Thursday, August 02, 2012
Teabaggers Ascend To Prominence In Texas
And the race wasn't even close, with Cruz winning 57% of the primary vote to Dewhurst's 43%. It was one of the most expensive primaries in Texas history. Outside groups spent about $14.4 million and the two candidates spending a total of about $32 million.
But probably the biggest story of the night was what this meant for the Republican Party in Texas. They have virtually ceased to exist. There will still be an entity that calls itself the Republican Party in the state, but what they really are now is the Teabagger Party. Any candidate that wants to get elected in Texas (at least for the next few years) is going to have to be as nutty as the teabaggers, because they now control the GOP (and therefore the state).
For those of you who don't live in Texas and may doubt Cruz's teabagger credentials, Think Progress has put together the top five things you need to know about Cruz. Here they are:
1) Ted Cruz Believes George Soros Leads A United Nations Conspiracy To Eliminate Golf: In 1992, President George H.W. Bush joined the leaders of 177 other nations in endorsing a non-binding UN document known as Agenda 21. This twenty year-old document largely speaks at a very high level of generality about reducing poverty and building sustainable living environments. Nevertheless, Cruz published an article on his campaign website claiming that this non-binding document isactually a nefarious plot to “abolish ‘unsustainable’ environments, including golf courses, grazing pastures, and paved roads.” To top it off, Cruz lays the blame for this global anti-golf conspiracy at the feet of a well-known Tea Party boogieman — “The originator of this grand scheme is George Soros.”
2) Ted Cruz Wants To Gut Social Security: In an interview with theTexas Tribune Cruz labeled Social Security a “ponzi scheme” and outlined a three-step plan to gut this essential program. Cruz would raise the Social Security retirement age, cut future benefits, and implement a George W. Bush-style plan to privatize much of the program. In other words, in addition to forcing them to work longer for fewer benefits, Cruz would place retirees at the mercy of a fickle stock market. Had Social Security been privatized during the career of a worker who retired near the end of the Bush Administration, that worker would have retired with less money in their privatized accountthan they would have if they’d simply kept their money between their mattress and box spring.
3) Ted Cruz Wants To Party Like It’s 1829: The Constitution provides that Acts of Congress “shall be the supreme law of the land,” and thus cannot be nullified by rogue state lawmakers. Cruz, however, co-authored an unconstitutional proposal claiming two or more states couldsimply ignore the Constitution’s command and nullify the Affordable Care Act so long as they work together. Although the Constitution does permit states to join in “interstate compacts” that have the force of law, under the Constitution such compacts require the consent of Congress and can be vetoed by the President. Cruz falsely claimed that states do not need to meet these Constitutional requirements to undermine laws they don’t like.
4) Ted Cruz Is An Islamophobe: At a campaign event earlier this month, Cruz touted another of the Tea Party’s favorite conspiracy theories, claiming that “Sharia law is an enormous problem” in this country. Although it is common for far right politicians to claim that American law is somehow being replaced with Islamic law, these claims have absolutely no basis in reality. Few American courts have ever even mentioned Sharia or Islamic law, and those that have generally only do so in contracts or similar cases where a party before the court agreed to be bound by Sharia law.
5) Ted Cruz Campaigned On How He Helped Texas Kill A Mexican: Cruz’s very first campaign ad encouraged GOP primary voters to support him because he helped make it easier for Texas to kill an “illegal alien.” According to the ad, “Cruz fought all the way to the Supreme Court” after “the UN and World Court overruled a Texas jury’s verdict to execute an illegal alien.” In reality, the case Cruz won had nothing to do with whether Texas had the authority to kill this man. Rather, it concerned whether Texas could defy a treaty requiring it to inform foreign nationals who are arrested of their right “to request assistance from the consul of his own state.” Even North Korea honored this treatythat Cruz fought to undermine.
Big Oil
Every hour so far in 2012, the five largest oil corporations have recorded a$14,400,000 profit. And every hour, they received more than $270,000 in federal tax breaks. That adds up to $2.4 billion in subsidies every year for the five largest oil corporations — Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, and ConocoPhillips — all ranked as the top 9 companies in the world.
Big Oil profits more in one minute than what 96 percent of American households earn in one year. Even so, Mitt Romney and House Republicans want to double what the five companies receive in federal tax breaks to $12.8 million per day, even though the three publicly owned U.S. companies paid an average tax rate of under 17 percent.
Wednesday, August 01, 2012
Citizens Of 16 Countries Are Wealthier Than The Citizens Of The United States
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That was a pretty shocking statistic, but the truth is even worse (since the average wealth is skewed by the fortunes of the rich and may not give a good picture of how the average citizen is doing). A better statistic is median wealth -- the wealth of a citizen at the 50% mark (where half of the population does better and half the population does worse). And when median wealth is taken into consideration, Canada looks even better. The median wealth in Canada is $89,014, while the median wealth in the U.S. is only $52,752.
And the bad news doesn't stop there. As the top chart shows, there are at least 16 other countries with a higher median wealth than the United States, and in most of those countries the median wealth is quite a bit higher. How can this be? Did the recession hit the United States harder than it did other countries? No. The truth is that the United States had already begun to fall behind many other countries long before the recession hit.
The bottom chart can give us a big clue as to what is happening. As you can see, while the growth in income percentage among the richest 1% of citizens has remained fairly flat in most other countries, it has grown enormously in the United States. This means that while the incomes of the richest citizens in other countries grew, so did the incomes of workers in those countries (keeping the percentages of income constant since the rise in income was shared among all groups in society).
That did not happen in the United States. Thanks to the trickle-down economic policies instituted by the Republicans (and aided by too many blue dog Democrats), the richest 1% of Americans were able to hog most of the growth in income (instead of the growth in productivity being shared by all income groups). Over the last 30 years, the income of the richest 1% has grown by over 270%, while worker wages have grown very little (and have actually lost quite a bit in buying power).
This has resulted in a vast inequality of both wealth and income in the United States, and is primarily responsible for the dropping median wealth of its citizens. This must change, because the current path the U.S. is on will lead to a nation of a few rich people and a lot of poor people (with no middle class). America may still be the richest nation in the world, but most of those riches are going only to the already wealthy while very little "trickles down" to the rest of America. Is this really the kind of country we want?
Democratic Platform To Include Equal Marriage Rights Plank
Fortunately our country is changing. Now more people support equal marriage rights than oppose it. As the chart above (from the Pew Research Center) shows, each generation has been more supportive of equal rights than the preceding generation, with the last two generations showing majority support for this issue. And the Democratic Party is also changing. Back in 2004, only about 40% of Democrats supported equal marriage rights. In 2008, that figure had climbed to about 50%. But this year about 65% (or nearly two-thirds) of Democrats are on board with equal marriage rights (83% of progressives and 54% of blue dogs).
And with a majority of Independents also supporting equal marriage rights, it looks like the Democratic Party has finally found the political courage to start leading on this important issue. Back in early May, President Obama threw down the gauntlet by publicly stating his support for equal marriage rights. Just a month later, the Democratic Party in the very red state of Texas took up the challenge and put an equal marriage rights plank in their state party platform. Now it looks like the national party is going to do the same.
According to Rep. Barney Frank, a member of the national party's platform committee, the 15 member committee writing the party's platform (which will need to be approved by delegates to the convention) has included an equal marriage rights plank in that platform -- and the vote to include that plank in the platform was by unanimous vote. And there is no reason to believe this won't be ratified by the delegates.
The Republican Party may still be opposed to giving equal rights to all Americans, but the Democratic Party is not. With this action, they have declared they support the Constitution and its guarantee of equal rights for ALL Americans.
Bill Clinton Vs. The NFL
Now this was not done to slight Mr. Biden in any way. In fact, he wholeheartedly agreed with the decision. Why? because the next-to-last night of the convention will have to compete with the opening of the NFL season -- and even worse, the featured game has the Dallas Cowboys facing the New York Giants (two very popular teams with huge fan bases). Mr. Biden, not known as a great orator to begin with, would have basically been speaking to no one outside the convention hall.
So what were the Democrats to do on that next-to-last day of the convention? They couldn't just call the whole thing off because a football game was being played. They needed a "heavy-hitter" so to speak -- someone who was well liked enough to get at least some viewers to tune in the convention. And the person they got to deliver the big speech for that night was Bill Clinton.
Now this is not a bad choice. A recent Gallup Poll shows that more than two-thirds of the population has a very favorable view of Mr. Clinton (about 66%). His popularity has been growing recently, and that 66% ties his highest rating ever received (which was shortly after he took office in 1993). And Clinton is a very good speaker. This was probably the best the Democrats could have done.
Will it work? Probably not. Political conventions are not huge ratings winners in the best of conditions, and I doubt the convention viewership will be anywhere close to that of the NFL football game. I'm a political junkie who loves to watch the conventions (especially the Democrats), but I have to admit that my TV will be tuned to the NFL game like most of the rest of the American viewing public. I like Bill Clinton (and on a different night I would love to hear him speak), but it's the Cowboys versus the Giants!
Political Theater
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