I grew up reading comic books wanting to be a superhero. Comics taught me that those who speak the truth are heroes, all the rest are liars.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Mix and Match Wednesday

Slash and Burn the Middle Class and Poor, and Oh Yeah, Lie about it! The MN GOP know their budget is not good news for Minnesota communities, cities and citzens...so they decided to use fantasy numbers...as if the truth won't come out eventually.

Come on GOPers, let Minnesotans know based on real numbers what to expect with your budget instead of using the 'good ole boy' numbers taken from lobbyist that stand to gain from our pain.


On Monday the Minnesota Department of Revenue let Republican House Taxes Chair Greg Davids know his omnibus tax package would raise property taxes for homeowners and businesses across the state while making the tax system more regressive.


In other words, thier budget would make families feel more tax and fee pain while those making over $100,000 a year would receive tax breaks. In their own words: "...reductions for the wealthiest Minnesotans are substantially greater than for average Minnesotans" In the GOP alternate universe, the poor, seniors, minorities, women, and children are continually given the shaft while the weathly are treated as VIPs?


It's shouldn't come as a surprise that currently the corporate tax rates is at an astonishing high of negative 62.7%! How's that working out? Are you paying less taxes since businesses are paying none? When the GOP talks about 'shared sacrifice', they really means just among other Americans and not the wealthy and corporations.


More Minnesota Clowns Join The Circus! First it was MN Rep. John Kline supporting Pawlenty's run for the White House, and now Norm Coleman has jumped on the circus bandwagon...wonder what Michele 'Batcrazy' Bachmann is thinking? Even her ex-Chief of Staff is support Pawlenty! Bawhaaaaaaaa, I'm sure it's nothing personal.



Monday, March 14, 2011

Random Thoughts On The GOP MN Budget

Education: In the old days they would burn books, now they just cut education funding. In Minnesota the GOP are proposing to cut $411 million from higher education funding. In effect, they are burning books. Shorted sighted, ignorant and opportunistic comes to mind...guess they want our children to be like them!

Health care: Gallup reports today on which states have the highest and lowest rates of residents without health care coverage. Minnesota is ranked as the third best state in the country for the lowest rates of uninsured. But if we enact the GOP cuts, look for Minnesota to topple into the bottom states...sigh...

1. Massachusetts, 4.7% uninsured
2. Connecticut, 9.9% uninsured
3. Minnesota, 10.5% uninsured
4. Hawaii, 10.6% uninsured
5. Pennsylvania, 11% uninsured
5. Vermont, 11% uninsured

Energy: Not saying we should necessarily label all nuclear power as bad...but what's going on in Japan should all give us (including the MN Reps!) pause to rethinking and evaluate the risks and costs. We need to free ourselves from dependency on foreign oil, but from the pan to the radioactive stove won't help. As Spidey says 'With great power, comes great responsibility'. BTW this is a great link on information regarding the crisis in Fukushima.

Thank goodness for Governor Dayton...

Monday, March 07, 2011

Rep. Wardlow Calls for Moral Gobbledygook Crapola

There's something immoral about Rep. Doug Wardlow (R-SD38) not wanting to pay taxes while receiving a salary from those same government taxes as a Minnesota Representative from Eagan. And something is really wrong when Doug Wardlow goes out of his way to imply that government providing for the poor, sick, seniors, children, veterans denies the opportunities for churches and neighbors to help them....How's that moral gobbledygook worked so far?



Brian Rusche of the Joint Religious Legislative Council does a good job of fielding Wardlow's leading questions. Doug Wardlow is trying to imply some kind immoral behavior if the Government helps it's own citizens. Wardlow wants the religious community to agree with his flawed logic that creating more poor for the wealthy to have an opportunity to help them is better than paying taxes.

Just another outrageous spin of nonsense... if Doug Wardlow was serious than he'd be advocating fair taxation across economic groups instead of having the middle class and poor disproportionately pay more than the wealthy and corporations. Based on Doug's moral logic...he would have taken issue with Jesus feeding the multitude and also sided with the temple money changers. Shame on him for evoking moral crapola.



Friday, March 04, 2011

When Things Don't Add Up....

When things don't add up, I do the math....and while I've always had a knack for math... apparently others find it more challenging...

The Prince of Mythical Statistics

Minnesota Ex-Governor Tim Pawlenty told Fox network
"You have public employees making more than their private-sector counterparts. They used to be under-benefited and underpaid. Now they're both over-benefited and overpaid...it needs to stop."

I'm just guessing that Timmy got confused among other things by the percentages as a report from the Labor and Employment Relations points out:

"on average, state and local government workers are compensated 3.75% less than workers in the private sector."

Professor Jeffrey Keefe of Rutgers University revealed that public employees are under compensated compared to similarly skilled private sector counterparts. This study joins numerous other studies with the same finding. But really it's like arguing about the volume of water in a raindrop during a deluge when the average CEO gets 200 times more pay than a general employee as well as 8 million in benefits...a year.

Dumber Than A Bobblehead

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) tells us she's a conservative who wants to cut wasteful federal spending (who doesn't?)...so why is she proposing legislation for a $700 million four-lane highway bridge over the St. Croix River that more closely resembles the boondoggle Palin 'Bridge to Nowhere'? Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) is calling it 'fiscally irresponsible' and is supporting a more appropriately scaled and designed bridge for the scenic qualities of the crossing.


Pretzel Logic Not

Bill O'Reilly discounts poll showing support for unions, since according to his logic...union workers shouldn't be counted in polls. I guess he missed class the day they went over random statistical sampling...(Crooks and Liars)

According to a new CBS poll, 37 percent of Americans favor cutting pay or benefits for public union employees, but 56 percent oppose that. The New York Times headline on Tuesday was: "Majority in Poll Back Employees in Public Sector." But the poll is misleading because 20 percent of the respondents say they are from union households. If you subtract them, those who favor cutting benefits win the poll.

Zero, Nada, Zitch, '0'

Whenever I participate in constitutionally protected right as an American citizen to peaceful protest, enviably some idiot will yell at me to "get a job". That same guy shouting for me to get a job, also voted for the current crop of GOP politicos to create jobs....sigh...did I mention that he's an idiot! So here's the the deal...
I have a job, fulltime... which is a good thing because the newly elected GOP while making ideology changes regarding who I can and can't marry, what ID I need to vote and show citizanship, and raising fees to cover the tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations....haven't done squat to date in creating any jobs....



Enjoy the weekend before more snow hits...



Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Leave No Teacher Employed

Low pay, long hours, dwindling resources, constant threats of layoffs and defunding, lowering standards for teaching (alternative licensing), attacks from parents, elected officials, school boards, labeled the 'villain du jour' of education ...Are there incentive for teaching today?

Given the current all out assault on the public school system and teachers especially... there will be teacher shortages. Who hasn't gotten the message that being a teacher is a bad and lowly career choice? The media, elected officials, special interests and general public have all attacked teachers for poor performances, missed marks, failed grades, and labeled them as 'bad apples' wasting taxpayers money.

We've ask teachers to be beholden to test scores, and abandon significant curricular content, after all ...the only resulting value to their jobs and salaries is testing outcomes. Then wonder why our kids can't compete in today's market place beyond passing a standard test. The average starting pay for a licensed teacher with a four-year degree barely covers the cost of their student loans now at $31,532 a year. How much less can they be paid and still call it a profession?

Even teaching resources have been removed with students having to SHARE textbooks! Several years ago my daughter attended a Eagan elementary school with Minnesota Ex-Governor Tim Pawlenty's daughter...and they had to share a textbook due to insignificant funding. Imagine what goes on in poor school districts!

Just as we tell victims in abusive relationships to leave, so will teachers... As Dylan said "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"...and it blows cold for teaching careers in the future. Public education attacks have ratcheted up in the media to dimensions that are unthinkable and have brought disrespect for teachers on par with the FBI's top ten fugitive's...yeah there will be teacher shortages in the future...Currently one out of every three new teachers leaves the profession within five years....but if you want to know the real cause just go look in the mirror.

The causes are the same ones that affect all professions in our communities.... rising poverty, homelessness, vanishing public services for the disadvantaged, widespread unemployment, massive inequality in wealth and income, overcrowded classrooms and a bankrupt system of public school financing disappearing in favor of private education affordable only for super rich. Go ahead...get rid of all the smoke being blown up your arses look in the g*ddamm mirror!