It’s a little surprising to me why so much attention is being given to the extremist Tea Party. What’s so shocking about a bunch of older, white rich men being angry at the rest of the country? They’ve demonstrated for the better part of 30 years that they love to cast themselves as the victims of our society – so nothing they’re saying today is novel, let alone grounded in reality.
Be that as it may, more and more corporate media outlets are running polls to try to crack the nearly impenetrable nut that the Tea Party supposedly represents. In politics, it’s always good to have numbers to back up arguments. It won’t make the fringe right-wing any more accountable for their own actions, but the rest of America at least gets a chance to see who they really are.
A majority of Tea Party folks don’t actually seem to be so terribly upset about taxes, which commenters commonly cite as their raison d’etre. They have said so themselves – they think they’re being taxed fairly. They have a skewed view of the job President Obama is doing, especially as it relates to the federal deficit and the health insurance mess that was the result of a wasted year of “debate”.
Their deficit concerns are incredibly laughable. And I think they actually demonstrate what they’re really concerned about. Before I get to that, I would like to point out that no media polling has yet asked a very important question: if the deficit is really so troubling to you, where were you in the years 2001-2008, when the federal deficit exploded? President Obama has added a little to the national deficit, it’s true. I say a little because the last president added many times what this President has or will. Angry, old, rich white men weren’t screaming about revolts and revolutions last decade.
Why? Because the president looked like them; because he was one of them. When the Tea Partiers are threatening to commit violence and cheering domestic terrorists in 2009 and 2010, it is in no small part due to the fact that they don’t like operating in a society that takes care of everybody. The Tea Partiers loved the historic transfer of wealth that the Cons gave to rich white people. They’re angry because some of that wealth might find its way back to the people who gave it up in the last 10 years. Tea Partiers are greedy and selfish. A majority of them are racist, evidenced by a growing number of poll results, given by the Tea Partiers themselves.
These extremists have made up their own twisted version of history and are trying to force it onto the rest of the country. Terrorists and their supporters should not be given credence by our media. That wouldn’t happen if the corporate media didn’t cater primarily to them.
John Hickenlooper, Denver’s current mayor and candidate for Colorado’s 2010 Governor race, is continuing his bid to show Coloradans who can worship the most at the feet of the business community: himself or Con candidate Scott McInnis. Coloradans are looking for a choice, Mayor. If you try to paint yourself as Republican-lite, Coloradans will choose the true Republican.
What has raised my ire today? Another Denver Post article detailing the mayor’s words at a Chamber of Commerce meeting yesterday. According to the mayor, Colorado is now known as an anti-business state, Ritter sided with “overboard” environmentalists and raising taxes in a recession is “crazy”.
At this point, Hick is going to have to work very, very hard to secure my vote this November. I don’t want a person with a “D” after their name in the Governor’s mansion governing like he wants to be a Con. Continue Reading →
Occasionally, a number of things catch my eye on the same day. With so much, I can’t go into detail about all of it. Instead, I try to sample them with much shorter opinions. Here’s today’s:
“Democrats Are Jarred By Drop In Fundraising“. Really? Democrats are really jarred by this? A big reason might be it’s nearly October2009 and all the Democratic-led government has done is given away trillions of dollars to rich people and corporations while working feverishly to explain to America that they just can’t put together real health care reform. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Americans are unlikely to continue forking over their hard-earned cash to such insipid waffling.
“Petitions target state spending” sounds innocuous, until you realize that the right-wing rag Denver Post decided on the lede. Three ballot initiative petitions are circulating in CO that would take an additional $1 billion per year away from the government to do things like fix roads and bridges, maintain telecommunications infrastructure and give a big middle finger to local school districts who voted to opt out of spending limits. It seems the Cons talking point about keeping control local doesn’t apply when people don’t agree with their insane economic policies. The petitions will gather signatures, there’s no doubt about that. But asking Coloradans to further weigh the state government down when everything is already being defunded thanks to similar efforts in the past? I doubt that will resonate. Who knows, though – Coloradans could again prove how senseless they are.
“Rural counties taking a beating” tries to perpetuate the story that urbanites are likely to overlook rural concerns as the economy tries to recover. It ignores one simple, basic fact though. Those “common-sensical” rural folks? Yeah, they voted for the economic policies that caused the Great Recession for over 30 years. It seems to me their “concerns” carried too much weight in the past – and it’s brought all of us down. They want to lead a different kind of life than those of us in the cities? That’s fine, it’s their right after all. But it sounds stupid when they complain about conditions they created. How about the concerns of the majority of Coloradans, who happen to live in cities?
The obvious question to the anti-tax crowd’s planned parties today is why didn’t they demonstrate against the Republican tax rates when Republicans were in control. There is an easy answer, of course. They weren’t told to do so by their propaganda outlet, Fox. Now that Fox is in a tizzy and Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey are working their hypocritical little butts off to reformulate their party after 8 disastrous, mis-managed years, the “crowds” are coming out.
Also of interest to me is how little the crowds truly understand what the Boston Tea Party was all about. Of course, since they haven’t believed in public education for a couple of generations, perhaps that shouldn’t be too surprising. They’ve been too busy remaking their own history to actually learn what happened in reality. These fools have had representation for their taxation, which completely rejects the premise they’re basing their little whine fest on.
Moreover, these herd-mentality-driven non-grassroots “activists” are showing up (if they really do) to protest the lowest effective tax rate on the top 2%. Not their own tax rate, which happens to be higher in many cases than the top 2%.
I will also point out that it is hilarious to see homophobic, rights-hating “conservatives” prop up an event that has a clear man-man sex-part basis. The Cons have had a bizarre fetish with man parts and man love for a long time. While they’re celebrating ensuring a portion of population not having the same rights as everybody else, they’re using man-on-man activities to protest the top 2%’s tax rate that their representatives and President put into place. Bizarro world, I’m telling you.
I’m glad to see some appropriate coverage from the corporate media about these events. It’s not the top story, but some people at MSNBC are talking about how top-driven the Republicon party remains.
And while those “activists” are carrying around signs attacking “socialism”, some of their fellow party members are actively planning to recruit returning servicemembers to their extremist cause. The irony continues to bubble to the top, doesn’t it? The “activists” are being told by Faux News that President Obama is a socialist. Too lazy and brain-washed to think critically about such a ridiculous statement, the “activists” ignore the true socialists in their midst; socialists that have already acted in violence against members of their community; socialists that are obviously continuing to plan violent attacks against other Americans and perhaps the President himself.
So let’s call them what they are: these activists are cowards. They choose to ignore the evidence of violent socialists in their midst (and do anything about it) because it’s easier to follow instructions from TV personalities. Can you imagine the uproar we would hear if these same cowards were being told of violent extremists within the Democratic party recruiting for attacks on a Con president like Bush? The world would damn near be ending for these fools.
The money comes from the city’s half-cent sales tax, collected especially for economic development projects that bring new revenue into the Pueblo area.
A 1/2 cent sales tax, in just this one instance, will create 140 high paying jobs in Pueblo. That tax and those jobs are an investment in the community of Pueblo. Cons would rather see that tax go away, and with it, this expansion and those jobs.
Ascent Solar announced it is moving its headquarters and manufacturing from Littleton to Thornton last Tuesday. While the move will occur within Colorado, it will allow for expansion of thin-film solar photovoltaic panel manufacturing. That expansion will generate up to 300 more good paying jobs. Ascent will initially be able to produce panels that can generate 25 megawatts of energy per year. By 2011, they expect to be able to manufacture 100 megawatts of solar energy producing panels per year.
An ongoing story in Colorado’s New Energy Economy, under Gov. Ritter’s leadership and vision, is that of Vestas Wind Systems. Due to active outreach, Vestas decided to build a wind blade manufacturing plant near Winsor, CO. The location is near railroad infrastructure, allowing delivery of wind blades to other areas around the country where wind farms are being constructed. Due to further outreach by Gov. Ritter, Vestas decided to expand operations. Along the way, Hexcel Corp. decided to build a new plant near the Vestas facilities.
Danish Crown Prince Frederik said Wednesday that expanding a country’s renewable energy sources and recovering from a recession don’t have to be mutually exclusive. “Denmark is economically competitive not in spite of these efforts, but because of them,” he said at a Brighton plant groundbreaking for Danish wind-turbine maker Vestas Wind Systems.
Did you read that, Colorado Cons? Denmark is economically competitive because they’ve invested in renewable energy sources. It really shouldn’t be that shocking, but these kinds of events and statements need increased publicity to deliver their positive message.
The Post article has some important numbers:
The prince, his wife, Crown Princess Mary, and Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter attended the ceremony for two parts plants by Vestas, which already has a blade-making plant in Windsor, about 50 miles north of Denver. More than 200 people work there and 650 are expected at full employment.
The company also is planning a 400-employee factory in Pueblo to build towers that support the turbines, which it has said would be the world’s largest such factory.
The two plants will employ about 1,350 people at full operation, expected next year. Ole Borup Jakobsen, president of Vestas Blades, said the plants’ annual production eventually will reach 2,000 blades and 1,400 nacelles, which are housings for the turbine’s generator, transformer and gearbox.
State officials said Vestas is spending about $290 million to build the two plants. The company will also locate an employee training and development division and a technology and production engineering office in Brighton.
I’ll add all this up: 650 + 400 + 1350 = 2,400 good paying Colorado jobs. Those Colorado jobs will help generate renewable energy, which will reduce greenhouse gas pollution, which does cost us money – it just hasn’t been properly accounted for in the past. $290 million spent in a state that is in a recession. That’s not chump change. That’s real money that will help provide a needed boost. This article doesn’t go into how many more jobs will be created at the training or engineering offices. It also doesn’t (because it can’t) provide information on other renewable energy companies moving operations to Colorado, employing more people and benefiting the state, just like Hexcel has done. How many other companies will follow suit? I look forward to finding out.
I will point out that the Cons are nowhere to be seen nor heard. Gov. Ritter and many others are hard at work creating real jobs in Colorado at a time when we need them most. These jobs will lay the foundation for the green-powered energy revolution that will come about. Beholden to their failed ideology, the Cons are failing to be “bipartisan” or “moderate” in this case (among others). I’ll remember that as the 2010 Governor race heats up. We’re sure to hear the Cons complain about how partisan and extreme Democrats have been. The corporate media will of course fail to point out the projection and hypocrisy of those comments, but I won’t. Where is uber-Con Dick Wadhams? Where is the “moderate” Scott McInnis? Why are the Cons missing in this story and why isn’t the corporate media pointing it out?
From a press release from Colorado’s House staff yesterday:
A bill limiting a tax evasion scheme used by Wal-Mart and other large corporations is on its way to Governor Bill Ritter after final passage by the House this morning [Mar. 11th]. Sponsored by State Representative Claire Levy (D-Boulder) and Senator Jennifer Veiga (D-Denver), House Bill 1093 aims to increase corporate transparency, disclosure, and fair payment of taxes owed.
[...]
The Wall Street Journal and others have noted that Wal-Mart pays itself rent and calls that a tax-deductible business expense, thus skirting payment of standard taxes. The Journal notes that Wal-Mart avoided paying $350 million in state taxes between 1998 and 2001.
Rep. Levy explained that federal tax law created REITs to allow small investors to participate in real estate markets that would otherwise require very large amounts of capital. Legitimate use of REITs is not affected by this bill. The bill implements the long-standing policy in Colorado that corporate profits earned in the state are subject to state tax, and it distinguishes between valid Real Estate Investment Trusts and Captive REITs such as Wal-Mart.
This is at least in part due to the Cons’ insistence that responsibility for actions be expected. They were talking about personal responsibility while hypocritically turning a blind-eye to corporate responsibility. It’s bills like this that make me glad the Democrats are in control of Colorado’s government. Thank you, Rep. Levy and Sen. Veiga.
Colorado infrastructure was graded by the Colorado chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers. They gave the state’s infrastructure an overall grade of C+ in a report released two weeks ago, rating Colorado’s aviation system highest and its roads as the worst. It also forecast that 10 of the 13 systems evaluated will deteriorate in the next two years: dam safety, drinking water, wastewater treatment, aviation, roads, environmental cleanup, bridges, education, energy and mass transit. Billions of dollars in infrastructure maintenance and upgrades are needed. The anti-investment folks have ruled the roost for a generation. Now, the bill is coming due. Will we do the right thing and decide to continue to invest in ourselves and our communities?
The plan hinges on essentially mortgaging out a number of public buildings to private investors, and the debt would be paid off over the next 10 to 15 years.
This is exactly why I identify them as Cons. This is a shell game: selling buildings that the public owns will constitute a one-time cash infusion. That’s great for this year. What about next year? Sell more buildings? Eventually, the public owns nothing, private “investors” own everything and they’ll charge the public to use the places the public used to own. What the state needs is a regular inflow of money to keep and maintain the property it’s supposed to keep and maintain. This situation is exactly what Grover Norquist, Douglas Bruce and the rest of the Cons wanted to create. They wanted to force the issue of whether the public gets to keep its property. Automobile registration fees should be fair game. The gas tax hasn’t increased in 17 years, while number of vehicle-miles driven has skyrocketed, placing ever-increasing pressure on the bridges in question. That’s the other thing the Cons want: something for nothing. Too bad life doesn’t work out that way.
John McCain’s campaign continues to flail away helplessly as November 4th approaches. Republicans think they can win this year by beating on the “taxes are bad” drum. It has always been nonsensical to do so, but the way in which McCain is doing it right now is especially ridiculous. According to McCain, his own tax cuts (for the richest only) are “reform”, but Obama’s tax cuts are “welfare”. Really, John? Tax cuts for rich people and corporations aren’t “reform”: George Bush Jr., George Bush Sr. and Ronald Reagan implemented them for the past 28 years. It’s what’s led to the sorry state of America’s infrastructure and threatens Social Security and Medicare. Americans are obviously tired of the pro-corporate welfare Republicans have pushed for so long. They realize they’re not getting any benefit from that policy. By the way, this ridiculous claim is McCain’s 158th lie since February. Heroes don’t lie.
[Update]: The McCain campaign is trying to scare voters by accusing Barack Obama of being a socialist. They’re trying to scare voters into believing that Obama’s redistribution of wealth will be a bad thing. It will be bad … for McCain and his multi-millionaire backers. They’re the only ones who benefitted from Bush’s tax cuts. It’s the millionaires that will have to pay more taxes under an Obama administration. What McCain won’t tell the American people is that his proposal to make Bush’s tax cuts permanent will cause the collapse of Social Security and Medicare. McCain’s economic policies would mean no more funding for education and no more funding for renewable energy research. But we would keep occupying Iraq at the exorbitant cost of $10 billion per month. And millionaires would be allowed to invest even less of their money in the public’s infrastructure that they use so heavily. That’s immoral.
billmon has a post that well worth the time to read. McCain’s description of Obama as “socialist” and Palin’s description of only certain regions of America as “pro-American” is disturbing on many levels. One particularly important paragraph:
We’ve crossed some more lines, in other words — in a long series of lines that have made it increasingly difficult to distinguish between the ultraconservative wing of the Republican Party and an explicitly fascist political movement. And John McCain and his political handlers appear to have no moral compunctions whatsoever about whipping this movement into a frenzy and providing it with scapegoats for all that hatred, simply to try to shave a few points off Barack Obama’s lead in the polls.
This demonstrates something I’ve been saying: Sarah Palin has nothing to offer in foreign policy discussions. She was not invited to discuss the draft Iraq security agreement with the White House. Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and John McCain were. Sarah Palin doesn’t have the experience or qualifications necessary to be Vice-President.
NASA has a new spacecraft that will launch this weekend: Ibex. Ibex will investigate the region of space where our star’s influence meets the interstellar wind. Voyager 1 has already moved beyond the heliosphere. Ibex will study the heliosphere as it orbits Earth.
Jet streams above Jupiter and Saturn flow eastward. Jet streams above Uranus and Neptune flow westward. Earth’s tropical jet stream flows eastward. The subtropical jets flow westward. A reason why: the amount and location of water vapor in the respective atmospheres. Condensation of water vapor releases energy in the form of heat to the atmosphere. Eddies and vortices form from rising water vapor. As they shear apart, they transport momentum to the jet streams.
Chicago’s worst rain in 137 years. Since records began, Chicago hasn’t seen as much rain in one 24-hour period as they did Saturday. Severe weather events like this have been predicted as a result of global warming. Strong tropical systems will continue to inundate inland regions hundreds of miles away from the ocean. Records will continue to fall.
Sarah Palin lies again. She wants to work on energy security and government reform, citing her record as a preview. Let’s see – record fossil fuel drilling in Alaska under her watch. She killed a wind farm project. Twice. She has appointed her unqualified high school friends into agency leadership posts. She vetoed a government transparency project. America, pay attention. This is the version of energy security and government reform that Republicans Sarah Palin and John McCain would bring to the executive office. They’ve proved Republicans can’t govern. Don’t give them a bigger stage on which to show those skills.
Sarah Palin thinks she is better than the rest of us. And ends up looking guiltier because of it. If there really wasn’t any ethical lapses involved with her firing of the public safety commissioner, she should cooperate fully with the investigation. That has bipartisan support: Democrats and Republicans came together to figure out what happened. (By a unanimous 12-0 vote). But Sarah Palin doesn’t want to answer to her constituents until after the November election, despite promising Alaskans that she was running on an accountability and transparency platform.
ohwilleke has a very good write-up about Troy Eid’s snide attack on bloggers. Quick, convene the blogger ethics panel!
Sarah Palin said she will provide renewed attention to kids with special needs. I hope it’s not the kind of attention she paid them in Alaska, where Sarah Palin cut the Special Olympics budget in half. I can’t wait for the wing-nuts to tell me cutting the budget really isn’t cutting the budget again.
Foreclosures are setting records, inflation is high, unemployment is rising, real income has been stagnant for seven years. Taxpayers have bailed out one investment firm. Another was left to fail. Merill Lynch has been bought out. The biggest insurance firm in the nation is begging for cash. American automakers want a taxpayer bailout. But Republican John McCain continues to say the fundamentals of the economy are strong. McCain was correct back in January when he said he didn’t understand economics as well as he should. Of course, none of his seven houses are under threat of foreclosure. And he still has his job. For now.
The prevailing view in Washington argued against bailing out homeowners who made bad financial decisions, buying houses they couldn’t afford, or the lenders who wrote those loans.
Republicans removed responsible oversight from lenders and now the economy is in a tail-spin. Republican John McCain wants to continue this disastrous economic policy.
CNN just had a spot on about the rates credit card companies will start charging if your monthly payment is even one day late: 30% or more! It won’t matter what your credit rating or payment history is, they said.
As things stand right not, credit card companies can charge interest rates that are outrageous. The host asked their financial adviser what people can do if this happens. Here’s a novel concept: how about some legislation from Congress?
Here’s why: the actions these corporations are taking work from a punishment frame: miss their deadline and BAM!, you’re in trouble. How about rewards for doing things correctly, like making your minimum monthly payment or history of on-time payments.
