Thursday, May 10, 2012
Religious Freedom
Democrats Create More Private Sector Jobs Than Republicans Do
Republicans like to do a lot of bragging about how their policies are better economically than the policies of Democrats. They claim to be frugal while calling Democrats "big spenders". They claim their policies create more opportunity and growth. And they claim their policies will create more private-sector jobs. There's only one problem with these claims -- they are all false.
Last March I posted about the increase in government spending of all the presidents since Richard Nixon. That post showed that the biggest spenders, the presidents who had increased spend the most were all Republicans, with the biggest spenders of all being Nixon, Reagan, and Bush II (showing more than a 2.5% increase in annual spending). Bush I and Carter were about equal (with about 2% growth in annual spending). And the most frugal presidents of all were Clinton and Obama (both of whom had less than 1.5% growth in spending annually).
Another of my posts showed that growth and opportunity were actually much better under Democratic administrations than under Republican administrations. Data from Bloomberg News showed that stock market investments under the 23 years of Democratic presidents showed an annual average return of 11%. Under the 28 years of Republican presidents, that annual average return fell to only 2.7%. Obviously, the Republicans were not only the biggest spenders but also initiated policies that stymied investment growth.
Now it is time to bust the third Republican myth (lie) -- that they create more private-sector jobs than Democrats do. Again we go to the Bloomberg News (a business-oriented publication) for the pertinent data. And their data shows that far more private-sector jobs have been created under Democratic administrations than under Republican administrations.
The results are not even close. In the 23 years that Democrats occupied the White House, there were 42 million jobs created. In the 28 years that Republicans occupied the White House, only about 24 million jobs were created. That means that since John Kennedy was sworn into office in 1961, about 63.6% of all the new jobs were created with Democrats in power (while only 36.4% of the new jobs were created under Republican presidents).
And when you break it down into monthly figures, the Democratic advantage is even more impressive. In their 23 years, the Democrats averaged a monthly job creation of 150,000 private-sector jobs. The average monthly figure for Republicans is only a pathetic 71,000 private-sector jobs.
The biggest problem facing this country is not the deficit or providing investment opportunity (both of which would fare better under Democrats) -- it is the need to replace millions of jobs lost due to Republican economic policies (which favor only the rich). Giving the rich more money (as the Republicans want to do) will not solve this problem. We must spur more demand to do that, and as we can see from the figures above, that has always been done best under Democrats.
There is a solution for our current economic woes -- and it starts with voting Republicans out of office. Their policies have failed, and they are left with nothing but lies.
Afghan War Grows Even More Unpopular
The American people are sick of this war. It has lasted too long, too many people (both soldiers and innocent civilians) have been killed, and nothing has really been accomplished. We have replaced a bad Taliban government with an equally misogynistic and much more corrupt government of our own choosing, but we would be deluding ourselves to think anything has been solved there -- and there is no end in sight to the killing.
And the longer it goes on, the more unpopular the war becomes. A new AP-Gfk Poll now shows that two-thirds of Americans now oppose the war. Here are the numbers:
DO YOU FAVOR OR OPPOSE THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN?
strongly favor...............8%
somewhat favor...............20%
TOTAL FAVOR...............28%
strongly oppose...............40%
somewhat oppose...............26%
TOTAL OPPOSE...............66%
DON'T KNOW...............6%
It is time to withdraw ALL of our troops from Afghanistan -- not in 2014 (or later), but immediately.
What's He Trying To Hide ?
The other (Romney) has only released one year's worth of tax returns (plus an "approximation" of income and taxes for last year). Doesn't that make you wonder what he is trying to hide? In all those other years where he is refusing to divulge his returns, did he make even more than the $21 million he made in 2010 (without working a single day) and pay even less than the 13% tax rate he paid for 2010?
If we are to elect Romney president, and in doing so accept his tax plans (which will cut his own taxes while doing nothing for the middle and working classes), shouldn't we first know what his income and taxes have been for more than one year? And if he can't be honest with the American people about this, how can they expect him to be honest about anything else once elected?
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
Significant Anti-Romney Vote Still Evident
There is no doubt that Romney will be the eventual nominee, and will have the required number of delegates by the end of this month. But that is not the most important story right now. To me, the most important thing is that there is still a significant portion of the Republican Party that still refuses to climb on the Romney bandwagon. That was very evident last night at 34% of North Carolina voters, 35% of Indiana voters, and 30% of West Virginia voters still voted against Wall Street Willie last night.
One would have thought that with Romney assured of the nomination the Republican voters would now be falling in line and giving him their votes -- if for no other reason than to show their solidarity with the party's general election nominee. But that's not happening. There's still about 30% of Republicans, mostly teabaggers and evangelicals, who have not accepted Romney as their nominee.
The current idea being spread is that now that Romney can't be denied the nomination, he needs to moderate his views to appeal to a wider range of voters in the general election. I'm not so sure that would be wise. If he starts moderating his views now, he stands a good chance of losing that 30% of Republicans who haven't yet accepted him (and would be angered by yet another flip-flop). They could easily vote for a third party (Libertarian Party, Constitution Party, etc.), or just stay home on election day (which would be disastrous for down-ballot Republicans). He'd better win these voters over before he tries to moderate (if he can moderate at all).
Here are last night's results:
NORTH CAROLINA (99% reporting)
Mitt Romney...............629,496 (65.69%)
Ron Paul...............106,181 (11.08%)
Rick Santorum...............99,732 (10.41%)
Newt Gingrich...............73,368 (7.66%)
Others...............49,574 (5.17%)
TOTAL VOTES...............958,351
INDIANA (99% reporting)
Mitt Romney...............406,678 (64.61%)
Ron Paul...............97,451 (15.48%)
Rick Santorum...............84,612 (13.44%)
Newt Gingrich...............40,666 (6.46%)
Others...............0 (0.00%)
TOTAL VOTES...............629,407
WEST VIRGINIA (96% reporting)
Mitt Romney...............73,044 (69.48%)
Rick Santorum...............12,721 (12.10%)
Ron Paul...............11,683 (11.11%)
Newt Gingrich...............6,605 (6.28%)
Others...............1,074 (1.02%)
TOTAL VOTES...............105,127
NOTE -- Democrats got a big boost last night with the defeat of Senator Lugar in Indiana. They stand a much better (actually a very good) chance of beating the teabagger that Republicans will be running for the seat instead of Lugar. It looks like the teabaggers didn't learn from their experiences in Nevada and Delaware in the last election (where they threw away good chances to win by nominating far-right nut-jobs).
North Carolina Votes For Hate
The people of North Carolina had a choice yesterday. They could vote for equality for everyone and to support the United States Constitution, or they could vote to institutionalize hate and inequality in their state. A clear majority of them voted for hate. They voted to approve an amendment to their state constitution that would not only deny same-sex couples the right to marry, but also to form civil unions (so they could have the same rights and privilieges offered to heterosexual married couples).
The United States Constitution, through the Fourteenth Amendment, guarantees all citizens of this country equal rights. The North Carolina constitution now guarantees that equal rights will be denied to at least one class of citizens in that state. The craziest thing about this is that if you ask them they will say they voted to protect marriage. Yet not a single one of them can tell us how giving equal rights to same-sex couples will harm marriage.
The simple truth is that giving equal marriage rights to same-sex couples will not harm the institution of marriage, and it will not harm any existing or future marriages of heterosexual couples. They voted for amendment one because someone (probably their preacher) told them that their god and their religion commands them to hate -- and that is the truth no matter how vigorously they try to deny it. With 94% of the vote counted, about 1,244,833 (61%) people had vote to promote hate in their state.
But not everyone in North Carolina believes in hate. 795,628 (39%) voters opted to vote for equality and to uphold the American Dream (and the U.S. Constitution). I commend those voters for the stand they took.
But the North Carolina majority is out of step with the nation as a whole. A new Gallup Poll showed that for the second year in a row at least 50% of Americans support the right of same-sex couples to marry. The times are changing. Maybe not fast enough, but they are changing -- and in a few years this vote in North Carolina will mean nothing.
Is The GOP Mathematically-Challenged ?
Maybe the Republicans and other right-wing true-believers are just mathematically-challenged (i.e., they just can't count). Consider their latest brouhaha. A few days ago, the president held a rally in Ohio to kick off his re-election campaign. About 14,000 people showed up to support the president. But the venue where the rally was held could have seated 18,000 people (crowd is shown in the top picture above).
The right-wing jumped all over that. They said it showed that there was no enthusiasm to re-elect the president since he didn't fill the 18,000 seat arena. They said it showed the president was in trouble.
But they ignored a much worse turnout a few days later, also in Ohio, for Willard Mitt Romney (their own candidate). The Romney campaign had already been burned once by renting a large stadium and then only being able to fill one end of it, so they rented a 1,000 seat facility this time. And they couldn't even fill that (bottom picture). The campaign said 700 people were there, but the media said there was only about 500 people.
I think Jason Easley at Politicususa summed up the situation nicely when he said:
The fact that Romney couldn’t draw a crowd if you gave him charcoal and sketch pad is the reason why the Obama campaign is doing summersaults of joy every time someone on the right brings up attendance numbers. If you want to know which party has an enthusiasm problem, check out the pictures above. Tens of thousands turn out for Obama, less than a thousand for Romney.
When Obama draws 14,000+ it is a failure, but Romney draws 500 it is a great turnout. No wonder Republicans are so bad with our money, they can’t add.
Hank Supports Rachel For Party Chair
“I met Rachel on the campaign trail when we campaigned across Texas back in 2006. It really impressed me that even though Rachel was managing her husband David’s campaign for Attorney General, she always promoted the whole Democratic ticket at every event. She is pure Democrat to the core.
Rachel will stand up for the hard-working people of Texas and won’t back down to the Republicans or to any other talking heads. This party needs someone with courage, conviction and the backbone to do the right thing. Rachel will unite the people to support the Democratic Party and bring it back to a majority in this state.
She’s one tough woman with a heart of gold and I support her all the way for State Party Chair.”
Help to bring the Democratic Party back. Support Rachel Barrios-Van Os at the state convention next month.
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
Not Like The Others
Why Is The GOP Re-Fighting Old Battles ?
Think about it. The idea of a woman having control over her own body (the issues of choice and access to contraception) is certainly nothing new. The battles that gave women these rights were fought decades ago. The Supreme Court gave women the right to control their own bodies in the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision. And contraception (the pill) became both widely accessible (to those who could afford them) and culturally acceptable in that same time period (thanks in part to the counter-culture's "free love" generation). All President Obama's recent action did was make contraception more affordable for all women by requiring insurance plans to provide them free of charge.
Even the argument over equal pay for women was born in that era, and accepted by most people. For quite a while now, women have been receiving equal pay in public (state and federal government) jobs (thanks to the Civil Rights Act of 1964). It is in the private sector where women still don't receive equal pay -- they are paid about 77% of what men get paid. And three years ago, with the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, women were given some legal tools to fight for equality in pay (which nearly every Republican voted against).
It is incredible to think that Republicans are still trying to re-fight these battles here in the 21st Century. And it doesn't stop there. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was signed into law back in 1994 (18 years ago). One would have thought this was a settled issue by now -- the idea that violence against women was unacceptable and should be opposed by the government. But the Republicans are nearly unanimous in their opposition to the continuation of this law.
The Republicans claim their opposition to VAWA is because the Democrats have extended the law to cover women who were not previously covered by it -- homosexuals, undocumented immigrants, and Native Americans. That simply makes no sense. Are they saying that some women deserve to be protected against violence and some don't? Do they really have the audacity to set themselves up as the arbiters of which women deserve to be protected from violence and which don't?
Women have fought long and hard for the rights they now have (even though there are fights still to be won). The Republican Party is now trying to re-fight those old battles and take those rights away. I don't know why they are doing it. They are trying to claim it is because of religion, but personally, I think they are just using their religion to hide their own mean-spirited and hard-hearted patriarchal beliefs that men (specifically white men) should rule this country.
I hope this comes back to bite them in November. As I've said before, I don't know how any woman could vote Republican -- or any man who loves the women in his life.
Corporate Greed Grows - Still Not Shared
The Republicans have been telling America for years now that the path to economic health is "trickle-down" economics -- the idea that lower taxes and bigger profits for the corporations and the rich will trickle-down and be beneficial for everyone in our society. It has not worked, and has resulted in a massive inequality of wealth and income between the richest 1% and the other 99% of America. Now there is even more proof of the failure of Republican economic policy.
The first part of the policy is working. The rich are indeed getting much richer. The latest data shows that the Fortune 500 companies (America's biggest and richest corporations) made generated a record of $824.5 billion in earnings in 2011. That's a whopping 16.4% increase over their 2010 earnings and a new record (the old record being $785 billion in 2006). Add to this the fact that the effective corporate tax rate is at the lowest it's been in forty years, and it's easy to see that corporations are doing very well (and currently sitting on record amounts of cash).
If the Republicans were right about their economic prognostications, American workers should be seeing nice raises in pay and the country should be literally swimming in newly-created jobs. But the second half of their economic theory, the trickle down part, is not working -- and never has worked.
Even though the productivity of American workers has increased by more than $40,000 per worker over the last five years, none of this new wealth is being shared with those workers. After adjusting for inflation, the wages of workers in the United States actually dropped last year (and the buying power of current wages is less than it was in the 1970s). While corporations and their executives are making record profits, American workers are losing more ground every year.
The Republican policies have turned loose corporate greed and it is strangling American workers. And those new jobs this new wealth was supposed to create is just not happening. In fact, most of the new jobs created by American corporations are in foreign countries (where they can take advantage of slave labor, child labor, and poverty wages).
But the Republicans say they have a solution. All we have to do is give these same corporations (and other rich people) more massive tax cuts and government subsidies. They never learn. They must be voted out of power before they destroy the country with giveaways to their rich buddies.
French & Greeks Vote Against Austerity
The result has been a disaster. Instead of bringing Europe out of recession, the austerity measures actually threw many European countries deeper into recession (like Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, the United Kingdom). But the people seem to have had enough of the austerity madness.
This last weekend, the French voters booted out Nicolas Sarkozy, one of the architects of European austerity, and replaced him with socialist Francois Hollande (pictured above). Mr. Hollande had campaigned against austerity. In Greece, the voters also booted the supporters of austerity out of power. They replaced the two ruling parties, who supported austerity, with a majority of parties opposed to austerity -- which will undoubtably result in a new anti-austerity government in Greece.
The right-wing government in the Netherlands was also recently booted out, and I doubt that Cameron in the United Kingdom can survive past his first term. Europe is turning against the insane policies of the conservatives. The 600 pound gorilla of the European Union, Germany, is still demanding that the austerity proposals agreed to must be followed and say they will refuse to renegotiate the terms, but they may soon have no choice. In fact, recent state elections in Germany show that Merkel's right-wing party may be in trouble in their next federal elections.
Europe is changing directions. They are starting to realize that austerity doesn't end recessions -- it just makes them worse. I hope that voters in the United States will wake up and come to the same realization, before the Republicans are able to push through more of their austerity measures -- measures that will further trash our own economy.
Monday, May 07, 2012
Romney Shows His Economic Ignorance
That was not good news for Republicans, who had done their best to keep the rate from falling through their obstructing any efforts the president made to create jobs. And Willard Mitt Romney (aka Wall Street Willie) was quick to add his voice to the Republican whining and howling.
Romney said anything less than 500,000 new jobs a month or more than a 4% unemployment rate was unacceptable, and showed President Obama had failed. Even putting aside the obstructionism of the Republican Party since 2009, that statement just shows Romney's economic ignorance. He may be good at firing workers and milking corporations dry, but he doesn't seem to understand the basics of economics.
Romney wants to return to the failed economic policies of Reagan and Bush II -- the policies that created the worst inequality of wealth and income since before the Great Depression. What he failed to mention is that neither Reagan nor Bush II had an unemployment rate of 4% (Reagan's was closer to 7% during most of his term and millions of jobs were lost near the end of Bush II's term).
He also failed to mention that creating 500,000 jobs a month is a gargantuan task and impossible to sustain on a month-to-month basis. In fact, there have only been 16 months with that much job growth since 1939 (73 years), and in the last 50 years there have only been four months when 500,000 were created. And returning to the Bush/Reagan policies certainly won't do that. The Bush II presidency only produced an average of 66,000 jobs a month (far less than during the Clinton presidency, the last time unemployment was at 4%).
To put it bluntly, Romney is either lying or he is incredibly ignorant about economics -- or both. The policies put forth by the Republicans (and which they still cling to) have resulted in economic disaster for this country twice -- the Great Depression and the current Great Recession. The only people these policies help are the super-rich. But then, that may well be the only people Romney is interested in helping.
No Bragging About Bush's Kill
The Smartest Man In The Republican Party
The GOP's history is filled with leaders who rejected ideology in favor of seeking solutions.
Teddy Roosevelt is still a hero among environmentalists for his conservationist policies. Dwight Eisenhower believed in the value of investing in infrastructure, and we can thank him for our highway system. Nixon, who originally attracted me to the party, nearly passed universal healthcare. He also created the national Environmental Protection Agency, which some modern Republicans want to close down.
Being a Republican used to mean finding solutions for the American people that worked for everyone. It used to mean having big ideas that moved the country forward.
It can mean that again, but big ideas don't often come from small tents.
It's time to stop thinking of the Republican Party as an exclusive club where your ideological card is checked at the door, and start thinking about how we can attract more solution-based leaders.
I am not a Republican (and have never voted for a Republican), but Schwarzenegger is right. The Republican Party has had some leaders in the past of which they can justifiably be proud -- men like Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Dwight Eisenhower. And yes, once you get past his criminal tendencies, even Richard Nixon did some good things -- like opening the door to a normal relationship with China and the creation of the EPA.
But those days, when party leaders were able to work with Democrats and compromise for the good of the country, are long gone. There is no longer any room for moderation or compromise in the Republican Party. The party has moved far to the right, and replaced love of country with love for their own ideology -- an ideology that is making it clear that there is no place in the party for minorities, immigrants, homosexuals, poor people, the working class, young people, and women. All you have to do is look at their current policies to know that.
While the Democrats are trying to build on their "big tent", and add even more people to that tent, the Republicans are busy kicking people out of their tent (those not ideologically "pure"). As Schwarzenegger says, that tent has now become very small. But while it is small, it is also opulent, because it was built to house only rich white men (the only people favored by their policies). They may let the teabaggers peek inside every two years (to keep their votes), but only the rich are allowed to stay in there.
Is McCain Senile Or Just A Big Liar ?
He then went on to say, "I happen to believe that was the. . .primary factor on my decision in 2008." How could he say such an ignorant thing? Didn't he pick Sarah Palin -- a woman who couldn't even finish one term as governor of one of the least-populated states, a woman who couldn't name a single newspaper or magazine that she reads, a woman who thought that Africa was a country instead of a continent, a woman who thought Paul Revere "warned the British" on his midnight ride?
I don't think there is a single thinking person in the United States that thinks Sarah Palin was (or even is now) qualified to be president. Even McCain's own aides admit this now, and were horrified that they could have been responsible for putting her a heartbeat from the presidency.
I find it hard to believe McCain could keep a straight face while telling that big a lie. That's why I'm thinking it must be senility. I was going to suggest it may be time for him to retire, But I'm afraid that Arizona would just replace him with a teabagger -- and a person with no brain is just as bad as one with a dysfunctional brain.
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