The BIG LIE about CU is REVEALED

I have grown increasingly frustrated with the deliberate ignorance and BIG LIe that is the argument against the Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision. It time that I stop trying to educate individually, rather to take a broader approach with this blog. First let me state that I am no ideologue, I am a life long Republican, but rarely vote for a Republican unless they are deemed by ME as being worthy of my vote which has become a rare occurrence to say the least. I am a center-right voter. What was CU all about? A little history. The McCain/Feingold campaign reform law place limitations on the amount of money a person or corporation could spend on an individual candidate or party. When it came to issue ads, individuals were allowed to spend every dime they had. An issue ad is one that CANNOT be coordinated with any candidate or party. This is an ad that as an individual you want to throw your support to a candidate or party as a private person. PAC's, which are corporations were, by law, limited in their ability to create an issue ad as there was a financial limit to what they could spend. What CU was about was a PAC, which is a corporation created an infomercial attacking then candidate Hillary Clinton. The FEC cried foul as the CU PAC's broke the law by over spending. CU objected and filed suit claiming an infringement of 1st amendment rights of the people who were part of that PAC, a corporation. The Supreme Court agreed. So what was the effect of CU on elections? Now some claim that it means the Koch's and Adelson's of the country were now free to 'buy' an election. This is just not so. These individuals could have always spent unlimited amounts on issue ads PRIOR to CU. So let us put that one to rest. CU had nothing to do with individual's right to spend unlimited amounts of money on issue ads. So lets look at the effect of CU on the last election...Karl Rove's PAC (a corporation)spent $125M to defeat Mr. Obama and install Mr. Romney as President. How did that work out for them? Adelson spent a like amount as an individual for the same purpose and what was that result? So here you have $250 MILLION spent to 'buy' an election and what happened? Complete and total failure. So how can the CU ruling be a good thing? Here is a hypothetical for you to consider. Prior to CU, if David Koch wanted to create an issue ad supporting an anti-environment candidate and the Sierra Club (a corporation) wanted create their own ad, they were limited financially. They could never match Koch's money legally. AFTER CU the Sierra Club can fight him on equal footing. The playing field is leveled. Now this is but one example. Now for those of you who think in terms of say, Walmart being a corporation, which it is and they decide to support some extremist candidate or cause, it would be corporate suicide. First, the board of directors would have to approve the expenditure. Now, do you really think Walmart is going to put their stock price in jeopardy by doing something so stupid? No, they won't. The stockholders would never stand for it. Sure, they may not be known by the FEC, but the SEC would know they spent that money. Look, corporations have lobbyists who are much more effective for the money spent. Why bother with a crapshoot like an election?

I don't like Romney..but

The revelations of the past few days has shed more light on Mr. Romney. I will admit that I don't like the guy for a variety of reasons.

Tonight's 'interviews' only tend to prove beyond any doubt that this man has his secrets, he will justify everything and is in denial over his past statements regarding Bain. There is no doubt now that he and his campaign staff have decided to play the deflection game because if he exposed the truth, the damage would be worse than not admitting to what he actually did. As long as there is no definitive proof, a smoking gun other than what we already know, he can deny anything and everything and accuse others of speculating.

The question we all must ask ourselves is simply this. Given the secrecy of his past and his unwillingness to produce his tax returns, this should give us pause. Can we trust this man with the fate of 330 million people? Are his other qualifications and other possible intangibles overpowering enough to over ride common sense? I think not. He may claim to know how to fix the economy based upon his business experience, but his whole experience is making a profit. Not job creation, but creating wealth. This is not the President's job, to create wealth. This is all he knows. Government is not a business. Government cannot be run like a business. Imagine 535 members of a board of directors and him trying to accomplish what HE wants. This is not the way the real world works.

The biggest concern we have is simple. Given his propensity for going with the flow means he will succumb to the pressures of the Tea Baggers, just like Mr. Boehner. This is his pattern. To this day, he will flip flop on any subject. Look what happened with the penalty/tax issue of just last week. His whole Presidency will be just like this. He will go with the flow for political expediency.

Is this really the man we want in the White House?

President Romney's first week in office....

The votes are in, the tally set, Mitt Romney is our President, inaugurated a week or so ago. Have to give him credit, he sure hit the ground running. With the House and Senate all locked up in GOP hands, it has been easy to make the changes the right wing has been wanting and fighting for years. 


As a recap, what has happened in the last week. 


The Ryan budget finally became law, austerity and lower taxes on business, a voucher plan for Medicare to mention a few things. 


A 20% increase in the defense budget. 


The biggest changes coming the regulatory environment. EPA, FDA, Department of Education all defunded. New laws rescinding Federal mandates in virtually all areas of regulation, replacing them with recommendations or suggestions to the states. States now will be responsible for their own environment, education, food safety and immigration. 


Virtually all Federal education, social programs, education programs, loan guarantees are abolished, leaving it up to the states to fund their own social programs, if they choose to have them at all. Medicaid and Food Stamps are eliminated on the Federal level. 


The NLRB too was defunded and the question of labor relations to be answered by the states, the national minimum wage being rescinded, also left up to the states. Revenue sharing is being phased out so as not to share the wealth between the states. 


Each state will be losing about 1/3rd of their budgets due to Federal cutbacks, leaving the states to replace that funding from other sources. 


As promised, the entire Affordable Care Act was revoked and the Federal mandate that any hospital MUST treat a person on an emergency basis, insured or not, is also repealed. 


Congress is now considering repealing the American with Disabilities Act, all laws regarding discrimination, workplace safety and equal pay and protections. 


To reduce the liability of Social Security, Social Security Disability program is terminated. 


The military will no longer allow gay's to serve, gay right's are being purged and national laws are under study to remove state responsibilities and authorities on this issue. 


There is also a new cabinet post, the Department of Moral Responsibility. This department will provide moral guidance to all areas of Federal responsibility, to provide litmus tests for appointees.


The first week was not without controversy too. Vice President Jindal had to step down a few days after taking the oath of office. The Congress passed a law making a person a person at the moment of conception. Mr. Jindal's mother was 6 months pregnant when she emigrated to the US which disqualified Mr. Jindal since he was a 'person' created in India. Mr. Jindal was replaced by Paul Ryan as Vice President. 


And this is just the beginning.......

Mitt Romney...Can he turn things around?

The Romney campaign has made a lot of noise, how he is a job creator and has the business experience to turn our economy around. Frankly, I am not convinced he can do this. My reasons are fairly simple. Mr. Romney's focus has always been to make a profit, regardless of the costs or the risks. Risks. This is the key. In Romney's business world he and his com-padre's would buy a corporation and sell off the individual assets and take the write-offs for the ones left over to offset the profits they made off the sale of assets. To some this is called 'Vulture Capitalism'. This is a fairly easy thing to do if you have the money behind you. The system is rigged to take advantage of this sort of operation. This is the basis for Mr. Romney's argument that he is a businessman, a job creator as the primary function of Bain Capital. This could be further from the truth. Bain's focus was to make money, increase wealth without creating one single job. Now, I am not complaining as to what Bain was doing. But to suggest that Romney is somehow qualified to turn the economy around based upon his vast business experience is misrepresenting reality.


Think of the US government as a giant corporation and you were Bain Capital, what would you do to make a buck? First you would identify those parts of the corporation which are the money makers and money losers. Can you imagine trying to sell off parts of the government to reduce overhead and costs, to bankrupt the losers and sell off the money makers? This is the experience Mr. Romney has. How this equates to government escapes me unless he plans on privatizing the parts government he can  and selling them off. 


The bottom line is this. Romney's plan would be to cut all money losing programs, essential or otherwise. If it's losing money, get rid of it. Then he can cut taxes across the board to match what has been cut loose. One thing is certain, people like Romney have no conscience when it comes to real people. Imagine sitting in a meeting at Bain Capital when a decision is made to shift a financial responsibility from one company to another then bankrupt that company, causing those employees to lose their jobs? Do you really think anyone stood up and said, 'what about the people?'. There is an old saying, Business is business, nothing personal.


The question we have to ask is this. Should we risk our future on a person who is risk averse, or do we maintain the status quo? The economy is clearly on  the rebound as it is. If it wasn't, then maybe we should look for change. 

Is the Occupy movement doomed?

The Occupy movement is the latest rant to come to not only America, but it seems the world. We have seen this all before, we have just forgotten or fail to recognize it for what it is. The Occupy movement is nothing more than a Neo-Marxist operation. The only difference between then and now is that they have no central leader. Not having a voice in the guise of a charismatic leader is what will doom them. Oh, I know, there are those who say it's not Marxist or Communist or Socialist at all. Maybe this is a hint...

      

 

Of course, there are no similarities at all. Marx called the working class, the Proletariat. In the Soviet Union, they had the Party Congress, where the Proletariat voted on issues, the Occupy has the General Assembly, where the Proletariat 'votes' on issues.

Lets look at some parts of the Soviet Constitution....

The declaration of rights of the labouring and exploited people (approved by the Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets in January 1918), together with the Constitution of the Soviet Republic, approved by the fifth congress, constitutes a single fundamental law of the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic.


Russia is declared to be a republic of the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants' Deputies. All the central and local power belongs to these soviets.


Bearing in mind as its fundamental problem the abolition of the exploitation of men by men, the entire abolition of the division of the people into classes, the suppression of exploiters, the establishment of a socialist society, and the victory of socialism in all lands, the Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants' Deputies further resolves: For the purpose of securing the working class in the possession of complete power, and in order to eliminate all possibility of restoring the power of the exploiters, it is decreed that all workers be armed, and that s Socialist Red Army be organized and the propertied class disarmed.


The Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants' Deputies believes that now, during the progress of the decisive battle between the proletariat and its exploiters, the exploiters should not hold a position in any branch of the Soviet Government. The power must belong entirely to the toiling masses and to their plenipotentiary representitives- the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants' Deputies.


Expressing its fixed resolve to liberate mankind from the grip of capital and imperialism, which flooded the earth with blood in its present most criminal of all wars, the Third Congress of Soviets fully agrees with the Soviet Government in its policy of abrogating secret treaties, of organizing on a wide scale the fraternization of the workers and peasants of the belligerent armies, and of making all efforts to conclude a general democratic peace without annexations or indemnities, upon the basis of the free determination of peoples.


The Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic, having crushed the economic and political power of the propertied classes, and having thus abolished all obstacles which interfered with the freedom of organization and action of the workers and peasants, offers assistance, material and other, to the workers and the poorest peasantry in their effort to unite and organize.


The fundamental problem of the constitution of the Russian Socialist federated Soviet Republic involves, in view of the present transition period, the establishment of a dictatorship of the urban and rural proletariat and the poorest peasantry in the form of a powerful All-Russian soviet authority, for the purpose of abolishing the exploitation of men by men and introduction of socialism, in which their will be neither a division into classes nor a state of autocracy.


 It is clear that the Soviets took the throw the baby out with the bath water approach to change. One thing is clear from both the Marxist and Occupy movement is the concept of 'exploitation of man by man'. This is the basis for Marxism and the Occupy movement, the system we have today is so flawed that only drastic change will do. 


The same thing happened in Cuba, the lack of a middle class, the gulf between rich and poor so wide. 


We should be wary of the Occupy movement, we should also be on the look out for an emerging leader who will bring all the different assemblies together to form a Central Committee. Only then will their power be consolidated and we should have plenty to worry about. 

A thought about the Tea Party

The Tea Party movement seems to have started in 2009. By it's nature it is a conservative based group or if you will, groups. Some consider it extremist, up until a few moments ago I did to. I suppose I should start at the beginning to bring my thoughts into context.

In 2009 we had just elected the first African American President, we had Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. When Mr. Obama took office, the economy was in the toilet. We were losing 900,000 jobs a MONTH. We were paying for 2 unfunded wars. TARP had been approved to bailout Wall Street. The housing market had collapsed, GM and Chrysler were going under. The trillions in deficit spending added to the deficit Mr. Bush inherited. In part the new spending was exacerbated by tax cuts for the wealthy and big business approved by a Republican led administration. When Mr. Bush took office, he had a $273B budget SURPLUS. In the next 8 years, unfunded mandates, tax breaks, 2 off budget wars and additional pet project spending all producing a total of 8 million jobs compared to the 22 million created during the 8 years of Clinton and an additional $4T in debt. Oddly enough, had Bush not instituted the tax breaks and left things alone, the projected surpluses would have paid for that $4T debt. He would have been revenue neutral. So when Mr. Obama took office, he was already saddled with a budget deficit and monstrous debt and a floundering economy.

Enter the Tea Baggers as they were originally called, by themselves. Once it was revealed that the term was pornographic in nature, the Tea Party was 'formed'.

I can appreciate the frustration of some segments of our society. We are stuck with a two party system, and old boy network totally entrenched and beholden to the powers of wealth and influence. Neither party is immune to this accusation. One party spends money like there is no tomorrow, cuts taxes, less regulation telling us that it's good for America. The other party spends money on social programs, maintains taxes, more regulation and tells us it's good for America. Both parties have their agendas and we are not actually part of the equation unless we stand up to them. The problem with standing up to them is that we as people only have the power of the voting booth. Everyone else has cash.

The Tea Party started as a grass roots effort to make a certain segment of our society heard. Many Americans agreed that change must come as this is not just a conservative or liberal issue. If one is ignored, all are, hence the Tea Party. People who did not want to be ignored anymore. As with any rabble (I use this term kindly), leadership is necessary. It is not surprising that career politicians and special interest groups saw an opening. I won't go so far as to say that race was the only motivation, but it definitely is a part of the movement. I suppose the Republican establishment found themselves in Lord Cornwallis shoes when he found himself trapped by the Continental Army in Yorktown, backed up by the French fleet, when he surrendered, the British Army played, 'The World Turned Upside Down". The extreme right took advantage of the failure of the mainstream party to win the White House and found an ally in the new Tea Party. The extremist right found a new base and provided them with extremist candidates to run and speak for them. It was amazing how all of a sudden a disparate group had leadership, campaign financing and candidates, all in the name of the Tea Party. The Tea Party no longer was a grass roots group, it was now a launching pad for the extremist right.

So now we have Tea Party associated Republicans in the House and Senate. I would say this is a miracle. In only a year or so, go from nothing but a bunch of folks with placards, to the most influential and destructive force in the US Congress. How could this have happened without some very powerful and influential force behind it? At first, the Tea Party went after Democrats to weaken a black President, now as of today, there are statements from at least two different national sources, stating with pride how they took down the Democrats and now if they don't get their way, the Republicans are next. An acquaintance of mine just yesterday, who happens to be a Tea Party supporter was ranting about how weak Boehner is as well as the Republican party, that are next. Was it coincidence? There have been rumblings in the House this weak, the threats made to mainstream Republicans by Tea Party folks.

Recent events is some states has indicated an extremist plan is play. Tax breaks for business and wealthy all on the backs of working people and their families, Tea Party families included. Cuts to education being some of the biggest cuts. Changing rules and laws which have been in place for years, denying peoples rights. On the Federal level, a law requiring the IRS to ask if anyone in your house has ever had an abortion? Or denying food stamps to a family who may have a member on strike, but if you get fired for doing drugs on the job, it's okay. Is this what the Tea Party was originally all about? Does the original idea about the Tea party include tax breaks and subsidies for businesses making large profits? Did the original idea include 60 kids to a classroom? Does the Tea Party really want all public employees in Florida subjected to mandatory drug tests every 3 months? What happened to smaller government? Shared sacrifice, more jobs?

I am afraid the Tea Party movement is being used for a biggest bait and switch scheme ever perpetrated. For example, we would all like smaller government and reduced spending, laudable goals for sure. Here is a reality check. Even if the government were to cut ALL discretionary spending, basically shutting down ALL government services, we would still have a $1T deficit to deal with. Now, the people who hijacked the Tea Party know this. So what do they do? They come up with an idea to slash $100B from this years budget, again a good idea, if it were practical. So what do they do? Target specific programs the extremist right has been trying to get rid of for decades, but were unable to do so until now. The plan all along has never been to actually reduce the deficit or debt, this is their battle cry to keep the faithful in line, but the reality is much more insidious.

Talking points aren't coming from a vacuum. The TP (Hijacked) is now being 'run' by paid for politcos who have their own agenda under the TP label. Sadly the original intent of the TP has been lost. The message is now being proffered by the TP (Hijacked). The original hopes for change have been convoluted by the power brokers who before the Tea Party had no hope for effecting the change they wanted. The real power behind the TP (Hijacked) is clearly big business and the religious right. Take a look at some of the riders placed upon bills in Congress, or laws being passed in the states. Defunding EPA, to send us back to the days of no regulation, polluted rivers and skies, toxic dump sites. The issue of Global Warming has been the hot potato, but the TP (Hijacked) claims that EPA is trying to 'backdoor' the Cap and Trade bill. This is totally false. What the TP (Hijacked) knows all too well, but refuses to admit is that EPA has been under SCOTUS order to come up with rules regarding the regulation of GHG, the court ruling that EPA has the constitutional authority to regulate GHG. But try to explain this to a TP (Hijacked) member is a total waste of time. It is unbelievable to me that even when faced with facts, the standard practice for a TP (Hijacked) believer is total silence. SILENCE is ALWAYS their response. I suspect the reason why is that they really do not expect anyone to actually challenge them. I was actually blocked from posting to FreedomWorks Facebook page because I would provide evidence that the TP (Hijacked) was putting out false information. After dozens of attempts on my part break through, silence was always the response. Unless they have talking points, they say nothing. The latest tactic is for them to tell you to 'forget the past'. Everything is Mr. Obama's fault because he is President now, what Mr. Bush did was in the past and isn't relevant. Scary thought indeed.

What has actually hurt the country is the fact the TP (Hijacked) has prevented any semblance of a jobs bill from coming forward. They want to clear their plate for all of their pet peeves before they start governing. The Republicans are being held hostage by the TP (Hijacked) and there isn't anything they can do about it, except give in.

The latest polls show a 32% approval rating for the Tea Party thanks to the TP (Hijacked). It's too late to close the barn door after the horse got out. It was a great idea. It will die in 2012.