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@mmetti, thank you for your thoughful words!!!
This is an excellent idea for day two after the failure to raise the debt ceiling. First should be the targeting of so-called "red states" and then go for the juglar: those federal welfare programs for industry and the wealthy.
@Paul Velleman, thank you for a succinct comment what we need to do as Americans in resolving some of our politicians lavish lifestyles that have a negative impact on our citizens wellbeing!!!
A corrupt, politically driven government that spends more than it brings in and has done so for years is disgraceful. These politicians are owned and operated by special interest and if we do not hold them accountable with real consequences, we are fools and deserve what we get. They created one big crap sandwich and now we all have to take a bite.
If it is in fact Obama's ace in the hole, he won't play it. He's had plenty of chances to use leverage against the Republicans, and he has yet to do so, even when 80% of Americans are behind him. He was a corporatist in the Senate, and that didn't change when he became president.
I think this will be a planned implosion to foster in the second dip - which will be much worse than the first - designed to usher in a new global feudalism. Do you get the idea I'm not very hopeful?
I certainly hope that the first thing to be cut off would be all money for the Senate and House including pay and benefits for senators and congressmen and for all their aids and percs. The Gyms and cafeterias should be closed and all security pulled. Wouldn't hurt if the lights were shut off too.
President Obama doesn’t use the Bully Pulpit as well as Pres. W. did during his time in office. Bush would be flooding the media with a constant flow of administration officials stating his case. Another thing Obama administration doesn’t have that W. had is a cast of characters. Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Rove and other administration officials seem to have as much weight with the media as the president during Bush administration.
Deliberately or not the Republicans have Obama on an island. He needs other administration officials with clout trumpeting to the court of public opinion. The republicans need to be forced to defend and explain their positions. Obama doesn’t do well at getting his message out and hammering it home. The Bush administration did have the advantage of the collective voice of the republican media machine.
President Obama must use every resource at his disposal to make his case to the public and put republicans on the defensive. The republican have own the narrative for the past 16 years starting with the second term of the Clinton Administration. The President and Democratic politicians have to become more aggressive and assertive in their case building against the Republican Party’s agenda. The support of the public is out there, the Democrats just need to find the political courage to follow their conviction if their serious about saving our economy and preserving a functional democracy.
This has become a very scary time in America. I fear the economic agenda of the Republican Party. This country could become something worse than fascist a hybrid of fascism/multi-national corporate controlling every government and financial institution in our country. The Supreme Court the most powerful ruling body in the country is under corporate control. The wealthy have the entire Republican Political machine acting as their proxy. Right now as America stands it will just be a matter of time before they destroy America’s social safety net and social justice will just be another America dream crushed by the agenda of the powerful and wealthy.
Thom, you had a conversation on your program with a person who discussed the elimination of minimum wages. You are knowledgeable in many areas and on many issues but PLEASE have your talking points typed in advance. These talking points may be used with other conservatives. If we are going to do away with minimum wages, we will need more safety nets in health care, social justice programs, and social security. We would also need for the rich and our transnational corporations to have Guarantor Responsibility in many goods and services areas. We would need to scale back profiteering in these goods and services areas. A $40,000 car would sell for $2,000 is an example. PLEASE keep your talking points sheets available upon quick referral necessity for rebuttals.
Here is another concern. When I was growing up, I was taught to trust the police and the FBI laboratories. Today, I do not trust the police and the findings of the FBI laboratories. In our current police culture I do not trust any law enforcement official. Blue collar crimes go to jail and white collar crimes are praised and rewarded, such as the criminal and immoral behavior of our banksters and the Wall Street crooks and robbers.
When I read the comments on Thom's blog, the people have great thoughts on why we have a problem. But, we need more comments on the how and what you would do to resolve the problems facing our country and the world.
I voted NO but do we really have a choice???
And since.....as Michael Hudson, the economist, points out...."if the Treasury and Federal Reserve can create $13 trillion of public obligations – money – electronically on computer keyboards, there really is no Social Security problem at all, no Medicare shortfall, no inability of the American government to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure.
The bailout of Wall Street showed how central banks can create money..."
So screw the debt ceiling....it is just as mythical or nonsensical as the "flying spaghetti monster". Just another gimick to confuse everyone.
Very good points!!! But if Obama walks the walk instead of just talking the talk, on this, instead of "compromising" everything away then I might even be tempted to think he is not all that bad and that he might even be on our side (for a change) instead of giving everything away to our enemies. If he shows that he is not such a pushover then that is "throwing us a bone". I'd bet that Obama's ratings would shoot right up (in the Blue States, but probably not in the Red states...at least he might revitalize his base to at least vote for him again instead of sitting this one out).
If Obama does this then it will help to show that voting just might matter....and that if you are a red state then you will have to suffer the consequences (for a change). But I will feel sorry for those Democrats who depend on the social programs who are unfortunate to live in those Red states. But I would gloat and laugh at those who voted Republican.
Could be managed as a tax, but that adds unnecessary cost. Now that I think of it, the national minimum wage seems a "natural" enumerated power under the commerce clause. This prevents one state from undercutting another's labor force in order to attract industry. It sets a national baseline for labor, above which commerce must take place.
I think the use of "magic numbers" to define the minimum wage needs to be done away with and changed to a percentage of the current poverty level, such as 125%, or 150% (or whatever), for a full time job, and that the hourly amount will be considered 1/40 of that amount when looking at the amount made for working 1 week, so even if someone works a part time job they will still be able to earn a minimum hourly wage. Also the poverty level should be tied into a percentage of the median income. So as median income rises, the minimum wage would rise, automatically. The median income can be determined by state, but the percentage to set the minimum wage should be set at the Federal level, with states being allowed to go higher if so desired (as some do now).
Optionally, the minimum wage percentage, could be based directly on the median income, but I think there should be cost of living baseline for the poverty level. So that in case the median income falls to a point where the upper end of the poverity level falls below the cost of living, the minimum wage would be held at that point.
N
I read somewhere recently that these replacement 'vouchers' (instead of Medicare) will not go to the citizen; those vouchers will go directly to the insurance companies chosen by the recipients. In other words, surprise, surprise, a direct, taxpayer-provided gift to the insurance industry. Again.
Have to run out the door right now or I would google this to get you a link. If I find it later, I'll post it.
Lee
Redmond, WA.
Maybe the minimum wage should be treated as an employment tax that is dispensed directly to the employee.
RE: Minimum wage.
Thom, I am on your (our - the peoples') side about the minimum wage. To me it is absurd and inhumane, not to mention destructive to democratic capitalism to think that we should abolish the minimum wage. Nevertheless, when I read Article 8 section 1, it talks about Congress' right to tax for the welfare of the people. This is not a tax, it is a regulation. I think that we need to mine the Constitution for text that allows Congress to establish laws or regulations for the welfare of the People. Please acknowledge and discuss this differentiation between regulation and taxation, as it relates to the minimum wage's constitutionality.
Many Thanks,
Andrew.
I'm not confusing anything. The definition I'm refering to may be obsolete by some standards, but the only thing I'm seeing as referencing a plurality vs majority is voting. The manner in which Colby is using the title of his organization substains this, for in population sets, it is only women that hold a title of 51% or greater. So White Males have never held a majority by that definition. He's not even technically correct.
N
Seton seems to think the Constitution starts with the amendments and wants to discard everything that precedes them.
300 million one man businesses? that was good! lol. Visualize that one, hee,hee! me with my one man chili cart cooking my grool with out of date meat just to save costs, next to a guy with a garbage can willing to scrape bubble gum off the side walk for a penny per piece only to sell it back to the gum recycler three blocks down and 2 carts down a women seeling crochet underwear the sign above the cart reading, "wooly wear". cart after cart of peasant seller barters and brokers. A barby- Q stand selling fresh roasted rat on a spit or for more favorable fare roasted cat that ate the rat splayed between fresh made bread produced at yet another cart from grains and flour that came from who the heck knows where and as you anticipate your first savory bite you recall the last time and how as you looked at your next peasants meal a roach wiggled out from between the bread and the cat-rat meat. yum, yum! Oh to drool!!people working for nickles and dimes. meanwhile up on the hill? the rich still have all they got on the backs of the have nots. And the new order of over lords much like ancient past will be running shake down on all the vendors.
Strange don't you think. We have scarcely truly evolved! i think I'm going to vomit!
...funny i was reflecting the other night and jotted this down...
48 years of being told how to be a better man by the very people who otherwise stole,cheated and cared little for others in an effort to attain what they now possess.
seeing CNN news story about Ayn Rand now makes me want to read "Atlas Shrugged"
Thom I'll always have hope but admittedly I think we are all losing faith.
Keep rockin the air waves!
Your confusing majority with plurality. The scenario you have described would be a plurality. Majority and plurality are interchangeable only when the result exceeds half of the total.
Uh Colby, I'm not sure what dictionary your working out of, but majority does not mean 51% of anything, it means to be the greatest percentage out of the subsets. So if you have 3 groups in your set then a majority would be at least 34%, if you have 4 groups then its 26% so on and so forth. The fact that you see 51% as a majority means that you're only looking two groups in your set, White Males and everyone else. That set is so skewed it doesn't even pass the laugh test.
N
Republicans say the are concerned that our children and grandchildren will have to pay off. Bunk. Repubs will NEVER make a principal payment. GWB 2001 said "We have a surplus. That means you are paying too much tax. " They will never collect more tax than it needs to run the gubmint.
Umm in regards to Mark Halperin's remark, I see it as a somewhat good thing. In fact I'd like to tell the President to be a bigger D**K in regards to his negotiations with the Repugnats. He should be giving them a reason to call him names, they should hate him, and he should welcome that hatred. I'd love to hear Obama get up and say, "if you think that what I said at the press conference was d***y to you, well you haven't seen anything yet!"
I'd be proud to call my President a d**k, so long as he's being a d**k to the con's.
N
Just curious; if the debt ceiling is always raised, why even bother with a ceiling?
Seems to me to just be another distraction to keep the population divided; democrat vs republican, liberal vs conservative... thus we don't concentrate on who is really doing the oppression.
Bachmann's right. We do need to review all government regulation, specifically regulations that require TSA agents to work in an environment that causes cancer or regulations that permit companies to pump undisclosed materials into our watersheds.