Category Archives: Politics

March 11, 2011 · 5:54 pm

Absolute power: An examination of Art Pope’s dominance – Independent Weekly

While everyone is watching Washington and Wisconsin, we need to keep our eyes out here in North Carolina as well…

The rich are trying to buy North Carolina as well…

This is not a coincidence…

Former legislator, millionaire, political insider, Art Pope is a public figure and one of the most powerful people in North Carolina.

This project of the Independent Weekly and Facing South, the online magazine of the Institute for Southern Studies, analyzes both the extent of Pope’s influence and its ramifications for public policy.

In short, Pope and the organizations he finances are shaping how North Carolinians live. As Chris Kromm reports, the Pope family—through the John William Pope Foundation—has been funneling millions of dollars into a network of conservative research, media and legal centers. Pope’s groups have larger ambitions to shift public opinion and the political debate toward a pro-business, anti-government agenda.

That’s being played out in the Republican-dominated Legislature. Those lawmakers and their regressive agenda for social services, education, the environment and tax policy are brought to you largely by Pope and Pope-backed groups.

We’ve also scrutinized the Pope Foundation’s tax documents and found that, despite his groups’ persistent calls for public accountability, the foundation itself failed to file timely tax returns for eight years. Pope’s excuses? Hurricane Fran. Single fatherhood. For eight years.

via Absolute power: An examination of Art Pope’s dominance | News Feature | Independent Weekly.

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March 11, 2011 · 5:43 pm

Dem Senator: Republicans brewing ‘toxic tea’ that will ‘bring shame to our country’ | Raw Replay

All I can say is “Amen”…..

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) on Thursday excoriated Republicans for taking their cues from the tea party movement, which he deemed to be pushing “dangerous” spending cuts that will “create pain for our children” and “shame” America.

“Here in Congress, tea party activists have seized control of the Republican side of the aisle—and it is far from a tea party for lots of jobless people and those qualified to study in college but unable to pay the freight,” Lautenberg said.

“Now that they are in power, we see they’re brewing Toxic Tea—a dangerous concoction that will create pain for our children and bring shame to our country.  We know that cutting critical programs now brings sky-high prices later—in more illnesses and a less-educated society. So we look at the future and we say we must invest in our children, our environment and medical research. But every time, they say: ‘No.’”

The New Jersey Democrat tore into the slew of Republican spending cuts, which include deep cuts to education, medical research, and women’s health services.

via Dem Senator: Republicans brewing ‘toxic tea’ that will ‘bring shame to our country’ | Raw Replay.

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March 11, 2011 · 5:41 pm

Sanders introduces millionaire surtax to slash deficit | The Raw Story

Okay…81% of Americans favor this, but it doesn’t have a chance in hell of passing in Congress…

So much for representative democracy for anyone except the Rich and the Oil Companies….

WASHINGTON – As Democrats and Republicans battle over how much spending should be cut to bridge the budget shortfall, one senator is focusing on the other side of the equation: revenues.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Thursday afternoon introduced a bill (pdf) that would establish a surtax on millionaires and strip tax deductions for oil companies — a proposal he claims would cut the deficit by about $50 billion.

The Emergency Deficit Reduction Act would accomplish this by raising taxes by 5.4 percent on annual income over $1 million.

Congress has yet to pass a budget to fund the government for fiscal 2011, approving three continuing resolutions to avoid a shutdown. The latest expires March 18. The Senate rejected the Democratic and Republican proposals Wednesday.

A NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found late February that 81 percent of Americans believe a surtax on millionaires is an acceptable way to close the budget shortfall.

Yet in Congress, the quest is a lonely one. Though leaders of both parties admit the deficit is a pressing problem, none have advanced tax increases to trim the gap. And the outspoken Vermonter isn’t pulling any punches.

Republicans, Sanders fumed, want to balance the budget “solely on the backs of the middle class and some of the most vulnerable people in this country.” Democrats, he added, aren’t “serious” about deficits if they ignore revenues.

via Sanders introduces millionaire surtax to slash deficit | The Raw Story.

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March 11, 2011 · 5:37 pm

Trend or Fluke-Independents Want the Government to Do More, Not Less

It will be interesting to see if this trend holds…

A clear majority want more government intervention, not less…

This will make the Tea Party Crowd crazy since it is coming from the Murdoch owned, Republican leaning Wall Street Journal’s poll.

All the publicity about the good programs the GOP is trying to cut may be making people realize how much good the government actually does…

I hope the trend holds…

From the Cook Report and the National Journal:

However, in the latest NBC/WSJ poll of 1,000 adults (including 200 by cellphone; overall margin of error plus or minus 3.1 points), conducted from February 24-28, 51 percent of respondents said the government-should do more and 46 percent said the government was doing too much. One could conclude that the antigovernment bandwagon certainly isn’t picking up speed.

More important—and I have to give NBC Political Director Chuck Todd credit for pointing this out to me—independents shifted significantly. In the February survey, 47 percent of independents said the government was doing too much, compared with 60 percent who said so last October. Independents who said the government should do more jumped 13 points, from 38 percent to 51 percent.

via NationalJournal.com – The Cook Report: Trend or Fluke? – Friday, March 11, 2011.

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March 11, 2011 · 5:23 pm

Sarah Palin: “Grit My Teeth” Over HBO Film – Washington DC RNC | Examiner.com

This should be fun…

I just don’t know if someone as smart as Julianne Moore can play someone as dumb as Sarah Palin.

This will truly be a test of how great an actress she really is….

RNC DC Examiner reported earlier this week that HBO is planning a film on the 2008 John McCain-Sarah Palin presidential campaign:

But Palin will not be the beneficiary of any revenue nor is she certain to be enamored by the performance. The network has decided to adapt the 2008 campaign book “Game Change” into an original film.

Academy Award nominated Julianne Moore will play the role of Sarah Palin. The book by Time’s Mark Halperin and New York magazine’s John Heilemann does not feature a faltering image of Pain and, if anything, the then governor is reported to be entirely clueless about basic historical and geographical facts, and somewhat erratic.

The book, Game Change, describes the former Governor of Alaska as having wild mood swings caused by her sudden rise to fame and describes her at one point as being in a ‘catatonic stupor’. […] According to the book, it was then that Steve Schmidt, Republican campaign chief, turned to the experts he had recruited and said: ‘You guys have a lot of work to do. She doesn’t know anything.’ (Daily Mail.)

The author presciently added, If the film follows the lines of the book on which its based, Palin and her supporters may soon be feuding with HBO over what will be a critical presentation of the Republican.

In Palin’s first statement about the film it is clear that the former Alaska governor is wary about what portrait HBO may present. Jokingly Palin said, “Well, I am all about job creation, and I guess I could provide some of these gals who pretend like they’re me some job security.” But then added that she’ll watch the film with great reservations: “I’ll just grit my teeth and bear whatever comes what may with that movie.”

via Sarah Palin: “Grit My Teeth” Over HBO Film – Washington DC RNC | Examiner.com.

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March 9, 2011 · 10:48 pm

ThinkProgress » Schumer’s Deficit Reduction Steps: Millionaires Tax, Prevent Corporate Tax Dodging, Cut Wasteful Subsidies

Of course this will fail…

It makes too much sense for Congress to pass it….

 

First, Schumer revived his proposal from last year to institute a surtax on millionaires and billionaires. “I must say I noted with interest that in last week’s Wall Street Journal-NBC poll, the most popular proposal to reduce the deficit — out of 23 options surveyed — was a surtax on millionaires and billionaires,” he said.

Schumer also promoted closing the tax gap by cracking down on tax dodging and income sheltering by big corporations. “There is much we can do in the tax code to crack down on cheaters and vastly improve compliance,” he said. “Any credible deficit plan should tackle the so-called ‘tax gap’ — the gap between taxes owed and taxes paid — which has gotten as high as over $300 billion a year this past decade.”

He also advocated cutting the wasteful subsidies that are handed out every year to industries, including the oil and gas industries, that don’t need them. Schumer expanded on these ideas in an interview today with ThinkProgress:

“All these kinds of subsidies should be on the table, but the one that sticks out like a sore thumb is oil and gas because the entire rationale for it is gone. It was passed, I think, when the price of oil was $17 a barrel, we had low production, and now of course, the price of oil is $100 a barrel. The subsidy, in economic terms, doesn’t mean anything other than to make some people wealthy who are already wealthy.”

via ThinkProgress » Schumer’s Deficit Reduction Steps: Millionaires Tax, Prevent Corporate Tax Dodging, Cut Wasteful Subsidies.

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March 9, 2011 · 9:47 pm

Top 10 Worst Things about the Republicans’ Immoral Budget | | AlterNet

Electi0ns have consequences…

People really need to understand what they are really voting for when they vote for Republicans….

From AlterNet and Move on:

The Republican budget would:

1. Destroy 700,000 jobs, according to an independent economic analysis.

2. Zero out federal funding for National Public Radio and public television.

3. Cut $1.3 billion from community health centers—which will deprive more than 3 million low-income people of health care over the next few months.

4. Cut nearly a billion dollars in food and health care assistance to pregnant women, new moms, and children.

5. Kick more than 200,000 children out of pre-school by cutting funds for Head Start.

6. Force states to fire 65,000 teachers and aides, dramatically increasing class sizes, thanks to education cuts.

7. Cut some or all financial aid for 9.4 million low- and middle-income college students.

8. Slash $1.6 billion from the National Institutes of Health, a cut that experts say would “send shockwaves” through cancer research, likely result in cuts to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s research, and cause job losses.

9. End the only federal family planning program, including cutting all federal funding that goes to Planned Parenthood to support cancer screenings and other women’s health care.

10. Send 10,000 low-income veterans into homelessness by cutting in half the number of veterans who get housing vouchers this year.

via Top 10 Worst Things about the Republicans’ Immoral Budget | | AlterNet.

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March 9, 2011 · 9:42 pm

Female Sexuality Still Terrifying to Conservative Lawmakers | | AlterNet

Amazing…

But not really…

The Republicans screamed about jobs and deficits  before the elections, then focused on enforcing their social agenda and personal morals once the election was over…

These folks seem to now be really focusing in on controlling women and their behavior.

I guess they really are getting back to the basics.

They temporarily gave up on the Gays and decided to go back to the beginning to try to drive women back to 1962….

They can come back to the Gays and other minorities once they have women safely back in their place prior to the Women’s  Liberation Movement….

 

The Republican attack on Planned Parenthood, in the form of the House zeroing out funding for the organization in the continuing resolution on the federal budget, seemingly came out of nowhere. For decades, the kinds of services provided with federal dollars by Planned Parenthood—contraception, STD testing and treatment, cancer screening—had been assumed non-controversial by the Beltway media. The reproductive rights debate was framed mainly as a fight over bodily autonomy versus fetal life, between secular humanists and religious folks who believed fertilized eggs had souls.

So why then an attack funding STD treatment and contraception? Why, all of a sudden, do you have politicians like Rep. Steve King railing against Planned Parenthood not because of fetal life—after all, depriving women of contraception access will likely increase the abortion rate—but because Planned Parenthood is “invested in promiscuity”? Why do you have a conservative figurehead like Sean Hannity arguing not that abortion is wrong because it’s taking a life, but because teenage girls shouldn’t be making out in the back seats of cars in the first place? Why is Gov. Scott Walker not only attacking collective bargaining rights in the state of Wisconsin, but trying to eliminate contraception coverage (but not erectile dysfunction medication) on the grounds of “morality”?

The dusty old argument that female sexuality is a subversive force that needs to be strictly controlled isn’t as dead as we thought.

via Female Sexuality Still Terrifying to Conservative Lawmakers | | AlterNet.

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March 9, 2011 · 9:30 pm

Two-thirds of states cut mental healthcare funds: advocacy group | The Raw Story

This is not good…

Aside from the inhumanity of not helping the helpless, this will have big downstream societal impacts….

Crime, Homelessness…

More short sighted decision making….

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two-thirds of states cut mental health funding from their general fund budgets over the last two years, according to a report released by a mental illness advocacy group on Wednesday.

Kentucky with 47 percent, Alaska with 35 percent, and South Carolina and Arizona both with 23 percent made the largest percentage cuts to mental health spending in their general fund budgets, which do not include federal Medicaid funding, the study by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) found.

“Cutting mental health means that costs only get shifted to emergency rooms, schools, police, local courts, jails and prisons,” said NAMI executive director Michael Fitzpatrick. “The taxpayer still pays the bill.”

via Two-thirds of states cut mental healthcare funds: advocacy group | The Raw Story.

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March 8, 2011 · 9:14 pm

Fox and Glenn Beck Stare Into a Dark Future – NYTimes.com

I knew Dusty Rhodes would wear thin eventually….

Mr. Beck, a conservative Jeremiah and talk-radio phenomenon, burst into television prominence in 2009 by taking the forsaken 5 p.m. slot on Fox News and turning it into a juggernaut. A conjurer of conspiracies who spotted sedition everywhere he looked, Mr. Beck struck a big chord and ended up on the cover of Time magazine and The New York Times Magazine, and held rallies all over the country that were mobbed with acolytes. He achieved unheard-of ratings, swamped the competition and at times seemed to threaten the dominion of Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity at Fox.

But a funny thing happened on the way from the revolution. Since last August, when he summoned more than 100,000 followers to the Washington mall for the “Restoring Honor” rally, Mr. Beck has lost over a third of his audience on Fox — a greater percentage drop than other hosts at Fox. True, he fell from the great heights of the health care debate in January 2010, but there has been worrisome erosion — more than one million viewers — especially in the younger demographic.

via Fox and Glenn Beck Stare Into a Dark Future – NYTimes.com.

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