Where's the Outrage?

Republicans, in a thoughtful and coordinated attack, have opened up another front in their war on labor unions. Remember that unions are a source of money and organization for liberal causes and the Democratic Party. As such, Republicans hate unions. They hate them above and beyond the union’s ability to negotiate wages and safe working conditions. The first battlefront was in Wisconsin. Consequences of the anti-union legislation continue to reverberate today as signatures for Scott Walker’s recall election were turned in just a couple weeks ago. Then the battlefront moved to Ohio. The Republicans passed anti-union legislation. The unions organized and won a referendum to kill the flawed legislation at the ballot. Now, attention turns to Arizona.

This attack on unions is particularly well-timed. The legislation is extremely anti-union. It goes further than Scott Walker ever thought he could. Fighting this legislation will require unions to divert their attention away from the national election and local elections. They will have to focus almost entirely on this assault on their very existence. Thus, this assault will probably deprive Democrats of much-needed money and organizational strength. I look at this as a last and desperate effort to crush progressive causes.

More from TPM:

Union members were searching for a way out of the wilderness on Wednesday in Arizona as the Republican-controlled Senate moved ahead quickly on several bills that could devastate organized labor in the state.

The measures caught many union leaders by surprise, being introduced on Monday night and passed in committee less than 48 hours later.

At issue is a sweeping series of restrictions that would, among other things, ban unions that represent workers in state, county or city governments from engaging in any type of negotiations that affect the terms of their employment. That includes teachers, prison workers and the state’s powerful police and firefighters unions. The move would take away much of the power those unions have and turn them into something more akin to trade groups.

Tags: Economy, Party Politics by ecthompson md
No Comments »

Last week I watched President Obama’s State of the Union speech.

On my Facebook that evening, I saw a number of reactions to the speech from both moderate and liberal Democrats, from Green Party supporters, from Occupy Wall Street backers and from socialists.

The Democrats all liked the speech, while some of my friends further along on the left had reactions ranging from partial approval to scorn.

This is all fine with me. While I am not President Obama’s most ardent supporter, I am on the side of all good people who want to  help move our great nation to the left.

There is no point in a rigidity that excludes people on our side of the aisle.

Here is the entirety of  chapter 76 of the Stephen Mitchell translation of the Tao Te Ching—

Men are born soft and supple;

dead, they are stiff and hard.

Plants are born tender and pliant;

dead, they are brittle and dry.

This whoever is stiff and inflexible

is a disciple of death.

Whoever is soft and yielding

is a disciple of life.

The hard and stiff will be broken.

The soft and supple will prevail.

Yet–of course–we must move in a hopeful direction and this does require at the least a measure of coordination.

The good news is that different sets of tracks can lead in the same direction. We see this in picture below of railroad tracks that I took in Houston last year.

There are multiple tracks, but they merge.

See who your friends and allies are and see the good in them. Focus on where you agree and move forward.

We can be both flexible and focused on a common goal.

Tags: Domestic Issues, Other Political Thoughts by Neil Aquino
1 Comment »

Sometimes it’s easy to get confused and upset after spending 10 minutes listening to the mainstream media. It seems that every day there’s a new outrage. Whether it is a football player who wanted to pray before a game and was not allowed to or a grandmother who’s being kicked out of her house in some sort of illegal foreclosure scam, or any of 100 of other different outrages, the media wants to keep us in this fevered pitch so we will tune in tomorrow. When our blood is boiling, we don’t think straight. We lose our priorities as we jump from one infuriating scenario to the next.

In theory, the Christmas season (including Hanukkah and Kwanzaa) is supposed to reconnect us with the things that are important – family, friends and our pursuit of happiness. Without jobs, without a living wage, it is hard to enjoy our family and friends because we simply cannot pursue happiness. This is what is important. The above short video from 2008 is a funny but poignant reminder about all the things that we are fighting for. We are fighting to end unnecessary wars which do nothing to increase our security. We are fighting so that everyone has the same rights in the eyes of the law. We are fighting so the law looks at corporations as stacks of paper instead of regarding them as people. We are fighting so that we can drink our water without poisoning our families and swim in the local streams without spontaneous combustion. We are simply fighting for a better and sustainable future.

Tags: Party Politics by ecthompson md
1 Comment »

I find it interesting that the hyper-macho Republicans can cry but Democrats can’t. When Hillary Clinton choked up she got criticism. John Boehner seems to cry every week, yet there is little or nothing about it from the mainstream media. Newt teared up and everyone is talking about the terrible pressure that the candidates are under. Whatever. All I know is that if Barack Obama would have broken down in Iowa, it would have been open season on Obama. The amount of non-stop criticism about how unfit he was to lead the country would have been unprecedented. Fox News would have played the loop non-stop for a week. There would have been a Fox News special on how emotionally unstable he was.

As Newt began to tear up there was someone in the audience (several people, I think) who said, “Awww.” Now contrast this reaction to the Republican debate in which people cheered Perry for executing more than 200 Americans …

Or what about when Ron Paul was asked about the patient without insurance and Wolf asked whether society should let him die? There was applause from the audience.

I guess you could argue that we are looking at two different groups of Republicans. Or you could argue that the Republican party is really schizophrenic.

Tags: Party Politics by ecthompson md
No Comments »

When the GOP took the House, they promised to focus on jobs and the American economy. Over the last year, they’ve taken a hard line on multiple issues. None of these issues were going to help the job market or the average American worker. Back in April the GOP was going to shut down the government by slashing hundreds of billions of dollars for domestic programs. That didn’t work so well. Then, in August, we had the debt ceiling debate where, once again, the GOP was prepared to shut down the government if they didn’t get what they wanted. There is no compromise. It was their way or shut down the government. Next, the issue became disaster relief. Eric Cantor and the rest of the GOP hardliners insisted on having offsets in order to release disaster funds. Of course, they only wanted to cut domestic programs and wouldn’t agree to (or even talk about) cutting military programs or about raising money by taxing the wealthy. That also did not work out for the GOP. Then, just last month, the super committee was supposed to come up with super tax cuts and Republicans on the committee stood resolutely by their opposition to raise any revenue. Basically, the committee did nothing. Finally, the GOP decided that they were going to stand up against renewing the payroll tax cut. This is a tax cut which has helped average Americans. This is $1000 directly into the pocket of everyday working Americans and for some inexplicable reason the GOP opposed it.

I shudder to think what the Republican-led House is planning for 2012.

Tags: Economy, Party Politics by ecthompson md
1 Comment »

Senator Ben Nelson

I wanted to post this again. I think that it is important for us to understand that Obama has made some mistakes but isn’t the wimp that some Dems are saying that he is.

Because Matt Damon is a star who continues to turn out hits and he is a progressive, when he criticizes the president everyone seems to take notice. In a recent interview he said, “You know, a one-term president with some balls who actually got stuff done would’ve been, in the long run of the country, much better.” So, in a nutshell, the problem with Obama’s presidency is he simply caved on every major issue. This is the sentiment that many progressives bring to the table. The progressives who voice the sentiment state that Obama clearly had a mandate from the people. The Democrats saw a majority in both the House and the Senate in 2008. Therefore, the Democrats should’ve been able to run the table on a whole host of progressive issues.

Although it is nice to say that all President Obama had to do was “lead” and all the Democrats would simply fall in line, in reality, this simply isn’t true on multiple levels. First of all, if you’ve ever been to any democratic meeting, there are a whole host of opinions and agendas. If you have twenty Democrats in a room and you try to decide the pass a resolution stating that clean streets are good, this is a difficult thing to achieve. It isn’t that all Democrats wouldn’t support the idea; they do. The problem is achieving the idea. Some would argue that we need to say something about environmentally friendly street sweepers. Others would bring up the fact that city workers who clean the streets don’t have adequate benefits. Another group would argue that the money being spent on clean streets should be spent on something else that would benefit more people. I’m not making fun of Democrats. I’m pointing out the reality of the situation. Just a few years ago, I was asked to moderate a discussion on some topic (I can’t remember what the topic was). I thought the discussion went rather well. Almost everybody seemed to participate. Almost everybody who wanted to talk seemed to get their two cents in. Afterwards, I had several people come up to me with criticisms – the chairs should’ve been arranged in a circle, everyone should have a microphone, why did we have a moderator at all? There were several more.

Finally, the reality of these massive majorities was that they really weren’t massive at all. There were a significant number of blue dog Democrats who voted with Republicans on financial issues (which severely limited the size and scope of the stimulus package) and military issues. For example, closing Guantánamo Bay. This issue seem to be pretty clear-cut. Almost all progressives agreed that Guantánamo Bay needed to be closed because it no longer served any useful purpose. The Obama administration wanted to avoid having any facilities that were designed to circumvent American law. Yet the Republicans, along with blue dog Democrats, vigorously opposed closing this facility. Somehow, these terrorists had superhuman powers and could not be controlled or housed in any of our maximum facility prisons. Our court system, according to conservative thought, was simply too inadequate to convict these hardened terrorists. (This line of thinking ignores the fact that our courts have tried and convicted many terrorists already.) Remember the healthcare debate? Several conservative Democrats in the Senate single-handedly prevented any serious consideration of the public option. (Max Baucus, Mary Landrieu, Evan Bayh and Ben Nelson come to mind.) Now, tell me how “leadership” was going to fix these problems. What exactly was Barack Obama going to do to make the Senators change their minds? Bribe them? Oh, and remember President Obama was doing this in the face of fierce opposition from conservatives, the Tea Party and the mainstream media. I think, for the most part, he did the best job he could given the adverse circumstances.

Tags: Party Politics by ecthompson md
6 Comments »

I haven’t posted that much on the payroll tax cut. Why, you ask? ‘Cuz it was a no brainer. Everybody knew it was a no brainer. Everyone also knew that members of the GOP were going to try to extact as much as they could for this tax cut. The political calculus was clear to everyone for months. My only question was why did the Dems get so little? They, the Dems, should have pushed for a 12-month extension (not 2 month) of this tax cut.

From WaPo:

Facing withering criticism from across the political spectrum and abandoned by Senate allies, House Republicans bowed to political reality Thursday and agreed to a two-month extension of a payroll tax cut for 160 million Americans.

The agreement represented a remarkable capitulation on the part of House Republicans, who had two days earlier rejected such a deal with Democrats as the kind of half-measure that their new majority was elected to thwart.

And it amounts to a Christmas gift for President Obama, who attempted to paint his Republican opponents as willing to raise taxes for millions of Americans. Such an image could have cost the party politically just as it is gearing up to try to take back the White House and the Senate in 2012.

Tags: Congress, Economy, Party Politics by ecthompson md
2 Comments »

Here's a picture of Gary Johnson so you know what he looks like.

Did you know Gary Johnson is running for the Republican nomination for president? Neither did I. Now, he has decided to run as an Independent. Let me see if I’ve gotten this straight. In possibly the weakest Republican field in four decades, Gary Johnson can’t get any traction. Therefore, he has decided to run as an Independent because Independent bids are so likely to get traction. I wish them luck with that political maneuver. To make matters worse, he’s running as a Libertarian. I might be wrong, but I think Ron Paul has all of the Libertarians who are not jumping on the Republican bandwagon. Maybe Ron Paul wants to share?

Tags: Party Politics by ecthompson md
No Comments »

I understand how difficult it is to try to figure out fact from fiction in our world of political hyperbole. Almost nobody plays it straight anymore. Almost everybody is trying to twist the facts to their own advantage. Then, in order to get the “appropriate” media exposure you really need to say something outrageous. Michele Bachmann is/was the queen of outrageous. She has made a career out of saying the most outlandish and fact-challenging statements and has lived in the land of confusion and lies for most of her political career. Rick Perry, Sarah Palin and Ann Coulter are just a few of the politicians/commentators who stretch the truth so far that it is unrecognizable. So, multiple websites have cropped up whose sole purpose is to correct the facts. PolitiFact is one such website. In order to get publicity and drive traffic to their website, they’ve come up with the “Lie of the Year.” This year, they’ve decided that the lie of the year was that Paul Ryan’s budget plan was going to end Medicare.

As I see it, Medicare is about seniors getting healthcare. Basically, once you become a senior you qualify for Medicare and you can therefore get healthcare. It is that simple. This plan, under Paul Ryan, would have been changed to a voucher system in which seniors would be given vouchers to use to pay for their healthcare. Once they spent a voucher, seniors were out of luck. To me, this is a fundamental change in Medicare and how the system works. Now, no longer would seniors have the security of knowing that all of their bills would be paid. In my mind, this would be fundamentally changing Medicare so that it looks nothing like the Medicare that we know today. You can call it Obama Care. You can call it an elephant or you can call it Medicare but it is not the Medicare that we know today. For some reason, PolitiFact misses this fundamental distinction. Paul Krugman and Steve Benen have more.

Tags: Party Politics by ecthompson md
No Comments »

From more than 20 years, Grover Norquist has been on a crusade to decrease income taxes. For that matter, he wanted to decrease all taxes. No matter how small the government was, it was too big. Yesterday, we found out that he was talking to a group of Republicans and took the stance that raising taxes on the middle class didn’t count as raising taxes at all. Doesn’t this once and for all prove that Republicans really don’t care about the middle class? Doesn’t this prove that this antitax crusade is all about the wealthy becoming more wealthy?

Tags: Party Politics, Taxes by ecthompson md
No Comments »

Bruce Bartlett has a very nice post on how Newt Gingrich was a huge cheerleader for Medicare part D. According to the latest reports, Medicare part D only added $16 trillion to our national debt. For those who are not familiar with it, Medicare part D was George W. Bush’s transparent ploy to buy the senior vote. It was also a huge giveaway to the pharmaceutical companies. Medicare part D paid for a line of prescription drugs. It also promised the pharmaceutical industry that the United States government would not negotiate drug prices.

Back in 2003 when we were negotiating (arguing over) this giveaway, here’s what Newt Gingrich wrote in the Wall Street Journal:

If you are a fiscal conservative who cares about balancing the federal budget, there may be no more important vote in your career than one in support of this bill. Since health expenditures comprise almost 14 percent of the U.S. GDP, a shifting away from the failed bureaucratic third-party payer model and back to a market-mediated binary payer model, where the customer controls his own first health dollars, is the single most significant reform that can be made in saving the country from skyrocketing health costs and steadily increasing calls for taxpayers to finance more and more of the healthcare system through higher taxes.

Although some conservatives may complain about the cost of the drug benefit, this benefit was designed within the framework of the budget resolution. The Medicare drug benefit is a necessary improvement to a Medicare system that was designed before modern pharmaceuticals became a key to staying healthy. Does anyone believe it makes sense to pay billions for kidney dialysis and not pay for the preventive care drugs that lets people keep their kidneys healthy for only pennies per day? Let’s face it, a Medicare drug benefit is inevitable. Liberals, some of whom are running for president, would pass it without any of the changes contained in this bill, and have said as much. However, to meet the future demands of retiring baby boomers the same liberals would either raise taxes massively or shift to a bureaucratic rationing of care–both disastrous policies.

Tags: Economy, Elections, Party Politics by ecthompson md
No Comments »

Perry - Pakistan [ 0:51 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In high school, you knew that there were some teachers who were going to call on almost every student in the room and therefore you had to be ready. These debates are exactly the same thing. You have to be ready. Rick Perry simply is not ready. I don’t know if he can remember what he’s been told. It is mind boggling how awful he has been in these debates.

So, you’re on Fox news and you getting softball questions about foreign policy. These are questions that you have been thinking about for the last six months. If you haven’t thought about these questions, why are you running for president? Rick Perry gets a softball question about what to do if a terrorist organization gets a hold of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. This is a nightmare scenario that the intelligence community has been talking about for over a decade. This is easy.

First, the right answer – If a terrorist organization gets a hold of a nuclear weapon, we have to approach the problem from multiple different areas. First of all, I’m on the phone with the director of the CIA and the director of National Intelligence. What do they know and what are our options? Secondly, I’m on the phone with the current president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari. What does he know? While I’m on the phone with him, we are coordinating a conference call with the presidents/Prime Ministers of Britain, France, Germany, India and we’re patching in the NATO commander. There will be several more calls over the next several hours. We need to have a strong, muscular coordinated response that secures the nuclear weapon or destroys it. It is clear that there are some factions within the Pakistani army and the Pakistani special intelligence forces that sympathize with the Taliban/Al Qaeda. We want Pakistan to know that they’re a sovereign country, but we also want them to know that we are going to take a strong and aggressive approach to this problem. There’ll be no negotiating with terrorists. The terrorists who have taken this nuclear weapon will be hunted down and captured or killed. We’ve proven that we have the capability and capacity to do this in Yemen (Anwar al-Awlaki) and with Osama bin Laden.

This is the right answer. This is the answer that plays well both with the Republican and Democratic audience.

What Rick Perry said was the wrong answer. What is he talking about regarding F-16 sales to India? I find it interesting that he mentions that the Obama administration did not sell F-16s to India but somehow he forgets to mention that the Obama administration has negotiated the sale of F-35s, one of our most sophisticated jets. How is the selling F-16 fighters to India going to do anything to secure a loose nuclear weapon in Pakistan? What you saw was Rick Perry in panic mode. Basically, his mind pulled up what ever he could remember about Pakistan. Admiral Mullen said something about a terrorist group. He remembered this and spewed it on stage. He remembered something about fighter jet sales to India. He said whatever came to his mind (unfortunately, nothing that came to his mind) and answered the question anyway. Fail!

Tags: Elections, Military, Party Politics, Rachel Maddow Show by ecthompson md
5 Comments »

If you’re running for president, you should know some of the basics of foreign-policy. Over the last six months, our involvement with Libya has been questioned by conservatives and liberals alike. Muammar Qaddafi has been a thorn in our side since the Reagan administration. It is clear that his state has sponsored terrorists (Lockerbie bombing, bombing of a Berlin dance club). His state has been involved in trying to acquire nuclear weapons. (They did negotiate nuclear disarmament with the Bush administration.) We have sided with the rebels against Muammar Qaddafi and his Libyan regime. I know this off the top of my head. I understand that I’m not in a room with a bunch of journalists being asked questions but this is some of the basic facts that any and all presidential candidates should have at their fingertips. If you do not have this basic information you’re not a serious presidential candidate period.

Herman Cain’s excuse for his poor performance was that he was tired. Seriously. There might be no job that is more grueling than being President of the United States. I can’t believe he’s whining about not having enough sleep.

This is from Think Progress and it documents some of Herman Cain’s foreign-policy blunders over the last several months:

Tags: Elections, Foreign Affairs, Party Politics by ecthompson md
No Comments »

When I grew up, in the ’70s, it seemed as if every week 60 Minutes would have a blockbuster story. Over the years, the CBS news program seems to have lost its focus and hard-hitting journalism. Last night, they seemed to be getting back into form. Last night, they revealed that many Congressman, as most of us thought, aren’t working for us. We elect them to represent our interests in Washington. It appears that many of our congressmen are more interested in lining their own pockets than they are in passing legislation that helps the American people. This isn’t a Republican or Democratic issue. This is an American people issue.

Here is some information on the Stock Act (here, here and here)

Tags: Congress, Legal, Party Politics by ecthompson md
3 Comments »

Several readers have asked me to look at what Jon Stewart had to say about Rick Perry’s brain freeze fart (this is the nicest word that I could think of). Jon Stewart does a masterful job on this. Instead of taking on Perry directly, he takes on the whole Republican field. He presents reasons why Romney will get the Republican nomination. They all have major flaws. As usual, every one of Stewart’s observations has some truth in it. Then he gets to Rick. Damn, this is funny. Enjoy.

Tags: Elections, Party Politics, The Daily Show by ecthompson md
No Comments »

Rick Perry is working hard to prove to Americans that he isn’t fit to be president and that the state of Texas is poorly serviced by this man. If you are going to eliminate three government agencies, one would figure that you should be able to remember what all three agencies are. This is an epic fail.

Tags: Party Politics by ecthompson md
2 Comments »

While both sides talk over and around each other, Americans are suffering. Prolonged joblessness can affect your psyche. Before you know it, you believe that you are worthless. The desperation is palpable. There’s almost no way for you to get a legitimate loan because you don’t have a job. The bills keep coming.

There seems to be no sense of urgency in Washington. 14 million Americans are out of work. These guys in Washington should be running around with their hair on fire trying to find a solution to get Americans back to work, now. This is more than frustrating. It is infuriating. We need to call Washington and demand action. There should be no breaks. This should be no vacations. Our congressmen should be working late at the Capitol until early in the morning in order to find a solution. This problem deserves 24/7 attention. Call Washington. Demand action.

Tags: Congress, Economy, Party Politics by ecthompson md
No Comments »

• Ohio voters rejected issue 2. This overturns a law passed by the Republican legislature which took away collective bargaining.
• Mississippi is arguably the most conservative state in the union. They rejected a law that was going to make a zygote a person. If you can’t pass a law like this in Mississippi, this issue may be dead for another generation.
• Russell Pearce, the architect of Arizona’s immigration law, was voted out of office in a recall election.
• Locally, Buncombe County voted to support  AB Tech, barely.

Tags: Elections, Party Politics by ecthompson md
No Comments »

We want jobs and we need jobs. The simple question that I have for Democrats and Republicans is how can we quickly hire millions of Americans who need JOBS right now?

Tags: Economy, Party Politics by ecthompson md
No Comments »

• If you quote Pokémon in your summation speech at a presidential debate does that make you a joke?
• If you put out a tax plan that seems to be based on a computer game (SimCity) does that make you a joke?
• If it seems that you are refusing to learn some of the issues that surround foreign-policy, does that make you a joke?
• If you put out a campaign ad with the main subject is smoking, does that make you a joke?
• When does a candidate become a joke?

Rachel Maddow summarizes Herman Cain’s campaign and asks this question:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Tags: Party Politics, Rachel Maddow Show by ecthompson md
No Comments »