Year: 2014

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Politics

For Republicans, Public Enemy Number One? – The Poor

Paul Krugman writes: Suddenly it’s O.K., even mandatory, for politicians with national ambitions to talk about helping the poor. This is easy for Democrats, who can go back to being the party of F.D.R. and L.B.J. It’s much more difficult for Republicans, who are having a hard time shaking their reputation for reverse Robin-Hoodism, for being the party that takes from the poor and gives to the rich.

And the reason that reputation is so hard to shake is that it’s justified. It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that right now Republicans are doing all they can to hurt the poor, and they would have inflicted vast additional harm if they had won the 2012 election. Moreover, G.O.P. harshness toward the less fortunate isn’t just a matter of spite (although that’s part of it); it’s deeply rooted in the party’s ideology, which is why recent speeches by leading Republicans declaring that they do too care about the poor have been almost completely devoid of policy specifics.

Let’s start with the recent Republican track record.

The most important current policy development in America is the rollout of the Affordable Care Act, a k a Obamacare. Most Republican-controlled states are, however, refusing to implement a key part of the act, the expansion of Medicaid, thereby denying health coverage to almost five million low-income Americans. And the amazing thing is that they’re going to great lengths to block aid to the poor even though letting the aid through would cost almost nothing; nearly all the costs of Medicaid expansion would be paid by Washington.

Meanwhile, those Republican-controlled states are slashing unemployment benefits, education financing and more. As I said, it’s not much of an exaggeration to say that the G.O.P. is hurting the poor as much as it can.

What would Republicans have done if they had won the White House in 2012? Much more of the same. Bear in mind that every budget the G.O.P. has offered since it took over the House in 2010 involves savage cuts in Medicaid, food stamps and other antipoverty programs.

Still, can’t Republicans change their approach? The answer, I’m sorry to say, is almost surely no.

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Entertainment Television

The First Official ‘Game of Thrones’ Season 4 Trailer

Look!

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Domestic Policies News Politics

Christie the Vi(ndi)cti(ve)m

If Governor Chris Christie thought that Thursday’s news conference, that turned into a two-hour fiasco of alternately blaming others and apologizing without remorse, was going to be the end of the story about the GWBridge lane closures, then he was clearly mistaken. As usual with a scandal, the more we know, the more we want to know.

For example, who actually texted David Wildstein that they were smiling at the traffic jam? This is going to be interesting because presumably it wasn’t Bridget Anne Kelly, the Christie aide who went from loyal and brilliant early in the week to “stupid” and “deceitful” at the press conference. And speaking of Kelly, why didn’t Christie speak to her before firing her? What kind of prosecutor assumes guilt first and worries about whether they’re being just later? Answer: A prosecutor like Christie who obviously doesn’t care about the truth.

Questions about Christie’s political future are also a main topic, as this scandal shows that he either doesn’t have control over his own aides, or that he sent a message to them that this was politically acceptable behavior. In any case, this has severely damaged his national reputation. Conservatives were always wary of him; now moderates might be scared off by a man who has been resolute in the past, but just might have spilled over into vindictive in the national mind.

But the worst aspect at this point is that mayors from across New Jersey are now reviewing events of the past year and wondering if the negative attention they’ve received from Trenton is a result of them not endorsing Christie or running afoul of him because they disagreed with his decisions. This is the atmosphere that the governor has created for himself. Yes, his YouTube videos were entertaining for his supporters, but they are now a liability because, together with this scandal, they show a man who has no tolerance for opposition. That’s dangerous for a man who wants to be president.

It will be interesting to see what new information comes out about this and whether the narrative as we imagine it today has more moving parts to it.

For more please go to:
www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and Twitter @rigrundfest  

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Politics tweets water crisis West Virginia

Some Great Tweets about The West Virginia Water Crisis

We all feel for the crisis in West Virginia… well, maybe not the Republicans. In fact, as the water situation in West Virginia got contaminated, House Republicans voted in favor of a bill that will take away the authority of the EPA – the agency responsible for among other things, making sure our water supply is not contaminated.

Although Republicans are hellbent on stopping the EPA, government stepped in and is bringing clean water to the people of West Virginia. And the good people on Twitter have figured it out – that sometimes, government will step in and do what’s right for the people. These people understand what’s going on, and these tweets below clearly shows that.

Here are a few examples.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Politics

The Rich tells The Poor – Your Greed is Hurting the Economy – PIC

 

The Republican’s wish.

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Politics

House GOP Gutted The EPA, the Same Day West Virginia Waters were Contaminated

As West Virginians were learning Thursday of a devastating chemical spill in the Elk River that has rendered water undrinkable for 300,000 people, the US House of Representatives was busy gutting federal hazardous-waste cleanup law.

The House passed the Reducing Excessive Deadline Obligations Act that would ultimately eliminate requirements for the Environmental Protection Agency to review and update hazardous-waste disposal regulations in a timely manner, and make it more difficult for the government to compel companies that deal with toxic substances to carry proper insurance for cleanups, pushing the cost on to taxpayers.

In addition, the bill would result in slower response time in the case of a disaster, requiring increased consultation with states before the federal government calls for cleanup of Superfund sites – where hazardous waste could affect people and the environment.

The bill amends both the Solid Waste Disposal Act and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act – often referred to as Superfund, which was created in 1980 to hold polluter industries accountable for funding the cleanup of hazardous-waste sites.

There are over 1,300 priority Superfund sites in the US.

The legislation was passed by a vote of 225 to 188, mostly along party lines, with all but four Republicans supporting the bill and all but five Democrats opposing it.

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Politics

Chris Christie – The Ultimate Definition of The Republican Party

Some Republicans are claiming Chris Christie isn’t really one of them. Some pundits are claiming, even as scandal erupts around him, that he’s a “different kind of Republican.” He’s more than that: He is the archetypal Republican, the incarnation of its arrogant, corporatist soul.

It’s like we said a while back: Christie is “the heartless, smug, bullying embodiment” of his party. He and his staff reflect a world in which other people are nothing more than rubes to be manipulated and exploited, whether they’re trying to escape the trap of long-term unemployment or Fort Lee during the morning rush hour.

The conventional wisdom says that Christie’s not like other Republicans. Pundits say he’s a “moderate,” a “pragmatist,” a counterbalance to the far-right ideology of the Tea Party Republicans. But no leading Republican is really moderate, including Christie. And at the end of the day they’re all pragmatists, ready to do whatever it takes to serve their paymasters’ agenda.

Democrats and liberals routinely express frustration and bafflement at Republican hypocrisy. “They claim to hate big government,” they’ll say, “but they want to expand the Defense Department. They say they want government out of our lives, then vote to control women’s sex lives or manage a brain-dead woman’s care from the nation’s capital.”

Well, yeah.

It’s true that Republicans are hypocritical in word and deed. But while they may be false to an ideology, they’re always true to their mission: to promote and serve the interests of big corporations and ultra-wealthy individuals. And when it comes to that agenda, all of them — the Chris Christies as well as the Paul Ryans — are as extremist as the political climate will permit. Whether the subject is taxation, “corporate personhood,” or the future of the planet, there’s no room for either moderation or ideology in the service of corporate goals.

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Politics

FOUND – Secret Taped Meeting Proves Their Goal – Bring Down Obama

A secret audio tape of a May 8th meeting of the conservative group “Groundswell” (a total nightmare amalgamation of creatures mostly bearing Southern drawls, birther conspiracy beliefs and a reliable paranoia of being persecuted) shows the group using their collective power (media, sleeping with SCOTUS, money, evangelical base/money, GOP Congressional aides) to pressure elected Republicans into making something out of the now debunked Benhazi scandal.

They want a special committee or else.

If they don’t get it, they warned Speaker Boehner (R-OH) and Obama fake scandal manufacturer Darrell Issa (R-CA), the two could face a loss of support and financial backing.

Birther Frank Gaffney made it clear on the tape that he told the puppets to play ball or else! He told the group that he had reminded Boehner and Issa that their donors are getting restless (aka, deliver us an Obama scandal or your PAC gets it), “I’m somewhat encouraged that they’re taking this thing very much to heart and we really impressed upon them that there’s a lot of restiveness on the part of folks like us, and some of their donors as a matter of fact, about what — what’s happening here.”

Jerry Boykin of the Family Research Council told the group of conspirators that in their secret meeting the night before, Speaker Boehner warned them that the media would see this as an attempt to bring down the Obama administration (gee, ya think?). But, have no fear, patriots, “We got an ugly baby here and it’s going to get ugly today. We are not backing away from our call for a special committee with subpoena power… We’re not backing away from a special committee, but we kinda have a pledge from Issa and the Speaker.”

The tape of the meeting was published on Crooks and Liars by Karoli, who writes that the source wished to remain anonymous. The meeting was led by Catherine Engelbrecht, a founder of True the Vote. True the Vote is the organization found guilty of illegally aiding Republicans by operating like a PAC instead of a non-profit, and the very same organization trotted out by Darrell Issa and the media as just one example of Obama’s IRS picking on conservatives. Naturally, that wasn’t true, but it didn’t stop the media or the Republicans from running wild with their fictional accusations.

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News Politics West Virginia

So GOP… Are We Still Against the EPA? West Virginia Water Crisis

Contaminated waters of the Elk River

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — As hundreds of thousands of residents faced a third day without water because of a chemical spill in a local river, a water company executive said on Saturday that it could be days before it was safe for them to drink tap water again.

Jeff McIntyre, president of West Virginia American Water, said that officials had set up four labs to test the amount of chemical in the water, but that it might take days to provide enough samples to determine whether the water was safe.

A state official also said that thousands of gallons more of the chemical had leaked into the river than was initially believed.

A team from the Chemical Safety Board, an independent federal agency that investigates industrial chemical accidents, will arrive on Monday to begin looking into the spill, the board said on Saturday.

“Our goal is to find out what happened to allow a leak of such magnitude to occur and to ensure that the proper safeguards are in place to prevent a similar incident from occurring,” said Rafael Moure-Eraso, the chairman of the safety board.

At a news conference here on Saturday evening, officials said tests had begun to show concentrations of the chemical dropping below the one part per million threshold considered safe by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The concentration must remain that low for 24 hours before the water system can be flushed out and the do-not-use ban can be lifted. Officials said they planned to conduct at least 100 additional tests of samples overnight and on Sunday.

The contamination level was dropping because the leak had been shut off, said Mike Dorsey, the chief of homeland security and emergency response at the State Department of Environmental Protection. Some tests showed concentrations above one part per million, which officials attributed to sludge in the river and rain breaking up contaminated ice along it.

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Politics

Israel’s Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon Dead at 85

JERUSALEM (AP) — It was vintage Ariel Sharon: His hefty body bobbing behind a wall of security men, the ex-general led a march onto a Jerusalem holy site, staking a bold claim to a shrine that has been in contention from the dawn of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

What followed was a Palestinian uprising that put Mideast peace efforts into deep-freeze.

Five years later, Sharon, who died Saturday at 85, was again barreling headlong into controversy, bulldozing ahead with his plan to pull Israel out of the Gaza Strip and uproot all 8,500 Jewish settlers living there without regard to threats to his life from Jewish extremists.

His allies said the move was a revolutionary step in peacemaking; his detractors said it was a tactical sacrifice to strengthen Israel’s hold on much of the West Bank.

Either way, the withdrawal and the barrier he was building between Israel and the West Bank permanently changed the face of the conflict and marked the final legacy of a man who shaped Israel as much as any other leader. He was a farmer-turned-soldier, a soldier-turned-politician, a politician-turned-statesman — a hard-charging Israeli who built Jewish settlements on war-won land, but didn’t shy away from destroying them when he deemed them no longer useful.

Sharon died eight years after a debilitating stroke put him into a coma. His body was to lie in state at the parliament on Sunday before he is laid to rest at his ranch in southern Israel on Monday, Israeli media reported. Vice President Joe Biden will lead the U.S. delegation.

His death was greeted with the same strong feelings he evoked in life. Israelis called him a war hero. His enemies called him a war criminal.

President Barack Obama remembered Sharon as “a leader who dedicated his life to the state of Israel.”

Former President George W. Bush, who was in the White House during Sharon’s tenure, called him a “warrior for the ages and a partner in seeking security for the Holy Land and a better, peaceful Middle East.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a rival and harsh critic of Sharon, said: “His memory will be enshrined forever in the heart of the nation.”

President Shimon Peres, a longtime friend and rival, said “he was an outstanding man and an exceptional commander who moved his people and loved them and the people loved him.”

The Palestinians, who loathed Sharon as their most bitter enemy, distributed candy, prayed for divine punishment and said they regretted he was never held accountable for his actions, including a massacre in the Lebanese refugee camps of Sabra and Chatilla by Christian militiamen allied with Israel during the 1982 invasion that was largely his brainchild.

“He wanted to erase the Palestinian people from the map … He wanted to kill us, but at the end of the day, Sharon is dead and the Palestinian people are alive,” said Tawfik Tirawi, who served as Palestinian intelligence chief when Sharon was prime minister.

The man Israel knew simply by his nickname “Arik” fought in most of Israel’s wars, gained a reputation as an adroit soldier and was the godfather of Israel’s massive settlement campaign in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He detested Yasser Arafat, his lifelong adversary, as an “obstacle to peace” and was in turn detested in the Arab world.

His career spanned the Middle East conflict from its early skirmishes through five wars, one of which left him hailed as his nation’s savior, and another reviled as its disgrace.

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Politics

Chris Christie’s Mentor on Christie – “Do You Really Want That in Your President?”

Tom Kean

It is safe to say that former New Jersey Governor Tom Kean Sr. is responsible for Chris Christie’s political career. When Christie was 14 years old, it was Tom Kean Sr. who held his hand and brought the young teenager into politics.

In an interview with the Washington Post published Saturday, former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean Sr. (R) had some rather interesting things to say about the possible brain behind the Bridgegate scandal, Chris Christie.

“On the one hand, I think he’s got a lot to offer,” Kean Sr. said. “I think he’s the most able politician since Bill Clinton. On the other hand, you look at these other qualities and ask, ‘do you really want that in your president?’”

Earlier in the week, Kean Sr. expressed similar sentiments to the Associated Press, saying that barring new details, he thought Christie would “survive” the bridge scandal. Yet the events set precedent for a thin margin of error in the future.

“If there’s a pattern of these things, if other incidents emerge with similar characteristics, that’s going to be a real problem,” Kean Sr. told the AP.

Kean Sr.’s relationship with Christie reached rocky ground in November, when the governor maneuvered to ouster his son, Tom Kean Jr., as GOP leader of the New Jersey state Senate. The move left Kean Sr. “as surprised as I’ve ever been in my life in politics,” the AP noted.

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Politics Republican Party

Glenn Beck Throws Chris Christie and the GOP Under the Bus – Video

Glenn Beck, one of the main voices of the Republican party has now officially thrown the party and Chris Christie under the bus, never to be seen or heard from again.

Beck, responding to a previous call to his show where the caller accused him of “poisoning the well” due to his constant knocks on Chris Christie, a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2016. In answering this accusation from the caller, explained that he never was, nor will he ever be a “shill” for the Republican party. He went on to name other Republicans and conservative media figureheads like Hannity and Limbaugh, saying that they too have had it with the Republican party.

“Sean Hannity has had it with the GOP,” Beck said. “Mark Levin has had it with the GOP. The biggest, quote, ‘shill of the GOP,’ as they have always liked to say, Rush Limbaugh, has had it with the GOP … So if you’re looking for shills for a political party, you’re probably going to have to shake talk radio.”

He goes on to explain that MSNBC, CNN and other cable shows are “shills” for the Republicans and Democrats. Unbelievably, he failed to include Fox News in his lineup.

Video

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