Tag Archives: Democrats

The first caucus in history without a majority of white men

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House Democrats became the first caucus in the history of either chamber not to have a majority of white men… The overwhelming majority of lawmakers sworn in Thursday were white men. But the new Congress, while still lagging behind the nation as whole in diversity, reflects national demographic changes that hold significant implications for American politics. — Congress now has more women, minorities than ever – The Washington Post

No wonder Lindsey Graham and Pat Toomey and many (most?) other white male Republicans are so angry. They need to remember that’s not our problem, though.

To all the Democrats who “haz a sad” after the first debate …

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Grow a pair.

Look at this sad sack of potatoes from Josh Marshall’s email:

\

HEAL THE WOUNDS.

And then this — totally appropriate — response:

Exactly! Get it together, people. COME ON! One night doesn’t erase someone’s entire history and I, for one, don’t expect perfection 24/7/365. The President lost one debate. SO WHAT? Seriously. So what?

That reader follows up with Josh Marshall:

Too damn true. UNFORTUNATELY.

Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Deadbeat Dad) says Democrats want “everyone to be the same”

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At a town hall event on Sunday, the tea party’s favorite deadbeat dad, Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL), said that his political opponents want everyone to be exactly the same, according to Raw Story:

“You feel like I do. You’re scared. Young, old, middle-class, wealthy, or poor — you’re scared. All I’m going to ask you, and I’ll ask you when I am done, is you gotta take that fear and you better turn it into something really productive, because the other side — guys, I hear it every day — the other side is working every bit as hard as we are who believe in freedom. The side that wants everybody to live in a $200,000 house, and everybody have a blah kind of health care, and everybody to go to college, the side that wants everybody to look and sound and be the same, because that is what they worship, equality, that side is working their tail off.”

Projection, much? It’s as if he’s accusing the Democrats of being the political party known for driving away people who aren’t white, male, conservative, fundamentalist Christian heterosexuals. It seems to me that a political party which scorns diversity in every way imaginable, and which works diligently to create divisions according to wealth and health and race and sexuality, and which attempts to legislate their beliefs onto society as a whole IS ACTUALLY THE POLITICAL PARTY that wants everyone to be the same.   

I’ll just leave this here:

 
 

Source: drunkonstevphen

Citizens United and transparency: it really is your choice

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What are the Democrats working on, with regard to donor transparency and the ridiculous idea that “corporations are people too” Citizens United ruling?

The Raw Story reports that Nancy Pelosi wants to fix the SCOTUS’ Citizens United ruling: “In a conference call, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told reporters, “We must amend the constitutional to fix Citizens United.” Her latest call to action was spurred by Monday’s Supreme Court decision to overturn Montana’s 1912 law limiting corporate spending in political campaigns based on its 2010 Citizens United ruling. The court’s decision led Montana’s governor Brian Schweitzer (D) and Lt. Gov. John Bohlinger (R) to call for a constitutional amendment to overturn the decision.”

Great! What are the Republicans working on?

Mitch McConnell speaks to Fox NewsThink Progress reports that now Mitch McConnell things campaign donor disclosure amounts to “harassment” and “intimidation:” “In a speech… to the conservative American Enterprise Institute, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) took the stunning view that attempts to let voters know who is paying for political messages amounts to a “political weapon” aimed at intimidating political critics. [...] The whole point of disclosure is allowing voters to know who is speaking and to evaluate the credibility of that person or interest. If disclosure were only about harassment and intimidation of political opponents, surely disclosure of donations to political candidates is just as likely to lead to such harassment of donors.”

House Republican Leadership Address The Media After Conference MeetingAnd the LA Times reports that now that contribution limits for campaigns are gone, Republicans are no longer interested in public transparency: “During their long campaign to loosen rules on campaign money, conservatives argued that there was a simpler way to prevent corruption: transparency. Get rid of limits on contributions and spending, they said, but make sure voters know where the money is coming from. Today, with those fundraising restrictions largely removed, many conservatives have changed their tune. They now say disclosure could be an enemy of free speech.”

Your choice in November is pretty clear: do you believe in greater transparency with regard to corporations, churches, and individuals donating hundreds of millions of dollars to political campaigns, Super PACs and politicians — or do you defend greater secrecy for the wealthiest donors? Vote your choice, knowing that billionaires and profitable corporations aren’t making these business investments (political donations) for nothing. And history, even as recent as the past 30 years, tells us they’re surely not working for the  betterment of our society but to enact laws to make themselves even wealthier.

Passage of ACA means tax hikes? Hardly — millions will receive tax cuts and credits.

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Think Progress notes “…there is no massive tax hike: few people will ever pay the penalty, and those who do will pay less than the amount of the payroll tax increase that Republicans nearly allowed to occur.

“In addition, according to a report from Families USA, 28.6 million Americans, most of them middle-class, will receive tax cuts under the bill due to entering health care exchanges and receiving affordability credits.

“[...] In addition to these tax credits and the fact that more than 30 million Americans will have new access to health insurance, the health care law will help create millions of jobs.”

think-progress: Why Obamacare is good for the economy.

granholmtwr: What does health care reform mean for you? (Really good stuff) SCOTUS decision is a victory for America.

The steadily shrinking white electorate, Voter ID laws, and the far-right’s “race wars”

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Because, as Jim Galloway at the AJC observes, white voter registration is steadily moving downward: “In May of 2008, African-Americans made up 28 percent of active registered voters in Georgia while whites made up 65 percent and “other” race… In May of 2012, African-Americans made up 29.4 percent of active registered voters, whites made up 60.2 percent, and “other” race made up 10.4 percent. So the downward trend in the white share of voters in Georgia has continued.”

So while GOP lawmakers will try to disenfranchise the voters who they assume wouldn’t vote Republican anyway (i.e. non-whites), the rightwing media are working overtime to whip up enough FEAR and ANGER to get the whites who have voted Republican before into the voting booths again — despite how they feel about Mitt Romney. How? By victimizing whites, by insinuating there’s a race-war, by reminding their audience that everyone thinks they’re the “R” word (racist), and by evoking the usual tribal reaction from their base. McKay Coppins at Buzzfeed outlined some of the main players on the far-right last month in his article, “In Conservative Media, A “Race War” Rages“:

  • Bill O’Reilly, Fox “News” — With the Norfolk, VA story, using the narrative: Black-on-white violence is spiking — and the mainstream media is trying to cover it up.
  • Drudge Report –  ”Miami ‘war zone’ during urban weekend;” “Rib fest at Rochester beach turns rowdy;” and “Unruly urban crowd shuts down Nashville water park.”
  • Tucker Carlson, Daily Caller – ”I was struck by the immediate, uncloaked assumption by the media that Trayvon Martin was innocent.”
  • Rush Limbaugh – ”In Obama’s America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering.”
  • Dan Riehl, Riehl World News, Breitbart News – ”There are special interest groups on the left that exploit reports of white-on-black crime for political gain.”

But as Coppins fairly reports: “Indeed, the irony of the race war narrative’s latest flare-up is that it comes at a time when national crime rates have reached historic lows — including reported hate crimes against whites… What’s more, hate crimes against blacks have continued to outstrip those against whites by about four-to-one: In 2010 alone, there were 2,201 reported. Violent crimes across the spectrum reached a four-decade low in 2010.”

Jobs? Health care reform? Tax cuts for the one percent? Austerity for the rest of us? None of that really matters to low-information voters. Reality and facts, once again, are not part of the narrative that’s written and produced by the American conservative media and performed for the American conservative voter’s entertainment. What gets these people to the voting booth is fear and anger: do you want to be attacked by mobs of ‘rib-eating’ ‘urban’ youths? No? Then you’d better vote for Mitt Romney.

image: Buzzfeed

Related: Bill Maher: the problem with racism is Matt Drudge

Bill Clinton warns of dire consequences if SCOTUS invalidates the individual mandate

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Bill Clinton gives a speech at the Cannes Lions international advertising festival in France on Thursday. (Lionel Cironneau / AP Photo)

The Daily Beast: Clinton says that if the Supreme Court decides to invalidate the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act there will be consequences which aren’t being reported:

  • Changing the health-care delivery system has already produced two years in a row of 4 percent inflation in health-care costs. This is the first time in 50 years that health-care costs have gone up so little. Killing the Affordable Care Act would let inflation loose again.
  • Some 2.6 million people ages 21 to 26, who now have insurance coverage for the first time because they can be carried under their parents’ policy, would lose it.
  • $1.3 billion dollars in insurance refunds have already been paid to businesses and individuals because now the law says 85 percent of your premium has to go to health care and not to profits and promotion. (California hasn’t reported yet, but will likely increase that figure to more than $1.5 billion.) Refunds would shrink.
  • If Republicans succeed in persuading the Supreme Court to repeal the individual mandate, somewhere between 12 million and 16 million Americans will be unable to get health insurance because of preexisting conditions.

“Clinton predicted that if the law is declared unconstitutional, Republicans will suffer a backlash when millions of Americans calculate what they have lost. Before the Affordable Care Act passed, two thirds of all the applications for bankruptcy were because of health-care emergencies, a consequence likely to return if health care inflation again rises precipitously.”

The GOP’s real problem with AG Eric Holder: his opposition to GOP-backed voter suppression laws

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“It’s really important to note how this is connected with some of their other decisions. It is no accident. It is no coincidence that the Attorney General of the United States is the person responsible for making sure that voter suppression does not happen in our country, that issues that relate to the civil liberties of the American people are upheld. These very same people holding in contempt are part of a nationwide scheme to suppress a vote. They are closely aligned with those who are suffocating the system, special interests, secret money, and they are poisoning the debate. They are poisoning the debate with that money. And so what does the average citizen say? They throw up their hands and they say, a pox on both your houses, and that is a victory for the special interest.” – House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, commenting on the effort by House Republicans to pass a resolution finding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress is really about his efforts in opposition to GOP-backed voting laws that Democrats consider forms of voter suppression.

destroythegop: Interesting how these bullet points line up perfectly with The 2012 Republican Platform:

  • GREED
  • HATE
  • FEAR

Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) has said he meets secretly with “kings and queens” at least five times

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“Each and every day that I’ve been a United States senator, I’ve been discussing issues … in secret meetings with kings and queens and prime ministers and business leaders and military leaders talking, voting, working on issues every single day.” -- Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) says he holds daily secret meetings with kings and queens. (via think-progress)

Boston.com: Remember Scott Brown’s gaffe on Thursday? The one about meeting with kings and queens? His staff was quick to say the comment was a flub, acknowledging that the senator has not actually met with royalty. “He misspoke when he said kings and queens,” Brown spokesman Colin Reed said in a statement. But the Massachusetts Democratic Party today released a video showing four prior examples when Brown used the same phrasing about meeting with “kings and queens” while speaking to audiences as part of his reelection bid.

A compilation of Senator Scott Brown and his “secret meetings” with “kings and queens” (via: )

…
And here’s the fifth example.

HOW is this a close race in Massachusetts? How?
image
via: cognitivedissonance

If you’d rather vote for someone who doesn’t imagine they’re meeting secretly with kings and queens every single day, vote for Elizabeth Warren.

An explanation of the Affordable Care Act that’s simple enough for a five-year-old to understand

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redditor captainpixystick explains the Affordable Care Act to you like you’re five.

Bob: Hi, insurance company. I’d like to buy some health insurance.
Insurance company: No. You had cancer when you were 3 years old, and the cancer could come back. We’re not selling you health insurance.
Bob: It’s not my fault I got cancer when I was three! Besides, that was years ago!
Insurance company: If we sell insurance to you, we’ll probably lose money, and we’re not doing it.
Bob: But I need insurance more than anyone! My cancer might come back!
Insurance company: We don’t care. We’re not selling you insurance.
Obama: Hey, that’s totally not fair. Bob is right, he does need insurance! Sell Bob some insurance.
Insurance company: If we have to, I guess.
Mary: This is cool. Obama said the insurance company has to sell insurance to anyone who needs it.
Sam: Hey, I have an idea. I’m going to stop paying for health insurance. If I get sick, I can always go buy some insurance then. The insurance company won’t be able to say no, because Obama’s told them they have to sell it to anyone who needs it!
Dave: that’s a great idea! I’m not paying for health insurance either, at least not until I get sick.
Insurance company: Hey! If everyone stops paying for insurance, we’ll go bankrupt!
Obama: Oh come on Sam and Dave, that’s not fair either.
Dave: I don’t care. It saves me money.
Obama: Oh for god’s sake. Sam, Dave, you have to keep paying for health insurance, and not wait until you’re sick. You too, Mary and Bob.
Mary: But I’m broke! I can’t buy insurance! I just don’t have any money.
Obama: Mary, show me your piggy bank. Oh, wow, you really are broke. Ok, tell you what. You still have to buy insurance, but I’ll help you pay 95% of the cost.
Mary: thank you.
Obama: I need an aspirin.
Insurance company: We’re not paying for that aspirin.

Source: reddit.com (via: wilwheaton)

Everyone’s a hostage until the GOP gets its way

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Politics before country — the Republican Party’s motto.

Think Progress: With as many as 2.9 million new and existing jobs on the line, House Republicans are refusing to pass a transportation reauthorization bill, even after the Senate’s version of the bill overwhelmingly passed through the upper chamber in a 74-22 bipartisan vote. The deadline for new transportation funding is June 30, and if the calendar flips to July without a compromise, as many as 1.9 million workers could lose their jobs, at least temporarily. The Senate version of the bill, if adapted, would create an additional one million new jobs as well, according to Department of Transportation projections.
So why are House Republicans holding nearly three million jobs hostage? Because they want approval of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline to be included in the bill.

[...] The State Department estimates that roughly 6,000 jobs would be created if the Keystone XL is approved, but as few as 20 of them will be permanent.

More on the Republican budget plan analysis: Obama’s plan vs the GOP plan

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More on that Republican budget plan analysis from Think Progress:

Here’s the breakdown of how much each income group would receive in tax cuts under the respective plans. The GOP plan would give millionaires an additional $50,000 annually, while taxing the lowest-income Americans $150 more than Obama’s plan:

Under the GOP plan, nearly one-third of the total benefit goes to the richest 1 percent, while just 11 percent of the benefit of Obama’s plan does:

Of course, both of these plans entail spending huge amounts of money to extend tax cuts that didn’t deliver on their economic promise. But under the GOP plan, an even larger percentage of that money would be dumped straight into the hands of those at the top of the income scale.

Paul Ryan’s budget: the middle class should pay more tax and the wealthiest should pay less

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What could the Republicans want to distract the public’s attention from with this Eric Holder / contempt business? How about this:

Brian Buetler explains a new analysis of Paul Ryan’s budget (which was endorsed by Mitt Romney), by Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee, with the help of data from the Tax Policy Center:

Republicans want the broad middle class to pay more taxes than they currently do, and the upper class to pay significantly less.

[...] Republicans want to dramatically lower the top tax rate and eliminate brackets so there are only two — one at 25 percent, one at 10 percent. That would put a huge amount of cash in the pockets of high income earners. For middle class earners, it’d be a much more modest sum. To make the plan revenue neutral, Ryan claims Republicans would close myriad loopholes that disproportionately benefit the upper-middle and upper classes — he just won’t say which ones.

The rub is that Ryan’s tax cuts are expensive and to pay for ithem he’d likely have to clawback the biggest middle-class tax benefits — like the mortgage interest deduction, and the tax exclusion on employer health benefits — such that the net effect for people making less than $200,000 would be a higher annual tax burden. The plan redistributes wealth upwards.

The Washington Post: Middle class would face higher taxes under Republican plan: The report, prepared by Senate Democrats and reviewed by nonpartisan tax experts, marks the first attempt to quantify the trade-offs inherent in the GOP tax package, which would replace the current tax structure with two brackets — 25 percent and 10 percent — and cut the top rate from 35 percent.Those changes would benefit virtually every taxpayer, but they also would reduce federal tax collections by about $4.5 trillion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. To avoid increasing the national debt by that amount, GOP leaders such as House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (Wis.) have pledged to get rid of all the special-interest loopholes and tax shelters that litter the code.

“There is nothing in Leviticus that says you may not regulate derivatives.”

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“You don’t build a movement with short-term tactics. You build a movement by understanding and change the way people think. The day everyone says in America, ‘You know what? There’s no missing page of Genesis that says there are separate tax rates for capital gains. There is nothing in Leviticus that says you may not regulate derivatives. This is not stuff that has to be. This is just a bunch of people who decided our public policy should be to redistribute all of the wealth in our society to a very small number of our people. It’s public policy. It’s not ancient. It’s not God, and we have the power to change it.’ That’s what will enable us to break through the log jams to re-regulate the Dodd-Frank process. That’s what will break through.” – New York’s state attorney general Eric Schneiderman, reminding progressives at the Take Back the American Dream conference in Washington, D.C. that the right’s efforts to fight financial regulation is far from divinely inspired.