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One person's socialism is another person's tax cut; one person's tax cut is another person's deficit; one person's truth is another person's lie. It should be great fun watching these stumblebums pick their way through a self-made ideological minefield, waiting for the next half-baked "plan" to blow up in their lily-white faces ...again.
Tictoc, time is running out on the legislative calendar to accomplish at least one damn thing of substance before it's time to start campaigning for 2018. The self-serving, incompetent nitwits will need to put a lot of distance from the fact that they can't govern, before trying to convince a much wiser, albeit traumatized, electorate that it's all the fault of those wascally Democrats.
By then, unfortunately, the Obama/Hillary phony excuses will be awfully stale. Plus, lobbing bombs around and ginning up wars only fools some of the people some of the time. And 4 a.m. tweets? Boring!
Legend -- The thing that gets me about the "lose the farm argument" is that the current inheritance tax loophole does provide $5 million. It seems if the heirs cannot keep the farm with a $5 million handicap, maybe a more capable farmer should takeover.
Per Larry Beinhart, the Kennedy tax cuts also hurt the economy. We should roll those tax cuts back also.
It is true that the Kennedy tax cuts were revenue neutral. However, revenue is not the economy. I like Larry Beinhart's metrics for deciding how good the economy is. Larry uses the GDP (the most popular measure) but he also includes the DOW, the median annual income, and the number of jobs. The metrics, of course, are inflation adjusted.
As Thom often points out, taxes have both a carrot and stick effect. It seems that cutting the top tax rate, as Kennedy proposed and LBJ did, weakens the stick.
The one Goldman Sachs guy I saw selling it on TV used the do not want to lose the farm excuse for the no inheritance tax. So write a farm clause. And he justified doing away with the Alternative Minimum Tax because you have to do your taxes twice to figure it out. Even though it is automatically calculated on all tax software. You would only have to calculate your taxes twice if you were doing them by hand, which nobody does in this day and age. It was blatant lie. The real reason is a huge tax cut for the very wealthy. Trump is first in line.
Please come back Palindrom and de Marc
Deepspace:
How do you write so many words and mange to say nothing. Is that a requirement to be a washed up lefty? Lots and lots of Rhetoric, no substance. It's the washed up lefty mantra.
Here's another article for you to deny:
Union support for Donald Trump gives big labor a chance to catch up.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/feb/6/union-support-for-donald-...
@#45:
Focus, Granny, focus! Your mind is wandering again, missing the point and off topic. Pull those bruised fingertips away from that sweaty keyboard, take some deep breaths to oxygenate the brain, and try to concentrate.
Nobody is contesting your non sequitur. Of course enough flighty Dems, Hillary haters, and disillusioned Bernie-crats crossed over (or sat out) and hurt Clinton's numbers; although, that's only one of the many, many reasons -- as you should well know, during brief interludes of lucidity anyway.
Originally, I was merely trying to pin down Teach the Troll's flagrant misstatement of fact about a single demographic: the overall union vote. It was like trying to nail jello to the wall. All evidence in this thread points to a deliberate and disingenuous attempt to misinform and confuse, as a good little troll is wont to do. Weaving and dodging his way through several disjointed posts, Ou812 refused to acknowledge or apologize for such a simple and obvious untruth.
Good god -- if this is any indication, one hour of "Michelle Bachmann's" beguiling lectures must be interminable for "his" hapless students! Hopefully, it's not a mandatory course.
From a high school US History teacher: John Adams was merely the first not the only president trying to curtail criticism. He used the Alien and Sedition Acts to jail dissenters. But Lincoln also suspended the writ of habeas corpus and jail Northern Democrats that criticized him or the war. Destroyed presses, etc. Thirdly we have Woodrow Wilson who again joins in suppressing opposition. Jailed a former presidential candidate, Socialist labor leader Eugene Debs. (as Trump promised to do to Hillary if he won. . . . . . who knew that he would actually win.........in the outdated Electoral College?)
I follow your show (when not in class----time problems) and I too am a raving liberal. But this is not the first time you've historically oops-ed. Better research or an on site historian (or history teacher---I'm retiring in May because of NM's anti-teacher governor and so will be available!) to keep you out of the sand traps.
All that aside, I will be putting on the board for tomorrow your info on Reince Prebus' wanting to repeal the first amendment, despite the little Republi-Con (as Norman Goldman calls 'em) in class today that felt I was picking on Trump.
Stephen Part Dept. of Social Studies La Cueva H. S. Albuquerque Public Schools
At least you're beginning to understand your place in the hierarchy of the cosmos. Now be gone, little troll; I grow weary of your presence.
Deepspace @44
Amazing, with all your God like pronouncements, I would think you have to look down to see the sky:).
"one more thing the school system I work for is one of the top ten school systems in the USA." OU812 post 43
https://www.zillow.com/md/districts/carroll-county-public-schools-440107/
@#10
http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/star-trek-inspired-licence-plate-deemed-off...
May I suggest that Ou812 has a bit if insight that Mr. Ed lacks?
Donald Trump is President of the United States and Hillary Clinton is not. More than a few crossed over from the Democrat party to vote Republican.
Yup, those interested in and dedicated to actual, relevant news have learned the hard way that they must actively research issues from a wide variety of credible sources and not just sit passively in front of flickering screens and chattering radios, allowing corporate-sponsored pundits and right-of-Attila-the-Hun zealots to condition their minds with lies and half-truths.
And to Legend's point, "multiple parties and compulsory voting" would definitely change the political landscape for the better.
It's too bad for Republicans, however, that most polling consistently demonstrates by large margins that the majority of potential voters identify with a progressive agenda when quizzed strictly on the issues rather than through a filter of party identity. That means liberal ideas are the center of political gravity by default in most citizens' minds, despite the lunatic ravings of depraved spin doctors like Hannity, Limbaugh, and Mitch McTurtle. (Thank the Overlord of the Universe that O'Reilly finally crashed and burned -- one less pompous ass bloviating on the squawk box.)
A poignant case in point why we need major election reform is the Republican-controlled legislature in Montana. These geniuses recently shot down a bill that could have saved individual counties hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars -- millions statewide -- by conducting an unanticipated special election exclusively through the mail for the House seat that Ryan Zinke abandoned (to chase after wider fame and glory in the fake president's cabinet -- sad).
The Koch Brother teabaggers opposing the bill didn't even try to hide their crass reasoning in floor comments entered into the formal record. Their principle argument goes like this (in cowboy drawl): "Voting by mail makes it much too easy for more registered voters [read Democrats] to cast ballots and therefore hurts our candidate's chances." In other words, Republicans are totally okay with unnecessarily wasting public resources and eventually forcing every Montana taxpayer to dig even deeper into their worn-out wallets for the sole purpose of tilting the scale in favor of yet another greedy billionaire and far-right pissant (Greg Gianforte) trying to steal an election.
How much more clear can it get? Red-state Republicans' extreme efforts to restrict voters and rig elections is right out in the open, front and center! In their dark little minds, abject corruption is just the expected and accepted way to carry on normal, everyday politics. As they rail against the perceived sins of everyone else and give the finger to the American people and to the spirit of democracy, they are oblivious to their own deep-seated immorality.
Even the teabaggers' great white Christian deity said that he really, really hates self-righteous hypocrites, the lowest of scumbags! On their death bed when time collapses into a singularity and a lifetime of lies and cheating finally come due, they undoubtedly will have, or should have, a hard time reconciling to their fate. That's what happened to Lee Atwater, one of the greatest dirty tricksters during the Reagan era, when he repented his evil ways, too little, too late.
Ou812 (#41):
Again, speak for yourself and your minority of like-minded, right-wing ideologues, not the majority of blue-collar and white-collar union members. I belong to a different, more powerful union but happen to know and have also worked with a lot of union teachers, who would strongly disagree with your slanted, right-of-center political assessments.
As far as taking your highly questionable advice, I would look up to verify the truth if you said the sky was blue. Don't flatter yourself.
Legend:
I could care less what you believe. I know what I pay for health insurance...I don't speak for the school system, I gave you their phone number if you want to find out what they pay call them. Maybe you can convince them to support single payer.....one more thing the school system I work for is one of the top ten school systems in the USA.
Ou812 (#37),
Again, your flippant declaration (#28) that, "You washed up lefties lost most of the rank and file union members in the last election." is factually untrue.
Nationally, most union rank and file and most eligible family members in union households voted for Democrats, assuming that's who you mean with your threadbare, oft-repeated taunt, "washed up lefties." Even the two linked articles that you disingenuously cited, which are aligned with virtually every other nonpartisan statistical analysis, clearly show that you are wrong. Yes, union support for Democrats has slipped alarmingly, and yes, Democratic leadership needs to focus a lot more on the hard-working Americans who originally built the party; nobody can honestly deny those sad truths.
However, do not conflate weaker numbers to mean that Democrats lost "most" of the union demographic and then seriously expect such a gross misstatement of fact to fly, especially on this blog. "Most" union members in this country, along with their families, still vote for the traditional "party of the workers," as they have from time immemorial. That's because "most" of them are not stupid enough to throw in with the "party of the rich," which from time immemorial has sought to destroy the union movement root and branch and to support corporate abuse of non-union workers (and paper-tiger "unions") with low wages, anemic benefits, long hours, and dangerous working environments.
Sorry to pile on, but you also appear to be missing, dodging, and/or obscuring legend's (and other's) well-taken points on a regular basis. It's an obvious pattern. Gratuitously spinning "alternative facts" for shits and giggles might be your game as a right-wing troll on a liberal site who admires the arrogance and irreverence of Imus, but it would be a tad more convincing if you could display a modicum of intellectual honesty.
One must assume, as a teacher, such targeted obfuscation is not by accident. Either your reading comprehension is slipping and it might be time to fully retire for the sake of your students, or you are deliberately painting a false picture of reality by picking and choosing out-of-context factoids that seemingly, at first glance, lend support to your political viewpoints while disregarding the hard facts that don't.
"We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall." --PF
Deepspace:
You write well for someone who's not too bright. You sentences flow, almost poetically, but they lack substance. They are like a large beautiful balloon, nice to behold, but stick a pin in and it all disapears. I'm not trying argue with you. I'm giving you advice. I work with teachers, and they are not interested in any of jive you washed up lefties promote. I can tell you to look both ways before crossing the street. It's up too you whether you'll follow the advice.
It hasn't escaped my attention that Trump and the Teapublicans successfully diverted attention away from their aggressive push for free trade by focusing Trump's campaign on illegal immigration. This was a perfect scapegoat strategy ...... blame job loss and low wages on immigrants. It worked! The entire Republican Party was recently pushing for the TPP...give me a fnnn break. This country has gone brain dead. This guy is not bringing jobs back.
Trump has taken advantage of free trade laws and hired low wage immigrants for years....yeah right, he's against these things...LMAO.
It takes a lot of Foxaganda to buy into Trump's brand of obvious bull.
BTW: Not a lick of coverage by the corpse media on the tens of thousands of marchers yesterday. I thought I was watching Fox News this AM.... but it turned out to be Meet the Republicans. Todd's show has become extreme right-wing. Well over half of voters voted Democratic in Nov. The teapublicans all watch Foxaganda, so if the rest of us turn off NBC ...Chuck has zero viewers.
We have among the worse system possible with this 2 year election (really 4 years) process and 2 party system. If I were to pick a model it would be Australia, with multiple parties and compulsory voting.
I call BS on your "we actually pay under $200.00/ month for two". That maybe what you pay for a very good union negotiated plan but your school district is probably paying at least a thousand or more. The fact that you refuse to divulge that figure is highly suspect. You do not get a plan in the USA for $200. .......... If you cannot figure out what else is paid, check on what COBRA would cost you. That basically will tell you the real cost of your insurance. The fact that you cannot figure this out only worries me to the fact that you are "teaching" our young.
Outback,
Yes, the short answer is that you are correct that the Constitution does not explicitly restrict the chambers to two parties. I'm sorry if I implied otherwise with the ill-phrased statement, "...since only two parties can share Congressional power." Nevertheless, although the issue is long and involved, suffice it to say that the wording of the Constitution greatly encourages that eventual outcome by codifying the principle of "plurality voting" for most elections.
I share your sentiments about how Bernie was stabbed in the back by the Democratic Party (Before he announced his campaign, he had to register as a Democrat to increase his odds.) and how hopelessly corrupt the two establishment parties are (Republicans more so, in my opinion). If everyone actually played fair (Hah!), Bernie with his unabashed honesty and overwhelming popularity could have, and should have, won both the primary and the general.
Unfortunately, most of our so-called democratic institutions, including the First Amendment-protected press, are controlled by greedy and power-hungry liars and cheaters. That's why people around the world view American democracy as a sick joke ...because it's true! Billionaires are laughing all the way to the bank.
By the time multiple parties are wrung through the overly complex election processes -- in no small part due to coalition building and the fact that most people want their vote to count toward an actual win -- leading platform issues and potential votes for third parties are usually absorbed and diluted into the two main parties, who end up with all of the power in Congress, which in turn sets the rules for its respective bodies to favor the status quo. The math makes it inevitable. Under the present system, it's nearly impossible for smaller third parties to gain enough traction to gain a plurality, which history repeatedly bears out.
Independents, such as Bernie, have to caucus with one of the two biggest parties to have any influence (power), primarily through committee assignments. The Constitution would have to be fundamentally altered to allow a parliamentary system or at least amended to allow some sort of "proportional" (or "instant runoff") voting at both state and federal levels, which would even the playing field for third parties, thereby creating a much cleaner democracy, where so-called "pragmatic" voters aren't pressured into always having to make that stark choice between the lesser of two evils.
Our current, (in effect) "two-party" system of fake democracy, which has delivered the presidency to an unpopular, undeserving, self-dealing, congenital liar with a low IQ and has filled Congress with rabid packs of corporate dogs unresponsive to their less wealthy constituents, is an indisputable failure of monumental proportions.
If We the People don't get down-in-the-mud serious and fight back with all we have, personally and publicly, to radically change this dark-age dynamic, we'll continue to devolve into Big Business/Big Government fascism, which grows increasingly more insidious as oligarchs, who realize no limits to their greed, keep on expanding their economic and militaristic empires, sweeping aside any pesky democratic principles that stand in their way.
We're pretty damn far down that dead-end road already. Revolution is in the air...
Legend,
Please list the countries that have single payer, to my knowledge there is only 1, Taiwan. Please don't tell me Canada, Canada has individual plans in each provience along with supplemental insurance. Don't tell me the United Kingdom, also many supplemental plans. As I explained to you, we actually pay under $200.00/ month for two. Under any single payer that mirrors the OHIP plan, we would pay twice that for supplemental, in addition we would have less coverage.
You washed up lefties amaze me, there is no new tax plan, only a proposal. You guys would rather hold your breath and say NO, than participate in developing a plan...
Hi Thom. I was the one who called in, stating that a VAT was likely in order to achieve the 15% corp tax. You said "not happening.... Grover, etc." I disagree; Grover seems to not mind the VAT or BAT anymore; check this out! (I'm 100% in favor of 20% VAT too) http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/21/corporate-tax-rate-could-get-to-20-percent-says-grover-norquist.html VAT and BAT are really similar; but I think we should do VAT, since Gemany, etc say it's not a tariff.... they can keep their damned mouths shut then if/when we impose VAT. VAT = BAT by subsizing corporate tax, instead of direct method. BTW, CBO prohects $330B US corp taxes collected 2017. With 2.2T of imports taxed at 20% VAT, that yields $440B!!!! Does this not mean that with 20% VAT, the money is there to eliminate the US corp tax? At least lower it to 10% IMO. Then : US produced goods will be cheaper (20VAT + 10 corp instead of current 35 corp). Imports, and imported parts, will cost 20% more (a very excellent reality). Stupid people complain that reatail junk (imported) will cost more. Yes, BUT the massive wave of job creation due to less imports , and way more exports since corp tax now 10 instead of 35.... wages will rise 20%. Whole paycheck goes up 20% for blue collar, non privileged; and only 10% of what we buy goes up. We only spend 10% of our paycheck on retail anyway. Most of check goes to rent/ mortgage, health and car insurance, food. BTW Business Insider, a POS rag, is owned by Germany, and full of anti VAT propaganda; all the while Germany has a 19% VAT. Don't anyone read that rag and expect anything other than propaganda.
My point is, once you realize how much you actually pay for insurance you would be by far better off if the USA had single payer. It works very well in the other industrialized countries. Right now they want to cut it back as much as possible.
Unions are all about brotherhood and sticking together for a common cause. So going against your Union Endorsements is totally self defeating. How do you like the new tax plan?