Monday, June 15, 2015

FOLLOW UP ON TRADE DEAL

Firstly, my bad feelings about the Trade Deals trying to wriggle through congress last week were made real when Nancy Pelosi bravely stepped into the well of the House and declared that she too had bad feelings about the deals ! The subsequent vote shot down the secret little entities in the bills that our President and the Republicans claimed were "good for the country." In the case of the Republicans, use of that phrase "good for the country" usually means "good for the corporations and Wall Street bankers." In the Presidents case we are unsure what he wants !

I now lead you to a link that says a lot about what the confusions are :
 
My truth is still this, we need FAIR Trade, not FREE Trade !
I hope you can get unconfused,
ED

Friday, June 12, 2015

TRADE BILLS ARE A DISASTER WAITING TO HAPPEN

This will be disastrous for the nation, millions will lose their insurance, costs will go up, Doctors will be forced to close their practices, there will be death panels that decide when you should die, hospitals across the country will declare bankruptcy and close, poor people and the elderly will not be able to find a Doctor ------------ Oh wait, that was about the Affordable Care Act six years ago !

Now on the right train of thought, the Trade bills working through Congress this week, with a final series of votes expected today, are garnering strong arguments on both sides. It is extremely difficult for the common man ( me ) to figure out the end result of these bills, ( which are secret by the way ). I do believe as I have stated many times that the term FREE TRADE is a terrible thing for the workers of the United States. The only way we can compete as a country is to establish with other countries a policy of FAIR TRADE !

Until we address the problems of product dumping ( see CHINA, steel and drywall ) , currency manipulation ( various countries ) , slave labor ( see Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia ) , low wages ( practically every country ), FREE TRADE IS NOT FREE !

My call is for FAIR TRADE,
ED

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

MEDICARE FUNDS TO BE TRADED FOR TRADE

Labor unions and senior citizens' groups are launching efforts to lobby House members against a bill that includes $700 million in proposed cuts to Medicare reimbursements for doctors and hospitals. The cuts would be used to fund a $2.5 billion extension of Trade Adjustment Assistance funding, which aids workers who lose their jobs as a result of trade deals.

Only Republicans could come up with an idea like this !
I'll have to cogitate on this whole Trade Adjustment Assistance thing. Right now it appears that an assumption is made that the Trade deal is so good for the American people that some people will lose their jobs. 

I can't make up anything more bizarre!
ED

Friday, May 15, 2015

RARE REPUBLICAN REALITIES

 " From Robert Reich comes this gem of a paragraph !

( referencing the likelihood of a new Congressional Budget )

 "In this as in other domains of public policy, Republicans have not shown a particular affinity for facts.

Climate change? It's not happening, they say. And even if it is happening, humans aren't responsible. (Almost all scientists studying the issue find it's occurring and humans are the major cause.)

Widening inequality? Not occurring, they say. Even though the data show otherwise, they claim the measurements are wrong.

Voting fraud? Happening all over the country, they say, which is why voter IDs and other limits on voting are necessary. Even though there's no evidence to back up their claim (the best evidence shows no more than 31 credible incidents of fraud out of a billion ballots cast), they continue to assert it. 

Evolution? Just a theory, they say. Even though all reputable scientists support it, many Republicans at the state level say it shouldn't be taught without also presenting the view found in the Bible.

Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? America's use of torture? The George W. Bush administration and its allies in Congress weren't overly interested in the facts.

The pattern seems to be: if you don't like the facts, make them up.

Or have your benefactors finance "think tanks" filled with hired guns who will tell the public what you and your patrons want them to say.

If all else fails, fire your own experts who tell the truth, and replace them with people who will pronounce falsehoods. "

There's one big problem with this strategy, though. Legislation based on lies often causes the public to be harmed. "

I cannot say it much better. Oh hell, I cannot come close,

ED

RUBIO RUES THE VOTE, LOVES THE GUNS

MORE THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW

NASTY STATEMENTS
Ultra-conservative dog whistler Ann Coulter once said on a talk show, " Our party has blacks too, but our blacks are better than their blacks."

On another talk show, Ann Coulter remarked " As Christians we love the Jews, we just want them to be perfected."

CHINESE DUMPED STEEL
"Dumped and subsidized imported steel from China has tripled from 750,000 tons in 2006 to 2.2 million tons in 2008 and have continued increasing in the first quarter 2009," said Rob Simon, vice president and general manager of Evraz Inc.'s Evraz Rocky Mountain Steel, Pueblo, Colo.  "These imports significantly undersold U.S. producers and have created a huge inventory buildup in the U.S. market."

DRUGGED DRIVING STATISTICS IN COLORADO

In 2012, the Colorado Department of Human Services collected 23,519 drug and alcohol evaluations. Of the total evaluations, 1,045, or nearly 5 percent, involved marijuana.  Also in 2012, there were 87 fatalities involving a drugged driver, and 35 of the 286 drivers tested for drugs had cannabis only in their system. Click here for more drugged driving statistics.

In the Columbus Dispatch April 15th, 2015, a letter to the editor complained of 650 DUI citations involving marijuana in Colorado in 2014. 

In other words the incidence of DUI citations has gone DOWN since the legalization of marijuana in Colorado !


Tuesday, May 12, 2015

THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW


President Obama's first job was with a Catholic Church Social Justice Organization.

Second Lady Dr. Jill Biden is the only Second Lady in history to have a paying job while serving the country.

There is no such thing as an " Obamaphone " The phones are sponsored by the telephone industry and subsidized by the Federal Government. The program actually started in 1996.

The highest concentration of people in Welfare Dependency are in Republican led States, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, New Mexico, Maine, Montana, Tennessee, W. Virginia, S. Dakota, . . . Take note, 8 of the above states are RED states, and 1, Maine is purple

Contrary to Republican anti-minimum wage talking points the fast food industry is not mostly teenagers working after school !
According  to the National Employment Law Project, the average age of fast-food workers is 29. Forty percent are 25 or older, 31 percent have at least attempted college; more than 26 percent are parents raising children. Union organizers say that one-third to one-half of them have more than one
job.

Facts are facts,
ED