(An Oldie, Sept. 2011, But Still True)
By plf515 Daily Kos Why would anyone vote Republican? Well, here are 10 reasons. 1. You are a bigot It's true that not all Republicans are bigots. But if you ARE a bigot, the Republican party will be much more your group than the Democratic party. Remember that there are lots of ways to be a bigot: You could be a racist, a homophobe, an Islamophobe, or lots of other things. 2. You like eating, drinking and breathing poison. Many Republicans are calling for or voting for shrinking or eliminating agencies that protect us against poison. They seem to think that the corporations will do the right thing, without any pressure from the government. Uh huh. Read The Jungle. Look at the way Monsanto is hiding facts about Round Up. Look at food safety and outbreaks of E. Coli. Corporations exist to make money. They will do so any way they can. The government needs to stop them from doing so in ways that hurt people. 3. You think the rich don't have enough money The idea that giving more money to rich people (via tax breaks) will help poor people is nonsensical and has been shown wrong time and again in history. Huge tax breaks for the rich (a la George Bush) don't work. 4. You don't support our veterans The Iraq and Afghanistan Veteran's Association (IAVA) rates every member of congress on how well they support our veterans. In the Senate, 9 people got A or A+: All were Democrats. 30 got D or F: 29 Republicans and one Democrat. More on this 5. You like big deficits Since the end of WW II the ratio of debt to GDP for the nation has gone down in 9 administrations (3 Republican and 6 Democratic) and up in 7 administrations (6 Republican and 1 Democratic). The largest increases by this measure were GW Bush's 2nd term; GHW Bush, and Reagan's first term. The largest decreases were the three terms right after the end of WWII (Truman and Eisenhower). The last decrease under a Republican was in Eisenhower's 2nd term source 6. You don't believe in free speech. The American Civil Liberties Union is the premier defender of our civil liberties, including the right to free speech. That's free speech for EVERYONE; from Nazis to Marxists to Fred Phelps to anyone else. They rate politicians, including governors, senators and representatives. 12 people got a 100 rating: All were Democrats. 65 people got a score of less than 10: All were Republicans. Only 6 Democrats got a score under 50 (Joe Donnelly, Michael Ross, Collin Peterson, Joseph Shuler, Mark Critz and David Boren). Only 2 Republicans got scores over 50 (Olympia Snowe and Mark Kirk) Full list 7. You like big government The Republicans like to claim they are against big government. It's a lie. They only object when government helps people. But they are supporters of the Patriot Act; they want the government to say who you can marry; they want the government to forbid abortion; they want the government to be able to spy on you without restraint. Unfortunately, many Democrats agree with them on some of these, but to find opposition to these big government ideas, you have to look to the Democrats. 8. You want government to hurt people, but not help them This is really just a summation of some other points. 9. You are greedy, short sighted and rich You really have to be all three for this to work. If you're rich but not short-sighted, you know that, in the long run, when there is huge income inequality, it leads to things like stock market crashes and revolution, and everyone loses. In a revolution, it is often the rich who lose most. If you're rich but not greedy, you recognize that helping others is a good thing, and that the government assuring that people have a safety net is a good thing as well. 10. You like torture The Democrats don't exactly shine here, but the Republicans are much worse. It was, after all, Dick Cheney who bragged in his memoir about being a war criminal. It was Don Rumsfeld who opined that a problem in Abu Ghraib was that they weren't torturing prisoners enough. And it is mostly Democrats who have objected to torture. Torture is wrong. It's also stupid. It doesn't work. People who are tortured will say ANYTHING (true or not) that they think their torturers want to hear. by Colin Taylor • August 25, 2015 Recent events have set off a wave of anti-Confederate iconoclasm that has been sweeping the South, encouraging people to relinquish symbols of the past and reconsider their ‘heritage’ of treason and racism. In the spirit of moving forward instead of clinging to what once was, the Riveria Beach City Council has voted to rename “Old Dixie Highway” to the “President Barack Obama Highway.” “Dixie” was a common nickname for the region in South which would eventually secede from the Union and fight the Civil War over the right to own slaves. Thus, the name “Old Dixie” is about as blatant an appeal to the old order of white supremacy as one could get; the highway itself used to be the dividing border between black and white neighborhoods during the segregation era. “You have the chance to right the wrong and make a new chapter” said one woman on name change proposal. Reactions have been mixed, to say the least, and depending on who you ask. “There might soon be a place where Barack Obama and Martin Luther King Jr. meet — and it won’t be just in the hearts of Americans who revere both men” gushed the Palm Beach Post. “I think that the name should stay Old Dixie cause that’s a landmark, it’s history. It was there when we came, it has been here for years and I think we should leave it there” remarked one woman who chose to remain unidentified. And then…there’s this: Despite the above ignorance, this is truly a progressive step forward for Riviera County. America needs to be looking forward, not back. What’s done is done, and we still have yet to heal the racial wounds from that era. Renaming the highway that once literally divided black and white neighborhoods after our nation’s first black President and one of the most accomplished Presidents in our nation’s history is a very fitting way to make a positive change.
http://www.occupydemocrats.com/bigots-lose-it-as-florida-city-renames-old-dixie-highway-to-pres-obama-highway/ ORIGINALLY POSTED TO COMICS ON TUE MAY 05, 2015 AT 06:50 AM PDT.
Fears are so widespread that Wal-Mart literally just issued a statement denying involvement in a U.S. military invasion of Texas. Editorial Board, GAINSVILLE SUN Published: Tuesday, April 28, 2015 What is going on in the Florida Legislature right now is morally and fiscally indefensible and threatens the well-being of Florida and its people.
It isn't complicated but has been made so by ideologues with power. The state has more than 800,000 people who are uninsured because they do not qualify for Medicaid or cannot afford insurance. The federal government has a contract with Florida, as with other states, to provide what is known as Low Income Pool funds to pay for hospital charity care when the poor go to an emergency room. As part of the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration told states the LIP money would be going away and urged them to replace it with a Medicaid expansion plan. So far 28 states have done so. The idea is it is more efficient medically and economically to provide regular health care to the poor somewhere besides a hospital emergency room. The Florida Senate understood. So did Florida's major business groups, hospitals organizations and voters. A Senate Medicaid expansion plan calls for recipients to be working or in school and pay a small monthly premium. The plan, approved by Washington, would provide more care at less cost - saving an estimated $1.7 billion over five years - and create tens of thousands of jobs and pump tens of billions of dollars into Florida's economy over the next decade. The Florida House leadership, however, has opted to play politics. Anything tied to Obamacare is anathema. From the start, Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt island, and his lieutenants have stubbornly refused to even discuss Medicaid expansion. At all. Meanwhile, Gov. Rick Scott, who should be providing leadership toward compromise, is only exacerbating an already horrible situation. Not only is he opposing Medicaid expansion - after he was for it - he is suing the federal government for the LIP money, a case he is almost sure to lose on our dime. Scott says he does not trust the feds to provide the Medicaid expansion money - even though it is codified in the ACA law - but instead is demanding the feds keep the LIP money flowing. His stance is weak and hurts Florida and its residents. But the damage does not stop there. Now the House and the Senate cannot complete a state budget - their singular constitutionally required task - by the end of the legislative session Friday. Their budgets are $4 billion apart, largely because of the health care impasse, and new funding for education, mental health care and new prison guards as well as some modest tax cuts are all at serious risk. All so Scott, Crisafulli and Co. can make some ideologically driven political point that ultimately hurts real people. Thank goodness for the adults in the Florida Senate. What Scott and the House membership are doing is endangering the health and well-being of Florida, which, contrary to the governor's economic hosannas, is still limping out of the recession. Giving poor people access to health care while at the same time saving the state money and boosting its economy is good public policy. Refusing to even discuss it is simply morally and fiscally indefensible. Do you remember back when Chick-fil-A's very godly and conservative CEO defended the chain's big donations to anti-marriage-equality groups by declaring that same-sex marriage was "inviting God's judgment" on America?
In the halls of Congress, it has turned Chick-fil-A into the official Republican junk food. Since [CEO Dan Cathy] made his controversial comments, House Republicans have spent nearly $13,000 in taxpayer money ordering Chick-fil-A, according to expenditure reports filed through July 2014 (the latest available). That's the equivalent of 3,900 original chicken sandwiches, and it represents a 37-fold increase over the paltry $345 the House GOP had spent on Chick-fil-A the previous three years. (It also may be an undercount, since some receipts say only "food and beverage" without specifying a source.) Figures for the Senate were not available, but the GOP's campaign arms have been eating "mor chikin" as well: The Republican National Committee has doubled its Chick-fil-A spending, while the National Republican Congressional Committee spends more than 10 times as much as it used to. Those poor staffers. First it was Freedom Fries, now this. |
About Bill PritchardBill is a Liberal Democrat, DEC and DWC member, volunteer photographer, and a graduate of Penn State University College of Science, Biology. He spent over 30 years at U.S. Steel Gary Works managing the operation and maintenance of waste water treatment and water recycling facilities. He retired to Panama City, FL, in 2001--where he is needed and he's not going away. Categories
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