Occupy Wall Street Has Friends And Enemies!
Even though the Occupy movements have many people who despise both political parties, there is a clear distinction between which party is a friend and which is an enemy to the movement.
The Democratic Party is clearly on the side of the 99%’ers and no amount of denial and blame shifting can change that. And yes, the Democratic Party has their share of elected representatives that act more like conservatives than liberals, but that fact shouldn’t diminish the hard working liberals in the party who are fighting for all of us in this country who don’t have lobbyists. When I hear or read people generalize and group all Democrats in with big business, they are ignoring reality and perpetuating false memes.
I had an exchange on Twitter the other day with a person who exemplifies much of that “head-in-the-sand” thinking. Here are a few of his tweets, with my responses.
Tweeter: The difference between a Democrat and Republican is the difference between a man and his mirrored reflection.
Extreme Liberal: How does the mirror reflect the repeal of DADT? Or health care for children? Or Lily Ledbetter? Or the Matthew Shepard law?
Extreme Liberal: Or who’s reflection is opposite Sotomayor or Kagan? Do you want a Republican picking the next nominee to the SUPREME COURT!
The Tweeter in question then sent a tweet that he has since deleted, probably had second thoughts about it, but he basically said that the issues I raised were “petty”, to which I replied…
Extreme Liberal: Tell my niece who now has health care that she is petty or over 60,000 LGBT people now serving openly in our military.
Extreme Liberal: And if you have any females in your family, are you willing to give up their rights to their own bodies? Supreme Court matters!
Tweeter: Bush might as well have been a Democrat, Obama a Republican for the similar aims and interests re: domestic/foreign policy.
The Republican Jobs Plan Is To Help Wall Street And Pollute!
President Obama spoke in Asheville, North Carolina this morning as part of his continued push to bring jobs to the American people. He laid waste to the Republican’s “plan” and did a little comparison for us that spells out a stark reality. It needs to be shared with the people marching in the streets across the country…(emphasis mine)
THE PRESIDENT: They said no to helping veterans find jobs.
Essentially, they said no to you — because it turns out one poll found that 63 percent of Americans support the ideas in this jobs bill. (Applause.) So 63 percent of Americans support the jobs bill that I put forward; 100 percent of Republicans in the Senate voted against it. That doesn’t make any sense, does it?AUDIENCE: No!
THE PRESIDENT: No, it does not.
Now, it turns out that the Republicans have a plan, too. I want to be fair. They call — they put forward this plan last week. They called it the “Real American Jobs Act.” The “real one” — that’s what they called it — just in case you were wondering. (Laughter.) So let’s take a look at what the Republican American jobs act looks like. It turns out the Republican plan boils down to a few basic ideas: They want to gut regulations; they want to let Wall Street do whatever it wants.
Herman Cain’s Fuzzy Math
Guest Blogger: Mike Sax
CNBC seems to be rather smitten with Cain as he has won some unexpected straw polls and his numbers have risen nationally. At present he is now ahead of presumed main challenger to Romney, Rick Perry.
Mr. Cain, who has had some very nice things to say about low income Americans and the Occupy Wall Street protests — like if you’re not rich it’s your fault and that the protesters are “un-American” — now claims that his tax proposal will benefit these same low income Americans who are so ignorant of their own interests.
His proposal-described apocalyptically enough as the only one that will “blow up the tax code” — he dubs the 9-9-9. Basically, it’s a flat tax. He claims that it’s not regressive which means that he is mistaken on at least one count. As a flat tax is inherently regressive it can’t be both flat and not regressive.
His rationale for saying it isn’t regressive is fairly spotty too it must be said, “No, it is not regressive,” he said. “First of all, by putting it on sales tax — that third ’9′ — we are going to pick up revenue that we are not getting today. That helps to lower the rate for everybody including the people that are making the least amount of money.”
For his fully laid out proposal see http://www.hermancain.com/999plan
A sales tax, “that third “9″ ” how does a sales tax make his plan not regressive? A sales tax is by definition a regressive tax. He also claims that it will raise revenue. Sure, it’s gonna raise revenue while lowering the corporate tax rate to 9 percent and eliminating the capital gains tax. The usual supply side delusions.
Only thing missing from his plan is a proposal to square the circle.
Cross-posted at Diary of a Republican Hater
Nickname Game
Guest Blogger: Erin
So, I have come up with a fun party game: The Nickname Game. You take a TeaPublican presidential candidate (and Huntsman) and make up a nickname that gives the candidate a new middle name! Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Herman “The Only Black Guy In America” Cain
Michele “Blackout Barbie” Bachmann
Mitt “Wonder Bread” Romney
Ron “Precious” Paul
Rick “Don’t You F-ing Google Me” Santorum (do it)
Rick “Yeehah I’m Scary” Perry
John “Jesus H. Christ, how crazy do you have to BE” Huntsman
Gary “I got a dog that makes poopy” Johnson
Newt “Patriotic Penis” Gingrich
See! It’s fun, and educational! Next time, we’ll turn the last names of the TeaPublicans into porn film titles!
Democrats Like Me!
Guest Blogger: theangryliberal
For years the idea haunted me, if a Republican became a Democrat in the deep North, what adjustments would she have to make?
And that is how it began, that fateful day in 1984 was the day I decided to infiltrate the Democratic party and turn them all into Liberal Republicans! I knew I could do it if I could just find a way to fit in first, to blend in, so I went to the doctor’s office for some help.
“Hey Doc”, I said to him after he forced me on that scale again, why do they always want to know how much I weigh? “Hey T”, he replied, we were old friends since the heady days of Watergate. “Doc, I want to attempt to infiltrate the Democratic Party and turn them into a corporatist Republican lite party. I think I can do it, if I try very, very hard. How can I do this?”
He laughed and then smirked at me, he said, “Well first of all you need to quit shopping at Brooks Brothers, cause that totally doesn’t fit for a Democrat, I think you need to shop at vintage stores from now on, and find some bell bottom jeans with embroidery on them, preferably flowers and sunshine and stuff, it will make you seem whimsical and egalitarian.”
I was kind of happy that I had to shop for my newest endeavor, although I wasn’t totally into this Vintage Store BS but if I had to buy some crappy hippy clothes then I would, it is easier to punch them if you look like them.
So I thought I should find out about the party I was infiltrating so I decided I would study hard at the virtual knee of one James “Corporal Cueball” Carville. I saw him one night on CNN, and thought he would be the perfect teacher for me. So I studied Carville, and knew I was about to become a superstar in the Democratic Party, superstardom leads to apparatchikdom too and that was my ultimate goal, become an apparatchik, it would make me feel like I had more control over all things Democratic and I could lead them myself to Republicanism, which ultimately was my goal, to make sure Democrats were just Republicans without the backbone.
My first effort was to make them, the Democrats, think that I took my new party seriously, when really I was just a shill for my corporate, tribal overlords. This fact was discovered by the arch nemesis to all corporate shills like myself, one Glenn Greenwald. He is a superstar this Greenwald guy, he has absolutely no connection to corporate overlords. His CATO membership is just a ruse, and his white papers for them, just a job, but he isn’t affected at all by these things, as he isn’t a sell out in anyway shape or form, and he never ever lets the corporate will beat him down, he fights it all the time. He has no professional connection to corporate overlords and he is merely out for America the Beautiful. Greenwald is awesome in his ability ferret out those of us who have sold out America to the highest bidder. Working with the Koch is like waving an American flag, working with the Democrats is like working for Satan.
So my plan has worked, the health care bill we have currently, was my plan from the beginning, to sell out America by forcing them to have access to health insurance. It will evolve into nothing that can benefit anyone really. States will not take the matter into their own hands to search for the best answer for their citizens either. Certainly places like Minnesota (status of the Act), California, ( LWV, support of California OneCare), Illinois, Pennsylvania, Montana, (more Montana analysis) Massachusetts and Vermont have not taken the new law and tried to make it beneficial for their own citizens. They have succumbed to the dead-end health reform, the one that only supports insurance companies and is terrible for the people!
My mission is complete and soon I am sure I will be promoted head apparatchik, instead of just being referred to as the Greatest Living Democrat.
Hey Democrats consider yourselves Pwned.
Crossposted at DAGblog
The Republican’s Solyndra Problem!
Even though President Obama’s green-jobs initiative was responsible for the loan guarantees to the solar energy company Solyndra, which went belly up recently, it turns out that it was another leftover from the Bush Administration that was a time bomb. Check out this press release in 2007 by President Bush’s Energy Secretary.
“Loan guarantees aim to stimulate investment and commercialization of clean energy technologies to reduce our nation’s reliance on foreign sources of energy,” Bush’s energy secretary, Sam Bodman, announced in a press release on Oct. 4, 2007. The release said the Energy Department had received 143 pre-applications for the guarantees and narrowed the list down to 16 finalists — including Solyndra. Bodman said the action put “Americans one step closer to being able to use new and novel sources of energy on a mass scale to reduce emissions and allow for vigorous economic growth and increased energy security.”
But that isn’t the only thing, it seems that the Bush administration changed it’s regulations at the last minute to the benefit of ONLY Solyndra.
Bush’s Energy Department apparently adjusted its regulations to make sure that Solyndra would be eligible for the guarantees. It hadn’t originally contemplated including the photovoltaic-panel manufacturing that Solyndra did but changed the regulation before it was finalized. The only project that benefited was Solyndra’s.
Here are some facts about Solyndra that I’m sure aren’t being discussed at Fox News or any of the other right-wing publications jumping all over this in an attempt to say, “see, clean energy sucks”.
- Solyndra was a very small piece of the policy picture – Solyndra’s $535M loan is just 1.2% of the total $38.6B loan guarantees issued by DOE. (Source: DOE.)
- All energy is subsidized and loan guarantees are equal opportunity – Guess who the biggest loan guarantee went to? Some big wind or solar boondoggle? Guess again: an $8.3B loan guarantee for a nuclear plant down in Georgia. (Source: DOE.)
- Solyndra is not the ‘solar industry’ – Solyndra failed precisely because conventional silicon-based solar is doing so well–the solar industry has reduced the cost of solar by 70% in since 2009. Solyndra had a $2/Watt technology trying to compete against $1/Watt silicon PV.
I doubt that this was a ticking time-bomb left on purpose by the Republicans, but when you look at the history of this mess, Republicans share in the culpability and might want to just shut up about it.
Chris Christie – Should A Bully Be Given The Bully Pulpit?
[This was a post I did a while back that I think is timely now that there is talk of Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey jumping into the Presidential race.]
In a poll of New Jersey voters released on April 20, 2011, the people were asked for a word to describe their Governor, Chris Christie. Overwhelmingly the voters chose the word “Bully” to best describe him (140 people). Coming in a distant second was “Arrogant” (41 people), which was tied with “Good”. So 181 people referred to him as either a bully or arrogant. My first introduction to the Bully Governor was on Morning Joe on MSNBC, they love them some Gov. Christie on that show. My impression of him was that he was trying way too hard to be a blunt, straight talker, turning trite phrases and clever word plays and topping them off with a little smirk, because he is so proud of himself. I also noticed that it was ALL words, no substance to what he was saying, just platitudes and clever rhetoric. It wore thin on me within a few seconds, but I could see how those with little brain matter would fall for it.
Let’s travel back in time a bit and look at this man’s history of bullying, lying and going on the offensive whenever challenged on his “straight talk”. There is definitely a pattern with this man and god I hope he gets in the presidential race, because I would like nothing more than to see President Obama chew him up and spit him out with disgust. We might just as well start with a blatant example of his bullying, from The Ed Show…
The gentleman who was shouted down was Ed Buck, a retired multi-millionaire who simply wanted to ask Meg Whitman a question when the misogynistic Gov. Christie had to step in for the poor helpless woman (snark), even saying “You wanna yell, yell at me.” Because we wouldn’t want a mere woman running for governor of the largest state in the union to be subjected to someone “yelling”, which was really someone asking a tough question of a candidate who had been dodging them. The yelling part may have been due to him not having a microphone. Here is an exchange between Ed Schultz and Ed Buck, from Politicususa, that gets to the heart of Christie’s tactics…(emphasis mine)
The Pragmatic Progressive Saturday Reading List!
There was so much going on this week and so much emotion with the fight to save Troy Davis from being killed, I know I missed a lot of great articles that I’m just getting caught up on. As always, please add your links in the comments and let’s talk about shit!
- I just came across this post minutes ago called EMO-lution, or Quiting Before You’re Ahead which features a comment from @vcthree on a post at Angry Black Lady Chronicles. It’s an absolute must read and share as is the original post that inspired it here at ABLC.
- In my research for the Cornel and Tavis post from earlier in the week, I stumbled upon Eric L. Wattree’s blog and spent a lot of time getting caught up on his writings. I highly recommend you go and read all of these posts that are generally on West and Smiley, you will see why:
1. ”Tavis Smiley and Cornel West: The Reign of Fools is Over”;
2. ”Does the West/Obama Controversy Constitute Blacks Airing Dirty Laundry?”;
3. ”Is the Attack on Prof. Melissa Harris-Perry’s Article Criticizing Prof. Cornel West Due to Male Academic Cronyism?”;
4. ”How Do Politicians Get People to Vote Against Their Own Interest?”;
5. ”Tavis/West: We Know We’re Hurting, Now Tell Us the Truth About Why”;
6. ”The Tavis/West Poverty Pimp Tour“;
7. ”Dr. Cornel West and Intellectual Rice Cake”;
8. Is the GOP Manipulating Black Intellectuals to destroy the First Black President?”
- This op-ed by Bill Keller, former Executive Editor of the New York Times on President Obama is very good, I don’t agree with all of it, but I still highly recommend it.
- One of my blogging heroes, Steve Benen, has a podcast that he does with Bill Simmon every Sunday from 4 – 6 pm live, with chat. But of course you can download and stream them anytime from the website. It’s a combination of brilliant Benen politics and nerdy Sci-Fi talk.
- One of my favorite reads this week was from one of the best bloggers around, Eclectablog and it annihilates the Professional Left’s trying to claim credit for President Obama’s fight for the American Jobs Act.
- James Carville spouted off a bunch of criticism of the Obama administration and offered his outsider opinions, which he is entitled to. But it also means Scott Bateman might also take your words and make a cool animation out of it which pokes holes in your crazy ideas. Here is Scott’s website.
- And just ICYMI, my transcription of the Bob and Chez podcast “Stop Whining” is an absolute must read for those interested in understanding what is really happening in the firebagger left.
- The one and only @Shoq took a break from Twitter and penned an awesome piece on the Professional Left ” pushing their latest vanity meme”. Read it!
- If you are wondering what you can do to help keep Troy Davis’s memory alive, go to the Innocence Project and donate something. And if you only read one more article about Troy Davis, make it this one from Emily Hauser who worked her ass off to try and save Troy who was put to death on her birthday, of all days.
- Deaniac83 at The People’s View wrote an incredible post that explores the nuances of President Obama’s political and governing strategy that I think is dead on. It also helps to expose why others may not be able to grasp it, nuance and double reverse psychology eludes some people.
And lastly, I’ll leave you with this quote from Elizabeth Warren, who I hope gets a lot of face time on cable news networks in the next couple of years and beyond.
Cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles
President Obama Deserves Nothing But Respect!
photo by Extreme Liberal
The level of disrespect being shown towards President Obama is unprecedented and has to stop. It comes in both blatant and subtle ways and there are many reasons for it. Anyone who is honest with themselves knows that a lot of it stems from the color of his skin. Not all of it, for sure, but a whole hell of a lot of it. We all remember the signs from the Tea Party asking for their country back…back from what, you motherfuckers, the man won a clear victory in a democratic election with a wide electoral margin. President Obama IS the leader or OUR country, all of us, even you racist assholes…whether you like it or not.
One of the latest examples of this disrespect was covered very well by Joy Reid at The Reid Report. I’ll let her explain it…
Republicans derive a benefit from their base by disrespecting the president.
The GOP base wants its leadership to not just oppose Barack Obama, but to go out of its way to obstruct, block, and if at all possible, show open contempt and disrespect for him. Republicans understand that their base will punish them for any hint of respectful, or worse, accommodating behavior toward Obama, and that they will be rewarded by their base for elevating the level of negative attention they give the president.
[...]
Today’s Republicans, who have been overrun by a hardcore tea party faction in addition to the resurgent religious right, have made the calculation that there is literally no bottom — and no level of disrespect so great that they will pay a price with white independents.
[...]
Case in point: before House Speaker Boehner took the unprecedented step of publicly brushing back the president’s request to address a joint session of Congress next Wednesday, he was being egged on to do just that by none other than Rush Limbaugh. That Boehner decided to puff out his chest on this one is telling.
Of course, that is just one example of the clear disrespect shown towards our President. And the Republicans are playing it out to the full extent, with some legislators openly saying they won’t attend the jobs speech and don’t even want to hear what the President has to say. The adult equivalent of holding your hands over your ears and saying, na na na na, I cant’ hear you! I hope all those people without jobs are paying attention to the “Party of No New Jobs”.
But if that isn’t enough, apparently the hater of everyone, Matt Taibbi, doesn’t want to hear it either. The more I read about Taibbi, the more I realize that he just says whatever the hell comes to his hateful mind. I found this piece where Taibbi predicted a McCain presidency…showing his willingness to just say stupid shit with no basis in reality. But I digress.
New Poll Shows A Surge For President Obama!
It was a poll of all my friends and family and in my mind, has just as much validity as any of the major news organizations and their latest sampling of 700 – 1000 people. As anyone who knows me will tell you, I’m not a reactionary person for the most part. I’m usually the one urging calmness in the face of hysteria and stepping back to look at the big picture. Well here I go again.
To me the biggest story from the weekend was the former Republican staffer who retired from the GOP and wrote a blistering piece about the lunacy in the Republican Party. It was all over the left blogosphere and Twitter. A lot of truth in the piece, along with a lot of bullshit about the Democratic party too, remember, he was a loyal Republican so we have to take what he says about Democrats with a grain of salt.
I haven’t been watching the cable meme generators lately, but I don’t imagine that was the big story as far as they were concerned. I noticed the Twitter banter this morning that showed that the latest polls are what is generating the meme today. I’ve noticed recently that whenever there is a story that is negative to the Republicans or positive to the President, a new poll emerges and the subject is changed pretty quickly. Coincidence, or maybe just too many damn polls for lazy journalists to fall back on. The process is so much easier to cover than say, actual issues.
Knowing a little bit about election polling and having tracked them for several decades, I’m not getting myself worked up over the latest polls or any future ones for that matter. Maybe when we get close to the election, when the electorate is actually thinking about the election, then maybe I’ll go over to Nate Silver’s blog and see what the numbers say. But until then, you all keep chasing your tails, I have better things to do with my time.
The last thing I’ll say about polls in this post is that the media just loves to pin the entire right track/wrong track number on the sitting president. I think that is bullshit, especially in the partisan times we are living in. The scorched earth politics from the right and even some on the left these days, may turn everyone off to politics and bring everyone’s poll numbers down. After all, that’s what scorched earth politics is all about. But when it comes time for people to pull a lever for who they want to represent them, there won’t be an option labeled “they all suck” and I’m confident President Obama and the Democrats will come out on top — because the craziness from the right doesn’t seem to be letting up. Yeeeee hawwwwww!
Republicans Take More Hostages — The Victims Of Hurricane Irene!
And then have a good laugh about it!
In a country that claims to be the greatest nation on earth, the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, Eric Cantor, shows once again why Republicans should be voted out of office with extreme prejudice. Having held the world’s economy hostage all summer long and caused more hardship for people while attempting to extract even more money from poor and middle class Americans, Eric Cantor and his Republicans have decided to continue their assault on the American people.
Even before Hurricane Irene came ashore, the Republican leader made it clear that they weren’t going to help any of those people who were sure to be affected by the hurricane — that they weren’t going to get shit from the government unless it comes out of the pockets of the rest of the working and poor people in our country. He made it quite clear on Fox News that Republicans don’t care about hurricane victims at all…
Despite the devastation caused by Hurricane Irene this weekend, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) today stood by his call that no more money be allocated for disaster relief unless it is offset by spending cuts elsewhere. The Washington Post reported this morning that FEMA will need more money than it currently has to deal with the storm’s aftermath and is already diverting funds from other recent disasters to deal with the hurricane, but Cantor’s comments suggest Republicans won’t authorize more funds without a fight.
So here we go again, a new hostage crisis and this time it’s people along the east coast who were unfortunate enough to have chosen to live in the path of hurricanes. You have to wonder if the Republican’s really believe that their game of hostage taking is going to help them politically. The way I see it, hurricanes don’t discriminate against one party or another and in natural disasters, people pull together and put partisanship aside. Not so much for the current Republican Party, they are out of their fucking minds. Steve Benen sums it up like only he can do…(emphasis mine)
In the interview, the dimwitted Majority Leader tried to make this sound like common sense — instead of an unprecedented move. Remember, no modern Congress, regardless of which party was in the majority, has ever demanded offsets in response to American natural disaster, not even Tom DeLay’s.
[...]
Let’s also not lose sight of the larger context here. As far as Eric Cantor is concerned, launching wars in Iraq and Afghanistan do not need to be paid for. Tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires do not need to be paid for. Bailing out Wall Street does not need to be paid for. But when American communities are struck by a natural disaster, all of a sudden, House Republicans discover a new standard: if Democrats want to help affected areas, the GOP has some demands that must be met.
As if that isn’t enough to show that Republicans don’t deserve to be in power, lets “pivot” to one of the leading contenders for the Republican nomination, Michelle Bachmann, who decided to joke about the hurricane while it was happening. I’m sure you’ve seen our read her comments where she joked about the hurricane and earthquakes.
“I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?’ Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now.
I’ll once again let Steve Benen put this into perspective for us.
I’ll gladly concede that the right-wing Republican delivered the comments in a seemingly lighthearted way, but it’s also worth noting that presidential candidates don’t generally joke about deadly natural disasters while the disaster is unfolding. Bachmann clearly liked the line well enough to repeat it more than once, but while she was drawing laughs, people were literally dying.
When anyone says to you that there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats, smack them upside the head and direct them to this post.
Cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles
Who Do You Think Will Get The GOP Nomination?
For a long time, I’ve thought that Jon Huntsman would be a formidable challenger to President Obama. I don’t claim to know a lot about him, but from what I’ve heard, he is someone who could appeal to the middle of the country. Of course, he has to make it through the “TeaPrimaries” and that is the one thing that may prevent him from ever facing President Obama in the general election. And to be honest, both he and Romney carry the religious issue around with them, so the evangelical wing of the party isn’t going to be thrilled with either of them. Republicans are pretty loyal, though and will more than likely rally around whoever is the nominee.
Even though I’ve thought that Jon Huntsman would give President Obama the best fight of any of the declared candidates, I’m not so sure he will get the nomination. The Awesome Bob Cesca thinks that Rick Perry will get the nod and makes some valid points in defense of his theory. I just seem to remember hearing too many crazy things that Perry has said in the past and that signals to me that he will self destruct along the way. His past statements may sink him. But Bob may be right. If he is, I’m sure President Obama will win in a landslide.
I guess I’ve been thinking that it will either be Huntsman or Romney that will get the nomination. The first few states may have crazy results like Perry or Paul or Bachmann (I can’t believe I just typed that :) ), but if those two can hold out past the first few states, I think the rest of the country will fall in line and pick the most reasonable candidate and to me, it’s either Romney or Huntsman. If I have to pick one over the other, I think I’ll pick Huntsman. But I know it’s a longshot.
Who do you think will get the Republican nomination in 2012 and what are you reasons why?
The comments are now open!
Cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles!
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