Yawn

Oooh scary.

Labor unions, Jennifer Granholm, and California, oh my!  Labor unions, Jennifer Granholm, and California, oh my!

Old Nolan continues his crusade this week to keep all of us working for a dollar a day.  Seems them nasty old unions are using the ballot box to fight back against wildly unpopular policies enacted by Gov. Snyder and the republican led Michigan legislature.  The horror!

The sheer hypocrisy of the republicans regarding the emergency financial manager dictum the unions seek to overturn is overwhelming.  How come the government overreaches on healthcare but when they want to rip up union contracts and see to it that good middle class folks earn much less money, they're just aces?

Fuck you, Nolan.  And by the way, if you love Indiana so much, why the fuck don't you move there?  One more idiot in that shithole of a state would be Michigan's gain.

Peace,
emaycee

Pretty please?

So the republicans want to bring extending the Bush tax cuts to a vote before the elections in November...

...Oh, please, please, please, please, please, please do.  With income inequality in the American people's consciousness for perhaps the first time ever (thanks to the Occupy Movement), and a solid majority of Americans in favor of taxing the wealthy more than they currently are, I think the time is ripe for republicans to hand over even more money to millionaires and billionaires.

And, by extension, give the Democrats an even better shot at holding the Senate and taking back the House.

Peace,
emaycee

Can I vote for this guy?

For the record, I love living in the state of Michigan and feel very fortunate to have two pretty solid Liberal Senators in Sen. Levin and Sen. Stabenow.

But Tom Harkin?  He's right up there with Bernie Sanders as far as taking the mantle once held by that bastion of Liberalism and one of my modern political heroes, Ted Kennedy.  Check out this shit (as reported by the crackerjack political journalist for The Hawkeye, Iowa's oldest newspaper):  Christ, if President Obama ran on this platform the Liberal base would be delirious with joy.

Restoring unions?  Check.  Enacting the Buffet Rule?  Check.  Transaction tax on hedge fund managers?  Check.  Spending on infrastructure?  Check.  Spending on child care and education?  Check and check.

Restoring the middle class?  Beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Peace,
emaycee

I'll defer to the gentleman from George Mason...

I'm not a legal scholar, so I'm willing to defer to someone who is (see also the comment in my most recent post).  Still....

(And again, I'm no legal scholar) I have my doubts about this particular Supreme Court.  The Constitution may well be what the Justices say it is, but this Court's conservative justices are beholden to politics (see also Citizens United, and perhaps even more so, Bush v. Gore).

And while I appreciate the sentiments of the Dred Scott case or Plessy v. Ferguson eventually being overturned, I have a child who has ADHD and frankly can't wait 50 years for someone to realize that maybe discriminating against people who have pre-existing conditions wasn't such a good idea.

I don't live in a world of legal games--I live in Realityville, USA, and I need a Supreme Court that's looking out for what's best for the American people, not the republican party.

Peace,
emaycee

SCOTUS on Obamacare

While it will be a while before we hear the decision reached by the Supreme Court on the Affordable Care Act (and I'm not holding my breath for a happy ending to this movie), what worries me the most is that somehow we'll end up going back to the idea that the best way to cure the spiraling costs of healthcare and the lack of coverage for millions of Americans is to...turn it over to the private sector.

So they can fix it...like they fixed the housing industry.  And the banking industry.  And the oil industry.  And the cable television industry.  And the auto industry...oops, the federal government fixed that one.  And the communications industry.  And the media industry.  And the...

You get my drift.

I don't give a flying fuck what the Supreme Court thinks.  As we saw with Citizen's United, the Supreme Court is no longer a bastion of justice for the American people.  It's a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America and, by extension, the republican party.

Hold on to your wallets and start looking for an apothecary....

Peace,
emaycee

Laziness or Journalistic Malpractice? You decide...

This one is a little old, but I still find myself flabbergasted when I read it--the Free Press was checking the veracity of political ads and for the one the Obama campaign was showing regarding the auto industry recovery instead of doing the legwork required to check its truthfulness, it had the fucking Romney campaign vouch for its accuracy.  It doesn't take a Mensa member to figure out their reaction.

Really.  No, really.  I mean, are you fucking kidding me?  It's the height of irresponsibility and not what one would expect from a professional news organization.

Looking forward to hearing the Koch Brothers on the veracity of letting the Bush tax cuts expire or the chamber of commerce on the veracity of the minimum wage....

Peace,
emaycee

Rallying around the President

You know, for all my whining about President Obama, for all my whining about how disappointing his healthcare reform law (Obamacare) was...it took me all of two seconds to like Obamacare on Facebook when presented the opportunity.

Thanks Gov. Snyder, for reminding me how shitty the republican party really is and how important it is to continue supporting Democrats despite our dejection over their failures.

Time marches on and the class war won't be won sitting on the sidelines.

Peace,
emaycee

He said, she said journalism

While we're on the subject of supposed journalistic objectivity (segues are for amateurs), you have to love this piece in the Free Press whose title proclaims "Credit for Auto Industry Recovery Debated."  If memory serves, a debate is where two opposing sides argue an issue, both with facts that serve their claim.  In the auto industry recovery debate, on the one side we have the Obama Administration's facts (two companies and countless thousands of jobs saved) and on the other we have the republican claim that it would have worked out better had we let the private sector handle it.

As my dear, departed father liked to say when faced with such erroneous blather, "...and if the cat hadn't stopped to shit, he'd have won the race."

We are not having a debate on the auto industry recovery--we're having the facts of a successful federal intervention led by President Obama being posited against fucking republican talking points.

Quad erat dictum.

Peace,
emaycee

The short answer is no

Intrepid Free Press columnist Brian Dickerson wonders whether a case to come before the Supreme Court this fall concerning affirmative action could be enough to swing the Presidential election to the republican candidate. 

I know a close election is good for the bottom line of Dickerson's profession, but let's be real:  unless the Supreme Court's hearing has the magical power of creating more angry white men (just a hunch, but I'm guessing the odds are a wee bit long) it's probably going to have zero effect.  Angry white men aren't going to vote for President Obama regardless of the Supreme Court case, and it's hard to see how the case garners the republican nominee any black, hispanic, asian, or female votes over and above the few they're already going to get.

I pay money for the privilege of reading commentary that shallow....

Peace,
emaycee

The gift that keeps on giving

You know, it's not enough that come November they're going to get slaughtered in the voting from African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, and young people (18-29), republicans have decided that they want to piss off the 51% of the American population that turns out the most voters:  women.

The big money boys in the republican party must give thanks everyday for ineptness that often passes for policy and leadership in the Democratic Party--hell, if we could actually nail those two things the republicans would be lucky to win a seat outside of the South and the Corn Belt.

Which, come to think of it, is pretty much the direction they're headed.

Peace,
emaycee

Beholden to the base

Regardless of which bozo eventually wins the republican nomination (yeah, I know it's going to be Willard, but a man can dream), the winner will be beholden to people just like these commenters on the Trayvon Martin killing.  It's a pretty safe bet that none of them will be pulling the lever in the voting booth for Obama this fall.

How many, though, of those "knowledgeable" independent voters will be pulling levers for the republican candidate, blind to the true nature of his party?

Just askin'....

Peace,
emaycee

No wise man has the power...

The first thought that I had when I read the title of old Nolan's tripe this week ("UAW will man class war") was "Thank God!"  I mean, who the hell else is going to do it for the working men and women of this nation?

The rest of the piece (?) was the usual republican scaremongering and lies, but arguing with them would be like trying to rationalize with a four year old about the monster underneath her bed.  Fortunately, the four year old will outgrow it.  Republicans, not so much.

It is instructional though as a means of showing republican fear.  The White House is looking more and more like a lost cause for them, and the farther away it gets, the better Dem chances for holding the Senate and retaking the House.  If the 99% Spring is half as successful as the Occupy Movement in getting the tradtional media to discuss income inequality and the ever declining middle class it could a really long November for the party of the old, the white, and the shrews.

So best to get out there early to call the Occupiers dirty hippies (yawn), complain about how the poor bond holders fared vis a vis the UAW in the auto bailout (never mind that this is capitalism--the bond holders paid their money and they took their chances--and lost), scream about class warfare (which republicans only despise when we fight back), and whine about that evil government (despite the fact that Michigan would be a fucking wasteland right now without the federal bailout of the auto industry).

Better that than to hang your hat on the Bush the lesser policies that has resulted in extreme poverty doubling, in 93% of the income gains going to the top 1% (mother fucking 93% for Christ's sake), or to face the fact that 64% of Americans believe unions should have the right to collectively bargain.  Better to scream about imaginary boogiemen than give credit where credit is due for the auto industry bailout.

Republican pols and pundits can afford to blame President Obama for all the world's ills--the backbone of this country, the men and women who actually do the work, can't afford to.  We have to eat.

And we eat much better with unions like the UAW leading the way.

Peace,
emaycee

Mitt wins, sort of

I had the exact same thought as David Atkins did--when you look at the map of Willard's win in Ohio this past Tuesday, he pretty much won areas that he has no chance in hell of winning come this November (Obama's victory map of Ohio in 2008).  In fact, it pretty much spreads across the country--the only red state without significant Mormon populations (Idaho and Arizona)  that McCain won in 2008 that Willard has managed to win so far is Alaska, with its whopping 3 electoral votes.

It's hard to see how Romney finds a path to victory in November.  President Obama isn't going to lose the blue states he won handily in 2008--and that gives him over 250 electoral votes.  A victory in states where he won close victories--like Ohio or Florida--pushes him over the top.  Hell winning Virginia and New Hampshire puts him over 270 and ensures his re-election.

A lot can happen in eight months, but you have to like the good guys' chances in the Presidential Election an awful lot these days.

Peace,
emaycee

I wonder, wonder, wonder

Given this:


"Right now, there's a proposal sitting on your governor's desk from a company called the Corrections Corporation of America. They're offering to buy and run prisons in your state and all across the nation — but only if states agree to keep the prisons at least 90% full." (From the ACLU)


Don't  you think it a bit coincidental this:


Gov. Rick Snyder said Wednesday that he wants more cops on the streets, more evidence techs in labs and a more focused approach to address crime in Michigan's most crime-ridden cities -- Detroit, Pontiac, Flint and Saginaw.


We're not doing well enough on public safety," Snyder said in a speech at Flint City Hall. "We need to step it up."  (From today's Free Press here)

The cities Snyder noted are also among the state's poorest--you'll note Snyder said nothing about helping them economically.  Another case of the 99% getting fucked at the expense of the 1%.

Nerd my ass--fucking sociopath is more like it.

Peace,
emaycee

Grumpy old white geezers

Well, it's been quite a week here in the great state of Michigan--everyone's been going gaga because we mattered in a primary for the first time since Jesus was a Cub Scout.  Willard won--we mattered so much because we voted for the man who is most likely to lose to Obama in November.  Yawn.

I recently read an article that said the republican outlook for the future was getting weaker because they were increasingly becoming the party of old white people (in 2008 Obama took 95% of the black vote, 65% of the Latino vote, and 60% of the under 35 vote).  The Free Press certainly did its part this week to confirm that:  in the run up to last Tuesday's election they featured eight people discussing who they were going to vote for.  One was black and voting for Obama (he was the only Democrat featured--not unfairly, the Democratic primary this week was non-binding and Obama was unopposed--hell, I didn't even bother to vote).  The other seven were voicing their opinions on the republican candidates--to wit, all seven were white, the youngest was 44. and the second youngest was 55.

Can you say irrelevance, boys and girls?  The republicans are on the path to it.

Peace,
emaycee