The New Haberdasher
RSSPosts tagged with "politics"
Home - Stewart Alexander for President 2012 - Socialist Party USA Presidential Ticket
The New Haberdasher congratulates Stewart Alexander and Alex Mendoza on their nomination as the Socialist Party’s candidates for President and Vice President. On a personal note, I have had the opportunity to get to know Alexander in 2007 when he was nominated as Vice President Candidate for the SP, and he is a real good person.
Today the Bomb buried in Obamacare goes off. Halleluja
Today, the part of the law which requires for-profit insurance companies to pay 80% of their premium toward their customer’s care, or rebate their customers, takes effect. The Author seems to believe this is the beginning of the end of for-profits, and the beginning of the beginning of universalized, public health care as for-profits are wiped out by their inability to make unlimited profit.
BBC News - Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoes 'birther' bill
“The governor of Arizona has vetoed a bill requiring presidential candidates to prove US citizenship in order to get on the state’s election ballot.
Republican Jan Brewer said the bill would have allowed officials to judge who is eligible to run for office.
A lingering “birther” conspiracy theory asserts US President Barack Obama was not born in the US and is thus ineligible to hold the office.
But the bill’s Republican backers insisted it was not aimed at Mr Obama.”
Whoops. Looks like Ms. Brewer has become a socialist…
BBC News - US warned on top credit rating by Standard & Poor's
Bam! Our neo-liberal monster has finally set its sights on us.
An excerpt:
The US Treasury responded that S&P had underestimated its ability to tackle the national debt.
“Because the US has, relative to its ‘AAA’ [top-rated] peers, what we consider to be very large budget deficits and rising government indebtedness and the path to addressing these is not clear to us, we have revised our outlook on the long-term rating to negative from stable,” the agency said in a statement.
W. Doc Stodden » Blog Archive » On The Flat Tax
From docstodden.com
On the Flat tax and why it will not only cause the bankruptcy of our country, but also Social Revolution, and why it is part of the Right’s design to starve the Poor out of existence.
An Excerpt:
Let’s introduce then, your flat tax system. Just a straight up flat tax system of 17% on everyone over 50K, no deductions (yet) for anything. System wide revenue becomes 15.9 million, or a difference of 12.9 Million. The budget would have to be cut to just more than HALF its size. If you bring in the lower tax brackets, you only add an additional 1.91 million dollars, which is nothing. If we didn’t count ANY loopholes, or give anyone credit for Social Security or anything, if we taxed everyone in the entire society who we could tax, we still fall short 11 million dollars, and only make 61% the amount we make in a progressive tax system.
NY Times: A Bronx Elementary School, Surrounded by Prostitutes
By Friend of Creepy Sleepy @yardenas & @NYTimes
A woman who called herself Virgin Sanabria said that she was ashamed of practicing prostitution near a school, but that drugs numbed her.
By YARDENA SCHWARTZ
When Nicole Murray’s 10-year-old daughter, Diamond, first started going to West Farms elementary school three years ago, she asked her mother why one woman they passed was barely dressed.
At all hours of the day, prostitutes roam the streets around the school, waiting for cars entering and leaving the Cross Bronx Expressway. They bend over car windows and climb inside, in plain view of students walking to and from the school.
Listening to her daughter, who is now in the fourth grade, ask about prostitutes was hard, Ms. Murray, 37, said. “I felt a big weight in my chest,” she said.
The prostitutes also have sex inside a tent on top of a boulder directly below the school’s playground. Students, from prekindergartners to fifth graders, can see mattresses, cushions and sheets strewn about the rock. Custodians often have to sweep condoms and hypodermic needles from the school grounds before students arrive in the morning.
The illicit sex trade surrounding the school, at the corner of East Tremont and Bryant Avenues, has been a distasteful reality for years, according to teachers and parents who express both frustration and resignation at a problem that the police say they cannot fully stamp out.
In its patronizing desire to instruct us on what is wrong with our politics, No Labels ends up being a damning indictment of just how alarmingly out of touch the mainstream political-media elite remains with the grievances that have driven Americans to cynicism and despair in the 21st century’s Gilded Age.
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Frank Rich on the No Labels Astro-Turf ‘Movement’ [link] (via politicalbrief)
It’s so true. But I will add, as an instructor in the political science field, that it is important that someone point out what is wrong with the political system. Whether that is patronizing or not, it still needs to be done, because if we just leave it up to how people “feel” then what we get is a reaction similar to the TEA Party, which is all emotion and actually opposes reasoned critique as “elitism”.
Scale of Universe - Interactive Scale of the Universe Tool
Looking at things like this kind of makes the debate over taxes and the debt and almost every single argument that the political right comes up with in this country seem kind of stupid, doesn’t it?
(Source: kopoint)
PolitiFact | The Obameter: Tracking Barack Obama's Campaign Promises
Thank you to my friend @Patrick McDonel, for pointing this one out.
Whether you are a rabid supporter or a blind-hate detractor, this site has something for you, if nothing else, so that you can back up your ridiculous argument about whether or not Obama is any better than any other President in recent history.
From politifact.com, a trusted source in campaign fact checking.
(Source: kopoint)
What Should Progressives Do Now? (via TheRealNews)
This video is a discussion between three progressive Democrats about what to do with the impending “Disaster” that is coming for us. Take away messages:
1) Make sure you vote, even if it is for a Green, a Libertarian, and Independent, or whoever. The act of voting is in and of itself important. (I agree)
2) Progressives have failed to put pressure on the Democrats in Office (I agree). But the discussion follows on how the Progressives need to focus on Democrats, and pressure them to move to the left. While I may also agree with that, I would personally like to see a progressive movement divorced from the Democratic Party to the degree that the TEA Party is, in some ways divorced from the GOP. Who knows if this will ever happen.
3) Whether or not we should support Obama is a point of contention. Some say we have to, some say that elections aren’t the only way that Progressives need to address the system.
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