What did you do this weekend?

Joe Biden, filling in for the traveling President Obama, used the President's weekly address to America to tout why we should raise the minimum wage.  Dannell Malloy, the Democratic Governor of Connecticut, on Thursday night signed a bill passed by the Democratic controlled legislature to become the first state to increase the minimum wage to $10.10.  Congressional Democrats are working on bringing votes on legislation aimed at increasing the minimum wage, reducing the pay gap between men and women, lowering the interest on college loans, and closing tax loopholes for corporations that do business overseas.  No, they won't pass, but at least we're trying.

Republicans, meanwhile, are spending this weekend kissing the ass of billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who is trying to figure out which one of them, by running for President in 2016, can help him add to his estimated $40 billion dollar net worth, and just for shits and grins, fuck over America's working class to boot.

I know the Democratic Party is a long way from perfect, but anybody who claims there's no difference between our country's two parties is either a scared shitless republican or not paying any attention whatsoever.

Peace,
emaycee

Christie's not a crook

The lucky taxpayers of New Jersey found out today that the $1 million dollars they spent on Chris Christie's internal investigation was used by Christie's hand-picked lawyers to announce that they had exonerated Gov. Christie of any wrongdoing in the Bridgegate scandal.  It actually was perpetrated by his staffers' love lives and the mayor of Hoboken yawning.

This announcement was about as surprising as had they stood before the good people of New Jersey and announced that Antarctica was fucking cold.

Whoever it was said that fiction pales in comparison to reality was a wise, wise person--because you just can't make shit like this up.

Peace,
emaycee

The six million dollar man

I'd be the first to admit that President Obama has been somewhat of a disappointment.  At a time in our nation's history when he could have strove for greatness, he chose to play it safe.  While our nation is a lot better off than it would have been under Crotchedy McCain or Richie Rich Romney, it's not nearly as well off as it could be had the President taken a hard turn to the left.

Still, while it has its faults, the Affordable Care Act may well go down as one of the greatest achievements any President can lay claim to--politicians have been trying since the days of Teddy Roosevelt to pass a national healthcare bill, and Barack Obama managed to be the first to get it done.

Today the number of people enrolled in private healthcare since Obamacare's rollout last October surpassed six million people, and this number does not even include the people who have health care now due to the Medicaid expansion.  And odds are, the number, and the coverage itself, will get nothing but better from here on out.

Well done, Mr. President.

I'll admit to being a little giddy--the Beautiful Girl was approved for Medicaid in Michigan today (we're a bit behind the curve here because of republicans trying to kiss their base's ass rather than look out for Michiganders' best interests) and will have health insurance for the first time since she lost her job thanks to the bozos on Wall Street playing over/under with the mortgage industry five years ago.  Thanks to Obamacare as well, when I changed jobs two years ago our son was able to get insurance through my new company despite his having a pre-existing condition.

As you might expect, I have a couple of words for the Koch Brothers and their toadies at Americans for Prosperity and all their bullshit ads:

Fuck you.

Peace,
emaycee

Democracy and your pay

Last week, voters in Chicago were asked in an advisory referendum if they would support an increase in the city's minimum wage for large employers to $15 an hour.  The city's residents passed the referendum with 87% of the vote.

I'm of two minds on the referendum (much like I am on all minimum wage votes):  on the one hand, it's great that we can force the hand of those who would see us all live on poverty wages; on the other hand, it's kind of sad that the system is so rigged that hard work doesn't merit increases in pay anymore (it's also infuriating that minimum wage, even at $15 an hour--$31,200 a year--isn't making anyone rich and continues the Sissyphean toil that is living economically month to month).  If America is to survive, something must be done to reverse the trend and actually expand the middle class, not continue to let it shrink.

And what exactly, you're thinking, would that be?  Something that's getting more traction with me lately is the idea of a universal basic income.  Much like the best parts of Obamacare, it would free people to go back to school, take time off to raise children or take care of sick loved ones, go into business for themselves, or just make a decent living with the addition of the basic income funds.

And best of all?  One's livelihood, one's family's well-being, wouldn't be contingent on the whims of Corporate America and the 1% who can buy their fantasy of a country that works for them and them alone, while the rest of us suck on it.

It sure beats the hell out of the dystopian economy we've been facing since the onset of Bush the Lesser's Great Recession.

Peace,
emaycee

More war on the poor

"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,"--Matthew 25:35

In America's never ending quest to criminalize being poor, the city of Rockford, Illinois, this week informed one of its churches, the Apostolic Pentecostals of Rockford, that they must stop providing temporary shelter to the homeless because the church isn't zoned for it.  In fairness, they city didn't say whether the church would have a fine or a penalty levied against it should the church give the city of Rockford an extended middle finger, but seriously, what's the point of a threat if punishment isn't involved?

There's a subset of religious fanatics who seem to think every time there's a natural disaster in America that God is punishing us for gays or abortion.  While I have a hard time imagining a loving God wreaking havoc to score political points, for the life of me I don't remember Jesus spending much time talking about gays or abortion.  But he spends a shitload of time talking about looking out for the poor, which seems to be less and less a priority--kind of makes me wonder.

We have very fucked up priorities these days as a nation.  Corporate America is free to dump chemicals in our rivers, make faulty automobiles that kill people, buy our government, or cheat its workers out of pay and we let it walk away with little more than a slap on the wrist,  But cities and towns are more than happy to set up roadblocks for those helping people down on their luck in order to improve their cities' images.

Because nothing says "That's a good place for me and my family to live" like knowing if you fall upon hard economic times the city you live in is going to stick your family in some Hooverville in B.F.E, food and shelter be damned.

Peace,

emaycee

Na, na, na, na, hey, hey, goodbye

In 2004, voters in Michigan voted overwhelmingly (58% -42%) to ban same sex marriage and civil unions.

Today, a federal judge ruled Michigan's same sex marriage ban unconstitutional, making Michigan the 18th state to legalize gay marriage (almost halfway there).

Not content with wasting $7 million dollars a day because they delayed implementation of Obamacare to score political points, republicans, through AG Bill Schuette, will appeal the ruling so they can waste even more of Michiganders' hard earned money to earn even more political points with the fringe of their party.  This despite the fact that polls now show a solid majority of Michiganders (56%) favor gay marriage.

I note this because I was one of the 42% ten years ago who voted against the ban to same sex marriage.  I'm not looking for a pat on the back--I just want to remind people that societal change takes time, and that eventually, the right thing to do will win out.

It happened today in Michigan.

Peace,
emaycee

Republicans' war on teenage girls

I'll be the first to admit that when Gary Peters was anointed to be the Democratic nominee for Carl Levin's Senate seat here in Michigan, I was lukewarm at best (truth be told, the first time I got an e-mail from his election committee I unsubscribed).  He's a pro-Business, somewhat Conservadem, endorsed by Debbie Stabenow (leading the Dem charge to slash food stamps) and Carl Levin (usually reliable, but very weak in his last year--food stamps, voted against filibuster reform, voted against the Gillibrand amendment on military rape)--he'd obviously get my vote, but I'd be holding my nose while checking his name.  After a little more than a year of watching Elizabeth Warren be the kind of Democrat we all hope for, Peters was a little disappointing.

Leave it to republicans to to change all that.  As if the Koch brothers trying to buy his seat by having a cancer victim lie in pathetic commercial after pathetic commercial, Right to Life of Michigan has come out and said that Peters spoke out against Michigan's rape insurance law so he could keep abortion "accessible and cheap for his [teenage] daughters."

There's some political courage for you--attacking teenage girls.  Want to guess how much more fired up for Peters I am these days?

Keep in mind that Right to Life of Michigan's website lists all kinds of links to christian/religious/catholic doctrine.  Kind of makes you wonder:  what would Jesus do in light of watching his name being used to attack teenage girls?

My guess is puke.

Peace,
emaycee

Not like you and me

There's an old bit wherein someone looking upon the eccentricities of a wealthy aristocrat says, "The rich ain't like you and me," whereupon the comic foil responds, "Yeah, they have money."

It was reported last week that although profits are down and the number of employees is also shrinking on Wall Street, bonuses for the Wall Street elite in New York City were up 15% last year.  Anybody out there who is eligible for a yearly bonus remember the last time you got one when your company's profits were down?

Apparently the rich have a shitload of chutzpah, too.

Peace,
emaycee

Gates of Hell

Bill Gates gave a speech at the American Interprise Institute this week, in which he proclaimed that due to automation a lot of jobs are going to be disappearing over the next several years creating mass unemployment and that governments should combat this by kowtowing to corporations even more than they already do by eliminating corporate and payroll taxes, keeping the minimum wage low, and thus helping corporations keep people on their payroll.

Anyone who believes corporations will follow through on their end of this bargain should governments give them even more welfare has not been paying much attention to what the Reagan Revolution has wrought for those of us in the working class over the last thirty some odd years.

I've never thought much of Bill Gates--most of his gains have been ill-gotten, his being worth $60 billion dollars hasn't made anyone's life but his own better, and his philanthropic overtures have always struck me as being akin to Michael Corleone trying to buy his salavation through the Church in Godfather III.  Though he shares a lot more in common with your average psychopath than he does with most of us, at the very least you would think amassing such a fortune would come with a great deal of shrewdness.

Apparently not.

It takes a special kind of obliviousness (and Gates isn't alone among the 1% for that) to think that legions of people are going to be hunky-dory with minimum wage jobs, substandard healthcare, Potterville Housing, and gruel for three meals a day while Gates and his ilk amass fortunes that stem from their societal worth about as much as a cat fart stems from the antics of the man on the moon.

Gates and others in the 1% who think the path forward is embracing plutocracy are going to find themselves on the losing end of the modern version of the French Revolution.

Peace,
emaycee

McDonald's Crappy Deal

Anyone wondering the severity of the uphill battle working class men and women in America are facing need only look to lawsuits filed this week against McDonald's and some of their franchisees in California, Michigan, and NewYork alleging the company withheld wages, cheated its workers out of overtime, and denied them legally mandated lunches and rest breaks.

Think about that:  they already pay their employees poverty wages but that's not good enough so they're screwing them out of a few extra pennies that have been legally earned to boot.  How much fucking better can the powers that be at McDonald's eat that makes them feel the need to take food out of the mouths of their employees' children?

They really should be hitting their knees every night and thanking God their abused employees aren't shooting snot rockets into the special sauce.

Peace,
emaycee

Things don't go better with Kochs

Is it just me or do the Koch brothers bear a striking resemblance (both physically and morally) to Randolph and Mortimer Duke from the movie Trading Places?

And they're just as big of a pair of assholes, too.

Peace,
emaycee

The not so great state of Michigan

Yesterday, the year long work of republicans in my home state of Michigan came to fruition:  women here will now need rape insurance just so they can make decisions about their own bodies.  To make matters worse, when Gretchen Whitmer wanted to speak against this horrible law, republicans shut down the Senate so that the great people of the state of Michigan could not hear what they had done:  make the wives, mothers, and daughters of Michigan buy rape insurance (you can read the statement she wanted to make at the link) so they can choose to not carry to term the product of a despicable act of violence.

Michigan's republicans are doing their level best to make our state as culturally and politically relevant as North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho--God only knows why the best and the brightest would want to stay in the land of increasing insanity, or businesses subject their employees to the whims of the batshit insane.

One thing is certain:  come November, from Governor Gutless Rick Snyder, to Senate candidate Terri Lynn Land, to their majorities in the Michigan House and Senate, we need to make them pay.

Out of step with the times, out of office on their ears.

Peace,
emaycee

Flat fucking nuts

At an anti-abortion rally yesterday, Ted Cruz had this to say about pro choice supporters:  "...arm-in arm, chanting 'Hail Satan,' embracing the right to take the life of a late-term child."

Thank God no one told him how we prepare for our rallies by ramming studs through our tongues, dyeing our hair black, and hanging nose rings from our septums while we listen to death metal on our headphones.

It's actions such as these (Mike Lee, Mike Huckabee, and Deb Fischer also had the usual whacko comments about us embracing the culture of death, etc., etc.) that make me wish we had our very own Koch Brothers to pay for numerous national ads.

Because more Americans need to see just how insane these people are.

Peace,
emaycee

True colors

Not happy with just calling out parents of poor children for not loving their children enough, Rep. Paul Ryan, the man who would not be Vice-President, declared earlier this week that poverty is the result of lazy inner city men.

No shit.

Ryan spokespersons later tried to defend his comments by citing some data that did nothing of the sort (turns out that most of the poverty in America occurs in rural areas), and Ryan later backtracked on his comments saying he did not intend to demean an entire community (read:  African-American).

Yes, yes he did.  The republicans' Southern Strategy is well-documented and this is just another case of a republican assuring the base in an election year that all would be well in American if it just wasn't for those darn colored folks.

As Barbara Ehrenreich has famously noted, poverty is not a character flaw, it is a shortage of money.  But it's a lot easier for republicans to blame somebody than to fix the problem--and blaming people gets them a lot more votes than showing compassion for America's poor.

Peace,
emaycee

A long November

The first Congressional election of 2014 is in the books and alas, we have lost.  Republican David Jolly has defeated Democratic candidate Alex Sink in Florida's Thirteenth District, and the handwringing has begun (well, at least by me).  To be honest, I think the win by republicans doesn't help them as much as a loss would have hurt them; for the Democrats, I think the effect of a win would have been equal to the effect this loss is going to have.

Republicans basically ran on opposing Obamacare (which seems to be their strategy for this year's elections).  It will be interesting to see what the exit polls show--I have a hunch that opposing Obamacare could lull republicans into a false sense of security for this November's elections.  I also have a hunch that exit polls will show Democrats didn't turn out for this special election and that could be even worse for Democrats in 2014.  Make no mistake--this was a winnable election for Democrats and does not bode well.

I'm not really sure if Democrats have the answer to increasing turnout for this year's elections.  Bitch slapping the Koch brothers, pushing the minimum wage, and forcing republicans hands on unemployment insurance will help a little, but it probably isn't enough.  A full frontal assault on immigration reform would also have a positive effect; again, if it will be enough, I don't know.  We got crushed in 2010 not because more republicans turned out; we got crushed because we didn't even come close to our 2008 turnout.

And the Senate seriously hangs in the balance.

As for myself, I'm going to keep repeating "Hillary in 2016, Hillary in 2016..." to myself and hope that it ameliorates the panic attacks because God knows that breathing into a paper bag ain't cutting it.

Peace,
emaycee

The corporatization of our Constitution

Rich Lowry, a writer for Politico, pitching a sissy fit over Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's vero of the state's gay discrimination bill, thinks that outlawing discrimination should not fall under the purview of our government but should be led by the free market.

Ponder that for a moment....

Do you really want Wal-Mart, which can't even pay its employees a living wage, to decide about your constitutionally guaranteed rights?  Or McDonald's?  How about Wall Street firms, like Goldman-Sachs and Merrill Lynch, who nearly destroyed our economy and left millions of Americans in dire economic straits? I know that most of such thoughts tend to think more of small businesses (e.g., wedding photographers or wedding cake bakers) but it's a small slope to corporations that franchise numerous outlets or corporations deciding it's okay for their offices in the South to discriminate against African-Americans.

I mean it's bad enough that our Supreme Court, as led by John Roberts, is the best that money can buy and has virtually decimated the American worker and consumer--but there's someone dim-witted enough to think
that we should let corporations have the right to decimate our civil rights as well?

What happens if it's more profitable to discriminate?

Peace,
emaycee

R-CRAP

Highlights (and judging from the usual lunacy, you'd think republicans were actually high) from this past weekend's CPAC convention:

• Ted Cruz claiming that President Obama was no longer President because...I guess you have to be a republican to get it.  No one else fucking does.
• Wayne LaPierre saying that American is fucked up, but all our problems can be solved with more guns.  With the anger most Americans feel toward them, wonder how the 1% feel about that....
• Paul Ryan told us a story with the moral that the parents of poor kids don't love their kids as much as the parents of middle class and rich kids do.  Not particularly surprisingly, it turns out the story was, well, a lie.
• Mitch McConnel walked on stage carrying a gun that looked like it was used on Little House on the Prairie to prove how bitchin' he was.  Note to McConnell:  only law enforcement personnel look good carrying a rifle while wearing a suit.
• Not really sure who they hope to impress with this, but republicans sure love fellating Vladimir Putin.
• For whatever reason, the republicans chose to use political heavyweight Sarah Palin to close their convention.  Not really sure why they'd want to use someone with all the gravitas of a cat fart, but it's good for us.
• The yearly CPAC straw poll for President chose Rand Paul out of a long list of mental defectives as its choice for 2016.  Also good for us:  Rand Paul has as much chance of being the next President of the United States as I do.  Zero.

The only thing missing (near as I can tell) was Ted Nugent shitting his pants and chasing fourteen-year-old girls.

Can anyone explain to me how we ever lose an election to these imbeciles?

Peace,
emaycee

Another day older and deeper in debt

At one time in America, there were numerous towns (generally in industries like coal mining and lumber) that were built by corporations in remote areas where their workers shopped in company stores and lived in company owned houses.  They were called company towns, and while a few eventually grew into municipalities, most failed because, well, it was bad enough to get fucked every day by the company you worked for while you were working without letting them fuck you while you were shopping and relaxing at home, too.

The result was that often workers ended up in debt to the companies they worked for and thus were basically forced to continue working to pay off the debt--it was a never ending circle.  I note this because of an article I read recently by Barbara Ehrenreich in which she discussed how expensive it is to be poor.  As an example, if you can't afford a nice car, you have to buy an old beater, which results in expensive repair bills and generally poor gas mileage which raises your transportation costs (and doesn't even include lost work days because said old beater breaks down).  Of, if you can't afford first and last month's rent for an  apartment, you end up living day to day in cheap motels which are more expensive over time than almost any apartment.  Not to mention they usually are without cooking appliances, thus forcing the poor to spend even more money on fast food or pre-cooked meals which are immeasurably more expensive than making your own.

And this is what minimum wage jobs have wrought--low wage workers are basically stuck in their jobs because they don't make enough money to have a chance to get out of them.  In a nutshell, it's an awful lot like the aforementioned company towns--except that now instead of being in a dead-end job and just paying their hard earned money to the company they work for, low pay workers are in a dead-end jobs and pay their hard-earned money to many, many companies.

And, in what should come as surprise to no one, we once again see that the free market ain't so free.

Peace,
emaycee

Changing the rules

"When the rules of the game prove unsuitable for victory, the gentlemen of England change the rules." --Harold J. Laski

The recently passed Farm Bill allows states to continue offering higher food stamp benefits if they increase the amount of heating assistance they give to low income families.  Connecticut and New York (at a cost of $1.4 million and $6 million respectively) are doing just that.  Therefore while we still struggle through the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, needy folks in Connecticut and New York will not have to get by on $90 less for food each month.

This is exactly the kind of thinking the Democratic Party needs to embrace wholeheartedly--where there's a will there's a way to look after those most in need and not let them suffer because of republican callousness and obstructionism.  Then maybe instead of getting our votes only because they're better than the alternative, they will actually have earned them.

Peace,
emaycee

On Benghazi and bears

Lindsay Graham says it's because of Benghazi (also causes pink eye and scurvy).  The noted foreign policy expert--due to being able to see Russia from her front porch--Sarah Palin is waxing poetic because Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin wrestles bears (Will. Not. Smash. Head. Against. Wall.).  There are a couple more here if you really need more proof republicans have no business near the White House other than as tourists taking pictures.

You know what's really amazing?  That after being asleep at the wheel for 9/11, after two disastrously conducted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan  that helped to bankrupt our economy, there is anyone anywhere (outside of Putin giving a shout out to his fanboys) who would take republicans seriously when it comes to foreign policy.

It's like asking Fred Flintstone about anti-lock brakes.

Peace,
emaycee

Except the Human being

"Why does Every Thing have Exceptional Value.  Except the Human being--why are we reduced to poverty and starving and anxiety and Sorrow So quickly under your administration as Chief Executor can not you find a quicker way of executing us than to starve us to death?"--From a letter to Herbert Hoover, 1930

From President Hoover right on through Bush the Lesser there is one thing the poor can expect from republican leaders:  to make their suffering even worse.  Now, their feckless economic dunce, Paul Ryan, has vowed to take on such successful programs as Head Start and Medicaid just to see how much higher he can drive poverty rates in America and how many more children he can leave hungry each and every night.  It is not in their DNA to help those in need--they're the type of folks who would walk past a sleeping beggar and steal the money in the hat at his feet, feeling it's just a case of you snooze, you lose.  His thinking (if you can call it that) is as President Obama stresses the need to lessen income inequality, republicans will stress the positives of turning America into Bangladesh of 1974.

Mr. Ryan, who is a big fan of the laissez-capitalist writer Ayn Rand (one of the few writers who make Mitch Albom read like a Nobel Laureate), would do well to heed the works of  Suzanne Collins:  in her books, the poor folks eventually got sick of suffering at the hands of the rich folks and killed them.

Peace,
emaycee

The best of both worlds, sort of

Gator's Dockside, a restaurant chain in Florida, has begun charging a one percent surcharge to cover the cost of Obamacare (despite the fact that the chain is currently paying nothing as the small business implementation has been delayed a year).  The company claims (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) that their additional tax is not political.

Now think about this:  not only has Gator's Dockside potentially pissed off Liberals with their misguided tax, they're potentially pissing off conservatives, too, who hate Obamacare and aren't about to pay a surcharge for its implementation.  Who the hell is going to be left to eat at their restaurants?

And here's the kicker:  somebody high up the corporate ladder got paid to come up with this brutally bad plan.  A half-wit would have suggested, oh, I don't know, just adding a virtually unnoticeable percent increase in their prices, but not this guy.  Nope he decided to give a big fuck you to Obamacare and managed to potentially decimate business at the same time.  What a coup!

Guess that's why I never rose too high on the corporate food chain:  not dumb enough.

Peace,
emaycee