Cannabis

For many decades now the government has been telling Americans (and others) that the cannabis plant has no legitimate use. They lied.

Occupy Wall Street Is Having A Positive Effect

The image above brings home a very disturbing fact about the United Staes -- the vast inequality of wealth and income in the country. This inequality, which grows worse with each passing week since Congress has done nothing about it, was the primary cause of this Great Recession (just like a previous and very similar gap caused the Great Depression).

But there is a big difference between the previous gap causing the Great Depression, and the current gap causing the Great Recession. The previous gap was caused by the Republican Party favoring the rich and the coporations. But when the Democrats got into power they changed the economic policies, put people back to work (using WPA and CCC), created the Social Security system, and gave the country new hope.

But things were different this time. After the Republicans went back to their old ways of favoring the rich and the corporations, causing the current economic mess and the loss of millions of jobs, the people again put the Democrats back in power in 2008. But this time nothing happened. It turns out that the rich and corporations had gotten smarter -- instead of just buying the Republican politicians, they also bought a passel of Democratic politicians (the blue dogs). And the Republicans combined with the blue dogs were powerful enough to prevent any economic changes or job creation.

After watching the Congress muddle around for nearly three years without changing the failed "trickle-down" Republican policy or doing anything to create a substantial amount of jobs, it became obvious that too many members of Congress (of both parties) were controlled by the corporations and the rich and nothing was going to be done to help ordinary and hurting Americans. In fact, the situation was being made worse by cuts to education and social programs while the rich continued to get unnecessary tax cuts and the corporations received unnecessary subsidies.

If any needed change was going to occur, it would have to start with the American people -- not the corporate-owned politicians in Congress. When this became obvious, it resulted in the birth of the Occupy Wall Street movement. It may have started small with only a few hundred protesters in New York City, but it struck a chord with the American people and spread quickly to many other American cities -- first the large cities, and then in the smaller cities, and finally in cities around the world. It has now grown so large that it can no longer be ignored.

But can the movement cause real economic change in the United States? Probably not until and unless it grows even larger, but it has caused a couple of minor changes already -- and one of those could lead to much bigger changes down the road.

The Dilemma

Political Cartoon is by Matt Bors at mattbors.com.

Dems On "Super Committee" Offer Draconian Cuts

If there was any doubt as to whether the Occupy Wall Street movement is needed, then the chart above should remove any doubt. It shows a comparison of the Democratic "super committee" members plan to cut the budget with the plans of the Bowles-Simpson Committee and the Gang of Six (both of which made cuts of Medicare, Social Security, and other social programs that would hurt most Americans). Amazingly, the plan offered by the committee Democrats is even more Draconian.

Fortunately the plan was rejected by the Republican (because taxes were raised on the rich by an insignificant amount), but it clearly shows that the Democrats are not much more interested in helping ordinary Americans than the Republicans are. Neither party wants to make the needed cuts to the military budget. Neither party is truly interested in having the rich and the corporations pay their fair share of taxes. And neither party is interested in helping the Americans who are hurting because of the continuing jobless recession.

Occupy Wall Street is needed because the politicians won't make the changes they were sent to Washington to make. They and their rich buddies are making too much money by leaving things just as they are (since most of the politicians in Congress are members of the 1% themselves).

Simple Math

Political Cartoon is by R.J. Matson in Roll Call.

Rick Perry - Worst Campaign Ever ?

Those of us in Texas tried to tell people that Rick Perry was a terrible governor and a worse debater, but it fell on deaf ears -- for a while. When he entered the race he quickly jumped into first place and teabaggers thought they had found their savior. Then they heard his views on Social Security and Medicare, and got a chance to actually see him debate. After that, he fell in the polls like a large dumb rock. I don't think I've ever seen anyone go from first to "also-ran" any faster than Perry did.

But maybe he's not totally useless (like he is as a governor and a presidential candidate). He does offer pundits and cartoonists a lot of rich material for humor. I found this article at CNN.com by James Carville to be rather humorous. Here is part of it:

Maybe you, like me, are a baseball fan. If you are, you want seven games because you actually like baseball. The same goes for politics -- if you really love it, you hope for a good race that goes on and you enjoy watching people who are skilled at doing this.


It is literally painful to watch Rick Perry as a candidate. The case could be made that Rick Perry is the worst debater to ever run for president.


As far as I know he can't even give a good speech. His appearance before the uber-right-winged Values Voters Summit was universally trashed.


Not only can he not give an interview, he can't even roll out his stupid flat tax plan. He steps all over it by saying, "Oh by the way, it's optional anyway." He has managed to couple the flat tax with the IRS bureaucracy in one sentence. Way to go Rick.


I'll be blunt with all you Perry supporters, it's time to butter your guy because he's toast. Every day it's a new dumb thing. From birtherism, to convoluted tax policy, to inarticulate attacks, to woeful ignorance and even stupidity on foreign policy (Pakistani country? Please), to placing his wife under such stress that she is lashing out at everything around her.


Not only is Rick Perry utterly incapable of running for president, he can't run his state, and in fact can't meet the basic requirement for any politician -- he can't even run his mouth.


As if he hasn't made a big enough fool of himself, he decides to go out and have lunch with Donald Trump and falls for the birther strategy. Good God, can this guy do anything? I guess I should be fair to him, he has shown that he can get the same people he gave contracts to as governor of Texas to contribute to his campaign. Wow, what an achievement.


To tell you the truth, it's gotten so bad people in Louisiana are actually starting to make Texas jokes.


If this thing gets any worse the people in Mississippi will be making Texas jokes -- then you've really hit rock bottom.

Class Warfare (The Horror!)

Political Cartoon is by Ben Sargent in the Austin American-Statesman.

Don't Text And Fly !

Found this on FaceBook and it was just too good not to steal. All you witches out there be careful!

Religion & Ethics Are Not The Same Thing

More Evidence Of "Trickle-Down" Unfairness

I have presented many graphs and charts on this blog from reliable sources showing that the "trickle-down economic policies, instituted by the Republicans over thirty years ago, have favored the rich, while leaving most Americans stuck in a rut and falling further behind with each passing year. And the richer a person is the more the Republican economic policy favors them.

Now the Economic Policy Institute, using figures from the U.S. Census, has produced a graph showing what has happened with hourly wages in the last 36 years (from 1973 thru 2009). As you can see on the above chart, the median hourly wage for workers has grown from $14.73 in 1973 to about $15.96 in 2009 -- a growth of only $1.23 (or 8.4%) in 36 years. The growth was much worse for lower-paid workers. A worker in the lowest 20% of earners had an average wage growth from $9.29 to $9.83 -- a rise of only $0.54 (or 5.8%). And a worker in the bottom 10% saw growth from $7.70 to $8.05 -- a rise of $0.35 (or 4.5%).

But the higher on the wage scale a person is, the better they are treated by "trickle-down" policies. A person in the highest 90th percentile of wage earners saw their wages go from $28.19 to about $37.49 -- a rise of $9.30 (or 32.99%). And a worker at the 95th percentile saw wages climb from $35.37 to $48.08 -- a rise of $12.71 (or 35.9%). But even these salaries pale in comparison to the rise experienced by the richest Americans of all -- the top 1% of earners. The Congressional Budget Office pegged their rise in after-tax income at a whopping 275%.

And the congressional Republicans, and all of the Republican presidential candidates, feel that the richest Americans pay too much in taxes (even though their after-tax income has risen by 275%). They want to give these richest Americans even bigger tax cuts than they've already received (from the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy).

A perfect example of this is the ridiculous tax plan recently proposed by candidate Rick Perry. His plan would drop the rate on earned income (income actually worked for) for the rich from 35% to a flat rate of 20%. But it gets even worse. His plan would completely eliminate the tax on capital gains income (income derived from stocks, bonds, and other investments0 which is how most of the super-rich make their money. Under the Perry Plan, an investor like Warren Buffett (one of the richest men in the world) would only pay an effective tax rate of 0.2%. How can it possibly be fair for someone that rich to pay less than a 1% tax rate, when people who actually must work to earn an income much pay a much higher rate?

How much more evidence do voters need before they finally realize that the Republican Party cares only for the rich, and their policies benefit only the rich?

Running Away

Political Cartoon is by Bob Englehart in The Hartford Courant.

Did Oakland Police Give A Boost To OWS Movement ?

The Occupy Wall Street Movement spread far beyond the confines of New York City several weeks ago. It has spread across the country and is showing up in cities around the world. That's because people are finally starting to realize they've been taken advantage of by the rich and government policies that are slanted to benefit only the rich. The term "economic justice" may not have meant much to most people in the past, but for more and more people it has now become a cause they understand and support.

Even though the movement has seemed to spread like wildfire, there are still those who are hoping that the movement will die out. And that was in the realm of possibility -- after all, the cold weather is coming and it can be hard sometimes to keep a citizen's movement growing. Fortunately, it doesn't seem that the authorities, who are trying to cover for Wall Street, have learned anything from the experiences of the sixties and early seventies.

Looking The Wrong Way

Political Cartoon is by Pat Bagley in the Salt Lake Tribune.

Early State Polls Show Romney In Lead

Mitt Romney still seems to be the favorite choice of the political pundits. Recently even Democratic pundit James Carville, usually a pretty astute person politically, came out and said he believed Mitt Romney would be the Republican presidential candidate. Carville told George Stephanopoulos that Romney will win because Perry and Cain aren't serious candidates, and said:

 "I don't think so. I mean Rick Perry's completely blown himself up. There's zero chance that Herman Cain's going to be the nominee. The only thing that I can see is that Republicans just don't like him enough that he can't accumulate half the delegates as he goes through this. That these candidates just keep going and becoming such an irritant that he can't close the deal but that's almost impossible to imagine."

But I'm not ready to crown Romney the winner yet. He may have the lead, but he has yet to show that he can get any teabagger votes -- something he will have to do to get the nomination. And the race is still very fluid. This is shown by a new CNN/Time Poll done by ORC between October 20th and 25th. The poll questioned Republicans in the four earliest caucus/primary states -- 401 in Florida, 405 in Iowa, 400 in New Hampshire, and 400 in South Carolina. Here's how it stands in those states right now: