Limiting Democracy

Headline: GOP Tries To Limit Vot­ing

If the constant Republican efforts to rob all manner of poor, elderly, and minority Americans of the right to vote don't convince you this is an institutional aim, check out the quote from Paul Weyrich we've posted on the front page of this blog. The whole lot is a clear and present danger to the republic. Vote for them at your peril (assuming they still let you vote).

Vote Logic

Headline: GOP Willing To Raise Payroll Tax On 113 Million Households To Spare 345,000 Millionaires From Tiny Surtax

Republicans don't even have the minimal nobility of wrong headed convictions. Of all the things they claim they're about, they're not even against raising taxes. In the end they just want to take care of their people. If you're not in the top 1%, you're not their people. Remember that when you vote.

Newt Serves Up A Softball

Raw Story: At a campaign event in Bluffton, South Carolina Tuesday the GOP hopeful called on Obama to “repudiate the concept of the 99 and the 1.”

Gingrich was referring to the Occupy movement’s opposition to the massive income inequality between the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans and the other 99 percent.

“When I am president, I will be president of all the American people, not part of the American people,” the former House Speaker declared. “And I will seek to unify the American people, not divide them against each other.”

“You are not going to get job creation when you are engaged in class warfare,” he added.

The president needs to tell Newt to repudiate the concept of the 1% manipulating and looting the economy and by doing so devastating the middle class, increasing the gap between rich and poor, destroying the tax base and threatening the future of the country. And oh yeah, the 1% do create jobs... mostly in China... and in India. The more we cut their taxes, the more we deregulate them, the more they sell us down the river and send American jobs overseas. That's not our opinion, it's the historical record.

Complete Information

Huffington Post: David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader, white supremacist and Louisiana politician, was arrested and taken into custody in Cologne on Friday, prior to a planned speech to a right-wing extremist group, German police said Monday.

Allow us to edit... David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader, white supremacist and Louisiana REPUBLICAN politician, was arrested and taken into custody in Cologne on Friday, prior to a planned speech to a right-wing extremist group, German police said Monday.

Posts That Write Themselves

Mitt Romney on Wednesday: I'm not “trying to put money in people’s pockets...

...unless they're filthy rich.

Alas, Mitt is a Republican, which means by definition he's trying to put money in the pockets of the rich and the transnational corporation. They are after all, the party of trickle down economics. Unfortunately for us this philosophy is nothing but a stinking pile of garbage on the trash heap of history. Don't vote for it.

No Future

Daily Kos: As companies spend more and more of their cash on stock buybacks, it's not surprising that people who generally speaking think companies should invest in workers and the productive economy object to the practice. After all, the buybacks—sometimes paid for by laying off workers—temporarily prop up stock prices, which in turn often inflates the bonuses of the executives who decided to buy back the stock. That makes it a pretty direct way of taking from the 99 percent to give to the 1 percent. Of course Robert Reich objects; of course I do.

But the New York Times quotes a number of profit-oriented business analysts who think it's a terrible business practice:

“It’s a symptom of a deeper problem, which is a lack of investment in the long term,” said William W. George, a Harvard Business School professor and former chief executive of Medtronic, a medical technology company. “If we’re not investing in research, innovation and entrepreneurship, we’re going to be a slow-growth country for a decade.”

As a rule GOP style deregulation and tax policy not only allows such things but encourages them. Paying top executives in stock options, a practice which used to be illegal for exactly this reason is a prime example. Creating complex financial instruments such as CDO's and derivatives to to hide financial fraud is another. Repealing regulation like Glass-Steagall to allow banks to do this kind of thing on a mass scale is what crashed the economy. And of course, allowing these people to keep most all of their ill gotten gains because you've cut top marginal and capital gains tax rates only exacerbates the situation.

But aside from the obvious detrimental effects of such pro-1% stock manipulation, fiscal policy, and deregulation, the quote brings up another stark difference between Democratic and Republicans. Democrats do, and Republicans don't promote policy that encourages investment in the future, whether it be re-investing operating profit here at home or public money to basic R&D, education and infrastructure investment. The GOP would rather just pay their people, America be damned.

Burn In Hell

Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro tweeting: "Unreal that Obama doesn't mention God in Thanksgiving message. Militant atheist. To whom does he think we are giving thanks?"

OK, number one, better Democrats don't mention God but actually show compassion and love than Republicans go around talking about God and Jesus all the time while they only look out for the rich, start horrific, dishonest wars, and sell out God's great green earth to their industrial polluter cronies. They really should worry about their own soul.

Number two, Ben Shapiro is a Jew. The base of the Republican party is conservative Christian. This means they believe Shapiro deserves to burn in the lake of fire for all eternity because of his religious beliefs. When push come to shove they'll burn him at the stake. So instead of worrying about if Obama mentioned God or not in a speech, he should consider the company he keeps.