Thursday, January 31, 2013
Monday, January 28, 2013
Why Senator Bernie Sanders Voted No on So Called Filibuster Reform
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Last week Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent member of the Democratic caucus, was the only member of that caucus to vote NO on the so-called filibuster reform package passed in the U.S. Senate. Below is Bernie’s statement on why he voted NO. Thank you for your interest. -Ben Ben Eisenberg Friends of Bernie Sanders |
| January 24, 2013 U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) This country faces major crises in terms of the economy and unemployment, the deficit, global warming, health care, campaign finance reform, education and a crumbling infrastructure – to name a few. In my view, none of these problems will be effectively addressed so long as one senator can demand 60 votes to pass legislation. The rule changes adopted today are a step forward in making the operations of the Senate more efficient and expeditious. They are not enough. Most Americans grew up believing that in America the majority rules. That is not the case in the Senate. For many years now, especially since President Obama has been in office, it has taken 60 votes to pass any significant piece of legislation. When Lyndon Johnson was majority leader in the 1950s, he filed cloture to end a filibuster only once. Majority Leader Reid has filed cloture 390 times. The Senate is not the House and the minority party must be treated with respect and given the opportunity to offer amendments and make their case in opposition. A minority must not, however, be allowed to permanently obstruct the wishes of the majority. That is not democracy. That is a perversion of democracy. In my view, if a senator or a group of senators are strenuously opposed to legislation they have the right and duty to come to the floor and, for as long as they want, engage in a talking filibuster by explaining to the American people the reasons for their objection. They should not, however, continue to have the right to abuse arcane Senate rules to block a majority of senators from acting on behalf of the American people. |
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Did Louisiana's Gov Bobby Jindal Really "Speak Truth to Power"?!
On the news for the last few days, there has been much talk about Bobby Jindal’s opinion of what the republican party should do about it’s shrinking membership. He said they should say something different. Niether the party nor Jindal still really gets the picture. The people have caught on to the lies the republican party has told with straight faces all these past thirty years and now have finally caught on that their word don’t amount a hill of beans. They have been double dealing to their own constituents all of this time, claiming to be on the side of the people while favoring corporations at the expense of the citizenry, You can change the message, but if you don’t change the things you do, you haven’t done nothing. And that is essentially what Bobby Jindal is saying; don’t change anything you’re doing, just change how you say it! This isn’t anything new. Republicans have been rebranding the party over and over all these years doing the same ole thing. That’s not my idea of speaking truth to power. That’s a cover for the republican party by the news media.
They may be putting Gov. Jindal on a pedestal but that’s the last place he belongs. When he became governor, the state of Louisiana was swimming in money. As is always the case with republicans, he came in and gave away all of the money in tax breaks for the rich and corporations and now the state is in deficit. He brought his friends with him and almost instantly doubled their salaries. Now he is cutting the state’s budget so that needed state programs, like education and health services have become sorely lacking. Not only that. He has turned down federal money intended to help in healthcare of which the government will pay nearly 100 percent for the first two years. Tell me, what’s so great about that?! They came up with some shallow excuse about future costs. You can say what you want, but unless the state will have to pay more than 60% of it’s own healthcare in the future there is no good excuse for that kind of stupidity!
He said that the GOP must not become the “austerity party”. Yet, while his lips say this, there is no better evidence of his hypocrisy than looking the austerity policies he has been stridently putting in place during his governmental regime in Louisiana. And that is how republican politicians play the game; proclaim one thing while doing the exact opposite.
Even now, he is trying a tax swap that will put even more burden on 80% of the citizens of the state by eliminating corporate taxes and income taxes and adding $1 per package of cigarettes and adding 4cents to state taxes. And all the time he has already given corporations $4 billion a year in tax exemptions.
And last, but surely not least, in a state that is over thirty percent black. Gov Jindal has displayed absolute disdain, disrespect and disregard for people of color, even though he, himself is a person of color.
The media can acclaim Gov. Jindal as the next coming of Messiah if they want to, but you can be sure that the social media will be there to set the record straight. This is no longer the FOX only news era. There are other, more reliable news sources now, The truth will come out, and I don’t mean Bobby Jindal’s or the conservative’s truth, I mean the REAL TRUTH!
They may be putting Gov. Jindal on a pedestal but that’s the last place he belongs. When he became governor, the state of Louisiana was swimming in money. As is always the case with republicans, he came in and gave away all of the money in tax breaks for the rich and corporations and now the state is in deficit. He brought his friends with him and almost instantly doubled their salaries. Now he is cutting the state’s budget so that needed state programs, like education and health services have become sorely lacking. Not only that. He has turned down federal money intended to help in healthcare of which the government will pay nearly 100 percent for the first two years. Tell me, what’s so great about that?! They came up with some shallow excuse about future costs. You can say what you want, but unless the state will have to pay more than 60% of it’s own healthcare in the future there is no good excuse for that kind of stupidity!
He said that the GOP must not become the “austerity party”. Yet, while his lips say this, there is no better evidence of his hypocrisy than looking the austerity policies he has been stridently putting in place during his governmental regime in Louisiana. And that is how republican politicians play the game; proclaim one thing while doing the exact opposite.
Even now, he is trying a tax swap that will put even more burden on 80% of the citizens of the state by eliminating corporate taxes and income taxes and adding $1 per package of cigarettes and adding 4cents to state taxes. And all the time he has already given corporations $4 billion a year in tax exemptions.
And last, but surely not least, in a state that is over thirty percent black. Gov Jindal has displayed absolute disdain, disrespect and disregard for people of color, even though he, himself is a person of color.
The media can acclaim Gov. Jindal as the next coming of Messiah if they want to, but you can be sure that the social media will be there to set the record straight. This is no longer the FOX only news era. There are other, more reliable news sources now, The truth will come out, and I don’t mean Bobby Jindal’s or the conservative’s truth, I mean the REAL TRUTH!
Bobby Jindal's Policies No More Reasonable Than Tea Parties'
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Thursday, January 24, 2013
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Want to Know How Louisiana Got into the Fiscal Crisis We're In? Read This!
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Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
The Soul of America
The Soul of America
By Senator Bernie Sanders
January 9, 2013
Despite such terminology as "fiscal cliff" and "debt ceiling," the great debate taking place in Washington now has relatively little to do with financial issues. It is all about ideology. It is all about economic winners and losers in American society. It is all about the power of Big Money. It is all about the soul of America.
In America today, we have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on earth, and more inequality than at any time period since 1928. The top 1 percent owns 42 percent of the financial wealth of the nation, while, incredibly, the bottom 60 percent own only 2.3 percent. One family, the Walton family of Wal-Mart, owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of Americans. In terms of income distribution in 2010, the last study done on this issue, the top 1 percent earned 93 percent of all new income while the bottom 99 percent shared the remaining 7 percent.
Despite the reality that the rich are becoming much richer while the middle class collapses and the number of Americans living in poverty is at an all-time high, the Republicans and their billionaire backers want more, more, and more. The class warfare continues.
My Republican colleagues say that the deficits are a spending problem, not a revenue problem. What these deficit-hawk hypocrites won't talk about is their spending. They won't discuss what they did to dig the country into this $1 trillion deep deficit hole. They waged wars in Afghanistan and Iraq without paying for them. They gave away huge tax breaks for the rich. They squandered taxpayer dollars on the pharmaceutical industry by making it illegal to let Medicare bargain for lower drug prices. They also rescinded financial regulations that enabled Wall Street to operate like a gambling casino, leading to a severe recession that eroded tax revenue and left more than 14 percent of American workers unemployed or underemployed.
Now, despite the deficits their policies helped to create and despite the enormous suffering which exists in our society, the Republicans want to cut Social Security, veterans' programs, Medicare, Medicaid, education, nutrition programs, and virtually every program which benefits low- and moderate-income Americans. They choose to turn their backs on the economic reality facing a significant part of our population: high unemployment, reduced wages, 50 million without health insurance, college graduates saddled with enormous student debt and elderly people living in desperation. And they have tried to slam the door on any further discussion about how to raise revenue by ending tax loopholes and unfair tax breaks.
Republicans like Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who say the revenue debate is over don't want you to consider these facts:
The simple truth is there are relatively easy ways to deal with the deficit crisis -- without attacking the elderly, the children the sick or the poor.
For example, we have got to eliminate loopholes in the tax code that allow large corporations and the wealthy to avoid more than $100 billion in taxes every year by setting up offshore tax shelters in places like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the Bahamas. This situation has become so absurd that one five-story office building in the Cayman Islands is now the "home" to more than 18,000 corporations.
Further, we must also end tax breaks for companies shipping American jobs overseas. Today, the United State government continues to reward companies that move American manufacturing jobs abroad, despite the fact that millions of American jobs have been outsourced to China, Mexico, and other low wage countries over the past decade. The Joint Committee on Taxation (the official revenue scorekeeper in Congress) has estimated that we could raise more than $582 billion in revenue over the next decade by eliminating these offshore tax loopholes.
We must also recognize that Wall Street recklessness caused the economic crisis, and it has a responsibility to reduce the deficit. Establishing a 0.03 percent Wall Street speculation fee, similar to what we had from 1914-1966, would dampen the dangerous level of speculation and gambling on Wall Street, encourage the financial sector to invest in the productive economy and reduce the deficit by more than $350 billion over 10 years.
We are entering a pivotal moment in the modern history of our country. Do the elected officials in Washington stand with ordinary Americans -- working families, children, the elderly, the poor -- or will the extraordinary power of billionaire campaign contributors and Big Money prevail? The American people, by the millions, must send Congress the answer to that question.
By Senator Bernie Sanders
January 9, 2013
Despite such terminology as "fiscal cliff" and "debt ceiling," the great debate taking place in Washington now has relatively little to do with financial issues. It is all about ideology. It is all about economic winners and losers in American society. It is all about the power of Big Money. It is all about the soul of America.
In America today, we have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on earth, and more inequality than at any time period since 1928. The top 1 percent owns 42 percent of the financial wealth of the nation, while, incredibly, the bottom 60 percent own only 2.3 percent. One family, the Walton family of Wal-Mart, owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of Americans. In terms of income distribution in 2010, the last study done on this issue, the top 1 percent earned 93 percent of all new income while the bottom 99 percent shared the remaining 7 percent.
Despite the reality that the rich are becoming much richer while the middle class collapses and the number of Americans living in poverty is at an all-time high, the Republicans and their billionaire backers want more, more, and more. The class warfare continues.
My Republican colleagues say that the deficits are a spending problem, not a revenue problem. What these deficit-hawk hypocrites won't talk about is their spending. They won't discuss what they did to dig the country into this $1 trillion deep deficit hole. They waged wars in Afghanistan and Iraq without paying for them. They gave away huge tax breaks for the rich. They squandered taxpayer dollars on the pharmaceutical industry by making it illegal to let Medicare bargain for lower drug prices. They also rescinded financial regulations that enabled Wall Street to operate like a gambling casino, leading to a severe recession that eroded tax revenue and left more than 14 percent of American workers unemployed or underemployed.
Now, despite the deficits their policies helped to create and despite the enormous suffering which exists in our society, the Republicans want to cut Social Security, veterans' programs, Medicare, Medicaid, education, nutrition programs, and virtually every program which benefits low- and moderate-income Americans. They choose to turn their backs on the economic reality facing a significant part of our population: high unemployment, reduced wages, 50 million without health insurance, college graduates saddled with enormous student debt and elderly people living in desperation. And they have tried to slam the door on any further discussion about how to raise revenue by ending tax loopholes and unfair tax breaks.
Republicans like Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who say the revenue debate is over don't want you to consider these facts:
- Federal revenue today, at 15.8 percent of GDP, is lower today than it was 60 years ago. During the last year of the Clinton administration, when we had a significant federal surplus, federal revenue was 20.6 percent of GDP.
- Today corporate profits are at an all-time high, while corporate income tax revenue as a percentage of GDP is near a record low.
- In 2011, corporate revenue as a percentage of GDP was just 1.2 percent -- lower than any other major country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, including Britain, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, Norway, Australia, South Korea, Switzerland, Norway, Italy, Ireland, Poland, and Iceland.
- In 2011, corporations paid just 12 percent of their profits in taxes, the lowest since 1972.
- In 2005, one out of four large corporations paid no income taxes at all while they collected $1.1 trillion in revenue over that one-year period.
The simple truth is there are relatively easy ways to deal with the deficit crisis -- without attacking the elderly, the children the sick or the poor.
For example, we have got to eliminate loopholes in the tax code that allow large corporations and the wealthy to avoid more than $100 billion in taxes every year by setting up offshore tax shelters in places like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the Bahamas. This situation has become so absurd that one five-story office building in the Cayman Islands is now the "home" to more than 18,000 corporations.
Further, we must also end tax breaks for companies shipping American jobs overseas. Today, the United State government continues to reward companies that move American manufacturing jobs abroad, despite the fact that millions of American jobs have been outsourced to China, Mexico, and other low wage countries over the past decade. The Joint Committee on Taxation (the official revenue scorekeeper in Congress) has estimated that we could raise more than $582 billion in revenue over the next decade by eliminating these offshore tax loopholes.
We must also recognize that Wall Street recklessness caused the economic crisis, and it has a responsibility to reduce the deficit. Establishing a 0.03 percent Wall Street speculation fee, similar to what we had from 1914-1966, would dampen the dangerous level of speculation and gambling on Wall Street, encourage the financial sector to invest in the productive economy and reduce the deficit by more than $350 billion over 10 years.
We are entering a pivotal moment in the modern history of our country. Do the elected officials in Washington stand with ordinary Americans -- working families, children, the elderly, the poor -- or will the extraordinary power of billionaire campaign contributors and Big Money prevail? The American people, by the millions, must send Congress the answer to that question.
![Seriously fishy. (Thanks to @[177486166274:274:Being Liberal]!)](http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/s480x480/602895_539953999348916_1065847537_n.jpg)
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
After Bailout , AIG Sues Federal Government. That's Gratitude!
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Friday, January 4, 2013
Pentagon Developing Drones That Will Kill Without Human Input; Judgment Day, the Beginning!
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Where Government Savings Should Be Come From , Not Social Programs
We can save 100s of billions by:
We thank you for your continued support in the ongoing struggle for a more peaceful and just world! |
Thursday, January 3, 2013
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