Tag: 2012 Election

The 2012 Democratic National Platform talks big about job creation and rebuilding the middle class which has been taking hits since the Reagan tax cuts in 1984. While it touts the fact that the private sector has created jobs and the manufacturing sector is growing, its not enough. Most of the jobs that have been created are low paying. The Democratic Party has done little to debunk the lie that the wealthy corporations and individuals are job creators. By rubber stamping the past policies of giveaways to corporations and extending the Bush/Obama tax cuts, the Democrats have made the problems for the ever shrinking middle class even worse.

In two articles at Common Dreams, writers Paul Buchheit and John Atcheson debunk the “job creators fraud” and lay out the real problem ailing the economy, “corporate welfare”. In Mr. Buchheit’s article, he concisely cuts through the “job creator” nonsense with the facts.

Based on IRS figures, the richest 1% nearly tripled its share of America’s after-tax income from 1980 to 2006. That’s an extra trillion dollars a year. Then, in the first year after the 2008 recession, they took 93% (pdf) of all the new income.

He also notes that the wealthiest 10% own 83% of the financial wealth (pdf) and only pay 15% tax under the premise that they would create jobs. Instead they put that wealth into tax fee accounts overseas (pdf).

Mr. Atcheson breaks it down noting that the 15% tax rate allows the wealthy to avoid some $59 billion in taxes per year and by sheltering profits off shore, “(c)orporations are given $58 billion a year in tax breaks (pdf).” Hedge fund managers are given a tax break that allows them to pay only 15% on their earnings, avoiding at least $2.1 billion in taxes a year. Yet, as he further points out:

We spend $59 billion on social welfare programs, but more than $92 billion on corporate subsidies.  According to the Environmental Law Institute, fossil fuel industries alone get more than $70 billion in subsidies, with most going to the oil and gas sector.  Yeah, we certainly can’t afford to deprive Exxon of its record profits just to give money to needy kids.

Add to that $1.2 trillion the $9 trillion in low interest and no interest loans from the Federal Reserve and $700 billion bank bailout that these corporations and banks are making huge profits on and paying no taxes. You have, Mr. Buchheit notes, “$10 trillion in misdirected dollars.  Just 1/10 of that would create 25 million jobs, one for every unemployed or underemployed worker in America. Or a $45,000 a year job for every college student in the United States.”

These are the facts that Mr. Buchheit’s lays out:

The Wall Street Journal noted in 2009 that the Bush tax cuts led to the “worst track record for jobs in recorded history.” 25 million people remain unemployed or underemployed, with 30 to 50 percent of recent college graduates in one of those categories. Among unemployed workers, nearly 43 percent have been without a job for six months or longer.

For the jobs that remain, most are low-paying, with the only real employment growth occurring in retail sales and food preparation. A recent report by the National Employment Law Project confirms that lower-wage occupations (up to about $14 per hour) accounted for 21 percent of recession losses and 58 percent of recovery growth, while mid-wage occupations (between $14 and $21 per hour) accounted for 60 percent of recession losses and only 22 percent of recovery growth.

The minimum wage is shamefully low, about 30% lower (pdf) than the inflation-adjusted 1968 figure. And the tiny pay can’t be blamed on small business. Two-thirds of America’s low-wage workers, according to another National Employment Law Project (pdf) report, work for companies that have at least 100 employees.

All these job woes persist while productivity has continued to grow, with an 80% increase since 1973 as median worker pay has stagnated. [..]

With the bulk of their assets buried in “low-risk investments (bonds and cash), the stock market, and real estate”, the wealthy are not creating jobs:

… Only 3 percent of the CEOs, upper management, and financial professionals were entrepreneurs (pdf) in 2005, even though they made up about 60 percent of the richest .1% of Americans. A recent study found that less than 1 percent of all entrepreneurs came from very rich or very poor backgrounds. They come from the middle class.

There is ample evidence that more jobs were created when the top marginal tax rates were high.

Instead of cutting our social safety net, as President Obama has agreed to do in his “Grand Bargain”, we need to end the corporate welfare programs and put an end to the lie that if we tax the wealthy less they’ll create jobs.

The economist has been a vocal critic of Ryan’s budget. On Wednesday, he appeared on Current TV to analyze the plan with Al Gore – who is hosting the network’s coverage of the conventions – and hosts Eliot Spitzer and Jennifer Granholm.

Krugman said that Ryan’s plan would leave “tens of millions” of people without health insurance. Gore said that his understanding is that it would take money from the poor and give it to the rich while increasing the budget deficit.

Krugman said that was indeed the case. “How can [Ryan] get away with this?” he asked incredulously. “World’s greatest nation falls for this flimflam?”

Paul Ryan’s speech Wednesday night may have accomplished one good thing: It finally may have dispelled the myth that he is a Serious, Honest Conservative. Indeed, Mr. Ryan’s brazen dishonesty left even his critics breathless. [..]

But Mr. Ryan’s big lie – and, yes, it deserves that designation – was his claim that “a Romney-Ryan administration will protect and strengthen Medicare.” Actually, it would kill the program. [..]

The Republican Party is now firmly committed to replacing Medicare with what we might call Vouchercare. The government would no longer pay your major medical bills; instead, it would give you a voucher that could be applied to the purchase of private insurance. And, if the voucher proved insufficient to buy decent coverage, hey, that would be your problem.

Moreover, the vouchers almost certainly would be inadequate; their value would be set by a formula taking no account of likely increases in health care costs. [..]

The question now is whether voters will understand what’s really going on (which depends to a large extent on whether the news media do their jobs). Mr. Ryan and his party are betting that they can bluster their way through this, pretending that they are the real defenders of Medicare even as they work to kill it. Will they get away with it?

You should realize you’ve screwed up when your own paid shills call out your lies:

According to Fox News columnist Sally Kohn, vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan’s speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday “was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech.”

“On this measure, while it was Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold,” Kohn wrote. [..]

In her column, Kohn called out four lies in Ryan’s speech. She critcized Ryan for blaming President Obama for the shutdown of a General Motors plant in Janesville, Wis., that actually was closed during the Bush administration. She also knocked Ryan for pinning the blame for S&P’s downgrade of U.S. debt on Obama, when Republicans in Congress helped precipitate the downgrade by threatening to refuse to raise the debt ceiling.

“The good news is that the Romney-Ryan campaign has likely created dozens of new jobs among the legions of additional fact checkers that media outlets are rushing to hire to sift through the mountain of cow dung that flowed from Ryan’s mouth,” Kohn wrote.

But they will continue to repeat this litany of lies and the people will believe. Hallelujah! Amen!

Message to Romney and Obama: Keep Your Hands Off Medicare

Well Ann Romney is still the best speaker overall with Huckabee clearly second and Rice and Ryan about tied.  Christie slides to 5th just ahead of Pawlenty.  Everyone else is reality show bad or worse.

Remember my points are given on presentation not substance so the fact that Ryan’s speech was such a comprehensive compendium of lies that even inoffensive little words like ‘a’, ‘and’, and ‘the’ were overwhelmed by the onslaught is immaterial to the score.

Of course tonight we have our special super secret guest speaker which rumors say will be Clint Eastwood.  I must say if true I consider this a mistake from 2 standpoints.  Firstly I’m not sure ‘Dirty Harry’ Callahan is sufficiently ardent for the Party at this particular stage and secondly he’ll make Romney look bad.  He’s already going to have competition enough from Jeb Bush who wouldn’t even be on the stage except for his institutional strength.

I think actually that will be the speech to watch tonight.  Jon is not kidding when he calls this a rehearsal for ’16 because no one with any brains (and I had to set the bar that low to include the Villager Idiots) thinks there is a path to electoral victory for Mitt.  What we have seen so far is the chaotic evil of the id raging anti-fairies (Fairly Odd Parents, I stand by my metaphor), Jeb is the face of the soul sucking pixies and they own this town.

There are reports that ratings are tanking and the enthusiasm among the delegates distinctly down.  Other factors are contributing (Isaac) and will no doubt be blamed by those looking for excuses, but what I’m feeling is a huge emotional black hole at the center of all of this and his name is Barack Obama.

Reagan was sunshiny optimism and hope on a hill.  He had goals, evil goals but still goals.  These guys have nothing but hate, resentment, and fear.  They won’t talk about their program for America because people justifiably don’t like it.  Huge majorities, even in their own party.

However Democrats are just as bad.  One of the reasons Paul Ryan is an evil hypocritical liar is that he voted against the Bowles/Simpson report.  We should be thanking him instead.

The politicians are afraid of democracy.  Since 2006 every election has been a “change” election and attrition has replaced many of the less firmly entrenched.  There is no reason not to expect this trend to continue until conditions improve.

I’ve been watching the action on CSPAN and I highly recommend it as complete and mercifully pundit free.

7:00 p.m.

• Convention convenes
• Call to order
• Introduction of Colors US Central Command Joint Forces Color Guard Team
• Pledge of Allegiance by Dylan Nonaka
• National Anthem sung by SEVEN
• Invocation by Ken and Priscilla Hutchins

• Remarks by U.S. Rep. Connie Mack (FL)
• Reagan Legacy Video
• Remarks by Newt and Callista Gingrich
• Remarks by Craig Romney

8:00 p.m.

• Remarks by Governor former Jeb Bush (FL)
• Remarks by Bob White, chairman of Romney for President campaign
• Remarks by Grant Bennett
• Remarks by Tom Stemberg

9:00 p.m.

• Remarks by former Massachusetts Lt. Governor Kerry Healey
• Remarks by Jane Edmonds, former Massachusetts Secretary of Workforce
• Remarks by Olympians Michael Eruzione, Derek Parra and Kim Rhode

10:00 p.m.

• Remarks by U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (FL)
• Remarks by presidential nominee Mitt Romney
• Benediction by Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan
• Adjournment

Madam Zelda!  Madam Zelda!

I don’t think anybody could have predicted that these people…would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile.

Debt of Honor (1994)

Ah, Condi the Pianist, how predictable.  And by ‘predictable’, I mean completely… um… dictable, I guess.  The point being that I hope all of you are finding this as excruciatingly boring fun and exciting as I am.

Call me when they say something factual.  It will be man bites dog.

Yesterday’s highlights in my estimation were of course the Ron Paul floor fight and Roll Call snub.  I also liked the ‘Parade of White Guys’ from the Afternoon session.  Of the evening program about all I have to say is that Janine Turner as a blonde looks like Julia Duffy and Neil Boyd in that hat looks like Sam Kineson.  Santorum was just creepy with the hands and family values thing and got chosen to deliver the big welfare work waiver lie.  Kelly Ayotte is in fact a poor public speaker and did need a crutch.  Kasich, McDonnell, and Walker are surprisingly bad for supposed heavyweights and established the “Me, me, me” meme (oh, and that Mitt guy too) that Christie epitomized.

I’m told by those who’ve seen more of him that this is the nice Chris.

I don’t have anything bad to say about Ann Romney at all except that her Nancified look was a little obvious.  If any of the men around her were half as good they’d be the nominee and Mitt would be strapped to the outside of his Gulfstream like Rafalca headed for a fun time playing Hot Wheels in his garage.  As it is he’ll have to wait until November.

Tonight’s highlights look to be Ron Paul hour at 7 (at least instructive).  I doubt McSame can come up with anything David Gregory hasn’t already slobbered over.  Jindal will be asking the evil Zionist Occupation Government for more money than he deserves and justifiably absent.  If Mike Huckabee is smart he’ll just play the banjo, but nobody has ever accused him of that.  When he does open his mouth he’ll show you why he’s now a pro instead of a politician, because he’s wacko insane but also that good.  Maybe he’ll jam with Condoleezza who should be hiding underneath her piano.

And then the big show, Ryan himself.

Conservative Humor.

7:00 p.m.

• Convention convenes
• Call to order
• Introduction of Colors by Amputee Veterans of America Support Team (AVAST)
• Pledge of Allegiance by Brigadier General Patrick E. Rea, US Army (Ret.)
• National Anthem sung by Ayla Brown
• Invocation by Ishwar Singh

• Ron Paul Video
• Remarks by Senate Republican Leader and Convention Temporary Chairman Mitch McConnell (KY)
• Remarks by Senator Rand Paul (KY)
• Remarks by Christopher Devlin-Young and Jeanine McDonnell

8:00 p.m.

• Remarks by Senator John McCain (AZ)
• Remarks by Attorney General Pam Bondi (FL) and Attorney General Sam Olens (GA)
• Remarks by Governor Bobby Jindal (LA) (Jindal will not be attending- ek)
• Remarks by Senator John Thune (SD)
• Remarks by Senator Rob Portman (OH)

9:00 p.m.

• Remarks by Governor Luis Fortuño (PR)
• Remarks by Governor Tim Pawlenty (MN)
• Bush 41, 43 Film
• Remarks by Mike Huckabee

10:00 p.m.

• Remarks by Condoleezza Rice
• Remarks by Governor Susana Martinez (NM)
• Remarks by vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan
• Benediction by Archbishop Demetrios
• Adjournment

The first day of the Republican Party Convention in Tampa, Florida was mercifully brief due to tropical storm Isaac. Isaac is now a hurricane and bearing down on the Gulf Coast as a eerie reminder of hurricane Katrina seven years ago and the disastrous Bush regime handling of the disaster. Today the convention hits its stride and was called to order by RNC Chair Reince Priebus at 2 PM. The afternoon covered adoption of the rules and platform. The rules have been changed to stifle other candidates like Ron Paul, who has been denied a speaker’s spot, and former vice presidential nominee, Sara Palan who was not invited.

Tonight’s highlight will be the keynote speech delivered by New Jersey’s own bully-boy governor Chris Christie and the speech delayed from possible future First Lady, Ann Romney with Mitt close by to cheer her.

To fit all of these folks into the 4 hours, all the speakers were told to edit their addresses to fit the time they were allotted, in the case of the first hour that’s less than 10 minutes. That will be quite a feat.  

Here is a list of speakers and the times they are supposed to appear with my take on what they’ll say:

7 p.m.

• House Speaker John Boehner: The Orange Smoking Man wants to throw Obama out of the bar. Then he’ll cry
• RNC Chairman Reince Priebus He’ll reenforce the litany of lies
• Video and Mayor Mia Love (Saratoga Springs, Utah), U.S. congressional candidate: She is the first black woman to run on the Republican ticket. Her roll will be to appeal to black women. Good luck with that one, honey.
• Janine Turner: Actress turned tearless activist who will no doubt insist that Obama was born on Mars in Kenya or someother milder form of birther bs.
• Former Sen. Rick Santorum: Rick will focus on attacking welfare. He still Googles well.
• Host, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers: House rep from Washington with a Down Syndrome child will end the  firsthour with coffee and donuts.

8 p.m.

• Sen. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), accompanied by Jack Gilchrist: She need a “crutch”?  Gilchrist is the businessman who insists he did it all by himself despite the millions federal assistance and contracts he received.
• Gov. John Kasich (Ohio): Will talk about the great job he’s done trying to suppress workers’ rights.
• Gov. Mary Fallin (Okla.): Looks like she’ll be touting “Drill, baby, drill” theme.
• Gov. Bob McDonnell (Va.), accompanied by Bev Gray: Gray is an architect. I doubt they’ll be talking about transvaginal probe design but that would be a more interesting speech.
• Gov. Scott Walker (Wis.): [Another anti-union speech about how collective bargaining rights destroyed the economy]

9 p.m.

• Gov. Brian Sandoval (Nev.): He’ll attack Obama’s Welfare Waivers after requesting flexibility.
• Sher Valenzuela (small-business owner, candidate for Delaware lt. governor): Another GOP candidate that built her business with 17 million in federal loans & contracts.
• Senate Republican candidate Ted Cruz (Texas): He has the delusional notion that the Hispanic community is conservative & opposed to amnesty.
• Former Rep. Artur Davis: Former Democrat now Republican who claims voter ID laws do not violate civil rights or suppress voter turn out.
• Gov. Nikki Haley (S.C.)

10 p.m.

• Mrs. Lucé Vela Fortuño: Puerto Rico’s First Lady who will introduce Ann Romney
• Mrs. Ann Romney: The “Queen of Equestrian Mean” will deign to address “you people” with hubby Mitt leading the ovation
• Gov. Chris Christie (N.J.): Certainly the highlight of the night will be this blustering buffoon who would love to have you believe he saved New Jersey.
• Benediction by Sammy Rodriguez: Finally, a rousing “amen” from a Hispanic Evangelical. So far no Mormon Tabernacle Choir

Green Party* candidate Jill Stein, who ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2010, has taken the lead for her party’s nomination to run for president against dictator Barry Obama and whoever his Republican counterpart is this November.

According to Ballot Access News and other sources, Stein has won enough of the vote in various state primaries to qualify for matching funds.  She is competing for the Green Party nomination with Kent Mesplay and Roseanne Barr, the latter of whom she did a Skype session with to Greens across the country.

Stein has blasted Obama for his many betrayals.  She criticized his signing of the FAA Re-authorization bill, which further erodes unions, his overtures of war against Iran, his decision to support portions of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would cause further destruction to the environment and jeopardize human health and safety, his assaults on civil liberties including the “Defense” Authorization that allows American citizens to be imprisoned indefinitely without charge or trial, his taking of single-payer and a public option off the table in favor of an insurance-industry-authored mandate to buy private coverage or face stiff tax penalties, and other far right policies embraced by the incumbent.

Stein’s alternatives to all these things and more reads like a leftist’s dream: a Green New Deal to create environment-friendly jobs, an energy policy dedicated to 100% conversion to clean, renewable sources, expanding Medicare to every American and generous funding of public education (including the forgiveness of student loan debt), protecting America’s Safety Net, and ending America’s imperial wars.

Stein does not appear to be on record so far as to prosecuting America’s war criminals, including Obama, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and the thugs in their respective regimes guilty of war crimes, but I can’t imagine she would let them off the hook, since it would only reinforce the notion of total immunity for high-ranking lawbreakers – a travesty of justice.  (I’ll keep you apprised of this as I learn more.)

With many progressives determined to sit out this election, Stein’s candidacy appears to be offering a welcome alternative.

Salon.com’s news editor, Steve Kornacki, lamented yesterday that “Obama won’t face a credible primary challenge”, going on about how the closest thing to a liberal challenge he has comes from Republican candidate Buddy Roemer.  While it is true that many liberals aren’t seeing any “viable” candidates materialize on the left, Kornacki isn’t telling us why that is: the failure of supposedly liberal pundits to report on candidates who are actually running.

And therein lies the catch-22 bloggers like Kornacki can’t seem to escape from.  They complain about Obama, but they refuse to use the public voice they’ve been given to alter the political landscape.  Pundits influence public opinion simply by reporting on someone or something.  And they pass up opportunity after opportunity to do so when they fail to do their journalistic duty.

Because there is a Democrat trying to get himself on the ballot to challenge Obama from the left in next year’s primaries: Aldous Tyler is seeking the nomination to run for president as a liberal Democrat.  His platform hits all the right notes, including opposition to war, taxation of the wealthy, a sustainable energy policy, cleaning up the environment, and restoring and protecting the safety net, among other positions.  Tyler also favors heavily regulating Wall Street and corporations.

So why aren’t supposedly liberal bloggers and pundits giving Aldous Tyler any coverage?  Kornacki writes that “[t]he depths of liberal despair over his presidency are often overstated“, meaning that bitch as they might about Obama, far too many who claim to be liberal aren’t dissatisfied with his policies enough to want to be rid of him – and having so thoroughly bought into the Big Lie that Republicans are just so much worse than any Democrat no matter what the evidence disproving that notion, they fear that any challenge might weaken Obama to the point that the GOP nominee might manage to cheat his way to victory next year.

But it’s Obama’s fault that he is even in such a precarious political position in the first place.  Having made big promises only to cold-bloodedly refuse to even try to deliver on so much as one of them, and after literally adding insult to injury by dissing his party’s official base, it’s no wonder that his campaign is looking a lot more like Al Gore’s and John Kerry’s lackluster, doomed efforts than, say, Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election drive.  So coming out of a primary challenged beaten up and vulnerable isn’t exactly a legitimate excuse not to cover challengers, especially ones from the left of the political divide.

Isn’t it time to break the self-imposed media blackout on left-wing challenges to Obama?  If Democrats are truly fed up with him, and are seeking alternatives, it only makes sense for those blessed with public voices, such as Steve Kornacki, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, or Ed Schultz to use their gifts to report on people like Aldous Tyler.  The media might lament the lack of candidates, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.  They only need to be reported on objectively, so voters can render their own decisions.

As Barry Obama stumps for extending the payroll tax cut designed to cripple Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in New Hampshire, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is promoting what she calls a Green New Deal to help put Americans back to work fixing the nation’s crumbling infrastructure and finding cleaner, renewable ways to fuel things.

The tenets of her plan include building infrastructure and public transportation, supporting sustainable agriculture, developing clean and renewable energy and restructuring the nation’s manufacturing base.

“There is a strong economic argument that unemployment is more expensive than a plan to deal with unemployment,” Stein said.

The plan’s details have not been worked out, according to Stein, but she said it would be a community-based effort that extends to the local level. Her plan would aim to create 17 million new jobs, and she said that, through a multiplier effect, those 17 million would translate into the 25 million needed to achieve full employment.

And that’s not all.  Unlike Obama, whose record of suppressing civil liberties reads like something out of some other third world dictatorship, Stein is coming out swinging against the assaults by cops against Occupiers.

“The aggressive, needless police actions across the country against Occupy Wall Street (OWS) are an assault on civil liberties and an effort to suppress a much needed movement for economic justice and democracy,” said Stein, a Green Party member and past candidate in Massachusetts elections. “The courageous protesters who have stood up to intimidation by lethal force are standing up for us all.”

In the statement, Stein called upon mayors in occupied cities to “follow the example of Green Party Mayor Gayle McLaughlin of Richmond, Cali., who welcomed the local occupation” and contrasts that with videos and reports from Wall Street, UC Berkley and Occupy Oakland, which she says show public officials are “suppressing rights of free speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of the press.”

“The use of police in full riot gear with helicopters buzzing overhead to arrest peaceful and largely sleeping protesters is frightening commentary on the militarization of state and municipal security,” Stein said i nthe statement. “Unprovoked police violence against citizens practicing peaceful civil disobedience – clearly documented on videos gone viral on the Internet – is deeply alarming.”

Small wonder then, that in a mock election held earlier this month in Illinois (the largest in the nation), Stein and the Greens garnered twenty-seven percent of the vote.

The mock primary/caucus process produced three tickets: Democrats nominated Barack Obama for President and Hillary Clinton for Vice-President; Republicans nominated Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan; Greens nominated Jill Stein and Kent Mesplay. Then, at the mock general election, the results were 39% for the Democratic ticket, 33% for the Republican ticket, 27% for the Green ticket, and 1% other.

Libertarians were involved but they chose to work for Ron Paul in the mock Republican convention. Jill Stein spoke on campus, and this obviously helped the Green campaign, because no other actual presidential candidates appeared on campus.

In a race that, no thanks to Obama’s endless and ongoing betrayals of the public interest to curry favor with the top 1%, may be so much closer than it should be, that twenty-seven percent could make the difference.  This isn’t a bad thing by any means; Stein’s candidacy seems to be having an effect already by forcing Obama to adopt policies he ordinarily wouldn’t.  (For example, Hopey McChangerton seemed last week to back off of plans to open up even more public lands to oil drilling.)

The biggest problem of the 2012 election won’t just be the ongoing right-wing policies that have turned America into a fascist police state, but the exclusion of any left-wing voices from the national dialog.  But if Jill Stein keeps up her campaign and manages to resonate with more voters, this could change.

On the Open Salon version of my previous entry, some right-winger who supports Obama kept trying to lay the blame for next year’s results on the left for failing to properly support the candidate who has done far more to pass the Republicans’ agenda than any GOP office-holder could have.

I am about certain Obama will be a one term president–and that one of the Republican clowns will win in 2012.

Most of the blame for that will fall with the unrealistic expectations and shortsightedness of people devoted to a progressive agenda.