Tag: GOP

Raese says Minimum Wage is Unconstitutional

by Alison Knezevich, The Charleston Gazette — Oct 14, 2010

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Republican candidate for U.S. Senate John Raese doesn’t just want to abolish the minimum wage.  He also calls it possibly unconstitutional.

[…]

Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin’s campaign seized on Raese’s remarks as a sign that Raese, a multimillionaire, is out of touch with West Virginians.

[…]

West Virginia is one of the nation’s poorest and oldest states. Nearly 18 percent of West Virginians live in poverty, compared to 14 percent of Americans, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Rachel Maddow has some sage advice, on how to turn “out of touch” rhetoric like this, into Electoral Gold …

I like Numbers, Statistics, Facts.

They have a way of cutting through the Rhetoric.

Facts have a way of lifting the “fog of inaction”.

So, it is within that context of “fog clearing”, I present to you …

The Obameter: Tracking Obama’s Campaign Promises

PolitiFact.com — St Petersburg Times

2009 Pulitizer Prize Winner

PolitiFact has compiled more than 500 promises that Barack Obama made during the campaign and is tracking their progress on our Obameter.

The Obameter Scorecard

   * Promise Kept 122

   * Compromise 39

   * Promise Broken 22

   * Stalled 82

   * In the Works 238

Imagine it’s election season in 2020 … you look around the economic and political and media landscape in America — and you’re asking yourself “What Happened?”

VP Paul Ryan is Leading in all the Insta-Polls.

Ryan is considered a shoe-in after spearheading President Pence’s Ultimate Govt Diet Plan for the last 8 years.  Even though Ryan’s only real accomplishment was leading American Prosperity’s many market research programs.

Ryan must be credited with figuring out exactly How to Sell the Dog Food — and making it “palatable to the majority of the people”.   Afterall, the Pundit Class was stunned when Mike Pence eked out that Win in 2012 — given how he insisted on running on the GOP original slogan:  Time to Deconstruct Run-away Government.

With that surprise upset-win, which sent Obama packing, VP Paul Ryan seized the opportunity to get out of the number-crunching business, and move into the world of high-octane Messaging …

Who knew that an Ultra-Conservative — turned Marketing Guru — could actually become the “Leader of the Free-Market World“?

The 2020 Polls are ticking …

Link

GOP’s ‘Pledge To America’ Replaces Affordable Care Act With Provisions From Affordable Care Act

By Igor Volsky, ThinkProgress.org — Sept 22, 2010

Ironically, today Republicans are also unveiling a new “Pledge To America,” an agenda that promises to “repeal” all of these benefits — as well as the entire health care law — and replace it with “reforms that lower costs for families and small businesses, increase access to affordable, high-quality care and strengthen the doctor-patient relationship.”

The document provides almost no specifics about what the [GOP] party would do to control health care spending, improve quality, or pay for its reforms.

And at least 7 of the GOP’s ideas on health care are already included in the health care law:

Insurance Across State Lines

High-Risk Insurance Pools

Pre-Existing Conditions

Lifetime and Annual Caps

Recissions

State Innovation

Conscience Protections

WTF!  What Kind of Pledge is that?

If Republicans got their Way … there would be no more Medicare.

If Republicans got their Way … you couldn’t Retire until 70.

If Republicans got their Way … they’d privatize Social Security.

If Republicans got their Way … there would be no more Corporate income tax.

If Republicans got their Way … they’d eliminate taxes on Capital gains.

If Republicans got their Way … they’d cut in half the taxes of the richest 1 percent.

If Republicans got their Way … the Bush Tax Cut for the Rich would never end.

Factlets from The Republican’s Roadmap for America’s Future:

The Ryan Budget’s Radical Priorities

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

By Paul N. Van de Water — July 7, 2010

If Republicans got their Way … Christine O’Donnell would be their new Class Treasurer!

Chimera (genetics)

From Wikipedia

Chimeras in research

In biological research, chimeras are artificially produced by physically mixing cells from two different organisms. Chimeras are not hybrids, […] (like a donkey and a horse) that form a single zygote that will develop as much as it can (in this case into a live mule […]);

in comparison, chimeras are the physical mixing of cells from two independent zygotes:

for example, one from the donkey and one from the horse. “Chimera” is a broad term and is often applied to many different types of mixing of cells from two different species.

Some chimeras can result in the eventual development of an adult animal composed of cells from both donors, which may be of different species – for example, in 1984 a chimeric geep was produced by combining embryos from a goat and a sheep.[8]

[…]

Mouse chimeras  …

There is a crack daylight, that may topple the Republican’s Wall of Inaction.

Voinovich breaks with GOP to push for small-business incentives

Lori Montgomery, Washington Post Staff — Sept 10, 2010

Retiring Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) said he plans to help push a package of small-business incentives through the Senate next week, a move that would give President Obama and congressional Democrats a key victory on the economy in the final weeks before the November midterm elections.

In an interview, Voinovich said he could no longer support Republican efforts to delay the measure in hopes of winning the right to offer additional amendments. Most of the proposed GOP amendments “didn’t have anything to do with the bill” anyway, Voinovich said, and amounted merely to partisan “messaging.”

“We don’t have time for messaging,” Voinovich said. “We don’t have time anymore. This country is really hurting.”

Finally a Republican Senator with some Integrity, who is willing work for the folks, that Voted him into Office  (instead of working against their interests, for his own gain …)

On this Labor Day, the fullest definition of economic equality and fair wages is on my mind.  While on the subject, I’d like to pursue a related issue that has lately been front and center.  While we continue to debate the role of marriage and what it means to us today, I thought I’d contribute a different strain of discourse to the already deeply rutted road.  Most prevailing trains of thought opposing same-sex marriage tend to see it in only one of its many incarnations over the eons.  Opponents of marriage equality take a rose-colored glasses interpretation of an earlier era that probably never really existed.  Imagination can be deceptive.  The sacred institution was only as sacred as each individual couple regarded it.  These arguments presume that the impetus and motives of marriage were basically the same across the board and throughout the centuries.

The first Rule of Holes: When you’re in one, STOP digging.

—  Molly Ivins

Stop Digging?   Check!

Heck, even Erin Burnett (of CNBC) admitted the Stimulus is working, today on MTP … that

“Without the stimulus we would be significantly worse off than we are now.”

— any serious economist says so. …  She has the charts.

so do we.