Living large on the minimum wage

If, by some miracle, Democrats are able to get a minimum wage increase to $10.10 through Congress (right about the moment my lottery numbers finally come in), it would mean that, for those lucky few who can actually find a forty hour a week job, they would make just a hair over $21,000 a year.

Let me repeat that:  $21,000 a year.

Now I know that republicans think that people making that kind of money, after a day of flipping burgers or stocking shelves with green beans, drive home in their Rolls to eat filet mignon and lobster tails while they watch Hawaii Five-O on their 75" TV screen, but you'd think members of the party that actually fights for a living wage for working class men and women would know better.

Not so, Senators Mary Landrieu and Mark Pryor.  Nope, they think that maybe raising it to such great heights is bad for...oh, I don't know, the Walton family and Olive Garden shareholders, and that perhaps we should not raise it quite so much.  Because, you know, $17,500 a year is still a quite the cache of cash.

And those folks can just learn to do without the lobster tails.

Peace,
emaycee

Bottled Kochs

I've been pretty lukewarm on Michigan's Democratic candidate for Senator Carl Levin's seat, Gary Peters, because he seems to me to be a milquetoast candidate, i.e., he's always come across as republican lite.  When we run republican lite, we lose.  Guess what?  In what should be a safe seat for Democrats, the last few polls have shown Peters trailing.  His opponent, Terri Lynn Land, is your run of the mill republican toadie and despite millions being spent on her behalf by the Koch brothers it's still in a statistical dead heat.

Apparently Peters is having a come home to Jesus moment--this week he gave a big fuck you to the Koch brothers (a la the increasingly feisty Harry Reid) by reminding Michigan voters of their true agenda:  watching ordinary Americans live in a Road Warrior post-apocalyptic world while they sit around their four Olympic sized pools enjoying circle jerks while they count even more billions of dollars.

Peters is correct to point out to Michigan voters that the Kochs don't live here and are trying to buy our state's Senate seat to entrich themselves and themselves alone.  He would be wise to spend the next eight months hammering home how his opponent is leading their charge at every Michigander's expense.

Peace,
emaycee

Das Capitalism

Had to cut those food stamps--nope, that $8 billion was just too much.  Can't approve an extension for all those poor bastards out of work thanks to the foolhardiness of Wall Street--can't afford that.  Can't afford Obamacare, can't afford spending on our deteriorating infrastructure, can't afford to spend on universal pre-k, and definitely can't afford to give raises to teachers, firemen, and police officers.  Hell, we can't even afford to take care of those who selflessly served our country.

Know what we can afford?  $13.2 billion to Boeing.  $5.6 billion to Alcoa.  $3.9 billion to Intel.  $3.5 billion to GM.  $2.5 billion to Ford.  In all, over $110 billion dollars in our taxes for subsidies to business, with 3 out of four dollars going to less than 1000 large corporations.

I think very few of us mind having our taxes used to help start up companies or to give tax breaks to small businesses.  But billions of dollars to billion dollar entities?  Socialism, my ass--let these fuckers make it or break it on their own.

Frankly, I can think of many much better uses for my tax dollars than padding the bottom line so incompetent boobs can get bigger bonuses from their corporate boards.

Peace,
emaycee

What a Dick...Cheney

In many countries, a politician who did as piss poor of a job as Bush the Lesser's henchman Dick Cheney (collpapse of the American economy, asleep at the wheel on 9/11, two mismanaged wars, yawning while hundreds of Americans died in New Orleans) would be, rightfully, drawn and quartered.

In American, though, you get to go on TV and whine that the President would rather spend money on food stamps than spend even more in our morbidly obese defense budget.  Apparently the irony of more than $100 million in food stamps going to our military families is lost on Mr. Cheney--spending for a necessary evil trumping spending for the greater good and all that.  Fuck hungry children--what we need are more $435 hammers.

Frankly, Mr. Cheney and his ilk are enough to make a maggot puke.

Peace,
emaycee

How low can it go?

Rick Perry, one of many republicans with delusions of one day being President (and that's what it will always remain--a delusion), has taken a bold stance on the minimum wage saying that it should be left up to every business to decide for itself what to pay its workers.

While the statement's sheer cravenness is enough to conjure images of Perry on youtube kissing the lily white asses of the Koch brothers, the real world effect would be...even more Americans in poverty and even more children in hunger.

For fuck's sake--there's a reason we've set a minimum wage:  corporations can't be trusted.  Period.  If they could put us in slavery and pay us nothing, they would.

Letting companies decide what the minimum they'll pay is on par with letting prison inmates decide if they should have a gun.

Peace,
emaycee

An obscenity

"Hunger is not a problem.  It is an obscenity."--Anne Frank

The excerpt in this post by Digby shows the best and worst that is America.  The hungry mother forgoing eating so that her children could have more, her son saying he was full so that his mother could have some of the food that was on his plate--these are the best.  The worst...well when one in five Americans has been food insecure in the past year in the richest nation on the face of the earth, when we read of a family going hungry...it is an abomination.

While it's correct to point a finger at the callousness of republicans, many of whom couldn't care less that Americans are going hungry or think it's their own damn fault (never mind the utter void of moral leadership in corporate America or the Pyramind Scheme that is Wall Street), the Democrats share the blame.  Scenes of hungry families like those noted above are what Bill Clinton's disastrous welfare reform has wrought; the ninety dollars a month that 850,000 American familes won't have for food thanks to Debbie Stabenow's Farm Bill; the President's bowing to the Gods of Austerity rather than looking out for the best interests of the working class men and women on whose backs this country is carried.

Anne Frank was a teenager.  It's quite amazing how much better she understood the scourge that is hunger than do our so-called leaders in our nation's capital.

Peace,
emaycee

Their brother's keeper

A few days ago, I wrote about republican efforts in Columbia, South Carolina to keep charities from feeding the hungry.  Not content with just keeping children from eating, the state's Governor, Nikki Haley, this week noted that unions were not welcome in South Carolina in any shape or form, thus ensuring that her state's residents are paid less.

I can't imagine why Ford or GM or Chrysler would want to build a plant in South Carolina, but if they did, presumably Haley's statement means she would send them packing, thus costing South Carolinians thousands of jobs.

What do you suppose the state's motto is?  "We pay shit wages, and when you're hungry because you don't get paid enough to buy food, we won't feed you either"?

What the fuck do you suppose they put in the water in South Carolina that causes such callous disregard for their fellow man?

Peace,
emaycee

Thanks for caring, Senator

While the Farm Bill of 2014 was being prepped for its final vote in the Senate, I sent my Senator, Debbie Stabenow, Chairman of the Agriculture Committee, a letter though The Daily Kos asking for the final bill to not contain $8 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.  After its passage, Senator Stabenow sent me a decidedly lame response in which she invoked the three people in America who have won lotteries who are scamming the system and claimed how much she wanted to help people who were in need of food.

She did not mention the 850,000 families who would lose $90 a month in benefits, nor the roughly one million children who would have even less food to eat thanks to her half-assed bill.

Rather incensed, I sent her a personal response, in which I asked why she was not honest about the 850,000 families who, thanks to her, were going to have even less food to eat each month while Agri-Business and the Koch Brothers (through Georgia Pacific) would receive millions in corporate welfare.  And that frankly, a handful of goofballs scamming the system was red meat for her conservative constituents, but that as a fellow Democrat, her claim was, well, rather unenlightened.

I received a response today from the Senator's office, and it was the exact same letter she had sent before. Apparently, in addition to becoming the first Democrat to ever oversee cuts to the food stamps program, she is also adept at hiring people who can't even bother to take the time to read letters from her very own constituents.

By the way, Senator, the next time you send me an e-mail asking for campaign contributions...the check's in the mail.

Peace,
emaycee

He done fucked up

Well fuck me to tears--the Obama administration announced today that in the President's upcoming budget the cuts to Social Security (also known as the "Feeding Grandma Catfood Cuts") known as Chained CPI will not appear (but are still on the table?).

The cuts, which would have cost the average senior citizen $28,000 by the age of 95 (no problem--they could always mop the floors of the senior home for the much needed extra cash), have been proferred by the President to show his seriousness for cutting the budget, regardless of the fact that Social Security does not increase the deficit in any way.

A bone to the base in an election year?  It's a start, but you're going to have to do much better than that Mr. President--especially after signing that abominable farm bill.

Peace,
emaycee

Dueling Liberals

There were conflicting pieces over the past couple of days on The Daily Kos as to whether or not Hillary Clinton is the best Democratic candidate for the Presidency in 2016.  Egberto Willies makes the case that what we need is a transformative President who fights for the kinds of causes that we Liberals have been fighting for years and Ms. Clinton is not that candidate--he's right (though at the end he mentions the rise of a populist republican candidate...which is only slightly less plausible than there being a man on the moon).  Kos  takes up the cause that Ms. Clinton is the best candidate because of what her candidacy would mean for Democrats down ticket, as well as into the all important 2020 elections (redistricting).  He's right as well.

You know the candidate I want?  This guy:

          "These unhappy times call for the building of plans...that build from the bottom up and not from the top down, that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid."

Though those words could have been spoken today, they were spoken in April of 1932 by Franklin Delano Roosevelt as he campaigned for a Presidency he would eventually win four times.

Considerably more possible than a Liberal republican is that this Democratic candidate is out there for us to find (and not named Elizabeth Warren)--one who sets as his or her agenda the right and the fight for a better economic life for the forgotten men and women of our working class.

Peace,
emaycee

Starkness on the edge of town

Give us your tired, your poor...except in South Carolina!

In an effort to have all of its homeless people sheltered on the outskirts of town (last year the city criminalized being homeless--out of sight, out of mind) the city of Columbia, South Carolina is enforcing an ages old ordinance requiring groups of 25 or more to get a permit and pay a large fee before congregating.  This just "happens" to affect a charity called Food Not Bombs (bet that name goes over well in the land of cotton) which has been feeding hungry people every Sunday for the last twelve years.

A Gallup poll showed South Carolina to be the sixth most religious state in America--but, for all their religiousness, Jesus Christ would not have been able to feed the five thousand with a few loaves and few fish in Columbia, South Carolina.

Unless, of course, he had a couple hundred dollars for a permit.

Peace,
emaycee

Beam us up, Scotty

It's always seemed to me that regardless of what I think of the average corporate CEO on a personal level, there are none of them who rose to their position by being stupid.

I am seriously rethinking that notion.

Bud Konheim, CEO of Nicole Miller ($300 purses, $800 dresses--I shop there all the time for the Beautiful Girl) thinks Americans should stop whining about poverty wages because in so many other countries like India or China a guy making $35,000 a year would be rich.

As soon as we have Star Trek capable technology that can beam your average McJob workers to Mumbai or Beijing to get those cheap apartments, cars, and good eats after their workday is over, Mr. Konheim just might be right.

But here in the real world,  $7.25 an hour lands you in Poverty Land, and Mr. Konheim should take heed and help fix it, get the hell out of our way, or get ready to take his turn in the guillotine line.

The only thing as bad as the lame-ass whining of the moneyed elite is the insufferable ignorance they show while subjecting us to their pathetic diatribes.

Peace,
emaycee

Nebraska? Fucking really?

Seems the fine people of Fremont Nebraska (population 21,000 and some change) have voted a second time on an ordinance which will make it unlawful to harbor (hire, rent to) undocumented immigrants--thus giving them a big Cornhusker middle finger.

With a population just a little over 1.85 million, located in the middle of nowhere U.S.A.. famed for corn and miserable winters and not much else, you'd think a state like Nebraska would be doing its damndest to get hard working folks of any stripe into their state.  I mean Nebraska is one of those states where the best and brightest haul ass the minute the graduation ceremony is over (there's a reason Wall Street and Silicon Valley are not located in Nebraska).  And Fremont wants to boot people looking for a better life out of their city?

It's akin to Hell kicking out the volunteers.

Peace,
emaycee

Walking a ways in another's shoes

Congresswoman Jackie Speier of California spent last Friday night at a homeless shelter in the Bay Area to get an idea of what it's like to be homeless in America.  Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut did something similar late last year when he spent a day shadowing a homeless man.

On any given night, a little over 600,000 Americans will find themselves homeless, most of them for the simplest of reasons:  they can't afford housing. Rep. Speier suggested that perhaps all members of Congress should do as she did (anyone see Ted Cruz or Rand Paul spending a night in a homeless shelter?) to learn more about what the homeless face each day.

You know, we constantly convene the best and the brightest of the business world to fix what ails the American economy without any tangible results.  Perhaps Rep. Speier and Sen. Murphy are on to something--facing the problem where it actually is rather than in some hallowed hall full of bullshit artists.

With half of Congress being millionaires, though, it's kind of hard to imagine many of them spending a night slumming to better the lives of their constituents.

Probably a lot easier to stay home and count their money.

Peace,
emaycee

One commercial, two Americas

My first reaction when I saw the above commercial for Cadillac was that I hoped I would win the lottery so I could write GM and tell them I hated their commercial so much that I would never buy a Cadillac, even though now I could afford one.

Like that's going to happen.

Then I read a comment about the commercial where someone noted that the commercial wasn't for most Americans, just those lucky few who could actually afford one.  So I googled Cadillac sales results for 2013, and from a little extrapolation, I estimated that with all Cadillac models combined, Cadillac sells roughly 250,000 cars a year, or about one American in every 1000 people bought one (given the unlikely assumption that all of them were sold only in the United States).  This comes to a tenth of 1% and--ta-da!-- we're in the stratosphere of the moneyed elite.

I suppose those of us who live paycheck to paycheck are just supposed to change the channel.

And by the way, culling the spirits of Muhammad Ali and Les Paul?  When the fuck did they become establishment icons?

Peace,
emaycee

Um...how do they get any votes?

While we all know Obamacare causes leprosy and/or hair to grow on your palms, the latest republican indignation with Obamacare is that the CBO report showing up to two million Americans may choose not to work full-time because they don't need employer sponsored health care anymore is proof that Obamacare is destroying the American work ethic.

For fuck's sake, Francis.

Apparently I wasn't informed when choosing to retire early or working less hours to spend more time with your family or starting your own business became un-American, but if the republicans want to run on a platform of  "We think everyone should be corporate drones stuck in dead end jobs"...well, more power to them.

Because what every kid dreams of when growing up is to become a toadie on some corporation's organizational chart.

Peace,
emaycee

It's the jobs, stupid

The editors at AlterNet got together and made a list of the ten failures of President Obama that make them angriest.  It is the usual litany of complaints you'd expect from those of us on the left--failure to prosecute big banks, the drone programs, NSA surveillance, the President's too easy and often capitulation to republicans, among others.

You know what the list doesn't contain?  The single failure that should make all Democrats angriest--the administrations inability to improve the jobs market.  Yes, I know a President in and of himself cannot create jobs, but he can sure push an agenda, and it's not as if President Obama didn't have the legacy of FDR and his public works as a guide.  It isn't as if we don't need a lot of work on the country's infrastructure.

Look, the items noted by the editors at AlterNet (truly one of my favorite sites) are all well and good, but we on the left all too often fail to note that those issues, while important, aren't usually so with a majority of Americans.  As we embark on the 2014 election cycle, you'd be hard pressed to come up with 10% of the American people who believe any of these failures to be among the most important issues of this year's elections.

The second greatest tragedy of Bill Clinton's dalliance with Monica Lewinsky (the first being the hurt he caused his family) was the good will of an excellent economy he wasted having to spend two years fighting the ridiculous republican impeachment fiasco.  To think of the good he could have done for the country with an electorate full of Americans with good jobs and economic optimism.

If the editors at AlterNet really want Americans to make surveillance on Americans or racism in the war on drugs a priority, they'd do well to focus on the economic well-being of working class Americans.

Otherwise, they're very likely to stay too damn busy just trying to survive to care.

Peace,
emaycee

Refusing to be a fool

"I worked my whole life--I don't apologize--to take care of my family, and I refused to be a fool, dancing on a string held by all those big shots."  Vito Corleone, to his son Michael, in The Godfather

The New York Times featured a piece this week purporting that quite unlike our elected Democratic leaders (face it, republicans don't give a shit whether we live or die unless we're rich) the business world has realized that the middle class is disappearing and is capitalizing on it by either catering to the top 20% or so or cutting prices and slumming for the rest of us.

I note this because figures are in showing that while union membership didn't decline in 2013, it's still down considerably from 1983, and wage stagnation--and just plain shitty wages--is rampant.  Think there's any correlation?

As long as there are too many people happy to be dancing on the strings held by corporate America for the pennies and dead-end jobs tossed their way, the American economy will only continue to worsen for the bottom 80% of us.

Myself, I'd much prefer to be on the side of those refusing to be fools, like the union members fighting every day for better jobs and better pay for all of us.

Peace,
emaycee

Taking food out of the mouths of babies

The Senate passed the Food Stamp Slashing Bill today, with only nine, count 'em fucking NINE, Democrats voting against the cuts.  If you live in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, or Connecticut, you can be proud of your Democratic Senators--just about anywhere else, well, your Senator decided that giving government money to agribusiness trumped feeding children.  Over 1.7 million people will see a cut averaging about $90 month, thereby forcing children to go hungry.

Noted Liberal stalwarts like Bernie Sanders, Barbara Boxer, Al Franken, Jeff Merkley, Tom Harkin, and my state's own Carl Levin voted for the cuts.  It's not surprising when lame-ass Democrats like Dick Durbin, Chuck Schumer, Amy Klobuchar, Claire McCaskill, and my state's own Debbie Stabenow fuck over the poor--you always knew that while they are marginally better than republicans, they were really only in it for the money.  But people that we've been asked to help again and again because they were really the good guys, and stood up for what Paul Wellstone famously called the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party?

I know days like today really pump me up for the elections in November.  Unfortunately for Democrats running for the Senate this year, what little money I have will be going to food banks.

At least I know that they give a shit about the poor.

Peace,
emaycee

Picture me, banging my head against a wall

So the President, rightfully concerned about unemployment, decided to convene a meeting with the leaders of...wait for it...corporate America.   Yup, Apple (bang), Boeing (bang, bang), and Wal-Mart (bang, bang, bang, bang....), among others, are being asked how to cure unemployment and help the long-term unemployed.

One supposes that when the President is concerned about global warming he'll meet with Exxon Mobil and BP, and when he's concerned about gun control he'll meet with Smith and Wesson and Remington.

Some days I really wish I'd devoted this blog to baseball.

Peace,
emaycee