Politics Plus

Yesterday, the Senate voted 51-49 in favor of bringing the infrastructure portion of Obama’s Jobs bill to the floor.  However, a majority of the Senate was not enough, because Republicans filibustered to obstruct the measure, so America’s crumbling infrastructure will continue to rot and the thousands of Americans, who could have found work repairing it will continue sit idle, unemployed.  Why? Republicans object to a tiny 0.7% (seven tenths of 1%) surtax on income over $1 million.  All the Republicans goose-stepped together in opposition.  Two others joined them.  They were Traitor Joe LIEberman, (ASSHOLE-CT) and Benedict Nelson (DINO-NE).  If either is your Senator, express your outrage, nonviolently of course.

There’s nothing partisan about a road or a bridge or an airport; Democrats and Republicans have voted to spend billions on them for decades and long supported rebuilding plans in their own states. On Thursday, though, when President Obama’s plan to spend $60 billion on infrastructure repairs came up for a vote in the Senate, not a single Republican agreed to break the party’s filibuster.

That’s because the bill would pay for itself with a 0.7 percent surtax on people making more than $1 million. That would affect about 345,000 taxpayers, according to Citizens for Tax Justice, adding an average of $13,457 to their annual tax bills. Protecting that elite group — and hewing to their rigid antitax vows — was more important to Senate Republicans than the thousands of construction jobs the bill would have helped create, or the millions of people who would have used the rebuilt roads, bridges and airports.

Senate Republicans filibustered the president’s full jobs act last month for the same reasons. And they have vowed to block the individual pieces of that bill that Democrats are now bringing to the floor. Senate Democrats have also accused them of opposing any good idea that might put people back to work and rev the economy a bit before next year’s presidential election.

There is no question that the infrastructure bill would be good for the flagging economy — and good for the country’s future development. It would directly spend $50 billion on roads, bridges, airports and mass transit systems, and it would then provide another $10 billion to an infrastructure bank to encourage private-sector investment in big public works projects.

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Republican of Texas, co-sponsored an infrastructure-bank bill in March, and other Republicans have supported similar efforts over the years. But the Republicans’ determination to stick to an antitax pledge clearly trumps even their own good ideas… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

The bottom line is simple.  Republicans place expanding the excess luxury 345,000 millionaires over the desperate need of everyone else.  Ed Schultz calls out the GOP and interviews DCCC Chair, Steve Israel (D-NY).

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There is little else to add except to remind you of this.  Republicans govern exclusively for the benefit  of millionaires, billionaires, and corporate criminals.  They do NOT represent YOU!

One of my criticism’s of Barack Obama is that, although he has critiqued them, he has actually done nothing to oppose the extreme right government of Israel.  To the contrary, he has given Hillary Clinton her head in blocking UN resolutions against Netanyahu’s repression of the Palestinian people in violation of the Oslo Accords.  Most recently, the US withdrew funding for UNESCO, because they voted overwhelmingly to allow Palestine to join that body.  Look at Netanyahu’s gratitude for this support.

The Freedom Federation is set to hold Awakening 2012 in Orlando, Florida, next year, and according to the schedule, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is confirmed to address the right-wing rally via video feed [hate group delinked].

The Freedom Federation includes the country’s leading Religious Right groups: Liberty Counsel, Eagle Forum, Exodus International, Family Research Council, American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, WallBuilders, Vision America, High Impact Leadership Coalition, Traditional Values Coalition, American Values and Americans for Prosperity. The Freedom Federation also includes fringe groups closely associated with the New Apostolic Reformation, including Cindy Jacobs’ Generals International, Lou Engle’s The Call, Rick Joyner’s MorningStar Ministries and Che Ahn’s Harvest International Ministries.

Last year’s Awakening 2011 [Hate group delinked] at Liberty University’s Thomas Road Baptist Church featured speeches from leading Republicans including Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Mike Huckabee, as well as talks from far-right extremists like Janet Porter, Ryan Sorba, Greg Quinlan, Matt Barber, Rick Joyner, Rick Scarborough, Judith Reisman and Frank Gaffney, among others.

Confirmed speakers for Awakening 2012 already include Liberty Counsel’s Staver, who said that Obama made the U.S. “one of the world’s immoral leaders” for opposing the criminalization of homosexuality; LC’s Barber, who has called President Obama “anti-God”; Engle, who used one of his The Call prayer rallies to defend Uganda’s “kill the gays” bill; Quinlan, the prominent ex-gay leader; John Stemberger, a Florida anti-gay and anti-Muslim activist; and Gaffney, the conspiracy theorist who has claimed that Obama is a secret Muslim… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Right Wing Watch>

I don’t think I’ve ever embedded a segment with so many links before, making it a virtual Who’s Who directory of Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christian hate groups and hate mongers.  And these groups have one thing in common.  They all hate Barack Obama and express it regularly.

For Netanyahu to take part in such an event after all the money and political cover he has received from this administration, albeit to my great dismay, is a slap in the face, a diplomatic insult of most extreme proportion.

The Obama administration should respond by ending military support and diplomatic cover for Israel as long as this criminal is in office there.

In the early days of the Obama Administration, Obama said he supported a financial transactions tax, sometimes called a Robin Hood tax,  of 0.05% (1/20 of 1%) on large transactions only.  The idea never made it past the three blind mice (Geithner, Bernanke, and Summers).  The idea is still excellent, because it encourages investment, rather than speculation, in addition to providing a revenue stream directly from those individuals most responsible for the Republican Recession.  Today 99% demonstrators will occupy the Treasury to demand that this tax be adopted.

More than 1,500 nurses from National Nurses United, plus members of AFL-CIO and Occupy Wall Street protesters, will march on the White House and the Treasury tomorrow to push for a tax on Wall Street.

The march will “press President Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to support a meaningful tax on Wall Street financial to help heal the U.S. and join the growing global movement for a financial transaction tax,” according to a release…

Inserted from <Politico>

This short video explains the Robin Hood tax in terms even a child could understand.

Now if only a Republican could understand it.

Author and Journalist, Ron Suskind, is one of the premier authorities on this tax.  Rachel Maddow interviewed him.

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Suskind’s criticism of Obama is justified.  Abandoning his own pre-election financial advisors and adopting Clinton’s may be the worst error of his Presidency.  He needs to sack Timmy the Tool, and bring in advisers like Robert Reich and Paul Krugman.  This Robin Hood tax is a perfect opportunity to put Republicans on front street by supporting the 99% on this, but his feet need to follow his mouth.

I fully support the demonstrators and encourage all who can to join them.