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The last debate was revealing about each candidate - either one would a far better choice than the socio-political devastation the country would face under a Republican committed to tear down the fabric of Social justice since the dark ages before the Great Depression. Do away with affordable healthcare and die. Do away with environmental protections (EPA) and die. Do away with economic justice and compete with foreign working conditions and pay.
the political pundits (such as Mathews) have yet to appreciate the scope of potential political activism that found Bernie as their spokes person. Hillary has yet to understand that Bernie showed up on the scene because of the 300,000 people who have come out to listen to a 74 years old man seeking to find solutions for the middle class.
The Michigan Legislature stole $6.2 Billion dollars from Communities, including Flint. ($54,900,000) and Detroit ($734,000,000). A Link to MLive, at the end of this letter, will allow you to find out how much money your city or town lost to this crime.
The Michigan Constitution requires a portion of the state sales tax be distributed to local communities.
Lawmakers cannot revise that formula.
Constitutional Revenue Sharing
In accordance with the State Constitution of 1963, Article IX, Section 10, as amended, constitutional revenue sharing payments are based on 15% of the 4% portion of Michigan’s 6% sales tax collections. Distributions are made to all Michigan cities, villages, and townships on a population basis on the last business day of the even numbered months (October, December, February, April, June, and August).
Michigan State Revenue Sharing
The State Revenue Sharing program distributes sales tax collected by the State of Michigan to local governments as unrestricted revenues. The distribution of funds is authorized by the State Revenue Sharing Act, Public Act 140 of 1971, as amended (MCL 141.901).
FUNDING
Funding for the State Revenue Sharing program consists of the following dedicated tax revenues:
In addition, the act authorizes the appropriation and distribution of state General Fund-General Purpose revenues when local governments qualify for certain supplemental payments.
Michigan communities have missed out on some $6.2 billion in statutory revenue sharing payments over the past decade as lawmakers and governors diverted funds to fill holes in the state budget. 1
“For example, look at Flint, which is now under an emergency manager. Flint will have lost $54.9 million dollars by the end of 2014. The deficit in its 2012 financial statements is $19.2 million. Flint could eliminate the deficit and pay off all $30 Million of bonded indebtedness and still have over $5 million in surplus.” 2
Cities declared to be in financial distress and forced to accept an Emergency Manager plus the money owed them by the Michigan State Government. 2
Detroit $734,000,000 Benton Harbor $6,900,000
Flint $54,900,000 Pontiac $40,500,000
It is safe to say the Michigan Legislature contributed greatly to the financial crises suffered by the cities mentioned above. Many other communities have been ripped off by those in State Government who knowingly and intentionally violate the laws and provisions of the Constitution of Michigan.
This criminal activity, and the resulting financial troubles, opened the door for appointing an Emergency Manager. The EM Law was passed, outlawed by Ballot Initiative and then reenacted by the Republican Party. The EM Law is a travesty of ethics and justice.
I suspect – and will investigate and later report – that the EM Law has been used to privatize government services, break Unions, eliminate jobs that paid a decent wage with benefits, and accomplish many items on the agenda of a radical, greedy and unethical group of business interests and billionaire(s).
1.according to a new report from the Michigan Municipal League highlighting losses by community.
2.By Jonathan Oosting | joosting@mlive.com
on March 18, 2014 at 1:34 PM, updated March 18, 2014 at 4:31 PM
http://www.mlive.com/lansing-news/index.ssf/2014/03/michigans_62b_raid_on_revenue.html
Lightengine, you've nailed it, but I doubt you'll get much agreement from anyone here:).
Neoliberalism per Wikipedia: A belief that, since the 1980s, has favored privatization, fiscal austerity, deregulation, free trade, and reductions in government spending in order to enhance the role of the private sector in this economy. Neoliberalism is famously associated with the economic policies introduced by Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan in the U.S.
An economic strategy that is favored by a group of individuals who took full control of the DNC back in the mid eighties and remain in power today. A group that launched the Clinton's onto the national political stage to do their bidding during that same period.
A major change to the Democrat Party leadership a quarter of a century ago that has continuously ignored Progressive Democrats as it increasingly supported Right Wing economic issues like Free Trade, through the passage of NAFTA, and Deregulation through the elimination of Glass-Steagall. Yet most voters who support the Democrat party refuse to abandon their belief that this party is still working to improve the conditions of life in this country. These people are akin to the passengers on the Titanic that remained hopeful as their world came to an end ! Sander's is attempting to resurrect the principles and ideals of his party and restore the confidence of it's many supporters. A difficult task when the degree of private wealth is the only measure of excellence by those in power !
Just a wild guess here. I'm thinking the nominees are going to be Hillary and Jeb.
Feces of Bull
{… a limerick and an image …}
It’s stanky, - the feces of bull
of which Thom’s “Rumble” Rightists are full,
as sophomorically they pull
o’er our eyes their wool
of notions both stupid and {cruel} crool.
… Image …
http://www.stickair.com/modules/image_autocollant/autocollant_No%20Bullshit_7452.jpg
================================
Kochroach
{… a rhyme …}
Sneakily insidiously
rapaciously invidiously
wickedly hideously
approaches the Kochroach,
on America to encroach,
her treasure to poach.
... Image ... :
http://www.bant-shirts.com/images/t-shirt-catalog-180/koch-roach.gif
=====================
A page of about-Kissinger ’toons:
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Kissinger+Cartoons&go=Submit&qs=n&form=QBIRMH&pq=kissinger+cartoons&sc=8-8&sp=-1&sk=
The above page includes ’toons such as:
http://thecomicnews.com/images/edtoons/2006/1122/kissinger/01.gif
http://ows.edb.utexas.edu/sites/default/files/users/rem2283/Kissinger%20Cartoon.gif
https://coffeeforclosers.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/cartoon.jpg
Recall the delicious ’toons over many years by Herblock, - f’rinstance this-‘un captioned, “Doctor Kissinger, I presume?”
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/herblock/ClassicCartoons/Assets/21975v_enlarge.jpg
===========================
One thing you left out. McGovern was right (correct) on every issue.
After working many years in someone else's enterprises to earn a living, I started my own enterprise by creating a new market with a new product. This enterprise creates value for my suppliers, my employees, companies that service my business, my customers, and myself. It took a ten-year struggle of heavy work and reinvesting every cent the enterprise generated before being able to even pay myself. I learned that we all have the inalienable right to be empowered to create value for ourselves and for others. We also have the obligation to create value. Otherwise we are stealing value from someone else who created it. Every one of us requires five resources to be empowered to create value. 1. A strong sense of positive persistence. (Life is full of snags that have to be dealt with and all great things are accomplished in spite of problems.) 2. Knowledge of ways of creating legitimate value. 3. Enterprises that supply the tools with which to create value. (Our biggest national problem is the trade deficit off shoring enough enterprises to employ 70 million people and making the tax base too small to support Federal and State spending levels.) 4. Our health being supported by a transparent and competitive health care system that does not de-incentivize healthcare providers and cause rationing. (We should know up front from a national website what procedures cost for each healthcare provider and how good each healthcare provider is base upon history of outcomes versus prognosis. Then provide health insurance for those who are old or incapacitated. We do not want the Canadian system with its delays and denials.) And lastly, 5. We need to be secure in our rewards and secure in our person. (The failure to secure rewards for value creation has doomed socialism every time through out history. Socialism is Pollyanna that always results in sharing misery as value creation is just about extinguished. I am going to work hard to create value for everyone but me? B.S. That isn’t going to make it up the hill and neither will Bernie! In the long run, income inequality is the inequality of value creation. Those who deny this are too lazy, too stupid, and want to steal someone else's fruits of labor and do not have the guts to persevere.)
I think bernie did great, and had her on the defensive most of the night, hopefully it swung many voters bernies way, as he is the better candidate, as many of the institutionaly racist bills signed were signed by her husband whom she supported.
Hillary Clinton can't beat the Teapublicans, the Fascist propaganda machine will certainly destroy her. Bernie is our only hope simply because he's not perceived as part of the business as usual political establishment. He's not owned by the monied elite, and many voters regardless of affiliation are aware of this. I have several foxmerized friends who tell me they would vote for Sanders just for that very reason, they consider him non- establishment, and willing to stand up against the banksters.
Does anyone actually believe Trump is anti free trade, and anti Citizens United??? Give me a break, he'll say anything to win, he's not going against his own kind once in office..for god sakes! Don't let yourself become Trumpmerized!
Yes, the middle and working classes are screwed, and people resent the power of big money. But decades of right-wing propaganda have convinced many Americans not to trust the government. Of course, government should serve the people, not the rich, and perhaps a progressive government can accomplish that. But only if that government is competent and well managed, and knows how to root out corruption.
For those who feel that socialism (or social democracy) is a easy answer, the experience of Brazil is instructive. There, a progressive government made great progress in overcoming inequality, but now is mired in outrageous financial scandals.
If we have a single payer health insurance system, someone will be making the decisions about who gets paid, and how much, and there will be a lot of money at stake.
Sander's lack of detail about how he will implement large government programs such as this, does not inspire confidence that he knows how to deal with such challenges.
His analysis of the problem is excellent. But he is short about how he will get there.
It's not enough to point to Europe. They are having their problems as well. And Americans think of themselves as different from Europeans. He will have to address the suspicions of government, the racist meme that government programs and taxes are taking from hard-working whites and giving to the "others."
So, even if he coulld diminish the power of the billionaires over politics, he still has to face the ideological indoctrination of the "Reagan Democrats" who distrust government.
The other theme lacking in his economic message is that a "social democrat" (better description than a "democratic socialist") is someone who favors a mixed economy. So, besides talking about a robust public sector, which we desperately need, he should be talking about lifting up small businesses, and working with innovative and responsible large businesses, because they are integral to the economic well being of the country. For example, the energy transformation of this country has to be accomplished with the partnership of many private endeavors working with the public sector. Those kinds of discussions would go a long way to dispelling the fear of the word "socialist," or the sense that his campaign is about promising lots of "free things" to people who don't want to work.
Bernie is clearly a long shot but he is having a major effect:
---focusing on how the middle class is being screwed by both parties
---stirring a passion among the younger voters for the FDR sense of equality
---may weaken Hillary enough to bring in Bloomberg, a much superior choice.
---and if Hillary does get the nomination, guessing many dems will choose Trump
as a relief from decades of her on TV.
ct
In the '60s and early '70s we were a middle class society, we were very largely middle class and what poverty there was was largely race based, i.e., it was largely the result of racial discrimination - and, in addition, isolation of poor whites in Appalachia. Thus the justice movements of '60s and '70s were mainly about racial rather than class justice and a class consciousness and sense of class struggle was never developed in the United States like it was in other parts of the world.
Labor was strong, and corrupt, it had become part of the problem. The AFL-CIO was against affirmative action and supported the Viet Nam war effort. R.J. Daley had corrupt union officials on all his boards - including Chicago's Police Review Board, Nixon was endorsed by the Teamsters and sent Teamster thugs to beat up anti war demonstrators.
There wasn't the solidarity between labor and radical students like there was in other parts of the world like France, for example, where, in 1968, 10,000,000 workers walked off their jobs in a nation wide general strike in support of radical students in Paris.
Here in the United States the opposite happened, "hard hats" beat up the "hippies" and staged an "America, Love It or Leave It" march in downtown Manhattan in 1972.
Some Leftist analysis had it that the blue collar middle class in the U.S. was an example of a national working class being bought off and mollified. They were fat and happy and didn't care about issues of justice. They just wanted to drink their beer and watch their TV shows. The prototype of the American blue collar worker became Archie Bunker, not only not revolutionary but reactionary.
Then came the nationalization of the oil industries of Mid Eastern, oil producing countries in 1973 and our carefree economy, in which we only had to think about getting high and getting laid, came to an end. That was the final push to move manufacturing out of our cities, first to the suburbs and then to Mexico and later to Asia, and for the first time since the Great Depression we started having serious recessions.
Americans are still having trouble developing a class consciousness, however, instead they are clinging to racial politics only this time it's divisive rather than inclusive. They seem to be trying to find a cause and effect relationship between the racial inclusiveness espoused in the '60s and '70s and the recessions of the later '70s and business elites encourage them to do so with their right wing misinformation campaigns to divide the working classes.
As of now, other than New England, Bernie has NO states in his pocket. Hillary has at least 27 and Super Tuesday is only a month away. New Hampshire is a tiny little nerdy state that only speaks for New Hampshire.
Of high High HIGH quality, was George McGovern. See this Wikipedia page about him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McGovern .
While I understand your concern of democrats uniting once the primary is over, I think you do no one any service to say Hillary is likely to be the nominee. My reaction each time I hear that is to become angry at the system and believe that there is no hope in changing anything. During the primary, I do not think you have to defend her as much as you do. While I think Hillary is better than any Republican running that is not a very high bar to reach. Hillary's incremental liberalism is nothing I believe in or trust. You cannot take the money she does from corporate america and have me believe she's in any position to represent me as an ordinary person. I know people can evolve their positions over time, but Hillary's changing her position as fast as she needs to stop the tide against her. That is someone I cannot support at this time. Please don't throw the race for anyone by saying one or the other is the likely candidate. You have been wrong about Bernie before - I do not think you are a great harbinger for what will happen.
Regarding 1972, in addition, Nixon had won his first election as the "peace" candidate and was in mid-"peace" talks. Still, assuming Trump's out, Senator Sanders needs to convince me that he is electable against the full force of the monied who will work to convince the country that if anyone has "New York values" (dog whisle for Jewish in this context) it is he. Just look at the other graduates of James Madison HS (Schumer, RBG, Coleman [doesn't really count], Carole King, etc).
I don't know what you have in Americas, but it sure as shit aint Democracy.
N.H. Back room Democratic Party debate: No we've got to have two undeclared delegates because Hillary CAN'T take seventeen after the biggest voting blowout in US history.
We need Sander's judgement and Hillary's experience. Maybe she will accept vice-president.
Try this here
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-dY77j6uBHI
Try this
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-dY77j6uBHI
Another thing that's broken in America is our news system. That's another monopoly that needs to be broken up. Those of us that pay attention have known about the TPP for a long time, a year or two, but mainstream media has hardly given this important matter a mention. Now Senator Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump mention it in their political debates and this is the first time many people are hearing about it. They are like "TPP?? What's that??". We need unbiased, old fashioned, public service news reporting, not "newsfotainment" (news for entertainment). We need to bring back The Fairness Doctrine and The Equal time rule and make them law. If we had all of that for the last couple of years, people would know about the TPP and and many other important issues so they would be outraged about it so much that their representatives wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole for fear of losing their next election. The problem today is there is not enough coverage about the TPP so our representatives can vote for it without us knowing what they are doing to us until it's too late. I believe Bernie is right. Money in politics is the root of all that's bad in politics today and we need to change the system so the candidates with the best policies win and not the ones with the most money.