up less and less of the work-force.
The same voices in the media who would not work a day without a contract, preach a chorus that would deny that same opportunity to the rest of us. I represent waiters and waitresses, bar-tenders, cooks, dishwashers, clerks, money counters and laborers. The average salary is about $15 to $20 an hour with health care paid about 60% by the employer and a 401K contribution. None of these individuals would possibly have those wages and benefits without the ability to collectively bargain for a contract. Can you imagine a help-wanted sign for a waitress or a dish-washer and the applicant going in and trying to establish a contract for his or her services? The only way that can happen is to bargain collectively, to pool our resources to hire an attorney, to elect an advocate from among the work-force, to have an international union with its institutional and political strength to back us up.
Wal-Mart and other "Big Box" stores purposely keep wages low in order to qualify its employees for public assistance. Instead of employees earning a living wage and benefits, they work at a company that makes billions of dollars in profits. Instead of these hard-working individuals paying taxes and being self-sufficient, they work hard and still become a drain on the Treasury. That's not their fault, or even Wal-Mart's, that's ours, because we, as a society, allow it. We're moving backward into the pre-union days of the 1920's. Those same politicians who want to destroy unions, and with it the ability of workers to speak and provide for themselves, also want to cut that life-line that keeps the working poor from living in poverty.
Think how much our deficit would shrink if the huge cooperations paid a living wage to its workers. Think about all our workers making enough money to pay taxes and provide for themselves with full-time jobs that paid a respectable and living wage.
There is, and always has been, only one way for this fairness to be universal in the American economy and that's to encourage workers to belong to a union.
John Boehner May Very Well be Correct---- The Republicans are Facing Political Annihilation
And I thank the President for it.
The Republican Party enthusiastically cultivated the Teabaggers in 2010. They acted like they were the wave of the future and the Republican Party was going to ride that wave. Unfortunately for the Republicans, those crackpots don't play ball. They have a different set of rules and governing "ain't" one of them.
Now the Teabaggers are part of the Republican coalition. They have the largest caucus in the Republican Party. Their ideas are extreme and outside the mainstream of American society. And the Republicans are now stuck between a rock and a hard place.
You see, the Teabaggers just didn't win congressional seats in 2010, they won Governorships and Legislatures. As a result, they redistricted themselves into safe Teabagger seats, not just Republican seats. And the Republicans that have half of a brain are also stuck in those far-right districts and are frightened to death of a primary contest from their right.
Now, Obama is set squarely in the responsible, sensible middle-left. Exactly where a majority of Americans are. The Democrats, although not all perfectly happy, want government to work and know how to compromise, especially within their own party. Oh sure, we might gripe a little, but we don't threaten to break away and destroy our party. We tend to try to change it from within.
They don't. They'd rather lose a Delaware Senate seat than support a squishy Rino. We'll support a Conservative Democrat in a Red state and chock it up to realistic politics.
Now, to the point. When Gun Safety Legislation appears, we'll settle for universal back-ground checks, where 90% of Americans stand. But the Teabaggers will hold that up in the House and scare the living shit out of Republican incumbents who don't toe the line.
Immigration will sound reasonable in the Senate and from the President's lips, but will be stymied with all kinds of insensitive rhetoric from the Teabaggers in the House.
The same on taxes and spending. Each time a reasonable compromise gets cut, the House will hold it up, with Teabaggers leading the way.
Finally, Republicans, like Boehner and McConnell will have to decide, "do we govern or look like we have been taken over by extremists?"
Once they make that "Hobson's Choice", they're all done.
Here's the way I see the philosophical and political, statistical break down in this country. 55% of this country believes in what we believe, more or less. When the chips are down, we can count on 55%, especially in the future.
The other 45% is not solid at all. I think 30% is traditional Republicans and the other 15% are Teabaggers. Crazy, screaming, idiotic, birthers, haters, deniers and uncontrollable, uncompromising lunatics.
As the issues get put forth, the Republicans are going to have to decide whether they want to side, in fear, with the Teabaggers or move to the center and risk having the Teabaggers form a third party.
If the former occurs, the Republicans will be an extremist, regional party that will be forever trounced in national elections as they watch themselves slowly fade away.
Or, they can choose the later, in which case they will dissolve right before our very eyes, instantly, and will, as Speaker Boehenr so eloquently stated, "be relegated to the dust bin of history."
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