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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:26:26 GMT
*****REPUBLICAN******  The Republican Party is nothing more than a front group for billionaires and transnational corporations and now that the Republican Party is 100% Conservative it is even worse than George Carlin could have ever imagined.
And since conservatives and the conservative ideology took over the Republican Party (after 1965) they have continually put politics over people's lives.
GOP - We only attract the BEST and the BRIGHTEST! WE ARE THE PARTY OF: Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Sharon Angle, Christine O'Donnell, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, T. Nelson, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Ted Nugent, Alan West, Jan Brewer, Ann Coulter, Michelle Bachmann, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, George Bush, Jeb Bush, Grover Norquist, Glenn Beck, The Koch Bros., Mark Sanford, DICK Cheney, Paul Ryan, Larry Craig, Mitch O'Connell, Chris Christie, John Boehner, Karl Rove, Mike Huckabee, Trey Radel, Bobby Jindal, Eric Cantor, Michael Grimm, Stacey Campfield and last but not least FOX NEWS, Sinclair and Joe the Plumber!
www.takeoverworld.info/conservatism.htm
www.conspiracyarchive.com/2013/12/21/the-origins-of-the-overclass/
The following quote from Steve Kerr is accurate but it is not something indicative of Trump alone. It is characteristic of Republican leadership with most of the traits being shared by the Republican and conservative rank and file: Probably the BEST website exposing RepubliCONservatism:republicansexposed.org/
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:28:26 GMT
Here are Republicans eating themselves:
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:30:01 GMT
It is pretty difficult for even the most empathetic Liberal to understand a Conservative these days. I don't think they understand themselves and are swept up in some kind of media frenzy that is destroying them. If any group could benefit from meditation (and medication lol) it is today's conservatives. Yesterday's conservatives are rolling over in their graves. As Art Bell once said we are experiencing a "quickening" where subtle is becoming extreme not only in our weather but in our consciousness. Just try to keep grounded and don't get too caught up in it, difficult as it is. Just keep truckin'.  21 Truths That Prove Republicans Have Been Wrong About EverythingUpdated on March 17, 2019
jeff61b soapboxie.com/us-politics/21-TruthsThat-Prove-Republicans-Have-Been-Wrong-About-Everything
Jeff is a computer professional who takes a great interest in politics and tries to always distinguish fact from opinion.
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It's no secret that politicians tend to use exaggerated political rhetoric to get people to vote for them. In recent decades, Republicans have repeatedly made very ominous predictions about the horrors that will result from Democratic policies while painting a rosy picture of what will result from Republican policies.
Now, we have the luxury of looking back over the years to examine those predictions and policies.
1. In the 1960s, Republicans claimed that the passage of Medicare would be the end of capitalism.
California Governor Ronald Reagan even proclaimed Medicare would lead to the death of freedom in America. Of course, they were laughably wrong. Since the passage of Medicare, capitalism has thrived in America and millions of elderly Americans have had longer, healthier lives and greater personal freedom. Medicare remains the most popular form of health insurance in the United States.
2. In 1993, when Bill Clinton raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.5%, Republicans predicted a recession, increased unemployment, and a growing budget deficit.
They weren't just wrong; the exact opposite of everything they predicted happened. The country experienced the seven best years of economic growth in history:
Twenty-two million new jobs were added.
Unemployment dropped below 4%.
The poverty rate dropped for seven straight years.
The budget deficit was eliminated.
There was a growing budget surplus that economists projected would pay off our national debt in 20 years
3. In 2001, when George W. Bush cut taxes for the wealthy, Republicans predicted record job growth, increased budget surplus, and nationwide prosperity.
Once again, the exact opposite occurred. After the Bush tax cuts were enacted:
The budget surplus immediately disappeared.
The budget deficit eventually grew to $1.4 trillion by the time Bush left office.
Less than 3 million net jobs were added during Bush’s eight years.
The poverty rate began climbing again.
We experienced two recessions along with the greatest collapse of our financial system since the Great Depression.
4. In 1993, when the Brady Law and the Assault Weapons Ban were passed, Republicans predicted increasing rates of crime and murder.
In 1993, President Clinton signed the Brady Law mandating nationwide background checks and a waiting period to buy a gun.
Thankfully just the opposite happened. While the rate of violent crime had increased steadily from the 1970s into the 1990s, it suddenly began to drop after 1993 and continued to decline for more than ten years. What could have happened in 1993 to precipitate such a sudden and prolonged drop in crime? That’s the year Congress passed the Assault Weapons Ban and the Brady Law, which mandated background checks and a waiting period to buy a gun.
Despite Republican predictions to the contrary, the Brady Law and the Assault Weapons Ban were followed by the most dramatic reduction in violent crime since the FBI started keeping statistics. The graphs below, based on the actual numbers from the FBI Uniform Crime Reports website, show how the rates of murder and violent crime in the US dropped suddenly after the 1993 Brady Law and Assault Weapons Ban were passed.
These charts show the rate of murder and violent crime over 35 years based on numbers from the FBI Uniform Crime reports.
5. Republicans predicted that we would find Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction even though UN weapons inspectors said that those weapons didn't exist.
The Bush administration continued to insist that WMDs would be found even when the CIA said some of the evidence was questionable. As we all know, the WMDs predicted by the Bush administration did not exist, and Saddam had not resumed his nuclear weapons program as they claimed. Both President Bush and Vice President Cheney ultimately had to admit that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Here is President Bush discussing the missing Weapons of Mass Destruction.
6. Prior to going to war in Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld optimistically predicted the Iraq war might last “six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."
What's more, Vice-President Dick Cheney said we would be greeted as liberators by the Iraqi people after we overthrow Saddam.
They were both horribly wrong. Instead of six weeks or six months, the Iraq war lasted eight long and bloody years costing thousands of American lives. It led to an Iraqi civil war between the Sunnis and the Shiites that took hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives. Many Iraqi militia groups were formed to fight against the U.S. forces that occupied Iraq. What’s more, Al Qaeda, which did not exist in Iraq before the war, used the turmoil in Iraq to establish a new foothold in that country.
The Iraq war was arguably the most tragic foreign policy blunder in US history.
7. Republicans said waterboarding and other forms of “enhanced interrogation” are not torture and are necessary in fighting Islamic extremism.
In reality, waterboarding and other forms of enhanced interrogation that inflict pain, suffering, or fear of death are outlawed by US law, the US Constitution, and international treaties. Japanese soldiers after World War II were prosecuted by the United States for war crimes because of their use of waterboarding on American POWs.
Professional interrogators have known for decades that torture is the most ineffective and unreliable method of getting accurate information. People being tortured say anything to get the torture to end but will not likely tell the truth.
An FBI interrogator named Ali Soufan was able to get al Qaeda terrorist Abu Zubaydah to reveal crucial information without the use of torture. When CIA interrogators started using waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation methods, Zubaydah stopped cooperating and gave his interrogators false information.
Far from being necessary in the fight against terrorism, torture is completely unreliable and counter-productive in obtaining useful information.
8. In 2008, Republicans said that if we elect a Democratic president, we would be hit by Al Qaeda again, perhaps worse than the attack on 9/11.
Former Vice-President Dick Cheney stated that electing a Democrat as president would all but guarantee that there would be another major attack on America by Al Qaeda. Cheney and other Republicans were, thankfully, completely wrong. During Obama's presidency, we had zero deaths on U.S. soil from Al Qaeda attacks and we succeeded in killing Bin Laden along with dozens of other high ranking Al Qaeda leaders.
9. In 2009, Republicans predicted that the economic stimulus package would only make the recession worse and cause more unemployment.
The results show they couldn't have been more wrong. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 ended the recession after only a few months. Although 750,000 people were losing their jobs each month when Obama took office, after the Recovery Act was passed the rate of job loss immediately decreased each month and within a year the economy showed positive job growth.
Considering the severity of the 2008 economic collapse and the total opposition by Republicans to do anything at all to stimulate the economy, it is remarkable that the US economy recovered as quickly as it did.
Looking at the rate of job loss and job creation, its easy to see that the stimulus of 2009 was highly successful in stopping the job losses and turning the economy around.
10. Most Republicans said that President Obama should be impeached because of the 2012 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi.
Their own investigations, however, proved them wrong. Every Congressional inquiry, including those by the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee, concluded that the Obama administration did nothing wrong regarding Benghazi, that there was no “stand down” order given, and that neither the President nor anyone in his administration lied about it. Each and every Republican investigation has reached this same conclusion, but Republicans continue to exploit this tragedy for political gain.
11. Republicans said we must deregulate businesses so they can be more profitable, and we will all enjoy the wealth created by deregulation.
This theory failed back in the 1980s when the Reagan administration deregulated the Savings and Loan industry. All the S&Ls collapsed, and it cost taxpayers billions of dollars to bail them out.
They were proven wrong again in 2008 when years of deregulation of the financial industry resulted in the worst financial collapse and recession since the Great Depression. Taxpayers had to spend nearly a trillion dollars to bail out these large corporations. Instead of spreading the wealth around, deregulation cost millions of jobs and created economic turmoil that took the country years to recover from.
Senator Mitch McConnell claimed Obamacare would cost the economy two million jobs.
12. Republicans predicted that Obamacare would hurt the economy and kill jobs.
As you may have guessed, they were wrong. 2014 was the first full year that Obamacare was in effect. During that year the United States saw the fastest rate of job creation in 14 years and the best rate of economic growth in over ten years. More jobs were created in 2014 than in any year of the Bush presidency. Not only did Obamacare not harm the economy, it coincided with the best economic expansion in a dozen years.
13. Republicans said that if President Obama was reelected, the price of gasoline would rise to $5.45 a gallon by January 2015.
In fact, Senator Mike Lee of Utah said if Obama was reelected, the price of gas would reach $6.60 a gallon. Newt Gingrich, who was running for president in 2012, said Obama’s energy policies, EPA regulations, and failure to approve the XL pipeline would result in $10.00 a gallon gasoline.
Of course, these predictions were laughably wrong. Instead of $5.45 per gallon or $10.00 per gallon, the price of gas in January 2015, was $1.89, less than half of the all-time high of $4.15 a gallon under President Bush.
14. Republicans said President Obama would be terrible for the economy.
Although he inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression, President Obama presided over the longest continuous period of uninterrupted job growth in American history. More jobs were created under President Obama than under both Bush Presidents combined. The stock market repeatedly set new records during Obama's presidency.
Obama inherited a much worse recession than the one Ronald Reagan dealt with, yet Obama ended that recession in less than half the time it took Reagan. During his eight years in office, our economy had a net increase of 11 million new jobs despite the loss of more than 4 million jobs during Obama's first year when he was trying to pull us out of the Bush Recession. Despite Republican attempts to stop all progress, President Obama oversaw the greatest economic turnaround in over 75 years without any help from Republicans.
This chart shows the unemployment rate through 2013 and 2014 based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
15. Republicans predicted that President Obama’s tax increase for the top 1% in 2013 would kill jobs, increase the deficit, and cause another recession.
You guessed it; just the opposite happened. In the four years following January 1, 2013, when that tax increase went into effect, through January 2017, unemployment dropped from 7.9% to 4.8%, an average of more than 200,000 new jobs were created per month, Wall Street set new record highs, and the budget deficit was cut in half.
Over 5.7 million new jobs were created in the first two years after that tax increase. That's more jobs created in two years than were created during the combined 12 years of both Bush presidencies.
16. Republicans said President Obama would raise taxes sky high.
It never happened. Income taxes for over 95% of Americans remained the same or lower than they were before Obama was elected. The only people whose income taxes increased were those who make more than $400,000 per year, and their taxes rose only 3%. For most Americans, taxes are still lower now than they were under Reagan.
17. Republicans have long promised that “trickle-down economics” is the best way to stimulate the economy.
Trickle-down economics is the practice of giving more money to the very wealthy so they can reinvest it, causing a "trickle-down" effect that creates jobs and stimulates growth. According to this theory, any tax increase on the wealthy will hurt the economy and cause another recession.
Again, this theory has been thoroughly disproven. The huge tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of Americans enacted by George W. Bush did not result in job creation or a robust economy. In fact, our economy took the worst nosedive since the Great Depression.
Conversely, the tax increases on the wealthiest 1% passed by Presidents Clinton and Obama were followed by strong job growth, shrinking budget deficits, and lower unemployment rates. During the eight years after President Clinton raised taxes on the top 1%, the poverty rate went down. After Bush enacted trickle-down economic policies, the poverty rate began rising again.
18. In 2012, Republicans predicted that failure to approve the Keystone Pipeline would send the price of gasoline sky high and kill large numbers of jobs.
Despite the fact that the Keystone Pipeline was not approved, the price of gasoline continued to drop below $1.80 per gallon, millions of new jobs were created and unemployment dropped from 8% to 4.9% by early 2016. The most optimistic predictions say that the Keystone Pipeline would only create a few dozen long-term jobs and would do nothing to lower the price of gasoline.
19. Republicans insist that their policies create more jobs than Democrats and claim Democratic policies are “job killers."
History, however, has proven them wrong. According to numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, under the last three Republican presidents, there were a total of 21 million new jobs created during their combined 20 years in office (Reagan - 16 million, George H. W. Bush - 2 million, George W. Bush – 3 million).
However, under the last three Democratic presidents, there were a total of 40 million new jobs created during their combined 19 years in office (Carter – 10 million, Clinton – 22 million, Obama – 8 million).
So the last three Democratic presidents have seen the creation of nearly twice as many jobs in 19 years as the last three Republican presidents did in 20.
20. Republicans claim that raising the minimum wage would kill jobs and hurt the economy.
There is far more evidence to the contrary. Cities and states that have higher minimum wages tend to have better rates of job creation and economic growth.
Detailed analyses show that job losses due to increases in the minimum wage are almost negligible compared to the economic benefits of higher wages. Previous increases in the minimum wage have never resulted in the dire consequences that Republicans have predicted.
Republicans have accused President Obama of "cutting defense spending to the bone". This chart of 2014 discretionary spending firmly disproves that argument.
21. Republicans routinely accuse Democrats of wanting to cut defense spending to the bone and leave us defenseless against our enemies.
History has repeatedly proven them wrong. Under Democratic presidents and Congresses, the United States still spends more on defense than the next ten countries combined. Republicans frequently insist on spending hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons systems that the Pentagon doesn't even want in order to benefit the multi-billion dollar defense contractors. Democrats who criticize this unnecessary spending are accused of trying to cut defense spending to the bone.
Here are a few more things Republicans have been wrong about.
Republicans said that Obamacare would have “death panels” to decide who would live and who would die. Wrong. No such death panels were ever proposed and nothing of the kind ever happened.
They said the 2009 laws to improve automobile fuel efficiency standards would kill the US auto industry. Wrong. The new standards were followed by a resurgence of the US auto industry enabling them to hire back tens of thousands of workers.
They said environmental protection laws requiring companies to clean up their pollution would create an undue burden and kill businesses. Nope, it never happened.
They said Ebola would spread across the country because President Obama allowed American Ebola patients to be treated in the US. The outbreak never happened. Only three people contracted Ebola in the US and all three survived.
They said President Obama would open our borders to illegal immigrants. Wow, were they wrong about that. Under Obama, we set new records for most illegal immigrants stopped at the border and sent home.
They said Obama would drive up the Federal budget deficit. That didn't happen. Obama cut the $1.4 trillion deficit he inherited by two-thirds.
While someone could no doubt find instances where Democrats engage in over-the-top rhetoric, nothing compares to the consistently false and erroneous claims made by the GOP in recent years. When a political party has been so dismally wrong about nearly everything over the past 30 years, that party should lose all credibility.
My hope is that in the future when Americans hear Republicans make predictions about Democratic policies that are doomed to failure, we will remember the fact that they have been utterly wrong about virtually everything they've predicted in recent years.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:30:50 GMT
The Republican Party is now a house divided against itself (to quote its founder) that cannot stand.
My guess is the Trump voters, if denied his candidacy either will not vote or will vote for the Democrat out of spite and hatred for Republican leadership. As the primary season moves on like a wave things are beginning to gel.
Whoever the Democratic nominee is going to be may win by a landslide. Hillary even started making overtures to Bernie, calling him an ally. Not sure what that means at this point but she must think she will be the nominee and is trying to look forward.
They have had quite a civil debate, thanks mostly to Bernie who could have been really dirty but that isn't who he is.
If Hillary were to become president, she had better conduct herself more to the left than her blue dog husband and Obama OR in 4 years we may have the same kind of break down in the Democratic Party that the Republicans are now experiencing.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:31:55 GMT
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:33:31 GMT
DO THESE DIRTY TRICKS SURPRISE ANYONE? SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE. AND THEY OFTEN GET WORSE.
Nixon official: real reason for the drug war was to criminalize black people and hippies
Updated by German Lopez on March 22, 2016 The war on drugs: Is it a genuine public health crusade or an attempt to carry out what author Michelle Alexander characterizes as "the New Jim Crow"? A new report by Dan Baum for Harper's Magazine suggests the latter. Specifically, Baum refers to a quote from John Ehrlichman, who served as domestic policy chief for President Richard Nixon when the administration declared its war on drugs in 1971. According to Baum, Ehrlichman said in 1994 that the drug war was a ploy to undermine Nixon's political opposition — meaning, black people and critics of the Vietnam War: At the time, I was writing a book about the politics of drug prohibition. I started to ask Ehrlichman a series of earnest, wonky questions that he impatiently waved away. "You want to know what this was really all about?" he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."
This is an incredibly blunt, shocking response — one with troubling implications for the 45-year-old war on drugs. And it's possible Ehrlichman isn't being totally honest, given that he reportedly felt bitter and betrayed by Nixon after spending time in prison over the Watergate scandal. But it's not implausible. Although black Americans aren't more likely to use or sell drugs, they're much more likely to be arrested for them. And when black people are convicted of drug charges, they generally face longer prison sentences for the same crimes, according to a 2012 report from the US Sentencing Commission. www.vox.com/2016/3/22/11278760/war-on-drugs-racism-nixon |
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:34:26 GMT
The Republican party (crime syndicate is more like it) won't nominate Bush. There was no love for another Bush in the White House before the presidential primaries. Of course, that was before Trump hijacked the party. But, I still see it as problematical for whoever they do nominate if Trump doesn't have the delegates. Go with someone they don't want (Bush) anymore than they don't want Trump? A proven loser (Romney)? Lightweights (Cruz, Rubio and the rest of the Republican also-rans)? They talked about earlier of how they had an embarrassment of riches in candidates running. What they had was just an embarrassment. They don't have anyone and they know it. If Hillary was a Republican, she'd be their best candidate as she is an establishment candidate, who will be no better or worse than her husband or Obama. We the people lose again and again. |
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:35:56 GMT
Quote by sliderocker: Yes, what Nixon did still lingers on in today's politics. But it should be noted that Nixon's behavior started not when he was elected president in 1968, but the very moment he was elected in 1946 to Congress from what was at that time still a fairly ultra-conservative part of California, along the L.A./Orange County line. His persecution of Alger Hiss, his siding with Joe McCarthy during the tyrannical anti-Commie witch hunts of the early 1950s, and his being accused of having a secret slush fund while Ike's VP candidate in 1952 (which led to his infamous "Checkers Speech" on TV) were the first three examples of RMN's pattern of paranoia. But more than that, I have come to believe that they were the first examples of the kind of demagoguery that the Republican Party itself, with the exceptions of perhaps Ike and Nelson Rockefeller, would engage in, though mostly in coded language and dog whistle politicizing (less overt than Tricky Dick), from Nixon's "Silent Majority" and "Southern Strategy" spiel through Reagan's "Government is the problem"; Bush I's Willie Horton ads against Michael Dukakis in 1988; the GOP's debasement of Bill Clinton throughout most of his two terms; demonizing opponents of Bush II's Iraq war; and the seven years they've basically obstructed Obama. All of this over a period of seventy years, and all of it is now coming out in the big self-funded Super-PAC called Donald Trump. |
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:37:25 GMT
Republicans have no constructive ideas nor the will to do anything for the American people except send us to war and obstruct any progressive or helpful initiatives to improve peoples lives. Here is a typical example (most likely inspired by ALEC and the KOCH Bros.) Yes, let's keep allowing people into office that make life more difficult for all of us.
Arizona Has a Plan to Get Revenge on Its Pro-Worker Cities
Josh Eidelson
3/15/2016
(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- Inspired by decisions in cities like Tacoma, Wash., and Elizabeth, N.J., to require companies to offer paid sick leave, Lauren Kuby, a City Council member in Tempe, Ariz., began pushing a year ago for her city to do the same. By September, Kuby had secured enough support from her colleagues to have the city formally explore the issue. “I really took seriously Obama’s call to take local action,” says Kuby. “I saw cities as the place to make a difference.”
Then Kuby and her colleagues heard that Arizona’s Republican-controlled state legislature was considering punishing cities that tried to set their own codes for worker benefits. Arizona’s House passed a bill on March 1 specifying that cities aren’t allowed to require private employers to provide paid sick leave or vacation. The state Senate has passed companion legislation that would cut state funds, used to pay for services like police and firefighting, for cities that try to supersede state laws. “They actually decided to dissolve our study group because they were so chilled by the state threat,” says Kuby.
Lawmakers in Phoenix, Arizona’s capital, say they were inspired to act after the state’s Republican Governor, Doug Ducey, called in his January State of the State address for cities “to put the brakes on ill-advised plans to create a patchwork of different wage and employment laws.” He vowed to do everything in his power to block them, “up to and including changing the distribution of state-shared revenue.” (Arizona municipalities are prohibited from collecting income taxes and rely on distributions from state coffers.)
Cities “think that they’re an independent and sovereign entity from the state, which is not true—they’re a creature of the state,” says Arizona Senate President Andy Biggs, who spearheaded one of the bills. “You can’t put a municipality in jail, nor would we. What we’re really seeking to do is provide a deterrent effect.”
Arizona is one of several states where legislators have moved to stop local officials from trying to pass minimum wage increases or paid leave policies that have no chance in the statehouse. In Alabama, state lawmakers invalidated a Birmingham minimum wage increase to $10.10, from $7.25, in February by passing a law denying cities such authority. Idaho’s legislature passed a similar law in March.
Paid sick leave supporters scored their first win in San Francisco in 2006. Twenty-three cities and five states have enacted sick leave since, most recently on March 9 in Vermont. But such laws have been squashed in Republican-dominated states. Milwaukee voters passed a paid-leave law by referendum in 2008. Following a strategy previously used to block local regulations on smoking or guns, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker invalidated it in 2011. “Most of us hadn’t paid attention to what had happened in the tobacco world and in the gun world,” says Ellen Bravo, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Family Values @ Work. “We should have paid attention in Milwaukee.”
Restaurant owners have led the opposition to city sick- leave ordinances in Arizona. “We just ask that they have the ability to choose what regulations are put on their business,” says Arizona Restaurant Association lobbyist Chianne Hewer. “At the state level, while it’s still crazy there as well, you’re able to have one discussion.”
The current fracas is the latest round in a two-decade tug of war between Arizona’s cities and its legislature over labor rules. Legislators first banned cities from passing their own minimum wage increases in 1997. Voters overrode that law with a 2006 referendum authorizing cities to pass minimum wage and benefits laws of their own. Legislators passed another law in 2013 banning cities from regulating wages and employee benefits, which activists successfully challenged in court, citing the 2006 referendum.
If legislators’ latest proposals become law, Democrats including Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton are already promising more lawsuits. “My message to members of the legislature that do want to micromanage cities and to preempt cities on ordinances and laws that reflect the values of our community,” he says, “is, if you really feel that strongly, run for mayor. It’s a great job.”
The bottom line: Arizona cities that raise wages or mandate sick pay would lose state funding under legislation being considered by state lawmakers.
To contact the author of this story: Josh Eidelson inWashington at jeidelson@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Allison Hoffman at ahoffmangold@bloomberg.net
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:38:53 GMT
LET'S SEE THESE BIG MOUTHS PUT THEIR MONEY WHERE THEIR MOUTHS ARE. EVEN THE NRA DOES NOT ALLOW GUNS AT THEIR CONVENTIONS LOLOLOLOLOL MORE CONSERVATIVE HYPOCRISY.
25K sign petition to allow guns at Republican National Convention
Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland where the Republican National Convention is scheduled to be held in 2016.© Mark Duncan/AP Photo File photo of the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland where the Republican National Convention is scheduled to be held in 2016.
More than 25,000 people have signed a petition to allow firearms inside the Republican National Convention being held in Cleveland in July.
Firearms are currently not permitted inside the Quicken Loans Arena, known as "the Q," where the gathering will take place.
The petition, posted Monday on Change.org, sought only 5,000 signatures but has since quintupled, topping 25,000 Saturday afternoon. It was posted by an author identified only as "N.A." from Cleveland, but the user profile appears to have been deleted from the website.
It was not clear whether the person posting the petition was backing the proposal or attempting to put the party, which strongly backs gun rights, in an awkward position.
Among the petition's five goals, it calls upon Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, to mount a "concerted effort to use his executive authority to override the "gun-free zone" loophole being exploited by the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio."
The name of the group purportedly behind the effort — Americans for Responsible Open Carry — does not appear anywhere else online and accepts online message only from networked supporters, the Akron Beacon Journal reported.
The Ohio Republican Party said it was not aware of the petition, the Journal reported, nor was the host committee overseeing the convention, although it noted that the Secret Service, in conjunction with Cleveland, Cuyahoga County and state and federal authorities, is handling security for the event.
“They are coordinating and will be continuously refining security plans leading up to the national convention,” said Alee Lockman, a spokesperson for the Republican National Convention, the Journal says.
In 2012, firearms were banned by the Secret Service at the Republican convention in Tampa.
The Journal says the National Rifle Association declined to comment on the petition.
The petition states:
This is a direct affront to the Second Amendment and puts all attendees at risk. As the National Rifle Association has made clear, "gun-free zones" such as the Quicken Loans Arena are "the worst and most dangerous of all lies." The NRA, our leading defender of gun rights, has also correctly pointed out that "gun free zones... tell every insane killer in America... (the) safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk."
The petition also claims that forcing attendees to leave firearms at home puts everyone in attendance at risk. It also notes the convention could be a potential target for an attack.
Without the right to protect themselves, those at the Quicken Loans Arena will be sitting ducks, utterly helpless against evil-doers, criminals or others who wish to threaten the American way of life.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:41:03 GMT
Given the cameras at that convention we could ALL be FLIES ON THE WALL LOL!! They should have scheduled their convention for here in Tombstone, Arizona. I think this will be one time where the Republicans will show their hypocrisy as with the nuts that are in the Republican party, some of them likely to be delegates, if Trump doesn't get the nod, the more off-their-rocker nuts would likely go ballistic and open fire. Shooting and killing other delegates or even candidates or each other. But, I think this petition is going to make the Republicans look very hypocritical, and not something they want to do, especially in this strange election year. |
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:41:40 GMT
Given the cameras at that convention we could ALL be FLIES ON THE WALL LOL!! They should have scheduled their convention for here in Tombstone, Arizona. I think this will be one time where the Republicans will show their hypocrisy as with the nuts that are in the Republican party, some of them likely to be delegates, if Trump doesn't get the nod, the more off-their-rocker nuts would likely go ballistic and open fire. Shooting and killing other delegates or even candidates or each other. But, I think this petition is going to make the Republicans look very hypocritical, and not something they want to do, especially in this strange election year. |
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:42:05 GMT
If there is ANY doubt that todays Republican Party is actually 1980's Koch Brothers Libertarian Party then please read this post from Bernie Sanders. We are fighting a Conservatarian agenda that is looking to undo all of the progress made since Teddy Roosevelt so that it will favor billionaire corporatists and their capitalist agenda. This has been pushed since Reagan incrementally and the Tea Party is the brown shirt enforcers.BERNIE SANDER'S DISCUSSES LIBERTARIANISM:
What Do the Koch Brothers Want?
As a result of the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision, billionaires and large corporations can now spend an unlimited amount of money to influence the political process.
Perhaps, the biggest winners of Citizens United are Charles and David Koch, owners of the second-largest privately run business in America Koch Industries.
Among other things, the Koch brothers own oil refineries in Texas, Alaska, and Minnesota and control some 4,000 miles of pipeline.
According to Forbes Magazine, the Koch brothers are now worth $80 billion, and have increased their wealth by $12 billion since last year alone.
For the Koch brothers, $80 billion in wealth, apparently, is not good enough. Owning the second largest private company in America is, apparently, not good enough. It doesn’t appear that they will be satisfied until they are able to control the entire political process.
It is well known that the Koch brothers have provided the major source of funding to the Tea Party and want to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
David KochWhat else do the Koch brothers want?
In 1980, David Koch ran as the Libertarian Party’s vice-presidential candidate in 1980.
Let’s take a look at the 1980 Libertarian Party platform.
Here are just a few excerpts of the Libertarian Party platform that David Koch ran on in 1980:
•“We urge the repeal of federal campaign finance laws, and the immediate abolition of the despotic Federal Election Commission.”
•“We favor the abolition of Medicare and Medicaid programs.”
•“We oppose any compulsory insurance or tax-supported plan to provide health services, including those which finance abortion services.”
•“We also favor the deregulation of the medical insurance industry.”
•“We favor the repeal of the fraudulent, virtually bankrupt, and increasingly oppressive Social Security system. Pending that repeal, participation in Social Security should be made voluntary.”
•“We propose the abolition of the governmental Postal Service. The present system, in addition to being inefficient, encourages governmental surveillance of private correspondence. Pending abolition, we call for an end to the monopoly system and for allowing free competition in all aspects of postal service.”
•“We oppose all personal and corporate income taxation, including capital gains taxes.”
•“We support the eventual repeal of all taxation.”
•“As an interim measure, all criminal and civil sanctions against tax evasion should be terminated immediately.”
•“We support repeal of all law which impede the ability of any person to find employment, such as minimum wage laws.”
•“We advocate the complete separation of education and State. Government schools lead to the indoctrination of children and interfere with the free choice of individuals. Government ownership, operation, regulation, and subsidy of schools and colleges should be ended.”
•“We condemn compulsory education laws … and we call for the immediate repeal of such laws.”
•“We support the repeal of all taxes on the income or property of private schools, whether profit or non-profit.”
•“We support the abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency.”
•“We support abolition of the Department of Energy.”
•“We call for the dissolution of all government agencies concerned with transportation, including the Department of Transportation.”
•“We demand the return of America's railroad system to private ownership. We call for the privatization of the public roads and national highway system.”
•“We specifically oppose laws requiring an individual to buy or use so-called "self-protection" equipment such as safety belts, air bags, or crash helmets.”
•“We advocate the abolition of the Federal Aviation Administration.”
•“We advocate the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration.”
•“We support an end to all subsidies for child-bearing built into our present laws, including all welfare plans and the provision of tax-supported services for children.”
•“We oppose all government welfare, relief projects, and ‘aid to the poor’ programs. All these government programs are privacy-invading, paternalistic, demeaning, and inefficient. The proper source of help for such persons is the voluntary efforts of private groups and individuals.”
•“We call for the privatization of the inland waterways, and of the distribution system that brings water to industry, agriculture and households.”
•“We call for the repeal of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.”
•“We call for the abolition of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.”
•“We support the repeal of all state usury laws.”
In other words, the agenda of the Koch brothers is not only to defund Obamacare. The agenda of the Koch brothers is to repeal every major piece of legislation that has been signed into law over the past 80 years that has protected the middle class, the elderly, the children, the sick, and the most vulnerable in this country.
It is clear that the Koch brothers and other right wing billionaires are calling the shots and are pulling the strings of the Republican Party.
And because of the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision, they now have the power to spend an unlimited amount of money to buy the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the next President of the United States.
If they are allowed to hijack the American political process to defund Obamacare they will be back for more.
Tomorrow it will be Social Security, ending Medicare as we know it, repealing the minimum wage. It seems to me that the Koch brothers will not be content until they get everything they believe they are entitled to.
Our great nation can no longer be hijacked by right-wing billionaires like the Koch brothers.
For the sake of our children and our grandchildren, for the sake of our economy, we have got to let democracy prevail.
Read more: ronstadt.proboards.com/thread/3660/nate-silver-early-polls#ixzz48cw4VoG9By the way, Ayn Rand is considered a founder of the modern day Libertarian Party. Among her disciples (and lover) was Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve who was installed by closet Libertarian Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Today's speaker of the House of Representatives is Paul Ratboy Ryan, a self-proclaimed "Ayn Rander" whom he now disavows (but don't believe it).
www.cc.com/video-clips/n7yuw7/the-colbert-report-ayn-rand---paul-ryan
Ayn Rand & Paul Ryan
August 29, 2012 - Jennifer Burns 08/29/2012
Just because Paul Ryan got into politics because of Ayn Rand, and requires his staff to read her, doesn't mean he likes her. (4:42)
a must see:
money.cnn.com/video/news/2012/10/11/n-ayn-rand-paul-ryan-atlas-shrugged-fountainhead.cnnmoney/index.html
(no public libraries Erik)
Today's Conservatives/Republicons have picked and chosen some of the worst parts of Rand's philosophy and incorporated them into their own conservatarianism. They disavow her atheism to placate the religious right whose votes they need in their unholy alliance.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:43:06 GMT
THIS IS TYPICAL OF WHAT REPUBLICANS DO TO AMERICAN WORKERS, THIS AND AWFUL TRADE DEALS
May 20, 2016, 03:00 pm
House GOP: Standing with wage thieves
By Keith Ellison
While millions of Americans are struggling to get by and sustain their families, Republicans are trying to make it easier for employers to steal their wages.
Last month during Committee consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act, Representative John Kline inserted an amendment to block the President’s Fair Pay Safe Workplaces Executive Order at the Department of Defense. This Executive Order is the result of years of advocacy by workers, labor rights activists and the Congressional Progressive Caucus. It helps ensure companies with federal contracts are following federal labor laws, like protections against wage theft and unsafe working conditions, and protecting the right for workers to organize.
There are reports of millions of dollars in stolen wages and penalties from government contractors. Now, the President’s Executive Order doesn’t punish contractors – it actually helps them follow the rules. Canceling the contract is the last resort for companies that refuse to correct their behavior. But Republicans don’t like it. Instead of helping companies who are fair to workers, they want to make it easier for companies that steal from their workers.
This week, the Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-Chairs Raul Grijalva and I introduced an amendment to strike Rep. Kline’s language from the bill. But it’s no surprise that the Republican led Rules Committee rejected the amendment. They don’t want to have this debate in front of the American people. They don’t want to admit that they are standing with wage thieves and companies willing to step on working Americans and their families.
Workers aren’t the only ones who should be outraged about this. This provision actually gives a leg up to the contractors that don’t play by the rules, putting companies doing right by their workers at a disadvantage. Think about it: you’re a law-abiding company that earned your contract – now Republicans want to reward your competitors that are willing to steal from their workers?
Americans want fairness. If Republicans want to make it easier for companies to get ahead by shorting their workers, they can since they are in the majority. But they shouldn’t get to without a public debate.
Don’t you agree?
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:44:15 GMT
MORE TYPICAL REPUBLICAN BEHAVIOR
Republicans are still pining for a real Obama administration scandal
Paul Waldman
REUTERS/Carlos Barria
May 24, 2016
In recent history, a two-term presidency has usually meant the appearance, often in that president's sixth year in office, of a major scandal. The reasons are as unique as the scandals themselves, but what it comes down to is that it's hard to stay in the White House for eight years without something going terribly wrong, whether from the president's own arrogance or venality, or the simple size and complexity of the executive branch. Put a few thousand of your friends and allies into government, give them power and influence, and after a while somebody somewhere is going to do something awful. So Nixon had Watergate, Reagan had Iran-Contra, Clinton had Lewinsky, and Bush had the selling of the Iraq War (a slightly different case, but worse in most ways).
But Barack Obama will be president for less than eight more months, and he's had only piddling little scandalettes. This continues to drive Republicans absolutely batty.
After all, they know, with every fiber of their beings, that Obama is deeply corrupt. He hates America, he's a racial avenger out to destroy white people, he's the embodiment of everything and everyone they despise. Yet somehow they can barely seem to lay a glove on him. So in their latest bit of acting out, Republicans in the House of Representatives are trying to impeach Josh Koskinen, the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service. The last time Congress impeached a high administration official other than the president was 140 years ago, but nobody ever accused today's GOP of being bound by history.
These Republicans say that Koskinen gave them misleading testimony about the IRS supposedly targeting Tea Party groups (which happened before Koskinen was at the agency), but this is better understood as an expression of their frustration over the failure of that scandal to take down Barack Obama. After all, when that story broke a few years back it seemed like it would prove everything they believed about this administration. Using the cruel hammer of the tax agency to go after political enemies? That's exactly the kind of thing Obama would do! Much to their chagrin, it didn't turn out the way they wanted — even if they did succeed in slashing the agency's budget, making it harder to enforce the tax laws, which is actually just fine with Republicans.
In the end, here's what the IRS "scandal" amounted to. Charged with enforcing vague laws on where the line is between a charitable organization and a political organization, understaffed and undertrained IRS employees were overwhelmed when, after the 2010 Citizens United decision, they were inundated with applications from Tea Party groups for special tax status as 501(c)(4) "social welfare" organizations. They gave the applications from these groups (and from some progressive groups) special scrutiny to make sure they were following the law. Some of these groups had to wait longer than normal for their applications to be approved (though when an organization is waiting, it's permitted to go about its business as if it had already been approved).
And that's it. There was no nefarious conspiracy, no audits of political enemies, no illegal orders from the White House, no sinister plot to use the IRS' power against anyone. Barack Obama was not so terrified of what the East Flipsburg Tea Party Patriots might do to his re-election chances that he brought the full weight of the federal government down upon them.
And so it has been with every controversy during this administration. The story breaks, and Republicans say to themselves, "Now we've finally got him!" They troop before the cameras and spin out dramatic tales of the criminal plot they've uncovered. And then it turns out to be a giant nothingburger.
That's not to say there have been no scandals in the Obama years. There was Solyndra, in which one of the companies given clean energy grants by the government ended up going bankrupt. There was "Fast and Furious," in which an ATF project (begun under the Bush administration) to track the flow of illegal guns went awry.
And of course, there was Benghazi, in which Republicans were convinced that a tragedy in which four Americans died was not just a tragedy, not just a mistake, but the result of criminal wrongdoing on the administration's part, up to and including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
But just like all the other times, Republicans could never find the malfeasance they were so sure was there, no matter how hard they tried — and boy, did they ever try. Benghazi was investigated by the House Oversight Committee, the Senate Homeland Security Committee, the Senate Intelligence Committee, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the House Judiciary Committee, the House Armed Services Committee, and the House Intelligence Committee. And now, the House Select Committee on Benghazi, a panel created by Republicans with the all-but-explicit purpose of finding something, anything they could pin on Hillary Clinton, has been operating for two years and has spent nearly $7 million. If you just give us a little more time and money, Republicans say, we'll finally get to the bottom of this.
Meanwhile, their thirst for scandal has gone unquenched. That might be because of Barack Obama's personal integrity, but it also might just be luck. There are people of questionable ethics in both parties, and after two terms, at least a few of them are inevitably going to find their way into government. But the really meaningful scandals are the ones in which the president himself is involved. It was Nixon's voice on those tapes that made Watergate the biggest scandal in history. It was Reagan's approval of the scheme to sell arms to terrorists and then divert the profits to the army of thugs the administration had created in Nicaragua that made Iran-Contra such a consequential affair. And as for the Lewinsky scandal, well let's just say Bill Clinton was intimately involved.
But as far as we know, whether you like Barack Obama or not, his hands are pretty clean. And this is something Republicans in Congress simply cannot accept. So they'll keep trying to pin something on him and those who work for him, up until the day he leaves office. And then they'll switch right over to President Clinton, should she be elected.
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if in a file on a computer somewhere on Capitol Hill, they've already drafted the articles of impeachment.
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