has not been made.
"reengineering the Moral Stantards of America"? I've seen and read the Constitution, Bill of Rights, but I'm unaware of having ever voted on the adoption of any "moral standards".
In the last month we've seen ridiculousness (Romney's First Day Ads), to the weird (Obama in his heart isn't and American), to this lets-shoot-ourselves-in-the-foot and see if it helps us walk stupidity. Oh then there is the Greene Country Virginia Republican Party calling for "armed revolution" should Obama be re-elected. Seems its not Congress; just one particular part of Congress. But the pot is certainly cracked.
The issue is whether Romney is qualified. He says his work at Bain qualifies him to be president and to clean up the mess George W. Bush created. But you won't find those three leathal words in a Romney speech.
So what has he said he's going to do that is based on Bain. His day 1 ads (have you noticed that the Romney campaign apparently thinks the voters are too stupid to handle more than 3 issues at a time; must be related to the three lethal words)
1. Deficit reduction. Doesn't say how much or when just that he'll start on his first day. That will be a hercluean task given that the Ryan-Romney budget calls for $5 trillion in additional deficit spending in the next 10 years.
2. Stand up to China. How, doesn't say. Invade maybe given that he has hired every GWB (oh those words again) neoconservative foreign policy amateur.
3. repeal regulations. Like GWB (again those bad words) did when he came to office. I'm sure this will not extend to repealing prison regulations although if Romney's friends in Wall Street get their day in court this might move higher on the list.
weeks 2 first day ad
1. Approve keystone pipeline inspite of the fact that it will increase the price of gas and decrease the price of disael, reduce US refinery production, and all the refinery products will be sold overseas. Smart. $8 gas here we come.
2. Cut taxes to reward job creators - that means not you. More deficit spending.
3. Replace Obamacare, the only accomplishment Romney has from his years as Mass. Governor. He certainly doesn't want to claim the 4th worst job-creation record he earned there.
With this as an agenda, Romney has proved himself unqualified for the office.
I didn't write "fostering economic markets" Government establishes the legal environment on which markets are created. It creates the legal foundations of markets. My list is not all-inclusive but a fairly general and inclusive list of areas of law that have to exist for markets to function.
If by capital investment, you mean government investments in private enterprises. Throughout all of US history that has been viewed as a perfectly normal governmental role. Almost the first thing the US government did was create the First National Bank as a private/government investment. While hotly debated it was essential to early American economic development. Cancellation of the Second National Bank created the worst economic depression of the 19th century and retarded US economic development for almost a decade. Still such investments should be rarely used with very specific, documented conditions, goals, and auditing and specific time limits. GM is a good example of a case where a well designed program had completely positive results and a failure to act would have had devasting consequences. The Financial Bailout is a perfect example of a poorly designed not well understood investment which had neither documented conditions, goals, or auditing but where a failure to act (Lehman Bros) had already proven that a continued failure to act would have devastating consequences. I supported the Auto bailout; I opposed the Financial Bailout precisely because their designs were different even though both were necessary. No private alternative existed in either case.
If every corporation was a small store with 5 employees, letting it close when it fails is the right thing to do. But as corporate power has grown (since 1980) and outgrown governmental power, the consequences of corporate failure are devastating to the nation and to millions of people not involved in anyway with the failed institution. A GM failure would have closed thousands of small-moderate businesses from parts makers to software companies which in turn would have lead to the loss of manufacturing expertise in the US which would threaten National Security and economic development for a generation. Unfortunately, some companies are too big to fail and too big to regulate and too big to control. But we could not deal with that situation in the month of January 2009. We had to deal with the failure of GM then. Corporate power is our problem. It needs a solution but GM's failure would not have provided the opportunity.
If by capital investments you mean internal infrastructure development, I also disagree. Supporting internal infrastructure (again a condition of markets to exist and function) has been debated since the founding of the country. The Erie canal was funded by government and grew the US economy as no other act in our history, changed the flow of goods/services in Central NY from the Great Lakes to New York City turning NYC into America's commercial hub and primary port and changed American culture leading to the civil war. Phew!, just from a ditch. 95% of economic development over the last 50 years in Maine has occurred with 10 miles of the Maine Turnpike, a federal program.
People have opposed Federal debt during all our history. Jackson's elimination of the Federal Debt was in his view the crowning achievement of his administration. Hamilton held that national debt was absolutely necessary for the financial health of the country. Hamilton was right. The size of the Federal debt should be determined purely by financial factors. I would say anything above 5% of GDP is to some degree unhealthy under most circumstances (if the whole world has national debt at 100% of GDP the US will not be hurt by debt of 25%) so with that exception I support at least some national debt in peacetime not to exceed 50% of the lowest national debt among other industrialized countries and never to exceed 50% of GDP. More important is the trade debt. We should always run a positive but small trade surplus. We aren't.
I see govenment as a solution to creating the environment in which economic markets are created (money supply, value of money, fraud (rules of fair economic exchange), bankruptcy (rules for entering and exiting markets), weights & measures (one variant of fraud rules)) and mitigating the failures both natural and man-made in the business cycle. National, local self-defense. That's it. I suspect, you would have a shorter list.
When government has less relative power corporations as the other power centers gain power. Instead of a Congress making the decisions that control our lives corporate boards of directors will. The lack of a clear delineation between corporate and governmental power is precisely the problem. Its true that government will have less favors to give corporations the problem is they won't need favors. There will be no one to stop them from doing anything they want.
Government is the only possible solution (not that it always is or even sometimes is. William Williams said that we, poor people, only win when the ruling class is divided, but then he was a great optimist) to corporate crime. If you don't see that, we will always be a victim.
The corporations have power - they employee thousands, they have hundreds of vendors who employ thousands more, they are united through associations, they are allied with banks, they have a network of power. You have none.
You did. Makes me think you are a wolf in sheep's clothing on this blog. Do you spout smaller government because it will enhance your corporate power? Only thing that makes sense from your comments.
P.S. I've had my opportunity, made it work and quite satisfied. Now its pay back time to those that come after.
"you are assuming here that a larger government will be less favorable to the power centers". One and only one government in the history of the world has been able to successfully control its centers of power for the benefit of the people as a whole - The US government and then only from 1800-1860 and then again from 1933-1980. And that is because of the system of checks and balances in the Constitution (it failed 1860-1929 because the rural agrarian economy antebellum was transformed after the Civil War into an industrialized Capitalist economy in which corporate power outgrew civil power.). That is now failing because of the shift in economic systems from a largely domestic system to a global system. The Constitution is not a global constitution so it can not deal with global economic issues well. Larger Government is needed because of the growth in the size of private power.
"My answer would be that there is more corruption in government today then back then, but government is larger?" You're time scale is much too short to make such judgements. Prior to the 1880's your vote for President was public - you shouted it out at a public meeting with representatives of the primary employer in your area and political leaders in attendence after hours of speeches with an open bar (My five year old great-great-great uncle voted for McKinley for President in 1896 for which he was paid 5 cents). Now do you want to talk about corruption.
Your real issue is that you don't have an equal opportunity and you sense that we are losing it. You are right. You just have the wrong solution. Government is only about power. Power. nothing but POWER. Think power. Look at what has happenned since Cater from a power perspective. Why were we able to get workable solutions to the Depression in 1933-1937; but failed to do so in 2007-2010. That's the issue.
No. You still have to trace a line item in the budget. Only if cutting government by a third meant eliminating up to 1/3 of the line items does it become easier. Cutting in one budget will create new line items in lower governmental units increasing the difficulty. Plus its completely impractical to cut all levels of governement by 1/3. Every line item in a government budget has a public defender - a group of individuals or power centers which will defend the level of spending as absolutely critical and for them it is).
Assumption. I know of nothing now that suggests this is true if it ever was. The local impact of national actions probably is more important to people but their solution is national not local. Local government (Town, school board) has little impact on individual lives now and people know it. Repeal of Glass-Steagal in 1999 has had much more impact on peoples lives in rural maine than any other action of government in the last 50 years.
Government efficiency is not and should not be a goal of government. Where in the Constitution do you find those provisions defining efficiency in government. They don't exist except as assumptions you bring to it. Government has two responsibilities - defend the country and to provide an economic system that benefits all of us - equal opportunity, general welfare, pick your term. If those responsibilities can be efficiently met all the better; if not keep trying.
The real issue is not efficiency; its power. Does the government protect me physically from war, riot, and crime. Does government give me an equal opportunity to raise a family that can grow and secure for themselves the means to enjoy basic happiness i.e. economic stability. The answer to the question of power not efficiency is no. Government has been less able to meet its responsibilities since Carter left office and the Republicans have dominated the White House and began to wage their war on American democracy. Now corporate power overwhelms government power.Government can no long as they did in the 1930's impose regulations to control the criminal behavior of corporations, stabilize the economic system, and provide equal opportunities. Dodd-Frank is a joke.
Its easier to watch one Federal Register that includes everything the federal government is doing than 400+ town governments, 16 county governments, one state government with hundreds of agencies, within 50 states.
The smaller the government relative to the size of the power centers the more likely those power centers are to dictate how government functions. Ever been to a school board or town meeting? Now we have district wide votes on the school budget. Why? because the district meeting of the past left the vote up to 35 school employees and 2 civilians in many cases. Schools now are the major employer in many towns. Try to pass something the superintendent doesn't like. You have a business. Volunteer for the school board (In many towns its no really a vote) agree to defend the superindentent in all things and amazingly your business will prosper. The bigger the town, the smaller the school's relative power in the town the more likely the school is managed without special privileges, the better the budget, the better decision making generally.
"Leave practically everything else to the state". OH God no. State Governments are the most corrupt political units in America. Just visited Pennsylvania as I have been about every two months for the last year (born there been a regular visitor). This trip only two major political figures were arrested for corruption. Sometimes its more sometimes less. This time it was a Supreme Court Judge (third member of her family indicted) and a speaker of the house. Pa. is in the center of the fracking controversey. The Governor has giving the natural gas companies a free hand to do anything they want. It was announced that after more than 4 years the Pa. EPA will begin recording suspected cases of illness caused by surface water pollution next year. So far Pa. EPA has not investigated a single case of harm done by fracking.
The advantages of of smaller government are an illusion. Just because you can walk into the town office and talk to the town manager does not mean you have influence, can get anything done, or can compete with a major power center (corporation, government, rich folks)
The opposite of austerity is not deficit spending. Mike your either/or absolutes are meaningless. Smaller government does not mean less political favors; it means that the favors are doled out by fewer people with less public controls. Reduce Washington to the swamp it was and political favors will be doled out by corporate lobbyists at all levels and without the political structures to check and balance their activities we the little guy will be slaves to the rich.
The question is when in the history of mankind has it been defined as a union between a man and a woman. In western culture, for the last few hundred years. In eastern culture, Africa, Asia, India, only that period of western colonial occupation. The biblical definition of marriage was polygamy. Practiced by almost every biblical group. Heterosexual exclusive civil and religious marriage is the rare exception not the rule. And even more rare was when it involved love and committment. And then there is "common law" marriage.
Electing a black man in America even in 2008 particularly one with almost no government experience, no national reputation, no military service, and a campaign that really rested on the simple fact that he "was not bush" was not only historic but wildly atypical. But I think you are very wrong to suggest that it was perception not reality that drove the rejection of Bush. Iraq was real. Afghanistan justified. His policies directly lead to the economic collapse. He and particularly Cheney made very clear that they really did not listen to anybody. And he did not capture or kill Bin Laden or revenge the 9/11 attacks. I think all objective evaluations of Bush and its really too early but are well below even Carter in terms of performance. I've seen 45th - 48th worst President of all time. The Patriot act is unnecessary and unconstitutional. The "Bush Doctrine" the most damaging foreign policy mistake ever. And the secret Oil & Gas meetings lead by Cheney got the Bush Administration off on the wrong foot from day one. No, Bush's poor performance was real, not perception.
Off to PA for a week; you'll have the comment section all to yourself.
Actually some of our exchanges have been fun.
I would suggest that you reflect on Thomas Jefferson's comment on membership in parties - its a matter of personality (not a quote). In my case, facts drive my conclusions. The Goldwater folks and Ayn Rand who I was studying at the time (I was 17) had no respect for facts as do the current republicans who have no respect for science or demonstrable information. And that was incompatible with my personality.
P.S. Read Gienapp The Formation of the Republican Party 1852-1856 (I butchered both the name and the title but its close) and Westcott's New Men, New Issues The formation of the Maine Republican Party Maine Historical Society (this one is good because it is based on voluminous original newspaper accounts of the times and since the newspapers were party affiliated their bias had to be taken into account). Both beautifully characterize the process and the personalities that created and I argue maintain the Republican Party.
I would also argue that the Carter Presidency was an aberration caused by Vietnam, Nixon, Ford's pardon of Nixon, and the Oil embargo. In normal times he could never have gotten the Democratic Party's nomination same by the way is true of Wilson who only got the nomination because the party organization in NJ wanted him out of the state and he was elected because T. Roosevelt was too arrogant to go Safari-ing for another4 years.
And I'm not now a registered Democrat. I'm an anti-corporatist or more correctly a pro-Constitutionalist who sees the mal-distribution of power as the core problem of the 20th century America. Each party has succumbed to the power distribution and no longer represents a consistent Constitutional view and the worst agents of that are the Tea Party and the Libertarians both of which were invented by the corporations.
But there is a world of difference between Obama and Mitt and I disagree with "all politicians are alike".
I would never vote for Romney nor would I ever vote for a "tea party" republican. I would have under the right circumstances voted for a Nelson Rockefeller, Bill Scanton, Evertett Dirksen. I worked for Goldwater in 1964 and that experience confirmed for me that the current Republican Party which is the true heir of the Goldwater movement is the single greatest threat to our Constitutional form of Government since the Civil War. Therefore, I will never vote Republican.
Given that, Romney is a special case. Taking credit for the Auto bailout - absurd. Taking two, three, four, and in some case more contradictory positions on the same issue depending on his audience - appalling. The man has ambition and no core civic values he is willing to defend. He does have and make no mistake about this strong Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints values and that is to his credit. But he will not discuss them. He also sees his business life divorced from his moral values. That's a very dangerous view. In the end, Romney truely is a representative of the 1% who assumes his personal superiority over the 99%. He doesn't hate us; he just assumes we are inferior to himself. He will never represent me or the vast majority of this country.
He has never denounced same-sex marriage. Just has never thought it necessary. NO. I think the consensus is that he will lose votes by his announcement. He'll lose black votes and some independents and gain none. I seem to remember a republican campaign made up entirely of "he voted against it before he voted for it" and talking about the democratic candidate flip-floppping so none of the BS republican victimization stuff.
Another case of Obama leadership as opposed to Romney showing again that he won't stand up against anything even some minor league hillbilly crack on the raadio. Think its time he bows out and lets his wife run the campaign.
One activity that market-based solutions have failed to resolve the issues which is why we pay twice as much as the rest of the industrialized world for, depending on the rating agency, the 16th to 37th worst health care system in the world.
First, the report itself says that it can't find "$400 billion by focusing on waste" as the author of the letter states. The GAO report says "In many cases, the existence of unnecessary duplication, overlap, or fragmentation can be difficult to estimate with precision due to a lack of data on programs and activities." The GAO defines Fragmentation to mean that two agencies have programs with similiar goals and Overlap to mean that the two programs may serve silimilar types of users. Duplication means that a fragmented program may overlap another. In other words, the GAO report identifies programs that need to be looked in to to see if they are in fact examples of "unnecessary duplication" because they only have enough information to suspect that the programs might be. Waste would exist if the same individuals were using these unnecessary duplicated programs for the same purpose i.e. Joe Blow was taking the same welding course under the commerce department and labor department training progams for unemployed people. If the training courses taught different types of welding they would not be duplications. GAO only is pointing out something that should be investigated further.
So the truth is Mr. Morin points out these programs because he is a conservative who leaps to unjustified conclusions not that these programs prove to him the rightness of conservative principles.
Support the Greene County Virginia Republican Party which has announced that if they fail to replace President Obama this November the only course open to them will be ARMED REVOLUTION.
Isn't that real treason as really stated in the US Constitution that the Republican Party does not believe nor respects..
First the distinction is purely arbitrary and meaningless. The tax code differentiates only between capital gains and income from every other source and that was not true in the 1950's. And that distinction is perfectly arbitrary and meaningless. Does a dollar received from capital gains have any economic impact different from a dollar received by expending some effort - no.
Yes, we have been deficit spending for 3 decades with the intent of creating an economic crisis which will force the abandonment of Social Security and Medicare. Yes, that inflates the economic, but there is no "normal equilibrium". Without the deficit spending the economy would "not return to" some state without deficit. It would seek some economic state which would depend on many factors including spending before and after the stimulus was removed. Its not a distortion. And there is no "sustainable equilibrium" nor any "natural equilibrium". Nor is government spending an "artificial stimulus". These words are not characterizations of the economy but conclusions based on non-economic assumptions. The economy goes from state to state without ever reaching an equilibrium. Stimulus (government deficit spending) increases growth between two states. Removing stimulus will create a new state which is lower than what would have been achieve if the stimulus had been maintained. But what does maintained mean. A stimulus is an increase in deficit spending. So if I deficit spend $300 billion in this years budget to maintain the stimulus in next years budget I must deficit spend by at least $600 billion (actually it will depend on the economic state after year one (could be 590 billion or $630 billion).
Until the debt ratio to GDP threatens our ability to re-pay the debt (barring some external factor), maintaining stimulus works. That's why a debt to GDP ratio from 25 to 50% target is manageable and why in periods of growth (usually over 3.5%) paying down the debt provides head room for recessions and wars that change the demands on Government.
Yes.
If its a comment on economic policy, No. I do think they go together, but as you see the Norquist Plan intentionally decreases revenues and increases spending. The goal of the Norquist Plan is to bring about a fiscal crisis by not making any economic sense (the Bush years being the most successful implementation of that plan); not manage the budget, or the debt, nor provide necessary functions of Government.
Big Government debt policy should be that in recessions deficit spend, in economic growth retire the debt (depending on circumstance national debt targets should be between 25 and 50% of GDP), in stable periods balance the budget. National emergencies obviously change that policy.
The top marginal tax rate in the 1950's was 91%. The effective tax rate after all deductions, loopholes, tax breaks etc was about 52%. Romney paid 13.9% - about 1/4 of the effective tax rate.
The nightly news, any shows including fox that cover congress, citizen united, Federal action against corporations involved in the 2008 financial collapse (none by the way), demonstrate that conclusion every day. One of the lastest example, Federal judge in the California case against Wells Fargo for mortgage fraud has ruled that every mortage processed by Wells Farge was fraudulently processed i.e. Wells Fargo's computer programs for the handling of mortgage payments, late fees, and other payments were written to force the mortgage into foreclosure in violation of the mortgage contract. Have any corporate officers who design and planned this nationwide program of fraud arrested or tried - no. This is at least the second judge who has ruled Wells Fargo engaged in a plan to defraud its mortgage customers.
You do need to analyze the real problem not the propaganda by breaking it down to basics. The top 1% pay 1/4 of the tax rate today that they paid 60 years ago. The middle class income has been stagnant since 1980 (no increase in Federal revenues from this source). The top 10% income has increased by more than 280% in the same time (but they are paying 1/4 of the tax rate so Federal revenue has declined from income taxes (same can be said for corporate taxes). The result has to be a significant increase in the debt (its called the Norquist Plan (how to get rid of Social Security and Medicare) adopted in the 1990's by the Republican Party) which will over the long term require a radical reduction in Federal spending. Its a manufactured crisis. Its solution is to restore Federal revenue to the same level as non-war revenue before1980. At the same time Federal spending has been increased without paying for the new spending (Two wars, Medicare Prescription Part D, etc) by the same people who have constrained revenue .Thus making the crisis more acute.Complicating the issue is that while doing the above thy have plunged the country into recession so that we can not now address the debt and therefore not address the crisis they created.
So the solution is to address the recession by increasing spending now within a plan for real increases in revenue and manageable constraints on spending in the future.
No better example of big government exists. "Focused" is just a word that means the same thing in this case as Big - intrusive, all controlling, Federal Government.
Jimmy Carter is not the President hasn't been the President for 32 years. Should Democrats say that Romney's first term is really Nixon's third term. Neither has anything to do with anything in this campaign. The situations and philosophies are completely different.
"Today's big government want to control everything to perpetuate its power". Nothing could be so wrong. Government has very little if any power. The power is all in the corporations. Just remember the development of Dodd-Frank. The Financial services industry through demonstrable fraud (Enron would be embarassed by what Citi, Wells Fargo, and the rest did) plunged the country and Europe into economic collapse and threatened a worldwide Depression. If you remember WWII, you might remember what that's like. Not a single proposal that would re-establish government regulation that would have prevented those frauds was adopted because of corporate power.
Ration cards. You couldn't buy anything government did not allow you to buy. Government controlled and planned every step in the US economy. I think you need a better example because WWII is the best example of united, national big government at its biggest.
The role government plays today is if anything smaller in the economy than at anytime in our history except 1880-1929. The Revolution does not apply because that was not under the US Constitution nor even under the Articles of Confederation. We had only an ad hoc government - the First and Second Continental Congress in which both agreed that they couldn't wage war under their organization i.e,. they could supply the troops with almost anything.
Corporations are made up of capital equipment, people, procedures, and contracts. I've never seen a paper machine, welder, or gas pump vote.
Being made up of something doesn't give you legal standing or any meaningful rights. Contracts on the other hand do provide rights and responsibilities.
See Darmouth I believe 1803 or 1819 if I'm wrong.
William Williams said it best many years ago -we, working people, only win when the rulers are split. United they have too much power. Its not individuals; they are a temporary, incidental problems. The distribution of power is a permanent or ever present problem. If working people are ever to get a fair deal permanently, we must make the structural changes along the line of the founders that corrects the changes in law that have made the corporations too powerful and the government too weak.
1) Corporations are not people. They are an accumulation of contracts - Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Marshall. Corporations have no civil rights except as explicitly granted in their charters.
2) the revolving door between corporations and government must end. No government regulator can be employed by a regulated corporation for his lifetime and no corporate official can be hired by the government in a regulatory position for life.
3) No corporation can donate to a pollitical campaign (including referendum questions) nor sponsor a PAC or any other third party contributor to political activities of any kind
4) Corporations can not sponsor, organize, or in anyway be involved in events at which political officeholders are invited guests.
5) Corporations can not make the use of any corporate asset available to political officeholders.
6) No corporation can sponsor, create, organize a group of citizens for the purpose of lobbying or contributing to political activities.
Those are step one.
Increased complexity geometrically adds to the challanges of management; but doesn't make it impossible. For the rest, I'm not as pessimistic as you are.
you do have to reference the Constitution and/or the Federalist papers because these aren't common sense issues these are Constitutional questions. Common sense can only lead you astray because these are anything but common questions. Because special interests are always with us the idea that the less money government has the less it can sqander is a fallacy. The special interest will never let you do it if that's what they want. They want small government because it gives them all the power meaning they will just get your money in some other way like defrauding you through your mortgage as they did to millions from 2001 to today. Without big government you have no possibility of a shield.
A few land owners will make a lot of money, the developers will make lots of money mainly from taxpayer subsidies, the majority of Dixfield residents will get screwed and those that live within 2 miles of the towers will eventually move their poperty worthless, while the quality of life suffers for all residents and tourists, and wildlife will die and move too.
I think I heard this morning that the National GOP intends to void the delegate selections made at the convention or not seat the Maine delegation. I'm sure this will continue to be entertaining as the GOP continues to embrace cults, gurus, and failed ideologies.
But cultures modify, restrain, distort those emotions and their practical use immensely. Hell, the whole basis of modern conservatism is that religion is a necessary "control" on the passions which makes democratic republics possible (this is of course an old aristocractic and after the revolutions Federalist view not supported by evidence). Looks at monks to see that the passions are widely different than average citizens. The fact that emotions are present everywhere does not mean they are part of our nature because culture can change their expression so radically suggests that they are culturally determined (look at early christians and others).
In our case, the structure of the Federal Government is designed precisely to check the passionate expressions of individuals by requiring a system of check and balances. As long as the Federal Government is the most powerful power center in a society those checks and balances work very well (they don't prevent greed they prevent greed having a permanent effect). Where the Federal government is not, they break down and fail.
In the founder's time a corporation was the same as a municipality (that's why the SOS office of corporations manages setting up municipalities and corporations today). They were viewed as a minor extension of government (which legally they are today), a government agency not as a power center. They were legally limited to one and only one purpose and line of activity (building, maintaining, and managing a toll road or a grist mill). Should the owners wish to try something else like manage a ferry they had to go to the legislature and get an expanded charter or charter the ferry as a new and independent corporation. Therefore, a corporation could never accumulate power anywhere close to that of state government never mind the Federal (that's why corporations are not mentioned in the Constitution and only alluded to in the bankruptcy provision). When these controls on corporations were repealed (not done through legislation almost all done through court review), the balance of power was changed and the Constitutional controls were open to the possibility that they would fail. And they did from roughly 1880-1914 and again from 1980 to now.
Therefore, the problem is corporate power and the solution is to regulate that power so that the Constitution can function as it was intended to.
We've seen this wacko lunacy before. 1964, I believe, San Fransico. D's in '72. After Charlie Webster stole the primary. The Paulistas stole the State Convention. With shouts about national victories ringing in their ears they return to the sanity of their home towns where they probably can't elect a selectman if anyone is watching. Let's be clear on what the Paulistas are offerring - international isolationism, domestic corporate supremacy, economic disaster, and social anarchy. Certainly a formula for success. Will that make an impression on the national TV coverage of the Republican Star Trek Convention in Tampa this Summer. Keep working it. Every 10 minutes Paul speaks nationally is another 1% of the vote for Democrats.
Greed is not human nature its a human emotion. I'll agree that human emotions have not changed over reasonable time, but that's not human nature - distinguishing characteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling and acting, that humans tend to have naturally, i.e. independently of the influence of culture. In other words, is there a model human which we are all copies of and culture modifies this model in various ways. If there is a human nature I say its how were are biologically wired in the brain; greed is no one of those wires. Greed is culturally determined and therefore is not part of human nature.
Apparantly, you haven't read our Constitution or the theories that unlay its construction (Federaist No. 10 for example). Ambition must be balanced by ambition; greed by greed so that no one in or out of government may implement by themselves a course of action that compromises the public interest. As govenment gets small relative to special interests this balancing begins to fail. When government is very small and special interests very large it fails completely (example 1880 to 1914 when the Morgan interests controlled the country.). When government is very large and special interest very small it works very well. We were from 1933 to 1970 generally in the Government big; special interests moderately small to getting too big range. Today government is small and special interests huge and therefore the balancing has been increasingly failing for 30 years. The problem is not greed but that the government controls over greed have been weakened to the point that they are difficult to detect. The problem is not greed or capitalism; the problem is unfetterred greed or capitalism.
Government does not centralize wealth. Federal Budget say $4 trillion economy $17 trillion. In capitalist economies the financial services industry concentrates wealth. The Federal Government can not by Constitution control, or tax wealth; it can only tax or control income. Not at all the same thing. It centralizes a portion of income. Today the concentration of wealth in the hands of the public is concentrated in about 10%of the population with 90% concentrated in the top 1% of the population. That is a fundamental threat to republican government.
that the State GOP amended its Platform to include a plank to buy the old AMHI facility so they can turn it into a free Summer Resort for retired Republicans (there will be a $5,000 a year use fee to keep the rif raf out). And that the victory for Ron Paul has guaranteed his speaking at the National Convention. Two years from now he won't even have to leave the resort.
"human nature has not changed for centuries" is just such an assumption. At a veru superficial level it may be true, but its like saying that all North Americans are the same they aren't. Or all blacks are the same. If its true, its untestable; if false its meaningless. The idea assumes a Jungian species specific collective, inherited common "programming" for all human beings evidence suggests otherwise.
The size of government is correct when it is capable of dealing with the power centers within and without its control. Small government made sense when a big "special interest" (a faction in Madison's words) extended to a part of a city, or even a state. Government power could then not be controlled by one interest (as Madison wrote) each interest competed with the others while government was still many times more powerful than any one or even several in combination. Now the special interests are associations of thousands of corporations that have a set of common interests. These corporations in total being much larger territorially, financially, and in terms of members/agents than all but the largest governments. When international associations of associations conspire together government must be huge to protect the interests of the average person. The problem is the corporations strategy becomes contolling the government whatever its size is. Small government was fine when we went around in stagecoaches.
I don't need to abolish them. You need to regulate capitalists otherwise they cause tremendous damage to the nation. You leave Christians in their Church where they can't do too much harm. And as for conservatives well the Christians have a good cure for conservatives; its called a funeral. Now confederates that's another matter.
"The Constitution also doesn't mention public property, regulated markets, socialism, or any particular business at all." Sorry but it does. Public Property is mentioned in that section that deals with selling public property. Regulated markets are mentioned repeatedly in the document the most powerful beign the regulation of the value of money and federal bankruptcy. Don't mention socialism because no such thing existed at the time of the writting just as capitalism did not exist.
As to greatest test. If you mean by that a new civil war engineered by rightwing extremists you may be right.
Great Depression ended by WWII is just more rightwing propaganda. The Great Depression ended in 1936. Withdraw of recovery methods in 1937 caused a double dip depression which was solved by 1940. WWII did not occur untile almost 2 years later.
our form is a republic; our process is a democracy or more precisely we are a democratic republic.
" with a total shutdown scheduled for a 2nd Obama term" - totally absurd.
You start as the author suggests by ignoring the failed policies of the past and following well documented and proven economic policies that produce economic growth like well-regulated markets (which worked miracles for the forty+ years between 1933 and 1980). You follow the Constitution which does not mention private property, free-markets, capitalism, or wall street bonuses. We have no conservatives in this country. We have confederates. We have radical capitalists. We have authoritarian Christians. We have a whole lot of people who want to end the adventure our Founding Fathers started in 1787 because they believe as the Republicans in Michigan believe that democracy does not work.
"If Schultz checked the facts, it was the Obama administration that brought her (Hilary Rosen) to the forefront. If you check the facts, that's a lie. Hilary Rosen is not employed by this administration. She is not a spokesman for this administration. She is not employed by the Obama campaign, the Democratic party or any of its affiliates or by any Superpac supporting the Obama campaign. She was and is a private citizen and a paid consultation of the TV company that put her out front to gain viewers.
The rest of the letter is just Romney talking points to divert our attention from the well established facts that the Republicans as ably represented by the Romney campaign don't give a damn about women, their lives, their problems, or their concerns. Had they, they would have fulfilled their 2010 campaign pledge to create jobs. Well that was a lie too. Instead, they authored throughout this great land both at the federal and at the state level not one piece of legislation whose intent was to create jobs. They were too busy grabbing hold of women's reproductive lives by passing more than 1100 laws that would prevent, delay, or complicate women exercising their constitutional right to seek abortions; Hundreds of laws to make it difficult or impossible for eligible voters to vote; and many more to restrict, deny, or frustrate the right of citizens to collectively bargain on the job.
Who says any of those so-called principles are "communist" principles. Most are just right-wing slogans without any objective reality at all. The list of things wrong with this list could go on for years. But just a few.
" Use the public education system to teach that capitalism is wrong and socialism is right." Maine's public school goals were initially written by the business community and the whole process was lead if I remember by Peter Geiger. Those goals contains nothing about American labor; nothing about the crimes committed by capitalism, nothing about about the unconstitutional suppression of socialist groups or movements. So please explain what part of the curriculm teaches that capitalism is wrong or socialism is right. We know that unfetterred capitalism is a criminal conspiracy; but that doesn't make regulated capitalist a crime any more than the Mafia makes K-Mart a crime.
" Create a ruling class that is free from the will of the people (bureaucrats) to govern". I didn't know that the people were the bureaucrats. But on the assumption George really intended to write that the "ruling class" were the bureaucrats; where's your evidence of anything. We have watched the bureaucrats and elected officals kow towing to America's real ruling class - the 1% who have disembowelled necessary financial regulations which would have prevented their looting the Federal Treasury as they did in 2008-2009. We have seen their budget (the Ryan Budget) that again transfers $4.6 trillion from the have nots to the haves over 10 years pass the house. Delusional if anyone thinks the bureacrats govern this nation. Hell, they (the bureacrats) don't even write their own regulator safety reports; the corporations do and enviromental disasters quickly follow as they did in the Gulf of Mexico. .
not wasted on "foreigners" is the point. The original statement made the practice bad because it was "foreigners" getting the beenfit and transferring the money out of country. That's just not true.
"wal*mart will parish if it does not add value" is an assumption. And all theortetical economics especially so-called Austrian or "ultra-free-market economics theories are based on assumptions that are true in a specific environment and not true generally. They are over-simplified assumptions.
Government and Business have two separate roles which should be judged on different sets of values. Both add value. Government built the infrastructure on which business exists without it business particularly in Maine would not exist. Eliminate what government has created through shared investment (taxation and government spending) and Maine would be a wilderness without any meaningful employment. Or to say it another way, one of Government's primary roles is to subsidize business through the creation of infrastructure based on shared investment.
In answer to your question, it should. Government should hire and employ the unemployed up to say 10 million people today for short durations as the economic situations require. But this real solution to some situations is denied us by radical extremists who support ideologies that they pretend are always true in all situations when they are not.
I didn't see anything in your note about LURC or Mr. Gedat's points nor the obvious problems with the anti-LURC proposals of the Governor. You just dealt in personality.
"People need to realize that government cannot create jobs. Sure they can hire people, but that is not creating jobs. That is spending tax dollars that you as a taxpayer could spend more efficiently." If it looks like a job, pays like a job, and takes time like a job; it is a job. A job means a full or part time position of employment which government certainly can offer. What the author really means is jobs do not add to the economic output of an economic system. Well, that's a silly notion from silly economists who think they can create economics systems in their dreams - Austrian economics - that work in reality. They don't. They create them only to support the 1% in their propaganda to empoverish the 99%.
The idea that the taxpayer can spend his money more efficiently than the government doesn't even pass the giggle test. I certainly can't re-pave Route 95 more efficiently than government nor build an aircraft carrier nor educate the population. Efficiency involves many factors one of the most important being scale. Its always more efficient to have large organizations do things because of the economies of scale. Wal-mart for example.
Mr. Soucy says "Keep the money here in the U.S." First it never left. Most so-called foreign aid is simply a credit that the foreign country can use to buy things here. No actual money goes to the foreign country.
Nothing, absolutely nothing in Obama's first 3 and 1/2 years suggests any such thing. Except for 3 months that it took for the stimulus and the Obama policies to take effect, we have had slow but positive economic growth, restraint in spending, and an economic policy that every economist agrees is timid, but correct given the failure of the Republican Congress to follow a sound policy. Your statement is completely divorced from reality. The eight previous years of Republican rule give ample evidence and documented proof of my statement.
But the Republicans are the only organized group that as a matter of policy and party platform has promoted that idea. Democrats as individuals may agree may even pursue those ends but the party as a whole does not endorse such a position. Democrats support traditional economic pratice - increase taxes to cover increased spending; reduce taxes when spending is reduced (the often misrepresented Kennedy tax cuts of the early 60's) while running a manageable national debt that is inline with GDP and in times of economic crisis increased debt within manageable limits and in times of economic stability and growth reducing deb within manageable limits.That position is nothing like the kamikami economics endorsed buy the Republicans.
"That, and other big government, pro-tax, anti-growth groups are very angry at Snowe-Mello." Classic Republican mis-representation. Their opponents are effective Government, responsible fair-share of taxes, pro-growth citizens who want to make the state better. What are the Republicans - anti-growth, ultra-individualistic, anti-government extremists who have sufficient ego that they think they have the right to run other people's lives and the wisdom to judge other people without knowing anything about them.
We have given the Republicans almost unrestricted control of the Federal Government only twice in the last 100 years - the 1920's and 2000's. What did they do. Drove the country to economic collapse by low tax, anti-growth, trust the market (while it is controlled by corporate fraud), small-government social darwinism while attempting to control every aspect of people's lives except their business activity. They think that by making women undergo medically unnecessary humiliating tests and then to suffer through deranged speeches by politicians they can force them to not have abortions is typical.
Last week, a Federal Judge ruled that all mortages being administered by one of the top 5 banks in the country were fraudlent and all the bank's forclosure filings were the result of that fraud. Republicans tell us to trust the market.
Never raise taxation; in fact always demand tat taxation must be reduced as it has been. We now pay less in Federal income taxes than he have since WWII 60+ years ago. The rich pay 1/4 of what they did then. Workers like us pay almost the same. If you always cut taxes and therefore revenues (assuming normal rates of economic growth) but increase spending that leads long term to bankruptcy. See my other answer just posted.
Yes, your point is elusive.
With rare exception Republican legislators have signed the Norquist pledge to bankrupt the country in order to force radical cuts in the size, effectiveness and efficiency of the Federal Government. We saw this play out in the Bush administration which doubled the national debt to 13 trillion dollars and promises in the Ryan budget plan to add 4.6 trillion more to the national debt should it ever be enacted. Eight more years of Republican misrule will turn the US into the next Greece. Chinese bankers will demand of us an austerity budget and a radical pearing down of our military.
Willard Romney and Warren Buffett pay 1/4 of the taxes today they would have paid under President Eisenhower. Until we correct this revenue crisis of the Federal Government everything will fall apart - national security, the economy, health and safety. The Republicans can't straighten it out. They have all taken pledges to bankrupt the Federal Government. So the only solution is to vote them out of office and restore sane governance to the country.
Of course, there is a line. Actually there is a line for each individual. We have taxed income at rates from 1% with no deductions to 91% with loopholes (exemptions) for an effective marginal rate of 52%. Now we have a effective marginal rate somewhere between 15 and 25%. Rates taxes are less than half of what we have experienced in the last 60 years. So as a nation we are nowhere near that line. As long as we have those ridiculous exemptions tax rates into the 70% range are well under the line where social resistance becomes destructive of either individual motivation or national goals. With no deductions other than minimum standard of living the effective marginal tax rate would need to be under 50%.
2. I don't assume that the government spends the money wisely. That's purely subjective. Does it spend the money consistent with natonal goals defined by the political process, that's objective. In that regard, your objection is not with how it is spent but the process that produces political goals consistent not with the political process but with the distribution of power. Corporations have gotten federal economic assistance since at least 1830's. Corporations have had one political party, Whigs in the 1840's Republicans now, that reflect Corporation power and not the formal political process. Federal spending is the symptom, not the problem. The failure of the politcal process to correctly reflect the goals and ambitions of the people (corruption) is the problem.
3. Absolute property rights to a myth and a delusion maybe at sometimes a goal. Never has been and never will be. What we own is not who we are. That we own is what the political process allows. Look no further than the foreclosure crisis. What people thought they owned is not theirs. Why. Federal Judge ruled last week that the process used by Wells Fargo bank to manage fees and penalties defrauded everyone whose mortagage they administrated. Yet they have the political power to enforce their fraud and mortagee does not or at least so far does not.
4. Backwards. Globalization has changed Goverment policy to further accelerate more globalization. Economics (power) drives politics. Government is always and forever the servant not the master of power.
1. "your punishment", "steal" - paying taxes is contributing to the strength, and success of this country ; hardly a punishment.
2. I agree that the "rich" make sacrifices; do things that other people would not do, but why should we honor them for that. They would not do those things if they did not feel rewarded in some way. May be money; may not. Most "rich" folks don't even know what money they have. They do what they do for a sense of accomplishment, victory, power, prestige, or your claim that they should be honored by those that have different values. For example, I'm an amateur historian. Read last night about Rev. Lyman Beecher's leaving the Lane Seminary to return to Boston in 1846. By all measures he was the most successful Calvinist minister in New England in the first 1/2 of 1800's. Total value of everything he owned (his age about 70) $300 which he was to be paid in installments and he was never fully paid. He left completely happy and a success and satisfied. He never felt he made any sacrifices in fact the opposite he felt blessed.
3. You write like property is absolute, everything you ever earned was the result of your and only your efforts. No one ever has earned solely by their own efforts everything they have earned. That fallacy is the real greed, pride, arrogance.
4. We have a flat tax in fact we have a regressive tax system, the rich pay at a lower rate than the poor. In Maine the lowest 20% pay at twice the rate (about 21%) in total state & local taxes as the other 80% which pays an almost flat rate of 10. something%. That is the result of the rich controlling the system and why we do need another system. The proof of that is simple in the last 30 years increases in economic growth have more than gone to the top 1% of earners; the 99% have lost standard of living. The reason - because the rich have changed the laws to expropriate the wealth of the middle class and poor and re-distributed it to themselves.
5. I don't despise the more well to do. I just recognize a well known truth - money is power and power corrupts absolutely. Concentrations of power/money prevent the establishment of a just society where everyone as an equal opportunity to succeed based on their values.
50% acutually its closer to 40% of income tax filers pay no income tax. Those people come from all levels of income. Exxon Mobil pays no income tax in many years. True fairness means when everyone and entity pays a tax on the same basis. If people pay based in gross income then corporations must pay based on gross sales. If people pay on disposable income then corporations pay on gross profits. Taxes of all types has to be included in any discussion of tax fairness. Today we have a tax system that benefits the wealthiest Americans to the detriment of the middle class and poor. If money is freedom (which the SCOTUS has ruled it is) and all men are equal, then tax rates must be progressive to bring freedom closer to equality, but you don't have to use that argument. The wealthiest use the governmntal system much more than the middle class and the poor and therefore should pay much higher rates..
In 1980, the year of the confederate takeover of the Federal Goverment, workers received 60 cents of each dollar in increased economic growth. Since then workers have lost 25% and the millionaires received virtually all the economic benefits of growth within the last 30 years. We as a nation pay less Federal taxes than we have since the Second World War. Corporations pay less than 1/2 of what they did just after World War II. In short the Republican Norquist plan has been put into execution and we the workers of America have been tied to the stake while Mitt Romney and friends hold the guns.
We need a simple tax system that taxes disposable income of all forms at the same rate with a progressive rate that hits 50% for the top bracket (say $10,000,000).
Cutting taxes as the Governor proposes causes deficits, depressions, and destruction of the middle class. Sound policy. But I never knew that was the American Dream. Look no further than his mentor who created by his tax, trade, and regulation policies the worst depression since 1929.
Arizona Republicans yesterday re-defined pregnancy as occurring up to 2 weeks prior to conception. Now we knew Republicans know nothing about biology, evolution or science so this comes as no surprise to anyone. But what's next. Can Texas Republicans re-define pregnancy to start with a woman's first period or how about when she is born because maybe someday she might get pregnant. If a fetus is a person, why can't a fetus be pregnant.
A very similiar walk on the wild side was enjoyed by Allen West, one of the few sane, liberal Republicans in the house. He stated yesterday that 80 democrats in the House of Representative were Communist Party members. Now that might have surprised the Communist had we not had McCarthy running the Republicans 60 years ago. Where did he get this idea, 76 democrats are in the house Progressive caucus.
I appreciate your reply and your feelings. And I couldn't agree more.
But I think you expect too much when you say "these judges would climb down from their high horse". The process I outlined is why they can't climb down. Its why they disrespected you at that party. These are people who think their accomplishments set them apart; they are special; they are better than the rest of us. They spent everything to get on that high horse; to get down would be to reputiate their entire reason for being. I see it in many who have college degrees and more in those degrees that require more tha the average like Doctors and lawyers. A few see their accomplishment as an opportunity to assist everyone; others see it as their red badge of superiority that grants them the authority to rule over us. They may be superior in some ways but only in their minds does it give them the authority to rule over us. o the rest of us they are simply bores - current best example Romney.
replace them with real people?
What real people went to Harvard (or Yale, Stanford, or Texas A&M) were in the top ten of the Law School, went on to clerk for a Supreme Court Justice, then to the DOJ, a State judgeship, then a Federal appeals court, and then the Supreme Court. That's a fairly routine career path. That process should prevent any real people from surviving that career. The last real person on the court was William O Douglas. Thomas, Scalia, Alito, Roberts are there to make certain the 1% rule America and that the Federal Treasury is to be available to be looted by them.
We can see the ALEC driven plans the Republicans have for us and the rest of the country by looking a Michigan - dictatorship. This has been their goal since their coup failed in 1934 to install a fascist distatorship.
Republicans control the Senate and the House and the Govenorship. But they do not have 2/3rds of the House. Under Michigan law a 2/3rds vote in both houses is required to pass a law which will have immediate effect. With Democrats having 43% of the House seats no law can have immediate affect if the democrats vote as a block. They have. And republicans have ignored their votes and ruled from the chair on separate and unconstitutional resolutions to pass 566 laws with 546 ruled to have immediate effect.
This is distatorship.
a system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole is an economic system ( and I think is exactly the idea of my definition although not worded so well). That's what ownership and control of the means of production and distribution is. Its not a birthday party or a political system or a procedure for refining gold. Its an economic system that defines the ownership and control of economic factors (usually called inputs) capital, land, equipment, labor etc. Three centuries ago it was called "political economy" because the political system determined the allocation, ownership, and control of all economic factors. Now the two are separated because the political system does not necessarily determine the economic system.
Your analogy to the military is a intermixing of non-analogous objects. Private military action is an oxymoron. Private companies can perform services similiar to what a military might provide but that does not make them military. The military is not a service. The Product is not military services. All objects are not products. All actions are not services. The military is the government. And no the government is not owned by the people. It is not owned by the government. It is one of two government responsibilities as defined in Article I of the Constitution. The government, in a republican form of government and one defined by the US Constitution, is the delegated power of the people. Your logic is fundamentally illogical and a classic statement of the ultra-capitalist re-definition of society, the re-writting of history, and the capitalist attack on republican i.e. Constitutional goverment. If it is oqned it can be sold, that in itself is an economic exchange. Governement is not owned, can not be sold is not an economic factor. This is all nonsensical analogies to capitalist terminology and it just doesn't apply and it corrupts how people think.
And no socialism can't exist before the conditions for its existence (industrial capitalism post 1860 in the US post 1750 in Europe) exist.
language is difficult and in this case impossible. Collective action i.e. republican government is not socialistic. The military has nothing to do with the means of production and therefore can not be socialistic. The military is not an economic system and therefore can't be socialistic. A government is not an economic system and therefore can not be socialistic, but a government can take actions which are socialistic if the action assigns ownership of the means of production to the people. The GM bailout was a form of socialism called syndicalism (means of productions are owned and controlled by unionized workers another example is a company stock 401K if it owns more than 50% of the stock). Socialism was an economic theory developed in the mid-1800's by many economists in reaction to capitalist industrialization. The US Constitution can not be socialistic because a) the US was not industrialized at the time it was written, b) its a political compact not an economic theory, c) no where does it authorize the public ownership of the means of production.
You are referring to "collective action" which the military certainly is.
The alien philosophy is Randism which came from a Russian emigree modified by Austrian Economics which is obviously of European origin. I have derived my political philosophy only from the Constitution as written and the Amendments passed since.
No all government activity is not socialism or socialist. Socialism has one meaning and one meaning alone - ownership of the means of production by the people. Nothing we are discussing here has anything to do with ownership or the means of production. Now all government action is collective action and there is absolutely nothing wrong with collective action in fact its what is meant by "WE the people".
of people who try to read literally the Constitution with reference to a living breathing Constitution (which I do not support). As the author of the letter mentions one of the first acts of the US Congress was to pass the Militia Act which required every eligible male to buy a mustket and accessories. he wrote, ratified, and implemented the Constitution so they must surely have thoght that they had the power under the military articles in Section 1. And they did. Just as the commerce clause gives the Congress the power to require citizens to buy anything necessary to provide for the general welfare/economy.
Its fun to see the Republicans, who claim to love the Constitution and the founders, admit that Oh! they were just silly old men who didn't understand anything. Ours is a living breathing Constitution that has to change as we Republicans change the social contract that it represents. We need to let everyone know that greed is more important than need.
Since the Constitution does give Congress the authority to make you buy anything that it is in the interests of the country for you to buy, refusing is not American. Its an alien philosophy which threatens the survival of this country; that reputates the sacrifices of millions of men and women who have given their lives to create and maintain a UNITED NATION.
The Warren Court would be embarassed by Bush v Gore and terrified of its reasoning, along with Citizen United which the court changed to our Republic screwed; if they now find the republican proposal of a individual mandate unconstritutional they will simply be announcing that they are the most partisan, activist, political court in history. Far worse than tjhe Warren Court or Taney Court. Impeachment is too good for them.
Should the Affordable Care Act be found unconstitutional then we should accept nothing less than repeal of the age qualification for Medicare.
The Great Bush Recession was from December 2007 to March of 2009 when Obama's stimulous package ended it not 2005-2010.
While I must agree that Bill Clinton was in fact but not in name a Republican President, I think it is misleading to imply that Republican Presidents were in office for the 16 years preceding the recession only 7 years.
And lastly, OPEC does not control the price of Oil; the international oil markets do. Those markets include the $0.60 to $1.00 per gallon speculator's tax on oil that could be easily eliminated with passage of simple anti-speculation laws that right now the Reopublicans are filibustering.
In 1792 the Federal Congress passed the Militia Act which required all able bodied men to purchase a musket and necessary accessories. To suggest now that the Federal Government has never required a citizen to purchase anything is just simply a lie.
Republicans want to demonize the Governemnt so that they can reduce the taxes paid (or not paid as the case may be) by the super rich. Fact is we pay less in Federal Taxes than at any time after the Second World War. 70 years. We do not have a spending problem. We have a revenue problem. If the Republicans want to go on strike against our government then the voters should go on strike against the Republicans.
:...turn around a culture of dependency within the Department of Health and Human Services." Well now we can be certain the author isn't interested in fact, but instead wants to spread false, unfounded, ideological conclusions.
"Instead of focusing on the history of this computer problem,.." Why would the previous author look at the previous computer problems. They aren't Mayhew's responsibility and are not relevent to the issue at hand. That issue is did Mayhew intentionally mislead the Legislature by omitting known facts from her presentation to them. She did. Because she did her credibility is shot and she should resign and baring resignation she should be fired.
Why would anyone be surprised that the confederate (no they are not conservative) Republican Party with control of the US Supreme Court is inventing illogical, irrational, law like the Citizen United decision which holds that Corporations are people with all the political and civil rights of people. After all they think a fetus is a person and the Moon is made of green cheeze.
The issue is not if both parties use now legally corrupt funding mechanisms; the issue is are corporations buying politicians for their use. Under Citizens United, the answer is a very simple - Of course.
Should the SCOTUS overturn the Affordable Care Act, it will be the third exmple of an activist confederate court ignoring the Constitution and writing a new one more to their liking. In which case, Thomas should be impeached for conflict of interest which has been well documented. Then Scalia whose conflict of interest is only slightly less obvious. Then our President should nominate judges in the Lawrence Tribe mode to re-establish a Constitutional balance on the court.
1. Supremacy, big part of nothing. Our President has done nothing to enhance the supremacy of either blacks or Islam. To suggest anything else is delusional.
2. Our President has a great deal to do with business - first he is the savior of manufacturing in the US primarily but not exclusively through the GM bailout. GE has no office in the White House. GM is not producing tax-payer subsidied cars.
3. The rightwingers insistance that Nazis are left wing is as you say pure propaganda. 1. Nazis gassed Communists in their death camps; Hitler exterminated the leadership of the SA (the socialist wing of the 1920's Nazis Party)gassed Soviet prisoners of war in their death camps; began by attacking communists in the streets in the 1920's. Communist stand for party ownership of the means of production. Nazis for business ownership of the means of production (until Hitler made his deal with big business he was out of power in Germany.) Socialist stand for the people owning the means of production. Major difference. Nazis are nationalists; Socialists and Communists internationalists. Major difference. Nazis are racists; Socialists and Communists are anti-racists. Major difference. The lit of differences goes on and on.
4. Left and right have a long and inglorious history of slaughter. But one difference is the real left not Communists has always opposed violence; the right always revels in it. Saying that a person without health insurance who is sick should die; booing gay soldier in Iraq, etc, etc, etc.
5. The distinction is between those who support republicanism (with a very small r) and those that support totalitarianism. You have left and right variants of each. Leftwing republicanism is infinitely better than rightwing republicanism and all forms of totalitarianism are purely evil.
Your dictionary isn't worth much:
first phrase OK requires national supremacy to some degree
contempt for democracy is a trivial aspect
one leader is OK but not necessary
but then it ends
Its a definition of some forms of nazism not fascism.
Fascism is a political system. How can the definition not include anything about politics. Fascism is a political system in which the business class controls national decision making generally but not necessarily through a strong leader (french fascism was a democratic fascism) and in which national and racial identity combined with totalitarian techniques are used to manage the populous. Any political system definition must include who benefits, how the population is managed, and how decisions are made.
By definition the left doesn't fit and never has. An anti-nation philosophy is by definition anti-fascist. So you can't just widen it for your purposes. Nor can you just widen it to include all ethnic groups it is by definition limited to one and only one ethnic group. Multiple ethnic groups are by definition anti-fascist.
So what is the Republican party - strong defense (pro-nationalism), anti-women, anti-immigration (white anglo-saxon, english speaking), pro-business (obvious), anti-democratic (all the voter suppression laws as an obvious example). Sounds very fascist to me.
Obama has managed the US government just as any credible moderate Repubican would have. He continued 90% of the Bush programs; he got out of Iraq slowly as Bush would have, he has continued even rightwing Bush initiatives such as the tax cuts. 1. He no dictator; to suggest he is is insane. 2. He has behaved as a conservative so he isn't even remotely a "communist" much less a liberal or progressive.
So obviously anything Mr. LeBlanc writes is without merit of any kind.
"I am convinced that, in the short future, some communist dictator.." What communist dictator. Not Russia that's capitalist. Not China that's state managed capitalist (fascism). Not Cuba they are moving toward becoming the 51st state. Please identify any communist dictator armed with nuclear weapons in the world.
"Those unfortunate situations are isolated events being reported in an irresponsible way by the media." They always are, arn't they when its your side creating the incident. To have a Rev. make excuses for murder is disgusting but not surprising.
The Republican Party Presidential field was Bachmann and the seven dwarves. Should we be surprised that the Maine Senatorial races is just the 6 dwarves. None are qualified to be a senator from Maine. All are rank partisans committed to destroying the middle class.
Two access points. $100-200 toll. Means this is a private road, for private benefit, with no positive impact on Maine. Might as well name it now - The Irving Maine Bypass Toll Road.
But when you look at state taxes all income groups pay the same percentage except the lowest which pays at twice the rate.That is before LePage started changing things.
A mother's choice is not just "some reason". Calling it murder because you value the child that was born is no different than saying that you have a veto over what anyone else may decide about anything else when your feelings are different. You have no authority over that woman and under normal circumstances you should not. That said. I have never found anyone who favors abortion. I think every pro-choice view is that we would love to avoid it, but we have no right to interfere. Someone must choose and the only one to choose is the mother. Until we as a society guarantee that every baby born will have a full and complete oppotunity to satisfy their need, we have no right to interfere. I am happy you have taken responsibility for this child. Until we take responsibility for all children we will leave mothers with very difficult choices.
the stages of life. Pro-lifers reject that traditional view because they apparently think there is a single event, conception, which defines all others (because God implants a human soul at the moment of conception although they will not admit this given the separation of church and state it would destroy their argument). There are a number of pre-birth stages and events I just used fetus to simplify the issue. And yes I do think that separates the "pro-lifers" (they are actually anti-life because the life of the mother during pregnancy and the life of the child after birth mean nothing to them.) from the pro-choice (women do have rights all rights and are real persons within the meaning of the Constitution). The whole fabric of the "pro-life" argument was invented out of whole cloth in the 1840's when Doctors tried to suppress the practice of mid-wifery.
A human baby is born. The moment of birth turns a potential baby into a real baby. When its a person is much more ambiguous. Different cultures assign different events/rituals by which children become persons.
The end result is always human, just not always a baby because its not always born alive.
"Isn't that a contradiction" It is. "Does that make the newborn baby any less a human being compared to a full grown adult." "There's no denying that once a woman becomes pregnant and if the process is not interfered with, the end result will be a human baby." And there is the fallacy. If no one interferes there is a chance a probability that the end result might be a human baby.
The issue here is that the potential baby does not have rights that supercede the adult human being carrying the potential baby. The SCOTUS ruled correctly that as the fetus develops over time and becomes viable that its rights begin to come into play. And that counts.The baby's rights do not establish themselves at the moment of conception. A fetus is not a child is not a baby is not a person is not a voter is not a taxpayer.
Laws dealing with the loss of life of a fetus need to take Roe v Wade into account.
Lots of events could change everything - War in Iran as one little example. But right now 55-45% is pretty close. The Republicans War on Women is fundamental to their politics. Its really just their "pro-life", anti-abortion, 1840's family image, pro-fundamentalist religious bias. As time goes on and more and more Republican anti-women gaffes are made the number of independent women who support the Republicans will go down. If the economy continues to improve, the same is true. The two together are damning. Then insert Obama's 90-10 black and 80-20 Hispanic support and the Republicans start off way behind. Normally, a Presidential race would fall in the 53-47 range. But given the exposure the far right has gotten it could be a landslide. I don't expect because of the right's overwhelming money advantage so I'm taking a middle ground; 60-40 no 50-50 no but 55-45 yes.
All forms of human sexual expression are natural i.e. human sexuality is a continum of orientations, actions, preferences which are the natural expected results of human psychosexual development. Since marriage is a purely social arrangement any socially acceptable arrangement is perfectly OK. No rational reason exists to deny marriage to anyone except where real identifiable social harm will be done i.e. marriage among close relatives for example. Marriage Equality is the last great civil rights struggle of the 20t century.
"There's no basis in nature for a right to sodomy or a right to call two men or two women who are choosing to relate to one another sexually as a marriage,".... There is no basis in nature for marriage at all. Marriage is an institution of government and religion not nature. To deny marriage to homosexuals is irrational as every court which has looked at the issue has found.
Tax plan that wipes out the middle class and poor.
Wall Street economic plan - outsource jobs, fire workers, invest in Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese infrastructure, let America rot.
Social policies which will enslave women to an 1840's version of the family - end abortion, end contraception, end education for women (Romney will not want to do this but he'll have to give some meat to the insane Santorum wing of the party.).
Obama - 55%, Romney 45%.
We do have to get control of medical costs - we need to expand Medicare to all American citizens. We know what Obamacare will do - its a Republican proposal passed in Massachusetts and has a clear record. It works.
This is an example of the factual delusions of Republicans. If SS is not changed in anyway, it can pay 75% of stated benefits forever or as long as the US government exists (with a minor adjustment say a 1% or 2 full benefits for the next 75 years. I'll be 140.). Medicare does require some adjustment to survive past my 90th birthday. If we can get the Republicans out of the way, that's easy because the adjustment is minor.
"Chicago style thug tactics". Let's see. Jim Baker no Chicago style thug brings in Republican staffers from Washingtion with orders to stop the Florida recount by any means necessary - meaning riot and assault. Newsweek and Time carry cover stories on this illegal attack on American Constitutional Democracy. And you have the arrogance to talk about "thug tactics".
2014, I retire. Get my Social Security and Medicare the two most successful government programs in the history of the US. That and a small pension and a sizable 401(k) and I will be free to research the history of my country full time.
1. Evidence a depression has begun - none. Some one playing with the economic numbers? evidence None.
2. Solyndra investmnt. Let's see Romney was head of Bain Capital. He said some of his investments worked, some didn't. In fact taking risks is the root of capitalism. So taking pot shots at Obama over a failed investment is dirty pool.
3. Indict them for what. You don't even make a charge just an undocumented unsupported unspecific accusation.
4. Name one. I will; the Ryan budgets 1 & 2. Care to run on those. 1 got out of the House never made it the White House; never will. Both are political, economic, and social suicide. America as third world country.
5. Retreading worn out old right-wing failed policies ( please keep pushing no contraception, attacking porn, putting women back in their place) will thankfully get us to where we need to be Obama 55%, Romney 45%; US House D's-250, R's - 185, Senate D-61, R's-39. Which will give us 4 years of properity, economic growth, and legislation to protect each.
Subsidies for electric cars have nothing to do with the auto-bailout. My former boss got a very significant Federal subsidy for a Prius at least 6 and I think it was 8 years ago long before the bailout.
I know some of you are of that opinoin. The difficulty is finding some rational reason why. The Great Recession ended because of Obama's actions. Economic growth restored. Is the economy doing as well as we would like - No. The Republicans in Congress have been too significant a drag.
Unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ending, but not ended.
Healthcare - the most significant domestic national problem resolved. Not as I'd like it. Its based on private insurance companies and personal responsibility both of which will add to costs and undermine quality, but it does solve many of the most outrageous problems with healthcare - pre-existing conditions (including being a woman), lose of coverage of early 20'somethings, free (yes free) preventive care, etc, etc.
Did Dodd and Frank solve the criminal activity in the Financial Services sector - No. Have Bank Presidents been indicted along with Mortgage issuers, auditors, the ratings agencies, appraisers, etc - No. But its a start.
Do the Republicans have a plan, a philosophy, a set of options which will re-build the middle-class, restore national pride, re-establish America as the economic engine of the developed world - NO. They offer, "I fired them before I hired them" Romney and the three clowns. Not a detailed plan in the lot. And if you look at Congress the Republican plans are how we destroyed the middle class but only better in the future.
Am I optomistic - NO. Citizens United threatens the very foundations of our republican form of government. Its why Dodd Frank is enough, why the economy is growing slowly, why we may not solve the health care problem. Money is power not speech.
Bush added ten's of thousands more than Obama has so far.
"...the two party political system no longer works; it's failing us, mainly because of constant and endless political bickering." I can't agree less. The elections of 1800, 1828, 1860, 1932, and 1964 were far worse in bickering. The issues far more strident. The fundamental problem is far too few of us pay real attention to political issues - too buzy with children, school, sports, smartphones, recreation, etc, etc, etc. We react by saying "would you guys just get it together so that we can ignore you until the last week before the election." Throughout our history the two party system has channelled major forces and ideas into the most readily resolved options (even if civil war is one of them).
Today that is equally true. Should we proceed with globalization and the empoverishment of the vast majority of our citizens as symbolized by the growing wealth gap or should we deal with it as a nation. Should we celebrate Randian radical individualism or national unity? Should we reward the privileged or provide opportunity for the deserving? That's the divide between the parties (along with do we protect patriarchal 1840's families or deal with the economic and social realities that have created the 2010 family). Those are issues worth deciding and a two party system facilitiates the decision.
George Bush the President who expanded Food Stamps more than any other President in history, caused the second worst Recession in history, and discredited America throughout the world certainly will challenge for the worst President in American history.
or the implications are very dumb.
1. The price of gas has doubled while Obama has been in office. And the Winter was one of the warmest in history. So what. The price of Natural Gas is down even more between 2000 and now and and down 60% between 2006 and now. That and a quarter gets you a cup of coffee. The President has no power over the price of commodities except by reducing tensions in the world. So far he's done a good job of that. Its Iran that it ramping up tension on Wall Street speculators who are spiking the price as a result.
2. The national debt has increased several trillions of dollars. Good. The last thing this country needs NOW is a reduced national debt. Now President Bush more than doubled the debt, created the Great Recession, and promoted and implemented a range of new unfunded programs that will keep increasing the debt for another generation. You can't turn that around in one term. But President Obama has reduced Federal spending and the debt from what it would have been had the Republicans retained the White House and has proposed several budgets that would reduce the debt by $4 trillion over 10 years. He can't get them out of the House of Representatives because the Republicans are more concerned to defeat him in November than to solve the national problems they created.
3. The unemployment rate is also higher than when Obama took office. But the rate has been falling starting 2 months after he took office because of his successful Auto bailout and the stimulus package that reduced the Bush 780,000 job lose per month to now 24 straight months of employment growth.
A rational person not only will give Obama a chance to finish the work he has begun but also recognizes bankruptcy of the Republican programs that brought us to this dangerous situation.
"....not to stigmatize those who are receiving public assistance but to better educate them.... You do not hire auditors or fraud investigators to "educate" anyone.
referrals are going up because you have a group of politically inspired idealogs who hate poor people that are trying to make a case to injure the poor.
The documentation has been in for a long time. The priority in waste and fraud cases in welfare programs is the providers of good and services who like I believe its the current speaker defraud the government to the tune of millions.
I would approve this new hiring as long as the job descriptions require them to investigate fraud by providers.
the Republican caucuses this year for Willard Mitt Romney is no reason to change the selection system. But it is clear that the Republicans can't be trusted to run an honest election by themselves. After the Presidential election is time to look at this.
not all. Because it doesn't measure impact or really ability to pay (or disposable income if you will). Its an abstraction removed from the reality of your examples lives without considering the totalit of their lives.
All taxation is either regression or progressive. Either taxation strengthens or weakens a country. A "flat tax" is just a gross oversimplification that does not address the real issues and therefore benefits only the rich.
Its not either/or. An infinite range of possible solutions exist. Marxism has nothing to do with it. Even your quote is what might happen as an extreme example under a whole bunch of Marxist assumptions that they don't even believe in. We can have equal opportunity, social stability, national unity, all people living within an acceptable range of satifactions and we did up until 1980 when the wealthy choose to change the laws and take every crumb on the table. Its not a zero sum game.
1. We are expected to be a country of equal opportunity not results.
2. We can never attain equal opportunity so the closest we can come to it is relatively equal, close to equal. Instead we have a tax system that doesn't even try at equal opportunity. It shoots for a growing inequality of opportunity and that's the facts. Between 1945 and 1980 the relative share of national income of the wealth and the rest of us statyed at 40/60. Since then all increases in national income have gone to the top 10 or so.
3. You Robinhood style tax system is a myth. Don't exist. And no one is proposing anything that even approaches that. All current proposals just make inequal opportunity worse.
same and not all taxes have the same conditions, exceptions, and regulations. That's why Warren Buffett pays 17.9% and his secretary over 30%. Paying the same tax dollars on different incomes has disproportionate affects. Everyone' situation is different. So no everyone should not pay the same %; what they pay should have the same impact on their lives. Let's say you and the next guy both pay 20% of your income in taxes but that leaves him enough to send his kids to Harvard and you can send your kids to work with lunch. Is that fair?
Paying taxes should be like anything else in the real world (not the imaginary world of libertarian reductionism). All of us owe some level of taxes as our committment to the maintenance of society. We all use and are protected by shared laws and regulations. But some of us use more than the rest. Money is freedom. With it the wealthy can do more that they want to do than the poor can do. That's the whole point. If money didn't then it would not be an incentive. Wealthy people need to pay for that increased "use" of the system.
What evidence is there that increasing taxes on only the wealthy is unfair and unproductive - none. What evidence is there that tax cuts MUST be accompanied by spending cuts - none. In fact, there is a world of evidence beginning in 1791 that shows that some level of national debt is absolutely necessary for a united society.
for the so called 'wealthy'". Not in this letter. First, Maine and the Nation's primary problem today is a failure of committment by the wealthy to support their country. We as a nation pay the lowest taxes since World War II. The wealthy have made a science (UBS scandal as just one example) of concealing their wealth, hiding their income, protecting their assets all to avoid legally or illegally their basic obligations to this country.
Second, where to cut if you must pay for cuts in taxes (and the wealthy are not proposing cutting taxes across the board. Every proposal from the wealthy i.e. the Republicans would give massive tax cuts to the wealthiest and huge tax increases to the poorest Americans) is simple; in those programs that are pure wastes of or re-distributions of government tax dollars. Corporate subsidies - the 4 billion that go to Oil and Gas companies, the 20+ billion that go to corporate farms, etc. etc. etc. The last thing that should be cut are useful programs that strengthen the health and welfare of American citizens.
Why Maine would want a more expensive, less efficient management of the unorganized territories that is more open to corruption is beyond me. If Mr(s). Windsor and Gedat are opposed to this proposal then it makes no sense.
I would only add that by thinking of it as a stigma society places a burden on the family, child that benefits no one. My mother (she is 90) tells me of a story she read many years ago as a girl about a teenage girl from Maine (fiction) who went to the Lowell textile mills in the 19th century; was made pregant by a mill supervisor; came home to have the child; the child was given up for adoption and years later she fell in love with a new young man in town and on deciding they would get married found out that the young man was her son and for the rest of her life was shunned by the community. As an old woman she was allowed to freeze to death in a bad winter because no one would bring her wood and she was too old to collect it. Where is the morality, the good and evil in her life. Except when someone is causing us immediate injury, judgements on people's lives are too complex and too uncertain.
Its well Documented and true. Check the Midwife's Tale about Hallowell Maine 1795-1812. Then check the sources. Stigma only was attached to unwed mothers after/during Victoria Age post 1850's. The stigma is purely a recent cultural issue.
In the 1800's mid-wives were required to ask unmarried women who the father of their children were during labor believing that under pain they would tell. That was so the father not the town would be responsibile for the child. But there was no stigma in being unwed. It was purely financial.Had nothing to do with right and wrong.
First, America was founded as a secular country and transformed in the early 1800's into a Christian culture but not country.
2. America has never been ruled by socialists or communists and aren't now. So nothing is proved and the big lie isn't a lie.
3. No one anywhere in this country has proposed that big government, whatever that is, replace God. First because by definition that's impossible since for God to be God he/she must be supernatural and Government by definition must be natural. So what Joan must be describing here is replacing a secular, republican Constitutional Government by a Theocratic Government. What could be more intrusive, more dangerous, more harmful then a dictatorship lead by unaccountable ministers or priests as in Iran today.
4. We aren't being told the rich are causing our problems - although the Bible says that directly for the want of money is the root of all evil (along with many other things). Documented proven cases in the courts have shown that some of the rich have and are the primary if not the sole cause of this nations problems. When they tell you that they need not be accountable. They need not be personally responsible for their actions. When they support actions like the JOB ACT which is really the Financial Fraud Training and Promotion Act, you know that you don't count but they do.
5. That evil becomes more manifest when the rich say that they are operating under the authority of GOD. Several centuries ago it used to be called the Divine Right of Kings (or might makes right). Now its the lunacy that the ACLU, Taliban, and Communists are all the same. That under one flag and one God we will march off to the sunset slaves to our betters.
Not this boy.
Bryon's comments and action are appropriate. Any town should always look at alternatives that reduce costs without sacrificing quality or that might improve quality.
But to oppose consolidation before anyone knows the facts is premature. I will not sign a withdrawal petition until the advantages and disadvantages of withdraw are well and accurately documented.
automatically a principle.
Santorum does have one principle that will make it fun - he only tells well established Republican lies unlike Romney who hasn't met or spoken the truth yet (y'all). Santorum's criticism of Romney that Romney did promote the Heritage Foundation health care plan, which became Romneycare, as a National solution and later was the basis for Ombamacare is true and honest and fair.
A standard big government Republican with insane social policies that only white, evangelical fundamentalists could love will make November fun.
Announcement: Arizona is about to pass a law that will make it easier for employers to fire! I repeat fire! women who use bill control for contraceptive purposes. Please keep it up.
1. The Catholic Church was not required or asked to pay for contraceptives as part of the rule making for the Affordable Care Act. Organizations currently receiving Federal Funds which are affiliated with the Catholic Church but legally setup to be secular institutions were in an initial proposal that allowed a year for comment and accommodation. So much for that lie.
2. Limbaugh has never apologized. He just said that the words he used were inappropriate. How about an apology because they were false, slander, and intended to demean Sandra Fluke as an individual and all women in general. Romney may have thought it was about words. We all knew it was for policy as Limbaugh intended.
3. Limbaugh's long career of slander and lies does appeal to a certain class of personalities. He'll be on the air. But we can hope his crimes, slander, will be minimized.
4. Please win the nomination Rick. Pretty Please. It will be fun watching 4th century human sexuality compete with reasoned scientific knowledge.
School consolidation has to be looked at. A feasibility study of all the options would contribute a base of information from which people could draw rational conclusions.
But obviously many people have drawn their conclusions without the facts. Pride in school tradition is good. But it should not override a changing reality. The same pride and tradition can be developed for a consolidated Western Maine Foothills school system.
It would be very easy to fall in line with community pride. But I don't want the current school system. I want the one which will prepare our students for the best that life can give them.
debt; the greatest economic recession in 70+ years; scandal after scandal after scandal; a propaganda war on women, ACORN, senior citizens, the young, planned parenthood. The list just goes on and on.They want us to go back to the gold standard (didn't work then won't work now). They think the only thing that motivates people is money or punishment because its the only thing that motivates them. They live by the standard that what they want and do is the only thing good for the rest of us.
I think not.
the tax code is tooooo complex; the system completely unfair.
All income should be treated the same. Taxes in general should be paid based on use. Those who use the system the most should pay the most. Those that have the most should pay the most. Happily those are the same people. No exemptions (except cost of living/costs in case of business), loopholes. The tax system should not be used to provide incentives or subsidies. If government wants to provide a rational benefit for some sector of the economy the costs should be explicit and fully stated outside the tax code.
The result would be a simple tax code fairly sharing the costs of government.
Highest marginal rate should be above 40%.
"This nation was founded by men who were Christians." No it wasn't. This is a myth invented in the 1830's (50 years after the founding of the country). America was founded by 55 men in Philadelphia supported by hundreds more who participated in the Ratification Conventions. Overwhelmingly, they were college educated, rationalists. A few were deists and you might even find a Christian if you looked hard enough. Christianity is not mentioned in any founding documents (Constitution, notes on the Ratification Conventions, letters from participants).Only the Declaration of Independence which isn't a founding document comes close to suggesting a supernatural connection (Creator). And that's not even specific enough to mean much of anything.
Nothing President Obama has done has in any way challenged the Churches or violated the 1st Amendment. No attack on religious freedom has been attempted. No one is trying to "control" churches. On the contrary this has been an attempt by the religious right to impose their sick, perverted, sexual standards on the rational, responsible rest of us.
First, the President did no such thing. The Catholic Church and all its related organizations are exempt from the medical insurance provisions of RomneyCare (excuse me, The Affordable Care Act. RomneyCare provides no exemption for any organizations). The President's proposal only affected religious affiliated organizations - organizations explicitly set up to receive federal funds because of their secular non-religious function.
Second, please remind us of the part(s)of the US Constitution that prevents the US Government from "meddling" in matters of private companies. Doesn't exist. The US Constitution explicitly gives the Federal Government wide latitude in all matters related to the economy and the functioning of corporations from setting the value of money, weights and measures, company bankruptcy, etc, etc. Implicitly, that latitude is even larger by the commerce clause, the necessary and proper clause, and several others.
Third, Ms Fluke provided no testimony about "nearly continuous recreational sex" or demands that insurance pay for her sex life. Her testimony was that other women at Gerogetown University who had medical conditions (ovarian cysts) could not easily get contraceptive pills which are a medical treatment for those conditions.
Last, all of this was stage managed by Republicans (the Issa committee which brought it up first) to deflect attention away from immediately important matters that they have obstructed for the last 3 years.
I suggest Maine's Republicans follow Virginia's Governor Ultrasound MacDonnell's solution to any non-existant problem - punish women. We all know they are the source of all evil.
What action by LePage or his administration brought this problem to light. NONE. The problem came to light in a routine audit done more than a year ago. This was not going on for years. A new computer system was brought in in 2010 and it was not correctly integrated with the old system so it did not remove newly ineligible people.
Instead of doing something about the known problem, LePage simple used the incorrect numbers to force more needy people off of Medicare.
That Republicans would lie hardly seems news. We have there apparent nominee for the Presidency of the US caught just this week in a major, indisputable lie over his promotion of Romneycare and individual responsibility as a national solution to the health care crisis. That the Governor and especially this Governor would lie about trying to prevent public discussion of his unconstitutional education bills.
"Proponents, meanwhile, read the clause to mean that diverting public funds is constitutional so long as the government doesn't favor religious schools over public schools, or one faith over another." No they don't. This should read Proponents re-vise the clause to mean....". The Constitution and the documents centered around the first amendment are very clear - Congress shall make NO LAW. Not balance this or that. NO LAW.
is obvious. Their billionaires outnumber Democratic billionaires 10 to one. Since Republicans represent the 1% even in Maine, they want unlimited spending. Adelson says he 1s prepared to spend $100 million. The Koch Brothers spend roughly a billion dollars a year.
Made had a good system that encouraged average citizens of all parties to participate in our government, the Republicans want a system where their billionaires can buy our elections.
King has always used government office and influence for his own personal profit. He has done nothing for but much to rural Maine. His defeat make Maine stronger.
The Affordable Care Act requires that rules be developed for preventive care. This rule was created under that provision.
1. All religious institutions are exempted.
2. All institutions that take Federal money and are affiliated with a religious organization are exempted from paying for contraceptives.
3. Pregnancy is considered a pre-existing condition by insurance companies. Private insurance Companies are the sole insurance companies covered by these provisions.
Therefore, no 1st amendment issue is involved. Government is only establishing the minimum conditions under which private insurance companies can engage in this marketplace which is government's correct and proper role.
Only those that hate women, hate sex, or can't deal with either think this is an issue. The SCOTUS settled this as an issue almost 50 years ago. Its settled law.
Oil and gas prices are going up, but why? Because wall street gamblers are speculating that Iran's oil production will end.
Government officials don't have outrageous salaries, but Wall street and the Corporations that suck the life's blood out of our country do.
Maine does not have too many state workers, we have too few.
You can't solve a problem until you find the cause and deal with it.
"professional leeches". "Maine is considered the welfare state and attracts leeches from all over the country and world to reap the harvest." Considered by whom, right-wing paranoids? Now we can't let facts interfere with Bob's many delusions. Data has consistently shown that more people on welfare leave Maine for other states than come in. Why? Jobs! These professional leeches want jobs. At least thats what the Repubs keep saying - young people are leaving because there are no jobs in Maine. Can't have it both ways. Either they are leaving or they are coming. Which is it.
Bob once told a school board meeting that pregnant students or students with babies should be expelled from school because they encourage other girls to get pregnant. Another member suggested that his comment was the reverse of the truth, other girls see the work, the loss of social time that a baby entails and that encourages them to not get pregnant.
Once again, Bob has it backwards.
"Maine has been spending too much on welfare for too long". We have, by what standard.
"....half again more on MaineCare than it was just 10 years ago, and enrollment has increased by 78 percent. Well, let's see. A 50% increase in 10 years that's an average of 5% per year. Medical costs are running 6% per year. Sounds like we are spending less that what we should expect. 78% increase in enrollment. Well that was before the Banks and their spokesman, the Republicans, looted the federal treasury and crashed the US economy. Maine is 10 years older. We have one of the oldest populations in the country. Again sounds like what we should expect.
The problem isn't spending. The problem is republicans changing the laws so that their rich allies are not responsibile for either their actions or the damage they do to the state.
Boy, LePage has a thin skin and a weak mind. Where is his transvaginal ultrasound inspection of women passing the Governor's door. Let's get some serious legislation going. Maine is losing its spot as national laughingstock to Virginia, Alabama, and Oklahoma.
Since Poliquin is a Republican, he can't violate ethical standards because he has and recognizes none. He can't violate the Maine Constitution because he only recognizes those part of the Constitution which benefit him personally.
But I must admit he stretches the limits of Republicanism when he said "...questions from Dion were politically motivated." As if his unfounded and irresponsible attacks on the Maine Housing Authority are anything else.
OK Brian got your chance; get the spin machine out.
Premium rates at our company increased about 23% this year. The year before and the year before that about 19%. Health care costs increased about 6% per year. The Republicans in the legislature passed a bill last year, LD 1333, which would allow insurers to radically increase rates. So does any of this surprise anyone. Average workers have not seen a raise in 5 years and in some cases premiums more than double in the last 5 years.
1. I would like to see a public detailed justification for insurance company premium increases.
2. As those increases make carrying insurance prohibitive for average workers, I would like to see Medicare expanded to included an income as well as age qualification. You get in if your income is less than x amount OR you are over a certain age.
3. Eliminate the immediate problem by restoring the Governor's tax bailout of the rich.
4. I would like to see any Medicare provider who defrauds the State/Federal program be mandatorily jailed on conviction.
Debates on the budget, National and State, suggested it. Iowa's results confirmed it. Now Maine's results prove it.
I read of no repudiation of the too quick announcement of a winner.
I read of no announcement of Charlie Webster's resignation.
Guess for Republicans personal responsibility is also a joke along with honest voting.
What has Peggy's service time in Augusta to do with Medicais costs. What does increasing the number of people on Medicaid have to do with costs. Different types of people have different costs profiles. Perhaps we have had low cost participants added and high cost participants removed in the last few years. The above comments provides no meaningful details to justify their conclusion.
"Medicaid changes implemented this year were long overdue for a state with diminishing revenues." Maybe our revenues are falling because the LePage administration gave his rich supporters a big fat present and now children and the disabled and the acutely poor are to pay for it.
Completely immoral budget. No moral person should vote for it.
I agree with Tim somewhat. If we want to attract business it should be through making the state attractive to all businesses by improving infrastructure (roads, bridges, airports, internet access, phone service), by eliminating duplicate regulations and permitting (let one department make all the decisions necessary to permit a project taking all laws and prioritized conciderations into account).
No free market exists as this story makes clear. And Government should make decisions on what projects are good for Maine and what aren't. The market only makes decisions based on economic factors and often they are the least important.
Government has no role in "covering the costs" of a business. That's fascism.
1. You are joking. Unlike Paul who doesn't understand the Constitution at all, Obama does. He has defended the Constitution at every step in his presidency.
2. Ok, slap my hand of course I don't agree with either. Both believe in and promote theocracy, I believe and promote the real Constitution not the "conservatives" (actually radical capitalist) modern rewrite.
3. You might be surprised. I've spent 40 years reading, reading about, and reading the interpretation of the Constitution. Spent the last three reading about the Second Great Awakening and how that transformed American culture and politics. Facts are important to me.
4. Thanks for clarifying that you don't want to try to make an argument, you just want your opinoin to be law.
1. So God is going to send the country to hell? Somehow I doubt it. I expect in 2016 we will have another election. And another democrat who understands the Constitution just slightly less well than Obama will triumph over religious bias.
2. Right, listened, watched, read Thomas for decades; hasn't been right about anything yet. Catholic Bishops haven't been right about human sexuality for roughly 1700 years although they are consistent.
3. Who says.
4. So you really have no argument. I'm not surprised.
This is ultra-individualism that denies social responsibility, twists the Bible into an irrational mess, and which maliciously misrepresents and mischaracterizes President Obama.
1. The opposition is not loyal. It has said time and again that its sole purpose is to defeat Obama the country be damned.
2. Cal Thomas' perverted column stand in well with the Catholic Bishops perverted ideas on human sexuality.
3. The Bishops proposal limits individual liberty not the Presidents. The President did not propose to "force" anyone to use birth control pills or devices. The Bishops proposal forced them not to.
4. Church affiliated organizations are created precisely so they can accept federal funds without violating the 1st Amendment and they are required to follow federal laws and regulations. No 1st amendment issue exists.
The church affiliated organizations that would have been required to include no-cost birth control in their employer provided health insurance plans are setup to accept Federal funds without violating the first amendment which means they are subject to Federal laws and rules. So this was never a separation of church and state issue.
This was an attempt by the Catholic hierarchy to impose their very perverted view of human sexuality on the rest of us and to deny to their employees the freedom of conscience that the 1st amendment was intended to protect.
The proposal was never intended to be implemented in the first place. It included a one year period for comment and discussion. Instead the Catholic Bishops tried to turn it into a political issue.
Thankfully the President worked out a very acceptable compromise that all affiliated groups now agree with and only the Bishops are opposing. Obviously they neither represent their members or common sense.
While a violation of the state Constitution, slander, and failure to competently fulfill the duties of treasurer are important, why is there no reporting on Charlie Webster's stealing the Republican Primary for Willard Mitt Romney.
We all remember Charlie Webster, Chairman of the Maine State Republican Party, from last year when he made up all these false stories about Democrats stealing elections through non-existant voter fraud. Now Charlie has declarded Willard Mitt Romney the winner in the Republican Primary and stated that they Party will not count votes from Washington County (went for Paul in 2008) or the half dozen cities in Waldo and Kennebec Counties that did not report results. Iowa re-stated their results when initial result were wrong. Why is Maine not doing the same.
Seems Charlie is stealing the Primary election for his candidate through you guessed it voter fraud.
Morning Joe that morning used the numbers as well has the Ed Show and Rev Al Sharpton's show a few days before. Their numbers came from government reports and I think they are on recovery.gov.
An economy must be viewed as a whole not looking at some factor in isolation. The Greek and American situations are totally different. Greece does stand as an example of the point a nation's debt does catch up with it, but its not an example that applies or will ever apply to us. Greece is not the largest economy in the world. Greece does not have the largest army by many orders of magnitude. Greece did not have a Great Recession in 2008. Economies for one thing run on confidence. Debt is a problem only when it affects negatively on the confidence others have in our economy. Because of many factors confidence is very strong in the US economy. Debt will not catch up with us. That said we do need to reign in our debt because if nothing else it restricts our budget options. The goal of the current and future administrations should be to reduce debt to no more than 25% of the national economy without adversely affecting economic growth. As of today, austerity plans are adversely affecting growth by .5 to 1%. We need a budget where Federal drag on the economy is negative (the government is growing the economy) while slowly reducing the debt until economic growth is in the 3.5%+ range for a year or more then we can cut the debt more rapidly.
Its not a matter of statistics. Jefferson wrote that party affiliation was a matter of personality. He's right. I didn't say that all the bad people fall into one of these groups. Its not a matter of random selection. Its a sociological process well documented historically. At the roots all these groups shared one common set of beliefs - that it was their duty to rule those inferior to themselves in God's name. And they have not changed which is the common assumption tday.
But Republicans live in a magical worldview. Every fact down to earth people present Republicans ignore. Every solution is outside their worldview so it's unseen.
Start with the obvious solution which people have mentioned here many time before:
1. Repeal the Bush Tax cuts
2. Solve the Federal revenue problem by eliminating all tax loopholes.
3. Change the tax system. Federal taxes owed = Disposable income times a tax rate that starts at zero at the poverty limit and grows to a marginal rate of 50% at $1 million dollars. Rates for incomes below the poverty line would be negative and count as a tax credit.
4. Allow the Federal Government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare.
5. Move much more aggressively away from gasoline for transportation.
The list is much longer.
Wish I could agree, but from the Republican Party's founding to today it has been at its core a racist party. They were founded by the fusion of whigs(evangelical protestants and businessmen), anti-slavery democrats, free-soilers, and the American Republican Party (Know-Nothings who were anti-immigrantion, anti-catholic) the result was a Party dominated by anti-black (being anti-slavery did not mean you believed in the social equality of African slaves; only the radical abolitionist wing of the party believed in equality), anti-catholic, anti-slavery, and pro-Theocracy. The CPAC conference last weekend included in a panel discussion a well known anti-semite, anti-immigrantion, hate monger. Ron Paul has promoted anti-black, anti-immigrant ideas for 30 years. Richard Nixon conducted the "Southern Strategy" bringing southern racist democrats into the Republican Party in 1968. The Christian Right wing has been and is anti-catholic and anti-mormon and recently anti-muslim. So I think their irrational rage at Obama comes from their longstanding irrational racism.
The $200 is the expected (CBO forecasted deficit for FY 2009-11) bush deficit subtracted from the real deficits in those years.
You misunderstood my comment or I mis-wrote it. Bush policies will account for 96% of all Federal deficits out to 2050 (comes from Rep. Paul's charts on his budget proposal of last year among others; not a 96% increase.
Obama has never had congressional control. Republicans during his administration have either controlled the Senate (had 40+ votes) or the House. Therefore he has always proposed programs that are either Republican proposals (Health Care) or negiotiated a democratic proposal (extension of payroll tax cuts) in exchange of support for a republican idea (extension of the Bush tax cuts). His new budget (compromise with the republicans having failed) does roll back much of the Bush tax cuts and reduces the deficit over 10 years by $4 trillion.
130 million jobs were not lost in December nor 128 million lost in January. I don't know what John meant but what he wrote was wrong.
"... the media don't report his impeachable acts;.." Like what? Maybe they don't report them because they don't exist.
"The president has thrown billions of dollars to bailouts without it trickling down to anyone.." 1.5 million jobs created by bailing out the auto industry. 3.4 million jobs created/saved by pushing the stimulus package. An increase of 2% in the GDP by these acts alone. I'd say that's a whole lot of "anyones".
You don't turn the US economy around on a dime.
Its not time to stop blaming the Bush Republican administration for national debt increases. The Bush administration by its failure to enforce Federal regulations, by its failure to regulate new, untried, and knowingly dangerous financial instruments beginning in 2001 when they decided not to regulate new securitized mortgage instruments created by Countrywide which were the primary cause of the 2008 Great Recession, and by its decisions to begin new programs (Bush tax cuts, two wars, Medicare Part D, and the largest expansion of the Federal Government in modern history the creation of the Homeland Security Department) without paying for them created 96% of the increases in national debt out to 2050 were no actions taken to reduce it.
Obama changes have added $200 billion to the national debt in 3 years. Nothing compared to the Bush years when Dick Cheney said that the National debt just did not matter.
Hey, I throw in 11% that doesn't override the rest of the comment. 11% is huge. That's why I talked about what they have recently done to improve it.
But you reaction is based not on the numbers, but on your assumptions. "Government is overreaching" that's an assumption or better yet your bias. "they are outside their span of control". Again a bias or at best an assumption. Have you tested their "span of control". Do you really know its breath? Based on these two untested and untestable assumptions you reach the conclusion that waste and fraud will continue or get worse." "ObamaCare is simply opens the door to more opportunity" Again a conclusion with no support at all.
You have to know the capabilities of Federal systems and be able to test them to make the judgements you are. When Medicare was implemented Federal "span of control" was very low. A top of the line computer system used tape for I/O. The legislation gave them 6-12 months to implement new features/programs. Current computer systems are thousands of time more productive. Project development techniques are orders of magnitude better. And the Affordable Care Act staged implementation over a number of years. True these systems process millions of transactions per day and thats a real task for any operation. But they have the tools to do it today that they didn't have in the 1960's. The "span of control" today is huge. A medicare for everyone program is very doable. Minimimzing errors is very doable. Checking and preventing deliberate fraud is very doable today (credit card fraud detection is orders of magnitude better than just a few years ago). The Affordable Care Act provides te opportunity to greatly reduce real fraud. Nothing will reduce error too much.
That is the size of the problem. $60 billion out of about $551 billion in expenditures about 11%.
Let's understand what Medicare Fraud and Asbuse is. Medicare Fraud and Abuse is any billinging to Medicare that covers services not delivered or a service that was delivered but was unnecessary or inappropriate (given to someone not qualified for the service.
The mismatch of qualified people to services is low, technical, and almost always caught after the fact by computers. Its the error rate of medicare and will never be zero but also may reach the point where its not worth pursuing if the costs to pursue are high.
The major medicare fraud is provider mis-billing that is separated between deliberate fraud and provider billing errors. Our Speaker of the House can speak to this since he misbilled Medicare by $1.6 million. He claims it was an error (billing for one class of product when really a different class was provided). Most of the provider errors are caught in the billing process. What remains is deliberate fraud.
For the first time and about time, the Obama administration has elevated Medicare Fraud and Abuse to a cabinet position. The HEAT team of cabinet officers was established in 2009 to specifically address and presecute deliberate fraud. Its done some good but not enough.
But Medicare Fraud and Abuse is about errors in the billing process. The $60 billion does not refer to expenditures. It refers to billing errors. In 2010 "improper payments" were about $48 billion of which an unknown amount were later found to be correct and proper.
Columbia Healthcare paid about a billion dollars in fines and penalties a few years back for deliberate fraud.
ut medicare was set up for fast and easy payments to providers not for verification. As time has gone on the system is being changed to put more and more emphasis on proper payments. So its not like little is being done. Just that much more needs to be done.
The fundamental point tho' is that patients are almost never involved in fraud.
So what. That's what I meant by Mr. Nachman's letter meaning almost nothing. Of course, there is fraud and some undocumented immigrants will benefit from fraud. So. As long as thee Government does what reasonably can be done to control fraud it isn't an issue because no matter what is done the cost of proventing the fraud will exceed the benefit of preventing it. What sensde does it make to spend $100 t save $95.
I said Scarcelli might have been a plant to weaken the D's. The article suggested coordination between Scarcelli and the Republicans. The rest of your comment is just the usual R paranoia.
Please name a single conservative D who has run as an independent who coordinated their campaign with State D's to take votes away from Republican candidates.
LePage's bill refer only to Maine. My experience refers only to Maine. I can't agree with you more that in some places and with some superintendents bad teachers grow like weeds. Its not a problem of teacher evaluations. The administrators know who the bad teachers are just as you and I did. The problem is they will not do their jobs and document why they are bad so that they can be fired.
Normally they use the military solution. I can't get into specifics, but we had a teacher who was worse than incompetent, worse than bad. Gave grades based on gender of the student and explicitly on their relationship. Superintendent promoted the teacher to a non-teaching position at greatly increased pay. Zero documentation.
Paul Nachman is a featured writer on VDARE.com (named for Virginia Dare the first English Child born in Virginia 1587) The site and its editor are well known anti-immigrant propagandists who spend a good deal of time explaining why they are not white supremists and anti-semities even though they have been identified as such by reputable organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Actually, Mr. Nachman's letter says almost nothing. He agrees with the previous letter's author that the law prevents federal payments to illegal immigrants for medical care. He then suggest that illegal payments might be made because illegal immigrants illegally are paid for jobs they can't legally hold.
First, undocumented immigrants are not criminals. They have broken no criminal law. They have broken federal "civil" law.
Then he suggests that if the Affordable Care Act had mandated the use of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements online program to confirm that a noncitizen applicant for benefits resides in the U.S. legally, then undocumented immigrants would be prevented from getting these benefits. Why would that work? If these people are breaking the law to be here, why wouldn't they get illegal documentation that would let them get jobs and benefits. Fact is they do. Plus nothing in the Affordable Care Act says the government won't use this system. The act merely leaves open the "how" so the government can choose the best system at the time to verify proper payments.
You have to be paranoid to read into this any problem. OOps, guess that's obvious.
This is suggesting that Scarcelli was a faux-democrat candidate created by the Republicans intended to produce a weak opponent for LePage. Wouldn't be surprising. During the campaign activists knew there was something just not right about Scarcelli's campaign. Republicans have done this or similiar things before in other states. Might also explain why Woodcock lost the campaign before and why LePage a very similiar out-of-the-mainstream candidate who was equally inarticulate and irrational won.
State money for private religious schools - unarguably Unconstitutional, no accountability, no controls. Its everything you hate about public schools just made much worse.
I'll support teacher and administration evaluation changes when its not just cover to break the unions which seems to be the primary goal of the Republicans these days. Fact, the problems getting rid of bad teachers is a myth. When I went to the School Board Converences years ago sessions were held on "its easy to fire a teacher if you just document the situation". Truth is the problem of firing bad teachers is a superintendent problem not a union problem. Firing a teacher looks bad for the administrators. they would prefer to hide the situation than deal with it.
School Choice is just a way to force rural school consolidation without controls or a plan or accountability. Let the random acts of parents and students force the hand of the state and local governments. Its a really bad idea. 20 years from now we may not have schools as we know them today. Online education blended with small site instruction or big site instruction may completely change education. Delivering an education experience in large "factory" buildings is an expensive 19th century idea.
People can cherrypick studies.
We don't know who commenting here has a financial interest in wind farms going into operation so we don't know the credibility of anyone.
From what I've heard and seen and from the point of view of an affected home owner, Industrial Wind Farms have no place in Maine.
People starved in the streets, died from all sorts of easily treated diseases, and died from old age and neglect.
As for Government intervention. As long as there has been "government" there has been intervention so you have to go back 3,000,000 and more years to reach "before Government intervention". The choice now is not between no intervention and lots of intervention. Its between the tyranny of religious dogma on the right and the freedom of personal growth and responsibility on the left.
Every year Maine has a balanced budget. The state is not deeply in the red. The credit rating companies (as corrupt as they are) agree Maine has its debt well under control. The Governor Constitutionally can not "supervise" the State Legislature. The most he has been able to do so far is bully senior citizens, the infirmed, and children.
but its not true. I have approached this in this way. The NRCM supports industrial wind farms (they do). They are normally right and this question is a question of balancing alternatives. Now is there any reason why they might be wrong. The list is long for those who live in the shadows of the farms.
There is almost nothing peer-reviewed. Wish there was. it would make my decisions much easier. The industry will not fund peer-reviewed studies for fear of getting a result they don't want. The environmentalists don't have the resources to fund peer-reviewed studies (long term studies of the environmental impacts to humans of industrial changes in their living space are extremely expensive and even with rigorous controls difficult if not impossible to replicate and may require very long period of time (decades) to complete). So everyone has to take the info and apply their best guess as to the confidence that should be placed in any study conclusion.
I'm open to logical debate also. Industry will not comment on proposed facilities until they have been installed. Far too late for a logical debate.
First, as I said I'm not opposed to industrial wind power in a proper setting. Nor am I opposed to it 5000 feet directly in front of my front door which is the current plan. I am a member of various environmental groups that do support industrial wind power so I have a predisposition to support it.
Second, if you eliminate studies done or funded by groups that will financially gain by the development of industrial wind power, ANY study will oppose it in residential areas.
Third, yes seriously low-level vibrations have specifically been related to negative human impacts - in wind power situations and other industrial environments.
Fourth, what's louder than a windmill in Auburn almost nothing depending on set backs.
when you have to live with it, its still "industrial". Most states, cities, have zoning to separate industrial development from residential development. Not here and not with wind power. Many people complain about the visual degradation of rural undeveloped Mountains. That's a problem, but its the totality of problems (noise, low-level vibrations, wildlife impacts, the impact of upgrading the transmission lines because the power is generated at great distances from where it is consumed, and the huge corporate welfare needed to economically justify these projects) that suggest that industrial wind power development is not acceptable for every mountain in western Maine and in fact for any mountain in western Maine.
Since few people live with industrial wind power now, the polls only reflect the theory of wind power not the facts.
No, Dr. Shields has earned my contempt for his frequent letters to the editor because - they weren't his.
Some time back he was one of many Republicans in the Senate who submitted letters to local newspapers claiming they were his own when in fact they had been written by the Senate Republican Staff. He was showing his contempt for his constituents by trying to mislead them. He didn't have time to convert the daily Republican talking points memo into a letter. He was above all that. If Dr. Shields is going to act like a baby we have the right to treat him as a baby. I suspect it contributed to the Sun asking if letters to the editor are unique and written by the supposed author.
Maine has a revenue problem and a tax equity problem. I would not have a problem repealing the sales tax if the income tax and the property tax were equitiable, but they aren't. The total tax impact on individuals and families should be income minus the minimum needed to live which equals real disposable income times a progressive rate rate (people with higher disposable incomes "use" governmental services more than people with lower disposable incomes.). Instead the lowest 20% of income earnings in Maine pay taxes at a higher rate than all other Mainers.
I am not one to praise Republican legislators very often. Being bound to a philosophy which is anti-Constitutional, self-destructive, and delusional along with a fair dose of political hypocricy doesn't allow for much mature, rational, constructive legislative action. But I have to give it to the current crew of Republican legislators, faced by a completely irrational, self-serving bully in the Baine house they have worked with Democrats to come up with some adult solutions (like the bipartisan budget) to Maine's real problems.
Then there is little tommie - refugee from past Republican legislatures. "Maine’s benefits are already well above the national average, and so are the taxes." So what made the national average god. Find me a state which is "average". Average is a artificial and not very meaningful seventh graders' term. When Maine's population's age and income are average; when its transportation, real estate, and heating costs are average, when its distance to markets is average then let's talk about its benefits and taxes. Truth is Maine taxes are below average and benefits are below the average in New England much less the nation. Now I'm talking real numbers here not MHPC mangled for effect numbers.
The Maine Housing Authority investigation is so far a witch hunt. Not a single issue, problem, has been established. No cause to investigate has even been proposed (other than its head is a Democrat). No evidence has shown that any "expenditures for personal pleasure and other unrelated items" has been made. Not one. Now maybe little tommie has some secret confidential information that has been illegally leaked to him by his buddies in Augusta. All I can go on is the published reports.
Apparently little tommie is happy with his governor's proposals to poison babies and turn the state of Maine into funtown for rich developers. The rest of us aren't.
Florida has the criminal Scott, Michigan Synder, Wisconsin Walker, Ohio Kasich and Maine has "my way or the highway" LePage. He can't work with Democrats and he can't work with Republicans (they dropped his bill to poison babies). He doesn't have a clue what Maine's issues are or how to address them. Boy, do we need Governatorial recall added the the Maine Constitution. This degenerate clown is so irresponsible he wants to deny medical care to the helpless to pay for tax cuts for the rich. Even his Republican buddies will not take their orders from Washington as he does. I hope he vetoes this proposal. Make my day, governor.
You don't move a $17 trillion economy on a dime. President Bush added almost $6 trillion to the national debt by promoting and signing the Bush tax cuts ($2 trillion in new debt), promoting and adopting Medicare Part-D (cost $800 billion per year none paid for), two wars (over $1 trillion lets not mention the lives and international turmoil). President Obama's new programs which are unpaid for - $787 billion in stimulous spending which will return billions in tax revenues). You can not blame Obama for programs passed under and promoting by the previous Preident. You also can blame the costs of the recession (unemployment insurance, food stamps, welfare, etc) which were caused by Bush projects like his failure to enforce regulations and his repeal of other regulations.
Get your facts straight.
"The dictionary definition of socialism is: A theory or system of ownership of the means of production and distribution by society, rather than by individuals." Why include this definition. America has never had a socialist government. The means of production and distribution have never been owned by society (not government). No serious political party in the United States advocates a socialist government.
On the other hand, "Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology where its individuals are united together as one people in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood which seeks to purify the nation of foreign influences." The weakness of this definition is that it is ahistorical. It ignores that a alliance of the business, military, and church elites was necessary to establish the authoritarian nationalist political ideology. In this, its more of a definition of Nazism than fascism.
Has American ever been fascist. Yes, 1878-1914. And many of these strains are expressed today in the Republican Party - authoritarian, of course, nationalistic what else was the Bush doctrine, anti-immigrant, no question, anti-foreign influence, overt, lead by the business elite anyone who has watched the Republican primaries in detail can only wonder had how the party has taken orders from this elite first in the formation of the Tea Party and now in the slavish surrender to the Romney campaign.
Shows that conservatives are not conservative. They are radical advocates of a 20th century economic and political philosophy based on fascism (the elite) and ultra-individualism among the disregarded.
But the primary recipient of Federal and State government welfare and entitlements are corporations and the very rich. Not focusing on the cause prevents the correct solution. Federal Revenues are at the lowest they have been since the Second World War. If they were returned to just the average we would have no federal deficits and the national debt could be wiped out in a few years.
While we all benefit from this truely unique and exceptional government founded by the US Constitution, we do not benefit equally and as long as we don't those who benefit most (the rich) should pay the most.
When a partisan who may be defrauding the state of Maine and is violating its Constitution and ethics laws starts an unfounded witch hunt to discredit an efficient, dedicated, and throughly competent administrator, do we expect her to be courtest in her reply. Her letter is more than that. Mr. Pelletier's charges are like the MHPC investigation groundless and partisan.
now would he. He wouldn't directly and intentionally violate the Maine Constitution. Our government would not intimidate the state legislature that his controlled by his party. No can't belief that Republicans would behave so badly.
Apparently LePage wants Newt Gringich's job - national promoter of Democrats. Rotundo's summary of the situation is very accurate, "The Republicans have control of both the State House and Senate and if (LePage) had their support for his dangerous, irresponsible and illegal cuts, they could pass the budget without us." Can't we find a way to get him 4 hours a day of TV coverage. Would save Democrats a lot of money this November.
There is only a corporate party, but politics are not to blame. Money in politics should be. The infightimng is not for show. The Dems want a stable government which relfects the views of the workikers. The Repubs want an instable government which will allow their elities to loot the federal treasury.
We are just coming out of the worst economic downturn since the 1929 Great Depression. More people need help in finding food. The increase in SNAP use is a function of the economic situation. More people were added to the food stamp program under George Bush (14.7 million) than under Obama (14.2 million) because the recession began under the Bush Admninistration (2008). Under Obama as the economy improves the number of people added to SNAP has started to go down.
Plus we must remember that the primary purpose of SNAP is not to feed poor people. By increasing demand for food stuffs SNAP raises the prices of foods producing larger profits for large agribusinesses.
The Republican logic is that starving people will more readily accept jobs with unreasonable or illegal working conditions so they don't like SNAP. If a few die in the streets its good for business. A principle that the nation should reject.
Their studies are always one-sided, misleading, and defemseless.
National, independent studies confirm the obvious - the only statistically significant result of states adopting RTW laws is that workers are paid less and business owners make more income.
This is just another arrow in the Republican's quiver of measures to destroy the middle class and to enrich the 1%.
I didn't assume the resource is infinite; if any one did it was Locke. But he presented two cases one where it was and one where it wasn't as I wrote.
I do not assume or support equal outcomes; I only mentioned equal opportunities so maybe you need to re-read my comment.
Apparently, you didn't read my comment. My argument is not based on a "contrived idealistic environment - Locke's was. I show where real world situations condition the right of private property. If all wealth is distributed equally is not providing equal opportunity. Nor do I suggest in any way that the status quo will be maintained on the contrary because of how the laws have been changed I argue that the concentration of wealth will increase until the distribution of power is so distorted that republican government becomes impossible.
I don't think and I didn't suggest that equal distribution of wealth could be equalized in fact I wrote about the range of wealth.
If the estate tax does not prevent multi-generational concentration of wealth and it doesn't as Mr. Romney's tax returns prove, I don't understand why you think my view needs to be reexamined. Property Rights are derived from other rights. They are conditional because the other rights are conditional (as all right really are). Property rights ultimately are incentives to stimulate progressive change in a society (standard of living, economic growth) as long as those rights are consistent with their purpose fine; but they are not independent of the society that defines them nor government.
John Locke said it best (paraphrase) If something is in surplus (readily available to all people such that if every one acquired it more would remain in a ntural state), then it became some one's property by his converting it through his labor to be of use. Locke example was acorns. If everyone collected them more would remain. They became an individuals property because the individual expended labor (his energy, life, etc) to convert them from acorns lying on the ground to roasted acorns on a skillet. But! But! notice the in surplus. If something is not in surplus society must come up with a scheme to ration them (property rights must become conditional). If some people have more opportunity than others, society must come up with conditional property rights. If the conversion from a natural state to a useful state limits those who can benefit, society must condition property rights. Governmental advancement has come from the understanding that "use" rights are derived from the situation and not to power and violence.
Multi-generational accumulation of wealth defeats a fundamental principle of republican government - all men have a role in government. Beyond some quantitative range wealth is the enemy of republican government. A faction in Madison's meaning.
The closer a society gets to "If I earn it its mine" the better it is up to but not including the point where what I earn prevents others from exerciing their rightsd within our society. Our laws have been changed over the last 30 years such that the property rights of a few threaten the principles of republican government.
"Jon's and many other's premise is based upon a notion that we can incure debt indefinitely...." I don't believe any such thing. In fact, I think the current ntional deficit is currently the most significant threat to America's role in the world and to each of our's standard of living.
1. But I identify the real causes of our debt - the Republican plan (Grover Norquist's plan) to bankrupt America.
2. I recognize the solution is to oppose that plan and all its implications.
3. Foreign trade dropping the US dollar as the media of exchange will not bring about hyper-inflation by itself.
4. We have time to correct the problem. Defeat any and all Republicans (can't solve the problem with the cause controlling the government). Slowly as the economy will allow eliminate the current structural deficit by reducing spending, increasing the marginal Federal Income Tax rate (not the tax rate) on incomes above $1,000,000 to about 50% (as they were under President Eisenhower), reverse all tax and other policies that encourage the export of American jobs, provide incentives to manufacturing here, increase educational achievement here, strengthen regulations, and most importantly bring the financial sector under control starting with jailing those responsible for the recent economic collapse.
5. When national debt is reduced to 25% of GDP return to normal economic policies.
This proposal has one and only one purpose to intimidate workers who legitimately have qualified for unemployment benefits into no applying for those benefits for fear of investigations and false prosecution. This proposal is criminal.
"Those favoring gay marriage keep bugging voters over and over again..." Don't think so. The last referendum on Marriage Equality was 3 years ago initiated by OPPONENTS of Marriage Equality to repeal adoption of Maine Equality by the Maine Legislature. I believe there was a referendum years before to adopt Marriage Equality that was defeated. I haven't found the date of that referendum.
But. Clearly the 2009 referendum and the previous referendum were not the "same question". Nor are supporters of Marriage Equality "bugging people" with repeated referendums.Wonder how often petitions were received in Congress to free the slaves between 1790 and 1860. Bet'ya that bugged the hell out of slave state legislators.
This isn't a problem except to people who oppose Marriage Equality.
And the solution is simple - grant to people Marriage Equality. Why we have to legislate a fundamental human right is beyond me.
Bin Laden should have been captured and if necessary killed in Tora Bora in 2002. He was a shell of himself in 2011. But he was active. He did try to initiate actions. Someone said yesterday on TV just ask Chief of Police Kelly (NY) if you think he was inactive. His death was important symbolically, as a statement of justice,and as a warning to other radicals that we would not simply give up. So I don't do a lot of celebrating, but I do do some.
As long as we keep Republicans out of office approaching totalitarianism is a very long way off. For example, only republicans support the idea that a Governor like in Michigan should have the power to void elections.
I can trace my facts and figures back to a valid, independent, and reliable sources like US Government figures, Almanacs in this case etc. What you don't see on "conservative" comments is their source or if you do its from a purely partisan group (Heritage Foundation, AEI, etc). And you will see a response to real numbers of "OH yea". Not an alternative number. that's why its so difficult to converse with conservatives. They have their personal "facts" which can't be verified any where else. You would think they would accept Government deficit numbers (they don't).
Also they sacrifice the "facts" to their ideology. Republican basic principle is lower taxes are always good. Well when taxes are zero (Paul recently said that this is best), its obviously not good unless you want to do away with all government, our nation, the Constitution, and all of our traditions.
They arrive at this obviously false idea following Austrian Economics. This is an economic theory which has never been implemented, never tried, not accepted by more than a small cult of economists and has as its fundamental basis that its conclusions can never be empirically tested (in their view all economic theories should be derived from mind games not data or analysis).
Why do they do that. Because it theories are the only ones that comport to ultra-individualism and reject all forms of collective, social interactions. And that champion the idea that the winner no matter how he has won is morally, economically, politically, and socially superior to all others. And therefore comports to a society of elites.
Economy - compared to economic collapse, ever increasing unemployment, frozen credit, non-existent profits, reduced wages, and inflation; I'd say it is wonderful. Not great like under Clinton but then he had only to deal with a mild Republican housing bubble and no financial collapse.
Foreign policy - ridiculous comment hasving no merit.
Health Care - again no comment of merit. Doesn't even fully kick in until 2014
Foreclosure - again nothing worth commenting on.
I wrote "most effective Presidents in foreign policy in the last 50 years". You missed those little words "in foreign policy". I would agree that his Affordable Health Care law was simply a Republican re-hash which was not in the interests of the country as a whole and that it took attention away from economic recovery which was too slow and not focused enough. But that puts him still a head of Ford, Carter, Bush I, and Bush II. And ahead of everyone on foreign policy since Nixon.
Fact, Bush tried and failed from 2003-2009 to find or kill Bin Laden
. Obama succeeded. Bush tried and failed from 2003-2009 to destroy the Al Qeada infrastucture. Obama succeeded. And we know that inspite of strong cabinet objections, Obama made the decisions to attack.
What was in place was 8 years of policies that had the economy collapsing when Obama took office. Unemployment was falling by 675000 jobs a month when Obama won the election. That increased to over 700,000 by the time he took office and finally to 780,000 by the time that he could take effective action (stimulus). Then the rate began to fall. What was already in place was a plan for economic collapse.
Check the Church specifically created that entity so it was not government by the separation of church and state (needed to get some government funding)
Passing the largest tax cut in state history created an artificial budget deficit that LePage could "fix" my making poor people pay for the tax cuts. Taxes should be increased by $225 million.
"Property rights should prevail". Over what? If Property Rights prevail, then you are creating a economic aristoracy reducing social mobility, and preventing the development of a meritocracy. All contrary to individualism and social responsibility.
If slippers can destroy the role of teachers, end education as we know it, weaken America and drive our children into ignorance; then I quess that slippers are more dangerous than an atomic bomb.
But then again maybe they aren't.
Fox News has created a delusional, misinformed audience that belongs more on the Comedy Channel than in the voters booth. Not one specific charge is made here. Just one vague generality after another none with a cintila of justification.
Perhaps that's because President Obama has been the most successful President in our history in fighting Islamic extremism and its tactic of terrorism. Bin Laden death. The leadership of Al Qeada destroyed. At least 20 leaders have joined Bin Laden in the grave. This must be the old Rove trick - attack a politician at his strength.
For what should he be impeached - success?
Just because its not on Fox News doesn't mean that its not there. Did you read the ruling? No, Didn't think so. The distinction between the Diocese of Maine and Catholic Charities is precisely the point. Catholic Charities is a secular organization set up by the Catholic Church so that it can provide secular services. The Diocese of Maine is the Church and the separation of Church and state applies to it not to Catholic Charities. The Diocese can not be required to provide secular services that contradict its religious mission. Charities can.
The economy turned around within 3 months of his taking office. He has been one of the most effective Presidents in foreign policy in the last 50 years. He hasn't fixed foreclosures (and there is little any president can do to fix them without closing the banks). He's fixed much of the health care problem in the country (if not health care than uninsured consumers). So wheree is this everything that is so much worse.
The homophobic right will have millions to work with this year and we can be certain not a word of truth in any of their arguments. But the tide has turned on this issue. Enough states have had same-sex marriage implemented without the sky falling and God coming down and laying waste to the country that people in their hearts know the anti-marriage forces are frauds.
You still must work to win. Every supporter needs to talk to all their friends. Identify supporters; work on the opponents; put you views on facebook stc; attend the rallies; and don't believe the polls. Then get everyone out to vote.
Apparently, Republicans envy the fact that people who support the interests of working people gain their support while Republicans supporting the interests of the top 1% of America's income earners must lie to misleading the public to gain election to pretty much anything.The nonsense that corporations are people and should have the civil rights of people and that corporate spending on elections is free speech are ridiculous positions.
Proven cases of voter fraud in Maine over 40 years - 2. Number of elections compromised by voter fraud in Maine in 40 years - 0. Cases of voter fraud uncovered by Charlie Sumners - 0. Number of elections compromised if all the cases of registration errors prove true - 0. Boy this is a serious problem. We need to spend millions of dollers and prevent thousands of legally eligibile voters from voting so we ensure that we continue to prevent 0 cases of voter fraud. Does something feel wrong here?
To a Republican its common sense to support all their proposals especially those without any factual support. Here's another partisan proposal solving a non-existent problem.
"Fact: Monies from the MSHA were spent in a way inconsistent with responsible state spending." That is not a fact. All the MHPC has is a list of vendors who were paid something by the MSHA. They don't know why. Without the why no one can say the expenditures were "inconsistent with responsible state spending". The MSHA is regularly audited and the auditors are given the reasons why and they have passed audit every time. So the presumption must be until new facts are available that the expenditures were consistent with the MSHA responsibilities.
You are substituting your assumptions for facts. Don't work. They weren't caught.
just requires magical thinking, absense of facts, and a conservative worldview. Excuse me, I've just walked into the right-wing trap of giving some respectability to the right-wing by calling them conservatives. So called conservatives are in fact revolutionary, anti-Constitutional, elitists seeking as they tried in 1934 to overthrow our form of Government and its Constitution.
Just one example, Ron Paul said in his S. Carolina speech on primary night that the Constitution requires hard money (gold, and silver) not fiat (paper money). Not true. The only reference to gold in the US Constitution is Article I Section 10 which prohibits the States from coining money or declaring anything but gold or silver as payment for state debts. The Section does not apply to the Federal Governemnt in any way. To adopt the gold standard now would result in economic collapse now and a third world status for America in the future. His proposal is unConstitutional and revolutionary just as his views of the FED are.
Since you know nothing because none of us know anything about this spending, then your comments simply display your bias. Its standard conservative magical thinking. "Don't bother me with the facts, I've already made up my mind." I'll have no further comment until an audit proves that there is cause to further this witch hunt. If LePage pursues this or takes any action against McCormick or her department without proof, then I must come to the conclusion that this is a purely partisan political effort to get rid of effective, talented, Democratoc management in order to install incompetent but partisan Republican funkies.
Such action would in my mind constitute a misdemeanor and therefore "Every person holding any civil office under this State, may be removed by impeachment, for misdemeanor in office;..."(from the Maine Constitution.
Unregulated capitalism does not take into consideration national goals, ambitions, values. As such it destroys countries as it seeks lower costs. Look at England - a capitalist country that fell to a third world country after WWII.
Capitalism did not make America great. In fact, it failed and failed miserably. Let us not forget 1929-1939. The US was the world's dominate power in 1914. Huge foreign immigration, the lack of infrastructure destruction (no continential wars while we were industrializing 1865-1914), huge natural resources made America great. We don't know if we would have been greater, more peaceful, more secure, more united under some other system because we didn't try anything else. We do know that unfetterred capitalism utterly failed in 1929-1939 and only regulated markets restored us to properity and WWII restored us to world domination
This comment is pure partison nonsense. Of course there are many reasons why Maine tax dollars could, should, and of right ought to go to a martial arts academy or conservation group. No body got caught. Until their are solid explanations of the reasons for these expenditures this is nothing more than a partisan witch hunt. The audits say everything is OK.
"The current affordability of natural gas due to the discovery of domestic shale reserves" that have poisoned wells and aquifers and may have caused earthquakes threaten the physical stability of Pennsylvania and New York. The current affordability may go the way of $.19 a gallon gasoline once the true costs of extracting natural gas from these shale reserves are known.
If its affordable, why does government need to interfer with the market by providing these companies with corporate welfare. If its uncommonly cheap and profitable, the natural gas providers should have all the resources they need to run pipelines here opening up new markets.
Are we going to deny 65,000 people minimum health care so natural gas providers can make a profit here in Maine.
I agree with everything but your characterization. Teachers are government employees. What they do brings government into the classroom as it should. The problem you are really describing is that the teacher-student relationship should, if done properly, produce the best student with the ambition to continue and grow throughout their lives and to fulfill their roles as citizens in building a strong vibrant and successful society. Too often that real goal is compromised by the need of outside organizations (corporations) which have too much power and can impose goals that have nothing to do with citizenship, success, or growth but simply seek to maximize the economic value to them of the student.
"abandoned Learning Results plan adopted in 1997". When were learning results "abandoned and by whom".
The Learning Results were a pro-business, anti-education, anti-student set of ahistoric standards intended to improve the quality of worker available to business. So I'm no friend of learning results. But I was unaware that they had been abandoned. In fact the Department of Education still has a Learning Results web page.
Now Bowen wants to make high school education much more oriented to producing compliant, uninformed worker bees and crippled citizens. I don't think the debate is over when to implement this mind numbing indocrination.
Hillary held no elective office during the outrageous events Mr. Worthley describes in Somalia. She was not responsibile for anything that occurred then. Mr. Worthley quotes no statement she made either outraged or not about those events. So what in the world does she have to do with them.
I seem to remember universal shock and outrage throughout the country about those events and others in Somalia.
I was also unaware that we were in command of the Siomali mobs, criminals, and rioters that perpetrated those outrages. We are in command of the troops that desecrated the bodies in violation of US military code, international law, and simple human decency. We should be outraged that our troops are so poorly discipled that they have forgotten their responsibilities.
But apparently Mr. Worthley doesn't agree. He thinks our troops should be forgiven everything because they are "on our side". We they violate our laws, their honor, and their responsibilities they are not on our side.
Point is no one knows anything. So far the most we have is an unfounded partisan smear. And it does matter who opened it because it speaks directly to the credibility of the "Charge". Namely there is none.
Give you a unrelated example. I was asked to identify the top 10 hourly wage earners at a corporation I worked for where hourly wages ran from 9.72 to 19.00 per hour. I found the top earner was paided at the lowest rate and was paid for more than 100 hours per week (This company calculated pay based on premium hours not premium pay rate). The corporate CFO said that was impossible my analysis must be wrong. Nope. The man worked 12 hours and day 365 days a year and had done so for several years. Premium hours calculated out to paying him the base rate for 112 hours per week on most weeks.After an investigation it was confirmed that the gentleman had worked the hours he claimed to work (and work schedules were changed).
I've seen credit card charges to every kind of retailer - many were legitimate and many very wrong. I myself have been re-imbursed for or have paid directly casinos, hotels, and other establishments all consistent with my job fully approved by my supervisors and all double checked by auditors. And casinos, hotels, and other establishments have had nothing to do directly with my job.
I'll bet the same is true of some of the commenters here.
You can find similiar organizations and much worse on 80% of the corporations and non-profit organizations vendor listings in America. I have done this kind of analysis, except with all the necessary information, at multiple corporations over 40 years and until they have specific transactions with specific information on the reasons the transaction was completed MHPC have nothing.
The iceberg is in your mind.
Thanks for confirming my comment. You are assuming; you don't know. MHPC doesn't know anything. LePage doesn't know anything. When they know something, then its time for a story.
You have nothing but the assumptions in your mind. No reality to it. When they show that Okinawan Karate was paid to demonstrate how karate practices improve the management of loans, then I'll think there is a problem.
An organization paid vendors who by their name only may not be consistent with the organizations purpose as strictly interpreted by a right-wing anti-government dumb-tank. Where's the story in this other than it provides an opportunity for the right-wing to project their fanatasies. I bet there are vendors on the list like Staples or Officemax or software vendors or programmers none of which supply beds.
Since the information provided to the Maine Heritage Policy Center provided no reason for the expenditure, no justification, no purchase order, no statetory reference no conclusions are possible. So the comments below that draw conclusions about the report only reflect the bias of the author.
like a Buddist chant because it has no meaning for them. Conservatives merely substitute their personal views for the Constitution. Lends authority to their magical world view. The Constitution does not contain "Capitalism, "free markets", "private property" or a whole host of economic concepts that Conservatives maintain are "constitutional", but weren't invented until 1920. They can be driven to absurdities like "Corporations are people with the civil rights of people". Chief Justice Marshall exploded that absurdity more than 200 years ago. For capitalism to be Constitutional the Constitution must be a moving target for Conservatives.
Only a conservative can blieve that their is no common agreement on what rich and fair share mean.
Republicans & Tea Partiers love to talk about Democrats' "profligate" or out-of-control or unsustainable or some similar word spending. What they don't ever say is what their standard is. Is 1% of GDP toooo much or 20%, or 50%. They don't say because their standard is "any thing the Democrats propose is too much. Dr. Paul suggest said that a tax rate of 0% is just right. Democrats spend money in the interests of the people of the United States and in our case Maine. They do so to comport with their responsibilities under the US and Maine Constitutions. Republicans accept no such responsibilities. They are not personally responsibile in their minds for anything except themselves.
Add up the cost to the state and local community and the jobs are due to the government not the company. We might as well have the state hire the 600 workers, have them do nothing and we'd still be better off then giving this company welfare.
NRCM's support for industrial wind power in Maine is very disappointing. On balance they must believe that it will reduce our dependency on and use of fossil fuels. Unfortunately, Industrial Wind Power and People are incompatible.
"The video was produced and posted by Project Veritas, a national organization that has snared ACORN, National Public Radio and others in clandestine video recordings." Let us remember that the "snare" was for Project Veritas because all of their videos have proven to be edited to convey the opoosite impression of what did happen i.e. they are liars.
But no one can be surprised that "dead voters" still on the voter lists could get ballots. In SC it has been discovered that 900 "dead" folks did in fact vote in recent elections there. That's much more troublesome. It couldn't happen here. Our Centralized Voter Repositor updates voter information with death certificates, changes in drivers license, etc. Apparently only in GOP states where they have cut back on state employees and services are the methods of voter fraud still open. Wonder why?
1. President Obama has been the most effective President in foreign affairs since Richard Nixon. He has shown remarkable leadership in regards to Libya, Iraq, immigration, and Africa.
2. Nothing the President has done is in anyway "Marxist". Obviously Mr. Carrier doesn't know what a Marxist is because President Obama has managed the Federal Government as any moderate Republican would have. His first priority was to fix the economy. Since he has taken office, the growing unempolyment has been stopped and month after month of economic growth and employment has been achieved. Second Priority was health care. He lead the adoption of a private health care system modelled on the Republican system of Romneycare in Massechusetts. An achievement more than a 100 years in the making. Third priority to get out of Iraq. Achieved.
3. He extended the Bush tax cuts and therefore continued the moderate Republican policy of growing deficits.
Given the challenges when he took office, President Obama has been one of America's most successful first term Presidents. His second may be even more remarkable.
Today is the Republicans' National Day of Truth - Pass the blame day.
I thought Republicans' believed in State's Rights - "state officials ....offered a broader safety net than that established by federal regulation". I thought state officials were charged with meeting the needs of the people of Maine. Last I looked Maine wasn't average or any other arbitrary standard.
More LePage propaganda is "Until the Gov. Paul LePage administration, no efforts to control spending or review the programs". For years, MDHH had a permanent staff looking into waste and fraud; seems to have caught the current Speaker of the House for example. Yes, MDHH has not been the best example of good government and yes the Department should be re-organized and cleaned up.
But that means real investigations not ideologically driven witch hunts by an administration that so far has done nothing execept embarrass the State.
Elected in 2010 to restore jobs because that's what they promised, these new completely dishonest Republican Governors haven't even tried to create a single new job in the private sector. Cut earned benefits like Social Security and Medicare; deny state and private workers their fundamental rights, cut jobs, cut regulations so that businesses can loot the state and federal treasuries unfetterred, adopt big government intervention into the most private areas of our lives like abortion,religion, and denying the old, sick, and young their right to vote.
Fooled once etc
Didn't the Republicans promise that businessmen like Paul "job creator" LaPage and now Willard Mitt "job predator" Romney were going to create jobs? We know they know how to kill jobs. They have that down pat from 2007-2009. When are the jobs going to arrive?
Markets don't exist until they have a set of enforceable rules by which economic exchanges can proceed by mutual agreement. That requires government. Private property does not exist until you have government which can maintain your pseudo-exclusive use of some object. Even societies so simple as being just family units or extended family units have complex rules for the exchange of goods, services and the enforcement of exclusivity. Money is an attempt to objectify a subjective judgements - the utility of some object or set of objecs to the two folks involved in an exchange. To the degree that it works we have stable economic systems.
Think about no space. I don't mean empty space. I mean no space at all. Not a point with no dimensions because we always imagine a point has having dimensions. The human brain by the nature of its construction and evolution demands that all things have space. The house of cards is the same thing. People by the nature of their development need "rock solid" foundations which they can trust. But rocks are anything but solid. Just look at the problems of Frackling. Our minds demand safety, stability, soundness, cause and effect, even if there is none. Hell we invented God for just such a purpose. The house of cards is the gold standard and I am fully aware how unstable, risky, dangerous this world and current circumstances really are.
All rests solely on the rules we have agreed to; our continued understanding of those rules; and our ability to adapt them to new circumstances.
Have yourself a wonderful day. Its been a pleasure.
Every action of every actor in a public role in a democracy must have checks and balances. This is the great principle of real conservative political science and the US Constitution. As soon as some interest says "I'm different" "I don't need checks and balances the invisible hand will protect society or every error I make is self-correcting" you know you are about to get gored. Regulated markets are markets with socially necessary checks and balances. None can be exempt.
1. Nate8785. My nickname, family name is Nate.
2. Never was anything called a free market. Pre-capitalist we were a mercantile economy - markets set by edict of the monarch. Post-revolution, we moved toward less restrictive markets based on state legislatures actions. Post-civil war to WWI moved to government assisted corporations (government supplied labor, housing, land, market access, protection to monopolies) otherwise called fascism, Post-depression moved to government regulated markets with various degrees of government assistance.
You can't lose what you never had. Markets have always been and always are creatures of government.
Sorry Fed has oversight just far too little. Financial institutions exist within the freest, least regulated markets. They are therefore the most dangerous threat to economic stability as they proved 2001-2009.
The value of money is always based on consumer/investor confidence and little else. Including gold.
I don't think I said anything about the federal Government being an efficient allocator of resources - it's not. And I agree that I won't find many (any) economists who believe government is more efficient than the "market". but that's not the issue. The question was depression (deflation). I also don't I can find any economists who think that the market is more efficient than the government without some obviously invalid assumptions.
The Gold standard isn't a "standard" at least by any meaning of that word. Its not like a meter or a foot or any other standard. Its value has constantly changed over history except when government says it doesn't. Its a commodity like any other with a price set by supply/demand, irrationality, subjectivity, speculation, asymetric information.
Congress does regulate the value of money through the Fed, international agreements, treaties, etc. Just because it hasn't done anything lately doesn't mean it doesn't and doesn't mean it can't tomorrow.
Next thing you'll be telling me is that there is a "free-market. Another illogical non-existant over-generalization which ignores all the reality of economic exchange.
"Cutting the federal budget is not deflationary because it leaves the money in the hands of the market to be allocated more efficiently". Of course it is. This is one of the many myths of capitalist propaganda. "Self-correcting". "More efficient allocation of resources." "Invisibile hand." All based on illogical assumptions that completely distort economics; namely these ideas are based on the "long-term". That's equivalent to the engineer saying as we approach infinity we don't have to worry about the effects of these minor terms in the equation. No one lives to approach infinity. No one lives long enough for the economy to be self-correcting. The "private" economy if not generating sufficient demand in the short term will collapse into depression if a swift reduction in govenment demand is made. Proven by dozens of cases in the US economy.
Between 1913 and 1970 dozens of economic factors, wars, etc displaced worldwide economic growth. To assign all change to one factor like transitioning off the gold standard is also illogical.
"The reason that The dollar became the currency others were tied to is due to the gold standard". Wonderful conjecture, but no proof or truth to it. Gold standard reduced US economic growth. unprecedented US growth was due to extremely rapid growth in human capital (unprecedented immigration from 1840-1932), no domestic wars in industrial centers (1815- Today)and therefore no liquidation of capital assets, and unprecedented foreign demanded due to wars and economic dislocations.
See you don't agree with the US Constitution which required Congress to "regulate the value of money" .i.e have a national bank system and a standard of value other than gold (since the value of gold is determined by other factors outside our government.
Thanks for the comment.
O! forgive me I left out the best - Rick Santorum who wants to move the capital to Mount Sinai and replace the Constitution with the old Testament and not just because he thinks he is Moses.
choices, choices, meaningless choices. Let's see.
Willard Mitt Romney who wants to move the capital to Wall Street and replace the Constitution with Bain Capital's charter or Ron Paul who wants to burn Washington and replace the Constitution with Atlas Shrugged or Rick Perry who wants to move the capital to Richmond and replace the US Constitution with the Confederate Constitution or Newt Gingrich who wants to move the capital to Georgia and wants to replace the Constitution with, well, Newt or poor, ignored John Huntsman.
Capitalist revolution, utopian revolution, one long lost cause. and one egomanical nightmare. Boy, do the Republicans always give themselves good choices.
Now on the other side we have the protectors of 230 years of national growth and tradition, a Constitution that is the most remarkable document of human origin, and sane, rational committment to a future for our whole society based on freedom (not ultra-individualistic license), justice, and national unity. November will be a tough one.
Tommie Shields continues his long career of letters to the editor peppered with Republican palitudes and no facts at all. "The answer should not be more taxes." Why not. When you have a budget problem everything has to be on the table. To say we can't consider revenues is really to say that nothing government does is worthwhile or you just don't care. That's absurd.
The Baldacci Administration had to balance the budget each year just like LePage and as I remember many of those years had much more serious structural budget shortfalls than anything LePage has seen. Baldacci did not throw serior citizens and the disabled out in the street to pay for those shortfalls. Nor do I see any evidence of "irrational expensive spending" or spending we can afford.
What Republicans want and we have seen this in the state and nationally is the poor, disabled, and underpaid 99% to pay for the luxury that the 1% enjoy. The 1% have more than doubled their real income in the last 30 years while the rest of us have seen our income shrink not because of the 1%'s innovation, creativity or improvements in productivity but by theft, fraud, and changing the laws to make us pay for their luxuries. Time to put a stop to it.
Tonight we will get an idea how Michelle and the 6 dwarfs are being received among the uninformed.
The one thing we can be assured of is that no Republican has a solution to our economic blight. Especially Ron Paul. As a libertarian with an economic philosophy based on Randian paranoia and delusional misrepresentations of our economic situation Paul presents an economic philosophy which has never been tried and when attempts are made in that direction their one fruit is economic collapse. The bring back gold standard (the last people to propose this organized a coup to overthrow President Roosevelt by violent means); eliminate a national bank (Jackson did that in 1836 caused the depression of 1837-1842), cut the national spending by 1/3 (a deflationary move that by itself will plug the economy into the worst depression of our history. We might never recover from a Paul presidency.
1. Obama presented and continues to present a clear attainable set of goals and objectives for this country - Affordable health care, done and working, End our unfunded War in Iraq,done, eliminate Al Qeada, Bin Laden and 20 of his leadership are dead, Rescue the economy, the long collapse resulting from Republican policies ended within 1 year of his taking office. Republican stated goals - only one make Obama a one-term President at any cost to the American people.
2. How can you rationally negiotiate with an opposition which believes in magic not management. Republican economic theory (as well as their social theory) is built solely on magic - the magic hand of the market, miracles, American exceptionalism, etc. When was the last time a candidate for Senator had to answer a serious question as to whether they had been a witch
3. Fixing America requires one and only one action by the people of the US - defeat every and any republican in 2012.
So there was no recession in 1981. Nor dozens of articles at the time outlining the steps Wolcker took to cause the recession and why he did it. Nor any on the results.
Reagan couldn't be nominated for President today in the Republican Party but he could in the Democratic Party (he was in reality a Jackson Democrat). Oh! Please $3 in cuts. Please go back and look at the Reagan budgets with their growing deficits (over $3 trillion in new debt). Without his tax increases they would have been even worse. In fact, I'd welcome a Reagan Presidency now. His economic policies were and are almost identifical to Obama's and they would fix the mess Bush left us.
Harding and Coolidge. You joke. Coolidge's only claim to fame before the Presidency was his breaking the Boston Police Strike. Now there's something to be proud of. Harding ranks 43 worst president and Coolidge fares a little better at 31 out of 43 (Can't count Obama yet). What did they give us? The overheated 20's and economic collapse of the 30's. Boy they're Presidents we should look up to.
The Free Market works then and now. Give me a break. The only free market that exists is in illegal products - drugs and prostitution. No other free markets exist. All markets outside of illegal ones operate under the control and regulation of Government. The more regulation the better they work. As proved by the housing collapse under George Bush. Every investigation has proved to a legal standard tat the failure to regulate, the repeal of regulations, and corporate fraud caused the recession of 2007-2009. Watch the news while the bankers have so far avoided jail, the list of realtors, appraiser, mortgage originators grows almost daily.
Glad to see you use the standard GOP propaganda technique of distracting rather than answering a point. The SEC political leadership gave specific instructions to their investigators not to go after Madoff. They were watching porn because their boss told them not to do their job.
Sorry, the Apollo Alliance did not write the stimulus bill. This is another of the almost daily Fox News - Glenn Beck paranoid delusions. True, the Alliance ideas did have an influence on the bill but given the breath of the Alliance; its many great Americans who are active in it; and the diversity of their messages; its only natural that their ideas would make it into legislaton. But Collins ha more influence by here self. Anyone who watched TV or read the newspapers were treated to weeks of negiotiations between Collins and the Democrats and the President in particular where she demanded that the bill not exceed $800 billion while a parade of economists stated that to right the economy a bill twice that size was required.
As for Reagan he did nothing except follow a liberal line of tax increases. Again you don't remember the facts. Paul Wolcker as head of the Fed plunged the country into a recession. It was that recession that pulled us out of the economy morass that started with Jerry Ford remember the WIN buttons.
Lastly, free markets don't exist. They are a fiction. They don't because they don't work, capitalists hate them, and progressives understand that free markets are inheritly corrupt. One needs no more proof than the Bush years. No regulations and those that existed were never enforced (Madoff scandal is proof of that. More than a dozen times the SEC was given proof that he was engaged in a Ponsi scheme and each time the political leadership took the investigators off the case). Now every major bank has admitted to engaging in fraud along with mortgage originators, accessors, ratings companies, realtors, etc etc
If you think that there is no difference between politicians, its not the politician's fault its ours. They judge the situation based on reality. Reality is that we are in the middle of a class war declared by Corporate America in 1964 and won in 1981. The price is they take everything you have away and give everything they get to the Corporate elitists that run the country. If you can't see that, then the problem is yours. Bit by bit they will take everything away until we create a society much like what we were in the 1880's.
SS and Medicare are not entitlements we paid into them. They are not the cause of the deficit. They are a contract between the people and the government. One side of that contract can not amend the terms without the agreement of the other parties - the American People.
First, he got no benefits. No welfare fraud. DHHS acted responsibly.
Second, How many tapes did O'keefe make. Is this the only tape or one of hundreds. If one of hundreds and this is the only one that could be made to look questionable then DHHS field workers are doing a great job.
Third, O'keefe is not credible. His previous tapes that have been made public have all been proven to be frauds - edited by adding material that did not happen and removing material that did happen.
Fourth, the DHHS employ had been on the job for two weeks. Of course more training is required. How many Boston Red Sox started in the Majors after graduating high school.
Fifth, The two charlies have now been proven to be unprincipled liars. This merely confirms that dishonesty in the Republican Party and its "supporters" is universal.
Nothing is left except to say the two Charlies are liars. Oarse Charlies' statement - "those who are losing elections or who are liberal as hell think what we got here is some kind of big scheme by somebody to stop this," Webster said. "I hope when this is all said and done it becomes illegal; no way we should be using these buses."
Charlie is confirming that there is a big scheme to stop the legal transportation of legal voters to the polls i.e. to suppress the vote. Who is the head of that scheme - the two Charlies?
Why should the legal transportation of legal voters to the polls which is indirectly paid for by the state be stopped. Charlie gives no reason. The state and municipalities pay for most of the election costs now - polling places, election workers, registars, the central voter registration system. Is Charlie suggesting that the states and municipal governments should not pay for any election activities or only the ones that he thinks without any proof hurt his candidates?
But mainly once again the two Charlies have failed to prove or even find any kind of evidence that any voter fraud is going on in Maine. Repeal of their vote suppression legislation is the honest thing to do.
We only had a $50 million surplus. So the Governor has to cut spending. If he doesn't where will he get the money to buy his rich friends their next yacht. Don't be surprised if the Governor tries to privatize the jails; then sells the prisoners to the private jails. Worked well I believe in New York.
1. Collins wrote the stimulus bill. We had daily headlines of meetings between Obama and Collins and Collins and Lieberman and Collins and other Senators negiotiating the stimulus bill. It was Collins' insistence that the bill be less that $900 billion that shackled the economic recovery we may recently have lost.
2. "Not agree to Tax and spend polices of the progressive." $12 trillion of our $14 trillion national debt is the responsibility of the borrow and spend establishment Republicans of the last 30 years. Conservatives not progressives have placed this huge debt burden on the backs of their grandchildren. Proof can be found in any Almanac. Its not progressives but establishment Republicans who have created programs they haven't been paid for. Its establishment Republicans who have at the same time cut taxes to the lowest level since the second world war inviting the National debt crisis and the recent debt downgrade.
3. Cass R. Sunstein is a favorite whacked out rightwing target because he has properly along with Homeland Security identified the risks that these groups represent to the peace and stability of the USA. But the positions of administrative candidates have rarely effected their confirmation vote esp. when its for an agency that has little or nothing to do with the controversey. Or at least was before the Republicans Party became a hate group. So Collins vote is an indicator of nothing.
4. Not that I would ever vote for Collins. She has a 100% pro-NFIB record. And uses women's issues to protect herself from her radical conservative business agenda.
Snowe on the other hand looks at the merits of any issue vis a vis the interests of the people of Maine and votes accordingly. Rarely like her votes but at least they are honest.
We had $12.7 trillion in debt after the conclusion of the last Bush budget on September 30, 2009. Reagan started with a debt of $900 billion before his first budget. That's $11.8 trillion over the last 30 years. Clinton's last four years had budget surpluses. Clinton netted about $200 in deficits over his 8 years. You round up over .5. That makes Republicans Presidents responsibile directly for $11.6 trillion or rounded $12 trillion of our current debt. If you add in the money that had to be spent in the first Obama budget to pay the costs of the Great Bush Recession its closer to $13 trillion but I try to be conservative. CBO reported recently also well published on the net that 96% of future debt results from four programs initiated by Bush and not paid for - 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Medicare Part-D, and the costs of the 2007-2009 Great Bush recession. That's called arthimetic, not lying.
Debt service costs are a problem - a long term manageable problem when you have a $17 trillion economy. No one is saying that we don't need to get the deficit and debt under control. Republicans are saying don't pay it. Democrats are saying pay it as we need to as a long term easily managed issue.
The top 1% have received from the economy 100% of the growth since 1981. There is a chart published in dozens of places on the net based on US government data that shows that between 1981 and 2007 (before the Great Bush Recession productivity has more than doubled and wage income has fallen. Or you can use the chart from Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez published also all over the net that charts the Top Ten Percent Income Share, 1917-2008. The chart shows that from 1922 - 1938 the top ten share of national income averaged about 45%, then fell after the 1937 recession to about 32% and remained there through 1981 when it began to grow to the current 50+%. The top 1 percents share only grows if the remain 90% declines. Either speak to the economic destruction of the middle class. And there are dozens of other economic studies over the last dozen years that confirm the same conclusion.
99% of the INCREASED tax burden is fair if the top 1% has received 100% of the benefits of economic growth over the last 30 years.
That's not what S&P said. Where did you get your misinformation. S&P's statement is on the web. They specifically said the reason was the brinkmanship and political failure that resulted from it.
So sorry, my information is solid, factual, and supported by a wide range of sources.
Its not the consumers' responsibility to show that a product newly introduced by a company is harmful. Its the company's responsibility to show that it is completely safe. Saying they have found no evidence that smart meters are harmful or saying that they are less harmful than other devices doesn't answer anything. Requiring that customer who wish to opt-out must pay high fees than those that don't needs to be verified. If the company's position is that cutting costs (increasing profits) is more important than the consumers health, then The PUC isn't doing its job.
Your analogy is worthless. Republicans caused the debt. The Republicans have blocked all efforts to deal with the debt. The Republicans are now stating publicly that their purpose in bankrupting American was to cause a crisis which they could use as an excluse to repeal the New Deal and destroy the middle class.
17 jobs bill have been sitting in the House Republican Controlled committees authored by democrats for 3 years; no action. How many jobs bills hve the Republicans sponsored in the same time 0, nada, zero. Before the Republicans controlled the House; they controlled the Senate through the filibuster. They blocked 125 economic recovery measures in the first two years of the Obama administration - a Record. They adopted a stimulus package but one of only half the size necessary so that they could critisize it.
Obamna's failure was to not know how irresponsible his enemies were. He thought tey were still Americans.
The facts are the Republicans are the author of our National debt - more than $12 trillion of the current $14.3 trillion is the result of Republican programs authored by Republican Presidents and overwhelmingly approved by Republicans in Congress and Nationally.
$17 trillion in debt is only a problem for America if we refuse to pay it and with a $17 trillion ecomonomy that's not a major problem unless one party refuses as Republicans are now refusing to pay based on Grover Norquist's no tax increase philosophy inspired by Ayn Rand.
Whether the top 1% pay 38% or 99% of taxes is immaterial. They have received 100% of the benefits of economic growth over the last 30 years and they should pay their fair share of that bounty.
President Obama fought for a $4 trillion debt reduction package that would have prevented the downgrade of US debt but Republicans stop it causing as S&P wrote the downgrade of American debt. Can't have it both ways. You can't support an orgy of spending; then refuse to pay the bill.
Ayn Rand in 1957 published "Atlas Shrugged" a novel about an uber-individualist and rationalist who convinces competent people to withdraw their support for society (to go on strike) in order to wreck the economy so that they could attain pure power (I think its hypocritical in the extreme that the Republicans who are dominated by Christian extremists take direction from an atheist extremist who held that nothing of value came after Aristotle - which means Jesus Christ is no good). That is what we have been seeing in Washington these many months. A new group of extremist Republicans unwilling to compromise, unwilling to seek solutions except their own, unwilling to do anything that would benefit their country. They ran in 2010 on jobs; yet they have not proposed a single piece of legislation that would address creating jobs while holding up 17 democratic proposals that would. They oppose unemployment benefits. They have proposed cut food stamps and every other benefit anyone out of work would need. They have proposed the elimination of health care for the poor. Everything consistent with John Galt's plan.
Let's stop setting policy by wallowing in the mud of fiction and fantasy. In 2012, If its an 'R' vote against it.
"LePage is featured on the organizer's website, theresponseusa.com..." update - Not today. As of this morning LePage is not on the website, but every theocratic crazy that Gov. Christie condemned yesterday is there. Rev. John Hagee supporter of Jewish organizations who's goal is the genocidal extermination of all Muslims; Rev. James & Shirley Dobson famed prophet of the extinction of Gays and Lesbians; and Rev. David Barton well known fictional author of christian histories of America. But to his credit Gov. LePage thought better of continuing in this rogue's gallery of hate.
Republicans were elected in record numbers in 2010 to create jobs. Every bill they have opposed has been described as a "job-killing" bill. But they have held every Democratic bill to create jobs in House committees. 17 in all and proposed not one themselves. Instead they have obstructed every effort to solve our economic problems in order to trash the economy, keep people out of work, and keep them sufferring so that Republicans can return to power in 2012 with their third world agenda for America.
Their program was made very clear by the months of dishonest negiotiations over the debt limit increase. They got 98% of what they wanted on Monday and yesterday they got the other 2% - the stock market crashed.
Its not about more or less government intrusion. Its about the kind of intrusion. The Republicans want control over America's wombs. No abortions; no birth control. To Republicans both are a threat to civilization meaning they will not have the necessary canon fodder for their military aggression throughout the world (must open markets to American profits you know). What could be more intrusive? What could deny Americans more freedom than the Republican program of social control.
Corporations are making record profits; workers being trashed. The wealthy are getting 50+% of every dollar made in America. Soon it will be 60%. 1400 millionaires paid no taxes. Corporations have trillions of dollars of profits hidden in foreign tax havens that they want to bring home if they don't have to pay taxes.
So yes we have a very clear choice in 2012. Let the 400 wealthiest families rule America and every facit of our lives. Or throw the Republicans bums out and turn this country around. Protect and grow the middle class. Make the wealthy pay their fair share of government.
Republicans were elected in 2010 to create jobs. They came to Congress and did everything but. Get Planned Parenthood, Abortion, breaking labor unions (the current FAA stoppage caused by Republicans insistence at Delta's request that they break the airline unions), stop every judicial appointment they can, filibuster everything they can't stop, and finally spend 2 months threatening to wreck the US economy and not pay those we have borrowed money from. The agreement signed on Monday gave them 98% of what they wanted. Seems the foreign bondholders got zero; the American people got zero; only the wealthy were protected. Well this is the bondholders answer.
Conservatives just want to spend more on themselves. They don't want to protect a nation. They don't want domestic tranquility. They don't want a healthy economy. They just want to take more of our money and spend it on themselves. That's why federal taxes are at 14% of GDP the lowest rate since WWII (back then we had responsibile Presidents who paid for the Wars we were involved in - Roosevelt and Truman). Conservatives live in an alternative universe where fiction is fact.
Cost of the this law to the average Mainer couldn't be worse.
1.8 million jobs will be lost according to national estimates. The drowsy economy will fall into recession again. Maine and other states under Republican control will fire public workers, cut their pay, end their benefits. Gov. LePage has already pledged to pass anti-worker, anti-Mainer, anti-labor, standard-of-living cutting legislation next year which will compound all the other problems. The automatic cuts that will become effective December 23rd will push the economy off the cliff.
Most important this law signals the damage Republicans will do should they be elected in 2012. They got 98% of what they wanted. This is their solution. So if you want medicare privatized (the end of health care for serior citizens), Social Security ended, your wealth given to the top 2% wealthiest Americans, permanent 10% unemployment, and what few dollars you get to be worth nothing support the Republicans who created the National Debt and say now that they do not have to pay for their extraordinary orgy of spending.
We pay the lowest Federal Income taxes since the Great Depression. Let's see Republican Eisenhower top marginal tax rate 91%, Democrat Johnson - 70%, Democrat Clinton 39.5%, Republican Bush 35%. The half that don't pay income taxes are primarily those earning over $1,000,000 per year.
We pay the lowest Federal Income taxes since the Great Depression. Let's see Republican Eisenhower top marginal tax rate 91%, Democrat Johnson - 70%, Democrat Clinton 39.5%, Republican Bush 35%. The half that don't pay income taxes are primarily those earning over $1,000,000 per year.
or is it just your arrogance showing as usual.
"Congress determines all spending, not the president.". As you know that's not true. The President proposes a budget which is sent to Congress where the President's budget is amended and the sent back to the President for signature. He can veto the budget and/or the appropriations bills as he wishes.
President Bush did inherent a $5.6 trillion debt and no yearly deficit. The last 4 fiscal years of the Clinton administration the budgets ran surpluses each year. President Bush proposed and Congress passed the Bush Tax Cuts, Medicare Part-D, Two wars requested by Bush that were kept off the budget at his request, and by deregulating the economy caused a major recession and he proposed and Congress allowed $3 trillion in financial services bailouts. Total about $7 trillion in unfunded spending that went straight to the national Debt. Obama inherited $12.7 trillion in Nationakl Debt and the last 9 months of Bush's last budget with $1.3 trillion deficit. Wouldn't it be nice if Republicans can count.
As for thebalanced budget amendment it is the quickest weay to turn America into the next Argentina economy.
This dirty trick is very reminiscent of the Republican dirty tricks during the Nixon Administration. Unfortunately, with Republicans in the Constitutional offices we can't expect an investigation.
But this makes clear that Charlie Webster intends to suppress the student vote in violation of the US Constitution and SCOTUS decisions. It strips the fraud away from his campaign to lie about student voting and his support for repeal of Election Day registration..
Study by MCEP on total effective tax burden on Mainers showed that bottom 20% paid taxes at twice the rate of the other 80%. Tax burden is half the story and not the most important part of the story. From 1933 to 1980 the bottom 90% of Americans earned 65% pf the national income. Since 1981, that percentage has fallen to below 50%. Doesn't sound like much but it explains the unemployed (with consumers losing income demand falls and with it economic growth), foreclosures (although you have to add in fraud. Wells Fargo just settled with 10,000 mortgage holders who it had defrauded by falsifying mortgage documents after the closing placing them in expensive sub-prime mortgages.), homelessness, and poverty of the last few years.
The debt "compromise" just reinforced the redistribution of wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich which is the real meaning of supply side economics. The fact that the Tea Party's tactic of extortion carried no political penalty means they will use it again. Obama's "Neville Chamberlain" appeasement of the Tea Party means that soon we will be talking about America's 400 families that rule our lives. The 90%ers need to get their act together.
The issue is a single piece of legislation and whether or not the Maine people get the opportunity to repeal it. Not some phony Republican fishing expedition. Normally, the legislature investigates and issue and then develops legislation to fix any problems found. In this case, the Republicans legislated a non-existent problem to prevent legal Maine voters from exercising their rights. Just as Southern democrats in the century passed poll taxes and literacy tests to prevent blacks from voting. The Supreme Court found that unconstitutional.
So far, Charlie Webster and Sumner have not documented a single case of an Election Day registrant voting illegally. He has not presented a single case of same-day registration changing the results of an election not has he shown a case where the "integrity" of Maine elections has been compromised. Noit that they haven't been. ome investigate elections in rural Maine - Franklin and Oxford Co. in the 1950-1990's. Every ballot box was stuffed by the Republicans.
None of these allegations deal with the issue - did election day registrants vote illegally.
Now let's see Charlie Webster is a Republican official. Charlie Sumners is a Republican official. Republicans under Karl Rove used phony investigations to justify firing AGs and to indict a Democratic Governor for purely partisan political gain.
Charlie Webster did not say that 200 students had voted illegally; he said they could have, might have, I don't know.
Karl Rove politics have come to Maine. Hold on to your hats the dirty tricks are about to begin.
Save all the news coverage. Pay back time is a b***h
Ed, your suggestions aren't bad, but you know they won't be adopted. Republicans want taxes cut because the people they represent (wall street bankers, stockbrokers, CEO's, and trust fund babies like Koch Brothers) want as little government as they can get so they keep all the power; so they can drive you and everyone like you into poverty (a typical Mainer has lost 30% of his family's real income and republican donors have increased their income by about 30% over the last 30 years.
Secure the borders. Really securing the borders as despotic governments do will turn the US into a third world economy. Control illegal immigration yes; secure borders no.
Why cut benefits to drug users who may have contributed to the system for decades or cutting benefits to fat people or people with heart disease? They are all victims of diseases they are to some degree responsible for.
Social Security and Medicare are not welfare. They take taxes out of my paycheck every week for those programs and any change is a violation of our contract and neither contributes to the National Debt. Instead, bring real regulated market competition to medicare care to help drive down costs.
Charlie Webster's, Chairman of the Maine Republican Party, press conference proved that no reason exists to change the law. Charlie presented not one case of an Election Day registrant who illegally voted; not one case where voter fraud changed the results of an election; not one case of the integrity of Maine's elections being affected by voter fraud. No reason to change the law.
So he must have another reason. One he will not tell you.
Sign the People's Veto. Make your politicians pay a cost for lying to you.
that Herman Cain has choosen Anders Breivk as his running mate. If elected, Cain plans to carry out a sane and rational policy of deporting all non-christians starting with Muslims, Jews, Mormons, and Catholics in preparation for the rapture.
And yes I am being sarcastic. If you read some of the commenters and the Tea Party press you will realize a little reality exists in my comment.
"highly centralized, top down, socialist, rather than decentralized, economic growth state planning cultures." - William Beardsley, LePage's commissioner of the Department of Conservation.
Now you know its going to cost us more. Either no regulations and concrete will stretch from I295 to the peak of Kineo or every Republican who can carry a shovel will be making $99.25 an hour cutting a new Benedict Arnold Trail to Quebec.
State-wide, fact driven, and science based environmental planning is not socialistic. State-wide planning is not socialistic.
3 more years of fascist fanatics and christian zealots running the state. Hope the state will still be here.
At its base this is the fundamental problem in cutting the Federal Budget. Everyone wants convenient service even if its uneconomical to provide it. I hope its seen as more effective to build secure internet access than to continue to maintain inefficient methods of communication. If we use other criterion to make these decisions they should be known and publicly explained. Perhaps facilities that cost more should charge more.
The People's Veto is on legislation that repeals election day registration.
Do you see anything about Election Day registration in Charlie's misinformation. I don't.
Charlie has good reason to have been concerned with voter fraud over the last 30 years. Republicans are well known for it in rural Maine during that time, but the HAVA (Help America Vote Act) implemented a few years ago eliminated most problems in the system. With a single statewide voter registration file and checks against motor vehicle, census, and post office change of address information duplicate registrations can be kept to a minimum.
To be voter fraud involving same day registration, these students have to be registered in both Maine and their home state. Charlie presents no such evidence. In addition they have to vote in both states. Charlie presents no such evidence. In addition, they would have to have registered on Election Day. Charlie presents no such evidence.
If Charlie was going to Maine's law school he'd be laughed out of class.
Poll flooding is a problem for Charlie because legal voters of Maine don't like him or his party as they are learning from this 4 year aberration.
Republican revisionism carried to its illogical conclusion.
1. The Recession started in December 2007. Bush in office for 6+ years. Republicans in complete control of the Government for 4 of those 6 years. Democrats held Congress for 10 months before the recession starts. Economists and the real press had been warning of the coming bubble burst since 2004.
2. Supply side economics has been totally discredited (lower income taxes only contributing to economic growth when marginal tax rates are high enough to cause massive tax evasion) . We see now the Republicans playing Russian roulette with our economy. Every economist, every political leader right and left, every banker, stock broker, and financial services manager believes the past month of Republican political game playing has done serious harm to the US economy as they try to destroy the middle class in one stroke by privatizing Medicare, Social security, and deregulate the economy (the primary source of the 2007 recession).
3. President Obama was wrong when he said that the Republicans don't know how to say Yes. What they will say yes to is nothing less than the destruction of the United States of America. They are loyal to their false self-serving ideology but not to the country.
So please explain how Obama and this unspecified liberal agenda caused our depression.
Clinton did not sign the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999. He signed the budget act. A "must sign" bill into law. It included as an amendment the FSMA placed there by the Republicans. Clinton had no choice in signing the budget Act. Including a poison pill amendment is an old legislative trick.
Second, "the Dems pushing banks to people who were poor risks" is another Republican fantasy. No one needed to push the banks. Wells Fargo just settled one of their many fraud cases. The settlement included billions of dollars in fines because Wells Fargo fraudulently modified mortgages without the purchasers knowledge or consent placing them into mortgages which they could not afford. Countrywide started this in 2001 after getting approval from the Bush administration to securitize mortgages. This meant they could make more money selling the security than they could by servicing the mortgage. This is the root of the mortgage collapse as documented by the commission that investigated the recent Bush economic collapse.
Please explain how Bush tried to stop it?
American Opportunities Act was a huge success. Over 3 million jobs created or preserved. Hundreds of billions of dollars in Federal, state and local expenditures avoided hundreds of billions more in taxes paid into government. But you don't turn a $14 trillion economy around with $878 billion in new deficit spending when the economy was trashed with $1.3 trillion deficit spending already. The stimulous had to be at least double that (a parade of economists argued for this at the time) to be effective in turning the economy around and that the Republicans prevented and Susan Collins was very public in demanding that the stimulus be less than $900 billion. So all the stimulus did was halt the downward spiral and avoid a depression; it was too small to grow the economy.
Cash for Clunkers - a Republican program. Thought up by Susan Collins. She demanded its passage for her support of the stimulus package. Took away affordable cars to many on fixed incomes? You joke. Of all the silly Republican excuses why this was a bad program that's about the lamest. Just because they are affordable doesn't mean they appeal to people on fixed incomes. Doesn't mean that people on fixed incomes weren't the ones turning them in. Doesn't mean that there was a shortage of affordable clunkers that people on fix incomes could still buy.
Obama has never said that he would not run for a second term. In fact, he's been running since January 21st, 2009. Please provide the source for such a silly comment.
So if these are your problems with recent economic efforts in this country, then you should want to fire Susan Collins not Obama.
And I understand you very well. Many have travelled in your footsteps before you. But paranoid anti-muslim bigotry will not serve the interests of this country, Isreal, or the middle east.
LePage began as a national laughingstock now he's just a boring bully.
What must he think of Governor Perry withdrawal from his own Day of Prayer and Fasting. Governor LePage is the only other Governor who has accepted Gov. Perry's invitation to support his proclamation. Now Perry is backing off.
Why! Because Perry recruited the American Family Association, an anti-gay hate group, to organize the meeting and recruit a long list of far right "christian"? ministers like The Dobson Twins, David Barton, creator of WallBuilders and false Jefferson quotes and Michelle Backman's recent gaffe that President John Quincy Adams was "active" in the Revolutionary War (Barton's version is that John Quincy Adams "fought" in the Revolutionary War. That's important to him because a speech of John Quicy Adams is the only evidence of Barton's theory that America was founded as a Christian Nation. If Adams wasn't a founder, his theory is false. By the way the facts are John Quincy Adams was in Europe going to school from 1778-1782. He left at age ten. He had no role and did not fight in the Revolutionary War.)
All of this must be embarrassing to Gov. LePage. Adding on the turmoil in the cabinent, you might think LePage is a bad politician on top of being a bad manager.
And like the Hatfields and McCoys, everyone has a history to justify their most recent crime against humanity. Until we and they begin to look to the future and each other both will make the case why they are prefect and their enemies are demonic.
Al Jazeera is an independent accurate news organization (certainly more reliable and balanced and legal than Fox News). They are not representatives of Hamas however much Isreal wants to make them so. They deserve a fair and courteous hearing.
The Feds can pay out 56% of current spending if they reach the debt limit which they did in May. By law the President may not be able to prioritize who gets paid. The likely first choices not to be paid are the troops and social security recipients because bond holders will have to be paid first or the US will cause a worldwide depression (remember when Lehman stopped paying its debt the worldwide debt market "froze" - no one could get loans, not governments, not corporations, not individuals). The libor went from a 1/4 of a percent to over 3% in a few weeks.
The above uninformed comment can be summarized as The Republicans refusal to pass a debt limit increase as has been done without comment 77 times in the last 50 years can be ignored because the Republicans always do good for the Country. So if bad things happen its the President's fault even though he has compromised dozens of times alienated his supporters in hopes of winning Republican support for doing the right thing, the thing in the National Interest.
Republican fear-mongering. The country is not broke. We are paying the lowest Federal taxes in 70 years. The Republicans have tried to bankrupt the country in order to create a false debt crisis. They did not pay for the Bush tax cuts ($2.1 trillion), Medicare Part-D ($1 trillion), the wars in Irag and Afghanistan ($1 trillion), and the recession they caused ($3 trillion for the bank bailouts. I didn't add the auto bailout because it looks to have made a profit). That's $7 trillion in spending none of which was funded (taxes raised to cover the cost). So the National Debt went from $5.7 trillion and the end of the Clinton Administration to $12.7 trillion at the end of the Bush administration. We could add about another trillion dollars for recovery steps that were necessary to fix the recession in the Obama administration but let's not. But even this irresponsible spending orgy still left the United States with lower total debt than any other industrialized country including Germany.
There is no reason for the system to collapse or that there should be no more money. Eliminate the tax spending (subsidies) for the rich, make corporations re-patriate their profits each year, raise the tax rates to those at the end of the Clinton administration and we will be able to have a balanced budget and reduce the Federal debt to preBush levels over time. No impact on people living on fixed incomes. No changes in Social Security or Medicare are required. None should be acceptable.
Then we can sanely look at the 75 year problem of SS solvency. But remember SS will take in more in taxes than it pays in benefits for the next 25 years. Its not a crisis just a possible concern.
stealing an election was easy in rural Maine. All you had to do is have party loyalists register with the other party, have the town clerk select your loyalists as ballot clerk(s); now all the ballot clerks are really of one party. Then don't purge people who move away from the town or who have died. The Town is required every 10 years to verify the voters eligibility, so you have 10 years to "vote" these missing people. HAVA eliminated these techniques because registrations are checked against various databases and move the registration between towns. So since Republicans find it much harder to double vote they must prevent Democrats from voting at all. In 2000 they used false Felon files to deny hundreds of thousands of African-Americans from voting. Now they are just putting up new bureaucratic red tape to make it harder for democratic leaning groups to vote.
By the way its easy to find out if students voted twice. Who voted is a public record. Party officials can get those records. Just find the home town of students call it up to see if they votes. The proof is easy to get. If they don't have it its because it never happenned.
"the free market will always trump government solutions". Did LePage explain how you can have a "free market" solution when legally a "free market" can not exist. Health insurance companies are emempt from anti-trust laws. Monopolies are not free markets. A commission in Maine decides what health care facilities are available in Maine. No competition. No free entry into the market. Describing any feature of health care in America as a free market is like describing the Atlantic Ocean as a desert.
"He said the Canadian system led to a rationing of services and lower quality of care." So instead he lets health insurance companies ration care where they have a financial interest in not providing services. The US has the lowest quality of care in the industrialized world.
Last, The Heritage Foundation is LePage's boss. So this trip isn't surprising and his views consistent with the positions of the Heritage Foundation becuase his chief advisor is employed by the Heritage Foundation and he was elected by a staff of Heritage Foundation experts.
Seems LePage is only qualified to sell junk.
He certainly has failed to hire responsibile/qualified commissioners. More importantly, he has not backed up his employees against unfair and secret criticism by the special interests. Hardly shows leadership. It also remind us in many ways of the mural disaster. LePage who we all knew was a zealot and ideologue also appears to be incompetent in managing and leading good people.
to understand it. First, the country was not "based" on the bible. Even the most charitable reading of the Bible and Constitution shows no similarity. And we do know where the ideas that motivated the Founders to form a new country as they did came from. They told us. Not one mentioned the Bible. Not surprisingly. Few Americans were Christian. Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Washington, Hamilton, etc did not believe in the divinity of Christ. Whole sects who are Christian now denied the divinity of Christ then.10% of Virginians attended Church once a year or more 90% did not.
People offended by the removal of prayer from public schools or the 10 commandments from public places are anti-American and enemies of the Constitution.
The "wall of separation of church and state" was not taken out of context meaning given a different meaning from what was intended. Jefferson and his cabinet went through many drafts of the letter debating various phrases to us and only after approval by the cabinet was this letter which is a state record get sent. If you care to read it all you will note that Jefferson wrote that government has not place taking actions that affect what people think which is the wall. Government has no role in religion and religion has no role in government.
"May we never forget the words and wisdom of our founding fathers as they prayed and sought God's guidance in establishing this great country." Took me a moment to find the Proclamation. I don't normal visit extremist, radical, and terrorist websites so I missed it on the CWA site.
The founding fathers were wise in creating this country. Unfortunately that's not shared by Governor LePage. His proclamation states "....Benjamin Franklin implored the framers to pray for guidance..." implying that the framers then prayed for guidance. They didn't; the Constitutional Convention went on with the debate ignoring Franklin's plea. "...In 1775 the Continential Congress asked the colonies to join in pray..". They did, but they were not founders, there was no Constitution. There was no Bill of Rights or First Amendment. Our real founders learned a lot between 1775 and 1787. President Adams was a founder but his undefined statement was made many years later in a very different age. Lincoln and Roosevelt were not founders and again were from entirely different ages. They were important, but not perfect.
So not one statement here relates to the founding of our country or suggests that the founders believed in pray (a few did not many and those who did were not Christians).
But the worst of this so-called day of pray is it is lead by the Dobsons promoters of hate and by others with long and much lamented pasts of anti-American and anti-christian propaganda. If you are a Bible believing Christian you should be no where near any of these events.
"May we never forget the words and wisdom of our founding fathers as they prayed and sought God's guidance in establishing this great country." - they didn't.
While any "Bible believing Christian" is perfectly correct that they can and should participate in events that are consistent with their views.
Who is wrong here is Governor LePage & Perry for issuing their unconstitutional call for a day of prayer and fasting in violation of their oath of office.
You may come to false conclusions. As this letter does. I am shocked and pleased that a representative of Al Jazeera is coming to Maine. Hope the press coverage is up to the importance of the visit.
"First off, life expectancy has risen about 10 years..." completely misleading. "Average" life expectancy has gone up about 10 years because childhood mortality has dramatically decreased. People who reached 21 in 1935 lived into their late 70's. People who reach 21 today live into their early 80's. Difference is about 2 years not 10. Only one proposal, the "Ryan Plan for Economic collapse", leaves the fixes for your generation. The fixes for my generation were put into place in 1983. And other proposes take effect immediately. And with Republicans bankrupting the country more and more immediate fixes may be required.
The Republicans caused the debt crisis by their irresponsibile and reckless spending without funding (12 of $14 trillion debt is the responsibility of Republican Presidents in the last 30 years). Republicans caused the debt limit crisis by trying to use it to extort spending cuts without tax increases (even though the rich are paying the lowest taxes since the Second World War era) from the Democrats. This crisis has made it clear that Republicans are ready to bankrupt the country as long as taxes are reduced to zero for rich folks.
"To sum up, Taylor's position is that children and young adults should be prevented from reading a work of fiction about a young boy's quest to defeat evil in the face of almost insurmountable odds..."
Chad, the Harry Potter series competes with Mr. Taylor. He just wants the government to get rid of it. Your statement above could apply to Harry Potter and equally to the Bible.
Let Mr. Taylor rant. He's relatively harmless unlike Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, and the crazies who want to impose their religious fanatacism on the rest of us by force.
"Quality health care is a fundamental human right." Yes, Yes, Yes
The Republican brinkmanship over the debt limit, a crisis they and they alone created, now threatens to throw the US economy back into depression. Moody and Standard & Poors have stated that even if the debt limit is increased they may downgrade US debt. That will increase interest rates and collapse the dollar and cause a flood of bonds to be dumped on the market because some bond holdings legally or contractually require the highest rating.
This because the Republicans wanted to divert attention away from the National Debt which they are primarily responsibile for. Shows that they are willing to sacrifice the National interest for a few votes at the polls.
As Obama is learning (I hope) in the debt limits talks you need two sides that accept a common language. Radical "conservatives" have nothing to say to America.
Since you dismiss the well established facts, it shows why you can't hold a conversation and why you have no answers. And "liberal socialist koolaid" merely confirms that you won't talk because you know you are wrong. I've read all your right-wing fantasies. I grew up on Randian hate, oversimplification, and ignorance.
You miss the point as always - its your side that is doing the social tinkering not mine.
A. the income tax was not "rammed down our throats by progressive". It was overwhelmingly adopted as all Constitutional Amendments must be.
B. Social tinkering (temperance, anti-slavery, prison reform, individual improvement, seeking social perfection, anti-drug, anti-divorce, etc) as you call it is an outgrowth of the Second Great Awakening (Christian) which transformed American society from secular, enlightenment to christian world view. The social tinkering as you call it was and is a conservative, religious movement to improve society through the application of religious values to social practice. It does not waste wealth unless wealth is your only value. But its anything but liberal. Michelle Bachmann is the current poster child for social tinkering. But then you mean only that portion of social tinkering that you oppose and that costs money not all social tinkering.
c. That's so oversimplified. It ignores so much that its hardly worth refuting. Increased taxes do not necessarily increase prices (only can if the business is a monopoly). Just for beginners increased taxes might be offset by increased productivity or reduced taxes elsewher or by changes in other costs. When prices goes down businesses may increase production not reduce it to increase income at lower margins. We could go on and on. But the real world has answered these questions. Bill Clinton increased taxes significantly (Republicans said the largest tax increase in US History and it was going to bring about a major recession. What really happenned. Highest post WWII economic growth on record. 22 million jobs added. US budget balanced. US deficit and debt reduced (perfect so-called Reganomics result. Reagan also increased taxes with same result). George Bush cut taxes in 2001 and 2003. Said that they were the largest tax cuts in history, promised an explosion of economic growth and jobs. What really happenned. Worst economic growth post WWII. Negative job growth. Explosion of US deficit and debt. But I won't say that either was the result of the tax policy adopted by those administrations. Fact is tax policy has very little if anything to do with economic activity or jobs when marginal tax rates are under 50% which was true under both adminitrations. Tax policy if targetted properly designed and implement can have an impact on a business, an industry, or a limited subset of the economy but rarely for the economy as a whole.
Tax policy has more to do with the debt, borrowing, credit stability and we are seeing now that low tax revenues (16% of GNP while we spend at 25% of GDP) are a serious threat to National existence.
1. as I said I never mentioned any such thing.
2. No such thing exists. There is not National referendum. Therefore, I don't know why you keep bringing it up.
3. Maine does have a state referendum process. Last used by the Republicans to defeaat tax reform. As you say a perversion used by the party out of power to through a tantrum. I oppose the state referendum process as now defined. I would radically reform it, but as long as it exists I'll use it.
4. I have no problem whatsoever finding ample justification for the liberal doctrine which by the way has nothing to do with "government must do everything for everybody" which is a conservative straw man. The "general welfare" clause is not something to bleat about. Its the second of two Constitutional responsibilities of the Congress. Nothing could be more important (of course you can't accept that since you oppose the Constitution). The origins of the Constitution was the failure of the Second Congress to fund/supply the continential army and the Shays rebellion in the winter of 1787 which align to those two responsibilities.
5. In fact, Felix Frankfurther (Roosevelt's appointee to the SCOTUS) created the theory of judicial restraint and judicial liberalism. Again, liberalism has nothing to do with government doing everything for everybody a doctrine that is the inherent property of any legislative body that is unconstrainted by checks and balances. A conservative legislature will do everything for everybody. A moderate legislature will do everything for everybody. A liberal legislature will do everything for everybody and that is America's experience. People like to keep their jobs and their power so unconstrained they will try to make everyone happy.
They can factor it in all they want, but unless they are a monopoly and have pricing power in the market they can not charge the price they want. Prices are still determined in a free market by supply, demand, and speculation not the idle musings of executives.
Zero income tax???? "Gold game"?????? ah the comfort of fantasy.
"all that Obama has offered is higher taxes" Absolutely false. Obama has offerred up to 4 times more spending cuts including to Social Security and Medicare than tax spending cuts (loopholes intended to give corporate america something for nothing like the 40 billion in OIl and Gas subsidies done through the tax code). No one God forgive them is even talking about any change in tax rates even though Federal Government is receiving less tax revenues than any time back to the 50's.
"all federal taxes are paid ultimately by individuals." this is a truism. That is a meaningless statement. Some individuals are rich and some poor and many in between and it matters which individuals pay. More so this is based on a ridiculous lie about economics which is that corporations don't pay taxes. Besides being just stupid to be true all corporations must be monopolies that can set prices without regard to supple and demand. Unless they can, taxes come out of profits and therefore from the individual owners of the corporation not the consumers. That matters.
The American worker hasn't lost his way; he has been lead astray by effective propaganda. The blame belongs to the propagandist not the worker. Just as the victim of fraud is the victim.
impossible. I mentioned no "national referenda" so I'm not surprised its not in the constitution. Nor did I mention democracy. One dollar one vote is not in the constitution. Maybe you are reading the Soviet Constitution its much closer to the tea party's. One-man one vote is a SCOTUS decision based on as it should the Constitution. Not surprised that Conservatives don't believe in one-man one vote as it is the basis for republicanism and was debated throughly during the Constitutiona Convention.
Its amazing conservatives only find in the Constitution what they want to find and ignore all the other stuff the Founders included but isn't to the liking of so-called conservative (fact is they aren't conservatives. They are radical and anti-Constitutional. And mad as hell that you can't find property, capitalism, individualism, or a whole host of 20th century "isms" in the Constitution.
Its one man one vote or the theory that each citizen has an equal opportunity to influence governmental decisions. The SCOTUS decision was simple one dollar one vote or the theory that that rich should rule.
From 1942 until 1982, the share of income received by the top 10% wealthiest Americans ran between 32 and 35% i.e. the remaining 90% got 65-68%. 40 years of very little change. From 1982 to now the share received by the top 10% has steadily increased to top 50% as of 2008 and it will be more today. Did people become steadily more lazy from 1982 to now. Hardly. Were the rich less greedy from 1942 to 1981. Certainly not. If not what changed. Not work, not motivation, not skills; what changed were the laws that have allowed corporations to get tax breaks for moving good jobs overseas, that allowed corporations to break strikes; that cut taxes for the rich to the lowest levels since 1945; that deregulated i.e. allowed the rich to defraud all of us. In short political power changed. Working people have bought the lies and distractions (the debt limit debate now) sold by the rich. They have accepted that they are unworthy of just rewards for their work.
Any working person voting for the Republicans or their fellow travellers in the Democratic Party are committing economic suicide.
"You should want to stay with your kind." I haven't heard that since neighborhood segregation was ended (to a degree) in Philadelphia back in the 60's.
Great for Denny's great, for the Maine legislature and apparently hooray for Key West.
If you are so socially incompetent that you can't handle a little diversity without being shocked, please get appropriate care.
the letter is over the top. Smart meters do not involve Constitutional rights or national security.
But Joanna's basic point that corporations have far too much power is right. The PUC is not protecting us just as the SEC, FED, and other regulators failed us in the recent housing bubble and financial collapse. Regulatory reform of corporations (not eliminating regulation, but enforcing and strengthening the regulations we have) is the most pressing issue of this generation.
For example, the management of Massey Energy should have long ago been indicted for the 29 lives lost through their malfeasence in WV.
Execute a few executives when they cause a loss of live through their direct actions and imprisonment for their actions that indirectly cause a loss of life is a good first step in regaining a balance of power.
Why should a family that comes to a food panty 3 or 4 times a month to get a good meal be forced to give more of its income to the state so that the wealthy can enjoy a tax cut from the Govenor.
A CEO is an authoritarian dictator with absolute power over his employees. The people of Maine are not LePage's employees. LePage as much as he wishes it is not Maine's authoritarian dictator. Soon enough the only memory of him will be the worst Governor to ever work for the destruction of his own statre.
do questions 5-8, B1 & B4 reflect the historic importance of the Declaration of Independence. Aren't they a bit childish?
President Lincoln lifted the Declaration of Independence from "old wadding left to rot on the battfield" into a living document by which all governments of all men could be judged. Since 1863, political movements have tried to highjack the DoI for their own purposes. To wrap their modern views in the authority of the DoI. How can we resist if our knowledge of the DoI's history is represented by a "Turkey".
May I suggest everyone read and study "American Scripture, Making the Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776" by Pauline Maier.
If same-day registration was in fact overwhelming, why was legislation to eliminate it only introduced in states came under Republican Control in 2010. Wouldn't democratic states be equally overwhelmed?
No Larry, the Catholic Church's leadership in its official capacity admitted it lied and deceived the people. One should not condemn the Catholic Church for the sin committed by Malone and his evil cohorts like Nutty, but after this struggle if Malone takes the same position that he took on 1 in 2009 his co-religionists should move him to a homeless shelter.
Selective mis-reading of religion is just a cover-up for either mental instability or hatred and it is slowly disappearing. First, because its foolish. No fundamentalists follow, support, or believe in much of the stupidity in the early books of the bible (written when people thought the earth was the center of the universe).
Marriage is not older than government. You have no marriage without government even in the bible. The earliest and currently most popular form of marriage is polygamy. So the statement the marriage is only between a man and a woman are obviously false.
What they really mean is that their christian belief is that marriage is between a man and a woman and they have the right to force other people to follow their belief. This idea is so unamerican it deserves nothing but contempt.
LePage's budget included over $200 million in tax cuts. Of which $150 million or more went to wealthy people directly. More than $30 million went to 100 families with estates of more than $1 million.
GM record profits. Employment up. Opening new plants and re-opening old plants. Developing new car models every bit as good as made anywhere in the world. Not one fact in Mr. LeBanc's empty attack on unions. BHO did not save the auto industry by printing a mountain of money. In fact, the US taxpayer will make a significant profit from saving. First, we didn't have to pay unemployment for at least a million workers for several years. That's about $30 billion a year. Best case scenarios place the profits from the sale of GM stock at a small profit; worst a small loss. The rescue of the auto industry added about .3% to the GDP. That's about 42 billion dollars in salaries, sales, profits which would not be their except of the rescue.
Detroit before the rescue is the poster child for Republican economic policies.
Mr. Shields continues his unblemished record of repeating Washington Republican talking points without one shread of evidence that it applies to Maine.
"my Democrat opponent bring freshly-registered people to the polling place minutes before the polls closed in the evening." What this means is that the Republicans rarely work to get out the vote. If their money and lies hasn't work, a phone call from a party hack won't work. But Democrats do work on election day. Working from VOTER REGISTRATION LISTs prepared weeks before the election and information from contacting voters over a year before the election, we get pre-registered voters to the polls. Parties have no way effective of contacting non-registered voters. Therefore we can't bring transients to the polls. If Mr. Shields saw anything else he could of challenged the vote. He never has now has he.
"Not allowing voter registration on Election Day gives the voter time to become informed" I have found that if a voter isn't informed; they don't vote. So this is BS. Its also the same line the Repubs use to justify their repressive anti-abortion laws. We all know that those laws are intended not to inform but to delay and by delay making it inconvenient and expensive to do what is none of the Republicans business. Whether informed or not, a voter has a fundamental right to vote. He even has a right to commit economic suicide and vote for Mr. Shields.
The do-nothing legislature's ending should be welcome by everyone.
Now when I say do-nothing. I mean that it did nothing for Mainers. It did a lot for the Heritage Foundation in Washington. It did a lot for the out-of-state millionaires who visit Maine or own businesses here. For the average Maine it cut income taxes by $165 which will be off-set by the increases in property taxes and services that will be lost to the Governor's squeeze the poor budget; for Maines millionaires a $140000 cut. But we should be happy about what it didn't do. Rural Maine won't be turned into another "New Jersey" by unregulated rural development for another year.
Costs are often not a function of the number of students. Special ed being a classic example. English as a secondary language students another. Transportation costs are a function of the miles of roads in the district, age of the bus fleet, and age distribution of the children. Cost per pupil is close to meaningless. If you owned a business, could you make meaningful decisions if you lumped fixed and variable costs together?
I believe Peter Mills lead the campaign to adjust the formula years ago to better reflect rural/urban cost differences. Change now are unnecessary unless the Republicans can show that the added money will improve student performance in rural Maine without harming student performance in urban Maine. By the way, has Gov. LePage forgotten his pledge to fund education by returning local control "as stated in the Maine Constitution". Must have!
debauchery? What is this the 17th century.
First, Detroit is a perfect example of what happens when Republican policies of destroying unions and the middle class, on which stability and economic growth are based, are followed. The auto industry was almost completely destroyed by the Bush recession and their economic policies. It took President Obama to save it, the US manufacturing sector, and the US economy.
Second, teaching a man to fish when all the fish are extinct does him no good (you can use your own far fetched analogy to answer the author's silliness)
Third, entitlements (welfare) are not a significant part of any budget. In fact, they are so small they don't even get mentioned by Republicans anymore. They want to destroy Social Security and Medicare because they are significant.
Fourth, most welfare fraud is committed by providers not recipients of welfare like our current House Speaker.
Fifth. The state is not about to go bankrupt. By any financial measure Maine is in better shape than two-third of the states in the United States.
When you are so out of touch with reality, well vote for Bachmann by the end of the campaign she will be saying that Ronald Reagan founded the country.
Lowry is ever able to provide todays empty phrase of the day. What is winning? Does he know? And at what cost. Lowry and his co-conspiritors have all but bankrupted this country. Now he complains that his and his friends policies which have made unfunded wars a threat to the country's survival should be pursued without regard to cost, lives lost, or specific goals, and without a national interest in continuing them.
It is a sort of justice that Lowry brings Douglas MacArthur into his little whinny diatribe. Douglas MacArthur is America's next to worst traitor and the greatest whinner ever. MacArthur disobeyed President Hoover's direct orders on three occations and in so doing cost Hoover the Presidential election of 1932. MacArthur participated in an attempted coup to overthrow the elected government of the United State in 1934 and was exiled to the Philipines as a result. MacArthur disobeyed President Truman's orders in Korea and then whinned about support from back home. No man deserves less than MacArthur.
Lowry is ever able to provide todays empty phrase of the day. What is winning? Does he know? And at what cost. Lowry and his co-conspiritors have all but bankrupted this country. Now he complains that his and his friends policies which have made unfunded wars a threat to the country's survival should be pursued without regard to cost, lives lost, or specific goals, and without a national interest in continuing them.
It is a sort of justice that Lowry brings Douglas MacArthur into his little whinny diatribe. Douglas MacArthur is America's next to worst traitor and the greatest whinner ever. MacArthur disobeyed President Hoover's direct orders on three occations and in so doing cost Hoover the Presidential election of 1932. MacArthur participated in an attempted coup to overthrow the elected government of the United State in 1934 and was exiled to the Philipines as a result. MacArthur disobeyed President Truman's orders in Korea and then whinned about support from back home. No man deserves less than MacArthur.
America is now the land of the corporate slave. The activist corporate SCOTUS needs to be changed in order to re-establish democracy. They are one vote away from introducing corporate slavery everywhere as Lincoln used to say after Dredd Scott about negro slavery.
Clarence Thomas by his false financial statements and his close and unethical cooperation with a wealthy Republican donor (including being the only vote supporting that donor's case before the SCOTUS) should be impeached.
Scalia has committed very similiar breaches of ethics and should also be impeached.
Federal elections must be publicly financed to protect one man, one vote.
Mr. Rhoades makes some assumptions - bond that holds society together, future of Maine’s economy depends on ... stable, married families. But doesn't offer any evidence of their truth. For example, instability in a controlled environment may teach children to adapt better to a radically changing world. Marriage and stable families is wonderful if we ignore the reality of families - incest, drug abuse, and poverty - to name a few realities children must endure. A poor family living with child abuse is a stable ,married family.
What these studies really provide is that societies under serious economic stress must resolve the economic crisis. Just moving people out of the in-crisis group to the slightly stressed group is no answer the economic stress will just continue moving up through economic classes. Nor is looking back to the past at old solutions (stable married families) or whistfully at our wonderful childhoods. Either solve the economic crisis (jobs) or develop a new worldview (as the Second Great Awakening (1800-1830) did, but failed) or collapse into poverty. Adapt or die.
Are the Republicans going to give Whitey an award, Humanitarian of the Year for his 16 years on the run. or was it a lifetime award for Business innovation?
Are the Republicans going to give Whitey an award, Humanitarian of the Year for his 16 years on the run. or was it a lifetime award for Business innovation?
The poll tax is unconstitutional. Literacy tests are unconstitutional. So the Republicans had to come up with some other way to burden the young, the elderly, and working people so that they wouldn't vote. Two trips to the Town Hall plus perhaps many trips to get documentation that they otherwise don't need will discourage grassroots voters. Charlie Webster when challenged on his Glenn Beck-like lies couldn't come up with a single fact to support this bill. If they were really concerned about voter fraud, they would have demanded tighter controls on military and overseas voting where the opportunity for fraud is huge compared to domestic voting. Forgot, they vote Republican and Republican voter fraud is just fine.
I'm waiting for the Republicans adding a property requirement. Perhaps a requirement that the voter have $100,000 net worth would get the Republicans the voters they want.
And we don't need unions to protect workers from companies that intentionally violate the law and threaten their safety? I assume the AG and DOT are investigating Maine Recycling Corp? Ha!
role the Department of Labor is legally required to play. The DOL is not legally required to represent all Mainers, or Mainers with a business, or lunatic fringe people at the Maine Heritage Comedy Center. No, its legally required to represent Maine labor. Bet LePage thinks that Maine businesspeople represent Maine labor.
Another reason why businesspeople are incompetent to lead Maine's government.
The other two comments here are very good, sound, opinoins.
Previous legislatures considered tighter restrictions on gun possession by people who were subjects of a protection order. Those efforts failed. If the weaspons of domestic abuse can't be controlled, then the domestic abuse must be. I agree with Sandra. This was a man who was a clear and present danger to his family. Much more should have been done to isolate him from them.
Given the above, I believe that at the point of viability an unborn human does acquire a minimum set of rights and protections including the expectation that no actions will be taken to end the possibility of live birth except when the mother-to-be is threatened.
And I think the commerce clause (one of those seven powers) has been stretched well beyond reason. The Constitution gives the Federal Government the powers necessary to provide for the "general welfare" i.e. the overall performance of the economy. The Federal Government has the power to end economic downturns, maintain a level of economic growth, all the macroeconomic controls necessary to maintain a health economy. The Constitution also does not mention "free markets", "capitalism", nor private property or any system to maintain private or organize property. The implications of that simply aren't talked about.
1. I never said that the fetus is not human. I said it was not a citizen, a person, nor a party to the Constitution and therefore not protected by it. A fetus certainly is human, but also not a human. A human being has the capability to reason; a fetus does not. An egg is not a chicken, but it may become one. A fetus is not a human but may become one. Our laws now and over much of our history recognize this. We do not give a born human full rights and protections until 21 based on the fact that the human brain has not reached maturity until about that time. Even now parents have extreme powers over born children. 100 years ago those powers were unfetterred. 150 years ago abortion was like all other "women's work" not even recognized by society.
2. You need to re-read your Constitution. The Preamble to the Constitution says "promote the general welfare". Article I says to "provide". But Article I says much more. It then lists a series of powers given to Congress to give it the means to provide for the common defense and general welfare. One but only one example is the power to coin money and (and this is most important) to regulate the value thereof. To regulate the value of money, a government must control the value of imports and exports and the supply of money and to do those it must have a system of tariffs and import/export controls and a banking system controlled by the government. The actual and literal wording of Article I Section 8 is:
"The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States...." there follows a list of powers seven of which directly deal with controlling/protecting the US economy.
The rise of the conservative movement has occured when the schools abandoned the teaching of Government, civics, and American History. We do need to educate youth on the real core values this country was built on. The question is will the content of these courses be corrupted as they were in Texas recently by conservatives trying to re-interpreted that history to justify their movement? or to say it another way; America was founded in 1788 not 1840.
1. Abortion is not murder. Murder is the unlawful killing of a person. A fetus is not a person; has never been so described. People opposed to abortion for purely dogmatic reasons would like to impose their religion on the rest of us. We, the people, the parties to the Constitution do have a right to life meaning that we have a right a claim on government that once we are born they do all they can to protect and expend our lives. That is why Article I of the Constitution gives Congress two goals "provide for the national defense (protect the lives of our citizens who must be people) and the general welfare (the economic and overall health of our nation and the people that make it up). A fetus was never a party to the Constitution and could not delegate powers to the government.
2. The Supreme Court says there is a right to abortion. If they say so then there is.
3. Anti-abortion is anti-conservative because abortion is not in any sense traditional. Until the 1840's abortion was not even mentioned in law in fact any "women's" work was not mentioned in the law. Two things changed in the 1840's - the Second Great Awakening had transform America from a rational, Enlightenment country to a Protestant country and doctor's were trying to impose a monopoly on women's medical care by getting rid of widwifery (the people who performed abortions, births, and medical care for women). The SGA added the priciple that government had to regulate the private affairs of people which the Constitution did not give to government.
Therefore anti-abortionism is a radical anti-constitutional departure from more than 10,000 years of human history.
Given Rick Perry's proposal that Texas secede from the union and Sarah Palin's many idotic remarks about US history and Texas' removal of Thomas Jefferson from US history because he as an atheist, The best thing we can do for the integrity of the vote is to ban the Republican Party as a subversive and dictatorial organization which is militating for the overthrow of our form of government.
Early-voting absentee ballots can not be adding a workload onto town clerks. In Dixfield ballots are hand counted. Whether the ballot is an absentee ballot or the voting day ballot its the same ballot. It takes the same time to count it. In fact, it would reduce the workload on voting day because fewer voters would come to the polls.
In fact, these types of legislation have been been submitted in every state in which the republicans gained complete control in 2010. They are directed from Washington to suppress minority voting and something not mentioned so far to reduce the volunteers available on election day to the political parties. Republicans don't get volunteers on election day. They close their offices early. But democrats do. If you reduce the time volunteers have to get people out to the polls it favors the republicans who think they don't have to volunteer because political office is their right, they don't have to earn it.
College students are doing nothing illegal in the first place. In a second place, they are residents and do have an interest in the affairs of the towns in which they live.
Why would this surprise anyone. The fact that most agricultural workers can't unionize is a crime against the people of this country. But that a republican legislator would submit a bill sacrificing the rights of Mainers to make a little more money for a fellow criminal republican whose last act for his country was to poison several thousand of people should come as no surprise.
Craft should be investigated to the limits of the law.
Premium increases of 22% while medical inflation is 6% and the consumer price inflation is <3% is what is unsustainable. Private insurance overhead of 30% is unsustainable (Medicare is 1.5%). Health care insurers being exemplt from anti-trust laws is unsustainable. One partial solution would make everyone eligible for Medicare. Premium costs cut by 1/3 immediately. Allow Medicare to negiotiate prices for drugs another huge cut in costs. Then really attack costs by bringing real competition to health care - anyone who wants can open a health care facility as long as they have the qualifications to perform the services offerred.
In each state where Republicans gained control of the Legislature, legislation like this was made a priority. The Republicans want to prohibit Democrats or likely Democratic voters from voting. Simple as that. They want people to wait, come back more than once, have to get more information. The same tactics they are using to suppress the Constitutionally protected right to an abortion.
The future of Democracy rests on defeating these bills.
This bill is just part of a National Campaign by the Republicans to suppress voting by Democratic constituencies. Bills like this one have been introduced in every state where Republicans won in 2010. It has nothing to do with real voter fraud. Its about establishing one-party rule.
2 just two cases of voter fraud have ever been prosecuted in Maine - 191 years. Now registration fraud (if by that you mean people being on the voting list who are not qualified to vote) has been more frequent, but its caused by town clerks not voters. Twons were only required in the past to verify voter lists every ten years. Frequently town clerks of towns that a person moved to did not inform the town clerks of the town they moved from or the town clerk in the town they moved from did not remove the voter from the lists. Under this old system as much as 40% of the voter list was wrong every 4 years. This system was replaced a few years ago because of the HAVA act. Now with centralized registration files accuracy has improved by orders of magnitude.
ACORN another Republican fraud. ACORN was defrauded by some of their contract employees (each registration they got they got paid for). ACORN discovered the fraud and reported it to authorities. In no case was it found that ACORN, its leadership, or any permanent employee encouraged or aided in the submission of any fraudulent registration forms.
If there is voter fraud, only the Republicans know of it.
Black Panthers have never stopped white people from voting. The only case involving Black Panthers was in Philadelphia where two Republican poll watchers called police accusing two Black Panthers of intimidating voters by standing in front of the polling place (along with a number of politicians) and one was holding a stick. Now heaven knows that to a Republican any person of color holding a stick is intimidating and a person of color using their 2nd Amendment rights by holding a gun is down right threatening. But interviews with voters, other poll watchers, and politicians present did not support the accusation. Subsquent review by the DOJ found nothing
The National debt before the first budget George Bush submitted to Congress was $5.807 trillion; the last $11.910 trillion. Bush added $6.1 TRILLION in his 8 years more than doubling the debt. Obama in his first budget took the debt to $13.562 adding $1.65 trillion. Based on current projections unpaid for Bush policies (tax cuts for the rich, 2 wars, medicare part-D, and $3+ trillion in stimulus to prevent a depression) will contribute 96% of all future debt. Obama put together a debt commission; reduced planned spending by $100 billion; and while participating in a new war he has not committed US troops beyond a few pilots. The other two wars he has reduced significantly the US troop committment.
The 9% unemployment rate is something Obama has to take responsibility for. Obama caved to Republican pressure (Sen. Susan Collins among many others) and agreed to a stimulus package that while it worked as designed was half as big as it needed to be and too short in duration as many economists warned. It should have been followed by a new plan but that was blocked again by the Republicans who want to trash the economy before the 2012 election.
I'm afraid getting one thing right does not make an indictment. Vaguely suggesting that Obama does not know our values and traditions (he's not an American you know. He's one of them.) certainly suggests that the author would criticize Obama if he could walk on water.
If the choice is between any Republican and Obama, well that's no choice. Obama all the way.
Mark below is correct. Until the insurance companies are covered by Federal anti-trust laws a free-market is impossible. But then with it its impossible. You see free-markets have never and do not now exist because they are a oversimplicifcation of a theory that has no practical application. All markets are to some degree regulated often the companies involved demanding regulation to keep competition out of the market.
Medical costs are increasing by 6% per year; inflation by 3% or less a year; and insurance premiums by 12% or more per year. Why? No effective regulation of insurance companies. Medicare is administered for 1 and 1/2% of taxes collected; private insurance by 30+% of premiums paid. Why, no effective regulation.
The solution is what works and has been proven to work over more than 40 years. Pass legislation making Medicare available to everyone.
When you distort the facts, misrepresent roles, invent decisions after the fact to support your party then that's what partisan means. Bush II gets 65% of the credit because he presided over the writting of new operational manuals (SOP). Give me a break. I'm certain those black ops folks think that paperwork was mainly responsible for the death of Bin Laden. Please explain the differences in the Carter attempt to free the hostages and this mission that were due to changes in procedure initiated in the Bush II administration.
Instead let's get down to undisputed facts. Bush II said both in 2002 and 2006 that capturing or killing Bin Laden was unimportant. His speech in 2006 was part of the announcement that the Black Ops team that he had charged with capturing or killing Bin Laden was being disbanded ending the search for Bin Laden in his administration. Second, Bush I and Cliton were more important than Bush II in transforming the military and intelligence communities from a Soviet focused European tank war model to one focused on asymetrical warfare. So Bush I and Clinton share any procedural credit (and the work people like Patreaus and Colin Powell did while in the military). Three, procedural credit also is meaningless. The people in the Team (those who found Bin Laden. Those that took him out. Those leading them and those that supported them) deserves all the credit and Obama was the leader of the team. Given that the CIA estimate of 60-80% chance that Bin Laden would be there and given the poor results from these helicopter insertions in the past, the risks in this mission were very high making the decisions to go forward with this all the more impressive. Bush II had nothing to do with these operational decisions.
It is a fact that Bush did not capture or kill Bin Laden. It's a fact that Bush disbanded in 2006 the special unit that was charged with capturing and/or killing Bin Laden. I see nothing wrong with assigning blame to the "sole decision-maker" when he does not succeed. That's not partisan; it truth. Nor did I falsely claim that Bush was responsible for Bin Laden's death. Republicans did that.
You call an accountant a person who have behaved in a certain way (got an accounting degree, passed a qualifying test, sought and was approved by a licensing board. In politics you can only characterize people based on their behavior (comments, speeches, etc) and the policies they have adopted or supported. All of my characterizations of the Republicans are supported by 75 years of specific behavior not inferences about the behavior. Republicans have earned those characterizations by hard work and a consistent world view. Partisan is when you claim credit for everything good whether your party had anything to do with it or not and blame on the other party whether they do good or not. I'm not partisan. I'm not even a Democrat any longer. I blame the Republicans for what they do wrong and only what they do wrong. My difficulty is they provide so many opportunities.
The American people have never been unified. Why would Bin Laden's death have anything to do with it?
What will it take - unity of principle. America is under attack and has been for more than 75 years by a moneyed elite who want to replace our Constitutional Republic with an authoritarian dictatorship using a fascist model i.e. they call it being business friendly. They want government to control our private lives while business controls our public lives. They want to deny the vote. Dismiss duly elected government officials by fiat. They, like the Communist Soviet Union, claim that they are the authors of everything good (80% of republicans claim Bush is responsible for Bin Laden's death) when in fact they are only the authors of what is good for themselves.
Bush ruined the US economy. The recession began in December 2007. Obama was took office in January of 2009 a full 14 months after the recession began. By march of 2009 the worsening recession reached its peak. By May unemployment began to fall. Now we have had almost 2 years of economic growth and improving conditions along with record profits for many sectors of the US economy.
Its the Republicans who have wanted to ruin the US economy. The Norquist plan is to starve the Federal Government bringing on recessions and economic crisis to us as an excuse to end economic stability for 99% of the country. Republicans added 12 of the 14 trillion dollar debt in hopes of bankrupting the country. Elect them again and this country will be a third-world, poverty-stricken wasteland.
I reviewed President Obama's long form birth certificate that was published in the papers a few days ago and it clearly stated that his father was african and that his mother was caucasian. So much for race.
Mr. Davis statement - "It merely shows he was born in Hawaii." - is bizarre. There is no merely about it. Being born in Hawaii in 1961 automatically makes Obama a US citizen according to the 14th Amendment in the US Constitution. If you accept that he was born in Hawaii then Obama is our rightful President and unlike Bush elected by the people of the US.
More than that recent events have shown that President Obama has lived up to every expectation that anyone could have of a President. Where President Bush failed to capture or kill Bin Laden (even though 80% of Republicans are trying to create a new great lie that Bush was responsible for Bin Laden's death.), President Obama by making it his highest priority succeeded.
Time to bury this nonsense that Obama is not American. Only racists, nativist, and Islamophobic Christian extremists in other words the Republican Party can still hold on to this propaganda.
As someone else remarked you can't extrapolate one or two data points into a general conclusion. First, Doug's wrong. No one is proposing to prevent kids from working. Even three jobs. The proposal is to expand the hours they can work and cut their pay.
Second, While I'm glad Doug thinks he did Ok from all that work, he can't answer how much better he might have done if he had gotten one more hour of sleep before that final French exam.
Lastly, his experience can not be generalized to everyone. To think that it can requires a huge ego.
Obviously, only a couple examples is all that's possible in commenting in a blog. They are examples of an overall trend which is not hard to document. Start by looking at on the job death and injury statistics. Then look at the number of cases where OSHA determined that those deaths and injuries were caused by actions of the companies involved. I did not exptrapolate a conclusion from two data points. I drew the conclusion from 150 years of documented exploitation of workers by US companies. Also from the track record of those companies. In the 1990's over 900 of the Fortune 1000 had been fined or otherwised penalized for violating Federal Law/regulation.
Obviously you want the government out of welfare so that your workers have to be 100% dependent on you - slaves. My great-grandfather was a mine superintendent in an Eastern Pennsylvania coal mine during the time of the Molly Mcquires. Then immigrant workers come to the US owing what we now call a coyote but then it was called a mine recruiter the cost of passage. They then went to the mine and were assigned company housing. One store, the company store, existed in town. The workers were paid(?) in company script so they couldn't go to any other store (the company wouldn't redeem its script). The company could charge what ever they wanted for housing and groceries. The immigrant then had to pay the company for his passage. Total complete dependency and as close to slavery as you can name it. Up until the 1970's paper mills in Maine denied companies access to the towns in which the mill existed (to prevent them from drawing off workers). Boise Cascade up until the 90's and perhaps still today provide housing and company stores to workers in sawmills in the Northwest.
I didn't imply that we should get rid of the income tax at all. In fact, the income tax should be expanded and simplified - all deductions eliminated and the rates reduced, the rate for those earning under the poverty level should be negative, the rate for all those above poverty should be progressive with the top rate capped at about 50%. The primary residence should be exempt from property taxes. Sales taxes should be eliminated for all consumption items and extended to all non-consumption items. Corporate income taxes should be based on gross income not profits with no deductions as personal income taxes are. All so-called tax expenditures eliminated. Rates of the three taxes should be adjusted so the tax burden on the poor should less than 10% of income and the top 10% of wage earners minimum of 40% of income. Those are just suggestions a real plan would vary considerable.
glad that you make decisions based on enlightened self-interest. But you agree that sweatshops exists in Maine. That means that workers are exploited by companies that restrict their rights and use legal and illegal means to reduce their wages/benefits. Government can't model its enforcement actions on the person that doesn't break the law. They have to be based on the ones who do.
The idea that workers create sweatshops is absurd. Companies do. Often by creating an environment where workers literally have no choices. The massage parlors in Maine broken up not too recently are one example. Young women usually from overseas stripped of their passports if they have them and visas, told they owe the importer thousands of dollar for transportation, often beaten, often confined to living quarters no one should accept. The idea this has anything to do with some irrational and mytholgical dependence on government is more than absurd. The pattern of the exploitation of these workers is common across the country. A sweatshop making fraudulent handbags a few years ago in California didn't let the women leave the establishment (a garage) ever.
I do agree with you about the tax structure. And I have written about it in this blog up to and including today. But as bad as the structure is its much better than what the Republicans will give us. Look at LePage's budget - $203 million in tax cuts to corporations and the super rich, $30 million going to 550 of the richest families in Maine. Who pays? Poor senior citizens, workers, and the poor. 10 years and the rich won't pay any taxes/fees and the poor will pay everything.
Sorry, I don't know where you get your numbers but in Wisconsin public service unionized workers make about 5% less than comparable private sector workers (I mention them here because that's a recent study done last year with up to date statistics). Studies done over the last 50 years have never shown union workers making more than 5% over comparable private workers. Union workers take lower pay for job security, safety, better health care and retirement benefits and union recognition. Put it all together and they get less.
"If every union in the state disappeared today (we can but wish), there would be no effect at all on labor laws." Let's see the Republicans have in the hopper cutting child labor pay by 40%, increasing their hours, right-to-slave bills that all but eliminate collective bargaining and that's just with union power reduced. Unions have helped keep Maine Democratic meaning that the tax structure is fairer that it would otherwise be. Non-union pay is higher than it otherwise would be. Education is fairer and better than it otherwise would be.
I gather Mike you are not among the "masses" meaning of course the lazy, dumb, average Mainers who work two jobs and their spouses work three to enable them to take a vacation once every couple years. Sweatshops are real and here now. Slavery is real and in the US now. Child labor is real and here now. And workers are killed every year because some company owner cuts corners to increase his profits. Unions have and do protect those workers and they should. Every Mainer should belong to a union.
Remember Republicans wanted to get rid of the legislative Labor Committee. Now a labor history mural. Next the Department of Labor will be the Department of Business if it isn't already. This Governor and more so his supporters hate Maine, Mainers, and the Constitution. Like Scott Walker they will use any means legal or not to destroy workers and the middle class. And they want to cut the wages for working children by 40%. LePage anti-family, anti-child, and anti-labor.
I campaigned for Goldwater until I read the literature of his supporters (on the table in campaign headquarters). I guess that's what you mean by fruit-loop whack-jobs. Ultranationalists, Birchers, anti-communists (Eisenhower was a stooge of the communists). So I took notice when Bill Buckley condemned the Birchers and drove them out of the conservative movement. Watched his TV show as often as possible. Since I'm a data analyst, I found language corruption for political purposes, lying with statistics, the corruption of facts, important in deciding what politicians were on my side. And as you describe them, the fruit-loop, whack-jobs on the right were the only ones consistently violating my minimum standard of integrity I expected of politicians. The 1968 "Southern Strategy" of recruiting southern white racists into the Republican party was the last straw. That the fruit-loop whack-jobs into control of the Republican Party. Like Newt Gingrich who recently said that he was "worried that America would turn into a secular atheist country dominated by radical islamists". Such a statement is irrational but consistent with the views of the wackos in 1964.
I have great respect for Goldwater and admiration for Buckley even though I must disagree with them on almost everything.
You guys are all the same when faced with a fact that proves your misinformed ideology is false you just say no. No alternative fact or construction. Just stamp your feet; get personal, go into an emotional tantrum, and offer nothing of substance. Oh! if Bill Buckley were still around.
If I remember correctly Republicans might have kept you there from 1969-1975.
The idea that the Democratic Party is even liberal approaches the insane. To carry that into the world of the bizarre writing that its party of the communist party is way more bizarre. Particularly since it sent you to fight communists. Subsidaries rarely fight wars with their owners.
Just read the Republican Platforms. Watch the news. Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Florida, Maine. Same agenda. Bottom line tax cuts for corporations and the very wealthiest Americans. Cuts to the programs that benefit the poor and middle class. Shifts from reliance on the income tax to the property and better yet the sales tax (which hit the middle class hardest). Maine today collects taxes from the botton 20% of wage earners at twice the rate it collects them from the top 20%. Exxon/Mobil, Bank of America pay no corporate income taxes among many major corporations. The list goes on and on. The Republicans gave the banks 3 trillion dollars to weather the economic collapse the banks caused. Now they are making all time record profits using our money.
facts would not help anyone who thinks the democratic party is a subsidary of the communist party.
No, but we got one. He's done nothing to improve Maine. No Jobs. Nothing except to get on Colbert. I hope his new TV show, "I can't answer reporters' questions", will be moved to its appropriate venue - the Comedy Channel.
Why is the Governor's removal of the labor history mural from the Department of Labor important. The Governor and his supporters claim that the mural is inconsistent with the role of the Department of Labor which is to mediate between labor and business. But that's not the DoL's legal role which is to protect labor and to enforce labor laws. If the DoL takes on a mediating role it can't enforce labor laws as enacted. Governor LePage would not be fulfilling his duty as Governor if he fails to enforce labor laws.
The Governor and his supporters say that Maine's business climate must be improved. Do they offer any evidence? No! Often they use the Tax Foundation's report on Business tax Index which was just released for 2011. Maine ranks 31st. Hardly does it have a bad rating. But I simply don't believe anything the Tax Foundation puts out. Alaska was rated 2nd. The Chamber of Commerce there objected. The Tax Foundation report ignores many costs of business - labor costs, property values, workmen's compensation, and health care costs among others. Factor some of those in and Alaska falls to dead last according to the Chamber. Maine's labor costs and property values are well below the Boston and National markets.
We need no improvement in business climate. Calls for improvement are camofluage for the Governor's drive to empoverish the middle class and transfer its wealth what little there is to his republican corporate elite.
"Clearly, Maine must increase its working-age population. We can only do that through education, enterprise and changing our business climate."
We have many choices other than these. If by changing our business climate means surrendering without a fight to neo-fascist in our state. The Govenor has made a laughingstock nationally of himself for taking a Labor history mural out of the Labor Department. His supporters have shown their real feeling toward workers in Maine by saying that the Department of Labor should abandon its legal role of protecting labor for "attracting business".
Nothing is wrong with Maine's business climate or its enterprise.
Bishop Malone has, himself, directly injured many Mainers by his leadership of the hate gays movement that lead to the repeal of same-sex marriage in Maine. We should view him in the same light as Bull Connors or any other violent haters of the past.
Catholics should boycott his mass.
The purpose of the Department of Labor is not to "attract business". A quick visit to the DOL website (assuming LePage hasn't censored this too)says that its purpose is to defend labor. The mural of Maine's labor history is not just appropriate its the most appropriate piece of art the citizens of the state should expect to see there. But apparently the neo-fascists of the Republican Party want to abandon a representative democracy (as their platform implied) for authoritarianism.
Why is it that when business supports reply to anyone making a factual statement that they don't like all they do is whine and whine and whine. And then change the subject.
1. There is no retirement fund issue because democrats fixed McKernan's raid on the fund some years back. The rating agencies say there is no problem. The numbers say there is no problem. But LePage must create a phony crisis to justify implementing his daconian anti-labor, anti-family, anti-child, pro-business destruction of Maine as we know it.
2. Inspite of the Bush recession of 2007 and the dumping of cheap chinese products in Maine (and nationally due to the Republicans changes in laws to enable that to happen), the Democrats have since 1972 re-built Maine's business environment. All Democrats ask is that business activities don't harm the state or its citizens. Those business that don't do well those that due well good riddens.
3. State workers receive 5% less in wages and benefits than there counterparts in the private sector.
4. As for at least he's doing something, anything. Mussolini made the trains run on time.
The mural disaster characterizes LePage correctly as a hater of Maine workers unionized or not. Focuses attention on his neo-fascist supporters and their extreme anti-labor views. Sets the stage for the real fight over LePage's right-to-slave bills.
Plus how often is the Governor of Maine a national laughingstock.
"Harold Alfond, Hugh Chisholm, L.L. Bean, Benjamin E. Bates, Chester Greenwood and the Stanley Brothers." How did these folks avoid jail or did they. They became rich by despoiling Maine, by socializing their costs, by exploiting their workers, and using national and racial hatreds to divide their workers. I don't think waterproof shoes were worth it.
Good comment.
Workers in America have not had a raise since 1981. Many in 2008 saw their wages or benefits cut. Since 1981 their real earnings have fallen by 25% or more (except for wall street). Why, because business has changed the laws and regulations in this Country to allow them to increase the pool of labor by bringing in illegal immigrants (Ronald Reagan's 1986 Immigrantion Amnesty Law which opened the flood gates), outsourcing, creation of various visa classes like H1-B, by changing child labor laws, and by breaking unions etc. Business' goal is to reduce us (one of their costs) to the lowest level they can. To see children strarving in the streets might be a sign that they have reached their goal. There is no partnership.
These are the purposes of the Maine Department of Labor are expected to fulfill:
•Assisting individuals, families and communities when jobs are lost;
•Helping people prepare for and find jobs;
•Protecting workers on the job; and
•Researching and analyzing employment data to support job growth.
Being pro-business is not among them. This editorial is intended to mislead the public that the Mdol's mission has somehow changed because of an election which brought us a Governor who hates workers and has contempt for the people of Maine. Removing the mural and changing the names of the conference rooms may make LePage and his friends feel confortable as they proprose the return to child labor, but working people know what's going on. Children have to work because LePage and his friends don't pay a living wage.
Not a single attempt to make an argument. Just ascertion after ascertion. No facts. There have been many investigations of the participants and the causes of the financial collapse. You just have to get on the internet, watch TV, read a newspaper, look at Bloomberg anything to find that you comments are groundless talking points. A false story with a minor grain of truth to mislead the mindless.
But you have convinced me. The right isn't interested in facts, overwhelming evidence, rational thought. Its all about, ME, ME, ME. The world be damned just as long as I get my way. Pathetic.
By the way racism is about power. Its a political strategy to divide people by racial antagonism so that whites can retain power at least in this country. So non-whites can't be racist here.
You can state that sun spots was the start of the problem; but it doesn't make it so. Let's just ask for at least one fact in support of this Republican talking point which meets all the Republican criterion for a good conspiracy theory - shift the blame to non-whites especially if you can call them racists (an oxymoron), shift the blame to poor people (they are dump. lazy, irresponsible, and free our donors of blame (the bankers and mortgage originators), and even better its plausible to your supporters with out offerring any facts). How did the government "force" the banks? The easy money policy was Greenspans at the FED not Jimmy Carters? Bubbles develop in short periods of time (less than a decade). Had the housing bubble stated with Jimmy Carter it would have ended with Ron Reagan; it didn't because it didn't start with Jim Carter. If poor people who couldn't possibly pay were the cause, then there should be all kinds of evidence that show for example that 60% of the bad mortgages were taken out by people with less than $50000 in income or some such data. No such evidence exists. The bubble began in 2001 when Countrywide packaged the first group of real mortgages to qualified buyers into securities and then sold the securities. The fees they made selling and packaging the mortgages far exceeded what they could make by holding on to the mortgage until it was paid off. The more securities they created the more money they could make and the more money became available. They couldn't make money selling mortgages overseas one at a time, but they made billions selling securities based on thousands of mortgages over seas. But you can't sell securities without the underlying mortgage. So the banks dropped their standards. They didn't care if the buyer paid off the mortgage. The banks made their money on the security. They soon were recruiting buyers. They went to skid row with buses picked up wineos had them sign for houses they never knew existed and in some cases didn't. (This by the way is an old welfare fraud technique copied from medicare providers fraud). Don't you remember the "flipping" in California and Nevada. Flipping became an art. Flipping was all over the news for years. A middle class family bought a house with an ARM for almost nothing down. They kept it for 6 months and then sold it for a huge profit. So they bought two houses flipped them for a huge profit so on and so on. How could they? The overseas buyers pumped tillions into the housing market facilitated by the banks. Same scenerio for most financial bubbles since the Tulip bubble centuries ago. Had nothing to do with the CRA.
Maine median income from 1972 to 2007 (prior to the recession) has grown faster than the national average. Heard about statistics lie. That statement is absolutely correct. But median incomes national have been flat since 1981 so its not hard to beat the national average.
I made the statement above in the way I did because I don't know the specifics. I know that the Maine legislature budget and appropriated additional money based on a law they passed to fully fund the pension fund by 2028. Had we done nothing except follow the law which the democrats did up until now the fund would have been fully funded. Moody and other rating agency reviewed the law at the time and gave Maine a high debt rating because they said it solved the problem. You can get on stateline.org. They have had repeated stores over the last few months about states that have failed to fully fund often even responsibly fund their pension funds. Maine has not been covered in any of these stores. Some states like Illinois have terrible funding deficits and others like Wisconsin are considered overfunded. Lastly, these figures by everyone are estimates. They can be very wrong based on many factors like average life span changing. Maine has no problem with pension funding that needs be addressed now.
Democrats had fixed the problem by increasing appropriations to the pension fund above what was required without taking the milk out of poor babies mouths, denying them an education, or giving their parents money to 550 of Maine's richest families. The Republican formula is simple. We've seen it play out across the country in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida. Create a false financial crisis so that you can justify taking from the poor and giving to the rich. We know why they do it. Republicans believe that successful people are morally superior than poor people. They believe if you invest in the rich, the rich will become richer and we poor folks will benefit from the scraps off their table. They believe to invest in poor people is to waste your money because the poor and middle class are lazy, stupid, undisciplined, unfocused, nothings. Every teacher, policeman, firefighter, welder, programmer, middle class or poor person in Maine will soon learn that the Republicans despise you and your family and everything about you.
Apparently they aren't going to drop this tactic. And I know that facts don't penetrate their non-existent logic. But I'll waste my time. Bush is, as he should be, blamed for his 2007 recession because his policies and actions directly caused the recession. The primary cause of the recession was the illegal acts (starting with fraud, then running into violations of state mortgage laws and then bribery and then there creation of securities whose true value was impossible to measure) of the housing market originators of mortgages. The SEC under Bush's control never took action. The banking regulators never took action. The republican congress never took action. The related Madoff scandal is a perfect example of how the Bush administration regulators simply ignored an obvious and growing crisis. The SEC was warned multiple times by credible sources over almost a decade and even given the methodlogy of how to discover the fraud yet they never even bothered to open an investigation.
That's not to say Bush is solely to be blamed. Alan Greenspan deserves a lion's share. This Randian economic sychophant prefented every attempt at reasonable regulation which would have uncovered the financial housing bubble. He easy money policies fanned the flames. When the roof caved in, he lamely explained to Congress that the crisis contradicted everything Ayn Rand (she who is wrong about everything) had told him about markets.
Much blame also rests with the Congressional deregulators - Phil Gramm, and to a much lessor extent the Democrats who were drawn into the game.
And then the criminal organizations that we call mortgage originators like Countrywide deserve their fair share.
But Obama who was not even elected President should be blamed only for not doing enough to fix the problem he inherited and not for persuing the criminals that stole the money. Obama and the Democrats had almost nothing to do with the housing bubble collapse. Its like blaming the police for a bank robbery because they didn't do enough to stop it while they were in high school. By the way Fannie May and Freddie Mac's near collapses were the result of the recession and collapse of the housing market not the cause.
Obama will earn enough of his own blame not to be saddled with the previous president's. I won't mention the prior President's 5 trillion dollar deficits or the failure of his policies to create a single job in America in his eight years in office. Oh quess I just did.
I'll agree that if you take the "general welfare" clause out of context that must seem to be shallow logic. The "general welfare" clause is not a power delegated to Congress; its the second purpose for establishing Congress. Oppose that purpose and you oppose the Constitution (just like if you oppose national defense and its delegated powers, you oppose the Constitution). The Constitution then details some of the Federal Government's powers delegated to accomplish that goal - coin money and regulate the value of money, punishments for counterfeiting securities and coin, establish post offices and post roads, promote the progress of science (establish patents and copyrights), to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying out those powers, no tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state, no preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one state, ".. or law impairing the obligations of Contracts", uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies, etc. To name just a few. Making it very clear the Edmund Randolph's statement that the Constitution empowered the Federal Government to manage the national economy was accurate and making clear that national rules and regulations by which private insurance will function within the national economy is fully Constitutional.
I'm not interpreting Jefferson's ideas at all. His opinoins are well known and long established. He did not participate in the Constitutional process except through letters which often took 12 weeks to make it from America to France and back again (in other words almost no role). He wrote of his opposition to the Constitution and agreed with Gerry, Mason, Patrick Henry, and others that without a "Bill of Rights" it should not be adopted. He wrote the Kentucky Resolves that invented the idea of state nullification of Federal Law (in violation of the suprmacy clause) that was used by S. Caroline in 1832 to justify nullification of the Federal tariff and in 1860 to justify secession. Those are not my opinoin but that of documented history.
Unlike you, my purpose because of Gordon Woods acknowledgement that words mean different things today than they meant in 1787 (establishment meant a tavern in 1759 and had no connotation of "to establish"; gentleman was a feudal rank not a definition of character) to remove the cultural influences of the last 230 years (anti-communism, progressivism, rise of capitalism, civil war, and the Second Great awakening) to get as close to an understanding of how they thought then. Haven't always succeeded. But I have been able to understand an enlightenment male dominated pre-capitalist secular society I think pretty well. But the general understanding of the Constitution has been corrupted by post-capitalist propaganda rejecting Madison's famous defense of large republics and glamorizing state power (doesn't exist) because states are more easily corrupted by concentrations of economic power ("interests" in Federalist papers terms) than the larger Federal Government.
I see reality very well.
"Many Mainers are even opposed to placing slow-spinning wind towers on remote mountain peaks, imagining all sorts of ailments that will result." Holman mountain in Dixfield is not remote. Its just a little over a mile from my front-door and closer to many other residences. No risk/benefit analysis based on independent data has ever been produced to my knowledge. The real not imaged dangers have been well presented to Dixfield's citizens. Wind power on Maine mountains appears to be a boondoogle rewarding the promoters with unearned Federal and State subsidies.
If Nuclear is done right i.e. with federal independent inspectors making certain that developers don't take short cuts like they did with the Mark I reactors in Japan while risky and dangerous may offer the least risks and true costs.
"Natural gas plants will be far cheaper to build, easier to site and produce less expensive electricity far into the future." Mining natural gas is now associated with eathquakes and water pollution among other problems that make its true cost much higher than reported.
Mining coal is dirty, dangerous, and the social costs far outweigh any of the other sources of artificial energy.
Nuclear may be the least cost and safest alternative. I'll await new data.
Apparently you didn't read my comment. I said at the very beginning that it was a fantasy, a mirage. That I stepping out of character to be consistent with the other comments in the article.
Why don't you say what you really mean - You oppose the general welfare clause and because of it most of the Constitution.
I don't know what you mean by "Those bases". But reading the Constitution as I do and as George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and John Marshall did succeeded very well. Our whole system of government is based on that reading. Thomas Jefferson's opinoin since he opposed the Constitution, proposed nullification in 1798 confirming his opposition, and to his death offerred up ideas inconsistent with the Constitution is hardly a credible source for supporting comment on it. Second, the general welfare clause does not give Congress the power to do whatever is good for the people of the United States. But it does give Congress the authority to establish and regulate economic markets.
Thanks for confirming my statement above that conservatives accuse all their opponents of relativism ("your interpretation of the Constitution") when it is they who make up everything as they go along i.e. everything a conservative says or writes is an "instant tradition". While everyones personality colors their conclusions to one degree or another in conservative's case their personality is the conclusion.
I'll try the one Constitutional issue I'm sure you'll hate. to see if you can come up with a comment with some merit. Article I Section 8 Preamble "Provide ....... for the general welfare". Here general welfare means the national economy (Edmund Randolph said during the Virginia ratifying convention that the Federal Government had been given the power to "manage the national economy" referring to the preamble). That's not my opinoin that's a fact. It is confirmed by the listed powers in Article I Section 8 including but not limited to "to coin money, regulate the value thereof..." Chief Justice John Marshall stated in a decision from the Supreme Court that the constitution is not a persciption for how to run the government but a structure of the government and he decided that because the Congress had omitted the word "expressly" in the 10th amendment then the Federal Government had broad authority in "how" to accomplish its goals as stated in the Constitution. Not my opinoin, Justice Marshall's. I'm a strict construction Constitutionalist. I don't let my views distort the real constitution.
As usual no specifics. As I said my ideology is derived from facts not the other way around (specifically my political ideology is based solely on the US Constitution, its amendments, traditions, and Supreme Court decisions). And I never make a appeal to faith. Unless you are proposing the failed Christian retreat into "everything is based on faith, there are no facts, there is no science, everything except what I believe is relativism i.e. not true." In the above I referred to 3 studies or statements, all published, all readily available on the web & or TV two of which have been quickly debunked by better people than I and one that has stood the test of critical analysis. There is no faith or ideology in that.
What that means is its all made up. No truth to it. Its a fantasy or a mirage driven more by nativism or racism than experience.
Well I have an anedote too. LePage has announced a new program to increase the deer herd. Since he wants to remove 3 million acres from LURC's control so that unregulated development - you know strip malls, hotels, lodges, resorts - can make Maine's woodlands more valuable for the current owners, deer can't get rooms in those new hotels. So he's going to increase the herd by turning the Grey Animal farm into a deer breeding farm and then just release the deer into Grey. Second he's going to reduce predators. He'll outsource the job to Mexican hunters for a dollar a kill. First they will be able to get rid of the coyotes by hunting them from the air preferably with Mexican army helicopters and gattling guns. Then they will turn their new expertice on Maine's primary deer predator - democrats. LePage can see all kinds of advantages to that.
I don't make unsubstiated claims. I don't falsify data. I don't live by self-interest alone. I'm a data analyst and have been for 40 years. I know what data is real and what's false and how to analyze data so that it reflects the true situation not what my ideology dictates. And if data contradicts my ideology; I change the ideology.
Well most of my information came from Tommie's letter. The one that didn't came from the Milwakee Journal during the recent Republican efferts to destroy public service unions. Experience and qualifications are always cited in real salary surveys. The one I watch every year is the national Computerworld salary survey of IT jobs. What I didn't mention and should have is that they also normalize for location. Boston salaries are not the same as Maine salaries.
Since Republicans have no contact with reality, believe in magic, and ghosts and gobblins, I was surprised that someone would have remembered the hippies. But no never was and never will be a hippy. They also believed in magic so most became Republicans.
Ignoring the personal comments from the Republican thugs on this blog. No one needs to be surprised that not one sustantive comment was made. Neither defending tommie and his juvenile attempts at propaganda nor attacking my justified observation that whatever comes out of a Republican mouth is misleading.
"...Maine's public employees averaged salary and benefits of $49,850, which is $4,912 more than the equivalent private employees' average. How can Maine remedy that inequity?" Rarely does Tommie get close to the truth. So this time we should allow that instead of intentionally misleading us maybe Tommie has been mislead by USAToday (na!). American Crossroads, Karl Rove's Billionaire propaganda machine, is running ads now that state the difference is 42%. Tommie's some what dated figures are about 11%. Valid studies that account for education, experiece, and qualifications show public union employees receive about 5% less than comparable private sector employees. So where is the inequality? Is tommie making this all up to justify LePage's and the Republicans anti-Mainer, anti-women, and anti-family agenda? LePage wants a right-to-work law to prohibit unions from contributing to elections while the Republican supreme court has said that corporations can contribute any amount of money to those same campaigns. They say that unions shouldn't be able to contribute because they helped elect the people they are negiotiating with. Well then to be fair no corporation should be able to contribute because they donate to the people they sit across the table from during contract negiotiations of all types.
But mainly, tommie wants fewer regulations (why does anyone object to chemical and plastics companies poisoning babies with BPA), lower business taxes (they pay almost nothing now about 2% of total income taxes), while destroying the environment( salt in our freshwater rivers and ponds, opening 3 million wilderness acres to unregulated development, destroying Maine's wildlife, while shifting the tax burden to the poorest of Mainers. What a deal.
MHPC is a part of a nationwide chain of organizations coordinated by the Heritage Foundation in Washington D. C. funded by billionaires for billionaires like the Kochs. The organization has one purpose to deceive the American people into supporting the interests of the billionaires which few in Maine are.
Let's look at the average union teacher pay and benefits v the private sector. Does anyone do a comparative salary survey as the MHPC did. No. Look at what they did in Wisconsin. They reported that public service union employees made more than $13,000 more than the average Wisconsinian. True but the average Wisconsinisn is not qualified for the jobs in the unions so its an apples and orange comparison. If you compare apples to apples that is controlling for education, experience, responsibilities, and qualifications public service employees make 4.8% less than comparable private sector jobs with about equal benefits. The same is true in Maine. (Wisconsin by the way has no retirement fund problems. They have not borrowed from the fund and have appropriated 20% more each year that the actuarial requirements.) That public employees are better paid and have better benefits is a Corporate lie.
Then they provide a plausible but meaningless explanation why public employees are paid more. They help elect the people they negiotiate with. But corporations that sign contracts with government also contribute to the people they negiotiate with. If that needed to be stopped, you'd have a hell of a time separating the corporations from government. Its also means that all government contracts with corporations are in fact welfare and corrupt.
Commercial Wind generators within 2 miles of occupied residences are never justified.
That means that commercial wind generators may be good in some locations, may generate clean electricity, may help us reduce our dependence of ExxonMobil, may stimulate the local economy.
The commercial wind turbine scretching 600 feet over the tops of Maine's ridges is a certainty not a "may be". A certainty which we must hear and feel every second of every day, which will disrupt and end the lives of wildlife, which will drive visitors and businesses away, and which will deprives Mainers of the quality of life and the "brand" which brought us or kept us here.
The Westboro Church tests the limits of everyone's tolerance with its anti-gay mania and its disrespect for our Nation and traditions. As an absolute supporter of the broadest possible interpretation of the 1st Amendment I agree with Roger that they owe "honor and respect" to those who make the ultimate sacrifice in serving their country. I see no harm that would have been done to the 1st Amendment by giving some protection to funerals or other religious events. Would we have been harmed by providing a 1000 foot protected zone around these events. Th Westboro crazies could still have said everything they wanted to say. Would we have thought it protected speech to have the Westboro folks walk into a Catholic Church during services and harangue the parisoners about the evils of pedophile priests?
Its not what they discuss, it's what they do that hurts us???????? They do what they have discussed. Don't you want to know that LePage's 64 regulation repeal proposals came from the Heritage Foundation in Maine which got them from the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC which got them from David and Charles Koch. Don't you want to know that we will be allowing corporations to put poisons into babies bottles so that they can make 10 cents a bottle more in profit.
Sorta agree, but you lost it Dan when you wrote "...republican party is morphing into the communit party..." No its not. The Republican Party was and is American's fascist or corporate party in that it promotes nationalism, racism, and corporate control of the people. Communist Parties oppose nationalism, racism, and corporate control of the people so they are the exact opposite. You mean that the republican party is become an authoritarian, dictatorial, and oppressive anti-democratic party which rejects every fiber of American law and tradition. Then you'd be right.
Look to Michigan. They are currently in the process of passing a law which will allow the Governor by executive fiat to replace an elected municipal government with a corporation (like Dow, GE, or GM) giving it unlimited powers to change the laws or dissolve the municipality altogether. Corporate dictatorship. Look to Wisconsin. They jsut illegal passed legislation which will allow the Governor to dictate working conditions for public employees under the pretense of a fiscal crisis when the crisis was created by the Governor..
Plowman introduced this bill so that restaurants can cut costs by replacing adult workers with children who they can pay less and intimidate more. Now we have listened to Governor Walker of Wisconsin lie in the same way telling us that his union-busting proposals were necessary to end his budget crisis. Last night, he gave up the pretense and illegally rammed the legislation through the Senate on the pretense that it had no fiscal effects. So the issue is not if the Governor lied but when he was lying 3 weeks ago or now. Plowman is lying in the same way. This proposal has nothing to do with college students raising money for college.
So finding their supporters telling similiar lies is not a surprise. " Government can not create jobs .." an obvious lie. Government does create jobs. How about Governor for one. "stay out of the way of FREE ENTERPRISE and control the regulations to that which is reasonable(ie,safety,pollution control and etc....).." The whole point is what's reasonable? 50 years ago pollution wasn't on the list. Government's minimum job responsiblity is to create markets that function well (set prices based on supply and demand for example). Free enterprise does not exist without government establishing the markets. Its business' responsibility to conform their activities to the rules government creates. Instead they lobby to empoverish working people, deny their children an education, and to make society bare the burden of their irresponsibility.
No it doesn't. Federal Funds allow PP to provide contraceptive and other reproductive health care so that abortions are avoided. Moral - absolutely. Legal - completely. Ethical - of course.
Abortion is not legalized murder any more than removing a tumor is (that's taking life. Those cell are alive and outside the body they die).
Daniel says its a contradiction to say that some women get abortions and that Pense is lying about Planned Parenthood "use of federal funds for abortions". Where's the contradiction. Some women do get abortions and Mike Pense is lying about Planned Parenthood using Federal Funds for abortions. Its a violation of federal law to use federal funds for abortions. All Pense has to do is provide when and where Planned Parenthood has diverted federal funds to finance its abortion services. Should be simple if he knows that they have done it. But like the chemical and nuclear weapons that the Bush administration knew Iraq had down to the gram that proved not to exist (We knew they had them but not where they were.), Pense is making it up has he goes along.
As to the alleged tapes of PP staffers telling girls how to lie about their ages, the tapes are just the latest example of "manufactured" tapes that appear to make the subject say one thing when they said the exact opposite (Sherrod and ACORN tapes).
Planned Parenthood does not use federal funds to finance abortions. PP is essential for the reproductive health of this nation.
The LePage/Republican proposals are not only an assault on the environment; they are an assault on Mainers. They want to model Maine rivers on the Hoston Ship Channel who's banks are dotted with refineries and other industrial plants and who's residents are victims of the pollutants they plants emit.
But to repeal legislation that prevents babies from being poisoned for the profits of chemical companies, well that's typical republican but beyond the pale for people of morality.
Health insurance companies are monopolies. Searching among monopoly plans does not create competition. Only by repealing the insurance companies monopoly will you get competition and as we saw last year no one Republican and a small minority of Democrats (from insurance states) wants that.
I don't know anyone who has not been misdiagnosed, mistreated, or been the victim of fraud in the American Health Care system. My mother was almost killed over christmas by a hospital which without any apparent reason decided that the medications which had kept her alive for years just weren't right.
"The idea of limiting salaries and overtaxing high income earners is very much socialism." Mr. Boothby obviously doesn't know what socialism is or apparently he think red is blue. But I've given up trying to explain to the various dimwits who through "socialism" around like they know what it means. No more attempts at education. I'll just reply in kind.
Only fascists can believe this sentence - "The real “economic injustice” is how many state employees make more than $70,000 per year and will be paid pensions after they stop going to work - is true. A true comparison of state workers pay and benefits to the private sector taking education, experience, organizational size, and responsibilities into account show that public service workers make less than equivalent private sector jobs and receive slightly higher benefits (a trade-off for lower salaries most benefits involve a range of benefits. Sometimes the trade-off benefits the worker sometimes the administration). Why should the market decide for hospital executives but popular vote decide for teachers, firemen, police, and other government workers.
Since the market decides based on monopoly market power and irrational whim it seems a poor choice. No such thing as a free market exists or has ever existed and no one hates free markets more than the capitalist elite. The free market is another oversimplification used to misleading those incapable of critical thought.
LePage's plan to repeal Kid-Safe Law, i.e. poison infants, and his ignorant comments about "little beards" on women only continue to prove that he is unqualified to be governor and even the Republican Party knows this. His proposal to open 3 million acres of wildreness land to rapid unregulated development must make outdoor recreationists happy. His plan to cut wages by about 25% by prohibiting our Constitutional rights to organize into unions must make workers happy. His budget plans to cut jobs throughout the state must make teachers and first-responders happy. LePage must aspire to be a standup comic.
Republicans say they want to create jobs. But they don't. Their cuts to the federal budget will cost 700,000 jobs. Instead they want to cut medical care for women under the false pretense of funding for abortion. When will republicans start telling the truth?
First, the Tax Foundation is a right-wing group who like the Heritage Foundation produces reports that are misleading to false. They once rated Maine the 2nd highest tax burden in the Country (when tax burden was a campaign issue) then adjusted it to 15th after the campaign even though reliable sources had placed it closer to 22nd. So much for their objectivity.
Mr. Fochtmann is essentially right. But its not politicians - Its Republican politicians. We can date the assault on the middle class to 1981 when Ronald Reagan began breaking unions and since then the middle class standard of living has been cut by 25% while the rich has seen theirs more than double (in real dollars).
Republicans designed and passed the bank bailouts. The Financial services bailouts, the mortagage bailouts. Not one major figure in the fraud that was the basis of the recent Republican recession has been indicted much less jailed for their criminal activities.
The Obama administration and the auto unions only had time to modify the GM bailout and as a result it has been one of the most succeessful government interventions in history. Producing a robust and competitive GM and profits for the taxpayer. The Finacial bailouts were 3 trillion dollars wasted to the taxpayer.
But let's also acknowledge that economically we are in this together, rich and poor. Had the financial service industry collapsed as it would have without the bailouts up to 1/2 of american workers would today be on the streets looking for handouts for their starving children. The bailouts were necessary, but intentionally incompetently done.
Regulating behavior that causes social harm is obviously the only legitimate justification for any law. Punching somebody in the nose is illegal because of the costs the victim incurs, the costs society incurs, and because of the injury done to the community's peace and safety i.e. the total being the social harm. Not wearing a seatbeat clearly causes social harm. Its wrong and the government has the right to prevent it.
But you have made a good point in stating that people who favor a women's right to full reproductive medical care also oppose the death penalty. Why. Because they understand the limits of governmental power. They know that mistakes are made - depending on the study you look at between 25 and 50% of people found guilty in capital cases are proved later to be innocent. They know that every human being has an absolute right to protect their life. No fetus has that right, any more than a tumor does, until it reaches a developmental stage where it is viable outside the womb with non-heroic medical care.
Republicans are now engaged in a war against women. They want to make it illegal for a women to buy health insurances that covers abortion even when she pays for it with her own money. They want to tax businesses if their group insurance covers abortion. They want to jail doctors who perform abortions. In South Dakota they are debating a bill that would allow a "justifiable homocide" defense for murdering a doctor who performs abortions. They want to re-define rape to require heinous violence so that most real rapes will not fall under the rape exception.
Consideration for the fetus is simply male supremacy. Men want to control women's bodies. Shouldn't be allowed.
Voter fraud in Maine is never proved because it so rarely happens. It simply isn't a problem. So why are Republicans pushing these three bills. Well we know because we've seen what they do elsewhere. The Felony list used for example in the 2000 election in Florida is perfect example. A former Dixfield resident in that year went to vote and was barred solely because his name was on the list of felons. After the election the list which was provided by a private firm was found to have 40% more names than it should have - people were not taken off in a timely manner, reports from state agencies were in error, etc, etc. But more than that their use implies that each of are names are unique when we know that not true. So if John Smith was convicted of a felony, all John Smith's were prevented from voting.
I don't know how voting clerks will use the two ID system. But I'll bet on election day Republican clerks will reject a lot of democratic ID's.
All three bills should be defeated, but I doubt they will be with Republicans controlling the state for the next 2 years and our wacky governor.
I don't agree in principle with salary caps. Salaries should be set by the market. But often they aren't in the case of CEO's. Captive boards often rubberstamp excessive salaries for CEO's because the CEO's can grant them many bnenefits. Hospitals and Schools often have great political power because they are major employers. The controls are not working. So while the bill is bad, it points to a serious problem that needs addressing.
The deficit is a long-term problem created by the Republicans (12 of 14 trillion dollar deficit was created by Republican Presidents. G. W. Bush for example - $2.1 trillion in tax cuts for the wealth 2001 & 2003 through last year, $800 Medicare Part-D, two wars somewhere near $1 trillion 2003-2009, and a lot of little things.) And you call the President's second budget proposal "timid" because it only cuts $1 trillion from the mess he inherited. Remember this is the first step in a long process and the president will be offerring more.
Repeating Republican talking points (the proposal is timid or the President showed a lack of leadership for not proposing Social Security cuts) doesn't contribute to the process. First Social Security hasn't contributed to the deficit; its running a surplus and will for another 2 decades or more. Second, you fix a problem by addressing its causes - the Bush tax cuts, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the failure to fund Medicare Part-D. The Federal Government discretionary spending is lower now than at any time since the second world war. That's not the problem either. Restore the Clinton Tax rates in 2013 as the Obama budget does. End the wars which Obama is trying responsibly to do. And fully fund Medicare Part-D. Cut the waste and abuse in the defense budget, NASA, and the farm bill.
Again we have the brutal perversion of language to justify hatred. As mentioned in other comments you aren't a criminal until after conviction in a criminal court of law. Undocumented never appear in any court of law. There are no criminal penalities for being undocumented. Instead you appear in an administrative court before an administrative judge and if found that you have no proof that you are legally resident you can at most be deported to your home country.
The argument that states are being driven to bankruptcy by undocumented immigrants is laughably false. The Heritage Mis-informantion Policy Center some years ago reported the Costs of illegal immigrantion. Most of the data has been debunked, but that's not even necessary. The report itself says that it did not in its study include any of the benefits of illegal immigration. Undocumented workers pay taxes (that's why they get arrested for and are deported not for immigrations violations but for identify theft - they used a false social security number). They pay social security and other payroll taxes that they are never going to see the benefits of. Business make unjustified profits from using undocumented immigrants to force wages down. The best example being Hormel and its strike in 1986. The strikers there were replaced by undocumented workers 70% of whom were arrested a few years ago in an ICE raid. The undocumented workers came to Hormel via the Reagan immigration law of 1986 which among other things opened our souther border to waves of undocumented immigration because of the amnesty provisions. Wages fell from $19.75 before the strike to 9.75 after the strike adding millions to Hormel profits.
Now the border must be controlled. Undocumented immigration needs to be stopped. But lets end the inflammatory language or the wild proposals that we "seal the border" or the hate speech directed toward all immigrants that lead to the trial going on right now in Arizona where a militia leader and her co-conspirators are on trial for slaughtering a immigrant family.
"We once lived in a country that could build dams, canals and highways, things that contributed to our national wealth." We still do. Your view expresses the unbridled pessimism and defeatism of Republican propaganda.
Your analogy to a homeowner is oversimplified, ignorant, and just plain stupid because you admit these infrastructure projects add to the national wealth and therefore to the national treasury.
It was not OUR choice as a nation to cut taxes for the wealthy, conduct two wars, and give drug coverage to senior citizens without paying for them. It was not OUR choice as a nation to allow financial institutions to commit fraud on a trillion dollar scale throwing the economy into depression at the cost of $27 trillion in asset value. It was the choice of the Republican Party and its leader George W Bush as you well know.
That's why you threw in the coverage of 30 million uninsured Americans in the Affordable Care Act which reduces the federal deficit and is fully paid for unlike the other issues you mentioned. You were trying desperately to say it was the democrats too. Well it wasn't. While a few rogue democrats aided the Republicans in their assault on the US treasury, they violated democratic party policies and principles.
We do have to end the Republican gluttony. By repealing, reversing, ending their looting of the national treasury and redistribution of wealth to the rich.
While LePage is talking about poisoning children to grow Maine jobs, Peterson is taking a known resource and looking for how it can be expanded to grow Maine jobs. He makes great sense.
Environmentalism is not a religion. No supreme being. No explanation of life; after-life; no system of morality.
Cap and Trade is barely a proposal. No legislation is based on it. No law exists enforcing it. This comment is the same insane extremism one can find any time on Beck's shows.
LePage wants to turn Maine into New Jersey. He doesn't want but he also doesn't care if working class children die in order to sell more flexible baby bottles.
"I am so sick of paying state taxes to people who can work." Well that's either ignorance or just plain meanness. It isn't sound policy. People who can work are working. Most people on TANF the normally recognized "welfare" are mainly 2 year old children and their mothers. Their mothers do work. Its called child care.
"LePage and other state officials should look in on people who are on SSI and Section 8." SSI is a federal program paid out of Social Security taxes. Has nothing to do with state taxes or policies. Section 8 recipients are mainly senior citizens and the disabled or both.
"I see young people using food stamp cards.." Food Stamp eligibility is based on household size and income (with provisions for assets in some cases). Those young people may be getting food stamps and working. Not long ago the families of US soldiers overseas frequently were eligibile for food stamps. I believe those soldiers were working.
This author is drawing many conclusions all he lacks are the facts.
There is always someone commenting on welfare that can identify someone reeiving welfare from 500 feet. I go to Hannaford too. I've never noticed anyone on welfare. And if I did they would be buying the same junk everyone else is buying.
Sorry guy's the editorial is misdirected.
First, the shooter is crazy.
Second, attacking Palin in this case was wrong.
Third, its not the statements of any one particular individual. Its the climate of discourse that does influence some unstable people to move from delusions to violence. The right has been calling for the murder of doctors who perform legal abortions for decades. The right has said that the Constitution is be betrayed (its not). The right has corrupted words and their meanings to heep fear and hatred of people who disagree with them. So prevalent are the words of hate and violence that how is it possible to find one statement that moved an otherwise delusional person to violence. The whole body of hate would affect them.
We see these kinds of piece coming along very frequently now. Take a subject any subject make an analogy to something barely related and then conclude that nothing can be done because its always been this way.
Sorry, Alan. The violence between cultures and the violence within a culture have very differnet causes, effects, and processes. tHEY ARE NOT RELATED.
I see a huge difference.
The National Prayer Day is clearly unconstitutional. No American President should participate in it nor should they provide any support or promotion of it. But the above comment is really nothing more than anti-muslim bigotry. Obama has participated in dozens of Christian events and worship services. That he also attends Islamic events proves nothing other than he is wrongly trying to promote all religions as opposed to what he should be doing - ignoring them all.
Attending events to commemorate the assainsination of Martin Luther King Jr. on the other hand is to pay tribute to the struggles of a significant portion of the US population who have been denied their fundamental civil rights for hundreds of years. Ignoring these events is to thumb you nose at them. LePage has no right to set pre-conditions (discussing issues that affect all Mainers) to meet with any Mainers. His condition is simply a statement that LePage won't discuss issues specific to African-Americans of Maine. LePage needs to explain why that isn't a racist attitude.
Do counties have the staff and resources to evaluate large development projects in wilderness Maine? Do they have rules and procedures for how to conduct these evaluations?? How would counties co-ordinate a project covering more than one county?
this is a pretty dumb proposal unless of course the counties are expected to rubberstamp corporate exploitation of rural Maine. These projects could dilute or destroy Maine's unique character for the benefit of a few out-of-state corporate behemoths.
Bad idea.
But that doesn't mean we need to invent conspiracy theories to justify opposition to on-shore wind power farms.
Alan Woods asserts that NRCM can take donations fromwind power supports. That's true but it adds nothing to the issue and does not make his case that the NRCM is biased. That they can means nothing. You have to show that they have taken donations and how much. The NRCM has a very reasonable basis for supporting wind power - reduction in the use and transportation of fozzil fuels. They are just wrong on this issue. No conspiracy and no conflict of interests.
John Patrick has the issue right. I fully support his reasoning.
Obama did not bail out the banks. This is a bald face lie. The TARP program was adopted and implemented by the Bush administration with most of the money doled out in 2008 before Obama was even elected much less in office.
The published income tax rates for the rich are higher than those for lower income groups, but that doesn't mean the rich pay those rates. Fact is as the UBS scandal documented the rich pay very little in income taxes and well below the published rates. Many corporations as an example pay no income taxes at all.
Well, Tommie Shield's nose grows longer by the day. Since 1973, Democratic Presidents have limited federal spending and limited the growth of the Federal Debt to 4.2%. Republicans Presidents have increased Federal spending (over 12%) and the Federal Debt by 36.4%. In fact, Republican Presidents own more than 12 trillion of the $14 national ndebt. Obama in his first year reduced the Bush $1.4 trillion last budget deficit by $150 billion. The debt that Obama has accumulated is almost entirely due to unavoidable Bush recession costs.
So for Tommie to play this game that Presidents do not control the budget is disingenuous. The President proposes the budget; the President's party which he controls has a major role in modifying the budget in the Congress whether they control congress or not; the President then signs or vetoes the Budget and its related appropriations bills. Compare the proposed Presidential budget to spending that actually occurs. Rarely does the Congress make significant changes in overall spending. The total budget is what the President wants.
For Republicans like Tommie to claim that they are the ones to be trusted with the budget, when they are the cause of bankrupting the country is the highest form of arrogance.
The astounding numbers for Maine need an explanation that only comes from a real analysis. Maine has a very high proportion of senior citizens and seniors who have as the editorial notes been involved in physical labor all their lives. We need a study that determines how much of the higher than national average can be explained by these factors. Then the study should look at other factors that might explain some of the differences. Perhaps being old and hard working might explain it all. But we need scientific answers not guesses.
The hysteria in the right-wing is building as they realize the PR threat the slaughter of Rep. Giffords and others in Arizona may cost them as it exposes their contempt for the rule of law and the US Constitution.
Their first step is to try and characterize the shooter as a "left-wing nut job". The shooter was a "nut job", but 99.99% of these nut jobs never hurt anyone in their lives. It takes some crisis (real or imagined) for them to step over the line into violence.
As to being "left-wing"; this is simply typical right-wing lies. The shooter was an associate of "American Resistance - an outright right-wing racist organization that backed Arozona's SB1070 immigration bill." He loved Main Kampf and Adolf Hitler. He wanted to go back to the gold standard. He opposed all immigration. He hated government. Find one action or belief that was left-wing. There are none.
More evidence will accumulate for certain. But its unlikely to show anything other than a neo-nazi right-wing extremist trying to make a name for himself by killing a jew.
Your letter gives aid and comfort to the treasonous thugs currently ruling the roust in the US house and formerly ruled the Presidency, Congress, and the Supreme Court. They have for more than 30 years carried out a systematic plan to reduce the living standards of working Americans, increase the relative wealth of the super rich; and neuter the US Constitution (if its not "in" the Constitution you can't do it. Apparently they never told anyone that they can't or don't want to read).
If taxes in America was based on "use", then the super rich are paying a tiny fraction of their fair taxes. They own 90% of the wealth. Police, Military, Homeland Security - all services that benefit the rich to the exclusion of the poor. The poor die to protect wealthy people's property. You can go on virtually forever. Bottom line we are cannon fouder for their extravagance
"We need a cooperative relationship between regulators and the private sector" - BP oil disaster in Gulf of Mexico; Bush 2007-09 Great Recession; John Boanhor handing out Tobacco Co bribes on the US House Floor. These are the products of "cooperation between regulators and the private sector". A business government to destroy the working people of this state.
We already have nepotism in the Blaime house; welfare fraud leading the Maine House, and a criminal convicted of 14 felonies leading Florida as we enter the most corrupt period of Maine government in more than 100 years.
During the campaign Republicans said it was all about jobs, jobs, jobs. After catching their breaths they might have added a nod to fixing the deficit. They were right. Their policies cost the US economy 8.4 million jobs under their last administration and were the worst job performance going back to the beginning of data collection on jobs. Couple this with their doubling the US debt; their vast expansion of the role of the Federal Government; their explosion of the use of earmarks and you have a simple philosophy - do as I say not as I do.
So opening this session of Congress they said that their mission was jobs and the deficit. What do they start the session off with - a repeal of the Affordable Care Art which will have no impact on jobs but will INCREASE the Federal deficit by $140 billion. All of which was a great follow up to the lame duck session where they got their single priority - Tax Cuts for the Super Rich which added $700 billion to the deficit and will have almost no impact on jobs. Whem! Smell something.
Republicans don't want any solutions for health care. They simply don't care. Health Care is not a problem for billionaires. They want political points throught lies and misinformation.
The one thing you can be certain of is not death and taxes. Its Republicans telling lies. Tommie Shields, former Republican officeholder, wrote above "If the Republicans had not done this, a single person with no children making $50,000 would pay an additional $3,280; a married couple making combined wages of $100,000 with two children would pay an additional $8,256." Pure simple straight-forward lie. The Obama administration had promoted from the 2008 campaign through the legislative session that only those earning above $200,000 would see the restoration of the tax rates adopted during the Clinton Administration. So neither of these examples were true and the republican obstructionism of the last 2 years had nothing to do with it. Both Republicans and Democrats had long agreed that less than $200,000 tax rates should not be changed.
Those engaged in class warfare are the Republicans. They held up all legislative activity - bills, appointments, even resolutions - until they got tax cuts for Wall Street bankers and billionaires.
Earmarks are targets of the Republicans? In their best year 300 democratic earmarks were adopted. Republicans 3000. Even wackos like Paul said he favored earmarks for his state.
Ok, Tommie - 2 hours time-out for lying.
"Get rid of mandates" - meaning eliminate all that red tape; allow insurance companies to charge us $12,000/year to cover nothing. That way we can get down to a one page health insurance plan.
"Establish high risk pools" - meaning death panels run by the insurance companies. Simple implementation of the Republicans health care mantra - Don't get sick, and if you do die quickly.
Somehow I don't think LePage is going to expand Dirigo to cover all Mainers.
Now Now the editorial board must simply be a bunch of free-spending liberal eggheads. Feed prisoners? Improve their life skills? Get them off addicting drugs? Maintain their ties to the community? We don't need to do that. They are just animals. Lock 'em up cage them and throw away the key is the most they deserve.
A team to look into why prisons cost so much per prisoner? Another waste of money. We don't need no facts. Maybe LePage could lease out the top of Mt Katadhin for a high security international prison. We could import drug lords, mass murderers, even better sexual predators who murder, or Al-Qeada members. We've go a budget crisis; getting a few dollars out of a wasteland could help reduce taxes.
Republican plans have always been to privatize all of social security and make it mandatory at least beginning in the 60's. Bush's proposal was voluntary and only 25% because that was what he thought he could get away with. It was a tactic not a goal. Privatizing Social Security is simple to understand - your pension (Social Security) funds are placed in Wall Street accounts which lose 25-50% of their value every six years or so. The Wall Street banks use the money to create asset bubbles and huge bonuses for them and depression for us. Only Wall Streets profits from privatization.
"We have the best health care available in the world, but far too many of us don't have access to it." I agree with everything in your comment except this. We do not have nor have we ever had the "best health care available in the world". We have the best advanced care (and its that which we don't have access to). But overall our health care system performs very poorly - our best rating is about 16th in the world our worst 37th. Access is not a problem. Anyone can walk into an emergency room at anytime and get care. It may be too slow. It may be outdated. It may be wrong. And its certain to be too expensive. We pay twice as much as any country in the world for substandard care. The reason - our insurance premiums go up 15-25% per year while health care costs go up 5 or 6%. Still health care costs are going up much too quickly. Its a two tier system - IF you are rich you get the best care in the world; if you are poor you must adopt the Republican policy - die quickly.
Will there never be an end to Republican lies?
Republicans caused the recession that left 8.4 million workers out of work. Now they extend the insult by refusing to extend unemployment benefits while at the same time demanding that federal government all but shutdown until they have extorted $700 billion in welfare for the ultra-rich.
But they are nothing if not consistent. The poor, working people of Maine must be "incentivized" so that they will get off their lazy butts and find a job working for people who make their money defrauding the state. Republicans are preparing that incentive - no unemployment benefits, no health care, no aid to local schools, no school meals for poor children, etc. And rich folks need to get incentives too. The Republicans are preparing these also - $700 billion in tax cuts, elimination of state services to poor people, children, and the disabled.
Did the Democrat forgot workers. No. Republicans have been out to destroy them for 30+ years. Now they will get their chance.
They put us $6 trillion in debt in 8 years; now they claim they are fiscal conservatives?
They claim they represent Americans and they do - 2% percent of them.
They don't represent the 8.4 million people who lost their jobs in their recession (started in 2007 remember).
They certainly don't represent the unemployed when they extort $700 billion more in debt for the rich but not one penny more to those people who's jobs were lost because of their policies.
Now its DHS' fault that Nutting tried and failed to defraud the state to the tune of $1.6 million and using the bankruptcy laws to avoid paying the state back. If nutting had walked into a Bank and with guns drawn, taken $1.6 million out of the vault, it would have been the vault's fault because it didn't automatically shut the door.
By the way, I hear Nutting will try to change the house rules and require either a felony conviction or a self-confession of three years of defrauding the state as a qualification for any house leadership positions.
First, glad you are a supporter of Lenin who first proposed "One tidbit about government jobs that pay better than average jobs. We should put a stop to it..." this in 1871.
Second, Its not class warfare to propose that the people who gain the most from government activities pay the most for the services they use.
Third, Obama didn't spend the $700 billion, Bush did. If you remember Bush borrowed $2.1 trillion from the Chinese to fund these tax cuts. Now the question is do we extend them all or some or not. Well, the tax cuts for millionaires do not help the economy; they won't get one person a job; they didn't get one person a job over the last 7 years. They were simply an irresponsible, job-killing subsidy (new politically correct term is bailout) for the very rich.
Fourth I'm not a slave like you are Duane. No rich man ever gave me a job. Rich men agreed to a contract with me in which I would be paid because they expected to make unearned profit off my labor.
Fifth, you minions are paying for those jobs because you allow the rich to avoid their fair share of taxes. You allow the military and teachers and many others to be paid far less than they are worth so that already rich folks can become richer off your labor.
Last 10 years the middle class has lost 5% of its standard of living. Last 30 years 25% of their standard of living. All because you let the rich folks get a get deal for nothing.
Not present above.
First, America was not founded on Christian moral teachings.
Second, secularizing Christian moral teachings by law is unConstitutional.
Third, Its not difficult to have disdain for DOMA. The supporters of DOMA hold that marriage is a state's right (they are wrong but), but when states began defending marriage by extending it to gay couples, DOMA supporters ran to the Federal Government demanding that it override the states rights to define marriage. Oh! how easy it is for the hypocrisy of the right to blossom.
Fourth, Obama's base isn't gay. Log cabin Republicans remember. Being gay has nothing to do with your political views.
Chris Wallace said. Wow now there's a call for some authority to back up Elaine's false conclusions. Let's see has Chris Wallace or his friends at False News ever told the truth about anything. Nope. Last night for example Glen Beck was shown stating that no one on Fox (False) News had ever said that if you failed to buy health insurance under the new Health Care Law you would go to jail. There followed more than a half dozen Fox (False) News commentators saying that if you didn't buy health insurance you would go to jail including Glen Beck.
I'm glad Elaine threw in that comment about speedier divorces. Something she wrote was true.
Joining the suit is a purely partisan political effort. Republicans intend to inflate (mis-represent) their non-existent support for repeal of health care by having 20 AG's file suit. On the other side are 140 million Americans who will no longer tolerate Health Insurance companies deciding who lives or dies. Typical Republicans. When they lose the political fight; when they can't buy or steal the election; when they can't provide a truthful position; they go to court.
By jalbrecht, unverified — Wed, 12/01/2010 - 14:56
First its insane to describe the inidividual mandate as "tryannical". All law mandates that individuals do or do not do something. Tryannical would apply to how a law is adopted. The Affordable Health Care law was adopted through the routine, legal, democratic process all laws use based on the Constitution. The government has no "tryannical ability" and none was exercised here.
Second, the above comment shows the total ignorance of the Tea Party of the Constitution. "to provide .... for the general welfare" is a phrase in the preample of the powers of Congress that defines the responsibilities of Congress and there are two - provide for the common defense and the general welfare - that those powers and others are intended to ensure. The government provides health care for the US military. That also is not in Article I Section 8. But it is "necessary and proper" to "provide for the common defense" and is therefore Constitutional (many other references also provide Constitutional support for national health care in many different forms.) Medicare and Medicaid are government health care programs that have already withstood many Constitutional challenges by equally ignorant people. "General Welfare" here by the way describes the national economic prosperity and therefore it along with again a whole series of Constitutional provisions gives the Federal Government wide authority to regulate the national economy.
Its a little irresponsible to condemn what you don't understand
By jalbrecht, unverified — Thu, 11/18/2010 - 10:23
Amazing the arrogance of businessman.
Had someone stolen $1.6 million dollars from his pharmacy, Nutting would be asking the state to prosecute them to the limits of the law. But let him defraud the state and well its just an "honest" mistake.
You can see this in his statement "...he didn't know the particular ramifications of either filing." Unbelieveable. He has a team of lawyers advising him on these filings. He's a legislator. Does he expect anyone to believe that he doesn't understand legislation. At least, his own statement disqualifies him from serving in the legislature.
But he compounds the lie by stating that he is working on changing state regulations so that the next time he defrauds the state he will not be personally responsible for his actions.
Nutting should be in jail.
Oh! you must mean the citizens of Rumford, Dixfield, and Roxbury that will be adversely affected by the development of wind farms. The special interest, the folks waiting with their hands out for huge government subsidies are these temporary wind companies.
The committee did good work. Unlike Dixfield where we were sold out and no public comment will be allowed before the vote.
Presented with simple objective facts, conservative deny, deny, deny. They live in a fantasy world of spirits where the laws of nature can be changed by a whim. Look at Paul LePage. Faced by the well established fact that he gamed the system to save himself tens of thousands of dollars in college costs, his answer was a well considered expletive.
His only qualification for Governor is that he's an expert is selling junk at Marden's and gaming the welfare system. When you look out at Portland harbor he wants you to see a sea of derricks and oil platforms. When you go swimming at OOB, he wants you to take plenty of detergent to wash off the tar balls. When you look down from Katadin he wants you to see nothing but dirt, no trees, no wildlife while will make the Wind Turbines stretching as far as the eye can see more visible. And he wants all of us to have good jobs paying $8/hr. No social security, no medicare, no FED, no Department of Education, no SSI, no Department of Commerce, no DEP, and no BEP, no government intervention in the family, no DHHS. But just as the census requires 100's of thousands of temporary workers. He has many ideas for new government jobs like the pregnancy police who will follow through every day to make certain every pregnancy goes to full term and those dinosaur assistants who feed (no trees no natural food) and care for all those dinosaurs the kids ride on.
A vote for Cutler is a vote for LePage. A vote for LePage is a vote to make the poor and working people of Maine poorer and the rich richer.
Why elect Paul LePage Governor? The author doesn't even try to defend his outrageously false claim that the Democratic Governors Association is desperate. Has he attended teir meetings? Has he sat in on their funding deliberations? Or attending strategy sessions. Or perhaps Ken is a mind-reader.
Seems to me the face of desperation belongs to his candidate as he self-destructs. Let see. Breaks the law by apply for a homestead exemption in both Florida and Maine. Excuse me conspires with his wife to break the law ..... Conspires with his wife to defraud Florida of $64,000 in FSU tuition and costs by having his wife falsely swear under penalty of perjury to being a permanent resident of Florida and never intending to return to Maine. Changes the ownership of his house in Waterville. Why, is he trying to hide his assets? Opposes welfare. Reforming(?) welfare is one of his top prioirties. But he has said that he pays employees of Mardens less than $10/hr so that they will qualify for welfare benefits i.e. so the taxpayers can subsidies their salaries.
What new revelations will happen between now and November to show LePage as someone completely committed to his financial improvement and ready to us taxpayer monies to accomplish his goal?
does not seem to me to be qualified to be governor.
Like LePage, Cutler's campaign is all about himself. His money, his pride, his arrogance. When we all live in Cape Elizabeth then he might have some idea of what it is to be a Mainer.
What did you expect. By his wife claiming Florida rsidency, Paul LePage saved himself at least $64,000. And this story is less than a week old. Appears that LePage dodged the draft by fleeing to Canada in 1972. How much more is there.
His anger is because he knows the truth and we don't and he is afraid of the truth.
He should but won't withdraw from the race.
You see he is a typical Tea Partier - white, wealthy, ignorant, and doesn't want to be educated on how the rest of us live.
An ordinance is the best way to control development. But with the committee and the selectmen going back on their word to allow public input, this ordinance has been influenced only by industry. Its a sell-out of the interests of the people of Dixfield. So no real choice is left to us except to vote no on the ordinance and yes on the citizen initiative.
That DeCoster knew. That he failed to act. That AG did little or nothing. That the fines were just the cost of doing business this way. None of this is surprising. And yes DeCoster should be jailed, but he won't be.
DeCoster is just one small example of what happens when businesses are not regulated or the regulation fails because of too tight a connection between business and the regulators.
Nor is this an exception. MMS helped cause the oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico by not enforcing the regulations and by allowing BP to write the inspection reports.
Its confirmation that businesspeople should not be in the chain of command for regulation of business. No Presidents, No Governors, no regulators should be businesspeople. No revolving door between business and the regulators.
First, the under god part is plainly unconstitutional.
Second, but the real problem is its backwards. The United States of America is unique because the powers of Government are derived from the rights of the people. The people as individuals are sovereign and the country derives its sovereignty from the people. Therefore the oath the people of the US should use is the one in the Constitution - I do solemnly swear that I will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States (Article II Section 1). You might add a clause about our responsibilities as citizens.
Pledging to the flag and to the goverment makes us slaves. Its not patriotism.
candiceanne,
"Large amounts came here in stimulous money for roads over the past two years and I see nothing to show for it." Could it be that you are not looking. $198 million has come to the Maine department of transportation (through June 30th) and I've been dodging road construction work from the New Hampshire border to Augusta all summer. But maybe you don't want to see it.
“bloated transportation bureaucracy” - Paul LePage. What do you know, LePage told the truth for once. We do have a bloated transportation bureaucracy. BUT $720 MILLION bloat. Doubt it. The Brookings report found $60-100 million in excess managers for the whole state govenment. What's LePage going to do about the other $660 million. Well he's not talking again.
I drive 32 miles each way to work. I believe a lot of Mainers drive further. Roads are fundamental for economic development. I think I read somewhere that all Maine economic development in the last 20 years had occurred within 10 miles of I-95/295. Mr. LePage's work plan (giggle, giggle) should have included a modern east-west highway from the New Hampshire to Canada border and a north-south highway to replace route 26 from Portland to Bethel. That would have created more jobs than his entire work plan a dozen times over and brought in more business than his plans to eliminate all regulation, EPA, Department of Education, General Purpose Aid to Education, and all the rest of his comical proposals.
But we'll probably never know, because Paul "I'm not talking" LePage is more likely headed to Warren than the Blaine House.
"I want to talk about the billion dollar shortfalls we have.." Paul LePage.
Do you want to explain how the $1 billion shortfall was created by the 2007 recession Mr. LePage's party caused and then did far too little far too late to avoid losing 8.4 million jobs between 2007 and March 2009. Is this his jobs plan?
A state full of plumbers and electricians. Don't get me wrong. Plumbing and electrician are good jobs. And our Unions and Community Colleges already have apprentice /educational programs for these occupations. I don't see a great lack of jobs in these occupations that aren't already being filled. But how about engineers, chemists, biologists, doctors, lawyers, ethical businessmen, etc, etc. Think they might be occupations the state of Maine should promote?
We know LePage and Republicans want to help business and hurt maine workers. So this so-called jobs plan is typical. Like any businessmen he will claim innovation for ideas that are already being done. He's too cheap to spend $145 to process a new business. Isn't the going rate to write a simple letter something like $50. Obviously strarting a business is much more complex than that. So he cuts the cost to $5 and the taxpayers of Maine fork over the other $140.
Everything else is aready being done. Nothing new.
If LePage changed the ownership of the house in waterville in order to commit tax fraud with his wife, that's criminal. And if he did where else has he gamed the system to avoid payin taxes. What did he do at Marden's?
Tax audits of Marden's tax returns while LePage was general manager are very much in order. As are a full investigation into his own.
previous 8 years (2002-2009). I think so. Unpaid for wars, Medicare Part-D, $2.1 trillion in tax cuts for those earning over $250,000 a year. All of you out there received your tax cut didn't you? You know the ones that let you eat out at McDonalds once more a year with your family while those earning $250,000 a year got to buy a new BMW. Yes that's the one. Are you enjoying te $55,000,000 tax cut Democrats passed last year? Oh! that's right. That's the working & middle class tax cut that the Republicans defeated last fall.
the UN spends in Maine.
Maine legislators and the Governor are responsible for what they spend and the laws they pass only. And they have cut spending by almost $1 billion since 2001.
Second, you'd think that government should spend more in the middle of the worst recession in 80 years. You know the other Republican Great Depression. Or did they expect we'd allow Americans to starve in the street. They are always talking about traditional values (really the values of the 1950's not our real traditional values). Maybe they want to go back to the values of 1300's in Europe and have people paid to collect the dead in hand pulled carts.
fantazy merchants of the right? Boy are you gullible.
1. Fannmie Mae and Freddie Mac are stories well reported and not very important. Yes they lost a lot of money in the Bush recession of 2007, but only because the Republicans de-regulated them in 2006 allowing them to buy sub-prime mortgages in hopes that this would inflate the already collapsing housing bubble. Fannie and Freddie were victims of the housing collapse not the causes of it.
2. " For example, we have heard nothing about the 175,000 new government employees, or anything about the 32 czars now writing regulations with no accountability." Yes you have. Last three months every unemployment report has been accompanied by the affects of the census workers being hired and then fired. Every report has included how many government and how many private sector jobs have been created. Why would be hear about "no accountability". The czars are simply a name. Every administration has had people with similiar responsibilities and they are accountable to Congress as executive employees have been for 220 years. Just as accountable as the VP's Energy Task Force.
3. Obama's numbers are plunging. You mean from 53% to 45%. During the worst recession since the Hoover (Republican) Great Depression. Bumbling and stumbling? Only according to racists who never gave Obama any chance. Excuse me not racists, just republicans and their right wing Tea Party extremists.
Let's compare the two. Republicans want to return to the traditional (1950's)) family where children have no rights, where child abuse was rampant, where spousal abuse was never acknowledged. Republicans want to promote globalization and the exportation of our jobs overseas, close down the Fed (causing a massive depression), return to the gold standard(again causing a massive depression), close the Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Commerce, end General purpose aid to education (increasing rural tax rates by a factor of 4 to maintain current spending), and withdraw from the United Nations so that they can wage unjustified wars of aggression and resource aquisition, and plunge the US into economic stagnation and reduce us to third world status while they loot the federal treasury for the benefit of a few international billionaires and destroy America's middle class. Now that's appealing! Democrats on the other hand want to base economic policy on what has worked for the last 80 years, sound economics, economic growth, international cooperation, peace through strength (we do have the largest military in the world. In fact, we have a military larger than the combined total of all the countries of the world.), opportunity, and sound social policies which help maximize everyone's potential. Whem! tough choice.
30 years?? The key to making propaganda is to at least have a cintila of truth hidden somewhere in the overarching lie. I know some people who lie about welfare for 30 years. And that's just as true as Ed McCaffrey's comment. The average TANF recipient is on the program less than a year. It is temporary.
Amazingly their are some people who think that their imaginations are more important than the truth. Name people. Report them to DHHS if you think they are breaking the law. They have fraud investigators who do a good job.
Monotheistic religions have little to be proud of. Baiting each other goes back more than a thousand years. But burning their holy books or their pastors is beyond the pale.
"But the recession of the past few years and stock market losses meant the investments missed that mark." The recession is the problem. The recession was caused by de-regulation and the Bush tax cuts.
Origin www.deadseriousnews.com, which describes itself as "Dead Serious News is a satirical website", story from April 20, 2010. In other words, nothing on it is true. Since Obama has in the past defended the inclusion of "under God" in the Pledge this never could pass muster.
dumbest comment. How has Obama gotten rid of the word "God" in the Pledge? Obama is not a Muslim. He doesn't know Islamic prayers. Please try writing some facts; not delusions.
Republicans are sabotaging the recovery for purely partisan reasons. When are they going to work in the national interest? Why should anyone in the middle class give them a second opportunity to wreck the economy.
The SCOTUS ruled in a case of states receiving transportation dollars that the Federal Government has broad authority to require the states to take actions the Federal Government requires. That's why its not surprising that there is general acceptence of the Race to the Top funding.
Like the failed No Child Left Behind, in education broad reach invites failure. The Feds should keep out of education except to jawbone for better performance.
George Bush gave us the first trillion dollar deficit. Gave us the depression that is now fueling this years trillion dollar deficit. But of course, Obama's black so it must be his fault.
I agree it will take Republicans several generation to export enough business so they can ignore what goes on in the US. They are working in the interests of Big Business as you say; not in the national interest.
Live for today! 39 years is not today. Its 2 generations. As the letter writer said, problem solved by just taxing all income. But Republicans won't let that pass. Protecting their Wall Street bonuses again.
Chief Justice Marshall, in the Dartmoth decision wrote that corporations are a accumulation of contracts not people. People have inalienable rights precisely because we are people. Corporations are not people. They have no civil rights.
What's insane is the idea that there are two sides. Employees share many of the interests with the corporations they work for.
OH! I forgot, enough republicans are in the Senate to obscruct any action in the national interest. So it might take 39 years to solve a small problem that could be solved just by letting the economy grow, but the republicans won't let that happen either. They want to steal Bill's coolies.
Why do Republicans want to privatize Social Security. Simple, trillions of dollars would be transferred from government bonds to private equities on Wall Street. Trillions more to be added to the trillions Bush and Paulsen sent to Wall Street in the bailouts. When trillions of unearned dollars are pumped into a market you get an equity bubble that like all bubbles bursts in time. This massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the super rich would improverish America and create a depression that would put the Great Depression to shame. The super rich would be sunning themselves in Monoco while American workers wait in bread lines.
Don't be fooled. A vote for Republicans is your own economic death sentence.
First thing we need is not another tax cut. We need to education poor ignorant fools how to read a newspaper. Then the nonsense this woman spouts might not appear.
The whole letter is ignorance glorified. None of it is true.
If wind power doesn't make sense in the wide open flat lands of texas where houses are 50 miles apart, what makes anyone think they make sense in rural Maine Mountains where houses are 2000 feet apart.
XYZ and that's not a NIMBY response. That's the response anyone would make based on the best science. I've supported every environmental law and proposal from Earth Day in the 70's until now. I've been a member of Greenpeace and the NRCM. I will continue to support predator restoration, food safety, laws to limit pollution, control climate change, etc. But I will not sacrifice the quality of life of the people of rural Maine so Angus King can build another mansion with taxpayer dollars.
Any opportunity will get the hate mongers out. And unfortunately Diana has provided that opportunity by telling the truth.
First, this is a zoning issue in NYC. Has nothing to do with Lewiston/Auburn or Maine or California or anywhere else.
Second, every proposed Mosque or Cultural Center currently planned in the US is being opposed by the extreme right. Tenn., kentucky, Michigan, California its all the same. 2 blocks from ground zero, 500 miles from hallowed ground, 3000 miles from ground zero how can we possibly tolerate a Mosque this close to the 3000 who died on 9/11. Never mind that the people who will use these mosques condemn the 9/11 attack with the same ferver that every other american condemns it. Never mind that innocent muslims are among the dead.
Third, the fanatical right is smearing the Mosque's Imam as they are smearing Obama and anyone else who opposes their attempt to rip up the Constitution. The Imam has been helping the US government for more than 14 years. Training FBI agents to recognize radical muslims, teaching real Islamic principles, going overseas to show other muslims tha America is not Islam's enemy.
Fourth, the christian right wants a war of extermination so that they can finally be rid of Muslims throughout the world. Many right-wing christians in the US are funding radical Jewish groups in Isreal that want to destroy the dome of th rock and replace it with a new Jewish Temple in hopes that this will instigate a Christian-Islamic holy war. We should be no part of their plan.
Fifth, this is also part of a right-wing political strategy which says all muslims are terrorist, Obama is a muslim therefore Obama is a terrorist.
Sixth, fanatical republicans have submitted 42 constitutional amendments which will radically alter the constitution in the current congress. They say they are defending the Constitution when they are in fact the Constitution's bitterest enemies.
By jalbrecht, unverified — Mon, 08/23/2010 - 10:18
"The terrorists have done a fantastic job of making Americans associate Muslims with terrorists." No they did not. The right-wing is promoting two ideas - all muslims are terrorists, Obama is a muslim. Therefore Obama has capitualted and sold America out. Its the old "Jews stabbed us in the back" propaganda from Nazi Germany. Funny, because many leading muslims supported Nazi Germany.
Obama is not a muslim and never has been a muslim.
At its peak, al-Qeada had support of maybe 20,000 muslims out of 1.6 billion. Today, they may have support from a few hundred.
This campaign of hate lead by the right is the strongest support al-Qeada has in the world.
The meeting last night in Dixfield was definitive. Min. set backs for wind turbines needs to be 7000 feet. Depending on topology that min. might need to be increased to 3 miles. That makes Holman Mountain and its Ridge line unacceptable for Wind Turbines.
Just say NO.
The issue of the Mosque is part of the overall Republican strategy to racially and religiously divide America in hopes the hatred they engender will prevent us from identifying their real goal which is to get another chance to lot the federal treasury and destroy te US economy.
SB 1070 - paint latinos as drug crazed pushers murdering the poor civilians of Arizona with machine guns (Where is Willie Horton when you need him. Or in context Willie Rodrigues.)
Portray all Muslims are salavating radicals bent on killing every American they can and forcing Sharia law down our throats (I assume latinos are not included because by then we will have forced them all including US Citizens back to Mexico or at least those we haven't killed.).
Then there are blacks; Vote cheats; ACORN (which has been cleared of any wrong doing); welfare cheats. If you're black, get back. Oh! We have a black President. Well that can't be, no black anything can be President. He must have cheated. Check his Birth Certificate, they have, he didn't, but keep lying about it.
Republican strategy can be summed up simply - Make white people fear minorities, let their fear grow into hatred of minorities, help them vote their fear.
Racist, of course the Republicans aren't racist nor are the Tea Partiers. Its just good policy to put your foot on the neck of a minority.
maineiacs9 was wrong about the westboro wacko's and he's wrong about the number of mosques in NYC (guess he doesn't have google). 3 mosques exist in NYC not hundreds and 7 more are near NYC. Assuming 1000 worshippers per mosgue seems like a 4th mosque might be needed.
But Maineiacs9 and the President are right on this. Constitutionally they are doing nothing wrong. Legally they are doing nothing wrong. But they should be sensitive to the situation as long as moving the mosque causes them no significant harm. I doubt that there is a lot of free locations that can be purchased at a reasonable price in Southern Manhattan.
So the President should be blamed for a bad estimate of an inexact science? What he should be blamed for is keeping Geithner and Sumner on the job. Obama should be blamed for trying to work with the Republicans and therefore cutting the needed $1.5 trillion stimulus to $787 billion to gain Susan Collin's vote. Obama should also be blamed for shifting the timing and targets of the stimulus to meet Republican goals. Obama should now be blamed for not taking aggressive action to put 20 million Americans back to work in a infrastructure re-build. Last year we spent $3 billion out of the $3 trillion (we did spend $3 trillion under Bush to save the banks) in needed infrastructure fixes in the stimulus. We need a massive public works program. And we need it now.
Tell that to the children of Philadelphia to start. Does Shri Corcoran work for or own a "private education establishment"?
There are programs and there is accountability. But public school handling of special needs students need imprvement.
building code restrictions aren't enough. But you have to codify the restrictions in something permanent. They must be certain, tough, and based on science
Jeffyd thinks, "you dont have the right to tell people what they can put on there land". Of course you do. That's what zoning ordinances are all about. Property rights are not absolute. Now if you are a billionaire like Simplot, the potato king, you can fight an order to remove the humongus American Flag you have on your property that is so noisy that police in downtown Boise, ID can't pull anyone over. But if you are just a retired veteran they might succeed in forcing removal of your much small American Flag.
By jalbrecht, unverified — Mon, 08/16/2010 - 13:15
Until there is a legitimate survey which controls for education, location, length of service, departmen size, corporation size, scope of activities, and other factors used by business pay surveys this is all nonsense. The Heritage Foundation isn't credible at all nor is its data. The editorial constantly flips between pay, salary, pay and benefits making it difficult to know what comparison they are really making.
When pay scales in the private sector can range up to 100% or more of base salary, only a detailed analysis is meaningful. For example, IT managers can range from $35,000 in small shops in rural maine to $400,000 in mainframe shops in large corporations in major citys like Boston and Washington. Averages are meaningless.
is a game with the christian right.
Judge Walker did have very little to base his conclusion on except the US Constitution, the 14th Amendment, 200+ years of history, all available scientific studies on human development, and commonsense, but I think that was enough.
By the Way, Adams was wrong and the Jefferson quote is a fake. Jefferson never referred to "God".
WideStanceRepublican, you shock me. I agree cut the military budget, cut the number oc contractors, cut the number of soldiers and sailors, cut nuclear weapons below START. Funding the military is anti-growth. It diverts funds from more productive purposes. Leave us with the best military by a factor of 2 and we will be safe
I glad the Sun-Journal have so many omniscient commenters who know what non-existant Republican Governors might do, what an equally non-existent "liberal elite" would think about what the non-existent Republican might do, and what that non-existent "liberal elite" would think about what a Democratic Governor might have done. Actually, this is very much like Andrew Breitbart, make it up as you go along. You know when a persn actually says, "I helped the family" change it to I didn't help a white family". That's the same isn't it.
Let's at least acknowledge that the Tea Partiers left the Republican Party because of the Bush fiscal irresponsibility. Then let's acknowledge that their political principles are self-contradictory because they neither understand the constitution nor American History. You can't be for small government, low taxes, and at the same time say that you support the Constitution. Its was the anti-Federalists, the people opposed to the Constitution, like Thomas Jefferson who supported small government and low taxes even at the Founding..
The Reagan tax cuts in 1981 had nothing to do with the recovery. Volker forced the economy into recession in 1981 and the foreign policy situation had changed and its his steps that helped the recovery generate some power. If Reagan's Tax Cuts of 1981 helped the economy recover then why didn't the Reagan Tax Increase of 1983 not drop the economy into recession? Because neither had much effect on economic growth.
Read the article from Bloomberg that appeared yesterday on MSNBC's website, "The wisdom and folly of the Bush Tax Cuts". Buried in the story is a critical fact - from 2001 through 2006 economic growth in the US averaged 2.3%. That's the worst in post-Depression history. Why? Bush's Tax Cuts had unbalanced the budget. The US went from surplus to deficit in one year. As the article explained, the Tax Cuts were not designed to stimulate the economy but to change the incentives for savings and investment. Trillions of dollars that should have gone to consumption instead went in large part to finance the housing bubble. Merged with trillions more that were invested in securities backed up by fradulent mortgages and sold to Fannie May, Freddie Mack, and insured by AIG or sold to foreign investors, inflated a market that had to collapse. Trillions were diverted from productive investments into non-productive gambling and undermined the US economy. At 2.3% growth the economy was hemorrhaging jobs long before the Bush recession of 2007.
One of the duties of the Tea Partiers is to improve people's understanding of history. We can see in fixit's comments how important that is.
Gay bashing in America really began in the 1840's not the 1780's. Back in the 1780's at least the aristocratic classes thought nothing of gay activities as they had not in Rome or Greece from which they took their inspiration. We may have had several gay Presidents, Buchanan and Lincoln and perhaps many more important national figures. I'll have to do a little research.
Apparently, conservatives think only the 2nd and 10th amendments reflect inalienable rights and even then they only support half the 10th amendment. How can you vote by majority decision on an inalienable right? Inalienable - Unable to be taken away from or given away by the possessor. Support Prop 8 and you violated the most fundamental of human civil rights.
By jalbrecht, unverified — Mon, 08/09/2010 - 12:36
We have no difficulty finding examples of pundit imperiousness in Rick Lowry's many bizarre opinoins. Judge Walker did nothing more than echo the Mass. and Iowa Supreme Court decisions. In fact, almost every Court has seen the issue the same way. The defense of Prop 8 offered a few easily refuted arguments, 2 witnesses, and ended with the argument that same-sex marriage is bad because we say it is. The Judge disposed of those arguments in a few paragraphs. He concluded since no rational arguments had been made supporting Prop 8 then the motivations for its passage were irrational animus which violates th Constitution. Far from inviting the Supreme Court to overturn his decision. Judge Walker is inviting them to do their Constitutional duty.
So Maine Ken and thinkingman you agree that Nestle is a monopoly. Only a monopoly can pass on costs to the consumer. If they are not a monopoly, then they have to absorb the added cost in lower profits which means their management and stockholders pay the tax. Can't have it both ways is Nestle a monopoly or do their owners pay the tax.
Something is a double standard when the facts of two situations are the same and they are treated differently. Strom Thrummond lead racist democrats out of their party in 1948 later joined the racist Republican Party and advocated for most of his life racist policies. Senator Byrd left the KKK repudiated its principles and policies as a young man and fought for his state and the principles of racial tolerance and progress for most of 50 years. Those are not the same facts at all.
Making it worse, Strom Thurmmond had a baby with a black maid as a young man and hid the fact for most of his life. Guess what, I bet that was not the only time he had sex with a black woman while he was preaching hatred. Joe Wilson, the racist congressman from SC and member of several identified hate groups, said that "No southern gentleman would do that" meaning have sex with a black woman. That on the day after Strom held a news conference with his daugther.
No double standard. Different people who made different decisions.
Sherrod wasn't & isn't a racist. She never denied help to a white farmer because he was white or for any other reason. The Andrew Breitbart tape has been proven a fraud - edited to the point that it seemed to say exactly the opposite of what Sherrod actually said. Just like the ACORN tapes have now been proven frauds and after numerous investigations ACORN has been proven not to have broken the law. Just like Climategate has after in depth investigations been found to be a fraud. Well we could go on and on back to when Richard Nixon created fraudulent photos without photoshop in his Senate campaign.
Misrepresenting th truth is just routine for Republicans.
You aren't close. Bush more than doubled the national debt. The Republican Presidents from Reagan to Bush II added 11.9 of the 12.9 trillion dollar debt. The national debt was $900 billion when Reagan took office, $12.9 when Bush left. All the national debt projected between 2009 and 2019 (2009 being Bush's last budget) are caused by unfunded Bush policies (2 wars, Bush tax cuts, TARP, de-regulation (recession), and recovery measures (Source: Clusterstock). Had these policies been funded, between 2009 and 2019 the federal govenment would have had surpluses in 4 years and a very small increase in the debt in total.
Greenspan Sunday called Republican tax and budget policies - Disasterous. And David Stockman said that they would destroy America. The one good thing the Tea Parties represent is the rejection of Republican tax and budget policies.
So please stop using number to hide the truth.
By jalbrecht, unverified — Mon, 08/02/2010 - 12:56
Platitudes, generalities, myth, and misrepresentations. Moody is just another ill-informed businessman who thinks that if you just apply what he's learned everything will be OK. He has no experience. No ideas. Nothing to offer.
Didn't Nestle gave baby bags to delivered mothers in the third world including formula and promotional material on why breastfeeding would injure their new born babies. This resulted in poor nutrition and sickness for those babies because their families earned a few hundred dollars a year and couldn't buy enough formula to keep their children healthy. Some how I don't think the welfare of Mainers is one of their priorities.
Rasmussen polls have a long history of pro-Republican bias. If I remember correctly and age is catch up with me, Rasmussen phone polls only call people with land-line phones. Well that means they get an unscientific sample and few young people.
The right-winger's prayer to split the democrats that they can characterize Cutler as a liberal when he was a registered republican and is a typical moderate Republican on issues will fail because he has the money to become known. Right now he's taking votes and staff from the Otten and Mills campaigns. These are moderate republicans that can't abide his extremism. He's lost a former RNC committee member from Maine because of his extremism.
Both the "age joke" and the false charge that Arden Manning wrote that LePage was not qualified for governor because of his French-Canadian heritage and that his is Roman Catholic came from LePage. This is all one sided. LePage says that he only wants to talk about jobs and the economy, but the only thing he really talks about are Mitchell's age, his lies about Manning, and how he was a creationist during the primary but now he's not or maybe he his. The Mitchell campaign has really not engaged LePage on these bizzare issues.
I also would oppose giving out names. But a report that said we have 9 individuals collecting GA in the last 30 days all of whom are long-term Rumford residents and have been on GA for less than 2 years would answer many of Frank's points. So would one that said 9 individuals 4 of which have been Rumford residents for less than 60 days and the 9 have been on GA for an average of 10 years with 3 exceeding 20 years would also answer the guestions. Easy to do and it would info the issue. Otherwise Frank is just spouting off unfounded rural myths.
Nestle provides no jobs. They contract with us because without us they can't make a profit. They rent our skills, our knowledge, and our experience because without it they are nothing. We built this country not Nestles.
I urge continued investment in education and childhood development from birth to college.
That's why its so disturbing to read Paul LePage's campaign promises on education. He wants to "eliminate the department of education" and "restore schools to local control". No Department of Education; no GPA (unless some other agency would take this over. If you do that why eliminate the DoE.). Property taxes would shoot through the roof; some school taxes in rural Maine would increase 10 fold while urban centers like Waterville would see their taxes increase a few percent. No Department of Education; no state assessments. No DoE; no statewide general ledger to account for school spending. No DoE; no ability to evaluate the effectiveness of K-12 education in Maine. No DoE; costs of essential services would be shifted to the local towns.
Why would anyone do this. GPA, general purpose aid to education, is about half of the state budget. Is this LePage's plan to make the children of rural Maine pay for his budget cuts with their education and future?
Rumford including Mexico has 5 welfare recipients a week, but having a fulltime welfare director attracks "career" welfare recipients to move into town from elsewhere. If they did you'd have hundreds not 5 needing services.
Simply to verify. Have the fulltime director account for the time a recipient has been on welfare and at what towns for the next 30 days. Then report the findings to the town manager and newpapers.
Recent Comments
A better explanation of why Marriage Equality must pass
has not been made.
"reengineering the Moral Stantards of America"? I've seen and read the Constitution, Bill of Rights, but I'm unaware of having ever voted on the adoption of any "moral standards".
Religious?
When did the Sun-Journal decide to merge the comics with opinoins.
You called it what, "Crackpot Congress"
In the last month we've seen ridiculousness (Romney's First Day Ads), to the weird (Obama in his heart isn't and American), to this lets-shoot-ourselves-in-the-foot and see if it helps us walk stupidity. Oh then there is the Greene Country Virginia Republican Party calling for "armed revolution" should Obama be re-elected. Seems its not Congress; just one particular part of Congress. But the pot is certainly cracked.
Issue isn't whether Obama is qualified to be President, HE IS
The issue is whether Romney is qualified. He says his work at Bain qualifies him to be president and to clean up the mess George W. Bush created. But you won't find those three leathal words in a Romney speech.
So what has he said he's going to do that is based on Bain. His day 1 ads (have you noticed that the Romney campaign apparently thinks the voters are too stupid to handle more than 3 issues at a time; must be related to the three lethal words)
1. Deficit reduction. Doesn't say how much or when just that he'll start on his first day. That will be a hercluean task given that the Ryan-Romney budget calls for $5 trillion in additional deficit spending in the next 10 years.
2. Stand up to China. How, doesn't say. Invade maybe given that he has hired every GWB (oh those words again) neoconservative foreign policy amateur.
3. repeal regulations. Like GWB (again those bad words) did when he came to office. I'm sure this will not extend to repealing prison regulations although if Romney's friends in Wall Street get their day in court this might move higher on the list.
weeks 2 first day ad
1. Approve keystone pipeline inspite of the fact that it will increase the price of gas and decrease the price of disael, reduce US refinery production, and all the refinery products will be sold overseas. Smart. $8 gas here we come.
2. Cut taxes to reward job creators - that means not you. More deficit spending.
3. Replace Obamacare, the only accomplishment Romney has from his years as Mass. Governor. He certainly doesn't want to claim the 4th worst job-creation record he earned there.
With this as an agenda, Romney has proved himself unqualified for the office.
Ok, but
I didn't write "fostering economic markets" Government establishes the legal environment on which markets are created. It creates the legal foundations of markets. My list is not all-inclusive but a fairly general and inclusive list of areas of law that have to exist for markets to function.
If by capital investment, you mean government investments in private enterprises. Throughout all of US history that has been viewed as a perfectly normal governmental role. Almost the first thing the US government did was create the First National Bank as a private/government investment. While hotly debated it was essential to early American economic development. Cancellation of the Second National Bank created the worst economic depression of the 19th century and retarded US economic development for almost a decade. Still such investments should be rarely used with very specific, documented conditions, goals, and auditing and specific time limits. GM is a good example of a case where a well designed program had completely positive results and a failure to act would have had devasting consequences. The Financial Bailout is a perfect example of a poorly designed not well understood investment which had neither documented conditions, goals, or auditing but where a failure to act (Lehman Bros) had already proven that a continued failure to act would have devastating consequences. I supported the Auto bailout; I opposed the Financial Bailout precisely because their designs were different even though both were necessary. No private alternative existed in either case.
If every corporation was a small store with 5 employees, letting it close when it fails is the right thing to do. But as corporate power has grown (since 1980) and outgrown governmental power, the consequences of corporate failure are devastating to the nation and to millions of people not involved in anyway with the failed institution. A GM failure would have closed thousands of small-moderate businesses from parts makers to software companies which in turn would have lead to the loss of manufacturing expertise in the US which would threaten National Security and economic development for a generation. Unfortunately, some companies are too big to fail and too big to regulate and too big to control. But we could not deal with that situation in the month of January 2009. We had to deal with the failure of GM then. Corporate power is our problem. It needs a solution but GM's failure would not have provided the opportunity.
If by capital investments you mean internal infrastructure development, I also disagree. Supporting internal infrastructure (again a condition of markets to exist and function) has been debated since the founding of the country. The Erie canal was funded by government and grew the US economy as no other act in our history, changed the flow of goods/services in Central NY from the Great Lakes to New York City turning NYC into America's commercial hub and primary port and changed American culture leading to the civil war. Phew!, just from a ditch. 95% of economic development over the last 50 years in Maine has occurred with 10 miles of the Maine Turnpike, a federal program.
People have opposed Federal debt during all our history. Jackson's elimination of the Federal Debt was in his view the crowning achievement of his administration. Hamilton held that national debt was absolutely necessary for the financial health of the country. Hamilton was right. The size of the Federal debt should be determined purely by financial factors. I would say anything above 5% of GDP is to some degree unhealthy under most circumstances (if the whole world has national debt at 100% of GDP the US will not be hurt by debt of 25%) so with that exception I support at least some national debt in peacetime not to exceed 50% of the lowest national debt among other industrialized countries and never to exceed 50% of GDP. More important is the trade debt. We should always run a positive but small trade surplus. We aren't.
Well, that I can agree with
I see govenment as a solution to creating the environment in which economic markets are created (money supply, value of money, fraud (rules of fair economic exchange), bankruptcy (rules for entering and exiting markets), weights & measures (one variant of fraud rules)) and mitigating the failures both natural and man-made in the business cycle. National, local self-defense. That's it. I suspect, you would have a shorter list.
Grea flawed logic
When government has less relative power corporations as the other power centers gain power. Instead of a Congress making the decisions that control our lives corporate boards of directors will. The lack of a clear delineation between corporate and governmental power is precisely the problem. Its true that government will have less favors to give corporations the problem is they won't need favors. There will be no one to stop them from doing anything they want.
Government is the only possible solution (not that it always is or even sometimes is. William Williams said that we, poor people, only win when the ruling class is divided, but then he was a great optimist) to corporate crime. If you don't see that, we will always be a victim.
But you have none
The corporations have power - they employee thousands, they have hundreds of vendors who employ thousands more, they are united through associations, they are allied with banks, they have a network of power. You have none.
You did. Makes me think you are a wolf in sheep's clothing on this blog. Do you spout smaller government because it will enhance your corporate power? Only thing that makes sense from your comments.
P.S. I've had my opportunity, made it work and quite satisfied. Now its pay back time to those that come after.
No I'm not
"you are assuming here that a larger government will be less favorable to the power centers". One and only one government in the history of the world has been able to successfully control its centers of power for the benefit of the people as a whole - The US government and then only from 1800-1860 and then again from 1933-1980. And that is because of the system of checks and balances in the Constitution (it failed 1860-1929 because the rural agrarian economy antebellum was transformed after the Civil War into an industrialized Capitalist economy in which corporate power outgrew civil power.). That is now failing because of the shift in economic systems from a largely domestic system to a global system. The Constitution is not a global constitution so it can not deal with global economic issues well. Larger Government is needed because of the growth in the size of private power.
"My answer would be that there is more corruption in government today then back then, but government is larger?" You're time scale is much too short to make such judgements. Prior to the 1880's your vote for President was public - you shouted it out at a public meeting with representatives of the primary employer in your area and political leaders in attendence after hours of speeches with an open bar (My five year old great-great-great uncle voted for McKinley for President in 1896 for which he was paid 5 cents). Now do you want to talk about corruption.
Your real issue is that you don't have an equal opportunity and you sense that we are losing it. You are right. You just have the wrong solution. Government is only about power. Power. nothing but POWER. Think power. Look at what has happenned since Cater from a power perspective. Why were we able to get workable solutions to the Depression in 1933-1937; but failed to do so in 2007-2010. That's the issue.
If that were the only criteria
No. You still have to trace a line item in the budget. Only if cutting government by a third meant eliminating up to 1/3 of the line items does it become easier. Cutting in one budget will create new line items in lower governmental units increasing the difficulty. Plus its completely impractical to cut all levels of governement by 1/3. Every line item in a government budget has a public defender - a group of individuals or power centers which will defend the level of spending as absolutely critical and for them it is).
Assumption. I know of nothing now that suggests this is true if it ever was. The local impact of national actions probably is more important to people but their solution is national not local. Local government (Town, school board) has little impact on individual lives now and people know it. Repeal of Glass-Steagal in 1999 has had much more impact on peoples lives in rural maine than any other action of government in the last 50 years.
Government efficiency is not and should not be a goal of government. Where in the Constitution do you find those provisions defining efficiency in government. They don't exist except as assumptions you bring to it. Government has two responsibilities - defend the country and to provide an economic system that benefits all of us - equal opportunity, general welfare, pick your term. If those responsibilities can be efficiently met all the better; if not keep trying.
The real issue is not efficiency; its power. Does the government protect me physically from war, riot, and crime. Does government give me an equal opportunity to raise a family that can grow and secure for themselves the means to enjoy basic happiness i.e. economic stability. The answer to the question of power not efficiency is no. Government has been less able to meet its responsibilities since Carter left office and the Republicans have dominated the White House and began to wage their war on American democracy. Now corporate power overwhelms government power.Government can no long as they did in the 1930's impose regulations to control the criminal behavior of corporations, stabilize the economic system, and provide equal opportunities. Dodd-Frank is a joke.
Nice, but not the situation
Its easier to watch one Federal Register that includes everything the federal government is doing than 400+ town governments, 16 county governments, one state government with hundreds of agencies, within 50 states.
But you only shift the problem
The smaller the government relative to the size of the power centers the more likely those power centers are to dictate how government functions. Ever been to a school board or town meeting? Now we have district wide votes on the school budget. Why? because the district meeting of the past left the vote up to 35 school employees and 2 civilians in many cases. Schools now are the major employer in many towns. Try to pass something the superintendent doesn't like. You have a business. Volunteer for the school board (In many towns its no really a vote) agree to defend the superindentent in all things and amazingly your business will prosper. The bigger the town, the smaller the school's relative power in the town the more likely the school is managed without special privileges, the better the budget, the better decision making generally.
"Leave practically everything else to the state". OH God no. State Governments are the most corrupt political units in America. Just visited Pennsylvania as I have been about every two months for the last year (born there been a regular visitor). This trip only two major political figures were arrested for corruption. Sometimes its more sometimes less. This time it was a Supreme Court Judge (third member of her family indicted) and a speaker of the house. Pa. is in the center of the fracking controversey. The Governor has giving the natural gas companies a free hand to do anything they want. It was announced that after more than 4 years the Pa. EPA will begin recording suspected cases of illness caused by surface water pollution next year. So far Pa. EPA has not investigated a single case of harm done by fracking.
The advantages of of smaller government are an illusion. Just because you can walk into the town office and talk to the town manager does not mean you have influence, can get anything done, or can compete with a major power center (corporation, government, rich folks)
The opposite of hot is not cold.
The opposite of austerity is not deficit spending. Mike your either/or absolutes are meaningless. Smaller government does not mean less political favors; it means that the favors are doled out by fewer people with less public controls. Reduce Washington to the swamp it was and political favors will be doled out by corporate lobbyists at all levels and without the political structures to check and balance their activities we the little guy will be slaves to the rich.
Very odd letter
The question is when in the history of mankind has it been defined as a union between a man and a woman. In western culture, for the last few hundred years. In eastern culture, Africa, Asia, India, only that period of western colonial occupation. The biblical definition of marriage was polygamy. Practiced by almost every biblical group. Heterosexual exclusive civil and religious marriage is the rare exception not the rule. And even more rare was when it involved love and committment. And then there is "common law" marriage.
Absolutely
Electing a black man in America even in 2008 particularly one with almost no government experience, no national reputation, no military service, and a campaign that really rested on the simple fact that he "was not bush" was not only historic but wildly atypical. But I think you are very wrong to suggest that it was perception not reality that drove the rejection of Bush. Iraq was real. Afghanistan justified. His policies directly lead to the economic collapse. He and particularly Cheney made very clear that they really did not listen to anybody. And he did not capture or kill Bin Laden or revenge the 9/11 attacks. I think all objective evaluations of Bush and its really too early but are well below even Carter in terms of performance. I've seen 45th - 48th worst President of all time. The Patriot act is unnecessary and unconstitutional. The "Bush Doctrine" the most damaging foreign policy mistake ever. And the secret Oil & Gas meetings lead by Cheney got the Bush Administration off on the wrong foot from day one. No, Bush's poor performance was real, not perception.
Off to PA for a week; you'll have the comment section all to yourself.
So am I
Actually some of our exchanges have been fun.
I would suggest that you reflect on Thomas Jefferson's comment on membership in parties - its a matter of personality (not a quote). In my case, facts drive my conclusions. The Goldwater folks and Ayn Rand who I was studying at the time (I was 17) had no respect for facts as do the current republicans who have no respect for science or demonstrable information. And that was incompatible with my personality.
P.S. Read Gienapp The Formation of the Republican Party 1852-1856 (I butchered both the name and the title but its close) and Westcott's New Men, New Issues The formation of the Maine Republican Party Maine Historical Society (this one is good because it is based on voluminous original newspaper accounts of the times and since the newspapers were party affiliated their bias had to be taken into account). Both beautifully characterize the process and the personalities that created and I argue maintain the Republican Party.
I would also argue that the Carter Presidency was an aberration caused by Vietnam, Nixon, Ford's pardon of Nixon, and the Oil embargo. In normal times he could never have gotten the Democratic Party's nomination same by the way is true of Wilson who only got the nomination because the party organization in NJ wanted him out of the state and he was elected because T. Roosevelt was too arrogant to go Safari-ing for another4 years.
And I'm not now a registered Democrat. I'm an anti-corporatist or more correctly a pro-Constitutionalist who sees the mal-distribution of power as the core problem of the 20th century America. Each party has succumbed to the power distribution and no longer represents a consistent Constitutional view and the worst agents of that are the Tea Party and the Libertarians both of which were invented by the corporations.
I agree with BTW
But there is a world of difference between Obama and Mitt and I disagree with "all politicians are alike".
I would never vote for Romney nor would I ever vote for a "tea party" republican. I would have under the right circumstances voted for a Nelson Rockefeller, Bill Scanton, Evertett Dirksen. I worked for Goldwater in 1964 and that experience confirmed for me that the current Republican Party which is the true heir of the Goldwater movement is the single greatest threat to our Constitutional form of Government since the Civil War. Therefore, I will never vote Republican.
Given that, Romney is a special case. Taking credit for the Auto bailout - absurd. Taking two, three, four, and in some case more contradictory positions on the same issue depending on his audience - appalling. The man has ambition and no core civic values he is willing to defend. He does have and make no mistake about this strong Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints values and that is to his credit. But he will not discuss them. He also sees his business life divorced from his moral values. That's a very dangerous view. In the end, Romney truely is a representative of the 1% who assumes his personal superiority over the 99%. He doesn't hate us; he just assumes we are inferior to himself. He will never represent me or the vast majority of this country.
Has nothing to do with GOP fiasco
He has never denounced same-sex marriage. Just has never thought it necessary. NO. I think the consensus is that he will lose votes by his announcement. He'll lose black votes and some independents and gain none. I seem to remember a republican campaign made up entirely of "he voted against it before he voted for it" and talking about the democratic candidate flip-floppping so none of the BS republican victimization stuff.
Another case of Obama leadership as opposed to Romney showing again that he won't stand up against anything even some minor league hillbilly crack on the raadio. Think its time he bows out and lets his wife run the campaign.
Health Care is precisely
One activity that market-based solutions have failed to resolve the issues which is why we pay twice as much as the rest of the industrialized world for, depending on the rating agency, the 16th to 37th worst health care system in the world.
Thanks for the link; I downloaded the report
First, the report itself says that it can't find "$400 billion by focusing on waste" as the author of the letter states. The GAO report says "In many cases, the existence of unnecessary duplication, overlap, or fragmentation can be difficult to estimate with precision due to a lack of data on programs and activities." The GAO defines Fragmentation to mean that two agencies have programs with similiar goals and Overlap to mean that the two programs may serve silimilar types of users. Duplication means that a fragmented program may overlap another. In other words, the GAO report identifies programs that need to be looked in to to see if they are in fact examples of "unnecessary duplication" because they only have enough information to suspect that the programs might be. Waste would exist if the same individuals were using these unnecessary duplicated programs for the same purpose i.e. Joe Blow was taking the same welding course under the commerce department and labor department training progams for unemployed people. If the training courses taught different types of welding they would not be duplications. GAO only is pointing out something that should be investigated further.
So the truth is Mr. Morin points out these programs because he is a conservative who leaps to unjustified conclusions not that these programs prove to him the rightness of conservative principles.
Does Charles Webster, Rick Bennett et al
Support the Greene County Virginia Republican Party which has announced that if they fail to replace President Obama this November the only course open to them will be ARMED REVOLUTION.
Isn't that real treason as really stated in the US Constitution that the Republican Party does not believe nor respects..
The different rates for different sources of income
is nothing but a subsidy preference for one type of economic activity over another.
Excuse me but no that is not the case
First the distinction is purely arbitrary and meaningless. The tax code differentiates only between capital gains and income from every other source and that was not true in the 1950's. And that distinction is perfectly arbitrary and meaningless. Does a dollar received from capital gains have any economic impact different from a dollar received by expending some effort - no.
First, that's not my assumption at all
Yes, we have been deficit spending for 3 decades with the intent of creating an economic crisis which will force the abandonment of Social Security and Medicare. Yes, that inflates the economic, but there is no "normal equilibrium". Without the deficit spending the economy would "not return to" some state without deficit. It would seek some economic state which would depend on many factors including spending before and after the stimulus was removed. Its not a distortion. And there is no "sustainable equilibrium" nor any "natural equilibrium". Nor is government spending an "artificial stimulus". These words are not characterizations of the economy but conclusions based on non-economic assumptions. The economy goes from state to state without ever reaching an equilibrium. Stimulus (government deficit spending) increases growth between two states. Removing stimulus will create a new state which is lower than what would have been achieve if the stimulus had been maintained. But what does maintained mean. A stimulus is an increase in deficit spending. So if I deficit spend $300 billion in this years budget to maintain the stimulus in next years budget I must deficit spend by at least $600 billion (actually it will depend on the economic state after year one (could be 590 billion or $630 billion).
Until the debt ratio to GDP threatens our ability to re-pay the debt (barring some external factor), maintaining stimulus works. That's why a debt to GDP ratio from 25 to 50% target is manageable and why in periods of growth (usually over 3.5%) paying down the debt provides head room for recessions and wars that change the demands on Government.
If your comment is limited to the mathematics of te debt
Yes.
If its a comment on economic policy, No. I do think they go together, but as you see the Norquist Plan intentionally decreases revenues and increases spending. The goal of the Norquist Plan is to bring about a fiscal crisis by not making any economic sense (the Bush years being the most successful implementation of that plan); not manage the budget, or the debt, nor provide necessary functions of Government.
Big Government debt policy should be that in recessions deficit spend, in economic growth retire the debt (depending on circumstance national debt targets should be between 25 and 50% of GDP), in stable periods balance the budget. National emergencies obviously change that policy.
But I am
The top marginal tax rate in the 1950's was 91%. The effective tax rate after all deductions, loopholes, tax breaks etc was about 52%. Romney paid 13.9% - about 1/4 of the effective tax rate.
Not difficult to defend
The nightly news, any shows including fox that cover congress, citizen united, Federal action against corporations involved in the 2008 financial collapse (none by the way), demonstrate that conclusion every day. One of the lastest example, Federal judge in the California case against Wells Fargo for mortgage fraud has ruled that every mortage processed by Wells Farge was fraudulently processed i.e. Wells Fargo's computer programs for the handling of mortgage payments, late fees, and other payments were written to force the mortgage into foreclosure in violation of the mortgage contract. Have any corporate officers who design and planned this nationwide program of fraud arrested or tried - no. This is at least the second judge who has ruled Wells Fargo engaged in a plan to defraud its mortgage customers.
Oh my! a good comment
You do need to analyze the real problem not the propaganda by breaking it down to basics. The top 1% pay 1/4 of the tax rate today that they paid 60 years ago. The middle class income has been stagnant since 1980 (no increase in Federal revenues from this source). The top 10% income has increased by more than 280% in the same time (but they are paying 1/4 of the tax rate so Federal revenue has declined from income taxes (same can be said for corporate taxes). The result has to be a significant increase in the debt (its called the Norquist Plan (how to get rid of Social Security and Medicare) adopted in the 1990's by the Republican Party) which will over the long term require a radical reduction in Federal spending. Its a manufactured crisis. Its solution is to restore Federal revenue to the same level as non-war revenue before1980. At the same time Federal spending has been increased without paying for the new spending (Two wars, Medicare Prescription Part D, etc) by the same people who have constrained revenue .Thus making the crisis more acute.Complicating the issue is that while doing the above thy have plunged the country into recession so that we can not now address the debt and therefore not address the crisis they created.
So the solution is to address the recession by increasing spending now within a plan for real increases in revenue and manageable constraints on spending in the future.
Focused??? You would do anything not to admit you are wrong
No better example of big government exists. "Focused" is just a word that means the same thing in this case as Big - intrusive, all controlling, Federal Government.
Jimmy Carter is not the President hasn't been the President for 32 years. Should Democrats say that Romney's first term is really Nixon's third term. Neither has anything to do with anything in this campaign. The situations and philosophies are completely different.
"Today's big government want to control everything to perpetuate its power". Nothing could be so wrong. Government has very little if any power. The power is all in the corporations. Just remember the development of Dodd-Frank. The Financial services industry through demonstrable fraud (Enron would be embarassed by what Citi, Wells Fargo, and the rest did) plunged the country and Europe into economic collapse and threatened a worldwide Depression. If you remember WWII, you might remember what that's like. Not a single proposal that would re-establish government regulation that would have prevented those frauds was adopted because of corporate power.
Big Government didn't win WWII. Please you ar not serious
Ration cards. You couldn't buy anything government did not allow you to buy. Government controlled and planned every step in the US economy. I think you need a better example because WWII is the best example of united, national big government at its biggest.
The role government plays today is if anything smaller in the economy than at anytime in our history except 1880-1929. The Revolution does not apply because that was not under the US Constitution nor even under the Articles of Confederation. We had only an ad hoc government - the First and Second Continental Congress in which both agreed that they couldn't wage war under their organization i.e,. they could supply the troops with almost anything.
He meant legally
Corporations are made up of capital equipment, people, procedures, and contracts. I've never seen a paper machine, welder, or gas pump vote.
Being made up of something doesn't give you legal standing or any meaningful rights. Contracts on the other hand do provide rights and responsibilities.
See Darmouth I believe 1803 or 1819 if I'm wrong.
I am too earnest
But its more than an opinion. Its an opinoin which can bring down our system of government. I'm not casual about that.
I do and they somtime do
William Williams said it best many years ago -we, working people, only win when the rulers are split. United they have too much power. Its not individuals; they are a temporary, incidental problems. The distribution of power is a permanent or ever present problem. If working people are ever to get a fair deal permanently, we must make the structural changes along the line of the founders that corrects the changes in law that have made the corporations too powerful and the government too weak.
1) Corporations are not people. They are an accumulation of contracts - Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Marshall. Corporations have no civil rights except as explicitly granted in their charters.
2) the revolving door between corporations and government must end. No government regulator can be employed by a regulated corporation for his lifetime and no corporate official can be hired by the government in a regulatory position for life.
3) No corporation can donate to a pollitical campaign (including referendum questions) nor sponsor a PAC or any other third party contributor to political activities of any kind
4) Corporations can not sponsor, organize, or in anyway be involved in events at which political officeholders are invited guests.
5) Corporations can not make the use of any corporate asset available to political officeholders.
6) No corporation can sponsor, create, organize a group of citizens for the purpose of lobbying or contributing to political activities.
Those are step one.
A shield you build, a lion you don't; a lion has a brain and
thinks independently, a shield doesn't. So I think your analogy fails.
no one should expect anything human to be foolproof
Increased complexity geometrically adds to the challanges of management; but doesn't make it impossible. For the rest, I'm not as pessimistic as you are.
you do have to reference the Constitution and/or the Federalist papers because these aren't common sense issues these are Constitutional questions. Common sense can only lead you astray because these are anything but common questions. Because special interests are always with us the idea that the less money government has the less it can sqander is a fallacy. The special interest will never let you do it if that's what they want. They want small government because it gives them all the power meaning they will just get your money in some other way like defrauding you through your mortgage as they did to millions from 2001 to today. Without big government you have no possibility of a shield.
Translation please
A few land owners will make a lot of money, the developers will make lots of money mainly from taxpayer subsidies, the majority of Dixfield residents will get screwed and those that live within 2 miles of the towers will eventually move their poperty worthless, while the quality of life suffers for all residents and tourists, and wildlife will die and move too.
No comments, I'm shocked
I think I heard this morning that the National GOP intends to void the delegate selections made at the convention or not seat the Maine delegation. I'm sure this will continue to be entertaining as the GOP continues to embrace cults, gurus, and failed ideologies.
I agree with you first paragraph.
But cultures modify, restrain, distort those emotions and their practical use immensely. Hell, the whole basis of modern conservatism is that religion is a necessary "control" on the passions which makes democratic republics possible (this is of course an old aristocractic and after the revolutions Federalist view not supported by evidence). Looks at monks to see that the passions are widely different than average citizens. The fact that emotions are present everywhere does not mean they are part of our nature because culture can change their expression so radically suggests that they are culturally determined (look at early christians and others).
In our case, the structure of the Federal Government is designed precisely to check the passionate expressions of individuals by requiring a system of check and balances. As long as the Federal Government is the most powerful power center in a society those checks and balances work very well (they don't prevent greed they prevent greed having a permanent effect). Where the Federal government is not, they break down and fail.
In the founder's time a corporation was the same as a municipality (that's why the SOS office of corporations manages setting up municipalities and corporations today). They were viewed as a minor extension of government (which legally they are today), a government agency not as a power center. They were legally limited to one and only one purpose and line of activity (building, maintaining, and managing a toll road or a grist mill). Should the owners wish to try something else like manage a ferry they had to go to the legislature and get an expanded charter or charter the ferry as a new and independent corporation. Therefore, a corporation could never accumulate power anywhere close to that of state government never mind the Federal (that's why corporations are not mentioned in the Constitution and only alluded to in the bankruptcy provision). When these controls on corporations were repealed (not done through legislation almost all done through court review), the balance of power was changed and the Constitutional controls were open to the possibility that they would fail. And they did from roughly 1880-1914 and again from 1980 to now.
Therefore, the problem is corporate power and the solution is to regulate that power so that the Constitution can function as it was intended to.
I am, I am
Ron Paul couldn't get 40% of the vote head-on against Obama.
Why should anyone be surprised
We've seen this wacko lunacy before. 1964, I believe, San Fransico. D's in '72. After Charlie Webster stole the primary. The Paulistas stole the State Convention. With shouts about national victories ringing in their ears they return to the sanity of their home towns where they probably can't elect a selectman if anyone is watching. Let's be clear on what the Paulistas are offerring - international isolationism, domestic corporate supremacy, economic disaster, and social anarchy. Certainly a formula for success. Will that make an impression on the national TV coverage of the Republican Star Trek Convention in Tampa this Summer. Keep working it. Every 10 minutes Paul speaks nationally is another 1% of the vote for Democrats.
Contitution
Greed is not human nature its a human emotion. I'll agree that human emotions have not changed over reasonable time, but that's not human nature - distinguishing characteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling and acting, that humans tend to have naturally, i.e. independently of the influence of culture. In other words, is there a model human which we are all copies of and culture modifies this model in various ways. If there is a human nature I say its how were are biologically wired in the brain; greed is no one of those wires. Greed is culturally determined and therefore is not part of human nature.
Apparantly, you haven't read our Constitution or the theories that unlay its construction (Federaist No. 10 for example). Ambition must be balanced by ambition; greed by greed so that no one in or out of government may implement by themselves a course of action that compromises the public interest. As govenment gets small relative to special interests this balancing begins to fail. When government is very small and special interests very large it fails completely (example 1880 to 1914 when the Morgan interests controlled the country.). When government is very large and special interest very small it works very well. We were from 1933 to 1970 generally in the Government big; special interests moderately small to getting too big range. Today government is small and special interests huge and therefore the balancing has been increasingly failing for 30 years. The problem is not greed but that the government controls over greed have been weakened to the point that they are difficult to detect. The problem is not greed or capitalism; the problem is unfetterred greed or capitalism.
Government does not centralize wealth. Federal Budget say $4 trillion economy $17 trillion. In capitalist economies the financial services industry concentrates wealth. The Federal Government can not by Constitution control, or tax wealth; it can only tax or control income. Not at all the same thing. It centralizes a portion of income. Today the concentration of wealth in the hands of the public is concentrated in about 10%of the population with 90% concentrated in the top 1% of the population. That is a fundamental threat to republican government.
I understand
that the State GOP amended its Platform to include a plank to buy the old AMHI facility so they can turn it into a free Summer Resort for retired Republicans (there will be a $5,000 a year use fee to keep the rif raf out). And that the victory for Ron Paul has guaranteed his speaking at the National Convention. Two years from now he won't even have to leave the resort.
Always test assumptions
"human nature has not changed for centuries" is just such an assumption. At a veru superficial level it may be true, but its like saying that all North Americans are the same they aren't. Or all blacks are the same. If its true, its untestable; if false its meaningless. The idea assumes a Jungian species specific collective, inherited common "programming" for all human beings evidence suggests otherwise.
The size of government is correct when it is capable of dealing with the power centers within and without its control. Small government made sense when a big "special interest" (a faction in Madison's words) extended to a part of a city, or even a state. Government power could then not be controlled by one interest (as Madison wrote) each interest competed with the others while government was still many times more powerful than any one or even several in combination. Now the special interests are associations of thousands of corporations that have a set of common interests. These corporations in total being much larger territorially, financially, and in terms of members/agents than all but the largest governments. When international associations of associations conspire together government must be huge to protect the interests of the average person. The problem is the corporations strategy becomes contolling the government whatever its size is. Small government was fine when we went around in stagecoaches.
Where do you get you info.
I do appreciate that you always confirm my view by never providing anything but your opinoin even when its fortune telling.
And you don't like capitalist, christians, and conservatives why
I don't need to abolish them. You need to regulate capitalists otherwise they cause tremendous damage to the nation. You leave Christians in their Church where they can't do too much harm. And as for conservatives well the Christians have a good cure for conservatives; its called a funeral. Now confederates that's another matter.
You obviously do need to read the Constitution
"The Constitution also doesn't mention public property, regulated markets, socialism, or any particular business at all." Sorry but it does. Public Property is mentioned in that section that deals with selling public property. Regulated markets are mentioned repeatedly in the document the most powerful beign the regulation of the value of money and federal bankruptcy. Don't mention socialism because no such thing existed at the time of the writting just as capitalism did not exist.
As to greatest test. If you mean by that a new civil war engineered by rightwing extremists you may be right.
Great Depression ended by WWII is just more rightwing propaganda. The Great Depression ended in 1936. Withdraw of recovery methods in 1937 caused a double dip depression which was solved by 1940. WWII did not occur untile almost 2 years later.
our form is a republic; our process is a democracy or more precisely we are a democratic republic.
" with a total shutdown scheduled for a 2nd Obama term" - totally absurd.
Easy
You start as the author suggests by ignoring the failed policies of the past and following well documented and proven economic policies that produce economic growth like well-regulated markets (which worked miracles for the forty+ years between 1933 and 1980). You follow the Constitution which does not mention private property, free-markets, capitalism, or wall street bonuses. We have no conservatives in this country. We have confederates. We have radical capitalists. We have authoritarian Christians. We have a whole lot of people who want to end the adventure our Founding Fathers started in 1787 because they believe as the Republicans in Michigan believe that democracy does not work.
You can always count on the "republican Lie"
"If Schultz checked the facts, it was the Obama administration that brought her (Hilary Rosen) to the forefront. If you check the facts, that's a lie. Hilary Rosen is not employed by this administration. She is not a spokesman for this administration. She is not employed by the Obama campaign, the Democratic party or any of its affiliates or by any Superpac supporting the Obama campaign. She was and is a private citizen and a paid consultation of the TV company that put her out front to gain viewers.
The rest of the letter is just Romney talking points to divert our attention from the well established facts that the Republicans as ably represented by the Romney campaign don't give a damn about women, their lives, their problems, or their concerns. Had they, they would have fulfilled their 2010 campaign pledge to create jobs. Well that was a lie too. Instead, they authored throughout this great land both at the federal and at the state level not one piece of legislation whose intent was to create jobs. They were too busy grabbing hold of women's reproductive lives by passing more than 1100 laws that would prevent, delay, or complicate women exercising their constitutional right to seek abortions; Hundreds of laws to make it difficult or impossible for eligible voters to vote; and many more to restrict, deny, or frustrate the right of citizens to collectively bargain on the job.
Talk about strawmen and irrational idiocy
Who says any of those so-called principles are "communist" principles. Most are just right-wing slogans without any objective reality at all. The list of things wrong with this list could go on for years. But just a few.
" Use the public education system to teach that capitalism is wrong and socialism is right." Maine's public school goals were initially written by the business community and the whole process was lead if I remember by Peter Geiger. Those goals contains nothing about American labor; nothing about the crimes committed by capitalism, nothing about about the unconstitutional suppression of socialist groups or movements. So please explain what part of the curriculm teaches that capitalism is wrong or socialism is right. We know that unfetterred capitalism is a criminal conspiracy; but that doesn't make regulated capitalist a crime any more than the Mafia makes K-Mart a crime.
" Create a ruling class that is free from the will of the people (bureaucrats) to govern". I didn't know that the people were the bureaucrats. But on the assumption George really intended to write that the "ruling class" were the bureaucrats; where's your evidence of anything. We have watched the bureaucrats and elected officals kow towing to America's real ruling class - the 1% who have disembowelled necessary financial regulations which would have prevented their looting the Federal Treasury as they did in 2008-2009. We have seen their budget (the Ryan Budget) that again transfers $4.6 trillion from the have nots to the haves over 10 years pass the house. Delusional if anyone thinks the bureacrats govern this nation. Hell, they (the bureacrats) don't even write their own regulator safety reports; the corporations do and enviromental disasters quickly follow as they did in the Gulf of Mexico. .
Its a subsidy for business
not wasted on "foreigners" is the point. The original statement made the practice bad because it was "foreigners" getting the beenfit and transferring the money out of country. That's just not true.
Always test assumptions
"wal*mart will parish if it does not add value" is an assumption. And all theortetical economics especially so-called Austrian or "ultra-free-market economics theories are based on assumptions that are true in a specific environment and not true generally. They are over-simplified assumptions.
Government and Business have two separate roles which should be judged on different sets of values. Both add value. Government built the infrastructure on which business exists without it business particularly in Maine would not exist. Eliminate what government has created through shared investment (taxation and government spending) and Maine would be a wilderness without any meaningful employment. Or to say it another way, one of Government's primary roles is to subsidize business through the creation of infrastructure based on shared investment.
In answer to your question, it should. Government should hire and employ the unemployed up to say 10 million people today for short durations as the economic situations require. But this real solution to some situations is denied us by radical extremists who support ideologies that they pretend are always true in all situations when they are not.
You can always count on a Republican to avoid the issue
I didn't see anything in your note about LURC or Mr. Gedat's points nor the obvious problems with the anti-LURC proposals of the Governor. You just dealt in personality.
This is ideological claptrap
"People need to realize that government cannot create jobs. Sure they can hire people, but that is not creating jobs. That is spending tax dollars that you as a taxpayer could spend more efficiently." If it looks like a job, pays like a job, and takes time like a job; it is a job. A job means a full or part time position of employment which government certainly can offer. What the author really means is jobs do not add to the economic output of an economic system. Well, that's a silly notion from silly economists who think they can create economics systems in their dreams - Austrian economics - that work in reality. They don't. They create them only to support the 1% in their propaganda to empoverish the 99%.
The idea that the taxpayer can spend his money more efficiently than the government doesn't even pass the giggle test. I certainly can't re-pave Route 95 more efficiently than government nor build an aircraft carrier nor educate the population. Efficiency involves many factors one of the most important being scale. Its always more efficient to have large organizations do things because of the economies of scale. Wal-mart for example.
A big problem is that are citizens are so poorly informed.
Mr. Soucy says "Keep the money here in the U.S." First it never left. Most so-called foreign aid is simply a credit that the foreign country can use to buy things here. No actual money goes to the foreign country.
Lunacy
Nothing, absolutely nothing in Obama's first 3 and 1/2 years suggests any such thing. Except for 3 months that it took for the stimulus and the Obama policies to take effect, we have had slow but positive economic growth, restraint in spending, and an economic policy that every economist agrees is timid, but correct given the failure of the Republican Congress to follow a sound policy. Your statement is completely divorced from reality. The eight previous years of Republican rule give ample evidence and documented proof of my statement.
No, I'm not
But the Republicans are the only organized group that as a matter of policy and party platform has promoted that idea. Democrats as individuals may agree may even pursue those ends but the party as a whole does not endorse such a position. Democrats support traditional economic pratice - increase taxes to cover increased spending; reduce taxes when spending is reduced (the often misrepresented Kennedy tax cuts of the early 60's) while running a manageable national debt that is inline with GDP and in times of economic crisis increased debt within manageable limits and in times of economic stability and growth reducing deb within manageable limits.That position is nothing like the kamikami economics endorsed buy the Republicans.
Can't let the Republicans define their opponents
"That, and other big government, pro-tax, anti-growth groups are very angry at Snowe-Mello." Classic Republican mis-representation. Their opponents are effective Government, responsible fair-share of taxes, pro-growth citizens who want to make the state better. What are the Republicans - anti-growth, ultra-individualistic, anti-government extremists who have sufficient ego that they think they have the right to run other people's lives and the wisdom to judge other people without knowing anything about them.
We have given the Republicans almost unrestricted control of the Federal Government only twice in the last 100 years - the 1920's and 2000's. What did they do. Drove the country to economic collapse by low tax, anti-growth, trust the market (while it is controlled by corporate fraud), small-government social darwinism while attempting to control every aspect of people's lives except their business activity. They think that by making women undergo medically unnecessary humiliating tests and then to suffer through deranged speeches by politicians they can force them to not have abortions is typical.
Last week, a Federal Judge ruled that all mortages being administered by one of the top 5 banks in the country were fraudlent and all the bank's forclosure filings were the result of that fraud. Republicans tell us to trust the market.
Wha do you think the Norquist plan is?
Never raise taxation; in fact always demand tat taxation must be reduced as it has been. We now pay less in Federal income taxes than he have since WWII 60+ years ago. The rich pay 1/4 of what they did then. Workers like us pay almost the same. If you always cut taxes and therefore revenues (assuming normal rates of economic growth) but increase spending that leads long term to bankruptcy. See my other answer just posted.
Romney and ruin
Yes, your point is elusive.
With rare exception Republican legislators have signed the Norquist pledge to bankrupt the country in order to force radical cuts in the size, effectiveness and efficiency of the Federal Government. We saw this play out in the Bush administration which doubled the national debt to 13 trillion dollars and promises in the Ryan budget plan to add 4.6 trillion more to the national debt should it ever be enacted. Eight more years of Republican misrule will turn the US into the next Greece. Chinese bankers will demand of us an austerity budget and a radical pearing down of our military.
Its not that
Willard Romney and Warren Buffett pay 1/4 of the taxes today they would have paid under President Eisenhower. Until we correct this revenue crisis of the Federal Government everything will fall apart - national security, the economy, health and safety. The Republicans can't straighten it out. They have all taken pledges to bankrupt the Federal Government. So the only solution is to vote them out of office and restore sane governance to the country.
Of course
Of course, there is a line. Actually there is a line for each individual. We have taxed income at rates from 1% with no deductions to 91% with loopholes (exemptions) for an effective marginal rate of 52%. Now we have a effective marginal rate somewhere between 15 and 25%. Rates taxes are less than half of what we have experienced in the last 60 years. So as a nation we are nowhere near that line. As long as we have those ridiculous exemptions tax rates into the 70% range are well under the line where social resistance becomes destructive of either individual motivation or national goals. With no deductions other than minimum standard of living the effective marginal tax rate would need to be under 50%.
2. I don't assume that the government spends the money wisely. That's purely subjective. Does it spend the money consistent with natonal goals defined by the political process, that's objective. In that regard, your objection is not with how it is spent but the process that produces political goals consistent not with the political process but with the distribution of power. Corporations have gotten federal economic assistance since at least 1830's. Corporations have had one political party, Whigs in the 1840's Republicans now, that reflect Corporation power and not the formal political process. Federal spending is the symptom, not the problem. The failure of the politcal process to correctly reflect the goals and ambitions of the people (corruption) is the problem.
3. Absolute property rights to a myth and a delusion maybe at sometimes a goal. Never has been and never will be. What we own is not who we are. That we own is what the political process allows. Look no further than the foreclosure crisis. What people thought they owned is not theirs. Why. Federal Judge ruled last week that the process used by Wells Fargo bank to manage fees and penalties defrauded everyone whose mortagage they administrated. Yet they have the political power to enforce their fraud and mortagee does not or at least so far does not.
4. Backwards. Globalization has changed Goverment policy to further accelerate more globalization. Economics (power) drives politics. Government is always and forever the servant not the master of power.
Your bias is showing.
1. "your punishment", "steal" - paying taxes is contributing to the strength, and success of this country ; hardly a punishment.
2. I agree that the "rich" make sacrifices; do things that other people would not do, but why should we honor them for that. They would not do those things if they did not feel rewarded in some way. May be money; may not. Most "rich" folks don't even know what money they have. They do what they do for a sense of accomplishment, victory, power, prestige, or your claim that they should be honored by those that have different values. For example, I'm an amateur historian. Read last night about Rev. Lyman Beecher's leaving the Lane Seminary to return to Boston in 1846. By all measures he was the most successful Calvinist minister in New England in the first 1/2 of 1800's. Total value of everything he owned (his age about 70) $300 which he was to be paid in installments and he was never fully paid. He left completely happy and a success and satisfied. He never felt he made any sacrifices in fact the opposite he felt blessed.
3. You write like property is absolute, everything you ever earned was the result of your and only your efforts. No one ever has earned solely by their own efforts everything they have earned. That fallacy is the real greed, pride, arrogance.
4. We have a flat tax in fact we have a regressive tax system, the rich pay at a lower rate than the poor. In Maine the lowest 20% pay at twice the rate (about 21%) in total state & local taxes as the other 80% which pays an almost flat rate of 10. something%. That is the result of the rich controlling the system and why we do need another system. The proof of that is simple in the last 30 years increases in economic growth have more than gone to the top 1% of earners; the 99% have lost standard of living. The reason - because the rich have changed the laws to expropriate the wealth of the middle class and poor and re-distributed it to themselves.
5. I don't despise the more well to do. I just recognize a well known truth - money is power and power corrupts absolutely. Concentrations of power/money prevent the establishment of a just society where everyone as an equal opportunity to succeed based on their values.
Need stop watching fox.
50% acutually its closer to 40% of income tax filers pay no income tax. Those people come from all levels of income. Exxon Mobil pays no income tax in many years. True fairness means when everyone and entity pays a tax on the same basis. If people pay based in gross income then corporations must pay based on gross sales. If people pay on disposable income then corporations pay on gross profits. Taxes of all types has to be included in any discussion of tax fairness. Today we have a tax system that benefits the wealthiest Americans to the detriment of the middle class and poor. If money is freedom (which the SCOTUS has ruled it is) and all men are equal, then tax rates must be progressive to bring freedom closer to equality, but you don't have to use that argument. The wealthiest use the governmntal system much more than the middle class and the poor and therefore should pay much higher rates..
What's obvious is that it is getting less fair every year
In 1980, the year of the confederate takeover of the Federal Goverment, workers received 60 cents of each dollar in increased economic growth. Since then workers have lost 25% and the millionaires received virtually all the economic benefits of growth within the last 30 years. We as a nation pay less Federal taxes than we have since the Second World War. Corporations pay less than 1/2 of what they did just after World War II. In short the Republican Norquist plan has been put into execution and we the workers of America have been tied to the stake while Mitt Romney and friends hold the guns.
We need a simple tax system that taxes disposable income of all forms at the same rate with a progressive rate that hits 50% for the top bracket (say $10,000,000).
And how long before we have a sane Governor
Cutting taxes as the Governor proposes causes deficits, depressions, and destruction of the middle class. Sound policy. But I never knew that was the American Dream. Look no further than his mentor who created by his tax, trade, and regulation policies the worst depression since 1929.
And we should be surprised why
Arizona Republicans yesterday re-defined pregnancy as occurring up to 2 weeks prior to conception. Now we knew Republicans know nothing about biology, evolution or science so this comes as no surprise to anyone. But what's next. Can Texas Republicans re-define pregnancy to start with a woman's first period or how about when she is born because maybe someday she might get pregnant. If a fetus is a person, why can't a fetus be pregnant.
A very similiar walk on the wild side was enjoyed by Allen West, one of the few sane, liberal Republicans in the house. He stated yesterday that 80 democrats in the House of Representative were Communist Party members. Now that might have surprised the Communist had we not had McCarthy running the Republicans 60 years ago. Where did he get this idea, 76 democrats are in the house Progressive caucus.
Respect.
I appreciate your reply and your feelings. And I couldn't agree more.
But I think you expect too much when you say "these judges would climb down from their high horse". The process I outlined is why they can't climb down. Its why they disrespected you at that party. These are people who think their accomplishments set them apart; they are special; they are better than the rest of us. They spent everything to get on that high horse; to get down would be to reputiate their entire reason for being. I see it in many who have college degrees and more in those degrees that require more tha the average like Doctors and lawyers. A few see their accomplishment as an opportunity to assist everyone; others see it as their red badge of superiority that grants them the authority to rule over us. They may be superior in some ways but only in their minds does it give them the authority to rule over us. o the rest of us they are simply bores - current best example Romney.
What superior mentalities?
replace them with real people?
What real people went to Harvard (or Yale, Stanford, or Texas A&M) were in the top ten of the Law School, went on to clerk for a Supreme Court Justice, then to the DOJ, a State judgeship, then a Federal appeals court, and then the Supreme Court. That's a fairly routine career path. That process should prevent any real people from surviving that career. The last real person on the court was William O Douglas. Thomas, Scalia, Alito, Roberts are there to make certain the 1% rule America and that the Federal Treasury is to be available to be looted by them.
Doesn't much matter
We can see the ALEC driven plans the Republicans have for us and the rest of the country by looking a Michigan - dictatorship. This has been their goal since their coup failed in 1934 to install a fascist distatorship.
Republicans control the Senate and the House and the Govenorship. But they do not have 2/3rds of the House. Under Michigan law a 2/3rds vote in both houses is required to pass a law which will have immediate effect. With Democrats having 43% of the House seats no law can have immediate affect if the democrats vote as a block. They have. And republicans have ignored their votes and ruled from the chair on separate and unconstitutional resolutions to pass 566 laws with 546 ruled to have immediate effect.
This is distatorship.
What?????
a system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole is an economic system ( and I think is exactly the idea of my definition although not worded so well). That's what ownership and control of the means of production and distribution is. Its not a birthday party or a political system or a procedure for refining gold. Its an economic system that defines the ownership and control of economic factors (usually called inputs) capital, land, equipment, labor etc. Three centuries ago it was called "political economy" because the political system determined the allocation, ownership, and control of all economic factors. Now the two are separated because the political system does not necessarily determine the economic system.
Your analogy to the military is a intermixing of non-analogous objects. Private military action is an oxymoron. Private companies can perform services similiar to what a military might provide but that does not make them military. The military is not a service. The Product is not military services. All objects are not products. All actions are not services. The military is the government. And no the government is not owned by the people. It is not owned by the government. It is one of two government responsibilities as defined in Article I of the Constitution. The government, in a republican form of government and one defined by the US Constitution, is the delegated power of the people. Your logic is fundamentally illogical and a classic statement of the ultra-capitalist re-definition of society, the re-writting of history, and the capitalist attack on republican i.e. Constitutional goverment. If it is oqned it can be sold, that in itself is an economic exchange. Governement is not owned, can not be sold is not an economic factor. This is all nonsensical analogies to capitalist terminology and it just doesn't apply and it corrupts how people think.
And no socialism can't exist before the conditions for its existence (industrial capitalism post 1860 in the US post 1750 in Europe) exist.
A conversation with someone who does not share a common
language is difficult and in this case impossible. Collective action i.e. republican government is not socialistic. The military has nothing to do with the means of production and therefore can not be socialistic. The military is not an economic system and therefore can't be socialistic. A government is not an economic system and therefore can not be socialistic, but a government can take actions which are socialistic if the action assigns ownership of the means of production to the people. The GM bailout was a form of socialism called syndicalism (means of productions are owned and controlled by unionized workers another example is a company stock 401K if it owns more than 50% of the stock). Socialism was an economic theory developed in the mid-1800's by many economists in reaction to capitalist industrialization. The US Constitution can not be socialistic because a) the US was not industrialized at the time it was written, b) its a political compact not an economic theory, c) no where does it authorize the public ownership of the means of production.
You are referring to "collective action" which the military certainly is.
BS
The alien philosophy is Randism which came from a Russian emigree modified by Austrian Economics which is obviously of European origin. I have derived my political philosophy only from the Constitution as written and the Amendments passed since.
Both
No all government activity is not socialism or socialist. Socialism has one meaning and one meaning alone - ownership of the means of production by the people. Nothing we are discussing here has anything to do with ownership or the means of production. Now all government action is collective action and there is absolutely nothing wrong with collective action in fact its what is meant by "WE the people".
as to you last statement
so did I.
First, I was making fun
of people who try to read literally the Constitution with reference to a living breathing Constitution (which I do not support). As the author of the letter mentions one of the first acts of the US Congress was to pass the Militia Act which required every eligible male to buy a mustket and accessories. he wrote, ratified, and implemented the Constitution so they must surely have thoght that they had the power under the military articles in Section 1. And they did. Just as the commerce clause gives the Congress the power to require citizens to buy anything necessary to provide for the general welfare/economy.
Republian sillism
Its fun to see the Republicans, who claim to love the Constitution and the founders, admit that Oh! they were just silly old men who didn't understand anything. Ours is a living breathing Constitution that has to change as we Republicans change the social contract that it represents. We need to let everyone know that greed is more important than need.
Since the Constitution does give Congress the authority to make you buy anything that it is in the interests of the country for you to buy, refusing is not American. Its an alien philosophy which threatens the survival of this country; that reputates the sacrifices of millions of men and women who have given their lives to create and maintain a UNITED NATION.
Current Supreme Court is the most activist court in history
The Warren Court would be embarassed by Bush v Gore and terrified of its reasoning, along with Citizen United which the court changed to our Republic screwed; if they now find the republican proposal of a individual mandate unconstritutional they will simply be announcing that they are the most partisan, activist, political court in history. Far worse than tjhe Warren Court or Taney Court. Impeachment is too good for them.
Should the Affordable Care Act be found unconstitutional then we should accept nothing less than repeal of the age qualification for Medicare.
I hate to correct someone who is fundamentally right, but.
The Great Bush Recession was from December 2007 to March of 2009 when Obama's stimulous package ended it not 2005-2010.
While I must agree that Bill Clinton was in fact but not in name a Republican President, I think it is misleading to imply that Republican Presidents were in office for the 16 years preceding the recession only 7 years.
And lastly, OPEC does not control the price of Oil; the international oil markets do. Those markets include the $0.60 to $1.00 per gallon speculator's tax on oil that could be easily eliminated with passage of simple anti-speculation laws that right now the Reopublicans are filibustering.
First mandate 1792
In 1792 the Federal Congress passed the Militia Act which required all able bodied men to purchase a musket and necessary accessories. To suggest now that the Federal Government has never required a citizen to purchase anything is just simply a lie.
Republicans want to demonize the Governemnt so that they can reduce the taxes paid (or not paid as the case may be) by the super rich. Fact is we pay less in Federal Taxes than at any time after the Second World War. 70 years. We do not have a spending problem. We have a revenue problem. If the Republicans want to go on strike against our government then the voters should go on strike against the Republicans.
:...turn around a culture of
:...turn around a culture of dependency within the Department of Health and Human Services." Well now we can be certain the author isn't interested in fact, but instead wants to spread false, unfounded, ideological conclusions.
"Instead of focusing on the history of this computer problem,.." Why would the previous author look at the previous computer problems. They aren't Mayhew's responsibility and are not relevent to the issue at hand. That issue is did Mayhew intentionally mislead the Legislature by omitting known facts from her presentation to them. She did. Because she did her credibility is shot and she should resign and baring resignation she should be fired.
SuperPAC super corruption of American democracy
Why would anyone be surprised that the confederate (no they are not conservative) Republican Party with control of the US Supreme Court is inventing illogical, irrational, law like the Citizen United decision which holds that Corporations are people with all the political and civil rights of people. After all they think a fetus is a person and the Moon is made of green cheeze.
The issue is not if both parties use now legally corrupt funding mechanisms; the issue is are corporations buying politicians for their use. Under Citizens United, the answer is a very simple - Of course.
Should the SCOTUS overturn the Affordable Care Act, it will be the third exmple of an activist confederate court ignoring the Constitution and writing a new one more to their liking. In which case, Thomas should be impeached for conflict of interest which has been well documented. Then Scalia whose conflict of interest is only slightly less obvious. Then our President should nominate judges in the Lawrence Tribe mode to re-establish a Constitutional balance on the court.
Excuse me
That's a green energy program that has been around since 2008. Hardly Obama's and it goes toward any PEV
Excuse me; but a single factoid might help
1. Supremacy, big part of nothing. Our President has done nothing to enhance the supremacy of either blacks or Islam. To suggest anything else is delusional.
2. Our President has a great deal to do with business - first he is the savior of manufacturing in the US primarily but not exclusively through the GM bailout. GE has no office in the White House. GM is not producing tax-payer subsidied cars.
3. The rightwingers insistance that Nazis are left wing is as you say pure propaganda. 1. Nazis gassed Communists in their death camps; Hitler exterminated the leadership of the SA (the socialist wing of the 1920's Nazis Party)gassed Soviet prisoners of war in their death camps; began by attacking communists in the streets in the 1920's. Communist stand for party ownership of the means of production. Nazis for business ownership of the means of production (until Hitler made his deal with big business he was out of power in Germany.) Socialist stand for the people owning the means of production. Major difference. Nazis are nationalists; Socialists and Communists internationalists. Major difference. Nazis are racists; Socialists and Communists are anti-racists. Major difference. The lit of differences goes on and on.
4. Left and right have a long and inglorious history of slaughter. But one difference is the real left not Communists has always opposed violence; the right always revels in it. Saying that a person without health insurance who is sick should die; booing gay soldier in Iraq, etc, etc, etc.
5. The distinction is between those who support republicanism (with a very small r) and those that support totalitarianism. You have left and right variants of each. Leftwing republicanism is infinitely better than rightwing republicanism and all forms of totalitarianism are purely evil.
delusion long believed are still delusions
Your dictionary isn't worth much:
first phrase OK requires national supremacy to some degree
contempt for democracy is a trivial aspect
one leader is OK but not necessary
but then it ends
Its a definition of some forms of nazism not fascism.
Fascism is a political system. How can the definition not include anything about politics. Fascism is a political system in which the business class controls national decision making generally but not necessarily through a strong leader (french fascism was a democratic fascism) and in which national and racial identity combined with totalitarian techniques are used to manage the populous. Any political system definition must include who benefits, how the population is managed, and how decisions are made.
By definition the left doesn't fit and never has. An anti-nation philosophy is by definition anti-fascist. So you can't just widen it for your purposes. Nor can you just widen it to include all ethnic groups it is by definition limited to one and only one ethnic group. Multiple ethnic groups are by definition anti-fascist.
So what is the Republican party - strong defense (pro-nationalism), anti-women, anti-immigration (white anglo-saxon, english speaking), pro-business (obvious), anti-democratic (all the voter suppression laws as an obvious example). Sounds very fascist to me.
As I said let the lunacy begin
Obama has managed the US government just as any credible moderate Repubican would have. He continued 90% of the Bush programs; he got out of Iraq slowly as Bush would have, he has continued even rightwing Bush initiatives such as the tax cuts. 1. He no dictator; to suggest he is is insane. 2. He has behaved as a conservative so he isn't even remotely a "communist" much less a liberal or progressive.
So obviously anything Mr. LeBlanc writes is without merit of any kind.
No, although that would be a good school had they had one
Good, phrase that accurately represents the aims and goals of the fascist right.
OK. Let the lunacy begin
"I am convinced that, in the short future, some communist dictator.." What communist dictator. Not Russia that's capitalist. Not China that's state managed capitalist (fascism). Not Cuba they are moving toward becoming the 51st state. Please identify any communist dictator armed with nuclear weapons in the world.
OH! so good
"take from the needy and give to the greedy". Thanks I'll use that.
False
Obama's superPAC has raised less than $100,000 as of last report. He never promised to never use a SuperPAC. More delusions from the far far right.
"Those unfortunate situations
"Those unfortunate situations are isolated events being reported in an irresponsible way by the media." They always are, arn't they when its your side creating the incident. To have a Rev. make excuses for murder is disgusting but not surprising.
The Witch Hunt Office
Wait 3 years. Then lets see how much the Republicans like their little RNC office.
Normally any bill opposed by the paper companies and
Republicans is a good bill. Not in this case.
When it started,
The Republican Party Presidential field was Bachmann and the seven dwarves. Should we be surprised that the Maine Senatorial races is just the 6 dwarves. None are qualified to be a senator from Maine. All are rank partisans committed to destroying the middle class.
Real Waste of Money
Two access points. $100-200 toll. Means this is a private road, for private benefit, with no positive impact on Maine. Might as well name it now - The Irving Maine Bypass Toll Road.
another myth. Does apply to Federal taxes
But when you look at state taxes all income groups pay the same percentage except the lowest which pays at twice the rate.That is before LePage started changing things.
Public safety takes a back seat
LePage obviously wants to give these jobs to his relatives that's why there will be no cost savings.
I will give you the point.
A mother's choice is not just "some reason". Calling it murder because you value the child that was born is no different than saying that you have a veto over what anyone else may decide about anything else when your feelings are different. You have no authority over that woman and under normal circumstances you should not. That said. I have never found anyone who favors abortion. I think every pro-choice view is that we would love to avoid it, but we have no right to interfere. Someone must choose and the only one to choose is the mother. Until we as a society guarantee that every baby born will have a full and complete oppotunity to satisfy their need, we have no right to interfere. I am happy you have taken responsibility for this child. Until we take responsibility for all children we will leave mothers with very difficult choices.
Traditional view is that human life has events that demarc
the stages of life. Pro-lifers reject that traditional view because they apparently think there is a single event, conception, which defines all others (because God implants a human soul at the moment of conception although they will not admit this given the separation of church and state it would destroy their argument). There are a number of pre-birth stages and events I just used fetus to simplify the issue. And yes I do think that separates the "pro-lifers" (they are actually anti-life because the life of the mother during pregnancy and the life of the child after birth mean nothing to them.) from the pro-choice (women do have rights all rights and are real persons within the meaning of the Constitution). The whole fabric of the "pro-life" argument was invented out of whole cloth in the 1840's when Doctors tried to suppress the practice of mid-wifery.
I haven't accuse you of anything yet.
A human baby is born. The moment of birth turns a potential baby into a real baby. When its a person is much more ambiguous. Different cultures assign different events/rituals by which children become persons.
The end result is always human, just not always a baby because its not always born alive.
Old arguments; none too rational
"Isn't that a contradiction" It is. "Does that make the newborn baby any less a human being compared to a full grown adult." "There's no denying that once a woman becomes pregnant and if the process is not interfered with, the end result will be a human baby." And there is the fallacy. If no one interferes there is a chance a probability that the end result might be a human baby.
The issue here is that the potential baby does not have rights that supercede the adult human being carrying the potential baby. The SCOTUS ruled correctly that as the fetus develops over time and becomes viable that its rights begin to come into play. And that counts.The baby's rights do not establish themselves at the moment of conception. A fetus is not a child is not a baby is not a person is not a voter is not a taxpayer.
Laws dealing with the loss of life of a fetus need to take Roe v Wade into account.
Obviously you are right very tricky
Lots of events could change everything - War in Iran as one little example. But right now 55-45% is pretty close. The Republicans War on Women is fundamental to their politics. Its really just their "pro-life", anti-abortion, 1840's family image, pro-fundamentalist religious bias. As time goes on and more and more Republican anti-women gaffes are made the number of independent women who support the Republicans will go down. If the economy continues to improve, the same is true. The two together are damning. Then insert Obama's 90-10 black and 80-20 Hispanic support and the Republicans start off way behind. Normally, a Presidential race would fall in the 53-47 range. But given the exposure the far right has gotten it could be a landslide. I don't expect because of the right's overwhelming money advantage so I'm taking a middle ground; 60-40 no 50-50 no but 55-45 yes.
I must have written this badly
All forms of human sexual expression are natural i.e. human sexuality is a continum of orientations, actions, preferences which are the natural expected results of human psychosexual development. Since marriage is a purely social arrangement any socially acceptable arrangement is perfectly OK. No rational reason exists to deny marriage to anyone except where real identifiable social harm will be done i.e. marriage among close relatives for example. Marriage Equality is the last great civil rights struggle of the 20t century.
There isn't?
"There's no basis in nature for a right to sodomy or a right to call two men or two women who are choosing to relate to one another sexually as a marriage,".... There is no basis in nature for marriage at all. Marriage is an institution of government and religion not nature. To deny marriage to homosexuals is irrational as every court which has looked at the issue has found.
Thought you did
Thought you did
Any rational working person can not justify voting for Romney.
Tax plan that wipes out the middle class and poor.
Wall Street economic plan - outsource jobs, fire workers, invest in Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese infrastructure, let America rot.
Social policies which will enslave women to an 1840's version of the family - end abortion, end contraception, end education for women (Romney will not want to do this but he'll have to give some meat to the insane Santorum wing of the party.).
Obama - 55%, Romney 45%.
What you mean
Is the kind of justice that Trayvon Martin got in Florida.
There was
The 2010 Maine Republican Platform.
Delusions
We do have to get control of medical costs - we need to expand Medicare to all American citizens. We know what Obamacare will do - its a Republican proposal passed in Massachusetts and has a clear record. It works.
Am I going to have to live as long as Moses
This is an example of the factual delusions of Republicans. If SS is not changed in anyway, it can pay 75% of stated benefits forever or as long as the US government exists (with a minor adjustment say a 1% or 2 full benefits for the next 75 years. I'll be 140.). Medicare does require some adjustment to survive past my 90th birthday. If we can get the Republicans out of the way, that's easy because the adjustment is minor.
Aazing
"Chicago style thug tactics". Let's see. Jim Baker no Chicago style thug brings in Republican staffers from Washingtion with orders to stop the Florida recount by any means necessary - meaning riot and assault. Newsweek and Time carry cover stories on this illegal attack on American Constitutional Democracy. And you have the arrogance to talk about "thug tactics".
You will be all alone
2014, I retire. Get my Social Security and Medicare the two most successful government programs in the history of the US. That and a small pension and a sizable 401(k) and I will be free to research the history of my country full time.
Dirty pool.
1. Evidence a depression has begun - none. Some one playing with the economic numbers? evidence None.
2. Solyndra investmnt. Let's see Romney was head of Bain Capital. He said some of his investments worked, some didn't. In fact taking risks is the root of capitalism. So taking pot shots at Obama over a failed investment is dirty pool.
3. Indict them for what. You don't even make a charge just an undocumented unsupported unspecific accusation.
4. Name one. I will; the Ryan budgets 1 & 2. Care to run on those. 1 got out of the House never made it the White House; never will. Both are political, economic, and social suicide. America as third world country.
5. Retreading worn out old right-wing failed policies ( please keep pushing no contraception, attacking porn, putting women back in their place) will thankfully get us to where we need to be Obama 55%, Romney 45%; US House D's-250, R's - 185, Senate D-61, R's-39. Which will give us 4 years of properity, economic growth, and legislation to protect each.
That's not the auto bailout
Subsidies for electric cars have nothing to do with the auto-bailout. My former boss got a very significant Federal subsidy for a Prius at least 6 and I think it was 8 years ago long before the bailout.
I know some of you are of that opinoin. The difficulty is finding some rational reason why. The Great Recession ended because of Obama's actions. Economic growth restored. Is the economy doing as well as we would like - No. The Republicans in Congress have been too significant a drag.
Unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ending, but not ended.
Healthcare - the most significant domestic national problem resolved. Not as I'd like it. Its based on private insurance companies and personal responsibility both of which will add to costs and undermine quality, but it does solve many of the most outrageous problems with healthcare - pre-existing conditions (including being a woman), lose of coverage of early 20'somethings, free (yes free) preventive care, etc, etc.
Did Dodd and Frank solve the criminal activity in the Financial Services sector - No. Have Bank Presidents been indicted along with Mortgage issuers, auditors, the ratings agencies, appraisers, etc - No. But its a start.
Do the Republicans have a plan, a philosophy, a set of options which will re-build the middle-class, restore national pride, re-establish America as the economic engine of the developed world - NO. They offer, "I fired them before I hired them" Romney and the three clowns. Not a detailed plan in the lot. And if you look at Congress the Republican plans are how we destroyed the middle class but only better in the future.
Am I optomistic - NO. Citizens United threatens the very foundations of our republican form of government. Its why Dodd Frank is enough, why the economy is growing slowly, why we may not solve the health care problem. Money is power not speech.
"but obama has far exceeded what bush did". Not true
Bush added ten's of thousands more than Obama has so far.
"...the two party political system no longer works; it's failing us, mainly because of constant and endless political bickering." I can't agree less. The elections of 1800, 1828, 1860, 1932, and 1964 were far worse in bickering. The issues far more strident. The fundamental problem is far too few of us pay real attention to political issues - too buzy with children, school, sports, smartphones, recreation, etc, etc, etc. We react by saying "would you guys just get it together so that we can ignore you until the last week before the election." Throughout our history the two party system has channelled major forces and ideas into the most readily resolved options (even if civil war is one of them).
Today that is equally true. Should we proceed with globalization and the empoverishment of the vast majority of our citizens as symbolized by the growing wealth gap or should we deal with it as a nation. Should we celebrate Randian radical individualism or national unity? Should we reward the privileged or provide opportunity for the deserving? That's the divide between the parties (along with do we protect patriarchal 1840's families or deal with the economic and social realities that have created the 2010 family). Those are issues worth deciding and a two party system facilitiates the decision.
I couldn't agree more
George Bush the President who expanded Food Stamps more than any other President in history, caused the second worst Recession in history, and discredited America throughout the world certainly will challenge for the worst President in American history.
Because they have nothing to do with President Obama
or the implications are very dumb.
1. The price of gas has doubled while Obama has been in office. And the Winter was one of the warmest in history. So what. The price of Natural Gas is down even more between 2000 and now and and down 60% between 2006 and now. That and a quarter gets you a cup of coffee. The President has no power over the price of commodities except by reducing tensions in the world. So far he's done a good job of that. Its Iran that it ramping up tension on Wall Street speculators who are spiking the price as a result.
2. The national debt has increased several trillions of dollars. Good. The last thing this country needs NOW is a reduced national debt. Now President Bush more than doubled the debt, created the Great Recession, and promoted and implemented a range of new unfunded programs that will keep increasing the debt for another generation. You can't turn that around in one term. But President Obama has reduced Federal spending and the debt from what it would have been had the Republicans retained the White House and has proposed several budgets that would reduce the debt by $4 trillion over 10 years. He can't get them out of the House of Representatives because the Republicans are more concerned to defeat him in November than to solve the national problems they created.
3. The unemployment rate is also higher than when Obama took office. But the rate has been falling starting 2 months after he took office because of his successful Auto bailout and the stimulus package that reduced the Bush 780,000 job lose per month to now 24 straight months of employment growth.
A rational person not only will give Obama a chance to finish the work he has begun but also recognizes bankruptcy of the Republican programs that brought us to this dangerous situation.
So much for the truth
"....not to stigmatize those who are receiving public assistance but to better educate them.... You do not hire auditors or fraud investigators to "educate" anyone.
referrals are going up because you have a group of politically inspired idealogs who hate poor people that are trying to make a case to injure the poor.
The documentation has been in for a long time. The priority in waste and fraud cases in welfare programs is the providers of good and services who like I believe its the current speaker defraud the government to the tune of millions.
I would approve this new hiring as long as the job descriptions require them to investigate fraud by providers.
Just because Charlie Webster tried to steal
the Republican caucuses this year for Willard Mitt Romney is no reason to change the selection system. But it is clear that the Republicans can't be trusted to run an honest election by themselves. After the Presidential election is time to look at this.
assumptions heaped on assumptions
and judgements heaped on judgements. I have a different attitude.
Because its only one tax
not all. Because it doesn't measure impact or really ability to pay (or disposable income if you will). Its an abstraction removed from the reality of your examples lives without considering the totalit of their lives.
That's why you have a problem
Its precisely the search for fair and what it means that drives most of human existence. Or has for the last 2000 years.
First, there is no such thing as a flat tax
All taxation is either regression or progressive. Either taxation strengthens or weakens a country. A "flat tax" is just a gross oversimplification that does not address the real issues and therefore benefits only the rich.
That's extremism.
Its not either/or. An infinite range of possible solutions exist. Marxism has nothing to do with it. Even your quote is what might happen as an extreme example under a whole bunch of Marxist assumptions that they don't even believe in. We can have equal opportunity, social stability, national unity, all people living within an acceptable range of satifactions and we did up until 1980 when the wealthy choose to change the laws and take every crumb on the table. Its not a zero sum game.
Because you can't ride it for free
1. We are expected to be a country of equal opportunity not results.
2. We can never attain equal opportunity so the closest we can come to it is relatively equal, close to equal. Instead we have a tax system that doesn't even try at equal opportunity. It shoots for a growing inequality of opportunity and that's the facts. Between 1945 and 1980 the relative share of national income of the wealth and the rest of us statyed at 40/60. Since then all increases in national income have gone to the top 10 or so.
3. You Robinhood style tax system is a myth. Don't exist. And no one is proposing anything that even approaches that. All current proposals just make inequal opportunity worse.
Not all taxes are income taxes and not all income is taxed the
same and not all taxes have the same conditions, exceptions, and regulations. That's why Warren Buffett pays 17.9% and his secretary over 30%. Paying the same tax dollars on different incomes has disproportionate affects. Everyone' situation is different. So no everyone should not pay the same %; what they pay should have the same impact on their lives. Let's say you and the next guy both pay 20% of your income in taxes but that leaves him enough to send his kids to Harvard and you can send your kids to work with lunch. Is that fair?
OK, that makes no sense.
Paying taxes should be like anything else in the real world (not the imaginary world of libertarian reductionism). All of us owe some level of taxes as our committment to the maintenance of society. We all use and are protected by shared laws and regulations. But some of us use more than the rest. Money is freedom. With it the wealthy can do more that they want to do than the poor can do. That's the whole point. If money didn't then it would not be an incentive. Wealthy people need to pay for that increased "use" of the system.
What evidence is there that increasing taxes on only the wealthy is unfair and unproductive - none. What evidence is there that tax cuts MUST be accompanied by spending cuts - none. In fact, there is a world of evidence beginning in 1791 that shows that some level of national debt is absolutely necessary for a united society.
NO,
The one making under $20,000 pays the highest tax rates (Source: MCEP).
increase taxes on the wealthy while controlling costs
until the necessary revenues are expected to meet the basic social needs of all Mainers.
And where does Ms Chute express any "hatred and disdain
for the so called 'wealthy'". Not in this letter. First, Maine and the Nation's primary problem today is a failure of committment by the wealthy to support their country. We as a nation pay the lowest taxes since World War II. The wealthy have made a science (UBS scandal as just one example) of concealing their wealth, hiding their income, protecting their assets all to avoid legally or illegally their basic obligations to this country.
Second, where to cut if you must pay for cuts in taxes (and the wealthy are not proposing cutting taxes across the board. Every proposal from the wealthy i.e. the Republicans would give massive tax cuts to the wealthiest and huge tax increases to the poorest Americans) is simple; in those programs that are pure wastes of or re-distributions of government tax dollars. Corporate subsidies - the 4 billion that go to Oil and Gas companies, the 20+ billion that go to corporate farms, etc. etc. etc. The last thing that should be cut are useful programs that strengthen the health and welfare of American citizens.
Surprise! Surprise!
Well qualified. As well qualified as the Governor for his job?
Obvious
Why Maine would want a more expensive, less efficient management of the unorganized territories that is more open to corruption is beyond me. If Mr(s). Windsor and Gedat are opposed to this proposal then it makes no sense.
Actually, I agree
I would only add that by thinking of it as a stigma society places a burden on the family, child that benefits no one. My mother (she is 90) tells me of a story she read many years ago as a girl about a teenage girl from Maine (fiction) who went to the Lowell textile mills in the 19th century; was made pregant by a mill supervisor; came home to have the child; the child was given up for adoption and years later she fell in love with a new young man in town and on deciding they would get married found out that the young man was her son and for the rest of her life was shunned by the community. As an old woman she was allowed to freeze to death in a bad winter because no one would bring her wood and she was too old to collect it. Where is the morality, the good and evil in her life. Except when someone is causing us immediate injury, judgements on people's lives are too complex and too uncertain.
Of Course
Its well Documented and true. Check the Midwife's Tale about Hallowell Maine 1795-1812. Then check the sources. Stigma only was attached to unwed mothers after/during Victoria Age post 1850's. The stigma is purely a recent cultural issue.
Your father was wrong
In the 1800's mid-wives were required to ask unmarried women who the father of their children were during labor believing that under pain they would tell. That was so the father not the town would be responsibile for the child. But there was no stigma in being unwed. It was purely financial.Had nothing to do with right and wrong.
Lunacy
First, America was founded as a secular country and transformed in the early 1800's into a Christian culture but not country.
2. America has never been ruled by socialists or communists and aren't now. So nothing is proved and the big lie isn't a lie.
3. No one anywhere in this country has proposed that big government, whatever that is, replace God. First because by definition that's impossible since for God to be God he/she must be supernatural and Government by definition must be natural. So what Joan must be describing here is replacing a secular, republican Constitutional Government by a Theocratic Government. What could be more intrusive, more dangerous, more harmful then a dictatorship lead by unaccountable ministers or priests as in Iran today.
4. We aren't being told the rich are causing our problems - although the Bible says that directly for the want of money is the root of all evil (along with many other things). Documented proven cases in the courts have shown that some of the rich have and are the primary if not the sole cause of this nations problems. When they tell you that they need not be accountable. They need not be personally responsible for their actions. When they support actions like the JOB ACT which is really the Financial Fraud Training and Promotion Act, you know that you don't count but they do.
5. That evil becomes more manifest when the rich say that they are operating under the authority of GOD. Several centuries ago it used to be called the Divine Right of Kings (or might makes right). Now its the lunacy that the ACLU, Taliban, and Communists are all the same. That under one flag and one God we will march off to the sunset slaves to our betters.
Not this boy.
Premature
Bryon's comments and action are appropriate. Any town should always look at alternatives that reduce costs without sacrificing quality or that might improve quality.
But to oppose consolidation before anyone knows the facts is premature. I will not sign a withdrawal petition until the advantages and disadvantages of withdraw are well and accurately documented.
Another sweetheart deal.
Personal attack? The guy defrauds the town of hundreds of thousands in taxes and its a personal attack to question his actions. Doubt it.
Just because something is old and wrong doesn't make it
automatically a principle.
Santorum does have one principle that will make it fun - he only tells well established Republican lies unlike Romney who hasn't met or spoken the truth yet (y'all). Santorum's criticism of Romney that Romney did promote the Heritage Foundation health care plan, which became Romneycare, as a National solution and later was the basis for Ombamacare is true and honest and fair.
A standard big government Republican with insane social policies that only white, evangelical fundamentalists could love will make November fun.
Announcement: Arizona is about to pass a law that will make it easier for employers to fire! I repeat fire! women who use bill control for contraceptive purposes. Please keep it up.
That dog won't hunt
I've seen his "apology" more than a half dozen times. Its not an apology.
No one has dictated anything to the Catholic Church
1. The Catholic Church was not required or asked to pay for contraceptives as part of the rule making for the Affordable Care Act. Organizations currently receiving Federal Funds which are affiliated with the Catholic Church but legally setup to be secular institutions were in an initial proposal that allowed a year for comment and accommodation. So much for that lie.
2. Limbaugh has never apologized. He just said that the words he used were inappropriate. How about an apology because they were false, slander, and intended to demean Sandra Fluke as an individual and all women in general. Romney may have thought it was about words. We all knew it was for policy as Limbaugh intended.
3. Limbaugh's long career of slander and lies does appeal to a certain class of personalities. He'll be on the air. But we can hope his crimes, slander, will be minimized.
4. Please win the nomination Rick. Pretty Please. It will be fun watching 4th century human sexuality compete with reasoned scientific knowledge.
Mexico and Rumford not so long ago were separate
School consolidation has to be looked at. A feasibility study of all the options would contribute a base of information from which people could draw rational conclusions.
But obviously many people have drawn their conclusions without the facts. Pride in school tradition is good. But it should not override a changing reality. The same pride and tradition can be developed for a consolidated Western Maine Foothills school system.
It would be very easy to fall in line with community pride. But I don't want the current school system. I want the one which will prepare our students for the best that life can give them.
National Republicans are responsibile for 85% of the national
debt; the greatest economic recession in 70+ years; scandal after scandal after scandal; a propaganda war on women, ACORN, senior citizens, the young, planned parenthood. The list just goes on and on.They want us to go back to the gold standard (didn't work then won't work now). They think the only thing that motivates people is money or punishment because its the only thing that motivates them. They live by the standard that what they want and do is the only thing good for the rest of us.
I think not.
Lowest pay the highest rate
The lowest 20% of income earners in Maine pay twice the rate of the remaining 80% source MCEP
The Federal Income Tax margin rate is too low;
the tax code is tooooo complex; the system completely unfair.
All income should be treated the same. Taxes in general should be paid based on use. Those who use the system the most should pay the most. Those that have the most should pay the most. Happily those are the same people. No exemptions (except cost of living/costs in case of business), loopholes. The tax system should not be used to provide incentives or subsidies. If government wants to provide a rational benefit for some sector of the economy the costs should be explicit and fully stated outside the tax code.
The result would be a simple tax code fairly sharing the costs of government.
Highest marginal rate should be above 40%.
Myth alert
"This nation was founded by men who were Christians." No it wasn't. This is a myth invented in the 1830's (50 years after the founding of the country). America was founded by 55 men in Philadelphia supported by hundreds more who participated in the Ratification Conventions. Overwhelmingly, they were college educated, rationalists. A few were deists and you might even find a Christian if you looked hard enough. Christianity is not mentioned in any founding documents (Constitution, notes on the Ratification Conventions, letters from participants).Only the Declaration of Independence which isn't a founding document comes close to suggesting a supernatural connection (Creator). And that's not even specific enough to mean much of anything.
Nothing President Obama has done has in any way challenged the Churches or violated the 1st Amendment. No attack on religious freedom has been attempted. No one is trying to "control" churches. On the contrary this has been an attempt by the religious right to impose their sick, perverted, sexual standards on the rational, responsible rest of us.
Sorry
But your comment doesn't add anything. Parity was an issue 40 years ago and even then in a limited context.
Translation
She said nothing about her sex life.
Rush Limpbaugh would love you.
First, the President did no such thing. The Catholic Church and all its related organizations are exempt from the medical insurance provisions of RomneyCare (excuse me, The Affordable Care Act. RomneyCare provides no exemption for any organizations). The President's proposal only affected religious affiliated organizations - organizations explicitly set up to receive federal funds because of their secular non-religious function.
Second, please remind us of the part(s)of the US Constitution that prevents the US Government from "meddling" in matters of private companies. Doesn't exist. The US Constitution explicitly gives the Federal Government wide latitude in all matters related to the economy and the functioning of corporations from setting the value of money, weights and measures, company bankruptcy, etc, etc. Implicitly, that latitude is even larger by the commerce clause, the necessary and proper clause, and several others.
Third, Ms Fluke provided no testimony about "nearly continuous recreational sex" or demands that insurance pay for her sex life. Her testimony was that other women at Gerogetown University who had medical conditions (ovarian cysts) could not easily get contraceptive pills which are a medical treatment for those conditions.
Last, all of this was stage managed by Republicans (the Issa committee which brought it up first) to deflect attention away from immediately important matters that they have obstructed for the last 3 years.
Another Republican solution for a non-existant problem
I suggest Maine's Republicans follow Virginia's Governor Ultrasound MacDonnell's solution to any non-existant problem - punish women. We all know they are the source of all evil.
What?
That doesn't begin to discuss the issues of inter-application communication.
What fix
What action by LePage or his administration brought this problem to light. NONE. The problem came to light in a routine audit done more than a year ago. This was not going on for years. A new computer system was brought in in 2010 and it was not correctly integrated with the old system so it did not remove newly ineligible people.
Instead of doing something about the known problem, LePage simple used the incorrect numbers to force more needy people off of Medicare.
Dictator tactics
That Republicans would lie hardly seems news. We have there apparent nominee for the Presidency of the US caught just this week in a major, indisputable lie over his promotion of Romneycare and individual responsibility as a national solution to the health care crisis. That the Governor and especially this Governor would lie about trying to prevent public discussion of his unconstitutional education bills.
"Proponents, meanwhile, read the clause to mean that diverting public funds is constitutional so long as the government doesn't favor religious schools over public schools, or one faith over another." No they don't. This should read Proponents re-vise the clause to mean....". The Constitution and the documents centered around the first amendment are very clear - Congress shall make NO LAW. Not balance this or that. NO LAW.
Great guy
Scott was one of the best.
Why Republicans oppose fair funding of elections
is obvious. Their billionaires outnumber Democratic billionaires 10 to one. Since Republicans represent the 1% even in Maine, they want unlimited spending. Adelson says he 1s prepared to spend $100 million. The Koch Brothers spend roughly a billion dollars a year.
Made had a good system that encouraged average citizens of all parties to participate in our government, the Republicans want a system where their billionaires can buy our elections.
King never found rural Maine
King has always used government office and influence for his own personal profit. He has done nothing for but much to rural Maine. His defeat make Maine stronger.
Very good
Excellent letter
Affordable Care Act
The Affordable Care Act requires that rules be developed for preventive care. This rule was created under that provision.
1. All religious institutions are exempted.
2. All institutions that take Federal money and are affiliated with a religious organization are exempted from paying for contraceptives.
3. Pregnancy is considered a pre-existing condition by insurance companies. Private insurance Companies are the sole insurance companies covered by these provisions.
Therefore, no 1st amendment issue is involved. Government is only establishing the minimum conditions under which private insurance companies can engage in this marketplace which is government's correct and proper role.
Only those that hate women, hate sex, or can't deal with either think this is an issue. The SCOTUS settled this as an issue almost 50 years ago. Its settled law.
What has King ever done for rural Maine
King see government as a series of programs that he can exploit to make himself rich.
Crony capitalism
There are better terms, but when you help business and hurt consumers crony capitalism seems right.
Anger while understandable doesn't solve anything.
Oil and gas prices are going up, but why? Because wall street gamblers are speculating that Iran's oil production will end.
Government officials don't have outrageous salaries, but Wall street and the Corporations that suck the life's blood out of our country do.
Maine does not have too many state workers, we have too few.
You can't solve a problem until you find the cause and deal with it.
Some day reason will win out
"professional leeches". "Maine is considered the welfare state and attracts leeches from all over the country and world to reap the harvest." Considered by whom, right-wing paranoids? Now we can't let facts interfere with Bob's many delusions. Data has consistently shown that more people on welfare leave Maine for other states than come in. Why? Jobs! These professional leeches want jobs. At least thats what the Repubs keep saying - young people are leaving because there are no jobs in Maine. Can't have it both ways. Either they are leaving or they are coming. Which is it.
Bob once told a school board meeting that pregnant students or students with babies should be expelled from school because they encourage other girls to get pregnant. Another member suggested that his comment was the reverse of the truth, other girls see the work, the loss of social time that a baby entails and that encourages them to not get pregnant.
Once again, Bob has it backwards.
We have????
"Maine has been spending too much on welfare for too long". We have, by what standard.
"....half again more on MaineCare than it was just 10 years ago, and enrollment has increased by 78 percent. Well, let's see. A 50% increase in 10 years that's an average of 5% per year. Medical costs are running 6% per year. Sounds like we are spending less that what we should expect. 78% increase in enrollment. Well that was before the Banks and their spokesman, the Republicans, looted the federal treasury and crashed the US economy. Maine is 10 years older. We have one of the oldest populations in the country. Again sounds like what we should expect.
The problem isn't spending. The problem is republicans changing the laws so that their rich allies are not responsibile for either their actions or the damage they do to the state.
So much for being able to stand public view
Boy, LePage has a thin skin and a weak mind. Where is his transvaginal ultrasound inspection of women passing the Governor's door. Let's get some serious legislation going. Maine is losing its spot as national laughingstock to Virginia, Alabama, and Oklahoma.
Dan, you have to understand Republican logic
Since Poliquin is a Republican, he can't violate ethical standards because he has and recognizes none. He can't violate the Maine Constitution because he only recognizes those part of the Constitution which benefit him personally.
But I must admit he stretches the limits of Republicanism when he said "...questions from Dion were politically motivated." As if his unfounded and irresponsible attacks on the Maine Housing Authority are anything else.
OK Brian got your chance; get the spin machine out.
Rates
Premium rates at our company increased about 23% this year. The year before and the year before that about 19%. Health care costs increased about 6% per year. The Republicans in the legislature passed a bill last year, LD 1333, which would allow insurers to radically increase rates. So does any of this surprise anyone. Average workers have not seen a raise in 5 years and in some cases premiums more than double in the last 5 years.
1. I would like to see a public detailed justification for insurance company premium increases.
2. As those increases make carrying insurance prohibitive for average workers, I would like to see Medicare expanded to included an income as well as age qualification. You get in if your income is less than x amount OR you are over a certain age.
3. Eliminate the immediate problem by restoring the Governor's tax bailout of the rich.
4. I would like to see any Medicare provider who defrauds the State/Federal program be mandatorily jailed on conviction.
We knew Republicans can't count.
Debates on the budget, National and State, suggested it. Iowa's results confirmed it. Now Maine's results prove it.
I read of no repudiation of the too quick announcement of a winner.
I read of no announcement of Charlie Webster's resignation.
Guess for Republicans personal responsibility is also a joke along with honest voting.
What an artfully done non-sequitor
What has Peggy's service time in Augusta to do with Medicais costs. What does increasing the number of people on Medicaid have to do with costs. Different types of people have different costs profiles. Perhaps we have had low cost participants added and high cost participants removed in the last few years. The above comments provides no meaningful details to justify their conclusion.
Maybe that's why
"Medicaid changes implemented this year were long overdue for a state with diminishing revenues." Maybe our revenues are falling because the LePage administration gave his rich supporters a big fat present and now children and the disabled and the acutely poor are to pay for it.
Completely immoral budget. No moral person should vote for it.
Corporate Welfare - No way
I agree with Tim somewhat. If we want to attract business it should be through making the state attractive to all businesses by improving infrastructure (roads, bridges, airports, internet access, phone service), by eliminating duplicate regulations and permitting (let one department make all the decisions necessary to permit a project taking all laws and prioritized conciderations into account).
No free market exists as this story makes clear. And Government should make decisions on what projects are good for Maine and what aren't. The market only makes decisions based on economic factors and often they are the least important.
Government has no role in "covering the costs" of a business. That's fascism.
I'll waste mine a little more
1. You are joking. Unlike Paul who doesn't understand the Constitution at all, Obama does. He has defended the Constitution at every step in his presidency.
2. Ok, slap my hand of course I don't agree with either. Both believe in and promote theocracy, I believe and promote the real Constitution not the "conservatives" (actually radical capitalist) modern rewrite.
3. You might be surprised. I've spent 40 years reading, reading about, and reading the interpretation of the Constitution. Spent the last three reading about the Second Great Awakening and how that transformed American culture and politics. Facts are important to me.
4. Thanks for clarifying that you don't want to try to make an argument, you just want your opinoin to be law.
"damed"?
1. So God is going to send the country to hell? Somehow I doubt it. I expect in 2016 we will have another election. And another democrat who understands the Constitution just slightly less well than Obama will triumph over religious bias.
2. Right, listened, watched, read Thomas for decades; hasn't been right about anything yet. Catholic Bishops haven't been right about human sexuality for roughly 1700 years although they are consistent.
3. Who says.
4. So you really have no argument. I'm not surprised.
The most irresponsible, irrational letter to find its way into
the Sun.
This is ultra-individualism that denies social responsibility, twists the Bible into an irrational mess, and which maliciously misrepresents and mischaracterizes President Obama.
What?
1. The opposition is not loyal. It has said time and again that its sole purpose is to defeat Obama the country be damned.
2. Cal Thomas' perverted column stand in well with the Catholic Bishops perverted ideas on human sexuality.
3. The Bishops proposal limits individual liberty not the Presidents. The President did not propose to "force" anyone to use birth control pills or devices. The Bishops proposal forced them not to.
4. Church affiliated organizations are created precisely so they can accept federal funds without violating the 1st Amendment and they are required to follow federal laws and regulations. No 1st amendment issue exists.
Facts please
The church affiliated organizations that would have been required to include no-cost birth control in their employer provided health insurance plans are setup to accept Federal funds without violating the first amendment which means they are subject to Federal laws and rules. So this was never a separation of church and state issue.
This was an attempt by the Catholic hierarchy to impose their very perverted view of human sexuality on the rest of us and to deny to their employees the freedom of conscience that the 1st amendment was intended to protect.
The proposal was never intended to be implemented in the first place. It included a one year period for comment and discussion. Instead the Catholic Bishops tried to turn it into a political issue.
Thankfully the President worked out a very acceptable compromise that all affiliated groups now agree with and only the Bishops are opposing. Obviously they neither represent their members or common sense.
Perhaps this is now superceded by the stolen Maine Primary
While a violation of the state Constitution, slander, and failure to competently fulfill the duties of treasurer are important, why is there no reporting on Charlie Webster's stealing the Republican Primary for Willard Mitt Romney.
We all remember Charlie Webster, Chairman of the Maine State Republican Party, from last year when he made up all these false stories about Democrats stealing elections through non-existant voter fraud. Now Charlie has declarded Willard Mitt Romney the winner in the Republican Primary and stated that they Party will not count votes from Washington County (went for Paul in 2008) or the half dozen cities in Waldo and Kennebec Counties that did not report results. Iowa re-stated their results when initial result were wrong. Why is Maine not doing the same.
Seems Charlie is stealing the Primary election for his candidate through you guessed it voter fraud.
Why has this old letter been entered as new i.e. no comments
Once is enough for this kind of paranoia.
Feel free
Morning Joe that morning used the numbers as well has the Ed Show and Rev Al Sharpton's show a few days before. Their numbers came from government reports and I think they are on recovery.gov.
Nope
An economy must be viewed as a whole not looking at some factor in isolation. The Greek and American situations are totally different. Greece does stand as an example of the point a nation's debt does catch up with it, but its not an example that applies or will ever apply to us. Greece is not the largest economy in the world. Greece does not have the largest army by many orders of magnitude. Greece did not have a Great Recession in 2008. Economies for one thing run on confidence. Debt is a problem only when it affects negatively on the confidence others have in our economy. Because of many factors confidence is very strong in the US economy. Debt will not catch up with us. That said we do need to reign in our debt because if nothing else it restricts our budget options. The goal of the current and future administrations should be to reduce debt to no more than 25% of the national economy without adversely affecting economic growth. As of today, austerity plans are adversely affecting growth by .5 to 1%. We need a budget where Federal drag on the economy is negative (the government is growing the economy) while slowly reducing the debt until economic growth is in the 3.5%+ range for a year or more then we can cut the debt more rapidly.
Thanks Betty
Always good to have someone on the side of reason
cute, but
Its not a matter of statistics. Jefferson wrote that party affiliation was a matter of personality. He's right. I didn't say that all the bad people fall into one of these groups. Its not a matter of random selection. Its a sociological process well documented historically. At the roots all these groups shared one common set of beliefs - that it was their duty to rule those inferior to themselves in God's name. And they have not changed which is the common assumption tday.
Love to and have
But Republicans live in a magical worldview. Every fact down to earth people present Republicans ignore. Every solution is outside their worldview so it's unseen.
Start with the obvious solution which people have mentioned here many time before:
1. Repeal the Bush Tax cuts
2. Solve the Federal revenue problem by eliminating all tax loopholes.
3. Change the tax system. Federal taxes owed = Disposable income times a tax rate that starts at zero at the poverty limit and grows to a marginal rate of 50% at $1 million dollars. Rates for incomes below the poverty line would be negative and count as a tax credit.
4. Allow the Federal Government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare.
5. Move much more aggressively away from gasoline for transportation.
The list is much longer.
All very well documented.
Did you intend to say something?
Can't agree
Wish I could agree, but from the Republican Party's founding to today it has been at its core a racist party. They were founded by the fusion of whigs(evangelical protestants and businessmen), anti-slavery democrats, free-soilers, and the American Republican Party (Know-Nothings who were anti-immigrantion, anti-catholic) the result was a Party dominated by anti-black (being anti-slavery did not mean you believed in the social equality of African slaves; only the radical abolitionist wing of the party believed in equality), anti-catholic, anti-slavery, and pro-Theocracy. The CPAC conference last weekend included in a panel discussion a well known anti-semite, anti-immigrantion, hate monger. Ron Paul has promoted anti-black, anti-immigrant ideas for 30 years. Richard Nixon conducted the "Southern Strategy" bringing southern racist democrats into the Republican Party in 1968. The Christian Right wing has been and is anti-catholic and anti-mormon and recently anti-muslim. So I think their irrational rage at Obama comes from their longstanding irrational racism.
Its easy
The $200 is the expected (CBO forecasted deficit for FY 2009-11) bush deficit subtracted from the real deficits in those years.
You misunderstood my comment or I mis-wrote it. Bush policies will account for 96% of all Federal deficits out to 2050 (comes from Rep. Paul's charts on his budget proposal of last year among others; not a 96% increase.
Obama has never had congressional control. Republicans during his administration have either controlled the Senate (had 40+ votes) or the House. Therefore he has always proposed programs that are either Republican proposals (Health Care) or negiotiated a democratic proposal (extension of payroll tax cuts) in exchange of support for a republican idea (extension of the Bush tax cuts). His new budget (compromise with the republicans having failed) does roll back much of the Bush tax cuts and reduces the deficit over 10 years by $4 trillion.
Obviously wrong.
130 million jobs were not lost in December nor 128 million lost in January. I don't know what John meant but what he wrote was wrong.
"... the media don't report his impeachable acts;.." Like what? Maybe they don't report them because they don't exist.
"The president has thrown billions of dollars to bailouts without it trickling down to anyone.." 1.5 million jobs created by bailing out the auto industry. 3.4 million jobs created/saved by pushing the stimulus package. An increase of 2% in the GDP by these acts alone. I'd say that's a whole lot of "anyones".
Its a big economy
You don't turn the US economy around on a dime.
Its not time to stop blaming the Bush Republican administration for national debt increases. The Bush administration by its failure to enforce Federal regulations, by its failure to regulate new, untried, and knowingly dangerous financial instruments beginning in 2001 when they decided not to regulate new securitized mortgage instruments created by Countrywide which were the primary cause of the 2008 Great Recession, and by its decisions to begin new programs (Bush tax cuts, two wars, Medicare Part D, and the largest expansion of the Federal Government in modern history the creation of the Homeland Security Department) without paying for them created 96% of the increases in national debt out to 2050 were no actions taken to reduce it.
Obama changes have added $200 billion to the national debt in 3 years. Nothing compared to the Bush years when Dick Cheney said that the National debt just did not matter.
Its not trivvializing it
Hey, I throw in 11% that doesn't override the rest of the comment. 11% is huge. That's why I talked about what they have recently done to improve it.
But you reaction is based not on the numbers, but on your assumptions. "Government is overreaching" that's an assumption or better yet your bias. "they are outside their span of control". Again a bias or at best an assumption. Have you tested their "span of control". Do you really know its breath? Based on these two untested and untestable assumptions you reach the conclusion that waste and fraud will continue or get worse." "ObamaCare is simply opens the door to more opportunity" Again a conclusion with no support at all.
You have to know the capabilities of Federal systems and be able to test them to make the judgements you are. When Medicare was implemented Federal "span of control" was very low. A top of the line computer system used tape for I/O. The legislation gave them 6-12 months to implement new features/programs. Current computer systems are thousands of time more productive. Project development techniques are orders of magnitude better. And the Affordable Care Act staged implementation over a number of years. True these systems process millions of transactions per day and thats a real task for any operation. But they have the tools to do it today that they didn't have in the 1960's. The "span of control" today is huge. A medicare for everyone program is very doable. Minimimzing errors is very doable. Checking and preventing deliberate fraud is very doable today (credit card fraud detection is orders of magnitude better than just a few years ago). The Affordable Care Act provides te opportunity to greatly reduce real fraud. Nothing will reduce error too much.
I agree with your $60 billion
That is the size of the problem. $60 billion out of about $551 billion in expenditures about 11%.
Let's understand what Medicare Fraud and Asbuse is. Medicare Fraud and Abuse is any billinging to Medicare that covers services not delivered or a service that was delivered but was unnecessary or inappropriate (given to someone not qualified for the service.
The mismatch of qualified people to services is low, technical, and almost always caught after the fact by computers. Its the error rate of medicare and will never be zero but also may reach the point where its not worth pursuing if the costs to pursue are high.
The major medicare fraud is provider mis-billing that is separated between deliberate fraud and provider billing errors. Our Speaker of the House can speak to this since he misbilled Medicare by $1.6 million. He claims it was an error (billing for one class of product when really a different class was provided). Most of the provider errors are caught in the billing process. What remains is deliberate fraud.
For the first time and about time, the Obama administration has elevated Medicare Fraud and Abuse to a cabinet position. The HEAT team of cabinet officers was established in 2009 to specifically address and presecute deliberate fraud. Its done some good but not enough.
But Medicare Fraud and Abuse is about errors in the billing process. The $60 billion does not refer to expenditures. It refers to billing errors. In 2010 "improper payments" were about $48 billion of which an unknown amount were later found to be correct and proper.
Columbia Healthcare paid about a billion dollars in fines and penalties a few years back for deliberate fraud.
ut medicare was set up for fast and easy payments to providers not for verification. As time has gone on the system is being changed to put more and more emphasis on proper payments. So its not like little is being done. Just that much more needs to be done.
The fundamental point tho' is that patients are almost never involved in fraud.
of course their is fraud.
So what. That's what I meant by Mr. Nachman's letter meaning almost nothing. Of course, there is fraud and some undocumented immigrants will benefit from fraud. So. As long as thee Government does what reasonably can be done to control fraud it isn't an issue because no matter what is done the cost of proventing the fraud will exceed the benefit of preventing it. What sensde does it make to spend $100 t save $95.
I didn't say or imply any of that.
I said Scarcelli might have been a plant to weaken the D's. The article suggested coordination between Scarcelli and the Republicans. The rest of your comment is just the usual R paranoia.
Please name a single conservative D who has run as an independent who coordinated their campaign with State D's to take votes away from Republican candidates.
Its Maine
LePage's bill refer only to Maine. My experience refers only to Maine. I can't agree with you more that in some places and with some superintendents bad teachers grow like weeds. Its not a problem of teacher evaluations. The administrators know who the bad teachers are just as you and I did. The problem is they will not do their jobs and document why they are bad so that they can be fired.
Normally they use the military solution. I can't get into specifics, but we had a teacher who was worse than incompetent, worse than bad. Gave grades based on gender of the student and explicitly on their relationship. Superintendent promoted the teacher to a non-teaching position at greatly increased pay. Zero documentation.
Paul Nachman has a much storied past
Paul Nachman is a featured writer on VDARE.com (named for Virginia Dare the first English Child born in Virginia 1587) The site and its editor are well known anti-immigrant propagandists who spend a good deal of time explaining why they are not white supremists and anti-semities even though they have been identified as such by reputable organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Actually, Mr. Nachman's letter says almost nothing. He agrees with the previous letter's author that the law prevents federal payments to illegal immigrants for medical care. He then suggest that illegal payments might be made because illegal immigrants illegally are paid for jobs they can't legally hold.
First, undocumented immigrants are not criminals. They have broken no criminal law. They have broken federal "civil" law.
Then he suggests that if the Affordable Care Act had mandated the use of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements online program to confirm that a noncitizen applicant for benefits resides in the U.S. legally, then undocumented immigrants would be prevented from getting these benefits. Why would that work? If these people are breaking the law to be here, why wouldn't they get illegal documentation that would let them get jobs and benefits. Fact is they do. Plus nothing in the Affordable Care Act says the government won't use this system. The act merely leaves open the "how" so the government can choose the best system at the time to verify proper payments.
You have to be paranoid to read into this any problem. OOps, guess that's obvious.
What????
This is suggesting that Scarcelli was a faux-democrat candidate created by the Republicans intended to produce a weak opponent for LePage. Wouldn't be surprising. During the campaign activists knew there was something just not right about Scarcelli's campaign. Republicans have done this or similiar things before in other states. Might also explain why Woodcock lost the campaign before and why LePage a very similiar out-of-the-mainstream candidate who was equally inarticulate and irrational won.
Bad ideas and the LePage Administration seem to collide
frequently.
State money for private religious schools - unarguably Unconstitutional, no accountability, no controls. Its everything you hate about public schools just made much worse.
I'll support teacher and administration evaluation changes when its not just cover to break the unions which seems to be the primary goal of the Republicans these days. Fact, the problems getting rid of bad teachers is a myth. When I went to the School Board Converences years ago sessions were held on "its easy to fire a teacher if you just document the situation". Truth is the problem of firing bad teachers is a superintendent problem not a union problem. Firing a teacher looks bad for the administrators. they would prefer to hide the situation than deal with it.
School Choice is just a way to force rural school consolidation without controls or a plan or accountability. Let the random acts of parents and students force the hand of the state and local governments. Its a really bad idea. 20 years from now we may not have schools as we know them today. Online education blended with small site instruction or big site instruction may completely change education. Delivering an education experience in large "factory" buildings is an expensive 19th century idea.
agreed.
People can cherrypick studies.
We don't know who commenting here has a financial interest in wind farms going into operation so we don't know the credibility of anyone.
From what I've heard and seen and from the point of view of an affected home owner, Industrial Wind Farms have no place in Maine.
It didn't
People starved in the streets, died from all sorts of easily treated diseases, and died from old age and neglect.
As for Government intervention. As long as there has been "government" there has been intervention so you have to go back 3,000,000 and more years to reach "before Government intervention". The choice now is not between no intervention and lots of intervention. Its between the tyranny of religious dogma on the right and the freedom of personal growth and responsibility on the left.
Fantasy vs. reality
Every year Maine has a balanced budget. The state is not deeply in the red. The credit rating companies (as corrupt as they are) agree Maine has its debt well under control. The Governor Constitutionally can not "supervise" the State Legislature. The most he has been able to do so far is bully senior citizens, the infirmed, and children.
He had one
What a thankless impossible job.
I know you want to believe that,
but its not true. I have approached this in this way. The NRCM supports industrial wind farms (they do). They are normally right and this question is a question of balancing alternatives. Now is there any reason why they might be wrong. The list is long for those who live in the shadows of the farms.
There is almost nothing peer-reviewed. Wish there was. it would make my decisions much easier. The industry will not fund peer-reviewed studies for fear of getting a result they don't want. The environmentalists don't have the resources to fund peer-reviewed studies (long term studies of the environmental impacts to humans of industrial changes in their living space are extremely expensive and even with rigorous controls difficult if not impossible to replicate and may require very long period of time (decades) to complete). So everyone has to take the info and apply their best guess as to the confidence that should be placed in any study conclusion.
I'm open to logical debate also. Industry will not comment on proposed facilities until they have been installed. Far too late for a logical debate.
So sorry
First, as I said I'm not opposed to industrial wind power in a proper setting. Nor am I opposed to it 5000 feet directly in front of my front door which is the current plan. I am a member of various environmental groups that do support industrial wind power so I have a predisposition to support it.
Second, if you eliminate studies done or funded by groups that will financially gain by the development of industrial wind power, ANY study will oppose it in residential areas.
Third, yes seriously low-level vibrations have specifically been related to negative human impacts - in wind power situations and other industrial environments.
Fourth, what's louder than a windmill in Auburn almost nothing depending on set backs.
In theory industrial wind power is great, but
when you have to live with it, its still "industrial". Most states, cities, have zoning to separate industrial development from residential development. Not here and not with wind power. Many people complain about the visual degradation of rural undeveloped Mountains. That's a problem, but its the totality of problems (noise, low-level vibrations, wildlife impacts, the impact of upgrading the transmission lines because the power is generated at great distances from where it is consumed, and the huge corporate welfare needed to economically justify these projects) that suggest that industrial wind power development is not acceptable for every mountain in western Maine and in fact for any mountain in western Maine.
Since few people live with industrial wind power now, the polls only reflect the theory of wind power not the facts.
Dr. Shields
No, Dr. Shields has earned my contempt for his frequent letters to the editor because - they weren't his.
Some time back he was one of many Republicans in the Senate who submitted letters to local newspapers claiming they were his own when in fact they had been written by the Senate Republican Staff. He was showing his contempt for his constituents by trying to mislead them. He didn't have time to convert the daily Republican talking points memo into a letter. He was above all that. If Dr. Shields is going to act like a baby we have the right to treat him as a baby. I suspect it contributed to the Sun asking if letters to the editor are unique and written by the supposed author.
Must run a retail store.
Maine has a revenue problem and a tax equity problem. I would not have a problem repealing the sales tax if the income tax and the property tax were equitiable, but they aren't. The total tax impact on individuals and families should be income minus the minimum needed to live which equals real disposable income times a progressive rate rate (people with higher disposable incomes "use" governmental services more than people with lower disposable incomes.). Instead the lowest 20% of income earnings in Maine pay taxes at a higher rate than all other Mainers.
I have to admit little Tommie is almost right for once
I am not one to praise Republican legislators very often. Being bound to a philosophy which is anti-Constitutional, self-destructive, and delusional along with a fair dose of political hypocricy doesn't allow for much mature, rational, constructive legislative action. But I have to give it to the current crew of Republican legislators, faced by a completely irrational, self-serving bully in the Baine house they have worked with Democrats to come up with some adult solutions (like the bipartisan budget) to Maine's real problems.
Then there is little tommie - refugee from past Republican legislatures. "Maine’s benefits are already well above the national average, and so are the taxes." So what made the national average god. Find me a state which is "average". Average is a artificial and not very meaningful seventh graders' term. When Maine's population's age and income are average; when its transportation, real estate, and heating costs are average, when its distance to markets is average then let's talk about its benefits and taxes. Truth is Maine taxes are below average and benefits are below the average in New England much less the nation. Now I'm talking real numbers here not MHPC mangled for effect numbers.
The Maine Housing Authority investigation is so far a witch hunt. Not a single issue, problem, has been established. No cause to investigate has even been proposed (other than its head is a Democrat). No evidence has shown that any "expenditures for personal pleasure and other unrelated items" has been made. Not one. Now maybe little tommie has some secret confidential information that has been illegally leaked to him by his buddies in Augusta. All I can go on is the published reports.
Apparently little tommie is happy with his governor's proposals to poison babies and turn the state of Maine into funtown for rich developers. The rest of us aren't.
The Bully is back
Florida has the criminal Scott, Michigan Synder, Wisconsin Walker, Ohio Kasich and Maine has "my way or the highway" LePage. He can't work with Democrats and he can't work with Republicans (they dropped his bill to poison babies). He doesn't have a clue what Maine's issues are or how to address them. Boy, do we need Governatorial recall added the the Maine Constitution. This degenerate clown is so irresponsible he wants to deny medical care to the helpless to pay for tax cuts for the rich. Even his Republican buddies will not take their orders from Washington as he does. I hope he vetoes this proposal. Make my day, governor.
Foolishness
You don't move a $17 trillion economy on a dime. President Bush added almost $6 trillion to the national debt by promoting and signing the Bush tax cuts ($2 trillion in new debt), promoting and adopting Medicare Part-D (cost $800 billion per year none paid for), two wars (over $1 trillion lets not mention the lives and international turmoil). President Obama's new programs which are unpaid for - $787 billion in stimulous spending which will return billions in tax revenues). You can not blame Obama for programs passed under and promoting by the previous Preident. You also can blame the costs of the recession (unemployment insurance, food stamps, welfare, etc) which were caused by Bush projects like his failure to enforce regulations and his repeal of other regulations.
Get your facts straight.
So!
"The dictionary definition of socialism is: A theory or system of ownership of the means of production and distribution by society, rather than by individuals." Why include this definition. America has never had a socialist government. The means of production and distribution have never been owned by society (not government). No serious political party in the United States advocates a socialist government.
On the other hand, "Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology where its individuals are united together as one people in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood which seeks to purify the nation of foreign influences." The weakness of this definition is that it is ahistorical. It ignores that a alliance of the business, military, and church elites was necessary to establish the authoritarian nationalist political ideology. In this, its more of a definition of Nazism than fascism.
Has American ever been fascist. Yes, 1878-1914. And many of these strains are expressed today in the Republican Party - authoritarian, of course, nationalistic what else was the Bush doctrine, anti-immigrant, no question, anti-foreign influence, overt, lead by the business elite anyone who has watched the Republican primaries in detail can only wonder had how the party has taken orders from this elite first in the formation of the Tea Party and now in the slavish surrender to the Romney campaign.
Shows that conservatives are not conservative. They are radical advocates of a 20th century economic and political philosophy based on fascism (the elite) and ultra-individualism among the disregarded.
Ellen, close and I like it
But the primary recipient of Federal and State government welfare and entitlements are corporations and the very rich. Not focusing on the cause prevents the correct solution. Federal Revenues are at the lowest they have been since the Second World War. If they were returned to just the average we would have no federal deficits and the national debt could be wiped out in a few years.
While we all benefit from this truely unique and exceptional government founded by the US Constitution, we do not benefit equally and as long as we don't those who benefit most (the rich) should pay the most.
Witch hunt reply require courtesy?
When a partisan who may be defrauding the state of Maine and is violating its Constitution and ethics laws starts an unfounded witch hunt to discredit an efficient, dedicated, and throughly competent administrator, do we expect her to be courtest in her reply. Her letter is more than that. Mr. Pelletier's charges are like the MHPC investigation groundless and partisan.
"Our expenditures support
"Our expenditures support MaineHousing’s mission and its business operations are not funded by state money." Nuff said about the LePage witch hunt.
Our state Treasurer wouldn't defraud the state
now would he. He wouldn't directly and intentionally violate the Maine Constitution. Our government would not intimidate the state legislature that his controlled by his party. No can't belief that Republicans would behave so badly.
Hire LePage
Apparently LePage wants Newt Gringich's job - national promoter of Democrats. Rotundo's summary of the situation is very accurate, "The Republicans have control of both the State House and Senate and if (LePage) had their support for his dangerous, irresponsible and illegal cuts, they could pass the budget without us." Can't we find a way to get him 4 hours a day of TV coverage. Would save Democrats a lot of money this November.
Close but no cigar
There is only a corporate party, but politics are not to blame. Money in politics should be. The infightimng is not for show. The Dems want a stable government which relfects the views of the workikers. The Repubs want an instable government which will allow their elities to loot the federal treasury.
Simple
We are just coming out of the worst economic downturn since the 1929 Great Depression. More people need help in finding food. The increase in SNAP use is a function of the economic situation. More people were added to the food stamp program under George Bush (14.7 million) than under Obama (14.2 million) because the recession began under the Bush Admninistration (2008). Under Obama as the economy improves the number of people added to SNAP has started to go down.
Plus we must remember that the primary purpose of SNAP is not to feed poor people. By increasing demand for food stuffs SNAP raises the prices of foods producing larger profits for large agribusinesses.
The Republican logic is that starving people will more readily accept jobs with unreasonable or illegal working conditions so they don't like SNAP. If a few die in the streets its good for business. A principle that the nation should reject.
MHPC is a partisan joke.
Their studies are always one-sided, misleading, and defemseless.
National, independent studies confirm the obvious - the only statistically significant result of states adopting RTW laws is that workers are paid less and business owners make more income.
This is just another arrow in the Republican's quiver of measures to destroy the middle class and to enrich the 1%.
I didn't assume the resource
I didn't assume the resource is infinite; if any one did it was Locke. But he presented two cases one where it was and one where it wasn't as I wrote.
I do not assume or support equal outcomes; I only mentioned equal opportunities so maybe you need to re-read my comment.
Apparently, you didn't read my comment. My argument is not based on a "contrived idealistic environment - Locke's was. I show where real world situations condition the right of private property. If all wealth is distributed equally is not providing equal opportunity. Nor do I suggest in any way that the status quo will be maintained on the contrary because of how the laws have been changed I argue that the concentration of wealth will increase until the distribution of power is so distorted that republican government becomes impossible.
I don't think and I didn't suggest that equal distribution of wealth could be equalized in fact I wrote about the range of wealth.
Thanks fr confirming my argument
If the estate tax does not prevent multi-generational concentration of wealth and it doesn't as Mr. Romney's tax returns prove, I don't understand why you think my view needs to be reexamined. Property Rights are derived from other rights. They are conditional because the other rights are conditional (as all right really are). Property rights ultimately are incentives to stimulate progressive change in a society (standard of living, economic growth) as long as those rights are consistent with their purpose fine; but they are not independent of the society that defines them nor government.
John Locke said it best (paraphrase) If something is in surplus (readily available to all people such that if every one acquired it more would remain in a ntural state), then it became some one's property by his converting it through his labor to be of use. Locke example was acorns. If everyone collected them more would remain. They became an individuals property because the individual expended labor (his energy, life, etc) to convert them from acorns lying on the ground to roasted acorns on a skillet. But! But! notice the in surplus. If something is not in surplus society must come up with a scheme to ration them (property rights must become conditional). If some people have more opportunity than others, society must come up with conditional property rights. If the conversion from a natural state to a useful state limits those who can benefit, society must condition property rights. Governmental advancement has come from the understanding that "use" rights are derived from the situation and not to power and violence.
Multi-generational accumulation of wealth defeats a fundamental principle of republican government - all men have a role in government. Beyond some quantitative range wealth is the enemy of republican government. A faction in Madison's meaning.
The closer a society gets to "If I earn it its mine" the better it is up to but not including the point where what I earn prevents others from exerciing their rightsd within our society. Our laws have been changed over the last 30 years such that the property rights of a few threaten the principles of republican government.
Sorry you are wrong
"Jon's and many other's premise is based upon a notion that we can incure debt indefinitely...." I don't believe any such thing. In fact, I think the current ntional deficit is currently the most significant threat to America's role in the world and to each of our's standard of living.
1. But I identify the real causes of our debt - the Republican plan (Grover Norquist's plan) to bankrupt America.
2. I recognize the solution is to oppose that plan and all its implications.
3. Foreign trade dropping the US dollar as the media of exchange will not bring about hyper-inflation by itself.
4. We have time to correct the problem. Defeat any and all Republicans (can't solve the problem with the cause controlling the government). Slowly as the economy will allow eliminate the current structural deficit by reducing spending, increasing the marginal Federal Income Tax rate (not the tax rate) on incomes above $1,000,000 to about 50% (as they were under President Eisenhower), reverse all tax and other policies that encourage the export of American jobs, provide incentives to manufacturing here, increase educational achievement here, strengthen regulations, and most importantly bring the financial sector under control starting with jailing those responsible for the recent economic collapse.
5. When national debt is reduced to 25% of GDP return to normal economic policies.
Intimidation
This proposal has one and only one purpose to intimidate workers who legitimately have qualified for unemployment benefits into no applying for those benefits for fear of investigations and false prosecution. This proposal is criminal.
Hardly
"Those favoring gay marriage keep bugging voters over and over again..." Don't think so. The last referendum on Marriage Equality was 3 years ago initiated by OPPONENTS of Marriage Equality to repeal adoption of Maine Equality by the Maine Legislature. I believe there was a referendum years before to adopt Marriage Equality that was defeated. I haven't found the date of that referendum.
But. Clearly the 2009 referendum and the previous referendum were not the "same question". Nor are supporters of Marriage Equality "bugging people" with repeated referendums.Wonder how often petitions were received in Congress to free the slaves between 1790 and 1860. Bet'ya that bugged the hell out of slave state legislators.
This isn't a problem except to people who oppose Marriage Equality.
And the solution is simple - grant to people Marriage Equality. Why we have to legislate a fundamental human right is beyond me.
Is not impossible for RR's to be right
But since 1968, I haven't seen the occasion so you may be right.
I agree with you
Bin Laden should have been captured and if necessary killed in Tora Bora in 2002. He was a shell of himself in 2011. But he was active. He did try to initiate actions. Someone said yesterday on TV just ask Chief of Police Kelly (NY) if you think he was inactive. His death was important symbolically, as a statement of justice,and as a warning to other radicals that we would not simply give up. So I don't do a lot of celebrating, but I do do some.
22 million jobs 3.8% economic growth over 8 years
When did the bubble burst?
As long as we keep Republicans out of office approaching totalitarianism is a very long way off. For example, only republicans support the idea that a Governor like in Michigan should have the power to void elections.
Can't agree with you more.
I can trace my facts and figures back to a valid, independent, and reliable sources like US Government figures, Almanacs in this case etc. What you don't see on "conservative" comments is their source or if you do its from a purely partisan group (Heritage Foundation, AEI, etc). And you will see a response to real numbers of "OH yea". Not an alternative number. that's why its so difficult to converse with conservatives. They have their personal "facts" which can't be verified any where else. You would think they would accept Government deficit numbers (they don't).
Also they sacrifice the "facts" to their ideology. Republican basic principle is lower taxes are always good. Well when taxes are zero (Paul recently said that this is best), its obviously not good unless you want to do away with all government, our nation, the Constitution, and all of our traditions.
They arrive at this obviously false idea following Austrian Economics. This is an economic theory which has never been implemented, never tried, not accepted by more than a small cult of economists and has as its fundamental basis that its conclusions can never be empirically tested (in their view all economic theories should be derived from mind games not data or analysis).
Why do they do that. Because it theories are the only ones that comport to ultra-individualism and reject all forms of collective, social interactions. And that champion the idea that the winner no matter how he has won is morally, economically, politically, and socially superior to all others. And therefore comports to a society of elites.
No wizardy involved.
If you don't deal in facts and RR's (conservatives don't) then analysis must be limited to magical thinking.
Agreed
Why would a revolutionary radical (conservative) deal with fatcs better to analyze magical thinking
I realize Republicans must say the sky is falling
Economy - compared to economic collapse, ever increasing unemployment, frozen credit, non-existent profits, reduced wages, and inflation; I'd say it is wonderful. Not great like under Clinton but then he had only to deal with a mild Republican housing bubble and no financial collapse.
Foreign policy - ridiculous comment hasving no merit.
Health Care - again no comment of merit. Doesn't even fully kick in until 2014
Foreclosure - again nothing worth commenting on.
Didn't write that
I wrote "most effective Presidents in foreign policy in the last 50 years". You missed those little words "in foreign policy". I would agree that his Affordable Health Care law was simply a Republican re-hash which was not in the interests of the country as a whole and that it took attention away from economic recovery which was too slow and not focused enough. But that puts him still a head of Ford, Carter, Bush I, and Bush II. And ahead of everyone on foreign policy since Nixon.
Bin Laden? He as a replacement?
Fact, Bush tried and failed from 2003-2009 to find or kill Bin Laden
. Obama succeeded. Bush tried and failed from 2003-2009 to destroy the Al Qeada infrastucture. Obama succeeded. And we know that inspite of strong cabinet objections, Obama made the decisions to attack.
What was in place was 8 years of policies that had the economy collapsing when Obama took office. Unemployment was falling by 675000 jobs a month when Obama won the election. That increased to over 700,000 by the time he took office and finally to 780,000 by the time that he could take effective action (stimulus). Then the rate began to fall. What was already in place was a plan for economic collapse.
Translation
You are right, Jon. We have no facts.
That's what the law does - splits hairs.
Check the Church specifically created that entity so it was not government by the separation of church and state (needed to get some government funding)
May that was the plan
Passing the largest tax cut in state history created an artificial budget deficit that LePage could "fix" my making poor people pay for the tax cuts. Taxes should be increased by $225 million.
Why?
"Property rights should prevail". Over what? If Property Rights prevail, then you are creating a economic aristoracy reducing social mobility, and preventing the development of a meritocracy. All contrary to individualism and social responsibility.
Slippers, you are joking aren't you
If slippers can destroy the role of teachers, end education as we know it, weaken America and drive our children into ignorance; then I quess that slippers are more dangerous than an atomic bomb.
But then again maybe they aren't.
Delusional
Fox News has created a delusional, misinformed audience that belongs more on the Comedy Channel than in the voters booth. Not one specific charge is made here. Just one vague generality after another none with a cintila of justification.
Perhaps that's because President Obama has been the most successful President in our history in fighting Islamic extremism and its tactic of terrorism. Bin Laden death. The leadership of Al Qeada destroyed. At least 20 leaders have joined Bin Laden in the grave. This must be the old Rove trick - attack a politician at his strength.
For what should he be impeached - success?
ignorance is amazing
Just because its not on Fox News doesn't mean that its not there. Did you read the ruling? No, Didn't think so. The distinction between the Diocese of Maine and Catholic Charities is precisely the point. Catholic Charities is a secular organization set up by the Catholic Church so that it can provide secular services. The Diocese of Maine is the Church and the separation of Church and state applies to it not to Catholic Charities. The Diocese can not be required to provide secular services that contradict its religious mission. Charities can.
Name one
The economy turned around within 3 months of his taking office. He has been one of the most effective Presidents in foreign policy in the last 50 years. He hasn't fixed foreclosures (and there is little any president can do to fix them without closing the banks). He's fixed much of the health care problem in the country (if not health care than uninsured consumers). So wheree is this everything that is so much worse.
Have to do more than hope.
The homophobic right will have millions to work with this year and we can be certain not a word of truth in any of their arguments. But the tide has turned on this issue. Enough states have had same-sex marriage implemented without the sky falling and God coming down and laying waste to the country that people in their hearts know the anti-marriage forces are frauds.
You still must work to win. Every supporter needs to talk to all their friends. Identify supporters; work on the opponents; put you views on facebook stc; attend the rallies; and don't believe the polls. Then get everyone out to vote.
Classic Republican BS
Apparently, Republicans envy the fact that people who support the interests of working people gain their support while Republicans supporting the interests of the top 1% of America's income earners must lie to misleading the public to gain election to pretty much anything.The nonsense that corporations are people and should have the civil rights of people and that corporate spending on elections is free speech are ridiculous positions.
A solution without a problem.
Proven cases of voter fraud in Maine over 40 years - 2. Number of elections compromised by voter fraud in Maine in 40 years - 0. Cases of voter fraud uncovered by Charlie Sumners - 0. Number of elections compromised if all the cases of registration errors prove true - 0. Boy this is a serious problem. We need to spend millions of dollers and prevent thousands of legally eligibile voters from voting so we ensure that we continue to prevent 0 cases of voter fraud. Does something feel wrong here?
To a Republican its common sense to support all their proposals especially those without any factual support. Here's another partisan proposal solving a non-existent problem.
Sir, you don't have the right to make up your own facts.
"Fact: Monies from the MSHA were spent in a way inconsistent with responsible state spending." That is not a fact. All the MHPC has is a list of vendors who were paid something by the MSHA. They don't know why. Without the why no one can say the expenditures were "inconsistent with responsible state spending". The MSHA is regularly audited and the auditors are given the reasons why and they have passed audit every time. So the presumption must be until new facts are available that the expenditures were consistent with the MSHA responsibilities.
You are substituting your assumptions for facts. Don't work. They weren't caught.
Nope
just requires magical thinking, absense of facts, and a conservative worldview. Excuse me, I've just walked into the right-wing trap of giving some respectability to the right-wing by calling them conservatives. So called conservatives are in fact revolutionary, anti-Constitutional, elitists seeking as they tried in 1934 to overthrow our form of Government and its Constitution.
Just one example, Ron Paul said in his S. Carolina speech on primary night that the Constitution requires hard money (gold, and silver) not fiat (paper money). Not true. The only reference to gold in the US Constitution is Article I Section 10 which prohibits the States from coining money or declaring anything but gold or silver as payment for state debts. The Section does not apply to the Federal Governemnt in any way. To adopt the gold standard now would result in economic collapse now and a third world status for America in the future. His proposal is unConstitutional and revolutionary just as his views of the FED are.
Magical thinking
Since you know nothing because none of us know anything about this spending, then your comments simply display your bias. Its standard conservative magical thinking. "Don't bother me with the facts, I've already made up my mind." I'll have no further comment until an audit proves that there is cause to further this witch hunt. If LePage pursues this or takes any action against McCormick or her department without proof, then I must come to the conclusion that this is a purely partisan political effort to get rid of effective, talented, Democratoc management in order to install incompetent but partisan Republican funkies.
Such action would in my mind constitute a misdemeanor and therefore "Every person holding any civil office under this State, may be removed by impeachment, for misdemeanor in office;..."(from the Maine Constitution.
Unregulated Capitalism
Unregulated capitalism does not take into consideration national goals, ambitions, values. As such it destroys countries as it seeks lower costs. Look at England - a capitalist country that fell to a third world country after WWII.
Typical right-wing meaningless observation
Capitalism did not make America great. In fact, it failed and failed miserably. Let us not forget 1929-1939. The US was the world's dominate power in 1914. Huge foreign immigration, the lack of infrastructure destruction (no continential wars while we were industrializing 1865-1914), huge natural resources made America great. We don't know if we would have been greater, more peaceful, more secure, more united under some other system because we didn't try anything else. We do know that unfetterred capitalism utterly failed in 1929-1939 and only regulated markets restored us to properity and WWII restored us to world domination
Ther aren't
This comment is pure partison nonsense. Of course there are many reasons why Maine tax dollars could, should, and of right ought to go to a martial arts academy or conservation group. No body got caught. Until their are solid explanations of the reasons for these expenditures this is nothing more than a partisan witch hunt. The audits say everything is OK.
Corporate welfare
"The current affordability of natural gas due to the discovery of domestic shale reserves" that have poisoned wells and aquifers and may have caused earthquakes threaten the physical stability of Pennsylvania and New York. The current affordability may go the way of $.19 a gallon gasoline once the true costs of extracting natural gas from these shale reserves are known.
If its affordable, why does government need to interfer with the market by providing these companies with corporate welfare. If its uncommonly cheap and profitable, the natural gas providers should have all the resources they need to run pipelines here opening up new markets.
Are we going to deny 65,000 people minimum health care so natural gas providers can make a profit here in Maine.
Good
Good
And I do agree and I apologize for misunderstanding you.
This proposed change only makes that worse.
Teachers are government
I agree with everything but your characterization. Teachers are government employees. What they do brings government into the classroom as it should. The problem you are really describing is that the teacher-student relationship should, if done properly, produce the best student with the ambition to continue and grow throughout their lives and to fulfill their roles as citizens in building a strong vibrant and successful society. Too often that real goal is compromised by the need of outside organizations (corporations) which have too much power and can impose goals that have nothing to do with citizenship, success, or growth but simply seek to maximize the economic value to them of the student.
Bunk
"abandoned Learning Results plan adopted in 1997". When were learning results "abandoned and by whom".
The Learning Results were a pro-business, anti-education, anti-student set of ahistoric standards intended to improve the quality of worker available to business. So I'm no friend of learning results. But I was unaware that they had been abandoned. In fact the Department of Education still has a Learning Results web page.
Now Bowen wants to make high school education much more oriented to producing compliant, uninformed worker bees and crippled citizens. I don't think the debate is over when to implement this mind numbing indocrination.
elective Outrage - a wonderful thing
Hillary held no elective office during the outrageous events Mr. Worthley describes in Somalia. She was not responsibile for anything that occurred then. Mr. Worthley quotes no statement she made either outraged or not about those events. So what in the world does she have to do with them.
I seem to remember universal shock and outrage throughout the country about those events and others in Somalia.
I was also unaware that we were in command of the Siomali mobs, criminals, and rioters that perpetrated those outrages. We are in command of the troops that desecrated the bodies in violation of US military code, international law, and simple human decency. We should be outraged that our troops are so poorly discipled that they have forgotten their responsibilities.
But apparently Mr. Worthley doesn't agree. He thinks our troops should be forgiven everything because they are "on our side". We they violate our laws, their honor, and their responsibilities they are not on our side.
Its simple
It costs nothing to let a patient die; costs a lot to keep them alive. Money that Gov. LePage wants to go to his donors.
It is
Point is no one knows anything. So far the most we have is an unfounded partisan smear. And it does matter who opened it because it speaks directly to the credibility of the "Charge". Namely there is none.
Oh yes I can
Give you a unrelated example. I was asked to identify the top 10 hourly wage earners at a corporation I worked for where hourly wages ran from 9.72 to 19.00 per hour. I found the top earner was paided at the lowest rate and was paid for more than 100 hours per week (This company calculated pay based on premium hours not premium pay rate). The corporate CFO said that was impossible my analysis must be wrong. Nope. The man worked 12 hours and day 365 days a year and had done so for several years. Premium hours calculated out to paying him the base rate for 112 hours per week on most weeks.After an investigation it was confirmed that the gentleman had worked the hours he claimed to work (and work schedules were changed).
I've seen credit card charges to every kind of retailer - many were legitimate and many very wrong. I myself have been re-imbursed for or have paid directly casinos, hotels, and other establishments all consistent with my job fully approved by my supervisors and all double checked by auditors. And casinos, hotels, and other establishments have had nothing to do directly with my job.
I'll bet the same is true of some of the commenters here.
Magical thinking produces unworldly conclusions
You can find similiar organizations and much worse on 80% of the corporations and non-profit organizations vendor listings in America. I have done this kind of analysis, except with all the necessary information, at multiple corporations over 40 years and until they have specific transactions with specific information on the reasons the transaction was completed MHPC have nothing.
The iceberg is in your mind.
Thanks
Thanks for confirming my comment. You are assuming; you don't know. MHPC doesn't know anything. LePage doesn't know anything. When they know something, then its time for a story.
Again
You have nothing but the assumptions in your mind. No reality to it. When they show that Okinawan Karate was paid to demonstrate how karate practices improve the management of loans, then I'll think there is a problem.
What a non-story!
An organization paid vendors who by their name only may not be consistent with the organizations purpose as strictly interpreted by a right-wing anti-government dumb-tank. Where's the story in this other than it provides an opportunity for the right-wing to project their fanatasies. I bet there are vendors on the list like Staples or Officemax or software vendors or programmers none of which supply beds.
Since the information provided to the Maine Heritage Policy Center provided no reason for the expenditure, no justification, no purchase order, no statetory reference no conclusions are possible. So the comments below that draw conclusions about the report only reflect the bias of the author.
Conservatives use the word "Constitution"
like a Buddist chant because it has no meaning for them. Conservatives merely substitute their personal views for the Constitution. Lends authority to their magical world view. The Constitution does not contain "Capitalism, "free markets", "private property" or a whole host of economic concepts that Conservatives maintain are "constitutional", but weren't invented until 1920. They can be driven to absurdities like "Corporations are people with the civil rights of people". Chief Justice Marshall exploded that absurdity more than 200 years ago. For capitalism to be Constitutional the Constitution must be a moving target for Conservatives.
Only a conservative can blieve that their is no common agreement on what rich and fair share mean.
What the standard.
Republicans & Tea Partiers love to talk about Democrats' "profligate" or out-of-control or unsustainable or some similar word spending. What they don't ever say is what their standard is. Is 1% of GDP toooo much or 20%, or 50%. They don't say because their standard is "any thing the Democrats propose is too much. Dr. Paul suggest said that a tax rate of 0% is just right. Democrats spend money in the interests of the people of the United States and in our case Maine. They do so to comport with their responsibilities under the US and Maine Constitutions. Republicans accept no such responsibilities. They are not personally responsibile in their minds for anything except themselves.
The 600 jobs are an illusion.
Add up the cost to the state and local community and the jobs are due to the government not the company. We might as well have the state hire the 600 workers, have them do nothing and we'd still be better off then giving this company welfare.
Industrial Wind Power has no place in Maine.
NRCM's support for industrial wind power in Maine is very disappointing. On balance they must believe that it will reduce our dependency on and use of fossil fuels. Unfortunately, Industrial Wind Power and People are incompatible.
Project Veritas???
"The video was produced and posted by Project Veritas, a national organization that has snared ACORN, National Public Radio and others in clandestine video recordings." Let us remember that the "snare" was for Project Veritas because all of their videos have proven to be edited to convey the opoosite impression of what did happen i.e. they are liars.
But no one can be surprised that "dead voters" still on the voter lists could get ballots. In SC it has been discovered that 900 "dead" folks did in fact vote in recent elections there. That's much more troublesome. It couldn't happen here. Our Centralized Voter Repositor updates voter information with death certificates, changes in drivers license, etc. Apparently only in GOP states where they have cut back on state employees and services are the methods of voter fraud still open. Wonder why?
The wicked witch of the East has gotten to too many
1. President Obama has been the most effective President in foreign affairs since Richard Nixon. He has shown remarkable leadership in regards to Libya, Iraq, immigration, and Africa.
2. Nothing the President has done is in anyway "Marxist". Obviously Mr. Carrier doesn't know what a Marxist is because President Obama has managed the Federal Government as any moderate Republican would have. His first priority was to fix the economy. Since he has taken office, the growing unempolyment has been stopped and month after month of economic growth and employment has been achieved. Second Priority was health care. He lead the adoption of a private health care system modelled on the Republican system of Romneycare in Massechusetts. An achievement more than a 100 years in the making. Third priority to get out of Iraq. Achieved.
3. He extended the Bush tax cuts and therefore continued the moderate Republican policy of growing deficits.
Given the challenges when he took office, President Obama has been one of America's most successful first term Presidents. His second may be even more remarkable.
As usual its always the victims fault
Today is the Republicans' National Day of Truth - Pass the blame day.
I thought Republicans' believed in State's Rights - "state officials ....offered a broader safety net than that established by federal regulation". I thought state officials were charged with meeting the needs of the people of Maine. Last I looked Maine wasn't average or any other arbitrary standard.
More LePage propaganda is "Until the Gov. Paul LePage administration, no efforts to control spending or review the programs". For years, MDHH had a permanent staff looking into waste and fraud; seems to have caught the current Speaker of the House for example. Yes, MDHH has not been the best example of good government and yes the Department should be re-organized and cleaned up.
But that means real investigations not ideologically driven witch hunts by an administration that so far has done nothing execept embarrass the State.
Scott, Walker, Kasich, LePage the lies just keep on coming.
Elected in 2010 to restore jobs because that's what they promised, these new completely dishonest Republican Governors haven't even tried to create a single new job in the private sector. Cut earned benefits like Social Security and Medicare; deny state and private workers their fundamental rights, cut jobs, cut regulations so that businesses can loot the state and federal treasuries unfetterred, adopt big government intervention into the most private areas of our lives like abortion,religion, and denying the old, sick, and young their right to vote.
Fooled once etc
LaPage works miracles
Didn't the Republicans promise that businessmen like Paul "job creator" LaPage and now Willard Mitt "job predator" Romney were going to create jobs? We know they know how to kill jobs. They have that down pat from 2007-2009. When are the jobs going to arrive?
When is an exchange not a market
Markets don't exist until they have a set of enforceable rules by which economic exchanges can proceed by mutual agreement. That requires government. Private property does not exist until you have government which can maintain your pseudo-exclusive use of some object. Even societies so simple as being just family units or extended family units have complex rules for the exchange of goods, services and the enforcement of exclusivity. Money is an attempt to objectify a subjective judgements - the utility of some object or set of objecs to the two folks involved in an exchange. To the degree that it works we have stable economic systems.
Think about no space. I don't mean empty space. I mean no space at all. Not a point with no dimensions because we always imagine a point has having dimensions. The human brain by the nature of its construction and evolution demands that all things have space. The house of cards is the same thing. People by the nature of their development need "rock solid" foundations which they can trust. But rocks are anything but solid. Just look at the problems of Frackling. Our minds demand safety, stability, soundness, cause and effect, even if there is none. Hell we invented God for just such a purpose. The house of cards is the gold standard and I am fully aware how unstable, risky, dangerous this world and current circumstances really are.
All rests solely on the rules we have agreed to; our continued understanding of those rules; and our ability to adapt them to new circumstances.
Have yourself a wonderful day. Its been a pleasure.
The principl is simple
Every action of every actor in a public role in a democracy must have checks and balances. This is the great principle of real conservative political science and the US Constitution. As soon as some interest says "I'm different" "I don't need checks and balances the invisible hand will protect society or every error I make is self-correcting" you know you are about to get gored. Regulated markets are markets with socially necessary checks and balances. None can be exempt.
Free Market
1. Nate8785. My nickname, family name is Nate.
2. Never was anything called a free market. Pre-capitalist we were a mercantile economy - markets set by edict of the monarch. Post-revolution, we moved toward less restrictive markets based on state legislatures actions. Post-civil war to WWI moved to government assisted corporations (government supplied labor, housing, land, market access, protection to monopolies) otherwise called fascism, Post-depression moved to government regulated markets with various degrees of government assistance.
You can't lose what you never had. Markets have always been and always are creatures of government.
Sorry Fed has oversight just far too little. Financial institutions exist within the freest, least regulated markets. They are therefore the most dangerous threat to economic stability as they proved 2001-2009.
The value of money is always based on consumer/investor confidence and little else. Including gold.
Government waste
I don't think I said anything about the federal Government being an efficient allocator of resources - it's not. And I agree that I won't find many (any) economists who believe government is more efficient than the "market". but that's not the issue. The question was depression (deflation). I also don't I can find any economists who think that the market is more efficient than the government without some obviously invalid assumptions.
The Gold standard isn't a "standard" at least by any meaning of that word. Its not like a meter or a foot or any other standard. Its value has constantly changed over history except when government says it doesn't. Its a commodity like any other with a price set by supply/demand, irrationality, subjectivity, speculation, asymetric information.
Congress does regulate the value of money through the Fed, international agreements, treaties, etc. Just because it hasn't done anything lately doesn't mean it doesn't and doesn't mean it can't tomorrow.
Next thing you'll be telling me is that there is a "free-market. Another illogical non-existant over-generalization which ignores all the reality of economic exchange.
Of course it is.
"Cutting the federal budget is not deflationary because it leaves the money in the hands of the market to be allocated more efficiently". Of course it is. This is one of the many myths of capitalist propaganda. "Self-correcting". "More efficient allocation of resources." "Invisibile hand." All based on illogical assumptions that completely distort economics; namely these ideas are based on the "long-term". That's equivalent to the engineer saying as we approach infinity we don't have to worry about the effects of these minor terms in the equation. No one lives to approach infinity. No one lives long enough for the economy to be self-correcting. The "private" economy if not generating sufficient demand in the short term will collapse into depression if a swift reduction in govenment demand is made. Proven by dozens of cases in the US economy.
Between 1913 and 1970 dozens of economic factors, wars, etc displaced worldwide economic growth. To assign all change to one factor like transitioning off the gold standard is also illogical.
"The reason that The dollar became the currency others were tied to is due to the gold standard". Wonderful conjecture, but no proof or truth to it. Gold standard reduced US economic growth. unprecedented US growth was due to extremely rapid growth in human capital (unprecedented immigration from 1840-1932), no domestic wars in industrial centers (1815- Today)and therefore no liquidation of capital assets, and unprecedented foreign demanded due to wars and economic dislocations.
See you don't agree with the US Constitution which required Congress to "regulate the value of money" .i.e have a national bank system and a standard of value other than gold (since the value of gold is determined by other factors outside our government.
Thanks for the comment.
Republican Straw Poll
O! forgive me I left out the best - Rick Santorum who wants to move the capital to Mount Sinai and replace the Constitution with the old Testament and not just because he thinks he is Moses.
Republican Straw Poll
choices, choices, meaningless choices. Let's see.
Willard Mitt Romney who wants to move the capital to Wall Street and replace the Constitution with Bain Capital's charter or Ron Paul who wants to burn Washington and replace the Constitution with Atlas Shrugged or Rick Perry who wants to move the capital to Richmond and replace the US Constitution with the Confederate Constitution or Newt Gingrich who wants to move the capital to Georgia and wants to replace the Constitution with, well, Newt or poor, ignored John Huntsman.
Capitalist revolution, utopian revolution, one long lost cause. and one egomanical nightmare. Boy, do the Republicans always give themselves good choices.
Now on the other side we have the protectors of 230 years of national growth and tradition, a Constitution that is the most remarkable document of human origin, and sane, rational committment to a future for our whole society based on freedom (not ultra-individualistic license), justice, and national unity. November will be a tough one.
Right Path????
Tommie Shields continues his long career of letters to the editor peppered with Republican palitudes and no facts at all. "The answer should not be more taxes." Why not. When you have a budget problem everything has to be on the table. To say we can't consider revenues is really to say that nothing government does is worthwhile or you just don't care. That's absurd.
The Baldacci Administration had to balance the budget each year just like LePage and as I remember many of those years had much more serious structural budget shortfalls than anything LePage has seen. Baldacci did not throw serior citizens and the disabled out in the street to pay for those shortfalls. Nor do I see any evidence of "irrational expensive spending" or spending we can afford.
What Republicans want and we have seen this in the state and nationally is the poor, disabled, and underpaid 99% to pay for the luxury that the 1% enjoy. The 1% have more than doubled their real income in the last 30 years while the rest of us have seen our income shrink not because of the 1%'s innovation, creativity or improvements in productivity but by theft, fraud, and changing the laws to make us pay for their luxuries. Time to put a stop to it.
Ron Paul
Tonight we will get an idea how Michelle and the 6 dwarfs are being received among the uninformed.
The one thing we can be assured of is that no Republican has a solution to our economic blight. Especially Ron Paul. As a libertarian with an economic philosophy based on Randian paranoia and delusional misrepresentations of our economic situation Paul presents an economic philosophy which has never been tried and when attempts are made in that direction their one fruit is economic collapse. The bring back gold standard (the last people to propose this organized a coup to overthrow President Roosevelt by violent means); eliminate a national bank (Jackson did that in 1836 caused the depression of 1837-1842), cut the national spending by 1/3 (a deflationary move that by itself will plug the economy into the worst depression of our history. We might never recover from a Paul presidency.
Liberals lack Leadership? And the jokes keep coming
1. Obama presented and continues to present a clear attainable set of goals and objectives for this country - Affordable health care, done and working, End our unfunded War in Iraq,done, eliminate Al Qeada, Bin Laden and 20 of his leadership are dead, Rescue the economy, the long collapse resulting from Republican policies ended within 1 year of his taking office. Republican stated goals - only one make Obama a one-term President at any cost to the American people.
2. How can you rationally negiotiate with an opposition which believes in magic not management. Republican economic theory (as well as their social theory) is built solely on magic - the magic hand of the market, miracles, American exceptionalism, etc. When was the last time a candidate for Senator had to answer a serious question as to whether they had been a witch
3. Fixing America requires one and only one action by the people of the US - defeat every and any republican in 2012.
Well you got the far right line down well
So there was no recession in 1981. Nor dozens of articles at the time outlining the steps Wolcker took to cause the recession and why he did it. Nor any on the results.
Reagan couldn't be nominated for President today in the Republican Party but he could in the Democratic Party (he was in reality a Jackson Democrat). Oh! Please $3 in cuts. Please go back and look at the Reagan budgets with their growing deficits (over $3 trillion in new debt). Without his tax increases they would have been even worse. In fact, I'd welcome a Reagan Presidency now. His economic policies were and are almost identifical to Obama's and they would fix the mess Bush left us.
Harding and Coolidge. You joke. Coolidge's only claim to fame before the Presidency was his breaking the Boston Police Strike. Now there's something to be proud of. Harding ranks 43 worst president and Coolidge fares a little better at 31 out of 43 (Can't count Obama yet). What did they give us? The overheated 20's and economic collapse of the 30's. Boy they're Presidents we should look up to.
The Free Market works then and now. Give me a break. The only free market that exists is in illegal products - drugs and prostitution. No other free markets exist. All markets outside of illegal ones operate under the control and regulation of Government. The more regulation the better they work. As proved by the housing collapse under George Bush. Every investigation has proved to a legal standard tat the failure to regulate, the repeal of regulations, and corporate fraud caused the recession of 2007-2009. Watch the news while the bankers have so far avoided jail, the list of realtors, appraiser, mortgage originators grows almost daily.
Glad to see you use the standard GOP propaganda technique of distracting rather than answering a point. The SEC political leadership gave specific instructions to their investigators not to go after Madoff. They were watching porn because their boss told them not to do their job.
Collins
Sorry, the Apollo Alliance did not write the stimulus bill. This is another of the almost daily Fox News - Glenn Beck paranoid delusions. True, the Alliance ideas did have an influence on the bill but given the breath of the Alliance; its many great Americans who are active in it; and the diversity of their messages; its only natural that their ideas would make it into legislaton. But Collins ha more influence by here self. Anyone who watched TV or read the newspapers were treated to weeks of negiotiations between Collins and the Democrats and the President in particular where she demanded that the bill not exceed $800 billion while a parade of economists stated that to right the economy a bill twice that size was required.
As for Reagan he did nothing except follow a liberal line of tax increases. Again you don't remember the facts. Paul Wolcker as head of the Fed plunged the country into a recession. It was that recession that pulled us out of the economy morass that started with Jerry Ford remember the WIN buttons.
Lastly, free markets don't exist. They are a fiction. They don't because they don't work, capitalists hate them, and progressives understand that free markets are inheritly corrupt. One needs no more proof than the Bush years. No regulations and those that existed were never enforced (Madoff scandal is proof of that. More than a dozen times the SEC was given proof that he was engaged in a Ponsi scheme and each time the political leadership took the investigators off the case). Now every major bank has admitted to engaging in fraud along with mortgage originators, accessors, ratings companies, realtors, etc etc
Why, can't you make decisions
If you think that there is no difference between politicians, its not the politician's fault its ours. They judge the situation based on reality. Reality is that we are in the middle of a class war declared by Corporate America in 1964 and won in 1981. The price is they take everything you have away and give everything they get to the Corporate elitists that run the country. If you can't see that, then the problem is yours. Bit by bit they will take everything away until we create a society much like what we were in the 1880's.
SS and Medicare are not entitlements we paid into them. They are not the cause of the deficit. They are a contract between the people and the government. One side of that contract can not amend the terms without the agreement of the other parties - the American People.
Republican Fraud not welfare fraud
First, he got no benefits. No welfare fraud. DHHS acted responsibly.
Second, How many tapes did O'keefe make. Is this the only tape or one of hundreds. If one of hundreds and this is the only one that could be made to look questionable then DHHS field workers are doing a great job.
Third, O'keefe is not credible. His previous tapes that have been made public have all been proven to be frauds - edited by adding material that did not happen and removing material that did happen.
Fourth, the DHHS employ had been on the job for two weeks. Of course more training is required. How many Boston Red Sox started in the Majors after graduating high school.
Fifth, The two charlies have now been proven to be unprincipled liars. This merely confirms that dishonesty in the Republican Party and its "supporters" is universal.
the two Charlies' stories are incredible, beyond belief
Nothing is left except to say the two Charlies are liars. Oarse Charlies' statement - "those who are losing elections or who are liberal as hell think what we got here is some kind of big scheme by somebody to stop this," Webster said. "I hope when this is all said and done it becomes illegal; no way we should be using these buses."
Charlie is confirming that there is a big scheme to stop the legal transportation of legal voters to the polls i.e. to suppress the vote. Who is the head of that scheme - the two Charlies?
Why should the legal transportation of legal voters to the polls which is indirectly paid for by the state be stopped. Charlie gives no reason. The state and municipalities pay for most of the election costs now - polling places, election workers, registars, the central voter registration system. Is Charlie suggesting that the states and municipal governments should not pay for any election activities or only the ones that he thinks without any proof hurt his candidates?
But mainly once again the two Charlies have failed to prove or even find any kind of evidence that any voter fraud is going on in Maine. Repeal of their vote suppression legislation is the honest thing to do.
Ain't it the truth
You got it. The Tea Party are anti-Constitutional, anti-middle class, ego-maniacal and that's their good gualities.
But he has to cut spending
We only had a $50 million surplus. So the Governor has to cut spending. If he doesn't where will he get the money to buy his rich friends their next yacht. Don't be surprised if the Governor tries to privatize the jails; then sells the prisoners to the private jails. Worked well I believe in New York.
This is one of the reasons the Tea Party is a laughingstock
1. Collins wrote the stimulus bill. We had daily headlines of meetings between Obama and Collins and Collins and Lieberman and Collins and other Senators negiotiating the stimulus bill. It was Collins' insistence that the bill be less that $900 billion that shackled the economic recovery we may recently have lost.
2. "Not agree to Tax and spend polices of the progressive." $12 trillion of our $14 trillion national debt is the responsibility of the borrow and spend establishment Republicans of the last 30 years. Conservatives not progressives have placed this huge debt burden on the backs of their grandchildren. Proof can be found in any Almanac. Its not progressives but establishment Republicans who have created programs they haven't been paid for. Its establishment Republicans who have at the same time cut taxes to the lowest level since the second world war inviting the National debt crisis and the recent debt downgrade.
3. Cass R. Sunstein is a favorite whacked out rightwing target because he has properly along with Homeland Security identified the risks that these groups represent to the peace and stability of the USA. But the positions of administrative candidates have rarely effected their confirmation vote esp. when its for an agency that has little or nothing to do with the controversey. Or at least was before the Republicans Party became a hate group. So Collins vote is an indicator of nothing.
4. Not that I would ever vote for Collins. She has a 100% pro-NFIB record. And uses women's issues to protect herself from her radical conservative business agenda.
Snowe on the other hand looks at the merits of any issue vis a vis the interests of the people of Maine and votes accordingly. Rarely like her votes but at least they are honest.
Because I'm not
We had $12.7 trillion in debt after the conclusion of the last Bush budget on September 30, 2009. Reagan started with a debt of $900 billion before his first budget. That's $11.8 trillion over the last 30 years. Clinton's last four years had budget surpluses. Clinton netted about $200 in deficits over his 8 years. You round up over .5. That makes Republicans Presidents responsibile directly for $11.6 trillion or rounded $12 trillion of our current debt. If you add in the money that had to be spent in the first Obama budget to pay the costs of the Great Bush Recession its closer to $13 trillion but I try to be conservative. CBO reported recently also well published on the net that 96% of future debt results from four programs initiated by Bush and not paid for - 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Medicare Part-D, and the costs of the 2007-2009 Great Bush recession. That's called arthimetic, not lying.
Debt service costs are a problem - a long term manageable problem when you have a $17 trillion economy. No one is saying that we don't need to get the deficit and debt under control. Republicans are saying don't pay it. Democrats are saying pay it as we need to as a long term easily managed issue.
The top 1% have received from the economy 100% of the growth since 1981. There is a chart published in dozens of places on the net based on US government data that shows that between 1981 and 2007 (before the Great Bush Recession productivity has more than doubled and wage income has fallen. Or you can use the chart from Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez published also all over the net that charts the Top Ten Percent Income Share, 1917-2008. The chart shows that from 1922 - 1938 the top ten share of national income averaged about 45%, then fell after the 1937 recession to about 32% and remained there through 1981 when it began to grow to the current 50+%. The top 1 percents share only grows if the remain 90% declines. Either speak to the economic destruction of the middle class. And there are dozens of other economic studies over the last dozen years that confirm the same conclusion.
99% of the INCREASED tax burden is fair if the top 1% has received 100% of the benefits of economic growth over the last 30 years.
That's not what S&P said. Where did you get your misinformation. S&P's statement is on the web. They specifically said the reason was the brinkmanship and political failure that resulted from it.
So sorry, my information is solid, factual, and supported by a wide range of sources.
they got it backwards
Its not the consumers' responsibility to show that a product newly introduced by a company is harmful. Its the company's responsibility to show that it is completely safe. Saying they have found no evidence that smart meters are harmful or saying that they are less harmful than other devices doesn't answer anything. Requiring that customer who wish to opt-out must pay high fees than those that don't needs to be verified. If the company's position is that cutting costs (increasing profits) is more important than the consumers health, then The PUC isn't doing its job.
Republicans are always wrong.
Your analogy is worthless. Republicans caused the debt. The Republicans have blocked all efforts to deal with the debt. The Republicans are now stating publicly that their purpose in bankrupting American was to cause a crisis which they could use as an excluse to repeal the New Deal and destroy the middle class.
Remember Republicans are chronic liars.
17 jobs bill have been sitting in the House Republican Controlled committees authored by democrats for 3 years; no action. How many jobs bills hve the Republicans sponsored in the same time 0, nada, zero. Before the Republicans controlled the House; they controlled the Senate through the filibuster. They blocked 125 economic recovery measures in the first two years of the Obama administration - a Record. They adopted a stimulus package but one of only half the size necessary so that they could critisize it.
Obamna's failure was to not know how irresponsible his enemies were. He thought tey were still Americans.
Unfortunately the right won't or can't.
The facts are the Republicans are the author of our National debt - more than $12 trillion of the current $14.3 trillion is the result of Republican programs authored by Republican Presidents and overwhelmingly approved by Republicans in Congress and Nationally.
$17 trillion in debt is only a problem for America if we refuse to pay it and with a $17 trillion ecomonomy that's not a major problem unless one party refuses as Republicans are now refusing to pay based on Grover Norquist's no tax increase philosophy inspired by Ayn Rand.
Whether the top 1% pay 38% or 99% of taxes is immaterial. They have received 100% of the benefits of economic growth over the last 30 years and they should pay their fair share of that bounty.
President Obama fought for a $4 trillion debt reduction package that would have prevented the downgrade of US debt but Republicans stop it causing as S&P wrote the downgrade of American debt. Can't have it both ways. You can't support an orgy of spending; then refuse to pay the bill.
Thank your Republican Friends
Ayn Rand in 1957 published "Atlas Shrugged" a novel about an uber-individualist and rationalist who convinces competent people to withdraw their support for society (to go on strike) in order to wreck the economy so that they could attain pure power (I think its hypocritical in the extreme that the Republicans who are dominated by Christian extremists take direction from an atheist extremist who held that nothing of value came after Aristotle - which means Jesus Christ is no good). That is what we have been seeing in Washington these many months. A new group of extremist Republicans unwilling to compromise, unwilling to seek solutions except their own, unwilling to do anything that would benefit their country. They ran in 2010 on jobs; yet they have not proposed a single piece of legislation that would address creating jobs while holding up 17 democratic proposals that would. They oppose unemployment benefits. They have proposed cut food stamps and every other benefit anyone out of work would need. They have proposed the elimination of health care for the poor. Everything consistent with John Galt's plan.
Let's stop setting policy by wallowing in the mud of fiction and fantasy. In 2012, If its an 'R' vote against it.
Fame is so fleeting
"LePage is featured on the organizer's website, theresponseusa.com..." update - Not today. As of this morning LePage is not on the website, but every theocratic crazy that Gov. Christie condemned yesterday is there. Rev. John Hagee supporter of Jewish organizations who's goal is the genocidal extermination of all Muslims; Rev. James & Shirley Dobson famed prophet of the extinction of Gays and Lesbians; and Rev. David Barton well known fictional author of christian histories of America. But to his credit Gov. LePage thought better of continuing in this rogue's gallery of hate.
Got this one wrong.
Republicans were elected in record numbers in 2010 to create jobs. Every bill they have opposed has been described as a "job-killing" bill. But they have held every Democratic bill to create jobs in House committees. 17 in all and proposed not one themselves. Instead they have obstructed every effort to solve our economic problems in order to trash the economy, keep people out of work, and keep them sufferring so that Republicans can return to power in 2012 with their third world agenda for America.
Their program was made very clear by the months of dishonest negiotiations over the debt limit increase. They got 98% of what they wanted on Monday and yesterday they got the other 2% - the stock market crashed.
Its not about more or less government intrusion. Its about the kind of intrusion. The Republicans want control over America's wombs. No abortions; no birth control. To Republicans both are a threat to civilization meaning they will not have the necessary canon fodder for their military aggression throughout the world (must open markets to American profits you know). What could be more intrusive? What could deny Americans more freedom than the Republican program of social control.
Corporations are making record profits; workers being trashed. The wealthy are getting 50+% of every dollar made in America. Soon it will be 60%. 1400 millionaires paid no taxes. Corporations have trillions of dollars of profits hidden in foreign tax havens that they want to bring home if they don't have to pay taxes.
So yes we have a very clear choice in 2012. Let the 400 wealthiest families rule America and every facit of our lives. Or throw the Republicans bums out and turn this country around. Protect and grow the middle class. Make the wealthy pay their fair share of government.
Thank a Republican
Republicans were elected in 2010 to create jobs. They came to Congress and did everything but. Get Planned Parenthood, Abortion, breaking labor unions (the current FAA stoppage caused by Republicans insistence at Delta's request that they break the airline unions), stop every judicial appointment they can, filibuster everything they can't stop, and finally spend 2 months threatening to wreck the US economy and not pay those we have borrowed money from. The agreement signed on Monday gave them 98% of what they wanted. Seems the foreign bondholders got zero; the American people got zero; only the wealthy were protected. Well this is the bondholders answer.
Conmservatives spend less???? Since when
Conservatives just want to spend more on themselves. They don't want to protect a nation. They don't want domestic tranquility. They don't want a healthy economy. They just want to take more of our money and spend it on themselves. That's why federal taxes are at 14% of GDP the lowest rate since WWII (back then we had responsibile Presidents who paid for the Wars we were involved in - Roosevelt and Truman). Conservatives live in an alternative universe where fiction is fact.
Couldn't be worse
Cost of the this law to the average Mainer couldn't be worse.
1.8 million jobs will be lost according to national estimates. The drowsy economy will fall into recession again. Maine and other states under Republican control will fire public workers, cut their pay, end their benefits. Gov. LePage has already pledged to pass anti-worker, anti-Mainer, anti-labor, standard-of-living cutting legislation next year which will compound all the other problems. The automatic cuts that will become effective December 23rd will push the economy off the cliff.
Most important this law signals the damage Republicans will do should they be elected in 2012. They got 98% of what they wanted. This is their solution. So if you want medicare privatized (the end of health care for serior citizens), Social Security ended, your wealth given to the top 2% wealthiest Americans, permanent 10% unemployment, and what few dollars you get to be worth nothing support the Republicans who created the National Debt and say now that they do not have to pay for their extraordinary orgy of spending.
What don't you understand about lowest
We pay the lowest Federal Income taxes since the Great Depression. Let's see Republican Eisenhower top marginal tax rate 91%, Democrat Johnson - 70%, Democrat Clinton 39.5%, Republican Bush 35%. The half that don't pay income taxes are primarily those earning over $1,000,000 per year.
What don't you understand about lowest
We pay the lowest Federal Income taxes since the Great Depression. Let's see Republican Eisenhower top marginal tax rate 91%, Democrat Johnson - 70%, Democrat Clinton 39.5%, Republican Bush 35%. The half that don't pay income taxes are primarily those earning over $1,000,000 per year.
Oh! Tom do you think we are all that dumb
or is it just your arrogance showing as usual.
"Congress determines all spending, not the president.". As you know that's not true. The President proposes a budget which is sent to Congress where the President's budget is amended and the sent back to the President for signature. He can veto the budget and/or the appropriations bills as he wishes.
President Bush did inherent a $5.6 trillion debt and no yearly deficit. The last 4 fiscal years of the Clinton administration the budgets ran surpluses each year. President Bush proposed and Congress passed the Bush Tax Cuts, Medicare Part-D, Two wars requested by Bush that were kept off the budget at his request, and by deregulating the economy caused a major recession and he proposed and Congress allowed $3 trillion in financial services bailouts. Total about $7 trillion in unfunded spending that went straight to the national Debt. Obama inherited $12.7 trillion in Nationakl Debt and the last 9 months of Bush's last budget with $1.3 trillion deficit. Wouldn't it be nice if Republicans can count.
As for thebalanced budget amendment it is the quickest weay to turn America into the next Argentina economy.
The only real voter fraud in Maine starts with Charlie Webster
This dirty trick is very reminiscent of the Republican dirty tricks during the Nixon Administration. Unfortunately, with Republicans in the Constitutional offices we can't expect an investigation.
But this makes clear that Charlie Webster intends to suppress the student vote in violation of the US Constitution and SCOTUS decisions. It strips the fraud away from his campaign to lie about student voting and his support for repeal of Election Day registration..
sterotypes galore
This is what happens when people play "mind games" without actually looking into facts. Hard to pile up this many false assumptions in one comments.
I won't get into it now but
Study by MCEP on total effective tax burden on Mainers showed that bottom 20% paid taxes at twice the rate of the other 80%. Tax burden is half the story and not the most important part of the story. From 1933 to 1980 the bottom 90% of Americans earned 65% pf the national income. Since 1981, that percentage has fallen to below 50%. Doesn't sound like much but it explains the unemployed (with consumers losing income demand falls and with it economic growth), foreclosures (although you have to add in fraud. Wells Fargo just settled with 10,000 mortgage holders who it had defrauded by falsifying mortgage documents after the closing placing them in expensive sub-prime mortgages.), homelessness, and poverty of the last few years.
The debt "compromise" just reinforced the redistribution of wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich which is the real meaning of supply side economics. The fact that the Tea Party's tactic of extortion carried no political penalty means they will use it again. Obama's "Neville Chamberlain" appeasement of the Tea Party means that soon we will be talking about America's 400 families that rule our lives. The 90%ers need to get their act together.
Fishing expedition
The issue is a single piece of legislation and whether or not the Maine people get the opportunity to repeal it. Not some phony Republican fishing expedition. Normally, the legislature investigates and issue and then develops legislation to fix any problems found. In this case, the Republicans legislated a non-existent problem to prevent legal Maine voters from exercising their rights. Just as Southern democrats in the century passed poll taxes and literacy tests to prevent blacks from voting. The Supreme Court found that unconstitutional.
So far, Charlie Webster and Sumner have not documented a single case of an Election Day registrant voting illegally. He has not presented a single case of same-day registration changing the results of an election not has he shown a case where the "integrity" of Maine elections has been compromised. Noit that they haven't been. ome investigate elections in rural Maine - Franklin and Oxford Co. in the 1950-1990's. Every ballot box was stuffed by the Republicans.
Very clear the investigation is the fraud
None of these allegations deal with the issue - did election day registrants vote illegally.
Now let's see Charlie Webster is a Republican official. Charlie Sumners is a Republican official. Republicans under Karl Rove used phony investigations to justify firing AGs and to indict a Democratic Governor for purely partisan political gain.
Charlie Webster did not say that 200 students had voted illegally; he said they could have, might have, I don't know.
Karl Rove politics have come to Maine. Hold on to your hats the dirty tricks are about to begin.
Save all the news coverage. Pay back time is a b***h
Sanity
Ronald, I think we need to create the "Sun Journal Sane Citizens" award and first give it to you in perpetuity. You to so much better than I do.
Sanity
Ronald, I think we need to create the "Sun Journal Sane Citizens" award and first give it to you in perpetuity. You to so much better than I do.
Not bad
Ed, your suggestions aren't bad, but you know they won't be adopted. Republicans want taxes cut because the people they represent (wall street bankers, stockbrokers, CEO's, and trust fund babies like Koch Brothers) want as little government as they can get so they keep all the power; so they can drive you and everyone like you into poverty (a typical Mainer has lost 30% of his family's real income and republican donors have increased their income by about 30% over the last 30 years.
Secure the borders. Really securing the borders as despotic governments do will turn the US into a third world economy. Control illegal immigration yes; secure borders no.
Why cut benefits to drug users who may have contributed to the system for decades or cutting benefits to fat people or people with heart disease? They are all victims of diseases they are to some degree responsible for.
Social Security and Medicare are not welfare. They take taxes out of my paycheck every week for those programs and any change is a violation of our contract and neither contributes to the National Debt. Instead, bring real regulated market competition to medicare care to help drive down costs.
Its all a lie
Charlie Webster's, Chairman of the Maine Republican Party, press conference proved that no reason exists to change the law. Charlie presented not one case of an Election Day registrant who illegally voted; not one case where voter fraud changed the results of an election; not one case of the integrity of Maine's elections being affected by voter fraud. No reason to change the law.
So he must have another reason. One he will not tell you.
Sign the People's Veto. Make your politicians pay a cost for lying to you.
Rumor has it
that Herman Cain has choosen Anders Breivk as his running mate. If elected, Cain plans to carry out a sane and rational policy of deporting all non-christians starting with Muslims, Jews, Mormons, and Catholics in preparation for the rapture.
And yes I am being sarcastic. If you read some of the commenters and the Tea Party press you will realize a little reality exists in my comment.
no ideological bias here
"highly centralized, top down, socialist, rather than decentralized, economic growth state planning cultures." - William Beardsley, LePage's commissioner of the Department of Conservation.
Now you know its going to cost us more. Either no regulations and concrete will stretch from I295 to the peak of Kineo or every Republican who can carry a shovel will be making $99.25 an hour cutting a new Benedict Arnold Trail to Quebec.
State-wide, fact driven, and science based environmental planning is not socialistic. State-wide planning is not socialistic.
3 more years of fascist fanatics and christian zealots running the state. Hope the state will still be here.
Now there's the rub
At its base this is the fundamental problem in cutting the Federal Budget. Everyone wants convenient service even if its uneconomical to provide it. I hope its seen as more effective to build secure internet access than to continue to maintain inefficient methods of communication. If we use other criterion to make these decisions they should be known and publicly explained. Perhaps facilities that cost more should charge more.
Webster facts aren't facts.
The People's Veto is on legislation that repeals election day registration.
Do you see anything about Election Day registration in Charlie's misinformation. I don't.
Charlie has good reason to have been concerned with voter fraud over the last 30 years. Republicans are well known for it in rural Maine during that time, but the HAVA (Help America Vote Act) implemented a few years ago eliminated most problems in the system. With a single statewide voter registration file and checks against motor vehicle, census, and post office change of address information duplicate registrations can be kept to a minimum.
To be voter fraud involving same day registration, these students have to be registered in both Maine and their home state. Charlie presents no such evidence. In addition they have to vote in both states. Charlie presents no such evidence. In addition, they would have to have registered on Election Day. Charlie presents no such evidence.
If Charlie was going to Maine's law school he'd be laughed out of class.
Poll flooding is a problem for Charlie because legal voters of Maine don't like him or his party as they are learning from this 4 year aberration.
"Obama and the liberal agenda that caused our depression"
Republican revisionism carried to its illogical conclusion.
1. The Recession started in December 2007. Bush in office for 6+ years. Republicans in complete control of the Government for 4 of those 6 years. Democrats held Congress for 10 months before the recession starts. Economists and the real press had been warning of the coming bubble burst since 2004.
2. Supply side economics has been totally discredited (lower income taxes only contributing to economic growth when marginal tax rates are high enough to cause massive tax evasion) . We see now the Republicans playing Russian roulette with our economy. Every economist, every political leader right and left, every banker, stock broker, and financial services manager believes the past month of Republican political game playing has done serious harm to the US economy as they try to destroy the middle class in one stroke by privatizing Medicare, Social security, and deregulate the economy (the primary source of the 2007 recession).
3. President Obama was wrong when he said that the Republicans don't know how to say Yes. What they will say yes to is nothing less than the destruction of the United States of America. They are loyal to their false self-serving ideology but not to the country.
So please explain how Obama and this unspecified liberal agenda caused our depression.
Another Republican ploy.
Clinton did not sign the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999. He signed the budget act. A "must sign" bill into law. It included as an amendment the FSMA placed there by the Republicans. Clinton had no choice in signing the budget Act. Including a poison pill amendment is an old legislative trick.
Second, "the Dems pushing banks to people who were poor risks" is another Republican fantasy. No one needed to push the banks. Wells Fargo just settled one of their many fraud cases. The settlement included billions of dollars in fines because Wells Fargo fraudulently modified mortgages without the purchasers knowledge or consent placing them into mortgages which they could not afford. Countrywide started this in 2001 after getting approval from the Bush administration to securitize mortgages. This meant they could make more money selling the security than they could by servicing the mortgage. This is the root of the mortgage collapse as documented by the commission that investigated the recent Bush economic collapse.
Please explain how Bush tried to stop it?
Straight from the "its too complicated."
"I just can't make a decision." Mindset. The difference are real; fundamental; and if you can't deal with it let the adults.
Every American should be required to complete a civic 101 course
American Opportunities Act was a huge success. Over 3 million jobs created or preserved. Hundreds of billions of dollars in Federal, state and local expenditures avoided hundreds of billions more in taxes paid into government. But you don't turn a $14 trillion economy around with $878 billion in new deficit spending when the economy was trashed with $1.3 trillion deficit spending already. The stimulous had to be at least double that (a parade of economists argued for this at the time) to be effective in turning the economy around and that the Republicans prevented and Susan Collins was very public in demanding that the stimulus be less than $900 billion. So all the stimulus did was halt the downward spiral and avoid a depression; it was too small to grow the economy.
Cash for Clunkers - a Republican program. Thought up by Susan Collins. She demanded its passage for her support of the stimulus package. Took away affordable cars to many on fixed incomes? You joke. Of all the silly Republican excuses why this was a bad program that's about the lamest. Just because they are affordable doesn't mean they appeal to people on fixed incomes. Doesn't mean that people on fixed incomes weren't the ones turning them in. Doesn't mean that there was a shortage of affordable clunkers that people on fix incomes could still buy.
Obama has never said that he would not run for a second term. In fact, he's been running since January 21st, 2009. Please provide the source for such a silly comment.
So if these are your problems with recent economic efforts in this country, then you should want to fire Susan Collins not Obama.
Funny, George
Funny, that anyone can is so few words establish that they aren't in contact with reality.
I gave you more than a fair and courteous hearing
And I understand you very well. Many have travelled in your footsteps before you. But paranoid anti-muslim bigotry will not serve the interests of this country, Isreal, or the middle east.
As the embarressments mount
LePage began as a national laughingstock now he's just a boring bully.
What must he think of Governor Perry withdrawal from his own Day of Prayer and Fasting. Governor LePage is the only other Governor who has accepted Gov. Perry's invitation to support his proclamation. Now Perry is backing off.
Why! Because Perry recruited the American Family Association, an anti-gay hate group, to organize the meeting and recruit a long list of far right "christian"? ministers like The Dobson Twins, David Barton, creator of WallBuilders and false Jefferson quotes and Michelle Backman's recent gaffe that President John Quincy Adams was "active" in the Revolutionary War (Barton's version is that John Quincy Adams "fought" in the Revolutionary War. That's important to him because a speech of John Quicy Adams is the only evidence of Barton's theory that America was founded as a Christian Nation. If Adams wasn't a founder, his theory is false. By the way the facts are John Quincy Adams was in Europe going to school from 1778-1782. He left at age ten. He had no role and did not fight in the Revolutionary War.)
All of this must be embarrassing to Gov. LePage. Adding on the turmoil in the cabinent, you might think LePage is a bad politician on top of being a bad manager.
The Isreali - Palestinian conflict goes before 1948
And like the Hatfields and McCoys, everyone has a history to justify their most recent crime against humanity. Until we and they begin to look to the future and each other both will make the case why they are prefect and their enemies are demonic.
Al Jazeera is an independent accurate news organization (certainly more reliable and balanced and legal than Fox News). They are not representatives of Hamas however much Isreal wants to make them so. They deserve a fair and courteous hearing.
AH! the economics professor speaks.
The Feds can pay out 56% of current spending if they reach the debt limit which they did in May. By law the President may not be able to prioritize who gets paid. The likely first choices not to be paid are the troops and social security recipients because bond holders will have to be paid first or the US will cause a worldwide depression (remember when Lehman stopped paying its debt the worldwide debt market "froze" - no one could get loans, not governments, not corporations, not individuals). The libor went from a 1/4 of a percent to over 3% in a few weeks.
The above uninformed comment can be summarized as The Republicans refusal to pass a debt limit increase as has been done without comment 77 times in the last 50 years can be ignored because the Republicans always do good for the Country. So if bad things happen its the President's fault even though he has compromised dozens of times alienated his supporters in hopes of winning Republican support for doing the right thing, the thing in the National Interest.
I understand the concern, but you are a victim of
Republican fear-mongering. The country is not broke. We are paying the lowest Federal taxes in 70 years. The Republicans have tried to bankrupt the country in order to create a false debt crisis. They did not pay for the Bush tax cuts ($2.1 trillion), Medicare Part-D ($1 trillion), the wars in Irag and Afghanistan ($1 trillion), and the recession they caused ($3 trillion for the bank bailouts. I didn't add the auto bailout because it looks to have made a profit). That's $7 trillion in spending none of which was funded (taxes raised to cover the cost). So the National Debt went from $5.7 trillion and the end of the Clinton Administration to $12.7 trillion at the end of the Bush administration. We could add about another trillion dollars for recovery steps that were necessary to fix the recession in the Obama administration but let's not. But even this irresponsible spending orgy still left the United States with lower total debt than any other industrialized country including Germany.
There is no reason for the system to collapse or that there should be no more money. Eliminate the tax spending (subsidies) for the rich, make corporations re-patriate their profits each year, raise the tax rates to those at the end of the Clinton administration and we will be able to have a balanced budget and reduce the Federal debt to preBush levels over time. No impact on people living on fixed incomes. No changes in Social Security or Medicare are required. None should be acceptable.
Then we can sanely look at the 75 year problem of SS solvency. But remember SS will take in more in taxes than it pays in benefits for the next 25 years. Its not a crisis just a possible concern.
before HAVA (the Help America to vote Act)
stealing an election was easy in rural Maine. All you had to do is have party loyalists register with the other party, have the town clerk select your loyalists as ballot clerk(s); now all the ballot clerks are really of one party. Then don't purge people who move away from the town or who have died. The Town is required every 10 years to verify the voters eligibility, so you have 10 years to "vote" these missing people. HAVA eliminated these techniques because registrations are checked against various databases and move the registration between towns. So since Republicans find it much harder to double vote they must prevent Democrats from voting at all. In 2000 they used false Felon files to deny hundreds of thousands of African-Americans from voting. Now they are just putting up new bureaucratic red tape to make it harder for democratic leaning groups to vote.
By the way its easy to find out if students voted twice. Who voted is a public record. Party officials can get those records. Just find the home town of students call it up to see if they votes. The proof is easy to get. If they don't have it its because it never happenned.
fantastic folly
"the free market will always trump government solutions". Did LePage explain how you can have a "free market" solution when legally a "free market" can not exist. Health insurance companies are emempt from anti-trust laws. Monopolies are not free markets. A commission in Maine decides what health care facilities are available in Maine. No competition. No free entry into the market. Describing any feature of health care in America as a free market is like describing the Atlantic Ocean as a desert.
"He said the Canadian system led to a rationing of services and lower quality of care." So instead he lets health insurance companies ration care where they have a financial interest in not providing services. The US has the lowest quality of care in the industrialized world.
Last, The Heritage Foundation is LePage's boss. So this trip isn't surprising and his views consistent with the positions of the Heritage Foundation becuase his chief advisor is employed by the Heritage Foundation and he was elected by a staff of Heritage Foundation experts.
LePage is an administrator?
Seems LePage is only qualified to sell junk.
He certainly has failed to hire responsibile/qualified commissioners. More importantly, he has not backed up his employees against unfair and secret criticism by the special interests. Hardly shows leadership. It also remind us in many ways of the mural disaster. LePage who we all knew was a zealot and ideologue also appears to be incompetent in managing and leading good people.
We should and nothing
Its the burden we pay for having a Christian as President.
Bernice, you read it but your biblican bias does not permit you
to understand it. First, the country was not "based" on the bible. Even the most charitable reading of the Bible and Constitution shows no similarity. And we do know where the ideas that motivated the Founders to form a new country as they did came from. They told us. Not one mentioned the Bible. Not surprisingly. Few Americans were Christian. Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Washington, Hamilton, etc did not believe in the divinity of Christ. Whole sects who are Christian now denied the divinity of Christ then.10% of Virginians attended Church once a year or more 90% did not.
People offended by the removal of prayer from public schools or the 10 commandments from public places are anti-American and enemies of the Constitution.
The "wall of separation of church and state" was not taken out of context meaning given a different meaning from what was intended. Jefferson and his cabinet went through many drafts of the letter debating various phrases to us and only after approval by the cabinet was this letter which is a state record get sent. If you care to read it all you will note that Jefferson wrote that government has not place taking actions that affect what people think which is the wall. Government has no role in religion and religion has no role in government.
They didn't
"May we never forget the words and wisdom of our founding fathers as they prayed and sought God's guidance in establishing this great country." Took me a moment to find the Proclamation. I don't normal visit extremist, radical, and terrorist websites so I missed it on the CWA site.
The founding fathers were wise in creating this country. Unfortunately that's not shared by Governor LePage. His proclamation states "....Benjamin Franklin implored the framers to pray for guidance..." implying that the framers then prayed for guidance. They didn't; the Constitutional Convention went on with the debate ignoring Franklin's plea. "...In 1775 the Continential Congress asked the colonies to join in pray..". They did, but they were not founders, there was no Constitution. There was no Bill of Rights or First Amendment. Our real founders learned a lot between 1775 and 1787. President Adams was a founder but his undefined statement was made many years later in a very different age. Lincoln and Roosevelt were not founders and again were from entirely different ages. They were important, but not perfect.
So not one statement here relates to the founding of our country or suggests that the founders believed in pray (a few did not many and those who did were not Christians).
But the worst of this so-called day of pray is it is lead by the Dobsons promoters of hate and by others with long and much lamented pasts of anti-American and anti-christian propaganda. If you are a Bible believing Christian you should be no where near any of these events.
You weren't listen as you won't be now
"May we never forget the words and wisdom of our founding fathers as they prayed and sought God's guidance in establishing this great country." - they didn't.
While any "Bible believing Christian" is perfectly correct that they can and should participate in events that are consistent with their views.
Who is wrong here is Governor LePage & Perry for issuing their unconstitutional call for a day of prayer and fasting in violation of their oath of office.
When you are out of touch with reality?
You may come to false conclusions. As this letter does. I am shocked and pleased that a representative of Al Jazeera is coming to Maine. Hope the press coverage is up to the importance of the visit.
misleading as hell
"First off, life expectancy has risen about 10 years..." completely misleading. "Average" life expectancy has gone up about 10 years because childhood mortality has dramatically decreased. People who reached 21 in 1935 lived into their late 70's. People who reach 21 today live into their early 80's. Difference is about 2 years not 10. Only one proposal, the "Ryan Plan for Economic collapse", leaves the fixes for your generation. The fixes for my generation were put into place in 1983. And other proposes take effect immediately. And with Republicans bankrupting the country more and more immediate fixes may be required.
People who tell the truth and work for their constituents
don't need beefed-up security.
If he were a Democrat he'd know?
The Republicans caused the debt crisis by their irresponsibile and reckless spending without funding (12 of $14 trillion debt is the responsibility of Republican Presidents in the last 30 years). Republicans caused the debt limit crisis by trying to use it to extort spending cuts without tax increases (even though the rich are paying the lowest taxes since the Second World War era) from the Democrats. This crisis has made it clear that Republicans are ready to bankrupt the country as long as taxes are reduced to zero for rich folks.
Good Job
Stan's a great teacher. The Bethel Historical Society has a wonderful collection. This is a opportunity Mahar will remember for a long time.
"To sum up, Taylor's position
"To sum up, Taylor's position is that children and young adults should be prevented from reading a work of fiction about a young boy's quest to defeat evil in the face of almost insurmountable odds..."
Chad, the Harry Potter series competes with Mr. Taylor. He just wants the government to get rid of it. Your statement above could apply to Harry Potter and equally to the Bible.
Let Mr. Taylor rant. He's relatively harmless unlike Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, and the crazies who want to impose their religious fanatacism on the rest of us by force.
Brinkmanship
"Quality health care is a fundamental human right." Yes, Yes, Yes
The Republican brinkmanship over the debt limit, a crisis they and they alone created, now threatens to throw the US economy back into depression. Moody and Standard & Poors have stated that even if the debt limit is increased they may downgrade US debt. That will increase interest rates and collapse the dollar and cause a flood of bonds to be dumped on the market because some bond holdings legally or contractually require the highest rating.
This because the Republicans wanted to divert attention away from the National Debt which they are primarily responsibile for. Shows that they are willing to sacrifice the National interest for a few votes at the polls.
Wow!
You do know your republicans.
But who is going to protect Maine from DHS
Another unnecessary grandiose scheme by the R's to turn all of America into another New Jersey.
I give up
As Obama is learning (I hope) in the debt limits talks you need two sides that accept a common language. Radical "conservatives" have nothing to say to America.
the rub
Since you dismiss the well established facts, it shows why you can't hold a conversation and why you have no answers. And "liberal socialist koolaid" merely confirms that you won't talk because you know you are wrong. I've read all your right-wing fantasies. I grew up on Randian hate, oversimplification, and ignorance.
You miss the point as always - its your side that is doing the social tinkering not mine.
Oh my! a real answer.
A. the income tax was not "rammed down our throats by progressive". It was overwhelmingly adopted as all Constitutional Amendments must be.
B. Social tinkering (temperance, anti-slavery, prison reform, individual improvement, seeking social perfection, anti-drug, anti-divorce, etc) as you call it is an outgrowth of the Second Great Awakening (Christian) which transformed American society from secular, enlightenment to christian world view. The social tinkering as you call it was and is a conservative, religious movement to improve society through the application of religious values to social practice. It does not waste wealth unless wealth is your only value. But its anything but liberal. Michelle Bachmann is the current poster child for social tinkering. But then you mean only that portion of social tinkering that you oppose and that costs money not all social tinkering.
c. That's so oversimplified. It ignores so much that its hardly worth refuting. Increased taxes do not necessarily increase prices (only can if the business is a monopoly). Just for beginners increased taxes might be offset by increased productivity or reduced taxes elsewher or by changes in other costs. When prices goes down businesses may increase production not reduce it to increase income at lower margins. We could go on and on. But the real world has answered these questions. Bill Clinton increased taxes significantly (Republicans said the largest tax increase in US History and it was going to bring about a major recession. What really happenned. Highest post WWII economic growth on record. 22 million jobs added. US budget balanced. US deficit and debt reduced (perfect so-called Reganomics result. Reagan also increased taxes with same result). George Bush cut taxes in 2001 and 2003. Said that they were the largest tax cuts in history, promised an explosion of economic growth and jobs. What really happenned. Worst economic growth post WWII. Negative job growth. Explosion of US deficit and debt. But I won't say that either was the result of the tax policy adopted by those administrations. Fact is tax policy has very little if anything to do with economic activity or jobs when marginal tax rates are under 50% which was true under both adminitrations. Tax policy if targetted properly designed and implement can have an impact on a business, an industry, or a limited subset of the economy but rarely for the economy as a whole.
Tax policy has more to do with the debt, borrowing, credit stability and we are seeing now that low tax revenues (16% of GNP while we spend at 25% of GDP) are a serious threat to National existence.
National Referendum
1. as I said I never mentioned any such thing.
2. No such thing exists. There is not National referendum. Therefore, I don't know why you keep bringing it up.
3. Maine does have a state referendum process. Last used by the Republicans to defeaat tax reform. As you say a perversion used by the party out of power to through a tantrum. I oppose the state referendum process as now defined. I would radically reform it, but as long as it exists I'll use it.
4. I have no problem whatsoever finding ample justification for the liberal doctrine which by the way has nothing to do with "government must do everything for everybody" which is a conservative straw man. The "general welfare" clause is not something to bleat about. Its the second of two Constitutional responsibilities of the Congress. Nothing could be more important (of course you can't accept that since you oppose the Constitution). The origins of the Constitution was the failure of the Second Congress to fund/supply the continential army and the Shays rebellion in the winter of 1787 which align to those two responsibilities.
5. In fact, Felix Frankfurther (Roosevelt's appointee to the SCOTUS) created the theory of judicial restraint and judicial liberalism. Again, liberalism has nothing to do with government doing everything for everybody a doctrine that is the inherent property of any legislative body that is unconstrainted by checks and balances. A conservative legislature will do everything for everybody. A moderate legislature will do everything for everybody. A liberal legislature will do everything for everybody and that is America's experience. People like to keep their jobs and their power so unconstrained they will try to make everyone happy.
Does this country need an economics and civics 101 class
They can factor it in all they want, but unless they are a monopoly and have pricing power in the market they can not charge the price they want. Prices are still determined in a free market by supply, demand, and speculation not the idle musings of executives.
Zero income tax???? "Gold game"?????? ah the comfort of fantasy.
Wow!
"all that Obama has offered is higher taxes" Absolutely false. Obama has offerred up to 4 times more spending cuts including to Social Security and Medicare than tax spending cuts (loopholes intended to give corporate america something for nothing like the 40 billion in OIl and Gas subsidies done through the tax code). No one God forgive them is even talking about any change in tax rates even though Federal Government is receiving less tax revenues than any time back to the 50's.
"all federal taxes are paid ultimately by individuals." this is a truism. That is a meaningless statement. Some individuals are rich and some poor and many in between and it matters which individuals pay. More so this is based on a ridiculous lie about economics which is that corporations don't pay taxes. Besides being just stupid to be true all corporations must be monopolies that can set prices without regard to supple and demand. Unless they can, taxes come out of profits and therefore from the individual owners of the corporation not the consumers. That matters.
The American worker hasn't lost his way; he has been lead astray by effective propaganda. The blame belongs to the propagandist not the worker. Just as the victim of fraud is the victim.
engage a conservative in a thoughful discussion
impossible. I mentioned no "national referenda" so I'm not surprised its not in the constitution. Nor did I mention democracy. One dollar one vote is not in the constitution. Maybe you are reading the Soviet Constitution its much closer to the tea party's. One-man one vote is a SCOTUS decision based on as it should the Constitution. Not surprised that Conservatives don't believe in one-man one vote as it is the basis for republicanism and was debated throughly during the Constitutiona Convention.
Its amazing conservatives only find in the Constitution what they want to find and ignore all the other stuff the Founders included but isn't to the liking of so-called conservative (fact is they aren't conservatives. They are radical and anti-Constitutional. And mad as hell that you can't find property, capitalism, individualism, or a whole host of 20th century "isms" in the Constitution.
faced by facts that really explains what they are really doing
a conservative will always say something meaningless
So much for belief in the Constitution
Its one man one vote or the theory that each citizen has an equal opportunity to influence governmental decisions. The SCOTUS decision was simple one dollar one vote or the theory that that rich should rule.
Now you know the lies; here's the facts
From 1942 until 1982, the share of income received by the top 10% wealthiest Americans ran between 32 and 35% i.e. the remaining 90% got 65-68%. 40 years of very little change. From 1982 to now the share received by the top 10% has steadily increased to top 50% as of 2008 and it will be more today. Did people become steadily more lazy from 1982 to now. Hardly. Were the rich less greedy from 1942 to 1981. Certainly not. If not what changed. Not work, not motivation, not skills; what changed were the laws that have allowed corporations to get tax breaks for moving good jobs overseas, that allowed corporations to break strikes; that cut taxes for the rich to the lowest levels since 1945; that deregulated i.e. allowed the rich to defraud all of us. In short political power changed. Working people have bought the lies and distractions (the debt limit debate now) sold by the rich. They have accepted that they are unworthy of just rewards for their work.
Any working person voting for the Republicans or their fellow travellers in the Democratic Party are committing economic suicide.
What???
"You should want to stay with your kind." I haven't heard that since neighborhood segregation was ended (to a degree) in Philadelphia back in the 60's.
Great for Denny's great, for the Maine legislature and apparently hooray for Key West.
If you are so socially incompetent that you can't handle a little diversity without being shocked, please get appropriate care.
whether right or wrong
the letter is over the top. Smart meters do not involve Constitutional rights or national security.
But Joanna's basic point that corporations have far too much power is right. The PUC is not protecting us just as the SEC, FED, and other regulators failed us in the recent housing bubble and financial collapse. Regulatory reform of corporations (not eliminating regulation, but enforcing and strengthening the regulations we have) is the most pressing issue of this generation.
For example, the management of Massey Energy should have long ago been indicted for the 29 lives lost through their malfeasence in WV.
Execute a few executives when they cause a loss of live through their direct actions and imprisonment for their actions that indirectly cause a loss of life is a good first step in regaining a balance of power.
Simple
Another opportunity for the Financial Services industry to ripoff the public. Thank LePage
We can afford to give the rich tax breaks?
Why should a family that comes to a food panty 3 or 4 times a month to get a good meal be forced to give more of its income to the state so that the wealthy can enjoy a tax cut from the Govenor.
Maine's CEO!!!
A CEO is an authoritarian dictator with absolute power over his employees. The people of Maine are not LePage's employees. LePage as much as he wishes it is not Maine's authoritarian dictator. Soon enough the only memory of him will be the worst Governor to ever work for the destruction of his own statre.
You will excuse me
do questions 5-8, B1 & B4 reflect the historic importance of the Declaration of Independence. Aren't they a bit childish?
President Lincoln lifted the Declaration of Independence from "old wadding left to rot on the battfield" into a living document by which all governments of all men could be judged. Since 1863, political movements have tried to highjack the DoI for their own purposes. To wrap their modern views in the authority of the DoI. How can we resist if our knowledge of the DoI's history is represented by a "Turkey".
May I suggest everyone read and study "American Scripture, Making the Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776" by Pauline Maier.
Fiction
If same-day registration was in fact overwhelming, why was legislation to eliminate it only introduced in states came under Republican Control in 2010. Wouldn't democratic states be equally overwhelmed?
truth
No Larry, the Catholic Church's leadership in its official capacity admitted it lied and deceived the people. One should not condemn the Catholic Church for the sin committed by Malone and his evil cohorts like Nutty, but after this struggle if Malone takes the same position that he took on 1 in 2009 his co-religionists should move him to a homeless shelter.
The face of hatred is wasting away
Selective mis-reading of religion is just a cover-up for either mental instability or hatred and it is slowly disappearing. First, because its foolish. No fundamentalists follow, support, or believe in much of the stupidity in the early books of the bible (written when people thought the earth was the center of the universe).
Marriage is not older than government. You have no marriage without government even in the bible. The earliest and currently most popular form of marriage is polygamy. So the statement the marriage is only between a man and a woman are obviously false.
What they really mean is that their christian belief is that marriage is between a man and a woman and they have the right to force other people to follow their belief. This idea is so unamerican it deserves nothing but contempt.
No it doesn't
LePage's budget included over $200 million in tax cuts. Of which $150 million or more went to wealthy people directly. More than $30 million went to 100 families with estates of more than $1 million.
Drivel
GM record profits. Employment up. Opening new plants and re-opening old plants. Developing new car models every bit as good as made anywhere in the world. Not one fact in Mr. LeBanc's empty attack on unions. BHO did not save the auto industry by printing a mountain of money. In fact, the US taxpayer will make a significant profit from saving. First, we didn't have to pay unemployment for at least a million workers for several years. That's about $30 billion a year. Best case scenarios place the profits from the sale of GM stock at a small profit; worst a small loss. The rescue of the auto industry added about .3% to the GDP. That's about 42 billion dollars in salaries, sales, profits which would not be their except of the rescue.
Detroit before the rescue is the poster child for Republican economic policies.
Honestly elected legislators! A Republican You must be joking
Mr. Shields continues his unblemished record of repeating Washington Republican talking points without one shread of evidence that it applies to Maine.
"my Democrat opponent bring freshly-registered people to the polling place minutes before the polls closed in the evening." What this means is that the Republicans rarely work to get out the vote. If their money and lies hasn't work, a phone call from a party hack won't work. But Democrats do work on election day. Working from VOTER REGISTRATION LISTs prepared weeks before the election and information from contacting voters over a year before the election, we get pre-registered voters to the polls. Parties have no way effective of contacting non-registered voters. Therefore we can't bring transients to the polls. If Mr. Shields saw anything else he could of challenged the vote. He never has now has he.
"Not allowing voter registration on Election Day gives the voter time to become informed" I have found that if a voter isn't informed; they don't vote. So this is BS. Its also the same line the Repubs use to justify their repressive anti-abortion laws. We all know that those laws are intended not to inform but to delay and by delay making it inconvenient and expensive to do what is none of the Republicans business. Whether informed or not, a voter has a fundamental right to vote. He even has a right to commit economic suicide and vote for Mr. Shields.
We should all cheer.
The do-nothing legislature's ending should be welcome by everyone.
Now when I say do-nothing. I mean that it did nothing for Mainers. It did a lot for the Heritage Foundation in Washington. It did a lot for the out-of-state millionaires who visit Maine or own businesses here. For the average Maine it cut income taxes by $165 which will be off-set by the increases in property taxes and services that will be lost to the Governor's squeeze the poor budget; for Maines millionaires a $140000 cut. But we should be happy about what it didn't do. Rural Maine won't be turned into another "New Jersey" by unregulated rural development for another year.
Are we to believe parents or taxpayers are dumb?
Costs are often not a function of the number of students. Special ed being a classic example. English as a secondary language students another. Transportation costs are a function of the miles of roads in the district, age of the bus fleet, and age distribution of the children. Cost per pupil is close to meaningless. If you owned a business, could you make meaningful decisions if you lumped fixed and variable costs together?
I believe Peter Mills lead the campaign to adjust the formula years ago to better reflect rural/urban cost differences. Change now are unnecessary unless the Republicans can show that the added money will improve student performance in rural Maine without harming student performance in urban Maine. By the way, has Gov. LePage forgotten his pledge to fund education by returning local control "as stated in the Maine Constitution". Must have!
MacArthur
Thank you for adding substance to my comment.
Remember Vietnam
We had to destroy the village to save it.
debauchery? What is this the
debauchery? What is this the 17th century.
First, Detroit is a perfect example of what happens when Republican policies of destroying unions and the middle class, on which stability and economic growth are based, are followed. The auto industry was almost completely destroyed by the Bush recession and their economic policies. It took President Obama to save it, the US manufacturing sector, and the US economy.
Second, teaching a man to fish when all the fish are extinct does him no good (you can use your own far fetched analogy to answer the author's silliness)
Third, entitlements (welfare) are not a significant part of any budget. In fact, they are so small they don't even get mentioned by Republicans anymore. They want to destroy Social Security and Medicare because they are significant.
Fourth, most welfare fraud is committed by providers not recipients of welfare like our current House Speaker.
Fifth. The state is not about to go bankrupt. By any financial measure Maine is in better shape than two-third of the states in the United States.
When you are so out of touch with reality, well vote for Bachmann by the end of the campaign she will be saying that Ronald Reagan founded the country.
Lowry predictable
Lowry is ever able to provide todays empty phrase of the day. What is winning? Does he know? And at what cost. Lowry and his co-conspiritors have all but bankrupted this country. Now he complains that his and his friends policies which have made unfunded wars a threat to the country's survival should be pursued without regard to cost, lives lost, or specific goals, and without a national interest in continuing them.
It is a sort of justice that Lowry brings Douglas MacArthur into his little whinny diatribe. Douglas MacArthur is America's next to worst traitor and the greatest whinner ever. MacArthur disobeyed President Hoover's direct orders on three occations and in so doing cost Hoover the Presidential election of 1932. MacArthur participated in an attempted coup to overthrow the elected government of the United State in 1934 and was exiled to the Philipines as a result. MacArthur disobeyed President Truman's orders in Korea and then whinned about support from back home. No man deserves less than MacArthur.
Lowry predictable
Lowry is ever able to provide todays empty phrase of the day. What is winning? Does he know? And at what cost. Lowry and his co-conspiritors have all but bankrupted this country. Now he complains that his and his friends policies which have made unfunded wars a threat to the country's survival should be pursued without regard to cost, lives lost, or specific goals, and without a national interest in continuing them.
It is a sort of justice that Lowry brings Douglas MacArthur into his little whinny diatribe. Douglas MacArthur is America's next to worst traitor and the greatest whinner ever. MacArthur disobeyed President Hoover's direct orders on three occations and in so doing cost Hoover the Presidential election of 1932. MacArthur participated in an attempted coup to overthrow the elected government of the United State in 1934 and was exiled to the Philipines as a result. MacArthur disobeyed President Truman's orders in Korea and then whinned about support from back home. No man deserves less than MacArthur.
One dollar, one vote
America is now the land of the corporate slave. The activist corporate SCOTUS needs to be changed in order to re-establish democracy. They are one vote away from introducing corporate slavery everywhere as Lincoln used to say after Dredd Scott about negro slavery.
Clarence Thomas by his false financial statements and his close and unethical cooperation with a wealthy Republican donor (including being the only vote supporting that donor's case before the SCOTUS) should be impeached.
Scalia has committed very similiar breaches of ethics and should also be impeached.
Federal elections must be publicly financed to protect one man, one vote.
LePage in Chile in the Spring?
Chile not too long ago was a fascist dictatorship created by Richard Nixon and ATT. Perhaps LePage is down their picking his retirement home.
Why?
Mr. Rhoades makes some assumptions - bond that holds society together, future of Maine’s economy depends on ... stable, married families. But doesn't offer any evidence of their truth. For example, instability in a controlled environment may teach children to adapt better to a radically changing world. Marriage and stable families is wonderful if we ignore the reality of families - incest, drug abuse, and poverty - to name a few realities children must endure. A poor family living with child abuse is a stable ,married family.
What these studies really provide is that societies under serious economic stress must resolve the economic crisis. Just moving people out of the in-crisis group to the slightly stressed group is no answer the economic stress will just continue moving up through economic classes. Nor is looking back to the past at old solutions (stable married families) or whistfully at our wonderful childhoods. Either solve the economic crisis (jobs) or develop a new worldview (as the Second Great Awakening (1800-1830) did, but failed) or collapse into poverty. Adapt or die.
Same old Charlie
20 years later and he still hasn't learn the value of truth.
Enquiring minds want to know
Are the Republicans going to give Whitey an award, Humanitarian of the Year for his 16 years on the run. or was it a lifetime award for Business innovation?
Enquiring minds what to know
Are the Republicans going to give Whitey an award, Humanitarian of the Year for his 16 years on the run. or was it a lifetime award for Business innovation?
Sock it to 'em Dan
The poll tax is unconstitutional. Literacy tests are unconstitutional. So the Republicans had to come up with some other way to burden the young, the elderly, and working people so that they wouldn't vote. Two trips to the Town Hall plus perhaps many trips to get documentation that they otherwise don't need will discourage grassroots voters. Charlie Webster when challenged on his Glenn Beck-like lies couldn't come up with a single fact to support this bill. If they were really concerned about voter fraud, they would have demanded tighter controls on military and overseas voting where the opportunity for fraud is huge compared to domestic voting. Forgot, they vote Republican and Republican voter fraud is just fine.
I'm waiting for the Republicans adding a property requirement. Perhaps a requirement that the voter have $100,000 net worth would get the Republicans the voters they want.
Unions
And we don't need unions to protect workers from companies that intentionally violate the law and threaten their safety? I assume the AG and DOT are investigating Maine Recycling Corp? Ha!
Most disturbing is that LePage doesn't even understand the
role the Department of Labor is legally required to play. The DOL is not legally required to represent all Mainers, or Mainers with a business, or lunatic fringe people at the Maine Heritage Comedy Center. No, its legally required to represent Maine labor. Bet LePage thinks that Maine businesspeople represent Maine labor.
Another reason why businesspeople are incompetent to lead Maine's government.
The other two comments here are very good, sound, opinoins.
Anyone surprised
Republicans lead by LePage knife Maine workers in the back again.
Some people are a clear and present danger to others
Previous legislatures considered tighter restrictions on gun possession by people who were subjects of a protection order. Those efforts failed. If the weaspons of domestic abuse can't be controlled, then the domestic abuse must be. I agree with Sandra. This was a man who was a clear and present danger to his family. Much more should have been done to isolate him from them.
What the Constitution doesn't say
Given the above, I believe that at the point of viability an unborn human does acquire a minimum set of rights and protections including the expectation that no actions will be taken to end the possibility of live birth except when the mother-to-be is threatened.
And I think the commerce clause (one of those seven powers) has been stretched well beyond reason. The Constitution gives the Federal Government the powers necessary to provide for the "general welfare" i.e. the overall performance of the economy. The Federal Government has the power to end economic downturns, maintain a level of economic growth, all the macroeconomic controls necessary to maintain a health economy. The Constitution also does not mention "free markets", "capitalism", nor private property or any system to maintain private or organize property. The implications of that simply aren't talked about.
Constitution
1. I never said that the fetus is not human. I said it was not a citizen, a person, nor a party to the Constitution and therefore not protected by it. A fetus certainly is human, but also not a human. A human being has the capability to reason; a fetus does not. An egg is not a chicken, but it may become one. A fetus is not a human but may become one. Our laws now and over much of our history recognize this. We do not give a born human full rights and protections until 21 based on the fact that the human brain has not reached maturity until about that time. Even now parents have extreme powers over born children. 100 years ago those powers were unfetterred. 150 years ago abortion was like all other "women's work" not even recognized by society.
2. You need to re-read your Constitution. The Preamble to the Constitution says "promote the general welfare". Article I says to "provide". But Article I says much more. It then lists a series of powers given to Congress to give it the means to provide for the common defense and general welfare. One but only one example is the power to coin money and (and this is most important) to regulate the value thereof. To regulate the value of money, a government must control the value of imports and exports and the supply of money and to do those it must have a system of tariffs and import/export controls and a banking system controlled by the government. The actual and literal wording of Article I Section 8 is:
"The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States...." there follows a list of powers seven of which directly deal with controlling/protecting the US economy.
Should be something everyone can agree on
The rise of the conservative movement has occured when the schools abandoned the teaching of Government, civics, and American History. We do need to educate youth on the real core values this country was built on. The question is will the content of these courses be corrupted as they were in Texas recently by conservatives trying to re-interpreted that history to justify their movement? or to say it another way; America was founded in 1788 not 1840.
Constitutional protection for abortion.
1. Abortion is not murder. Murder is the unlawful killing of a person. A fetus is not a person; has never been so described. People opposed to abortion for purely dogmatic reasons would like to impose their religion on the rest of us. We, the people, the parties to the Constitution do have a right to life meaning that we have a right a claim on government that once we are born they do all they can to protect and expend our lives. That is why Article I of the Constitution gives Congress two goals "provide for the national defense (protect the lives of our citizens who must be people) and the general welfare (the economic and overall health of our nation and the people that make it up). A fetus was never a party to the Constitution and could not delegate powers to the government.
2. The Supreme Court says there is a right to abortion. If they say so then there is.
3. Anti-abortion is anti-conservative because abortion is not in any sense traditional. Until the 1840's abortion was not even mentioned in law in fact any "women's" work was not mentioned in the law. Two things changed in the 1840's - the Second Great Awakening had transform America from a rational, Enlightenment country to a Protestant country and doctor's were trying to impose a monopoly on women's medical care by getting rid of widwifery (the people who performed abortions, births, and medical care for women). The SGA added the priciple that government had to regulate the private affairs of people which the Constitution did not give to government.
Therefore anti-abortionism is a radical anti-constitutional departure from more than 10,000 years of human history.
Republicans
Given Rick Perry's proposal that Texas secede from the union and Sarah Palin's many idotic remarks about US history and Texas' removal of Thomas Jefferson from US history because he as an atheist, The best thing we can do for the integrity of the vote is to ban the Republican Party as a subversive and dictatorial organization which is militating for the overthrow of our form of government.
How much BS are we expected to take.
Early-voting absentee ballots can not be adding a workload onto town clerks. In Dixfield ballots are hand counted. Whether the ballot is an absentee ballot or the voting day ballot its the same ballot. It takes the same time to count it. In fact, it would reduce the workload on voting day because fewer voters would come to the polls.
In fact, these types of legislation have been been submitted in every state in which the republicans gained complete control in 2010. They are directed from Washington to suppress minority voting and something not mentioned so far to reduce the volunteers available on election day to the political parties. Republicans don't get volunteers on election day. They close their offices early. But democrats do. If you reduce the time volunteers have to get people out to the polls it favors the republicans who think they don't have to volunteer because political office is their right, they don't have to earn it.
First what is the mess
College students are doing nothing illegal in the first place. In a second place, they are residents and do have an interest in the affairs of the towns in which they live.
Just another corrupt Republican who lies
Why would this surprise anyone. The fact that most agricultural workers can't unionize is a crime against the people of this country. But that a republican legislator would submit a bill sacrificing the rights of Mainers to make a little more money for a fellow criminal republican whose last act for his country was to poison several thousand of people should come as no surprise.
Craft should be investigated to the limits of the law.
What's unsustainable are health care costs
Premium increases of 22% while medical inflation is 6% and the consumer price inflation is <3% is what is unsustainable. Private insurance overhead of 30% is unsustainable (Medicare is 1.5%). Health care insurers being exemplt from anti-trust laws is unsustainable. One partial solution would make everyone eligible for Medicare. Premium costs cut by 1/3 immediately. Allow Medicare to negiotiate prices for drugs another huge cut in costs. Then really attack costs by bringing real competition to health care - anyone who wants can open a health care facility as long as they have the qualifications to perform the services offerred.
Part of a National Republican Campaign to establish one-party ru
In each state where Republicans gained control of the Legislature, legislation like this was made a priority. The Republicans want to prohibit Democrats or likely Democratic voters from voting. Simple as that. They want people to wait, come back more than once, have to get more information. The same tactics they are using to suppress the Constitutionally protected right to an abortion.
The future of Democracy rests on defeating these bills.
National Campaign
This bill is just part of a National Campaign by the Republicans to suppress voting by Democratic constituencies. Bills like this one have been introduced in every state where Republicans won in 2010. It has nothing to do with real voter fraud. Its about establishing one-party rule.
Republican Fraud
2 just two cases of voter fraud have ever been prosecuted in Maine - 191 years. Now registration fraud (if by that you mean people being on the voting list who are not qualified to vote) has been more frequent, but its caused by town clerks not voters. Twons were only required in the past to verify voter lists every ten years. Frequently town clerks of towns that a person moved to did not inform the town clerks of the town they moved from or the town clerk in the town they moved from did not remove the voter from the lists. Under this old system as much as 40% of the voter list was wrong every 4 years. This system was replaced a few years ago because of the HAVA act. Now with centralized registration files accuracy has improved by orders of magnitude.
ACORN another Republican fraud. ACORN was defrauded by some of their contract employees (each registration they got they got paid for). ACORN discovered the fraud and reported it to authorities. In no case was it found that ACORN, its leadership, or any permanent employee encouraged or aided in the submission of any fraudulent registration forms.
If there is voter fraud, only the Republicans know of it.
black Panthers
Black Panthers have never stopped white people from voting. The only case involving Black Panthers was in Philadelphia where two Republican poll watchers called police accusing two Black Panthers of intimidating voters by standing in front of the polling place (along with a number of politicians) and one was holding a stick. Now heaven knows that to a Republican any person of color holding a stick is intimidating and a person of color using their 2nd Amendment rights by holding a gun is down right threatening. But interviews with voters, other poll watchers, and politicians present did not support the accusation. Subsquent review by the DOJ found nothing
Garbage
The National debt before the first budget George Bush submitted to Congress was $5.807 trillion; the last $11.910 trillion. Bush added $6.1 TRILLION in his 8 years more than doubling the debt. Obama in his first budget took the debt to $13.562 adding $1.65 trillion. Based on current projections unpaid for Bush policies (tax cuts for the rich, 2 wars, medicare part-D, and $3+ trillion in stimulus to prevent a depression) will contribute 96% of all future debt. Obama put together a debt commission; reduced planned spending by $100 billion; and while participating in a new war he has not committed US troops beyond a few pilots. The other two wars he has reduced significantly the US troop committment.
The 9% unemployment rate is something Obama has to take responsibility for. Obama caved to Republican pressure (Sen. Susan Collins among many others) and agreed to a stimulus package that while it worked as designed was half as big as it needed to be and too short in duration as many economists warned. It should have been followed by a new plan but that was blocked again by the Republicans who want to trash the economy before the 2012 election.
I'm afraid getting one thing right does not make an indictment. Vaguely suggesting that Obama does not know our values and traditions (he's not an American you know. He's one of them.) certainly suggests that the author would criticize Obama if he could walk on water.
If the choice is between any Republican and Obama, well that's no choice. Obama all the way.
Eugene
Rumford should be very proud of Eugene
oversimplified
Mark below is correct. Until the insurance companies are covered by Federal anti-trust laws a free-market is impossible. But then with it its impossible. You see free-markets have never and do not now exist because they are a oversimplicifcation of a theory that has no practical application. All markets are to some degree regulated often the companies involved demanding regulation to keep competition out of the market.
Medical costs are increasing by 6% per year; inflation by 3% or less a year; and insurance premiums by 12% or more per year. Why? No effective regulation of insurance companies. Medicare is administered for 1 and 1/2% of taxes collected; private insurance by 30+% of premiums paid. Why, no effective regulation.
The solution is what works and has been proven to work over more than 40 years. Pass legislation making Medicare available to everyone.
Now the above is what you call partisan
When you distort the facts, misrepresent roles, invent decisions after the fact to support your party then that's what partisan means. Bush II gets 65% of the credit because he presided over the writting of new operational manuals (SOP). Give me a break. I'm certain those black ops folks think that paperwork was mainly responsible for the death of Bin Laden. Please explain the differences in the Carter attempt to free the hostages and this mission that were due to changes in procedure initiated in the Bush II administration.
Instead let's get down to undisputed facts. Bush II said both in 2002 and 2006 that capturing or killing Bin Laden was unimportant. His speech in 2006 was part of the announcement that the Black Ops team that he had charged with capturing or killing Bin Laden was being disbanded ending the search for Bin Laden in his administration. Second, Bush I and Cliton were more important than Bush II in transforming the military and intelligence communities from a Soviet focused European tank war model to one focused on asymetrical warfare. So Bush I and Clinton share any procedural credit (and the work people like Patreaus and Colin Powell did while in the military). Three, procedural credit also is meaningless. The people in the Team (those who found Bin Laden. Those that took him out. Those leading them and those that supported them) deserves all the credit and Obama was the leader of the team. Given that the CIA estimate of 60-80% chance that Bin Laden would be there and given the poor results from these helicopter insertions in the past, the risks in this mission were very high making the decisions to go forward with this all the more impressive. Bush II had nothing to do with these operational decisions.
I didn't start it.
It is a fact that Bush did not capture or kill Bin Laden. It's a fact that Bush disbanded in 2006 the special unit that was charged with capturing and/or killing Bin Laden. I see nothing wrong with assigning blame to the "sole decision-maker" when he does not succeed. That's not partisan; it truth. Nor did I falsely claim that Bush was responsible for Bin Laden's death. Republicans did that.
You call an accountant a person who have behaved in a certain way (got an accounting degree, passed a qualifying test, sought and was approved by a licensing board. In politics you can only characterize people based on their behavior (comments, speeches, etc) and the policies they have adopted or supported. All of my characterizations of the Republicans are supported by 75 years of specific behavior not inferences about the behavior. Republicans have earned those characterizations by hard work and a consistent world view. Partisan is when you claim credit for everything good whether your party had anything to do with it or not and blame on the other party whether they do good or not. I'm not partisan. I'm not even a Democrat any longer. I blame the Republicans for what they do wrong and only what they do wrong. My difficulty is they provide so many opportunities.
Unity? What unity?
The American people have never been unified. Why would Bin Laden's death have anything to do with it?
What will it take - unity of principle. America is under attack and has been for more than 75 years by a moneyed elite who want to replace our Constitutional Republic with an authoritarian dictatorship using a fascist model i.e. they call it being business friendly. They want government to control our private lives while business controls our public lives. They want to deny the vote. Dismiss duly elected government officials by fiat. They, like the Communist Soviet Union, claim that they are the authors of everything good (80% of republicans claim Bush is responsible for Bin Laden's death) when in fact they are only the authors of what is good for themselves.
I wish to thank those like Frostproof
whose replies were empty non-replies. Confirms only my original comment
I know you hate the facts.
Bush ruined the US economy. The recession began in December 2007. Obama was took office in January of 2009 a full 14 months after the recession began. By march of 2009 the worsening recession reached its peak. By May unemployment began to fall. Now we have had almost 2 years of economic growth and improving conditions along with record profits for many sectors of the US economy.
Its the Republicans who have wanted to ruin the US economy. The Norquist plan is to starve the Federal Government bringing on recessions and economic crisis to us as an excuse to end economic stability for 99% of the country. Republicans added 12 of the 14 trillion dollar debt in hopes of bankrupting the country. Elect them again and this country will be a third-world, poverty-stricken wasteland.
I hope this isn't the John R. Davis I know
I reviewed President Obama's long form birth certificate that was published in the papers a few days ago and it clearly stated that his father was african and that his mother was caucasian. So much for race.
Mr. Davis statement - "It merely shows he was born in Hawaii." - is bizarre. There is no merely about it. Being born in Hawaii in 1961 automatically makes Obama a US citizen according to the 14th Amendment in the US Constitution. If you accept that he was born in Hawaii then Obama is our rightful President and unlike Bush elected by the people of the US.
More than that recent events have shown that President Obama has lived up to every expectation that anyone could have of a President. Where President Bush failed to capture or kill Bin Laden (even though 80% of Republicans are trying to create a new great lie that Bush was responsible for Bin Laden's death.), President Obama by making it his highest priority succeeded.
Time to bury this nonsense that Obama is not American. Only racists, nativist, and Islamophobic Christian extremists in other words the Republican Party can still hold on to this propaganda.
Classic
As someone else remarked you can't extrapolate one or two data points into a general conclusion. First, Doug's wrong. No one is proposing to prevent kids from working. Even three jobs. The proposal is to expand the hours they can work and cut their pay.
Second, While I'm glad Doug thinks he did Ok from all that work, he can't answer how much better he might have done if he had gotten one more hour of sleep before that final French exam.
Lastly, his experience can not be generalized to everyone. To think that it can requires a huge ego.
Self-interest is a wonderful modivation for self-delusion
Obviously, only a couple examples is all that's possible in commenting in a blog. They are examples of an overall trend which is not hard to document. Start by looking at on the job death and injury statistics. Then look at the number of cases where OSHA determined that those deaths and injuries were caused by actions of the companies involved. I did not exptrapolate a conclusion from two data points. I drew the conclusion from 150 years of documented exploitation of workers by US companies. Also from the track record of those companies. In the 1990's over 900 of the Fortune 1000 had been fined or otherwised penalized for violating Federal Law/regulation.
Obviously you want the government out of welfare so that your workers have to be 100% dependent on you - slaves. My great-grandfather was a mine superintendent in an Eastern Pennsylvania coal mine during the time of the Molly Mcquires. Then immigrant workers come to the US owing what we now call a coyote but then it was called a mine recruiter the cost of passage. They then went to the mine and were assigned company housing. One store, the company store, existed in town. The workers were paid(?) in company script so they couldn't go to any other store (the company wouldn't redeem its script). The company could charge what ever they wanted for housing and groceries. The immigrant then had to pay the company for his passage. Total complete dependency and as close to slavery as you can name it. Up until the 1970's paper mills in Maine denied companies access to the towns in which the mill existed (to prevent them from drawing off workers). Boise Cascade up until the 90's and perhaps still today provide housing and company stores to workers in sawmills in the Northwest.
I didn't imply that we should get rid of the income tax at all. In fact, the income tax should be expanded and simplified - all deductions eliminated and the rates reduced, the rate for those earning under the poverty level should be negative, the rate for all those above poverty should be progressive with the top rate capped at about 50%. The primary residence should be exempt from property taxes. Sales taxes should be eliminated for all consumption items and extended to all non-consumption items. Corporate income taxes should be based on gross income not profits with no deductions as personal income taxes are. All so-called tax expenditures eliminated. Rates of the three taxes should be adjusted so the tax burden on the poor should less than 10% of income and the top 10% of wage earners minimum of 40% of income. Those are just suggestions a real plan would vary considerable.
Think about what you have written.
glad that you make decisions based on enlightened self-interest. But you agree that sweatshops exists in Maine. That means that workers are exploited by companies that restrict their rights and use legal and illegal means to reduce their wages/benefits. Government can't model its enforcement actions on the person that doesn't break the law. They have to be based on the ones who do.
The idea that workers create sweatshops is absurd. Companies do. Often by creating an environment where workers literally have no choices. The massage parlors in Maine broken up not too recently are one example. Young women usually from overseas stripped of their passports if they have them and visas, told they owe the importer thousands of dollar for transportation, often beaten, often confined to living quarters no one should accept. The idea this has anything to do with some irrational and mytholgical dependence on government is more than absurd. The pattern of the exploitation of these workers is common across the country. A sweatshop making fraudulent handbags a few years ago in California didn't let the women leave the establishment (a garage) ever.
I do agree with you about the tax structure. And I have written about it in this blog up to and including today. But as bad as the structure is its much better than what the Republicans will give us. Look at LePage's budget - $203 million in tax cuts to corporations and the super rich, $30 million going to 550 of the richest families in Maine. Who pays? Poor senior citizens, workers, and the poor. 10 years and the rich won't pay any taxes/fees and the poor will pay everything.
Sorry, I don't know where you get your numbers but in Wisconsin public service unionized workers make about 5% less than comparable private sector workers (I mention them here because that's a recent study done last year with up to date statistics). Studies done over the last 50 years have never shown union workers making more than 5% over comparable private workers. Union workers take lower pay for job security, safety, better health care and retirement benefits and union recognition. Put it all together and they get less.
How can you say that.
"If every union in the state disappeared today (we can but wish), there would be no effect at all on labor laws." Let's see the Republicans have in the hopper cutting child labor pay by 40%, increasing their hours, right-to-slave bills that all but eliminate collective bargaining and that's just with union power reduced. Unions have helped keep Maine Democratic meaning that the tax structure is fairer that it would otherwise be. Non-union pay is higher than it otherwise would be. Education is fairer and better than it otherwise would be.
I gather Mike you are not among the "masses" meaning of course the lazy, dumb, average Mainers who work two jobs and their spouses work three to enable them to take a vacation once every couple years. Sweatshops are real and here now. Slavery is real and in the US now. Child labor is real and here now. And workers are killed every year because some company owner cuts corners to increase his profits. Unions have and do protect those workers and they should. Every Mainer should belong to a union.
Removal symbolizes LePage's hatred of Mainers
Remember Republicans wanted to get rid of the legislative Labor Committee. Now a labor history mural. Next the Department of Labor will be the Department of Business if it isn't already. This Governor and more so his supporters hate Maine, Mainers, and the Constitution. Like Scott Walker they will use any means legal or not to destroy workers and the middle class. And they want to cut the wages for working children by 40%. LePage anti-family, anti-child, and anti-labor.
We can agree on something.
I campaigned for Goldwater until I read the literature of his supporters (on the table in campaign headquarters). I guess that's what you mean by fruit-loop whack-jobs. Ultranationalists, Birchers, anti-communists (Eisenhower was a stooge of the communists). So I took notice when Bill Buckley condemned the Birchers and drove them out of the conservative movement. Watched his TV show as often as possible. Since I'm a data analyst, I found language corruption for political purposes, lying with statistics, the corruption of facts, important in deciding what politicians were on my side. And as you describe them, the fruit-loop, whack-jobs on the right were the only ones consistently violating my minimum standard of integrity I expected of politicians. The 1968 "Southern Strategy" of recruiting southern white racists into the Republican party was the last straw. That the fruit-loop whack-jobs into control of the Republican Party. Like Newt Gingrich who recently said that he was "worried that America would turn into a secular atheist country dominated by radical islamists". Such a statement is irrational but consistent with the views of the wackos in 1964.
I have great respect for Goldwater and admiration for Buckley even though I must disagree with them on almost everything.
Name anything that I mentioned that isn't a fact
You guys are all the same when faced with a fact that proves your misinformed ideology is false you just say no. No alternative fact or construction. Just stamp your feet; get personal, go into an emotional tantrum, and offer nothing of substance. Oh! if Bill Buckley were still around.
If I remember correctly Republicans might have kept you there from 1969-1975.
The idea that the Democratic Party is even liberal approaches the insane. To carry that into the world of the bizarre writing that its party of the communist party is way more bizarre. Particularly since it sent you to fight communists. Subsidaries rarely fight wars with their owners.
None necessary
Just read the Republican Platforms. Watch the news. Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Florida, Maine. Same agenda. Bottom line tax cuts for corporations and the very wealthiest Americans. Cuts to the programs that benefit the poor and middle class. Shifts from reliance on the income tax to the property and better yet the sales tax (which hit the middle class hardest). Maine today collects taxes from the botton 20% of wage earners at twice the rate it collects them from the top 20%. Exxon/Mobil, Bank of America pay no corporate income taxes among many major corporations. The list goes on and on. The Republicans gave the banks 3 trillion dollars to weather the economic collapse the banks caused. Now they are making all time record profits using our money.
facts would not help anyone who thinks the democratic party is a subsidary of the communist party.
His goal is to fleece the middle class and enrich his friends
Simple. That's been Republican policy since 1981. Its called supply side economics.
Did we elect a laughingstock intentionally?
No, but we got one. He's done nothing to improve Maine. No Jobs. Nothing except to get on Colbert. I hope his new TV show, "I can't answer reporters' questions", will be moved to its appropriate venue - the Comedy Channel.
Do you job Govenor
Why is the Governor's removal of the labor history mural from the Department of Labor important. The Governor and his supporters claim that the mural is inconsistent with the role of the Department of Labor which is to mediate between labor and business. But that's not the DoL's legal role which is to protect labor and to enforce labor laws. If the DoL takes on a mediating role it can't enforce labor laws as enacted. Governor LePage would not be fulfilling his duty as Governor if he fails to enforce labor laws.
The Governor and his supporters say that Maine's business climate must be improved. Do they offer any evidence? No! Often they use the Tax Foundation's report on Business tax Index which was just released for 2011. Maine ranks 31st. Hardly does it have a bad rating. But I simply don't believe anything the Tax Foundation puts out. Alaska was rated 2nd. The Chamber of Commerce there objected. The Tax Foundation report ignores many costs of business - labor costs, property values, workmen's compensation, and health care costs among others. Factor some of those in and Alaska falls to dead last according to the Chamber. Maine's labor costs and property values are well below the Boston and National markets.
We need no improvement in business climate. Calls for improvement are camofluage for the Governor's drive to empoverish the middle class and transfer its wealth what little there is to his republican corporate elite.
"Clearly, Maine must increase
"Clearly, Maine must increase its working-age population. We can only do that through education, enterprise and changing our business climate."
We have many choices other than these. If by changing our business climate means surrendering without a fight to neo-fascist in our state. The Govenor has made a laughingstock nationally of himself for taking a Labor history mural out of the Labor Department. His supporters have shown their real feeling toward workers in Maine by saying that the Department of Labor should abandon its legal role of protecting labor for "attracting business".
Nothing is wrong with Maine's business climate or its enterprise.
He needs to more than atone.
Bishop Malone has, himself, directly injured many Mainers by his leadership of the hate gays movement that lead to the repeal of same-sex marriage in Maine. We should view him in the same light as Bull Connors or any other violent haters of the past.
Catholics should boycott his mass.
Where does this silliness come from
The purpose of the Department of Labor is not to "attract business". A quick visit to the DOL website (assuming LePage hasn't censored this too)says that its purpose is to defend labor. The mural of Maine's labor history is not just appropriate its the most appropriate piece of art the citizens of the state should expect to see there. But apparently the neo-fascists of the Republican Party want to abandon a representative democracy (as their platform implied) for authoritarianism.
Whinning business people
Why is it that when business supports reply to anyone making a factual statement that they don't like all they do is whine and whine and whine. And then change the subject.
1. There is no retirement fund issue because democrats fixed McKernan's raid on the fund some years back. The rating agencies say there is no problem. The numbers say there is no problem. But LePage must create a phony crisis to justify implementing his daconian anti-labor, anti-family, anti-child, pro-business destruction of Maine as we know it.
2. Inspite of the Bush recession of 2007 and the dumping of cheap chinese products in Maine (and nationally due to the Republicans changes in laws to enable that to happen), the Democrats have since 1972 re-built Maine's business environment. All Democrats ask is that business activities don't harm the state or its citizens. Those business that don't do well those that due well good riddens.
3. State workers receive 5% less in wages and benefits than there counterparts in the private sector.
4. As for at least he's doing something, anything. Mussolini made the trains run on time.
right-to-work is next
The mural disaster characterizes LePage correctly as a hater of Maine workers unionized or not. Focuses attention on his neo-fascist supporters and their extreme anti-labor views. Sets the stage for the real fight over LePage's right-to-slave bills.
Plus how often is the Governor of Maine a national laughingstock.
Pretty soon Stewart wont have to write his own material.
He can just attend LePage press conferences. Oh, we don't have those anymore. OK, he can watch LePage's new TV program - "Scripted Governor".
Rogues gallery
"Harold Alfond, Hugh Chisholm, L.L. Bean, Benjamin E. Bates, Chester Greenwood and the Stanley Brothers." How did these folks avoid jail or did they. They became rich by despoiling Maine, by socializing their costs, by exploiting their workers, and using national and racial hatreds to divide their workers. I don't think waterproof shoes were worth it.
Workers have been and are now being exploited
Good comment.
Workers in America have not had a raise since 1981. Many in 2008 saw their wages or benefits cut. Since 1981 their real earnings have fallen by 25% or more (except for wall street). Why, because business has changed the laws and regulations in this Country to allow them to increase the pool of labor by bringing in illegal immigrants (Ronald Reagan's 1986 Immigrantion Amnesty Law which opened the flood gates), outsourcing, creation of various visa classes like H1-B, by changing child labor laws, and by breaking unions etc. Business' goal is to reduce us (one of their costs) to the lowest level they can. To see children strarving in the streets might be a sign that they have reached their goal. There is no partnership.
All wrong.
These are the purposes of the Maine Department of Labor are expected to fulfill:
•Assisting individuals, families and communities when jobs are lost;
•Helping people prepare for and find jobs;
•Protecting workers on the job; and
•Researching and analyzing employment data to support job growth.
Being pro-business is not among them. This editorial is intended to mislead the public that the Mdol's mission has somehow changed because of an election which brought us a Governor who hates workers and has contempt for the people of Maine. Removing the mural and changing the names of the conference rooms may make LePage and his friends feel confortable as they proprose the return to child labor, but working people know what's going on. Children have to work because LePage and his friends don't pay a living wage.
What an empty meaningless comment
Not a single attempt to make an argument. Just ascertion after ascertion. No facts. There have been many investigations of the participants and the causes of the financial collapse. You just have to get on the internet, watch TV, read a newspaper, look at Bloomberg anything to find that you comments are groundless talking points. A false story with a minor grain of truth to mislead the mindless.
But you have convinced me. The right isn't interested in facts, overwhelming evidence, rational thought. Its all about, ME, ME, ME. The world be damned just as long as I get my way. Pathetic.
By the way racism is about power. Its a political strategy to divide people by racial antagonism so that whites can retain power at least in this country. So non-whites can't be racist here.
To all who care above is a Republican talking points not fact
You can state that sun spots was the start of the problem; but it doesn't make it so. Let's just ask for at least one fact in support of this Republican talking point which meets all the Republican criterion for a good conspiracy theory - shift the blame to non-whites especially if you can call them racists (an oxymoron), shift the blame to poor people (they are dump. lazy, irresponsible, and free our donors of blame (the bankers and mortgage originators), and even better its plausible to your supporters with out offerring any facts). How did the government "force" the banks? The easy money policy was Greenspans at the FED not Jimmy Carters? Bubbles develop in short periods of time (less than a decade). Had the housing bubble stated with Jimmy Carter it would have ended with Ron Reagan; it didn't because it didn't start with Jim Carter. If poor people who couldn't possibly pay were the cause, then there should be all kinds of evidence that show for example that 60% of the bad mortgages were taken out by people with less than $50000 in income or some such data. No such evidence exists. The bubble began in 2001 when Countrywide packaged the first group of real mortgages to qualified buyers into securities and then sold the securities. The fees they made selling and packaging the mortgages far exceeded what they could make by holding on to the mortgage until it was paid off. The more securities they created the more money they could make and the more money became available. They couldn't make money selling mortgages overseas one at a time, but they made billions selling securities based on thousands of mortgages over seas. But you can't sell securities without the underlying mortgage. So the banks dropped their standards. They didn't care if the buyer paid off the mortgage. The banks made their money on the security. They soon were recruiting buyers. They went to skid row with buses picked up wineos had them sign for houses they never knew existed and in some cases didn't. (This by the way is an old welfare fraud technique copied from medicare providers fraud). Don't you remember the "flipping" in California and Nevada. Flipping became an art. Flipping was all over the news for years. A middle class family bought a house with an ARM for almost nothing down. They kept it for 6 months and then sold it for a huge profit. So they bought two houses flipped them for a huge profit so on and so on. How could they? The overseas buyers pumped tillions into the housing market facilitated by the banks. Same scenerio for most financial bubbles since the Tulip bubble centuries ago. Had nothing to do with the CRA.
And they done a good job of it.
Maine median income from 1972 to 2007 (prior to the recession) has grown faster than the national average. Heard about statistics lie. That statement is absolutely correct. But median incomes national have been flat since 1981 so its not hard to beat the national average.
I made the statement above in the way I did because I don't know the specifics. I know that the Maine legislature budget and appropriated additional money based on a law they passed to fully fund the pension fund by 2028. Had we done nothing except follow the law which the democrats did up until now the fund would have been fully funded. Moody and other rating agency reviewed the law at the time and gave Maine a high debt rating because they said it solved the problem. You can get on stateline.org. They have had repeated stores over the last few months about states that have failed to fully fund often even responsibly fund their pension funds. Maine has not been covered in any of these stores. Some states like Illinois have terrible funding deficits and others like Wisconsin are considered overfunded. Lastly, these figures by everyone are estimates. They can be very wrong based on many factors like average life span changing. Maine has no problem with pension funding that needs be addressed now.
Not a fact
Democrats had fixed the problem by increasing appropriations to the pension fund above what was required without taking the milk out of poor babies mouths, denying them an education, or giving their parents money to 550 of Maine's richest families. The Republican formula is simple. We've seen it play out across the country in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida. Create a false financial crisis so that you can justify taking from the poor and giving to the rich. We know why they do it. Republicans believe that successful people are morally superior than poor people. They believe if you invest in the rich, the rich will become richer and we poor folks will benefit from the scraps off their table. They believe to invest in poor people is to waste your money because the poor and middle class are lazy, stupid, undisciplined, unfocused, nothings. Every teacher, policeman, firefighter, welder, programmer, middle class or poor person in Maine will soon learn that the Republicans despise you and your family and everything about you.
Usual Republican disinformation
Apparently they aren't going to drop this tactic. And I know that facts don't penetrate their non-existent logic. But I'll waste my time. Bush is, as he should be, blamed for his 2007 recession because his policies and actions directly caused the recession. The primary cause of the recession was the illegal acts (starting with fraud, then running into violations of state mortgage laws and then bribery and then there creation of securities whose true value was impossible to measure) of the housing market originators of mortgages. The SEC under Bush's control never took action. The banking regulators never took action. The republican congress never took action. The related Madoff scandal is a perfect example of how the Bush administration regulators simply ignored an obvious and growing crisis. The SEC was warned multiple times by credible sources over almost a decade and even given the methodlogy of how to discover the fraud yet they never even bothered to open an investigation.
That's not to say Bush is solely to be blamed. Alan Greenspan deserves a lion's share. This Randian economic sychophant prefented every attempt at reasonable regulation which would have uncovered the financial housing bubble. He easy money policies fanned the flames. When the roof caved in, he lamely explained to Congress that the crisis contradicted everything Ayn Rand (she who is wrong about everything) had told him about markets.
Much blame also rests with the Congressional deregulators - Phil Gramm, and to a much lessor extent the Democrats who were drawn into the game.
And then the criminal organizations that we call mortgage originators like Countrywide deserve their fair share.
But Obama who was not even elected President should be blamed only for not doing enough to fix the problem he inherited and not for persuing the criminals that stole the money. Obama and the Democrats had almost nothing to do with the housing bubble collapse. Its like blaming the police for a bank robbery because they didn't do enough to stop it while they were in high school. By the way Fannie May and Freddie Mac's near collapses were the result of the recession and collapse of the housing market not the cause.
Obama will earn enough of his own blame not to be saddled with the previous president's. I won't mention the prior President's 5 trillion dollar deficits or the failure of his policies to create a single job in America in his eight years in office. Oh quess I just did.
Shorthand
I'll agree that if you take the "general welfare" clause out of context that must seem to be shallow logic. The "general welfare" clause is not a power delegated to Congress; its the second purpose for establishing Congress. Oppose that purpose and you oppose the Constitution (just like if you oppose national defense and its delegated powers, you oppose the Constitution). The Constitution then details some of the Federal Government's powers delegated to accomplish that goal - coin money and regulate the value of money, punishments for counterfeiting securities and coin, establish post offices and post roads, promote the progress of science (establish patents and copyrights), to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying out those powers, no tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state, no preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one state, ".. or law impairing the obligations of Contracts", uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies, etc. To name just a few. Making it very clear the Edmund Randolph's statement that the Constitution empowered the Federal Government to manage the national economy was accurate and making clear that national rules and regulations by which private insurance will function within the national economy is fully Constitutional.
I'm not interpreting Jefferson's ideas at all. His opinoins are well known and long established. He did not participate in the Constitutional process except through letters which often took 12 weeks to make it from America to France and back again (in other words almost no role). He wrote of his opposition to the Constitution and agreed with Gerry, Mason, Patrick Henry, and others that without a "Bill of Rights" it should not be adopted. He wrote the Kentucky Resolves that invented the idea of state nullification of Federal Law (in violation of the suprmacy clause) that was used by S. Caroline in 1832 to justify nullification of the Federal tariff and in 1860 to justify secession. Those are not my opinoin but that of documented history.
Unlike you, my purpose because of Gordon Woods acknowledgement that words mean different things today than they meant in 1787 (establishment meant a tavern in 1759 and had no connotation of "to establish"; gentleman was a feudal rank not a definition of character) to remove the cultural influences of the last 230 years (anti-communism, progressivism, rise of capitalism, civil war, and the Second Great awakening) to get as close to an understanding of how they thought then. Haven't always succeeded. But I have been able to understand an enlightenment male dominated pre-capitalist secular society I think pretty well. But the general understanding of the Constitution has been corrupted by post-capitalist propaganda rejecting Madison's famous defense of large republics and glamorizing state power (doesn't exist) because states are more easily corrupted by concentrations of economic power ("interests" in Federalist papers terms) than the larger Federal Government.
I see reality very well.
Nuclear maybe; Wind no
"Many Mainers are even opposed to placing slow-spinning wind towers on remote mountain peaks, imagining all sorts of ailments that will result." Holman mountain in Dixfield is not remote. Its just a little over a mile from my front-door and closer to many other residences. No risk/benefit analysis based on independent data has ever been produced to my knowledge. The real not imaged dangers have been well presented to Dixfield's citizens. Wind power on Maine mountains appears to be a boondoogle rewarding the promoters with unearned Federal and State subsidies.
If Nuclear is done right i.e. with federal independent inspectors making certain that developers don't take short cuts like they did with the Mark I reactors in Japan while risky and dangerous may offer the least risks and true costs.
"Natural gas plants will be far cheaper to build, easier to site and produce less expensive electricity far into the future." Mining natural gas is now associated with eathquakes and water pollution among other problems that make its true cost much higher than reported.
Mining coal is dirty, dangerous, and the social costs far outweigh any of the other sources of artificial energy.
Nuclear may be the least cost and safest alternative. I'll await new data.
Did you read my comment
Apparently you didn't read my comment. I said at the very beginning that it was a fantasy, a mirage. That I stepping out of character to be consistent with the other comments in the article.
Suspension of good sense???
Why don't you say what you really mean - You oppose the general welfare clause and because of it most of the Constitution.
I don't know what you mean by "Those bases". But reading the Constitution as I do and as George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and John Marshall did succeeded very well. Our whole system of government is based on that reading. Thomas Jefferson's opinoin since he opposed the Constitution, proposed nullification in 1798 confirming his opposition, and to his death offerred up ideas inconsistent with the Constitution is hardly a credible source for supporting comment on it. Second, the general welfare clause does not give Congress the power to do whatever is good for the people of the United States. But it does give Congress the authority to establish and regulate economic markets.
Thanks
Thanks for confirming my statement above that conservatives accuse all their opponents of relativism ("your interpretation of the Constitution") when it is they who make up everything as they go along i.e. everything a conservative says or writes is an "instant tradition". While everyones personality colors their conclusions to one degree or another in conservative's case their personality is the conclusion.
I'll try the one Constitutional issue I'm sure you'll hate. to see if you can come up with a comment with some merit. Article I Section 8 Preamble "Provide ....... for the general welfare". Here general welfare means the national economy (Edmund Randolph said during the Virginia ratifying convention that the Federal Government had been given the power to "manage the national economy" referring to the preamble). That's not my opinoin that's a fact. It is confirmed by the listed powers in Article I Section 8 including but not limited to "to coin money, regulate the value thereof..." Chief Justice John Marshall stated in a decision from the Supreme Court that the constitution is not a persciption for how to run the government but a structure of the government and he decided that because the Congress had omitted the word "expressly" in the 10th amendment then the Federal Government had broad authority in "how" to accomplish its goals as stated in the Constitution. Not my opinoin, Justice Marshall's. I'm a strict construction Constitutionalist. I don't let my views distort the real constitution.
Like what
As usual no specifics. As I said my ideology is derived from facts not the other way around (specifically my political ideology is based solely on the US Constitution, its amendments, traditions, and Supreme Court decisions). And I never make a appeal to faith. Unless you are proposing the failed Christian retreat into "everything is based on faith, there are no facts, there is no science, everything except what I believe is relativism i.e. not true." In the above I referred to 3 studies or statements, all published, all readily available on the web & or TV two of which have been quickly debunked by better people than I and one that has stood the test of critical analysis. There is no faith or ideology in that.
anecdotes without facts
What that means is its all made up. No truth to it. Its a fantasy or a mirage driven more by nativism or racism than experience.
Well I have an anedote too. LePage has announced a new program to increase the deer herd. Since he wants to remove 3 million acres from LURC's control so that unregulated development - you know strip malls, hotels, lodges, resorts - can make Maine's woodlands more valuable for the current owners, deer can't get rooms in those new hotels. So he's going to increase the herd by turning the Grey Animal farm into a deer breeding farm and then just release the deer into Grey. Second he's going to reduce predators. He'll outsource the job to Mexican hunters for a dollar a kill. First they will be able to get rid of the coyotes by hunting them from the air preferably with Mexican army helicopters and gattling guns. Then they will turn their new expertice on Maine's primary deer predator - democrats. LePage can see all kinds of advantages to that.
I'm not a Republican
I don't make unsubstiated claims. I don't falsify data. I don't live by self-interest alone. I'm a data analyst and have been for 40 years. I know what data is real and what's false and how to analyze data so that it reflects the true situation not what my ideology dictates. And if data contradicts my ideology; I change the ideology.
They are always included
Well most of my information came from Tommie's letter. The one that didn't came from the Milwakee Journal during the recent Republican efferts to destroy public service unions. Experience and qualifications are always cited in real salary surveys. The one I watch every year is the national Computerworld salary survey of IT jobs. What I didn't mention and should have is that they also normalize for location. Boston salaries are not the same as Maine salaries.
Does this surprise anyone
These plants only kill the poor, LePage is all in favor of that
hippy
Since Republicans have no contact with reality, believe in magic, and ghosts and gobblins, I was surprised that someone would have remembered the hippies. But no never was and never will be a hippy. They also believed in magic so most became Republicans.
Surprised???
Ignoring the personal comments from the Republican thugs on this blog. No one needs to be surprised that not one sustantive comment was made. Neither defending tommie and his juvenile attempts at propaganda nor attacking my justified observation that whatever comes out of a Republican mouth is misleading.
You can always count on Republicans to mislead the public about
everything.
"...Maine's public employees averaged salary and benefits of $49,850, which is $4,912 more than the equivalent private employees' average. How can Maine remedy that inequity?" Rarely does Tommie get close to the truth. So this time we should allow that instead of intentionally misleading us maybe Tommie has been mislead by USAToday (na!). American Crossroads, Karl Rove's Billionaire propaganda machine, is running ads now that state the difference is 42%. Tommie's some what dated figures are about 11%. Valid studies that account for education, experiece, and qualifications show public union employees receive about 5% less than comparable private sector employees. So where is the inequality? Is tommie making this all up to justify LePage's and the Republicans anti-Mainer, anti-women, and anti-family agenda? LePage wants a right-to-work law to prohibit unions from contributing to elections while the Republican supreme court has said that corporations can contribute any amount of money to those same campaigns. They say that unions shouldn't be able to contribute because they helped elect the people they are negiotiating with. Well then to be fair no corporation should be able to contribute because they donate to the people they sit across the table from during contract negiotiations of all types.
But mainly, tommie wants fewer regulations (why does anyone object to chemical and plastics companies poisoning babies with BPA), lower business taxes (they pay almost nothing now about 2% of total income taxes), while destroying the environment( salt in our freshwater rivers and ponds, opening 3 million wilderness acres to unregulated development, destroying Maine's wildlife, while shifting the tax burden to the poorest of Mainers. What a deal.
What make MHPC unreliable - everything
MHPC is a part of a nationwide chain of organizations coordinated by the Heritage Foundation in Washington D. C. funded by billionaires for billionaires like the Kochs. The organization has one purpose to deceive the American people into supporting the interests of the billionaires which few in Maine are.
Let's look at the average union teacher pay and benefits v the private sector. Does anyone do a comparative salary survey as the MHPC did. No. Look at what they did in Wisconsin. They reported that public service union employees made more than $13,000 more than the average Wisconsinian. True but the average Wisconsinisn is not qualified for the jobs in the unions so its an apples and orange comparison. If you compare apples to apples that is controlling for education, experience, responsibilities, and qualifications public service employees make 4.8% less than comparable private sector jobs with about equal benefits. The same is true in Maine. (Wisconsin by the way has no retirement fund problems. They have not borrowed from the fund and have appropriated 20% more each year that the actuarial requirements.) That public employees are better paid and have better benefits is a Corporate lie.
Then they provide a plausible but meaningless explanation why public employees are paid more. They help elect the people they negiotiate with. But corporations that sign contracts with government also contribute to the people they negiotiate with. If that needed to be stopped, you'd have a hell of a time separating the corporations from government. Its also means that all government contracts with corporations are in fact welfare and corrupt.
Now we have finally heard from the corporate point of view
Commercial Wind generators within 2 miles of occupied residences are never justified.
That means that commercial wind generators may be good in some locations, may generate clean electricity, may help us reduce our dependence of ExxonMobil, may stimulate the local economy.
The commercial wind turbine scretching 600 feet over the tops of Maine's ridges is a certainty not a "may be". A certainty which we must hear and feel every second of every day, which will disrupt and end the lives of wildlife, which will drive visitors and businesses away, and which will deprives Mainers of the quality of life and the "brand" which brought us or kept us here.
Westboro Church
The Westboro Church tests the limits of everyone's tolerance with its anti-gay mania and its disrespect for our Nation and traditions. As an absolute supporter of the broadest possible interpretation of the 1st Amendment I agree with Roger that they owe "honor and respect" to those who make the ultimate sacrifice in serving their country. I see no harm that would have been done to the 1st Amendment by giving some protection to funerals or other religious events. Would we have been harmed by providing a 1000 foot protected zone around these events. Th Westboro crazies could still have said everything they wanted to say. Would we have thought it protected speech to have the Westboro folks walk into a Catholic Church during services and harangue the parisoners about the evils of pedophile priests?
scratch your head.
Its not what they discuss, it's what they do that hurts us???????? They do what they have discussed. Don't you want to know that LePage's 64 regulation repeal proposals came from the Heritage Foundation in Maine which got them from the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC which got them from David and Charles Koch. Don't you want to know that we will be allowing corporations to put poisons into babies bottles so that they can make 10 cents a bottle more in profit.
???
Sorta agree, but you lost it Dan when you wrote "...republican party is morphing into the communit party..." No its not. The Republican Party was and is American's fascist or corporate party in that it promotes nationalism, racism, and corporate control of the people. Communist Parties oppose nationalism, racism, and corporate control of the people so they are the exact opposite. You mean that the republican party is become an authoritarian, dictatorial, and oppressive anti-democratic party which rejects every fiber of American law and tradition. Then you'd be right.
Look to Michigan. They are currently in the process of passing a law which will allow the Governor by executive fiat to replace an elected municipal government with a corporation (like Dow, GE, or GM) giving it unlimited powers to change the laws or dissolve the municipality altogether. Corporate dictatorship. Look to Wisconsin. They jsut illegal passed legislation which will allow the Governor to dictate working conditions for public employees under the pretense of a fiscal crisis when the crisis was created by the Governor..
When will they begin telling the truth; they don't know the trut
Plowman introduced this bill so that restaurants can cut costs by replacing adult workers with children who they can pay less and intimidate more. Now we have listened to Governor Walker of Wisconsin lie in the same way telling us that his union-busting proposals were necessary to end his budget crisis. Last night, he gave up the pretense and illegally rammed the legislation through the Senate on the pretense that it had no fiscal effects. So the issue is not if the Governor lied but when he was lying 3 weeks ago or now. Plowman is lying in the same way. This proposal has nothing to do with college students raising money for college.
So finding their supporters telling similiar lies is not a surprise. " Government can not create jobs .." an obvious lie. Government does create jobs. How about Governor for one. "stay out of the way of FREE ENTERPRISE and control the regulations to that which is reasonable(ie,safety,pollution control and etc....).." The whole point is what's reasonable? 50 years ago pollution wasn't on the list. Government's minimum job responsiblity is to create markets that function well (set prices based on supply and demand for example). Free enterprise does not exist without government establishing the markets. Its business' responsibility to conform their activities to the rules government creates. Instead they lobby to empoverish working people, deny their children an education, and to make society bare the burden of their irresponsibility.
Twisted logic
No it doesn't. Federal Funds allow PP to provide contraceptive and other reproductive health care so that abortions are avoided. Moral - absolutely. Legal - completely. Ethical - of course.
Abortion is not legalized murder any more than removing a tumor is (that's taking life. Those cell are alive and outside the body they die).
Anti-lifers will say anything
Daniel says its a contradiction to say that some women get abortions and that Pense is lying about Planned Parenthood "use of federal funds for abortions". Where's the contradiction. Some women do get abortions and Mike Pense is lying about Planned Parenthood using Federal Funds for abortions. Its a violation of federal law to use federal funds for abortions. All Pense has to do is provide when and where Planned Parenthood has diverted federal funds to finance its abortion services. Should be simple if he knows that they have done it. But like the chemical and nuclear weapons that the Bush administration knew Iraq had down to the gram that proved not to exist (We knew they had them but not where they were.), Pense is making it up has he goes along.
As to the alleged tapes of PP staffers telling girls how to lie about their ages, the tapes are just the latest example of "manufactured" tapes that appear to make the subject say one thing when they said the exact opposite (Sherrod and ACORN tapes).
Planned Parenthood does not use federal funds to finance abortions. PP is essential for the reproductive health of this nation.
Poisoning babies seems the Republican's most important priority
The LePage/Republican proposals are not only an assault on the environment; they are an assault on Mainers. They want to model Maine rivers on the Hoston Ship Channel who's banks are dotted with refineries and other industrial plants and who's residents are victims of the pollutants they plants emit.
But to repeal legislation that prevents babies from being poisoned for the profits of chemical companies, well that's typical republican but beyond the pale for people of morality.
Fantasy
Health insurance companies are monopolies. Searching among monopoly plans does not create competition. Only by repealing the insurance companies monopoly will you get competition and as we saw last year no one Republican and a small minority of Democrats (from insurance states) wants that.
OH!
I don't know anyone who has not been misdiagnosed, mistreated, or been the victim of fraud in the American Health Care system. My mother was almost killed over christmas by a hospital which without any apparent reason decided that the medications which had kept her alive for years just weren't right.
Well from the silly to the really stupid.
"The idea of limiting salaries and overtaxing high income earners is very much socialism." Mr. Boothby obviously doesn't know what socialism is or apparently he think red is blue. But I've given up trying to explain to the various dimwits who through "socialism" around like they know what it means. No more attempts at education. I'll just reply in kind.
Only fascists can believe this sentence - "The real “economic injustice” is how many state employees make more than $70,000 per year and will be paid pensions after they stop going to work - is true. A true comparison of state workers pay and benefits to the private sector taking education, experience, organizational size, and responsibilities into account show that public service workers make less than equivalent private sector jobs and receive slightly higher benefits (a trade-off for lower salaries most benefits involve a range of benefits. Sometimes the trade-off benefits the worker sometimes the administration). Why should the market decide for hospital executives but popular vote decide for teachers, firemen, police, and other government workers.
Since the market decides based on monopoly market power and irrational whim it seems a poor choice. No such thing as a free market exists or has ever existed and no one hates free markets more than the capitalist elite. The free market is another oversimplification used to misleading those incapable of critical thought.
Everyone's an expert on education
I like the editorial.
LePage out-of-touch with reality
LePage's plan to repeal Kid-Safe Law, i.e. poison infants, and his ignorant comments about "little beards" on women only continue to prove that he is unqualified to be governor and even the Republican Party knows this. His proposal to open 3 million acres of wildreness land to rapid unregulated development must make outdoor recreationists happy. His plan to cut wages by about 25% by prohibiting our Constitutional rights to organize into unions must make workers happy. His budget plans to cut jobs throughout the state must make teachers and first-responders happy. LePage must aspire to be a standup comic.
Republicans work to cut 700,000 jobs
Republicans say they want to create jobs. But they don't. Their cuts to the federal budget will cost 700,000 jobs. Instead they want to cut medical care for women under the false pretense of funding for abortion. When will republicans start telling the truth?
LePage lies as usual
As the story points out LePage lies.
Class envy
First, the Tax Foundation is a right-wing group who like the Heritage Foundation produces reports that are misleading to false. They once rated Maine the 2nd highest tax burden in the Country (when tax burden was a campaign issue) then adjusted it to 15th after the campaign even though reliable sources had placed it closer to 22nd. So much for their objectivity.
Mr. Fochtmann is essentially right. But its not politicians - Its Republican politicians. We can date the assault on the middle class to 1981 when Ronald Reagan began breaking unions and since then the middle class standard of living has been cut by 25% while the rich has seen theirs more than double (in real dollars).
Republicans designed and passed the bank bailouts. The Financial services bailouts, the mortagage bailouts. Not one major figure in the fraud that was the basis of the recent Republican recession has been indicted much less jailed for their criminal activities.
The Obama administration and the auto unions only had time to modify the GM bailout and as a result it has been one of the most succeessful government interventions in history. Producing a robust and competitive GM and profits for the taxpayer. The Finacial bailouts were 3 trillion dollars wasted to the taxpayer.
But let's also acknowledge that economically we are in this together, rich and poor. Had the financial service industry collapsed as it would have without the bailouts up to 1/2 of american workers would today be on the streets looking for handouts for their starving children. The bailouts were necessary, but intentionally incompetently done.
First the law is perfectly just
Regulating behavior that causes social harm is obviously the only legitimate justification for any law. Punching somebody in the nose is illegal because of the costs the victim incurs, the costs society incurs, and because of the injury done to the community's peace and safety i.e. the total being the social harm. Not wearing a seatbeat clearly causes social harm. Its wrong and the government has the right to prevent it.
No one favors abortion
But you have made a good point in stating that people who favor a women's right to full reproductive medical care also oppose the death penalty. Why. Because they understand the limits of governmental power. They know that mistakes are made - depending on the study you look at between 25 and 50% of people found guilty in capital cases are proved later to be innocent. They know that every human being has an absolute right to protect their life. No fetus has that right, any more than a tumor does, until it reaches a developmental stage where it is viable outside the womb with non-heroic medical care.
Republicans are now engaged in a war against women. They want to make it illegal for a women to buy health insurances that covers abortion even when she pays for it with her own money. They want to tax businesses if their group insurance covers abortion. They want to jail doctors who perform abortions. In South Dakota they are debating a bill that would allow a "justifiable homocide" defense for murdering a doctor who performs abortions. They want to re-define rape to require heinous violence so that most real rapes will not fall under the rape exception.
Consideration for the fetus is simply male supremacy. Men want to control women's bodies. Shouldn't be allowed.
Finally the truth
Voter fraud in Maine is never proved because it so rarely happens. It simply isn't a problem. So why are Republicans pushing these three bills. Well we know because we've seen what they do elsewhere. The Felony list used for example in the 2000 election in Florida is perfect example. A former Dixfield resident in that year went to vote and was barred solely because his name was on the list of felons. After the election the list which was provided by a private firm was found to have 40% more names than it should have - people were not taken off in a timely manner, reports from state agencies were in error, etc, etc. But more than that their use implies that each of are names are unique when we know that not true. So if John Smith was convicted of a felony, all John Smith's were prevented from voting.
I don't know how voting clerks will use the two ID system. But I'll bet on election day Republican clerks will reject a lot of democratic ID's.
All three bills should be defeated, but I doubt they will be with Republicans controlling the state for the next 2 years and our wacky governor.
Salary Caps
I don't agree in principle with salary caps. Salaries should be set by the market. But often they aren't in the case of CEO's. Captive boards often rubberstamp excessive salaries for CEO's because the CEO's can grant them many bnenefits. Hospitals and Schools often have great political power because they are major employers. The controls are not working. So while the bill is bad, it points to a serious problem that needs addressing.
Deficit
The deficit is a long-term problem created by the Republicans (12 of 14 trillion dollar deficit was created by Republican Presidents. G. W. Bush for example - $2.1 trillion in tax cuts for the wealth 2001 & 2003 through last year, $800 Medicare Part-D, two wars somewhere near $1 trillion 2003-2009, and a lot of little things.) And you call the President's second budget proposal "timid" because it only cuts $1 trillion from the mess he inherited. Remember this is the first step in a long process and the president will be offerring more.
Repeating Republican talking points (the proposal is timid or the President showed a lack of leadership for not proposing Social Security cuts) doesn't contribute to the process. First Social Security hasn't contributed to the deficit; its running a surplus and will for another 2 decades or more. Second, you fix a problem by addressing its causes - the Bush tax cuts, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the failure to fund Medicare Part-D. The Federal Government discretionary spending is lower now than at any time since the second world war. That's not the problem either. Restore the Clinton Tax rates in 2013 as the Obama budget does. End the wars which Obama is trying responsibly to do. And fully fund Medicare Part-D. Cut the waste and abuse in the defense budget, NASA, and the farm bill.
illegal?? Really
Again we have the brutal perversion of language to justify hatred. As mentioned in other comments you aren't a criminal until after conviction in a criminal court of law. Undocumented never appear in any court of law. There are no criminal penalities for being undocumented. Instead you appear in an administrative court before an administrative judge and if found that you have no proof that you are legally resident you can at most be deported to your home country.
The argument that states are being driven to bankruptcy by undocumented immigrants is laughably false. The Heritage Mis-informantion Policy Center some years ago reported the Costs of illegal immigrantion. Most of the data has been debunked, but that's not even necessary. The report itself says that it did not in its study include any of the benefits of illegal immigration. Undocumented workers pay taxes (that's why they get arrested for and are deported not for immigrations violations but for identify theft - they used a false social security number). They pay social security and other payroll taxes that they are never going to see the benefits of. Business make unjustified profits from using undocumented immigrants to force wages down. The best example being Hormel and its strike in 1986. The strikers there were replaced by undocumented workers 70% of whom were arrested a few years ago in an ICE raid. The undocumented workers came to Hormel via the Reagan immigration law of 1986 which among other things opened our souther border to waves of undocumented immigration because of the amnesty provisions. Wages fell from $19.75 before the strike to 9.75 after the strike adding millions to Hormel profits.
Now the border must be controlled. Undocumented immigration needs to be stopped. But lets end the inflammatory language or the wild proposals that we "seal the border" or the hate speech directed toward all immigrants that lead to the trial going on right now in Arizona where a militia leader and her co-conspirators are on trial for slaughtering a immigrant family.
"We once lived in a country
"We once lived in a country that could build dams, canals and highways, things that contributed to our national wealth." We still do. Your view expresses the unbridled pessimism and defeatism of Republican propaganda.
Your analogy to a homeowner is oversimplified, ignorant, and just plain stupid because you admit these infrastructure projects add to the national wealth and therefore to the national treasury.
It was not OUR choice as a nation to cut taxes for the wealthy, conduct two wars, and give drug coverage to senior citizens without paying for them. It was not OUR choice as a nation to allow financial institutions to commit fraud on a trillion dollar scale throwing the economy into depression at the cost of $27 trillion in asset value. It was the choice of the Republican Party and its leader George W Bush as you well know.
That's why you threw in the coverage of 30 million uninsured Americans in the Affordable Care Act which reduces the federal deficit and is fully paid for unlike the other issues you mentioned. You were trying desperately to say it was the democrats too. Well it wasn't. While a few rogue democrats aided the Republicans in their assault on the US treasury, they violated democratic party policies and principles.
We do have to end the Republican gluttony. By repealing, reversing, ending their looting of the national treasury and redistribution of wealth to the rich.
The kind of growth Maine needs
While LePage is talking about poisoning children to grow Maine jobs, Peterson is taking a known resource and looking for how it can be expanded to grow Maine jobs. He makes great sense.
Fairy Tales
Environmentalism is not a religion. No supreme being. No explanation of life; after-life; no system of morality.
Cap and Trade is barely a proposal. No legislation is based on it. No law exists enforcing it. This comment is the same insane extremism one can find any time on Beck's shows.
LePage wants to turn Maine into New Jersey. He doesn't want but he also doesn't care if working class children die in order to sell more flexible baby bottles.
dangerous comments
"I am so sick of paying state taxes to people who can work." Well that's either ignorance or just plain meanness. It isn't sound policy. People who can work are working. Most people on TANF the normally recognized "welfare" are mainly 2 year old children and their mothers. Their mothers do work. Its called child care.
"LePage and other state officials should look in on people who are on SSI and Section 8." SSI is a federal program paid out of Social Security taxes. Has nothing to do with state taxes or policies. Section 8 recipients are mainly senior citizens and the disabled or both.
"I see young people using food stamp cards.." Food Stamp eligibility is based on household size and income (with provisions for assets in some cases). Those young people may be getting food stamps and working. Not long ago the families of US soldiers overseas frequently were eligibile for food stamps. I believe those soldiers were working.
This author is drawing many conclusions all he lacks are the facts.
Welfare
There is always someone commenting on welfare that can identify someone reeiving welfare from 500 feet. I go to Hannaford too. I've never noticed anyone on welfare. And if I did they would be buying the same junk everyone else is buying.
Politician's responsibility
Sorry guy's the editorial is misdirected.
First, the shooter is crazy.
Second, attacking Palin in this case was wrong.
Third, its not the statements of any one particular individual. Its the climate of discourse that does influence some unstable people to move from delusions to violence. The right has been calling for the murder of doctors who perform legal abortions for decades. The right has said that the Constitution is be betrayed (its not). The right has corrupted words and their meanings to heep fear and hatred of people who disagree with them. So prevalent are the words of hate and violence that how is it possible to find one statement that moved an otherwise delusional person to violence. The whole body of hate would affect them.
water anything down to prevent rational thought
We see these kinds of piece coming along very frequently now. Take a subject any subject make an analogy to something barely related and then conclude that nothing can be done because its always been this way.
Sorry, Alan. The violence between cultures and the violence within a culture have very differnet causes, effects, and processes. tHEY ARE NOT RELATED.
Don't see
I see a huge difference.
The National Prayer Day is clearly unconstitutional. No American President should participate in it nor should they provide any support or promotion of it. But the above comment is really nothing more than anti-muslim bigotry. Obama has participated in dozens of Christian events and worship services. That he also attends Islamic events proves nothing other than he is wrongly trying to promote all religions as opposed to what he should be doing - ignoring them all.
Attending events to commemorate the assainsination of Martin Luther King Jr. on the other hand is to pay tribute to the struggles of a significant portion of the US population who have been denied their fundamental civil rights for hundreds of years. Ignoring these events is to thumb you nose at them. LePage has no right to set pre-conditions (discussing issues that affect all Mainers) to meet with any Mainers. His condition is simply a statement that LePage won't discuss issues specific to African-Americans of Maine. LePage needs to explain why that isn't a racist attitude.
Arizona need you Claude
LePage isn't protecting Maine taxpayers; he's going to give free reign to businessmen to loot and plunder the state including the Maine taxpayers.
LURC
Do counties have the staff and resources to evaluate large development projects in wilderness Maine? Do they have rules and procedures for how to conduct these evaluations?? How would counties co-ordinate a project covering more than one county?
this is a pretty dumb proposal unless of course the counties are expected to rubberstamp corporate exploitation of rural Maine. These projects could dilute or destroy Maine's unique character for the benefit of a few out-of-state corporate behemoths.
Bad idea.
Case against wind power has been made and is correct.
But that doesn't mean we need to invent conspiracy theories to justify opposition to on-shore wind power farms.
Alan Woods asserts that NRCM can take donations fromwind power supports. That's true but it adds nothing to the issue and does not make his case that the NRCM is biased. That they can means nothing. You have to show that they have taken donations and how much. The NRCM has a very reasonable basis for supporting wind power - reduction in the use and transportation of fozzil fuels. They are just wrong on this issue. No conspiracy and no conflict of interests.
John Patrick has the issue right. I fully support his reasoning.
Lie
Obama did not bail out the banks. This is a bald face lie. The TARP program was adopted and implemented by the Bush administration with most of the money doled out in 2008 before Obama was even elected much less in office.
Rich pay little or nothing
The published income tax rates for the rich are higher than those for lower income groups, but that doesn't mean the rich pay those rates. Fact is as the UBS scandal documented the rich pay very little in income taxes and well below the published rates. Many corporations as an example pay no income taxes at all.
Tommie, Oh Tommie where is your mommy
Well, Tommie Shield's nose grows longer by the day. Since 1973, Democratic Presidents have limited federal spending and limited the growth of the Federal Debt to 4.2%. Republicans Presidents have increased Federal spending (over 12%) and the Federal Debt by 36.4%. In fact, Republican Presidents own more than 12 trillion of the $14 national ndebt. Obama in his first year reduced the Bush $1.4 trillion last budget deficit by $150 billion. The debt that Obama has accumulated is almost entirely due to unavoidable Bush recession costs.
So for Tommie to play this game that Presidents do not control the budget is disingenuous. The President proposes the budget; the President's party which he controls has a major role in modifying the budget in the Congress whether they control congress or not; the President then signs or vetoes the Budget and its related appropriations bills. Compare the proposed Presidential budget to spending that actually occurs. Rarely does the Congress make significant changes in overall spending. The total budget is what the President wants.
For Republicans like Tommie to claim that they are the ones to be trusted with the budget, when they are the cause of bankrupting the country is the highest form of arrogance.
Need for real answers
The astounding numbers for Maine need an explanation that only comes from a real analysis. Maine has a very high proportion of senior citizens and seniors who have as the editorial notes been involved in physical labor all their lives. We need a study that determines how much of the higher than national average can be explained by these factors. Then the study should look at other factors that might explain some of the differences. Perhaps being old and hard working might explain it all. But we need scientific answers not guesses.
Right-wing hysteria
The hysteria in the right-wing is building as they realize the PR threat the slaughter of Rep. Giffords and others in Arizona may cost them as it exposes their contempt for the rule of law and the US Constitution.
Their first step is to try and characterize the shooter as a "left-wing nut job". The shooter was a "nut job", but 99.99% of these nut jobs never hurt anyone in their lives. It takes some crisis (real or imagined) for them to step over the line into violence.
As to being "left-wing"; this is simply typical right-wing lies. The shooter was an associate of "American Resistance - an outright right-wing racist organization that backed Arozona's SB1070 immigration bill." He loved Main Kampf and Adolf Hitler. He wanted to go back to the gold standard. He opposed all immigration. He hated government. Find one action or belief that was left-wing. There are none.
More evidence will accumulate for certain. But its unlikely to show anything other than a neo-nazi right-wing extremist trying to make a name for himself by killing a jew.
Your are wrong, Nick
Your letter gives aid and comfort to the treasonous thugs currently ruling the roust in the US house and formerly ruled the Presidency, Congress, and the Supreme Court. They have for more than 30 years carried out a systematic plan to reduce the living standards of working Americans, increase the relative wealth of the super rich; and neuter the US Constitution (if its not "in" the Constitution you can't do it. Apparently they never told anyone that they can't or don't want to read).
If taxes in America was based on "use", then the super rich are paying a tiny fraction of their fair taxes. They own 90% of the wealth. Police, Military, Homeland Security - all services that benefit the rich to the exclusion of the poor. The poor die to protect wealthy people's property. You can go on virtually forever. Bottom line we are cannon fouder for their extravagance
LePage
"We need a cooperative relationship between regulators and the private sector" - BP oil disaster in Gulf of Mexico; Bush 2007-09 Great Recession; John Boanhor handing out Tobacco Co bribes on the US House Floor. These are the products of "cooperation between regulators and the private sector". A business government to destroy the working people of this state.
We already have nepotism in the Blaime house; welfare fraud leading the Maine House, and a criminal convicted of 14 felonies leading Florida as we enter the most corrupt period of Maine government in more than 100 years.
Republican Health Care Hypocrisy
During the campaign Republicans said it was all about jobs, jobs, jobs. After catching their breaths they might have added a nod to fixing the deficit. They were right. Their policies cost the US economy 8.4 million jobs under their last administration and were the worst job performance going back to the beginning of data collection on jobs. Couple this with their doubling the US debt; their vast expansion of the role of the Federal Government; their explosion of the use of earmarks and you have a simple philosophy - do as I say not as I do.
So opening this session of Congress they said that their mission was jobs and the deficit. What do they start the session off with - a repeal of the Affordable Care Art which will have no impact on jobs but will INCREASE the Federal deficit by $140 billion. All of which was a great follow up to the lame duck session where they got their single priority - Tax Cuts for the Super Rich which added $700 billion to the deficit and will have almost no impact on jobs. Whem! Smell something.
Republicans don't want any solutions for health care. They simply don't care. Health Care is not a problem for billionaires. They want political points throught lies and misinformation.
Taxes
The one thing you can be certain of is not death and taxes. Its Republicans telling lies. Tommie Shields, former Republican officeholder, wrote above "If the Republicans had not done this, a single person with no children making $50,000 would pay an additional $3,280; a married couple making combined wages of $100,000 with two children would pay an additional $8,256." Pure simple straight-forward lie. The Obama administration had promoted from the 2008 campaign through the legislative session that only those earning above $200,000 would see the restoration of the tax rates adopted during the Clinton Administration. So neither of these examples were true and the republican obstructionism of the last 2 years had nothing to do with it. Both Republicans and Democrats had long agreed that less than $200,000 tax rates should not be changed.
Those engaged in class warfare are the Republicans. They held up all legislative activity - bills, appointments, even resolutions - until they got tax cuts for Wall Street bankers and billionaires.
Earmarks are targets of the Republicans? In their best year 300 democratic earmarks were adopted. Republicans 3000. Even wackos like Paul said he favored earmarks for his state.
Ok, Tommie - 2 hours time-out for lying.
LePage
"Get rid of mandates" - meaning eliminate all that red tape; allow insurance companies to charge us $12,000/year to cover nothing. That way we can get down to a one page health insurance plan.
"Establish high risk pools" - meaning death panels run by the insurance companies. Simple implementation of the Republicans health care mantra - Don't get sick, and if you do die quickly.
Somehow I don't think LePage is going to expand Dirigo to cover all Mainers.
Prisons
Now Now the editorial board must simply be a bunch of free-spending liberal eggheads. Feed prisoners? Improve their life skills? Get them off addicting drugs? Maintain their ties to the community? We don't need to do that. They are just animals. Lock 'em up cage them and throw away the key is the most they deserve.
A team to look into why prisons cost so much per prisoner? Another waste of money. We don't need no facts. Maybe LePage could lease out the top of Mt Katadhin for a high security international prison. We could import drug lords, mass murderers, even better sexual predators who murder, or Al-Qeada members. We've go a budget crisis; getting a few dollars out of a wasteland could help reduce taxes.
Social Security
Republican plans have always been to privatize all of social security and make it mandatory at least beginning in the 60's. Bush's proposal was voluntary and only 25% because that was what he thought he could get away with. It was a tactic not a goal. Privatizing Social Security is simple to understand - your pension (Social Security) funds are placed in Wall Street accounts which lose 25-50% of their value every six years or so. The Wall Street banks use the money to create asset bubbles and huge bonuses for them and depression for us. Only Wall Streets profits from privatization.
Health Care
"We have the best health care available in the world, but far too many of us don't have access to it." I agree with everything in your comment except this. We do not have nor have we ever had the "best health care available in the world". We have the best advanced care (and its that which we don't have access to). But overall our health care system performs very poorly - our best rating is about 16th in the world our worst 37th. Access is not a problem. Anyone can walk into an emergency room at anytime and get care. It may be too slow. It may be outdated. It may be wrong. And its certain to be too expensive. We pay twice as much as any country in the world for substandard care. The reason - our insurance premiums go up 15-25% per year while health care costs go up 5 or 6%. Still health care costs are going up much too quickly. Its a two tier system - IF you are rich you get the best care in the world; if you are poor you must adopt the Republican policy - die quickly.
Republican Lies
Will there never be an end to Republican lies?
Republicans caused the recession that left 8.4 million workers out of work. Now they extend the insult by refusing to extend unemployment benefits while at the same time demanding that federal government all but shutdown until they have extorted $700 billion in welfare for the ultra-rich.
But they are nothing if not consistent. The poor, working people of Maine must be "incentivized" so that they will get off their lazy butts and find a job working for people who make their money defrauding the state. Republicans are preparing that incentive - no unemployment benefits, no health care, no aid to local schools, no school meals for poor children, etc. And rich folks need to get incentives too. The Republicans are preparing these also - $700 billion in tax cuts, elimination of state services to poor people, children, and the disabled.
Did the Democrat forgot workers. No. Republicans have been out to destroy them for 30+ years. Now they will get their chance.
Hypocrisy on parade.
They put us $6 trillion in debt in 8 years; now they claim they are fiscal conservatives?
They claim they represent Americans and they do - 2% percent of them.
They don't represent the 8.4 million people who lost their jobs in their recession (started in 2007 remember).
They certainly don't represent the unemployed when they extort $700 billion more in debt for the rich but not one penny more to those people who's jobs were lost because of their policies.
Republican will never accept personal responsibility for anythin
Now its DHS' fault that Nutting tried and failed to defraud the state to the tune of $1.6 million and using the bankruptcy laws to avoid paying the state back. If nutting had walked into a Bank and with guns drawn, taken $1.6 million out of the vault, it would have been the vault's fault because it didn't automatically shut the door.
By the way, I hear Nutting will try to change the house rules and require either a felony conviction or a self-confession of three years of defrauding the state as a qualification for any house leadership positions.
go back to third grade. You need a refresher math
First, glad you are a supporter of Lenin who first proposed "One tidbit about government jobs that pay better than average jobs. We should put a stop to it..." this in 1871.
Second, Its not class warfare to propose that the people who gain the most from government activities pay the most for the services they use.
Third, Obama didn't spend the $700 billion, Bush did. If you remember Bush borrowed $2.1 trillion from the Chinese to fund these tax cuts. Now the question is do we extend them all or some or not. Well, the tax cuts for millionaires do not help the economy; they won't get one person a job; they didn't get one person a job over the last 7 years. They were simply an irresponsible, job-killing subsidy (new politically correct term is bailout) for the very rich.
Fourth I'm not a slave like you are Duane. No rich man ever gave me a job. Rich men agreed to a contract with me in which I would be paid because they expected to make unearned profit off my labor.
Fifth, you minions are paying for those jobs because you allow the rich to avoid their fair share of taxes. You allow the military and teachers and many others to be paid far less than they are worth so that already rich folks can become richer off your labor.
Last 10 years the middle class has lost 5% of its standard of living. Last 30 years 25% of their standard of living. All because you let the rich folks get a get deal for nothing.
Catholics Christian????
Not according to the Christian right which holds that Catholics, Mormons, and others are non-Christian cults.
Reason
Not present above.
First, America was not founded on Christian moral teachings.
Second, secularizing Christian moral teachings by law is unConstitutional.
Third, Its not difficult to have disdain for DOMA. The supporters of DOMA hold that marriage is a state's right (they are wrong but), but when states began defending marriage by extending it to gay couples, DOMA supporters ran to the Federal Government demanding that it override the states rights to define marriage. Oh! how easy it is for the hypocrisy of the right to blossom.
Fourth, Obama's base isn't gay. Log cabin Republicans remember. Being gay has nothing to do with your political views.
Chris Wallace said. Wow now there's a call for some authority to back up Elaine's false conclusions. Let's see has Chris Wallace or his friends at False News ever told the truth about anything. Nope. Last night for example Glen Beck was shown stating that no one on Fox (False) News had ever said that if you failed to buy health insurance under the new Health Care Law you would go to jail. There followed more than a half dozen Fox (False) News commentators saying that if you didn't buy health insurance you would go to jail including Glen Beck.
I'm glad Elaine threw in that comment about speedier divorces. Something she wrote was true.
Partisanship
Joining the suit is a purely partisan political effort. Republicans intend to inflate (mis-represent) their non-existent support for repeal of health care by having 20 AG's file suit. On the other side are 140 million Americans who will no longer tolerate Health Insurance companies deciding who lives or dies. Typical Republicans. When they lose the political fight; when they can't buy or steal the election; when they can't provide a truthful position; they go to court.
Tea Party ignorance
First its insane to describe the inidividual mandate as "tryannical". All law mandates that individuals do or do not do something. Tryannical would apply to how a law is adopted. The Affordable Health Care law was adopted through the routine, legal, democratic process all laws use based on the Constitution. The government has no "tryannical ability" and none was exercised here.
Second, the above comment shows the total ignorance of the Tea Party of the Constitution. "to provide .... for the general welfare" is a phrase in the preample of the powers of Congress that defines the responsibilities of Congress and there are two - provide for the common defense and the general welfare - that those powers and others are intended to ensure. The government provides health care for the US military. That also is not in Article I Section 8. But it is "necessary and proper" to "provide for the common defense" and is therefore Constitutional (many other references also provide Constitutional support for national health care in many different forms.) Medicare and Medicaid are government health care programs that have already withstood many Constitutional challenges by equally ignorant people. "General Welfare" here by the way describes the national economic prosperity and therefore it along with again a whole series of Constitutional provisions gives the Federal Government wide authority to regulate the national economy.
Its a little irresponsible to condemn what you don't understand
Businessmen
Amazing the arrogance of businessman.
Had someone stolen $1.6 million dollars from his pharmacy, Nutting would be asking the state to prosecute them to the limits of the law. But let him defraud the state and well its just an "honest" mistake.
You can see this in his statement "...he didn't know the particular ramifications of either filing." Unbelieveable. He has a team of lawyers advising him on these filings. He's a legislator. Does he expect anyone to believe that he doesn't understand legislation. At least, his own statement disqualifies him from serving in the legislature.
But he compounds the lie by stating that he is working on changing state regulations so that the next time he defrauds the state he will not be personally responsible for his actions.
Nutting should be in jail.
anti-wind power special interest??
Oh! you must mean the citizens of Rumford, Dixfield, and Roxbury that will be adversely affected by the development of wind farms. The special interest, the folks waiting with their hands out for huge government subsidies are these temporary wind companies.
The committee did good work. Unlike Dixfield where we were sold out and no public comment will be allowed before the vote.
The problem Conservative worldview is defective
Presented with simple objective facts, conservative deny, deny, deny. They live in a fantasy world of spirits where the laws of nature can be changed by a whim. Look at Paul LePage. Faced by the well established fact that he gamed the system to save himself tens of thousands of dollars in college costs, his answer was a well considered expletive.
His only qualification for Governor is that he's an expert is selling junk at Marden's and gaming the welfare system. When you look out at Portland harbor he wants you to see a sea of derricks and oil platforms. When you go swimming at OOB, he wants you to take plenty of detergent to wash off the tar balls. When you look down from Katadin he wants you to see nothing but dirt, no trees, no wildlife while will make the Wind Turbines stretching as far as the eye can see more visible. And he wants all of us to have good jobs paying $8/hr. No social security, no medicare, no FED, no Department of Education, no SSI, no Department of Commerce, no DEP, and no BEP, no government intervention in the family, no DHHS. But just as the census requires 100's of thousands of temporary workers. He has many ideas for new government jobs like the pregnancy police who will follow through every day to make certain every pregnancy goes to full term and those dinosaur assistants who feed (no trees no natural food) and care for all those dinosaurs the kids ride on.
A vote for Cutler is a vote for LePage. A vote for LePage is a vote to make the poor and working people of Maine poorer and the rich richer.
Why
Why elect Paul LePage Governor? The author doesn't even try to defend his outrageously false claim that the Democratic Governors Association is desperate. Has he attended teir meetings? Has he sat in on their funding deliberations? Or attending strategy sessions. Or perhaps Ken is a mind-reader.
Seems to me the face of desperation belongs to his candidate as he self-destructs. Let see. Breaks the law by apply for a homestead exemption in both Florida and Maine. Excuse me conspires with his wife to break the law ..... Conspires with his wife to defraud Florida of $64,000 in FSU tuition and costs by having his wife falsely swear under penalty of perjury to being a permanent resident of Florida and never intending to return to Maine. Changes the ownership of his house in Waterville. Why, is he trying to hide his assets? Opposes welfare. Reforming(?) welfare is one of his top prioirties. But he has said that he pays employees of Mardens less than $10/hr so that they will qualify for welfare benefits i.e. so the taxpayers can subsidies their salaries.
What new revelations will happen between now and November to show LePage as someone completely committed to his financial improvement and ready to us taxpayer monies to accomplish his goal?
Sorry, a former employee of the Chinese Government
does not seem to me to be qualified to be governor.
Like LePage, Cutler's campaign is all about himself. His money, his pride, his arrogance. When we all live in Cape Elizabeth then he might have some idea of what it is to be a Mainer.
Folks, LePage want to run Maine like DeCoster runs his egg farms
What did you expect. By his wife claiming Florida rsidency, Paul LePage saved himself at least $64,000. And this story is less than a week old. Appears that LePage dodged the draft by fleeing to Canada in 1972. How much more is there.
His anger is because he knows the truth and we don't and he is afraid of the truth.
He should but won't withdraw from the race.
You see he is a typical Tea Partier - white, wealthy, ignorant, and doesn't want to be educated on how the rest of us live.
If this is the choice, vote for the citizen-initiative
An ordinance is the best way to control development. But with the committee and the selectmen going back on their word to allow public input, this ordinance has been influenced only by industry. Its a sell-out of the interests of the people of Dixfield. So no real choice is left to us except to vote no on the ordinance and yes on the citizen initiative.
Not an aberration
That DeCoster knew. That he failed to act. That AG did little or nothing. That the fines were just the cost of doing business this way. None of this is surprising. And yes DeCoster should be jailed, but he won't be.
DeCoster is just one small example of what happens when businesses are not regulated or the regulation fails because of too tight a connection between business and the regulators.
Nor is this an exception. MMS helped cause the oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico by not enforcing the regulations and by allowing BP to write the inspection reports.
Its confirmation that businesspeople should not be in the chain of command for regulation of business. No Presidents, No Governors, no regulators should be businesspeople. No revolving door between business and the regulators.
Pledge is unconstitutional and backwards.
First, the under god part is plainly unconstitutional.
Second, but the real problem is its backwards. The United States of America is unique because the powers of Government are derived from the rights of the people. The people as individuals are sovereign and the country derives its sovereignty from the people. Therefore the oath the people of the US should use is the one in the Constitution - I do solemnly swear that I will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States (Article II Section 1). You might add a clause about our responsibilities as citizens.
Pledging to the flag and to the goverment makes us slaves. Its not patriotism.
Road Repairs
candiceanne,
"Large amounts came here in stimulous money for roads over the past two years and I see nothing to show for it." Could it be that you are not looking. $198 million has come to the Maine department of transportation (through June 30th) and I've been dodging road construction work from the New Hampshire border to Augusta all summer. But maybe you don't want to see it.
Roads.
“bloated transportation bureaucracy” - Paul LePage. What do you know, LePage told the truth for once. We do have a bloated transportation bureaucracy. BUT $720 MILLION bloat. Doubt it. The Brookings report found $60-100 million in excess managers for the whole state govenment. What's LePage going to do about the other $660 million. Well he's not talking again.
I drive 32 miles each way to work. I believe a lot of Mainers drive further. Roads are fundamental for economic development. I think I read somewhere that all Maine economic development in the last 20 years had occurred within 10 miles of I-95/295. Mr. LePage's work plan (giggle, giggle) should have included a modern east-west highway from the New Hampshire to Canada border and a north-south highway to replace route 26 from Portland to Bethel. That would have created more jobs than his entire work plan a dozen times over and brought in more business than his plans to eliminate all regulation, EPA, Department of Education, General Purpose Aid to Education, and all the rest of his comical proposals.
But we'll probably never know, because Paul "I'm not talking" LePage is more likely headed to Warren than the Blaine House.
Well, talk
"I want to talk about the billion dollar shortfalls we have.." Paul LePage.
Do you want to explain how the $1 billion shortfall was created by the 2007 recession Mr. LePage's party caused and then did far too little far too late to avoid losing 8.4 million jobs between 2007 and March 2009. Is this his jobs plan?
A state full of plumbers and electricians. Don't get me wrong. Plumbing and electrician are good jobs. And our Unions and Community Colleges already have apprentice /educational programs for these occupations. I don't see a great lack of jobs in these occupations that aren't already being filled. But how about engineers, chemists, biologists, doctors, lawyers, ethical businessmen, etc, etc. Think they might be occupations the state of Maine should promote?
His jobs play is a small thing
We know LePage and Republicans want to help business and hurt maine workers. So this so-called jobs plan is typical. Like any businessmen he will claim innovation for ideas that are already being done. He's too cheap to spend $145 to process a new business. Isn't the going rate to write a simple letter something like $50. Obviously strarting a business is much more complex than that. So he cuts the cost to $5 and the taxpayers of Maine fork over the other $140.
Everything else is aready being done. Nothing new.
Not a small matter
If LePage changed the ownership of the house in waterville in order to commit tax fraud with his wife, that's criminal. And if he did where else has he gamed the system to avoid payin taxes. What did he do at Marden's?
Tax audits of Marden's tax returns while LePage was general manager are very much in order. As are a full investigation into his own.
Didn't the Republicans add $6 trillion to the deficit in the
previous 8 years (2002-2009). I think so. Unpaid for wars, Medicare Part-D, $2.1 trillion in tax cuts for those earning over $250,000 a year. All of you out there received your tax cut didn't you? You know the ones that let you eat out at McDonalds once more a year with your family while those earning $250,000 a year got to buy a new BMW. Yes that's the one. Are you enjoying te $55,000,000 tax cut Democrats passed last year? Oh! that's right. That's the working & middle class tax cut that the Republicans defeated last fall.
Next thing you know the republicans will be adding in money
the UN spends in Maine.
Maine legislators and the Governor are responsible for what they spend and the laws they pass only. And they have cut spending by almost $1 billion since 2001.
Second, you'd think that government should spend more in the middle of the worst recession in 80 years. You know the other Republican Great Depression. Or did they expect we'd allow Americans to starve in the street. They are always talking about traditional values (really the values of the 1950's not our real traditional values). Maybe they want to go back to the values of 1300's in Europe and have people paid to collect the dead in hand pulled carts.
You find a cintila of truth in Fox News, Beck, and the other
fantazy merchants of the right? Boy are you gullible.
1. Fannmie Mae and Freddie Mac are stories well reported and not very important. Yes they lost a lot of money in the Bush recession of 2007, but only because the Republicans de-regulated them in 2006 allowing them to buy sub-prime mortgages in hopes that this would inflate the already collapsing housing bubble. Fannie and Freddie were victims of the housing collapse not the causes of it.
2. " For example, we have heard nothing about the 175,000 new government employees, or anything about the 32 czars now writing regulations with no accountability." Yes you have. Last three months every unemployment report has been accompanied by the affects of the census workers being hired and then fired. Every report has included how many government and how many private sector jobs have been created. Why would be hear about "no accountability". The czars are simply a name. Every administration has had people with similiar responsibilities and they are accountable to Congress as executive employees have been for 220 years. Just as accountable as the VP's Energy Task Force.
3. Obama's numbers are plunging. You mean from 53% to 45%. During the worst recession since the Hoover (Republican) Great Depression. Bumbling and stumbling? Only according to racists who never gave Obama any chance. Excuse me not racists, just republicans and their right wing Tea Party extremists.
Let's compare the two. Republicans want to return to the traditional (1950's)) family where children have no rights, where child abuse was rampant, where spousal abuse was never acknowledged. Republicans want to promote globalization and the exportation of our jobs overseas, close down the Fed (causing a massive depression), return to the gold standard(again causing a massive depression), close the Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Commerce, end General purpose aid to education (increasing rural tax rates by a factor of 4 to maintain current spending), and withdraw from the United Nations so that they can wage unjustified wars of aggression and resource aquisition, and plunge the US into economic stagnation and reduce us to third world status while they loot the federal treasury for the benefit of a few international billionaires and destroy America's middle class. Now that's appealing! Democrats on the other hand want to base economic policy on what has worked for the last 80 years, sound economics, economic growth, international cooperation, peace through strength (we do have the largest military in the world. In fact, we have a military larger than the combined total of all the countries of the world.), opportunity, and sound social policies which help maximize everyone's potential. Whem! tough choice.
The usual nonsense from the usual sources
30 years?? The key to making propaganda is to at least have a cintila of truth hidden somewhere in the overarching lie. I know some people who lie about welfare for 30 years. And that's just as true as Ed McCaffrey's comment. The average TANF recipient is on the program less than a year. It is temporary.
Amazingly their are some people who think that their imaginations are more important than the truth. Name people. Report them to DHHS if you think they are breaking the law. They have fraud investigators who do a good job.
Great editorial lousy comment
Monotheistic religions have little to be proud of. Baiting each other goes back more than a thousand years. But burning their holy books or their pastors is beyond the pale.
Another cost of republican economics
"But the recession of the past few years and stock market losses meant the investments missed that mark." The recession is the problem. The recession was caused by de-regulation and the Bush tax cuts.
This is so outrageous thought I check it out.
Origin www.deadseriousnews.com, which describes itself as "Dead Serious News is a satirical website", story from April 20, 2010. In other words, nothing on it is true. Since Obama has in the past defended the inclusion of "under God" in the Pledge this never could pass muster.
Excuse me but the dumbest editorial has been joined by the
dumbest comment. How has Obama gotten rid of the word "God" in the Pledge? Obama is not a Muslim. He doesn't know Islamic prayers. Please try writing some facts; not delusions.
Again and again and again
Republicans are sabotaging the recovery for purely partisan reasons. When are they going to work in the national interest? Why should anyone in the middle class give them a second opportunity to wreck the economy.
They have the authority, but not the wisedom to use it well
The SCOTUS ruled in a case of states receiving transportation dollars that the Federal Government has broad authority to require the states to take actions the Federal Government requires. That's why its not surprising that there is general acceptence of the Race to the Top funding.
Like the failed No Child Left Behind, in education broad reach invites failure. The Feds should keep out of education except to jawbone for better performance.
Taxes
Thanks, Denis the right wing invents so much its hard to keep up with their lies.
Editorial
Stupidest, dumbest, editorial in the history of the Sun-Journal.
One thing a Republicn is good at - avoidin blame.
George Bush gave us the first trillion dollar deficit. Gave us the depression that is now fueling this years trillion dollar deficit. But of course, Obama's black so it must be his fault.
Fly baby fly
I agree it will take Republicans several generation to export enough business so they can ignore what goes on in the US. They are working in the interests of Big Business as you say; not in the national interest.
Live for today! 39 years is not today. Its 2 generations. As the letter writer said, problem solved by just taxing all income. But Republicans won't let that pass. Protecting their Wall Street bonuses again.
Insane
Chief Justice Marshall, in the Dartmoth decision wrote that corporations are a accumulation of contracts not people. People have inalienable rights precisely because we are people. Corporations are not people. They have no civil rights.
What's insane is the idea that there are two sides. Employees share many of the interests with the corporations they work for.
39 years from now? Now that must be an emergency
OH! I forgot, enough republicans are in the Senate to obscruct any action in the national interest. So it might take 39 years to solve a small problem that could be solved just by letting the economy grow, but the republicans won't let that happen either. They want to steal Bill's coolies.
But mommy why can't I take Bill's cookies
Why do Republicans want to privatize Social Security. Simple, trillions of dollars would be transferred from government bonds to private equities on Wall Street. Trillions more to be added to the trillions Bush and Paulsen sent to Wall Street in the bailouts. When trillions of unearned dollars are pumped into a market you get an equity bubble that like all bubbles bursts in time. This massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the super rich would improverish America and create a depression that would put the Great Depression to shame. The super rich would be sunning themselves in Monoco while American workers wait in bread lines.
Don't be fooled. A vote for Republicans is your own economic death sentence.
Republican war on the middle class
First thing we need is not another tax cut. We need to education poor ignorant fools how to read a newspaper. Then the nonsense this woman spouts might not appear.
The whole letter is ignorance glorified. None of it is true.
No wind power in rural Maine
If wind power doesn't make sense in the wide open flat lands of texas where houses are 50 miles apart, what makes anyone think they make sense in rural Maine Mountains where houses are 2000 feet apart.
XYZ and that's not a NIMBY response. That's the response anyone would make based on the best science. I've supported every environmental law and proposal from Earth Day in the 70's until now. I've been a member of Greenpeace and the NRCM. I will continue to support predator restoration, food safety, laws to limit pollution, control climate change, etc. But I will not sacrifice the quality of life of the people of rural Maine so Angus King can build another mansion with taxpayer dollars.
NYC Peace Mosque
Any opportunity will get the hate mongers out. And unfortunately Diana has provided that opportunity by telling the truth.
First, this is a zoning issue in NYC. Has nothing to do with Lewiston/Auburn or Maine or California or anywhere else.
Second, every proposed Mosque or Cultural Center currently planned in the US is being opposed by the extreme right. Tenn., kentucky, Michigan, California its all the same. 2 blocks from ground zero, 500 miles from hallowed ground, 3000 miles from ground zero how can we possibly tolerate a Mosque this close to the 3000 who died on 9/11. Never mind that the people who will use these mosques condemn the 9/11 attack with the same ferver that every other american condemns it. Never mind that innocent muslims are among the dead.
Third, the fanatical right is smearing the Mosque's Imam as they are smearing Obama and anyone else who opposes their attempt to rip up the Constitution. The Imam has been helping the US government for more than 14 years. Training FBI agents to recognize radical muslims, teaching real Islamic principles, going overseas to show other muslims tha America is not Islam's enemy.
Fourth, the christian right wants a war of extermination so that they can finally be rid of Muslims throughout the world. Many right-wing christians in the US are funding radical Jewish groups in Isreal that want to destroy the dome of th rock and replace it with a new Jewish Temple in hopes that this will instigate a Christian-Islamic holy war. We should be no part of their plan.
Fifth, this is also part of a right-wing political strategy which says all muslims are terrorist, Obama is a muslim therefore Obama is a terrorist.
Sixth, fanatical republicans have submitted 42 constitutional amendments which will radically alter the constitution in the current congress. They say they are defending the Constitution when they are in fact the Constitution's bitterest enemies.
Campaign of hate
"The terrorists have done a fantastic job of making Americans associate Muslims with terrorists." No they did not. The right-wing is promoting two ideas - all muslims are terrorists, Obama is a muslim. Therefore Obama has capitualted and sold America out. Its the old "Jews stabbed us in the back" propaganda from Nazi Germany. Funny, because many leading muslims supported Nazi Germany.
Obama is not a muslim and never has been a muslim.
At its peak, al-Qeada had support of maybe 20,000 muslims out of 1.6 billion. Today, they may have support from a few hundred.
This campaign of hate lead by the right is the strongest support al-Qeada has in the world.
Time for debate over
Mor than enough evidence has suggested that Dixfield is not a appropriate site for wind turbines. Let's get to a vote.
No wind turbines in Dixfield
The meeting last night in Dixfield was definitive. Min. set backs for wind turbines needs to be 7000 feet. Depending on topology that min. might need to be increased to 3 miles. That makes Holman Mountain and its Ridge line unacceptable for Wind Turbines.
Just say NO.
By the way
If the Catholic Church was building a new Church in South Manhattan would anyone be asking where they got the money. Of course not.
Faux-controversy
The issue of the Mosque is part of the overall Republican strategy to racially and religiously divide America in hopes the hatred they engender will prevent us from identifying their real goal which is to get another chance to lot the federal treasury and destroy te US economy.
SB 1070 - paint latinos as drug crazed pushers murdering the poor civilians of Arizona with machine guns (Where is Willie Horton when you need him. Or in context Willie Rodrigues.)
Portray all Muslims are salavating radicals bent on killing every American they can and forcing Sharia law down our throats (I assume latinos are not included because by then we will have forced them all including US Citizens back to Mexico or at least those we haven't killed.).
Then there are blacks; Vote cheats; ACORN (which has been cleared of any wrong doing); welfare cheats. If you're black, get back. Oh! We have a black President. Well that can't be, no black anything can be President. He must have cheated. Check his Birth Certificate, they have, he didn't, but keep lying about it.
Republican strategy can be summed up simply - Make white people fear minorities, let their fear grow into hatred of minorities, help them vote their fear.
Racist, of course the Republicans aren't racist nor are the Tea Partiers. Its just good policy to put your foot on the neck of a minority.
Yes they do question building the Mosque.
Joe Public say it should never be built. If you listen to Fox News and the Republicans it should never be built.
Mosgues in NYC
maineiacs9 was wrong about the westboro wacko's and he's wrong about the number of mosques in NYC (guess he doesn't have google). 3 mosques exist in NYC not hundreds and 7 more are near NYC. Assuming 1000 worshippers per mosgue seems like a 4th mosque might be needed.
But Maineiacs9 and the President are right on this. Constitutionally they are doing nothing wrong. Legally they are doing nothing wrong. But they should be sensitive to the situation as long as moving the mosque causes them no significant harm. I doubt that there is a lot of free locations that can be purchased at a reasonable price in Southern Manhattan.
Bizarre
So the President should be blamed for a bad estimate of an inexact science? What he should be blamed for is keeping Geithner and Sumner on the job. Obama should be blamed for trying to work with the Republicans and therefore cutting the needed $1.5 trillion stimulus to $787 billion to gain Susan Collin's vote. Obama should also be blamed for shifting the timing and targets of the stimulus to meet Republican goals. Obama should now be blamed for not taking aggressive action to put 20 million Americans back to work in a infrastructure re-build. Last year we spent $3 billion out of the $3 trillion (we did spend $3 trillion under Bush to save the banks) in needed infrastructure fixes in the stimulus. We need a massive public works program. And we need it now.
Ah the all powerful, perfect, private education establishments
Tell that to the children of Philadelphia to start. Does Shri Corcoran work for or own a "private education establishment"?
There are programs and there is accountability. But public school handling of special needs students need imprvement.
Dan McKay's right
building code restrictions aren't enough. But you have to codify the restrictions in something permanent. They must be certain, tough, and based on science
It's amazing what people think.
Jeffyd thinks, "you dont have the right to tell people what they can put on there land". Of course you do. That's what zoning ordinances are all about. Property rights are not absolute. Now if you are a billionaire like Simplot, the potato king, you can fight an order to remove the humongus American Flag you have on your property that is so noisy that police in downtown Boise, ID can't pull anyone over. But if you are just a retired veteran they might succeed in forcing removal of your much small American Flag.
Pay Surveys
Until there is a legitimate survey which controls for education, location, length of service, departmen size, corporation size, scope of activities, and other factors used by business pay surveys this is all nonsense. The Heritage Foundation isn't credible at all nor is its data. The editorial constantly flips between pay, salary, pay and benefits making it difficult to know what comparison they are really making.
When pay scales in the private sector can range up to 100% or more of base salary, only a detailed analysis is meaningful. For example, IT managers can range from $35,000 in small shops in rural maine to $400,000 in mainframe shops in large corporations in major citys like Boston and Washington. Averages are meaningless.
Misquoting and misrepresenting the founding fathers
is a game with the christian right.
Judge Walker did have very little to base his conclusion on except the US Constitution, the 14th Amendment, 200+ years of history, all available scientific studies on human development, and commonsense, but I think that was enough.
By the Way, Adams was wrong and the Jefferson quote is a fake. Jefferson never referred to "God".
Cuts are fine
WideStanceRepublican, you shock me. I agree cut the military budget, cut the number oc contractors, cut the number of soldiers and sailors, cut nuclear weapons below START. Funding the military is anti-growth. It diverts funds from more productive purposes. Leave us with the best military by a factor of 2 and we will be safe
Omniscient
I glad the Sun-Journal have so many omniscient commenters who know what non-existant Republican Governors might do, what an equally non-existent "liberal elite" would think about what the non-existent Republican might do, and what that non-existent "liberal elite" would think about what a Democratic Governor might have done. Actually, this is very much like Andrew Breitbart, make it up as you go along. You know when a persn actually says, "I helped the family" change it to I didn't help a white family". That's the same isn't it.
Socialism - baloney
Good to see Frostproof is consistent - he knows nothing about politics or government.
Baloney
God, thinking is in such sort supply in these blogs.
Tea Party
Let's at least acknowledge that the Tea Partiers left the Republican Party because of the Bush fiscal irresponsibility. Then let's acknowledge that their political principles are self-contradictory because they neither understand the constitution nor American History. You can't be for small government, low taxes, and at the same time say that you support the Constitution. Its was the anti-Federalists, the people opposed to the Constitution, like Thomas Jefferson who supported small government and low taxes even at the Founding..
Read history not Beck
The Reagan tax cuts in 1981 had nothing to do with the recovery. Volker forced the economy into recession in 1981 and the foreign policy situation had changed and its his steps that helped the recovery generate some power. If Reagan's Tax Cuts of 1981 helped the economy recover then why didn't the Reagan Tax Increase of 1983 not drop the economy into recession? Because neither had much effect on economic growth.
Bush Tax Cut failure
Read the article from Bloomberg that appeared yesterday on MSNBC's website, "The wisdom and folly of the Bush Tax Cuts". Buried in the story is a critical fact - from 2001 through 2006 economic growth in the US averaged 2.3%. That's the worst in post-Depression history. Why? Bush's Tax Cuts had unbalanced the budget. The US went from surplus to deficit in one year. As the article explained, the Tax Cuts were not designed to stimulate the economy but to change the incentives for savings and investment. Trillions of dollars that should have gone to consumption instead went in large part to finance the housing bubble. Merged with trillions more that were invested in securities backed up by fradulent mortgages and sold to Fannie May, Freddie Mack, and insured by AIG or sold to foreign investors, inflated a market that had to collapse. Trillions were diverted from productive investments into non-productive gambling and undermined the US economy. At 2.3% growth the economy was hemorrhaging jobs long before the Bush recession of 2007.
History
One of the duties of the Tea Partiers is to improve people's understanding of history. We can see in fixit's comments how important that is.
Gay bashing in America really began in the 1840's not the 1780's. Back in the 1780's at least the aristocratic classes thought nothing of gay activities as they had not in Rome or Greece from which they took their inspiration. We may have had several gay Presidents, Buchanan and Lincoln and perhaps many more important national figures. I'll have to do a little research.
What part of inalienable rights don't conservatives understand
Apparently, conservatives think only the 2nd and 10th amendments reflect inalienable rights and even then they only support half the 10th amendment. How can you vote by majority decision on an inalienable right? Inalienable - Unable to be taken away from or given away by the possessor. Support Prop 8 and you violated the most fundamental of human civil rights.
Rick Lowry's imperiousness
We have no difficulty finding examples of pundit imperiousness in Rick Lowry's many bizarre opinoins. Judge Walker did nothing more than echo the Mass. and Iowa Supreme Court decisions. In fact, almost every Court has seen the issue the same way. The defense of Prop 8 offered a few easily refuted arguments, 2 witnesses, and ended with the argument that same-sex marriage is bad because we say it is. The Judge disposed of those arguments in a few paragraphs. He concluded since no rational arguments had been made supporting Prop 8 then the motivations for its passage were irrational animus which violates th Constitution. Far from inviting the Supreme Court to overturn his decision. Judge Walker is inviting them to do their Constitutional duty.
Monopoly
So Maine Ken and thinkingman you agree that Nestle is a monopoly. Only a monopoly can pass on costs to the consumer. If they are not a monopoly, then they have to absorb the added cost in lower profits which means their management and stockholders pay the tax. Can't have it both ways is Nestle a monopoly or do their owners pay the tax.
Maine Ken its not a double standard
Something is a double standard when the facts of two situations are the same and they are treated differently. Strom Thrummond lead racist democrats out of their party in 1948 later joined the racist Republican Party and advocated for most of his life racist policies. Senator Byrd left the KKK repudiated its principles and policies as a young man and fought for his state and the principles of racial tolerance and progress for most of 50 years. Those are not the same facts at all.
Making it worse, Strom Thurmmond had a baby with a black maid as a young man and hid the fact for most of his life. Guess what, I bet that was not the only time he had sex with a black woman while he was preaching hatred. Joe Wilson, the racist congressman from SC and member of several identified hate groups, said that "No southern gentleman would do that" meaning have sex with a black woman. That on the day after Strom held a news conference with his daugther.
No double standard. Different people who made different decisions.
You you ignore the truth Maine Ken
Sherrod wasn't & isn't a racist. She never denied help to a white farmer because he was white or for any other reason. The Andrew Breitbart tape has been proven a fraud - edited to the point that it seemed to say exactly the opposite of what Sherrod actually said. Just like the ACORN tapes have now been proven frauds and after numerous investigations ACORN has been proven not to have broken the law. Just like Climategate has after in depth investigations been found to be a fraud. Well we could go on and on back to when Richard Nixon created fraudulent photos without photoshop in his Senate campaign.
Misrepresenting th truth is just routine for Republicans.
seekingthe truth
You aren't close. Bush more than doubled the national debt. The Republican Presidents from Reagan to Bush II added 11.9 of the 12.9 trillion dollar debt. The national debt was $900 billion when Reagan took office, $12.9 when Bush left. All the national debt projected between 2009 and 2019 (2009 being Bush's last budget) are caused by unfunded Bush policies (2 wars, Bush tax cuts, TARP, de-regulation (recession), and recovery measures (Source: Clusterstock). Had these policies been funded, between 2009 and 2019 the federal govenment would have had surpluses in 4 years and a very small increase in the debt in total.
Greenspan Sunday called Republican tax and budget policies - Disasterous. And David Stockman said that they would destroy America. The one good thing the Tea Parties represent is the rejection of Republican tax and budget policies.
So please stop using number to hide the truth.
Why?
They prevented that vote for months. They left more than 2 million people without income for months. Lou you are pretty easy to please.
Moody
Platitudes, generalities, myth, and misrepresentations. Moody is just another ill-informed businessman who thinks that if you just apply what he's learned everything will be OK. He has no experience. No ideas. Nothing to offer.
Babies
Didn't Nestle gave baby bags to delivered mothers in the third world including formula and promotional material on why breastfeeding would injure their new born babies. This resulted in poor nutrition and sickness for those babies because their families earned a few hundred dollars a year and couldn't buy enough formula to keep their children healthy. Some how I don't think the welfare of Mainers is one of their priorities.
Poll numbers meaningless
Rasmussen polls have a long history of pro-Republican bias. If I remember correctly and age is catch up with me, Rasmussen phone polls only call people with land-line phones. Well that means they get an unscientific sample and few young people.
The right-winger's prayer to split the democrats that they can characterize Cutler as a liberal when he was a registered republican and is a typical moderate Republican on issues will fail because he has the money to become known. Right now he's taking votes and staff from the Otten and Mills campaigns. These are moderate republicans that can't abide his extremism. He's lost a former RNC committee member from Maine because of his extremism.
But its not Mitchell/LePage disputes.
Both the "age joke" and the false charge that Arden Manning wrote that LePage was not qualified for governor because of his French-Canadian heritage and that his is Roman Catholic came from LePage. This is all one sided. LePage says that he only wants to talk about jobs and the economy, but the only thing he really talks about are Mitchell's age, his lies about Manning, and how he was a creationist during the primary but now he's not or maybe he his. The Mitchell campaign has really not engaged LePage on these bizzare issues.
That's not what I wrote.
I also would oppose giving out names. But a report that said we have 9 individuals collecting GA in the last 30 days all of whom are long-term Rumford residents and have been on GA for less than 2 years would answer many of Frank's points. So would one that said 9 individuals 4 of which have been Rumford residents for less than 60 days and the 9 have been on GA for an average of 10 years with 3 exceeding 20 years would also answer the guestions. Easy to do and it would info the issue. Otherwise Frank is just spouting off unfounded rural myths.
What Jobs?
Nestle provides no jobs. They contract with us because without us they can't make a profit. They rent our skills, our knowledge, and our experience because without it they are nothing. We built this country not Nestles.
Great Program!
I urge continued investment in education and childhood development from birth to college.
That's why its so disturbing to read Paul LePage's campaign promises on education. He wants to "eliminate the department of education" and "restore schools to local control". No Department of Education; no GPA (unless some other agency would take this over. If you do that why eliminate the DoE.). Property taxes would shoot through the roof; some school taxes in rural Maine would increase 10 fold while urban centers like Waterville would see their taxes increase a few percent. No Department of Education; no state assessments. No DoE; no statewide general ledger to account for school spending. No DoE; no ability to evaluate the effectiveness of K-12 education in Maine. No DoE; costs of essential services would be shifted to the local towns.
Why would anyone do this. GPA, general purpose aid to education, is about half of the state budget. Is this LePage's plan to make the children of rural Maine pay for his budget cuts with their education and future?
Does this make sense?
Rumford including Mexico has 5 welfare recipients a week, but having a fulltime welfare director attracks "career" welfare recipients to move into town from elsewhere. If they did you'd have hundreds not 5 needing services.
Simply to verify. Have the fulltime director account for the time a recipient has been on welfare and at what towns for the next 30 days. Then report the findings to the town manager and newpapers.
Cults
Amazing how these cult followers can wallow in their submissiveness.