Trumka Willing To 'Accept The Consequences' Of Holding The Line On Ending Wealthy Tax Rates

When politicians says that "Social Security is the third rail of politics", they mean it with a hostility that should be reserved for their Corporate Masters.  You don't see politicians putting campaign finance and election reform on their agenda from year to year as you do their continuing assaults on social safety net programs for the People.

To politicians, We The People are the problem.  If only they didn't have to deal with making us happy to get our votes that keep them employed.  If only they didn't have to serve us, they'd be able to give and give and give to Big Business (privatize national resources that belong collectively to us, the People) and deregulate so that corporations wouldn't be constrained by anything, become profit-making machines, unobstructed by piddling voter concerns, such as  health, safety, environment, etc.  And for this, politicians would be amply rewarded, and perhaps would eventually be able to join the ruling class.

You can choose to think of Obama and his intentions in whatever way makes you happy.  What you can't do is explain how any of what Obama's done these past two years has been in the People's and not the Corporations' interests.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Trumka Willing To 'Accept The Consequences' Of Holding The Line On Ending Wealthy Tax Rates

Exactly.

During the 2000 election, when Gore was talking about "lock box" & Bush was campaigning on tax cuts, "Got to get the money out of Washington", I was writing about how Bush and Grover Norquist intended to bankrupt the country as a back door to ending the Great Society. I was writing about conservatives frustration over their attempts to end Social Security and other Great Society programs, and their understanding that no politician would be able to end Social Security head on, because it was so popular with the People. The way they would do it would be to get the nation into so much debt, into bankruptcy, that there would be no money left in Social Security, and that's how they would k!ll it.

When George W. Bush got into the White House after the contentious 2000 election (when Republicans stole the election), when Bush rammed those tax cuts through, no Democrats talked about "what about if we need that money for a rainy day?" Or "should we find ourselves in a war". 

Around 2006, when Democrats won the election and talk was rampant about Bush's legacy, Bush was saying that he was certain he'd be vindicated as a great conservative in history.

Even conservatives didn't see what he was talking about, that what Bush is counting on is the end of the Great Society programs, like Social Security and Medicare, vindicating him. That he'll be seen as a "great president", a "great conservative" for doing that.

Not one reporter asked him.  They still don't, as he makes his rounds on his book tour.

Democratic politicians knew this, by the way, and they let it happen.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Trumka Willing To 'Accept The Consequences' Of Holding The Line On Ending Wealthy Tax Rates

FYI -

If Bush's tax cuts are allowed to expire as they are set to on December 31st, the deficit would be cut in half, instantly.   

If the tax cuts are continued for the rich, we would have to borrow $700 billion to pay for it.

If the tax cuts are continued for everyone, we would have to borrow $3 trillion to pay for it.

And if there is a 2-year extension "compromise", we would have to borrow $70-140 billion for the rich's portion and $383 billion for the middle class's portion.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Investigate the TSA, Not Tyner

And continued under the current government controlled by Obama and the Democrats.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Investigate the TSA, Not Tyner

Add to this: [t]he warrantless border seizure of the laptop and cellphone of a Bradley Manning supporter for the crime of visiting Manning in prison, The New York Times today editorializes in favor of greater restrictions on such searches and writes:

There is also a big difference between government agents scanning items for explosives or looking through a suitcase full of clothing, and searching through the hard drive of a laptop computer containing work papers, financial records, e-mail messages and Web site visits. . . .
The George W. Bush administration first authorized border agents to seize and view the contents of laptops, smartphones, and other devices and copy and share data with other government agencies without need for any individualized suspicion of wrongdoing.
The Obama administration has tweaked the policy, requiring approval from supervisors to hold a seized device for more than five days, for example. The fundamental flaw remains: it permits the government to engage in indiscriminate and invasive fishing expeditions.

This is the Change, the "tweaking", that Obama has brought to the nation in these areas:  we're going to keep in place and aggressively enforce George Bush's unfettered laptop seizure policy for Americans, but our Goodness is reflected by our new requirement that some low-level unaccountable "supervisor" somewhere give their approval if we want to keep the citizen's seized property for more than five days.  Well, just as long as some unseen "supervisor" agrees that my seized, searched and downloaded laptop can be permanently stolen by the Federal Government and all its data permanently stored and shared even in the absence of a whiff of suspicion that I've done anything wrong, then I'm satisfied.

http://www­.salon.com­/news/opin­ion/glenn_­greenwald/
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Michele Bachmann Open To Bush Tax Cuts Compromise -- But Only If Not Tied To Unemployment Benefits Extension (VIDEO)

I'm an old liberal FDR Democrat.

I'm against privatization of government, and for regulated capitalism (like Naomi Klein, I'm for a mixed economy). I'm for ending tax breaks and incentives for outsourcing.  I'm for reinstating the corporate tax rates of the 1960s.  I'm for ending corporate personhood, and am for public financing of elections, and for the League of Women Voters taking over the presidential debates again.  

I'm for social safety nets; those we have, those we've had, and others which we would have had had it not been for the Reagan "revolution", and which would have come in handy during tough times like this, and which might have prevented this meltdown from happening at all. I'm for clean & green sustainable energy (No Nuclear) and SMART building (No Suburban Sprawl), & massive public works projects for the 'Common Good', nationalizing utilities and commodities.  

I'm for public healthcare (single payer universal) and, most of all, I'm for education. Free to all, all the way, baby!
About Bush Tax Cuts
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Michele Bachmann Open To Bush Tax Cuts Compromise -- But Only If Not Tied To Unemployment Benefits Extension (VIDEO)

If Democrats cave and extend Bush's tax cuts, as we hear is happening, would that be Democrats working for the People or the Corporations?
About Bush Tax Cuts
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...