Republicans Kill President's Jobs Bill (Again)

In the past few years, Congress has let our transportation infrastructure go to seed, and now we are left with far too many crumbling bridges and roads. While other nations, such as China, are spending large sums to improve their infrastructure, the United States is letting its crumble away. After all, the Republicans had other uses for that money -- two unnecessary wars and tax cuts & subsidies for the richest Americans and corporations (who repaid their country by exporting American jobs and laying off American workers).

Now we are left with not only a crumbling infrastructure, but about 20 million unemployed workers. President Obama is trying to take the first steps toward solving both problems. Even though the Republicans had already killed his larger jobs bill, and then blocked an effort to save teacher and first responder jobs -- the president keeps trying. This time he introduced a bill to spend about $60 billion on repairing and improving our transportation infrastructure.

The president's bill would not have increased the yearly deficit or the overall national debt, because it would have been paid for with a small increase on those making more than $1,000,000 a year. A majority of Americans supported this bill -- both the putting people back to work to renovate our infrastructure and the raising of taxes on millionaires.

But the Republicans killed the bill in the U.S. Senate by blocking a cloture motion which would have allowed the bill to come to the Senate floor for debate and a vote. The bill needed 60 votes, but was able to get only 51 votes. Every Republican, except Sen. Snowe (Maine), voted against the bill. Two blue dogs Sen. Nelson (Nebraska) and Sen. Lieberman (Connecticut) voted with the Republicans to kill the bill.

The Republicans couldn't claim the bill was a "budget-buster" since it was revenue neutral, so why did they vote against repairing the infrastructure and creating jobs? As usual, it was to protect the rich from having to pay their fair share of taxes. They decided that allowing the rich to keep from paying taxes was more important than creating jobs or renovating our crumbling infrastructure.

Once again, the Republican Party has shown that it is the party of and for the rich -- and couldn't care less about the rest of America. Any American making less than $250,000 a year would be a fool to vote Republican, because the Republicans in Congress never vote for them.

By the way, can anyone remember the last time that Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who claims to be a Democrat, actually voted with the Democrats on anything? Why does the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee keep giving him money?

999 Excuses

Political Cartoon is by Steve Sack in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

Corporations Are Screwing American Taxpayers

The middle class in America doesn't have much choice -- they either pay their income taxes or they go to jail. The same is not true for corporations. Through a combination of subsidies, tax loopholes, and the ability to hide much of their profits off-shore, there are corporations that pay no income taxes at all. To say this is an economic injustice is an understatement.

This is not only unfair to middle-class taxpayers, but it has put the government into a real bind since it no longer brings in enough money to meet its obligations. President Clinton left office with the country registering a budget surplus, but the Republicans have destroyed that. By starting two unnecessary wars and giving the rich and corporations huge tax breaks, the Republicans created a huge deficit which has grown to trillions of dollars.

But the deficit would have grown even without the two wars. That's because the combination of corporations (and the rich) paying the lowest tax rate since World War II and the corporations who have avoided paying any taxes at all, have resulted in the lowest government tax revenues since the 1950s. The government is simply not taking in enough money to pay its bills.

Mitt's Strategy

Political Cartoon is by Clay Bennett in the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

First Five Primary/Caucus States Are Set

New Hampshire has finally set the date for it's primary. They scheduled it for January 10th, about one week after the Iowa caucuses. That means the first five states to vote are now set. Here's what the schedule looks like for those five states:

Iowa...............January 3rd

New Hampshire...............January 10th

South Carolina...............January 21st

Florida...............January 31st

Nevada...............February 4th

That means the process to pick the presidential candidates will begin in about 8 and a half weeks -- in Iowa. The Democrats already know who their candidate will be, but the Republican race is still very much up in the air. I know the pundits are picking Mitt Romney to win the nomination, but so far, he just hasn't shown the strength in the polls to be considered a prohibitive favorite.

In fact, looking at the five first states, I only see two that Romney is assured of winning -- New Hampshire and Nevada (and no poll has shown him getting even a half of the votes in either of those two states).

Things could change in the next eight weeks, but unless it does change the race could still be very much in doubt after voting in the five states above have been completed. And that could last a while. I still think there's a chance that the Republican nominee is picked at their convention.

GOP Dwarf-Tossing

Political Cartoon is by Mike Luckovich in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Rights

I totally agree with this. The best way to protect your own rights is to protect the rights of others. Found at the site of Yellowdog Granny.

Occupy Amarillo Schedules Second Protest

The picture above shows people gathering before the first Occupy Amarillo protest (held to show solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement). A better than expected crowd of between 70 and 80 people showed up at Ellwood Park and marched down to the Chase Tower Building -- and many people along the route showed their approval of the marchers and what they stood for.

Now the Occupy Amarillo folks have scheduled a second event. On Saturday (November 5th) at 1:00pm they will gather in front of City Hall in downtown Amarillo. This time they are taking part in a worldwide protest against the giant banks on what has been dubbed "Bank Transfer Day" -- an effort to get people to take their money out of the giant Wall Street banks and put it in local banks or credit unions.

As Occupy Amarillo member Jami says, "We're trying to protest the entire corrupt system by starting with where we feel it started. That is why people are on Wall Street protesting instead of in front of the capitol in D.C. protesting because it's not just about the government and their shady politics, it's about the people who are feeding the shady politics lots and lots of money."

That is very true. Politics in Washington (D.C.) has gotten off track because of the tons of money being poured in by the Wall Street banks and giant corporations who have, in effect, bought the government -- so that it works for them and not the people of this country. Until the corporate and special interest money is taken out of politics nothing can or will be done to help hurting Americans, create jobs, or fix the broken economy.

I urge everyone who can to attend the rally on November 5th. Nothing can be changed until we stand together and show the politicians and rich corporations that the people as a whole are demanding that change.

The Fat Cat Occupation

Political Cartoon is by Bill Day at caglecartoons.com.

Corporate Whining Is An American Tradition

The cartoon above from the excellent site called Ampersand is very funny, but it also reveals a fundamental truth about corporations -- they will never give up any of their power or stop abusing their employees (or the public) until they are forced to do so. Anytime their abusive tactics are brought up, their response is always the same -- they can't stay in business unless they are allowed to continue doing whatever devious and abusive thing is being discussed. And their whining is never true.

In fact, corporations have been whining for so long that it could almost be considered to be an American tradition. In the 19th century they were whining that allowing workers to unionize and to strike would put them out of business. But unions were formed and workers did get the right to strike, and the corporations survived just fine. Workers got better wages and corporations continued to turn a profit.

In the early part of the 20th century the corporations tried to convince Americans that instituting safe working conditions, outlawing child labor, and creating the 40-hour work week would put them out of business. But sweatshops were outlawed along with child labor and the 40-hour work week became a reality. And guess what, the corporations continued to turn a profit.

Grope

Political Cartoon is by Clay Bennett in the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

Public Supports Iraq Withdrawal (Except Republicans)

Recently President Obama announced the real end of the Iraq War is getting near. He said the United States will withdraw all of its soldiers from Iraq by the end of this year, finally ending the unnecessary war that has dragged on for years. Almost immediately, Republican politicians began to complain. They make it sound like the United States is in danger unless the war is permitted to drag on for even longer -- a ridiculous assertion since Iraq has never posed a danger to this country.

And listening to the congressional Republicans and Republican presidential candidates complain about the impending withdrawal, one might think there is some real disagreement among the general public about whether the war should be ended or not. Fortunately, this is simply not true. A substantial majority of the American people support the president's decision to withdraw all the troops.

This is verified by a new poll done by the Gallup organization. The poll was done on October 29th and 30th by surveying a nationwide random sample of adults (and has a margin of error of 4 points). This poll shows that a full 75% of the American people believe the withdrawal is a good thing and they support it. Only 21% disagree.

When the poll is broken down into political groups we see the approval is even higher among both Democrats and Independents. Democrats show a 96% approval of the president's actions, and 77% of all Independents agree with it. The only disagreement comes with the Republicans, of which 52% think the seemingly endless war should be continued.

That is why the Republican politicians continue to preach war. They supported the unnecessary war when Bush started it and they have continued to support it in spite of evidence that it never should have happened. They have supported it so hard and long that they have convinced the majority of their base. Now they have painted themselves into a corner. If they acknowledge the reality that it is time for the war to end, they will lose the support of their base (the people they've convinced that the war is good).

So the Republican politicians will continue to preach war, but that doesn't matter. The war will end on the last day of this year, and the huge majority of Americans support that. They are ready for an end to that ridiculous misadventure.

Now we need to convince the president that it's time to leave Afghanistan too.

Homeless / Peopleless

Political Cartoon is by Milt Priggee in the Puget Sound Business Journal.

Atheists Are Everywhere - Even In Foxholes

I hope this picture puts an end to the old religious lie about atheists. From the blog of The Friendly Atheist.