Who's Laughing Now?

December 6, 2012 will go down in history as the first time that a Senator filibusters himself in Congress. That has never happened before and this is one more example of the obstructionism and absurd behavior of the Republican Party.

On this memorable day, Senator Mitch McConnell [R – KY] tried to play poker with something as crucial to the nation as the Debt Ceiling.

McConnell went to Congress and demanded take out for an immediate vote to pass his proposal. Needless to say he was expecting Majority Leader, Senator Harry Reid [D – NV], to object instead Senator Reid called the bluff by agreeing.

It was bizarre to watch Senator McConnell’s reaction to an unsuspected outcome. He forgot to be prepared in case things didn’t go as planned, but it was obvious he only thought of plan A. He didn’t realize that Democrats are fed up with the Republican’s tactics – which they have used and abused – and as good poker players, Democrats called his bluff and McConnell desperately tried to look as dignified as he possibly could while filibustering his own bill.

Mitch McConnell’s proposal consisted in giving the President the power to raise the debt ceiling without the need of approval from Congress. The idea behind this bill was to place the blame of any financial fiascoes solely on the President and the Democratic Party. The last thing he was expecting was that the Democrats agree to a rushed vote, and that is when he filibustered his own bill!

On Thursday, November 29^th Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner visited the offices of the Minority Leader to outline President Obama’s proposal to prevent the fiscal cliff. This clown, McConnell, had the audacity to say to the Weekly Standard that the proposal made him “burst into laughter”… Well karma is just like a boomerang, comes back to you with the same or higher force as you threw it, and today McConnell is the laughing stock not only in Congress, the country but the world. After decades in Congress he will go down in history not for any good deeds, great service or dedication, he will go down in history as the most inept and corrupt senator that ever served in the Senate.

On The Way Down The Cliff

I’ve been quiet lately… too quiet, I know.

I simply haven’t felt like writing and unlike many bloggers out there that when their muse is on vacation, reblog other’s work or write something irrelevant and completely different from what their followers are used to I rather not write at all. I think my followers prefer it that way, I write when I have something to say otherwise why would I waste your and my time with nothingness?

We are back to square one, this time even more ridiculous than before. Democrats won the elections, all of them. We got the White House back; we held our seats in the senate and gain a few more… we even managed to gain some seats in the House of Representatives. Yet, Republicans can’t accept defeat and truly think they still have the leverage to hold the economy hostage. Once more they are doing everything within their power to obstruct everything and blame their failures on the Democrats. They are deaf to the wishes of the American people that spoke loud and clear a month ago. They don’t care at all for their constituents, after all that is not why they are in office regardless of what people think. They think the only people that matter are the wealthy people, the new “people” on the block known as Citizens United; those are the only ones they’ll fight for and we must never forget this on November 2014, we must remember who needs to be kicked out and thrown to the curb.

We have to endure the crying orange man trying to justify their behavior on every channel that he can find. Has anyone noticed that anytime Boehner is lying he twitches the corner of his mouth? Next time he is on, which is almost on a daily basis, watch him and you’ll notice it too. I think he is trying to imitate the old gangster movies Bogart was so famous for!

Here we are, December 2012 and once more they want to negotiate the tax cuts. Once again they want to send to the butchers block all the “entitlements” meant to help the needy but not the entitlements for the very wealthy. The Bush tax cuts have cost the middle class, who ultimately are the ones that contribute with a larger portion of the government’s revenue, $1.224 trillion from it’s insertion back in 2001 and that amount does not include the interests we have to pay for that money. Then, we need to add $1.4 trillion and rising by the minute for the never-ending war on terror, that figure doesn’t include interest or medical costs for our injured soldiers. (http://costofwar.com)

Welfare is what the Republicans want to slash; it is the entitlement that they believe to be unnecessary. Welfare has cost us a total of $6.28 trillion from 2001 to date. We must remember that most soldiers that return home with injuries have some sort of welfare and in 2008 the financial crisis hit our country, creating thousands of unemployed citizens that in the long run had no choice but to ask the government for help, increasing by the thousands the number of Welfare recipients. The total welfare cost from 1991 to 2000 (before the war and before the economic crash) was of $1.650 trillion. Welfare for the year 2002 was a total of $0.23 trillion, which includes the injured soldiers that returned home on the first year of war. The economic crisis began in 2007 and we saw an increase of $0.06 trillion and by 2009 it had raised to $0.42 trillion, a difference of $0.16 trillion in just 2 years!

Now, the Republicans want to make cuts to the only means the unemployed and many veterans has to survive, but they want to extend the tax cuts to the rich. For them, it is the rich the ones that need help, not the needy. I think they believe that the help the government provides allows the poor to live in the lap of luxury!

The State that pays the highest unemployment compensation rate is Massachusetts. Massachusetts pay an average of $674 a week. But there are other states that don’t even come close to that and the cost of living are just as expensive as those in Massachusetts. Florida is the third worst State for unemployment compensation. For the last ten years, the maximum compensation paid in Florida is of $275 a week and the minimum is $38 a week. I wonder who on earth can survive in Miami or Ft. Lauderdale on $38 a week. The State that holds the #1 place as the worst is Mississippi with a whooping $235 a week. No wonder crime is on the raise in these cities!

I say let’s crash… Let’s go over the hump, hill, mountain, cliff or whatever you want to call it, the poor can’t afford to lose anymore and quite frankly, neither can we. If they push the poor to the brink, we will see an increase in crime and therefore an increment in the number of prisoners that will cost us much more than what the cost of welfare is. The average cost of incarceration for one year is $47,500 per prisoner and the average number of new prisoners is of 700 a week.

Don’t be lazy and do the math and ask yourself, which is cheaper and safer for all of us?

http://www.usfederalbudget.us
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=datool&surl=/arrests/index.cfm#
http://fileunemployment.org/unemployment-benefits-comparison-by-state 

Let it Fall Off The Cliff!

I don’t know if it is because of the Holiday Season, the down after the rush or simply that I am in one of these moods where everything seems to be uninteresting. Perhaps I can attribute this feeling to being unemployed and therefore broke. I have no idea what is it, but I have not been too inspired lately.

Then, I turn the TV on and start hearing the comments from those on the Right, you know the ones… those that live in mansions and have more money than they know what to do with. I start hearing that in order for them to continue to operate their businesses they must cut the working hours of their employees.  Of course, they are not talking about the salaried employees – I am sure they would be happy to work less hours and receive the same pay – no, these sons of bitches are cutting the hours of their hourly employees, the ones that earn about $10 an hour, the ones that are struggling to survive. When asked why were they doing this, they blamed it on Obamacare. My ass, Obamacare does not go into full effect until 2014!

They are just throwing a temper tantrum because their Party LOST and the Right can’t accept defeat, they have never been able to handle it gracefully. They have a lot to learn from Democrats who have always accepted defeat with decorum, even when the win has been stolen from them as it happened in 2004.  We accept our loss, move on and set our eyes on the next election, we behave like adults, and they behave like brats. I’m sure it is very difficult for them to handle defeat when they invested so much money in their candidates’ campaigns, when they concocted every possible idea to obstruct Democrats from voting and they still lost the electoral votes and the popular votes by a wide margin. That must be a very hard pill to swallow!

I am sick that so many so-called “Americans” are signing petitions to secede from the Union. Who gives a damn about these traitors? Let them leave! It would be a much better country if they all would get a one way ticket to hell never to set foot on this land again… They are all just a bunch of losers who are so immature that they can’t even comprehend why they lost. They blame everything and anything but themselves. They fail to recognize that their actions and complete disregard of the working class, their racism and sexism, their absurd disregard about science and the environment as well as their obstructionism is what made them fail miserably and what people rejected, but they refuse to accept it or acknowledge it and even less rectify their ways.

Now, we are back again at the beginning: the fearful “fiscal cliff.” While Boehner lies with a straight face and publicly say that the Republicans are willing to work with the President to avoid a fiscal cliff, the very next day he nominates Paul Ryan, of all people, to be the lead of the fiscal negotiations with the President. We can be sure that the Republican Party is still playing the same games, the “my way or the highway” tactic. Paul Ryan is on record saying that he will not approve or agree to raise any taxes. He is all for saving money by cutting funds to “unnecessary” programs. Which programs is he talking about? That’s easy because he is quite open and blunt when it comes to his fiscal ideas, the “programs” he is willing to put on the chopping block are Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, Social Security, Financial Aid for college Students, Education, Food stamps and any other program that was designed as a safety net for the poor. In a recent ABC interview with Jonathan Karl, Ryan had the audacity to say that the President has no mandate to increase taxes on the very wealthy, because the people retained the Republicans in the House. Not for long, I can assure you that!

These idiots have learned nothing, they refuse to recognize what the majority of the people voted in favor of, because this is not what the people that financially support them, that bought them, want to hear. The Republican Party sold their soul to the devil (Norquist) a long time ago and it’s a Party on the way to extinction unless they mend their ways.

In the meantime, the media is once more instilling fear in the American people with the financial cliff drama. The “financial cliff” is not the end of the world, actually it is a very nice and smooth ride and we should let the taxes fall off the proverbial cliff. Let them smash at the bottom into tiny pieces:

Hefty Tax Breaks were on the verge,

Hefty Tax Breaks fell off the fence,

All the rich Asses, and all the Congressmen

Couldn't put Hefty Tax Breaks together again!

Taxes will go back to how they were during the Clinton Administration. Let Congress fix the tax codes and close all the loopholes and then provide the middle-class with tax breaks in a retroactive manner. If this can’t be done, I rather not get a tax break than continue financing the rich to get more tax breaks with the excuse that they “create jobs,” they haven’t done so in over ten years.

Republicans don’t have a foot to stand on; this time around they have nothing to bargain with. The American people through their vote spoke loud and clear, we want fair taxation; it is time for every American to help move the country forward, because the working class cannot carry that burden alone!