With the increasing chance of Republicans taking control of at least one house of Congress, I hereby invoke the little-known right of a columnist to channel R&B singer Aretha Franklin to deliver a simple message to the voters of America on this important election:
Think!
From the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire where Palin-endorsed GOP Senate candidate Kelly Ayotte wants to "repeal the IRS code completely." This is a perfect example of how Republican tax policy defies logic. First Republicans claim that Democrats reflexively want to raise your taxes, when in reality 98 percent of New Hampshirites received an average tax cut of $1,184 under President Obama. Secondly, Republicans claim that we can cut taxes and still balance the budget, but that is exactly what they said when they passed the Bush tax cuts and now we have a $1.3 trillion deficit. No wonder David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's former budget director, calls the Republican pledge "a big lie."
Think! Think!
From the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania where the Republican Senate candidate is Pat Toomey, a former derivatives trader who earned the nickname "Congressman Wall Street" for pushing deregulation of Wall Street, including preventing regulation of many of the risky new financial products that led to the financial meltdown. Toomey's slogan is "less government, more jobs," but less government is exactly what got us into this mess. In fact, Chris Cox, President Bush's own Securities and Exchange Commissioner, belatedly acknowledged this very fact and called for the regulation of some of the very instruments Toomey's legislation had exempted.
Think!
From the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado where Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck echoes many of the same themes as Toomey in calling for a privatized reform of health care, Medicare and Social Security and argues that we need to "wean the American public off" student loans and other programs. The aptly-named Buck conveniently overlooks the private sector's failure to address the 50 million Americans without health insurance or the one-third of seniors in poverty prior to passage of Medicare. He also ignores the fact that government programs increasing access to education more than pay for themselves, as the G.I. Bill alone generated nearly $7 in extra federal revenue for each dollar invested.
Buck is also one of five Republican Senate candidates who favor an absolute ban on abortion -- even in cases of rape or incest. Women, however, are not the only ones for whom there is little R-E-S-P-E-C-T in the Republican Party, however. They are joined by Hispanics, gays and Muslims in being excluded from Sarah Palin's "real America."
Think! Think!
From the curvaceous slopes of California where failed former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina -- like all but one other GOP Senate candidate -- apparently knows more than 32 national science academies and the Pentagon in dismissing the threat posed by global warming. It is bad enough that CEO Fiorina willingly shipped 30,000 American jobs to India and China; she can do far worse in the Senate. Even though she owes her wealth in no small part due to government investment in computer technology, she and other Republicans support unilateral disarmament in the battle with China over green tech supremacy, as the GOP has blocked passage of the Clean Energy Security Act which would have created 1.9 million clean tech jobs over the next decade -- including 226,000 in California.
Think!
From every mountainside where we all are struggling with the worst recession since the depression but must remember how we got here in the first place. The Republicans inherited a strong economy and a budget surplus and drove the economy to the brink of depression. Even after the financial meltdown, they still don't get it. This is the party that believes that BP deserves an apology and millionaires deserve tax cuts, while unemployed Americans deserve didley.
In 2008, Republican Congressman Tom Davis said that the party's brand was "in the trash can" and that "if we were a dog food, they would take us off the shelf." Two years later it is still the same product.
Think! Think!
As Aretha said, "[i]t don't take too much high IQ's to see" that the solution to the problem is not to embrace the people who got us there in the first place. That is especially true when things are starting to turn around. Under President Obama, America is getting back on its feet. With no help from the party of "No," the President passed the stimulus that created nearly 3 million jobs, enacted monumental health care reform, stopped credit card abuses, cleaned up Wall Street, and saved millions of home from foreclosure. And he is just getting started.
Do you really want to go back to the way things were in October 2008?
Think!
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Ain't no way
Cry like a Baby
Do Right, Man
Don't Play that Song (you lied)
Drinking Again
I say a little prayer
Impossible
Mr Bigstuff
Oh me, Oh My
and the best?..............
It isn't, it wasn't, it ain't never gonna be.
THINK about how long we're going to continue to blindly support the party that demands we sit down and shut up until it's time to write the check and cast the vote.
THINK about what you're telling us when your primary election slogan is "Be afraid of them and forget how bitterly disappointed you are in us!"
THINK about bailing out Wall Street Bonuses at the expense of Main Street Homes, continuing wars we want no part of, covering up war crimes, continuing "tax cuts" we can't afford, defending bigotry enshrined into law, continuing and furthering the erosion of civil rights even to the extent of declaring that you have the RIGHT to execute any bothersome Americans you choose, about killing health care reform in order to pass massive corporate welfare bills,....
In all these areas the Left has called upon the Democratic party to THINK before committing the atrocities they went with. And in EVERY case the Democratic party underscored how much it did not need the Left. Until election day that is.
And so, after 4 to 20 years of NOT thinking about the reason the Left votes for Democrats, the Democratic party is once again trundling out the tired old "Be Afraid!!!" party line but this time people are actually considering that that the difference between the true agenda of the Democrats and Republicans has become vanishingly small.
The Democratic party never "thought" we'd see this day.
To the left, I say explain to me how your interests are served by a GOP winning. If you want to get your agenda acted upon, elect more progressives to make it happen.
The republicans did not inherit a strong economy, When Bush entered office we faced the Clinton recession, he responded to that with the first of his tax cuts and pulled us out of it in less than eight months. This also included for adjusting to the shock of 9/11.
The excessive risk taking was lead by decades of Democratic manipulation of the free markets that caused lending institutions to take on unnecessary risks. Bush warren the congress of the issues of Freddie and Fannie back in 05 and 06, but the Dems thirsty with their new found power in congress just appointed their friends and looked the other way as they cooked the books and took millions in bonuses.
The IRS tax code has been mutilated to nothing more than a socialist tool to manipulate our society and it needs to be overhauled or replaced. Sure we have lower tax rate then 20 years ago, but we also have less loopholes. If the rate go up, I will bet you the Dems we be working for more loopholes to payback their supporters.
Government jobs are nothing more than glorified welfare, but the Feds don’t hire anyone, you need to meet their social economic goals that only promote to payback those who support their socialist agenda.
You want to promote jobs here in the US then cancel NAFTA; you know that agreement signed by Clinton in 93 that laid the ground work for the exporting of real American jobs.
Of course, the question is ...WHAT THE HELL, DO THEY THINK IS HAPPENING NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."
JFK
ROFL. Clinton's Republican congress created that.
and drove the economy to the brink of depression.>>>
Errrr... http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/view/?utm_campaign=viewpage&utm_medium=grid&utm_source=grid
of funds. But the loonies in Ga. are willing to turn over the state's coffers because he's a dyed in the wool conservative. He won't do anything but embarrass the state and make us a laughing stock....but that's okay as long as he keeps confronting those 'libruls.