Day: July 17, 2012

The Republican Attack On “Chicago Politics”: Pitiful And Ridiculous!

The Republican Party is reacting to attacks on Mitt Romney and his refusal to release tax returns, with the accusation that this is old style “Chicago politics”, because Barack Obama comes out of the Illinois political system.

Give me a break, as if only in Chicago, has politics been seen as manipulative and corrupt!

What about New Jersey politics; West Virginia politics; Texas politics; Ohio politics; New York politics; Pennsylvania politics; Georgia politics; Florida politics; Louisiana politics; Missouri politics; Oklahoma politics; Los Angeles politics; California politics; Nevada politics; Arizona politics; Alaska politics; Washington DC politics; and NATIONAL politics, and the list goes on!

The story of American politics is the story of corruption, manipulation, deceit, unfair attacks, character assassination, etc, including some people going to prison for corruption!

This is the big time, Mitt Romney and the Republican Party!

You used dirty tactics against George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry and many other Democrats!

You have also been brutal in your attacks on Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama, as well as Hillary Clinton and other Democrats.

You have been involved in corruption big time with your SuperPACS already this year, refusing to support DISCLOSE legislation yesterday in the US Senate, to allow Americans to know how much money wealthy people are contributing to Mitt Romney!

You are NOT interested in “good government’! You are interested in wishing to dish out attacks, but cannot tolerate attacks by the Democrats!

But there is some news for you! Democrats, including Barack Obama and Joe Biden, are no longer going to allow themselves to be attacked and play defense!

The Democrats will be on the offensive, and give back in kind what you have been doing for many years with a poor response by Democrats!

We are finally using the tactics of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Lyndon Johnson, giving the Republican Party and its candidates “Hell”, and rightfully without apology! This has been LONG overdue!

Should Disgraced Politicians “Come Back”?The Cases Of Anthony Weiner And Eliot Spitzer And The New York Mayoralty In 2013

The political world is abuzz with rumors that former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner is thinking of running for Mayor of New York City in 2013, to succeed Mayor Michael Bloomberg!

There has also been discussion of the possibility of former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer running for Mayor as well.

Both New York politicians resigned after sex scandals, which would ordinarily destroy their future careers, but at least Spitzer has been a host of news shows on CNN and now the CURRENT channel, and has come across very well as a political commentator.

One could argue that after such scandals and disgrace, that these and others, including former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, the 2004 Democratic Vice Presidential nominee, should just go into the woodwork and never re-emerge again!

And yet, Louisiana Republican Senator David Vitter survived a sex scandal, never resigned, and was reelected to the Senate!

So the best answer is that anyone has a right to run for public office, and the scandals will reflect on their character, but ultimately, IF the American people want a former disgraced politician to run and win, that is their right, and none of us should condemn such action by the candidates, or by the people who choose to support them!

The Scranton, Pennsylvania Financial Disaster: What It Means!

Scranton, Pennsylvania, the home city of Vice President Joe Biden, has reached the absolute bottom fiscally, unable to pay its city workers a living wage, and breaking all wage agreements in the process.

We are talking about a Democratic Mayor unable to get the City Council to agree to tax increases on residents, in order to pay a living wage to police officers and fire fighters, as well as other city workers.

So police officers and fire fighters, who protect and serve the residents of Scranton, are being told they will now be paid the minimum wage, $7.25 an hour, to do their crucial jobs!

These courageous city workers are supposed to be able to pay their mortgages or rents; take care of their children’s needs; and plan for a future being paid what they might have been paid when they were in high school or started their first job after graduation!

The citizens of Scranton need to look in the mirror! Do they wish police protection and fire fighting expertise, or do they not?

YES, times are tough, but any sane person will realize that if taxes have to go up, so be it, as everyone tightens the belt, but we have lost our whole purpose as a society if we are telling police officers and fire fighters, as well as other public workers, that we have so little respect and honor for their sacrifice, as to insult them by expecting them to accept the minimum wage for a job that deserves proper pay and benefits!

The City Council and Mayor should be paid the minimum wage as well, and see what it is like to live on it!

And despite the reality that, short term, these workers will have to accept this horrible situation in order to keep their jobs, if this continues more than a few weeks, many will simply quit and move, as there is no way one can sustain himself or herself on the minimum wage when bringing up a family, and sacrificing their safety every day, to do their job, one they knew would never enrich them, but never dreamed that they would be so disrespected that they would told to take a pay cut, averaging 66 percent!

This is a crisis all of America is going to face if we allow the Republican philosophy of “starving” public services to continue to prevail, all to avoid making those who have more to pay more!

Conservatives Question Why Mitt Romney Refuses To Release Tax Returns: What Does He Have To Hide?

Mitt Romney is rapidly destroying any chance that he will be elected President by his refusal to release multiple years of his tax returns, which has become a common expectation for Presidential candidates.

It is not just Democrats or liberals and progressives who are demanding such information be provided, but also conservatives who hint that Romney MUST have something to hide!

This includes conservative pundits George Will and Bill Kristol; former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour; Alabama Governor Robert Bentley; former Republican National Chairman Michael Steele; and Republican strategist Michael Dowd.

Dowd called what Romney is doing as simple arrogance, a word that keeps on describing Romney, who seems to feel that he is “entitled” to tax breaks for a racing horse, and loves to brag that he has paid everything in taxes he has to, and not one penny more, as if it would be unpatriotic to avoid manipulating the tax law with accountants, as rich people tend to do with relish!

As Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, former top adviser to Barack Obama said, the fact that John McCain saw 23 years of Romney tax returns and financial information, and chose to select Sarah Palin instead in 2008, is testimony as to time bombs ticking in his campaign, whether he ultimately releases the tax returns or not!