12 Republican Myths That Are Killing Us

Progressive political gadfly and former Representative
Alan Grayson. (photo: Evan Vucci/AP)

Alan Grayson, Reader Supported News

03 March 12

s the Republican demolition derby rolls on, I continue to be amused by how each remaining contender tries to assume the "small government" mantle.

Mitt Romney wants a government so small that it provides universal health care.

Newt Gingrich wants a government so small that it will establish a permanent base on the moon.

Rick Santorum wants a government so small that it will fit inside a woman's uterus.

The only real remaining advocate of small government is Ron Paul. Dr. Paul appears to be disqualified from the Republican presidential primary, however, because he is unwilling to drench himself with the blood of our imagined enemies, like Gerard Butler in the movie "300."

But what about that Jon Huntsman guy? This week three different people told me, quite independently of each other, how sorry they were that Governor Huntsman never gained any traction in the Republican presidential primary.

I told them that they should get over it. Huntsman wasn't any better.

It somehow counts as an act of courage for Huntsman to have tweeted: "I believe in evolution." Of course, it would have been more courageous if Huntsman had said that to a Tea Party audience, and then they tore him limb from limb, thereby disproving the theory of evolution right before our eyes.

  READ MORE

Grocery Store Workers Rally in Brooklyn for Overtime Pay, Fight Wage Theft

Multimedia photo essay from a community protest of a local grocery's exploitative treatment of its workers.

 

 Wage theft--the systemic underpayment or denial of payment owed to workers--is a growing problem, and immigrant workers, whose English is often not perfect, are especially at risk. But with the help of community organizations, some workers are finding a way to fight back--and are winning victories. 

This weekend, New York Communities for Change and residents of the Kensington community in Brooklyn, New York, rallied outside of the Golden Farm supermarket on Church Avenue in support of the immigrant store employees, who are organizing for a union contract and have sued for unpaid back wages--they were being paid $400 for a 70-plus hour work week, well below the minimum wage.    READ MORE

Pepsi Slashes 8700 Jobs While Raking in Record Profits

Pepsi is about to put 8,700 of its worldwide employees out of work.   This might make you think the company is in trouble.

Let’s have some fun with the numbers reported by Reuters in today’s New York Times. 

Pepsi reports increases in:

• Annual dividends: 4%
• Expenditures on advertising: an additional $500 million
• Expenditures on display racks: an additional $100 million
• Fourth quarter profits: from $1.37 billion a year ago to $1.42 billion
• Earnings per share: from 85 cents a year ago to 89 cents
• Revenues: up 11% to $20.2 billion

Let’s get the logic straight here:

• PepsiCo made $1.42 billion in profits last quarter.
• The company’s revenues, profits, and returns to investors are increasing.
• QED: it is adding 8,700 out-of-work people to an already depressed job economy.

Only Wall Street would view Pepsi’s bottom line as problematic and its CEO, Indra Nooyi, as in trouble:

Ms. Nooyi has come under pressure from Wall Street for a stagnant stock price and a lagging North American beverage business. She has been criticized for taking her eye off the core business of sodas to expand into healthier products, such as hummus and drinkable oatmeal.

When it comes to Wall Street, forget about jobs and health.  Only one thing counts: meeting those quarterly growth targets.    READ MORE

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But,  but,  but...  Isn't more money in the hands of "Job Creators"  supposed to create

more jobs???  So,  tax breaks going into corporate coffers,  ahead of and/or behind

record profits,  is just money poured down a rat hole!  Egad!

Maine Becomes Third State to Divert Foreclosure Settlement Funds Away from Homeowners

Following Scott Walker in Wisconsin and Jay Nixon in Missouri, the state of Maine will be using money from the foreclosure fraud settlement not to help suffering homeowners, but instead to pump up the state's general fund--patching budget holes blown by those states' right-wing governors. 

Dave Dayen at FireDogLake notes: 

There’s nothing illegal about this; the new executive summary posted at the National Mortgage Settlement site says this about payments to the states:

Payments to the States

The remaining settlement funds, approximately $2.5 billion, will be paid to the participating states. The funds may be distributed by the attorneys general to foreclosure relief and housing programs, including housing counseling, legal assistance, foreclosure prevention hotlines, foreclosure mediation, and community blight remediation. A portion of the funds may also be designated as civil penalties for the banks robo-signing misconduct.

That’s essentially a license for states to take the money as a “penalty” and put it into their general funds. Three out of 50 have already done so. We’ll continue to track who else will engage in this, and clearly there will be more. You honestly think Rick Scott or Rick Perry won’t use this money to plug their budget holes?    READ MORE

The New Southern Strategy: Quote Ayn Rand to Blame the Middle Class

It's a well-documented fact of history that for the past half-century at least, conservatives have used race resentment as a way of cutting the safety net in order to further enrich the already well-to-do. If the objective is to cut Medicaid or food stamps, bring up stories of lazy (black/brown) ne'er-do-wells, young bucks and welfare queens in the to steel the minds of white voters and fool them into destroying their own safety net. It's been a remarkably successful tactic, and one that is still being used with frequency to this day.

One of the keys to the race-baiting attack has been to take the social malaise that develops in economically depressed communities and attribute that malaise to some in-born defect of the people of the communities themselves. By blaming poor outcomes on genetic and cultural moral lassitude rather than pre-existing economic oppression, it becomes much easier to deny social services to those communities while lower taxes on wealthy white "producers."

Throw in some hippie-punching and a blame campaign waged against the cosmopolitan values of the post-60s to account for everything else wrong with America that can be fixed with economic libertarianism mixed with strict religion-based social controls, and you have the basic political and economic program of the Right. It has been very effective.

But that program is now becoming a victim of its own success. As economic libertarianism has dragged down middle-class wages and benefits, suddenly the social malaise that has long gripped minority communities is starting to make itself felt across the entirety of America, including among working-class whites.    READ MORE

Limbaugh Loses Advertisers After Calling Woman A 'Slut'

Rush Limbaugh

Updated: March 2, 4:37 PM
Rush Limbaugh has found a way to get his name back in the headlines, directing his latest vitriol at Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke, and losing advertisers along the way.

Fluke testified recently at a House hearing on the Obama administration's birth control rule, after she was not allowed to participate in an earlier hearing that featured an all-male panel. Fluke told the story of a fellow law student who needed the birth control pill in order to deal with a medical condition. The friend ended up losing an ovary because she couldn't afford contraception without insurance.

True to form, Limbaugh responded to Fluke's testimony by calling her a "slut" and a "prostitute." And a few of his sponsors aren't happy about it. In the wake of criticism, Sleep Train Mattress Centers is pulling its ads from the radio show. "Thank you for your concern. We are currently pulling all our ads with Rush Limbaugh," the company tweeted....  READ MORE

10 Catholic Teachings Conservatives Reject While Obsessing About Birth Control

Santorum and Gingrich are both Catholics, and wear their faith on their sleeves, but they are hypocritical in picking and choosing when they wish to listen to the bishops.

February 13, 2012

The right wing Republican politicians who have been denouncing the requirement that female employees have access to birth control as part of their health benefits as an attack on religious freedom completely ignore the church teachings they don’t agree with. Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich are both Catholics, and wear their faith on their sleeves, but they are hypocritical in picking and choosing when they wish to listen to the bishops. 

1. So for instance, Pope John Paul II was against anyone going to war against Iraq I think you’ll find that Rick Santorum managed to ignore that Catholic teaching.

2.The Conference of Catholic Bishops requires that health care be provided to all Americans. I.e., Rick Santorum’s opposition to universal health care is a betrayal of the Catholic faith he is always trumpeting. 

3. The Catholic Church opposes the death penalty for criminals in almost all situations. (Santorum largely supports executions.)

4. The US Conference of Bishops has urged that the federal minimum wage be increased, for the working poor. Santorum in the Senate repeatedly voted against the minimum wage.    READ MORE