Category: Domestic Policies

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Domestic Policies Healthcare News Politics Wisconsin Union Bashing

The State of the Unions

There’s been a lot of talk recently about workers. You know, the people who do the work in this country and who expect to be paid a livable wage while earning a little respect from employers and customers. The problem is that somewhere along the way, the conservative revolution has been glorifying the wealthy while bashing the people who actually create the wealth. I’m not saying anything new, but a spate of reports have caught my eye and I’m going to go out on a limb and say that if present trends continue, we could have another revolution, but this one will be messy.

First up are those pesky fast food workers, you know, the ones who serve the most meals in the country. They are holding one-day walkouts to protest the unlivable minimum wage, $7.25 an hour or about $30,000 per year if full time, that many of them can’t really live on. Add in the lack of health care benfits and you have the fixin’s of a major problem. Since many of the jobs being created these days are not full time, more people are earning a wage that doesn’t support even a minimal existence.

So what to do? In DC, the City Council voted to require Wal-mart to pay its employees at least $12.50 per hour in all of its city stores. Wal-mart was considering building six stores in DC, but now that they actually have to pay a livable wage, they’re threatening not to build three of them. This wage would also apply to other big box stores. Keep in mind that Wal-mart makes billions of dollars a year, as do other retailers such as Home Depot and Target, and they all pay their executives millions of dollars in salaries. But of course, they couldn’t lower some of those high paying jobs just a little bit to cover the hourly workers. That would send the wrong message. Like, we care about our employees.

And it’s not just in the United States. Amazon is currently finding that European governments (those darn socialists!) are pushing back against Amazon’s attitude towards unions and the right to organize. Amazon is going to lose this battle, just as Google lost the privacy battle over its mapping service that also scooped up private information. In Europe, they take privacy and union rights seriously and that’s complicating big American businesses who are used to allies on the right allowing companies to bust unions and pay people very little (while telling workers that they should be happy to just have a job).

I am certainly not advocating fighting in the streets, but over time, as people find it difficult, if not impossible, to earn a living wage, and politicians turn a blind eye to them, then what other recourse will people have? Social media and elections will help, but gerrymandered Congressional districts almost ensure that anti-worker politicians will continue to be reelected. The gap between wealthy and not wealthy in this country is as large as it’s ever been, and that, in part, is why the economy is not growing a robustly as it should. Let’s solve this problem before more people become desperate.

And yes, that’s a warning.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest

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Immigration Immigration Reform Politics

John McCain on Fox News – “Fox News is a bit schizophrenic”

If Republican John McCain keeps this up, I’m going to have to write more good things about him.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was asked for his thoughts on the love/hate relationship that he has had with the personalities on Fox News Channel over the years. McCain told TNR’s Isaac Chotiner that he has never changed, but Fox’s opinion of him and the issues he tackles has shifted dramatically over the years. “I think that Fox News is a bit schizophrenic,” the Arizona senator opined.

“You have had conversations with people at Fox, The New Yorker reported, about immigration,” Chotiner asked, citing a report by Ryan Lizza which revealed that McCain had approached Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes asking him and his network to be more receptive to immigration reform proposals.

“There is a real divide in the party,” Chotiner continued. “What do Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch say about whether the party can come along on this issue?”

“It is well known that Rupert Murdoch is a strong supporter of immigration reform,” McCain replied. “Roger Ailes is also a realist. He believes that immigration reform is vital to the country first, but also the GOP. Yet he does not dictate. [Sean] Hannity has come out against it and kept his job. I don’t think Roger Ailes is ham-fisted.”

RELATED: John McCain Goes After Fellow GOPer On Senate Floor: He ‘Ought To Learn’ How Congress Operates

“But if you watch Fox, there are all these segments on immigrants and crime and so on, and people get riled up, and then they want reform,” the TNR reporter followed up. “It’s a difficult dynamic in the party.”

“I think that Fox News is a bit schizophrenic,” McCain shot back. “I saw a guy on “Hannity,” maybe “Huckabee,” and the guy said, “You know, the Chinese are coming across our border, and they are going to commit cyber-attacks.”

Chotiner expressed incredulity over the belief that one would have to cross a physical border to execute a cyber-attack. “Honest to God!” McCain assured him. “They are going to commit cyber-attacks.”

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Immigration Immigration Reform Politics

John McCain: Without Immigration Reform, “the Republican Party cannot win a national election”

Arizona Republican Senator John McCain is finding his Mavericky ways again. He has begun to buck his party’s wish to go against everything President Obama wants with the goal or hope that the president fails, and McCain is actually working with other Senate Democrats to get things done. So it’s no surprise hearing this Mavericky Senator warns his fellow Republicans, telling them that doing nothing on Immigration will seal the party’s fate as a loser in future national elections.

“I think this fall is very important,” McCain said at a forum hosted by AFL-CIO and the Economic Policy Institute. “It’s very important because we get into 2014 — the next election cycle. I think the issue really has ripened to the point that enough Americans are aware of it, we are either going to act or not act.”

On PBS Monday, McCain said that if immigration reform is not passed, the Republican Party will never again win a national election.

“Let’s say we enact it, comprehensive immigration reform — I don’t think it gains a single Hispanic voter, but what it does, it puts us on a playing field where we can compete for the Hispanic voter,” McCain told PBS’ Gwen Ifill. “If we don’t do that, frankly, I don’t see — I see further polarization of the Hispanic voter and the demographics are clear that the Republican Party cannot win a national election. That’s just a fact.”

McCain compared the current system to “de facto amnesty because they are not leaving” and said that in his experience and from polls he’s seen, most Americans support the pathway to citizenship as long as the undocumented pay a fine, learn English and get on the back of the line.

“It (immigration) has a broader spectrum of support than any I have ever seen in my political career,” he said. He said that the broad range of groups and communities that support immigration reform “can galvanize” in the coming months to make passage a reality.

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Domestic Policies Healthcare News Politics

The Endgame

Here’s what’s clear: the success of President Obama’s second term will come down to the next few months of 2013 and early 2014 in the form of immigration reform, the success of the health care law, and the rising economy. There probably will be no grand bargain on the debt (thank heavens), tax reform is a long way off, and the Republicans don’t believe enough in real science to have a discussion about energy and the environment. So we’ll have to be happy from small victories.

The health care law is the most important. The GOP has staked its past, present and future on the law’s failure, (and has threatened to shut down the government rather than accept it) but that’s probably not going to happen. Will there be problems? You bet, and the right wing will loudly report each and every example of someone who has to pay more, or accept coverage that they don’t need or want, or how doctors and hospitals are suffering, but in the end, the law will cover more people and result in a healthier society.

It might even result in more people finding less costly insurance through the exchanges than through their employers. That would be a tremendous coup because then businesses will be relieved of the pressure of covering their employees and people will not have to stay in terrible jobs simply for the benefits. I don’t see this happening quickly, but if the market (you remember the market. This is a law all about the market.) makes it less expensive to buy from the exchanges, then that’s what people will do. betting against health insurance is a losing proposition.

Immigration reform will probably not pass the House in its Senate version, but I do have a sneaking suspicion that a more comprehensive bill than the House purports to disdain will come out of the legislature. The Republicans can talk tough, but I do think that they see the electoral graffiti on the wall and understand that passing nothing will do them great harm. Perhaps the gerrymandered districts will allow them to keep the House, but that’s a flimsy wall to hide behind for a party that’s lost the popular vote in all but one national election since 1992.

The Republican Party is clueless, but it’s not, you know, clueless.

During the past presidential election cycle, I wrote repeatedly that the conservative wave was crashing and that the GOP would become dangerously radical. I hate to say that I was right, but we are now living in the extremist bubble and it’s not going to pop for another two or four years. During that time we can look forward to more attempts at voter suppression, curbs on reproductive rights and a call to eliminate or severely cut back on social programs such as food stamps, unemployment compensation and Medicare. If the Democrats can hold the line against the tide, they can slowly turn the country back in a less dangerous direction. Then we can truly address the problems we have in a pragmatic, sensible manner.

Until then, we’ll be playing defense.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest

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Domestic Policies

50th ANNIVESARY MARCH ON WASHINGTON: Saturday, August 24, 2013

50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON!

Lincoln Memorial
2 Lincoln Memorial Cir NW
20037 Washington, DC

Reserve your seat online NOW!

EVENT DETAILS: For folks in the New York City area.

Join the First Corinthian Baptist Church as they partner with the National Action Network to journey to DC to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington.

To reserve a seat on the FCBC bus the down-payment is $10. The total cost is $50, with the final payment due August 4th.

All buses leave for Washington @3am Saturday, August 4 and leave from Washington after the rally at 4pm.

Buses will depart for Washington from FCBC, located at 1912 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. (at W 116th St) Harlem, New York.

See further details of the march here.

For questions about 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON please contact Betty Davis at ACT@fcbcnyc.org.

Category: Social Justice

All denominations invited!

Join the March on Washington to commemorate the March for Jobs and Freedom led by Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. 50 years ago.

Labor Fight Back calls for jobs and freedom for all, defend and expand Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, respect and protect workers’ rights and restore and expand voting rights.

Fifty years ago, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. led a great March for JOBS and FREEDOM on Washington that demanded:

“A massive federal program to train and place all unemployed workers—Negro and white—on meaningful and dignified jobs at decent wages.

“A national minimum wage act that will give all Americans a decent standard of living. (Government surveys show that anything less than $2.00 [$15.23 at May 2013 prices] an hour fails to do this.)”

Shockingly, most working people are worse off today than in the 1960s:

Employment statistics today are clearly worse. Thanks to the Great Recession, the national unemployment rate still hovers at 7.6 percent; in 1963 it was 5.7 percent. But that is only part of the picture. Part-time workers who want full-time work are on the rise. And even worse, the number of those who have completely given up hope of finding a job has increased precipitously: in 1954, 96 percent of U.S. men between 25 and 54 years old worked but today that number has dropped to 80 percent. When all these sectors of unemployed or partially employed are combined and only those men who are unemployed but want work are included, the unemployment rate jumps to 16 percent.

In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, the government instituted job programs and put millions to work. [A few days ago] President Obama announced that it is not the government’s job to create the needed number of jobs. In fact, the Obama administration has advocated a totally inadequate plan that would provide less than two million new jobs.

Compounding these dire circumstances, social safety net programs, like food stamps and unemployment compensation, including for those suffering long-term joblessness, have been cut across the board on the national, state, and local levels and will likely be cut again, especially in light of the recent decision by the House to push through a farm bill without food stamps.

Whatever recovery there has been from the Great Recession has resulted in income gains concentrated at the top. This division in economic gains is not new. It extends and reinforces the trend toward Gilded Age inequality that has been going on for four decades. In 2010, 93 percent of all new income that was created went to the wealthiest 1 percent of the population.

The attacks on African Americans and people of color have continued unabated, as witnessed by the brutal murder of Trayvon Martin and the exoneration of his killer. This on top of the June 25 Supreme Court decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act.

It’s high time for all victims of austerity cuts, potential victims of further cuts in the near and long-term future — particularly low-income and poor people — along with communities of color, students, environmentalists and other sectors of the population reeling from the deteriorating conditions under which we live to come together to fight collectively for our rights and achieve a new wave of social progress.March for jobs

We demand that the federal government create tens of millions of good paying jobs to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, protect the environment, and rehire laid-off teachers and other essential public workers.

source: Popular Resistance

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Domestic Policies News Politics

So Much Done. So Much More To Do.

If you follow the news every minute (used to be every day), you’d think that Obama’s presidency has been a grand failure. After all, he didn’t save the world, or make friends with the terrorists and turn them into democrats or make the economy zoom along at a 5% growth rate or clean the air or any number of things that he either promised to do or was expected to do when he took office in 2009.

Instead, he faced some of the most extreme opposition of any president and really only accomplished most of his agenda when he Democrats controlled both houses of Congress by filibuster-proof (in the Senate) majorities. I’d also like to take this opportunity to remind people that many other presidents faced concerted opposition including Theodore Roosevelt (from his own party), Woodrow Wilson, FDR (from the Supreme Court and Congress), JFK, LBJ, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. That any president can get things done under our constitution is a monumental accomplishment, but somehow we as a country manage to move forward.

So it is today. The Senate has thawed some over the past two months and recently avoided internal chaos with the approval of a good number of Obama appointments. Of course, the GOP is now facing buyers remorse on that compromise, but only because they got, well, nothing out of the deal. And it looks like the stars might not align on immigration reform because the House, always extreme on the right or left, will not consider a comprehensive bill. In fact, the House is so busy voting to repeal the health care law that there’s precious little time for anything else.

In this environment, it’s useful to remind everyone just how much Barack Obama has accomplished in just over a term. Those accomplishments are listed in this article, and should be required reading of anyone who says we’ve done nothing since 2008.

We’ve had financial and bank reform, health care reform, the saving of the automobile industry, and avoided a depression. But there’s more and any thinking American should know that. So take a look and understand that our government was built to act slowly. That works both for and against us, but it is how the framers constructed the system. We will have more landmark legislation over the next three and a half years. Some of it will be incomplete and need revision in a few years. Some of it will become part of the fabric of American life.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest

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Domestic Policies

The Moral Mondays Movement in Raleigh, NC – Week 13’s Edition

They say a Picture is Worth a Thousand words. Well, Here’s Proof!

More than 800 people have been arrested at the Legislative Building in expressions of civil disobedience since the “Moral Monday” protests began in April. All because of an arrogant, self-absorbed Gov., Pat McCrory, who has refused to sit down with the Leaders representing the masses including but not limited to Voter’s Rights, Women’s Rights, Students, Elderly, Obamacare Proponents, Teachers, young and old. Enough said, see the Proof…


Beware GOP, This is a Movement that is Sure to Spread. With the intolerance of that party in other states, we could Soon see a Nationwide Protest Showing up in a City Near You.

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Domestic Policies

Trayvon Martin Vigil, City Hall New York

My sister Veronica attended one of the many “Justice For Trayvon” vigils sponsored by churches Saturday all across the country. Here are some images from the NYC rally at City Hall.

These rallies are intended to support The Justice Department in its investigation into whether Zimmerman, who claimed he shot and killed Trayvon Martin in self-defense, violated any federal laws.

They’re also intended garner up enough support to repeal the Stand Your Ground Law, enacted in 2005 and now in place in 21 states in America

Rally attendee Veronica & Raymond Santana of The Central Park 5.

Veronica with Dr. Lenora Fulani, New Alliance Presidential Candidate.
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Domestic Policies

Despite Automakers’ Success Detroit Files for Bankruptcy

“It’s also not honoring the president, who took [Detroit’s auto companies] out of bankruptcy.” — Ingham County Circuit Judge Rosemary Aquillina

Somewhat what I was thinking as I sat down to write this blog regarding the treacherous move Michigan Governor Rick Snyder(R) made on the hardworking people of Detroit Thursday. On Friday Judge Aquillina ordered Detroit’s bankruptcy to be withdrawn, citing that government employees’ pensions would be endangered by federal bankruptcy proceedings.

In March, as Detroit faced an estimated debt of $19 billion, Michigan named Kevyn Orr as emergency manager who then proceeded to do the unthinkable by proposing public employees have their retirement benefits cut and demanding investors in municipal bonds get considerably short-changed on the payback of loans to the city. In the following days both of these groups objected, propelling the city — as the lawmakers say — to file for bankruptcy.

“It’s cheating, sir, and it’s cheating good people who work,” the judge told assistant Attorney General Brian Devlin on Friday.

Detroit Emergency Manager Orr addresses the media as Michigan Governor Snyder listens during a news conference about filing bankruptcy for the city of Detroit.

 Governor Snyder says he’s making Detroit a “better place” by putting the city through bankruptcy but angry public employees and retirees and investors, feel his plan is nothing more than a Republican scheme to bust unions and rob public workers out of hard-earned pensions. Again.

Experts say Detroit’s problems are unlikely to spread to other cities…yeah, right! Remember Govenor Walker in Wisconsin?

Detroit stands to be the largest city in history ever to file for bankruptcy.

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Domestic Policies News

President Obama: “Trayvon could’ve been me 35 years ago.”

“…black men in particular are used to being feared.” says the President.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama says black Americans feel pain after the Trayvon Martin verdict because of a “history that doesn’t go away.”

Obama spoke in a surprise appearance Friday at the White House, his first time appearing for a statement on the verdict since it was issued last Saturday.

“Trayvon could’ve been me 35 years ago,” Obama said.

Obama says African Americans view the case through “a set of experiences and a history that doesn’t go away.” He says black men in particular are used to being feared and blacks see a disparity in the way they are treated under the law.

He says he also has heard drivers lock their doors and has seen women clutch their purses tighter when he walked by, before he was elected to public office.

h/t  Huff Post: The Trayvon Martin Case

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Domestic Policies News Politics trayvon martin

Trayvon

A young African-American man is dead. He was armed only with Skittles and a hoodie, which now qualifies as dangerous. He reacted when a self-styled and armed neighborhood watchman bothered him for little reason other than he seemed to be threatened that an African-American male was walking the gated premises. The laws of Florida allow armed people to shoot first and ask questions later.

This was the recipe for travesty, and I’m sure it won’t be the last time it happens.

For all of the talk about having an African-American president, we are not a post-racial society. Race plays an important, and in this case an explosive role in our civic culture. President Obama has shied away from invoking race where it is an issue and, in my mind, he hasn’t done enough to focus Americans on the continuing injustice that colors our system. He should be speaking out more and letting America know that we have much work to do to achieve equality in society and fairness under the law.

Now there’s talk that the Department of Justice ought to file civil rights charges against George Zimmerman. Perhaps, like OJ Simpson, that will provide the family with closure and provide for some kind of punishment. There’s also talk of plots against Mr. Zimmerman and I truly hope that he remains safe. Violence should not beget more violence.

What truly needs to happen is that laws like Florida’s that allow people to legally acquire firearms and use them preemptively must be stricken from the books. How many innocent people need to die before we do that?

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest

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Immigration Reform immigration reform Videos

Why Immigration Reform Is Good For Our Economy – Video

Video from the White House, explaining why Immigration reform is good for the economy. And because it’s good for the economy, chances are the Republicans in Congress will do all they can to dismantle and destroy it.

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