This blog will focus on political images I have found all around the Internet, though I will intersperse some commentary and quotes that I find interesting.
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
This week in the war on workers: Walmart loses $54 million wage theft lawsuit
By Laura Clawson
Saturday Nov 26, 2016 · 6:55 PM EST
Let’s call this what it is: theft.
Wal-Mart intentionally failed to pay hundreds of truck drivers in California the minimum wage for duties such as inspecting and washing their vehicles, a federal jury decided Wednesday, awarding the workers more than $54 million in damages and opening up the retail giant to additional penalties.
Seven jurors returned the verdict in a lawsuit that also accused the company of not properly paying drivers for layovers. Wal-Mart argued that truckers are paid for activities that include maintenance tasks and that they are not working during layovers.
That’s a lot of money, and while it’s great that the truck drivers will (maybe, eventually, after appeals) get their money, Walmart should pay a bigger price than paying what it should have to begin with.
Read more
Republicans now control every Southern state legislature for the first time in American history
Rss@dailykos.com (stephen Wolf) · Saturday, November 26, 2016, 11:05 am
After the Civil War, federal troops occupied the defeated South and helped enforce civil rights laws, enabling Republicans to win power in many Southern states thanks to the overwhelming votes of newly enfranchised black men. While they controlled many former rebel states during Reconstruction, other Southern states like Kentucky that hadn’t seceded stubbornly resisted the Republican Party. After Reconstruction ended and those troops withdrew, white-supremacist reactionary Democrats retook power in nearly every Southern state, and even the modern pro-civil rights party held every Southern state legislative chamber as recently as 1992.
While the two parties’ voter coalitions and their positions on civil rights have changed massively in the last century and a half, one thing remained constant: Republicans had never held every Southern legislature at once. That streak ended in 2016, when Republicans won control over the Kentucky state House for the first election since 1920, giving them control of both chambers at once there for the first time in state history. Democrats had lost power in Kentucky during part of the Civil War, when pro-Confederate forces tried to form a rival secessionist government, but it was to the Unionists instead of the Republicans.
With Kentucky, Republicans now control both legislative chambers in every Southern state, roughly those that span from the Virginias to Texas. Although the Census Bureau still defines the Democratic-controlled ex-slave states of Delaware and Maryland as Southern, their cultural affinities have drifted much closer to the Northeast in the post-World War II era. Donald Trump won all of these Southern states except Virginia, while Republicans have also aggressively gerrymandered the vast majority of their state legislatures. However, Kentucky’s lower chamber was a rare Democratic-drawn map, helping the party cling to power until 2016.
Read more
Top 10 Reasons School Choice is No Choice
January 27, 2016 stevenmsinger
On the surface of it, school choice sounds like a great idea.
Parents will get to shop for schools and pick the one that best suits their children.
Oh! Look, Honey! This one has an exceptional music program! That one excels in math and science! The drama program at this one is first in the state!
But that’s not at all what school choice actually is.
In reality, it’s just a scam to make private schools cheaper for rich people, further erode the public school system and allow for-profit corporations to gobble up education dollars meant to help children succeed.
Here’s why:
1) Voucher programs almost never provide students with full tuition.
Voucher programs are all the rage especially among conservatives. Legislation has been proposed throughout the country taking a portion of tax dollars that would normally go to a public school and allowing parents to put it toward tuition at a private or parochial school. However, the cost of going to these schools is much higher than going to public schools. So even with your tax dollars in hand, you don’t have the money to go to these schools. For the majority of impoverished students attending public schools, vouchers don’t help. Parents still have to find more money somewhere to make this happen. Poor folks just can’t afford it. But rich folks can so let’s reduce their bill!? They thank you for letting them buy another Ferrari with money that should have gone to give poor and middle class kids get an education.
2) Charter and voucher schools don’t have to accept everyone
When you choose to go to one of these schools, they don’t have to choose to accept you. In fact, the choice is really all up to them. Does your child make good grades? Is he or she well-behaved, in the special education program, learning disabled, etc.? If they don’t like your answers, they won’t accept you. They have all the power. It has nothing to do with providing a good education for your child. It’s all about whether your child will make them look good. By contrast, public schools take everyone and often achieve amazing results with the resources they have.
3) Charter Schools are notorious for kicking out hard to teach students
Charter schools like to tout how well they help kids learn. But they also like to brag that they accept diverse students. So they end up accepting lots of children with special needs at the beginning of the year and then giving them the boot before standardized test season. That way, these students’ low scores won’t count against the charter school’s record. They can keep bragging about their high test scores without actually having to expend all the time and energy of actually teaching difficult students. Only public schools take everyone and give everyone their all.
4) Voucher and charter schools actually give parents less choice than traditional public schools
Public schools are governed by different rules than charter and voucher schools. Most public schools are run by a school board made up of duly-elected members from the community. The school board is accountable to that community. Residents have the right to be present at votes and debates, have a right to access public documents about how tax money is being spent, etc. None of this is true at most charter or voucher schools. They are run by executive boards or committees that are not accountable to parents. If you don’t like what your public school is doing, you can organize, vote for new leadership or even take a leadership role, yourself. If you don’t like what your charter or voucher school is doing, your only choice is to withdraw your child. See ya.
5) Charter Schools do no better and often much worse than traditional public schools
Pundits and profiteers love to spout euphoric about how well charter schools teach kids. But there is zero evidence behind it. That is nothing but a marketing ploy. It’s like when you’re in a bad neighborhood and walk past a dive that claims to have the best cup of coffee in the city. Yuck. Surely, some charter schools do exceptionally well. However, most charters and almost all cyber charters do worse than their public school counterparts. Fact.
6) Charters and voucher schools increase segregation
Since the 1950s and ’60s, we used to understand there was no such thing as separate but equal education. Before then we had Cadillac schools for white kids and broken down schools for black kids. The Supreme Court ruled that unconstitutional. But today we have Cadillac schools for rich and middle class kids (most of whom are white) and broken down schools for the poor (most of whom are black or brown.) After making tremendous strides to integrate schools and provide an excellent education for everyone, our public schools have been resegregated. Charter and voucher schools only make this problem worse. They either aid in white flight or leach away minority students. This just makes it easier to give some kids a leg up while keeping others down.
7) Charter and voucher schools take away funding at traditional public schools
It costs almost the same amount of money to run a school building of a given size regardless of the number of kids in it. When students leave the public schools for charter or voucher schools, the public school looses valuable resources. It now has less revenue but the same overhead. So even if you found an excellent charter or voucher school to send your child, you would be hurting the chances of every other student in the public school of having their own excellent education. This is what happens when you make schools compete for resources. Someone ends up losing out on an education.
8) Properly funding parallel school systems would be incredibly wasteful and expensive
We could fix this problem by providing adequate funding for all levels of the school system – traditional public schools, charters, voucher schools, etc. However, this would be exorbitantly expensive. We don’t adequately fund our schools now. Adding additional layers like this would mean increasing national spending exponentially – maybe by three or four times the current level. And much of that money would go to waste. Why have three fully stocked school buildings in one community when one fully stocked building would do the job? I don’t imagine residents would relish the tax hike this would require.
9) School choice takes away attention from the real problems in our public schools – poverty and funding equity
We have real problems. More than half of public school students live below the poverty line. They are already several grade levels behind their non-impoverished peers before they even enter kindergarten. They need help – tutoring, counseling, wraparound services, nutrition, etc. The predicament is even more complicated by the way we fund our schools. Throughout the country, poor districts get less money than wealthy or middle class ones. The students who go to these schools are systematically being cheated out of resources and opportunities. And instead of helping them, we’re playing a shell game with charter and voucher schools. The problem isn’t that parents don’t have several excellent choices. If they’re poor, they often don’t have one.
10) School choice is not supported by a grass roots movement. It is supported by billionaires.
The proponents of school choice will tell you that they are only doing the will of the people. This is what parents want, they say. Baloney. While there are individuals who support school choice, the overwhelming majority of money behind this movement comes from conservative billionaires actively trying to dismantle the public education system. They want to steal the public system and replace it with a private one. They don’t care about your child. They just want to steal the hundreds of billions of tax dollars we pay to educate our children. This is not philanthropy. It is a business transaction meant to screw you and your child out of your rights.
If we really want to ensure every child in this country gets an excellent education, the answer isn’t school choice. Instead, we need to commit to supporting our public school system. We all need to be in this together. Yes, our schools should look at the needs of each child and tailor education to fit appropriately. But that shouldn’t be done in parallel school systems. It should be done under the same umbrella. That way, you can’t defund and defraud one without hurting all. It can’t just be about your child. It has to be about all children.
That’s the only choice worth making.
NOTE: This article was given a shout out on Diane Ravitch’s blog and published on the Badass Teachers Association blog.
Read more
https://gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/27/top-10-reasons-school-choice-is-no-choice/
On the surface of it, school choice sounds like a great idea.
Parents will get to shop for schools and pick the one that best suits their children.
Oh! Look, Honey! This one has an exceptional music program! That one excels in math and science! The drama program at this one is first in the state!
But that’s not at all what school choice actually is.
In reality, it’s just a scam to make private schools cheaper for rich people, further erode the public school system and allow for-profit corporations to gobble up education dollars meant to help children succeed.
Here’s why:
1) Voucher programs almost never provide students with full tuition.
Voucher programs are all the rage especially among conservatives. Legislation has been proposed throughout the country taking a portion of tax dollars that would normally go to a public school and allowing parents to put it toward tuition at a private or parochial school. However, the cost of going to these schools is much higher than going to public schools. So even with your tax dollars in hand, you don’t have the money to go to these schools. For the majority of impoverished students attending public schools, vouchers don’t help. Parents still have to find more money somewhere to make this happen. Poor folks just can’t afford it. But rich folks can so let’s reduce their bill!? They thank you for letting them buy another Ferrari with money that should have gone to give poor and middle class kids get an education.
2) Charter and voucher schools don’t have to accept everyone
When you choose to go to one of these schools, they don’t have to choose to accept you. In fact, the choice is really all up to them. Does your child make good grades? Is he or she well-behaved, in the special education program, learning disabled, etc.? If they don’t like your answers, they won’t accept you. They have all the power. It has nothing to do with providing a good education for your child. It’s all about whether your child will make them look good. By contrast, public schools take everyone and often achieve amazing results with the resources they have.
3) Charter Schools are notorious for kicking out hard to teach students
Charter schools like to tout how well they help kids learn. But they also like to brag that they accept diverse students. So they end up accepting lots of children with special needs at the beginning of the year and then giving them the boot before standardized test season. That way, these students’ low scores won’t count against the charter school’s record. They can keep bragging about their high test scores without actually having to expend all the time and energy of actually teaching difficult students. Only public schools take everyone and give everyone their all.
4) Voucher and charter schools actually give parents less choice than traditional public schools
Public schools are governed by different rules than charter and voucher schools. Most public schools are run by a school board made up of duly-elected members from the community. The school board is accountable to that community. Residents have the right to be present at votes and debates, have a right to access public documents about how tax money is being spent, etc. None of this is true at most charter or voucher schools. They are run by executive boards or committees that are not accountable to parents. If you don’t like what your public school is doing, you can organize, vote for new leadership or even take a leadership role, yourself. If you don’t like what your charter or voucher school is doing, your only choice is to withdraw your child. See ya.
5) Charter Schools do no better and often much worse than traditional public schools
Pundits and profiteers love to spout euphoric about how well charter schools teach kids. But there is zero evidence behind it. That is nothing but a marketing ploy. It’s like when you’re in a bad neighborhood and walk past a dive that claims to have the best cup of coffee in the city. Yuck. Surely, some charter schools do exceptionally well. However, most charters and almost all cyber charters do worse than their public school counterparts. Fact.
6) Charters and voucher schools increase segregation
Since the 1950s and ’60s, we used to understand there was no such thing as separate but equal education. Before then we had Cadillac schools for white kids and broken down schools for black kids. The Supreme Court ruled that unconstitutional. But today we have Cadillac schools for rich and middle class kids (most of whom are white) and broken down schools for the poor (most of whom are black or brown.) After making tremendous strides to integrate schools and provide an excellent education for everyone, our public schools have been resegregated. Charter and voucher schools only make this problem worse. They either aid in white flight or leach away minority students. This just makes it easier to give some kids a leg up while keeping others down.
7) Charter and voucher schools take away funding at traditional public schools
It costs almost the same amount of money to run a school building of a given size regardless of the number of kids in it. When students leave the public schools for charter or voucher schools, the public school looses valuable resources. It now has less revenue but the same overhead. So even if you found an excellent charter or voucher school to send your child, you would be hurting the chances of every other student in the public school of having their own excellent education. This is what happens when you make schools compete for resources. Someone ends up losing out on an education.
8) Properly funding parallel school systems would be incredibly wasteful and expensive
We could fix this problem by providing adequate funding for all levels of the school system – traditional public schools, charters, voucher schools, etc. However, this would be exorbitantly expensive. We don’t adequately fund our schools now. Adding additional layers like this would mean increasing national spending exponentially – maybe by three or four times the current level. And much of that money would go to waste. Why have three fully stocked school buildings in one community when one fully stocked building would do the job? I don’t imagine residents would relish the tax hike this would require.
9) School choice takes away attention from the real problems in our public schools – poverty and funding equity
We have real problems. More than half of public school students live below the poverty line. They are already several grade levels behind their non-impoverished peers before they even enter kindergarten. They need help – tutoring, counseling, wraparound services, nutrition, etc. The predicament is even more complicated by the way we fund our schools. Throughout the country, poor districts get less money than wealthy or middle class ones. The students who go to these schools are systematically being cheated out of resources and opportunities. And instead of helping them, we’re playing a shell game with charter and voucher schools. The problem isn’t that parents don’t have several excellent choices. If they’re poor, they often don’t have one.
10) School choice is not supported by a grass roots movement. It is supported by billionaires.
The proponents of school choice will tell you that they are only doing the will of the people. This is what parents want, they say. Baloney. While there are individuals who support school choice, the overwhelming majority of money behind this movement comes from conservative billionaires actively trying to dismantle the public education system. They want to steal the public system and replace it with a private one. They don’t care about your child. They just want to steal the hundreds of billions of tax dollars we pay to educate our children. This is not philanthropy. It is a business transaction meant to screw you and your child out of your rights.
If we really want to ensure every child in this country gets an excellent education, the answer isn’t school choice. Instead, we need to commit to supporting our public school system. We all need to be in this together. Yes, our schools should look at the needs of each child and tailor education to fit appropriately. But that shouldn’t be done in parallel school systems. It should be done under the same umbrella. That way, you can’t defund and defraud one without hurting all. It can’t just be about your child. It has to be about all children.
That’s the only choice worth making.
NOTE: This article was given a shout out on Diane Ravitch’s blog and published on the Badass Teachers Association blog.
Read more
https://gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/27/top-10-reasons-school-choice-is-no-choice/
A League Of Right-Wing Leaders Grows Under Trump’s Lead
[We're fucked. ---Bozo]
November 26, 2016 Carolina Chávez
It almost seems as if a league of far right-wing leaders is being created across the world with president-elect Donald Trump as the leader. In reality, far-right figureheads have been emboldened by Trump’s victory in the presidential election.
Controversial Hungarian leader and Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, said in an interview with the newspaper Vilaggazdasag that President-elect rump has invited him to visit Washington (although no date was specified) during a telephone conversation. As reported by Reuters, Orbán said:
PM Orbán has been in power in Hungary since 2010, and ever since he frequently clashed with senior U.S. officials, including Hilary Clinton as U.S. Secretary of State, who believes his reforms and ideas undermine democratic ideals in the European country. In October this year, as a result of the flow of Syrian and Iraqi refugees fleeing the war, Orbán tried to win a referendum to ban Hungary from taking a EU quota of refugees; which fortunately he lost. He is also known for his strong stance against migrants and Islam. Last year, he was behind a series of fences built along the southern borders of the country, aimed at halting the flow of migrants. These proposals and ideas from Orbán raised tensions between the U.S. and Hungary for some time. In fact, during the same telephone call between the president-elect and the Hungarian PM, Orbán expounded upon his country’s relationship with the United States:
Since the beginning of his presidential campaign, Orbán was the first European leader, even among the right-wing ones, who expressed preference for Trump and praised his immigration and security proposals, while referring to a possible victory from Clinton as a bad option for Hungary, and generally speaking for all Europe. As told by The Independent, the Hungarian right-wing leader believes the U.S will have with Trump a president who is “not ideologically restricted, but an open person. He is much more interested in success, efficiency and results than in political theories.”
PM Orbán has been highly criticized by the European Union for his efforts to centralize power, control and repress civic groups, corruption and increasing his influence over the media. No surprise a bond is growing between him and Trump; unfortunately Orbán is not the only one of this type in Europe, with France soon to decide its fate, too.
Read more
http://reverbpress.com/world/league-right-wing-leaders-grows-trumps-lead/
November 26, 2016 Carolina Chávez
Right-Wing Leaders Join Forces With The U.S. President-Elect
It almost seems as if a league of far right-wing leaders is being created across the world with president-elect Donald Trump as the leader. In reality, far-right figureheads have been emboldened by Trump’s victory in the presidential election.
Controversial Hungarian leader and Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, said in an interview with the newspaper Vilaggazdasag that President-elect rump has invited him to visit Washington (although no date was specified) during a telephone conversation. As reported by Reuters, Orbán said:
“I spoke on the phone with the new U.S. president and I can say that our position has improved remarkably. Donald Trump has made it clear that he regards Hungary highly.”
PM Orbán has been in power in Hungary since 2010, and ever since he frequently clashed with senior U.S. officials, including Hilary Clinton as U.S. Secretary of State, who believes his reforms and ideas undermine democratic ideals in the European country. In October this year, as a result of the flow of Syrian and Iraqi refugees fleeing the war, Orbán tried to win a referendum to ban Hungary from taking a EU quota of refugees; which fortunately he lost. He is also known for his strong stance against migrants and Islam. Last year, he was behind a series of fences built along the southern borders of the country, aimed at halting the flow of migrants. These proposals and ideas from Orbán raised tensions between the U.S. and Hungary for some time. In fact, during the same telephone call between the president-elect and the Hungarian PM, Orbán expounded upon his country’s relationship with the United States:
“He invited me to Washington, I told him that I hadn’t been there for a long time as I had been treated as a ‘black sheep’, to which he replied, laughing: ‘Me too’.”
Since the beginning of his presidential campaign, Orbán was the first European leader, even among the right-wing ones, who expressed preference for Trump and praised his immigration and security proposals, while referring to a possible victory from Clinton as a bad option for Hungary, and generally speaking for all Europe. As told by The Independent, the Hungarian right-wing leader believes the U.S will have with Trump a president who is “not ideologically restricted, but an open person. He is much more interested in success, efficiency and results than in political theories.”
PM Orbán has been highly criticized by the European Union for his efforts to centralize power, control and repress civic groups, corruption and increasing his influence over the media. No surprise a bond is growing between him and Trump; unfortunately Orbán is not the only one of this type in Europe, with France soon to decide its fate, too.
Read more
http://reverbpress.com/world/league-right-wing-leaders-grows-trumps-lead/
More on GunFail
Could Fatal Hunting Accident Have Been Prevented?
By Matt Jarchow
Updated Friday, November 25, 2016 at 10:44 PM EST
SANDY CREEK, N.Y. -- It is officially hunting season in New York State, the favorite season for many.
And still, safety should be a hunter's first priority, according to David Steinberg of Ra-Lin Sporting Goods.
If it is not, tragedy can hit - as it did Thursday in Sandy Creek.
Troopers say 24-year-old Kristopher Paro was hunting in a tree stand behind his home when his father, Kevin, entered the woods to hunt. Troopers say Kristopher thought he was shooting a deer when he fired a single shot from his rifle that hit his father in the chest and later killed him.
Hunting experts say the accident could very well have been prevented. For one, Kevin was not wearing orange.
"Orange is a visible color," said Steinberg. "Everybody knows to stay away from orange, it's a caution color."
Police say when Kevin entered the woods, Kristopher was 100 yards away and thought he heard a deer.
"Most of these tragedies occur when you're shooting at sounds, which is a definite no-no," said Steinberg. "You can't shoot at sounds, you can't shoot at 'I think it's a deer, I think it's an animal', you've got to physically see what you're shooting at."
And above all else, it is important to be aware.
"People are in the woods, or any place, you've got to be aware of your surroundings," said Steinberg.
The DEC says last year was the first year on record with zero hunting fatalities.
State police say the investigation is ongoing.
Read more
http://www.twcnews.com/nys/central-ny/news/2016/11/25/could-fatal-hunting-accident-have-been-prevented.html?cid=facebook_TWC_News_Central/Northern_NY
By Matt Jarchow
Updated Friday, November 25, 2016 at 10:44 PM EST
SANDY CREEK, N.Y. -- It is officially hunting season in New York State, the favorite season for many.
And still, safety should be a hunter's first priority, according to David Steinberg of Ra-Lin Sporting Goods.
If it is not, tragedy can hit - as it did Thursday in Sandy Creek.
Troopers say 24-year-old Kristopher Paro was hunting in a tree stand behind his home when his father, Kevin, entered the woods to hunt. Troopers say Kristopher thought he was shooting a deer when he fired a single shot from his rifle that hit his father in the chest and later killed him.
Hunting experts say the accident could very well have been prevented. For one, Kevin was not wearing orange.
"Orange is a visible color," said Steinberg. "Everybody knows to stay away from orange, it's a caution color."
Police say when Kevin entered the woods, Kristopher was 100 yards away and thought he heard a deer.
"Most of these tragedies occur when you're shooting at sounds, which is a definite no-no," said Steinberg. "You can't shoot at sounds, you can't shoot at 'I think it's a deer, I think it's an animal', you've got to physically see what you're shooting at."
And above all else, it is important to be aware.
"People are in the woods, or any place, you've got to be aware of your surroundings," said Steinberg.
The DEC says last year was the first year on record with zero hunting fatalities.
State police say the investigation is ongoing.
Read more
http://www.twcnews.com/nys/central-ny/news/2016/11/25/could-fatal-hunting-accident-have-been-prevented.html?cid=facebook_TWC_News_Central/Northern_NY
The Seven Main Reasons Democrats Shouldn’t Donate to Jill Stein’s Recount Fund
By Daniel Politi
Jill Stein is suddenly really popular. As of early afternoon on Saturday she had raised more than $5.2 million for an effort to recount votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—all states in which Donald Trump won by a tiny margin. That means Stein has now raised more money this week than she did in the entire presidential campaign, when she received a grand total of $3.51 million from supporters.
The deadline to request a recount in Wisconsin is Friday while the deadlines for Michigan and Pennsylvania are next week. Yet even as some Hillary Clinton supporters are opening up their wallets to help the recount efforts, others have been highly critical saying the whole thing is nothing more than a gimmick to promote Stein and the Green Party. What are the main issues that have been raised against the recount drive?
1. The amount she's asking for keeps increasing. The amount of money needed for the recount has been suspiciously creeping upward since the fundraising drive was launched. At first, the goal was $2.5 million. Now it’s $7 million with no real explanation as to why the additional money is needed.
2. The increasing attorney fees. Another point of contention is the way the supposed attorney fees for the recount effort keep on increasing. Politico explains:
4. No smoking gun. “Let me be very clear: We do not have evidence of fraud,” Stein said in an interview. “We do not have smoking guns. What we do have is an election that was surrounded by hacking.” The push for a recount really went into overdrive with a New York magazine report that claimed cybersecurity experts were calling for Clinton’s campaign to contest the results. But since then several experts spoke up to say the evidence was far from clear-cut. “Were this year’s deviations from pre-election polls the results of a cyberattack? Probably not,” wrote J. Alex Halderman, one of the experts cited in the initial report. “I believe the most likely explanation is that the polls were systematically wrong.” Even as some security and election experts call for paper ballots to be checked it’s important to note “there’s no evidence that the electronic machines were hacked or the election was compromised,” as NPR’s Camila Domonoske explained.
5. A recount wouldn’t necessarily disprove hacking anyway. Despite his skepticism, Halderman said nobody will know whether a cyberattack changed the result of the race unless there is a recount. But that’s not necessarily true. In Pennsylvania, for example, most machines don’t have paper ballots and if the past is any guide the recount could simply mean re-scanning the machine results, notes the Washington Post.
6. Stein doesn’t actually want to help Clinton. Stein clearly states that the effort is “not intended to help Hillary Clinton,” adding that “recounts are part of an election integrity movement to attempt to shine a light on just how untrustworthy the U.S. election system is.” After all, during the campaign, Stein made clear she didn’t prefer Clinton over Trump and has now said that the way Clinton has stayed out of the recount fray only shows the Democratic Party is corrupt. Some Democrats are also saying that it’s really rich for someone like Stein to worry about how a few thousand votes could affect the outcome of an election. “I really wish Jill Stein had not waited until after the election to be so concerned about a few thousand votes tipping the election to Trump,” wrote Dan Pfeiffer.
Read more
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/11/25/the_seven_main_reasons_democrats_shouldn_t_contribute_to_jill_stein_s_recount.html
Jill Stein is suddenly really popular. As of early afternoon on Saturday she had raised more than $5.2 million for an effort to recount votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—all states in which Donald Trump won by a tiny margin. That means Stein has now raised more money this week than she did in the entire presidential campaign, when she received a grand total of $3.51 million from supporters.
The deadline to request a recount in Wisconsin is Friday while the deadlines for Michigan and Pennsylvania are next week. Yet even as some Hillary Clinton supporters are opening up their wallets to help the recount efforts, others have been highly critical saying the whole thing is nothing more than a gimmick to promote Stein and the Green Party. What are the main issues that have been raised against the recount drive?
1. The amount she's asking for keeps increasing. The amount of money needed for the recount has been suspiciously creeping upward since the fundraising drive was launched. At first, the goal was $2.5 million. Now it’s $7 million with no real explanation as to why the additional money is needed.
2. The increasing attorney fees. Another point of contention is the way the supposed attorney fees for the recount effort keep on increasing. Politico explains:
In an initial cached version of the fundraising page, they do not mention attorney fees in the fundraising pitch. A cached version of the page from early Thursday morning then estimates that attorney fees will “likely to be another $1 million," while her page had set a goal of $4.5 million mid-day Thursday.
As of noon on Thursday, the fundraising page now estimates that attorney fees “are likely to be another $2-3 million, then there are the costs of the statewide recount observers in all three states,” raising the total cost to “$6-7 million.”3. No guarantees. Those critical of the effort are quick to point out that in the fundraising drive, Stein outright admits that she cannot guarantee recounts will actually happen. Stein also doesn’t say what any money that isn’t used for the recount will actually go to, beyond a general pledge that “the surplus will also go toward election integrity efforts and to promote voting system reform.”
4. No smoking gun. “Let me be very clear: We do not have evidence of fraud,” Stein said in an interview. “We do not have smoking guns. What we do have is an election that was surrounded by hacking.” The push for a recount really went into overdrive with a New York magazine report that claimed cybersecurity experts were calling for Clinton’s campaign to contest the results. But since then several experts spoke up to say the evidence was far from clear-cut. “Were this year’s deviations from pre-election polls the results of a cyberattack? Probably not,” wrote J. Alex Halderman, one of the experts cited in the initial report. “I believe the most likely explanation is that the polls were systematically wrong.” Even as some security and election experts call for paper ballots to be checked it’s important to note “there’s no evidence that the electronic machines were hacked or the election was compromised,” as NPR’s Camila Domonoske explained.
5. A recount wouldn’t necessarily disprove hacking anyway. Despite his skepticism, Halderman said nobody will know whether a cyberattack changed the result of the race unless there is a recount. But that’s not necessarily true. In Pennsylvania, for example, most machines don’t have paper ballots and if the past is any guide the recount could simply mean re-scanning the machine results, notes the Washington Post.
6. Stein doesn’t actually want to help Clinton. Stein clearly states that the effort is “not intended to help Hillary Clinton,” adding that “recounts are part of an election integrity movement to attempt to shine a light on just how untrustworthy the U.S. election system is.” After all, during the campaign, Stein made clear she didn’t prefer Clinton over Trump and has now said that the way Clinton has stayed out of the recount fray only shows the Democratic Party is corrupt. Some Democrats are also saying that it’s really rich for someone like Stein to worry about how a few thousand votes could affect the outcome of an election. “I really wish Jill Stein had not waited until after the election to be so concerned about a few thousand votes tipping the election to Trump,” wrote Dan Pfeiffer.
Dan Pfeiffer ? @danpfeiffer
I really wish Jill Stein had not waited until after the election to be so concerned about a few thousand votes tipping the election to Trump
2:42 PM - 24 Nov 2016
6,327 6,327 Retweets 17,620 17,620 likes7. There are better places for your money. Many are urging those who just want to put their money where their mouth is to send cash for progressive organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood, which have already seen a surge in donations after Trump’s election. Others say that those who want to help Democrats really should be donating toward Louisiana’s Democratic Senate candidate, Foster Campbell, who is competing in a Dec. 10 runoff. “The amount of Democratic energy and money being wasted on recounts instead of trying to win the Louisiana Senate Race is mind boggling,” wrote Pfeiffer on Twitter.
FollowHaving said all that though, some Clinton supporters are certainly on board with the effort, saying it’s better than nothing. Adam Parkhomenko, a prominent Clinton supporter, gave “kudos” to Stein “for leading on this.” Many Clinton backers were already calling for a recount even before Stein got on board and they see no reason to back down now even if they may not be fans of the person who is leading the effort.
Dan Pfeiffer ? @danpfeiffer
The amount of Democratic energy and money being wasted on recounts instead of trying to win the Louisiana Senate Race is mind boggling
2:20 PM - 24 Nov 2016
3,261 3,261 Retweets 6,325 6,325 likes
FollowDespite his praise though, even Parkhomenko has said he is not giving Stein a single dollar and is, like other Democrats, is urging donations for Campbell.
Adam Parkhomenko ? @AdamParkhomenko
I don't support Jill Stein. Never will. But I support democracy and the right to count every vote. And kudos to her for leading on this. https://twitter.com/dayjojo771980/status/801809537460269057 …
1:58 PM - 24 Nov 2016
555 555 Retweets 1,443 1,443 likes
Follow
Adam Parkhomenko ? @AdamParkhomenko
Many people don't have $10 to spare. I have thousands of you reaching out by email, text and social. Want to be clear: I'm not giving her $1 https://twitter.com/soberbrat2/status/802219478113222656 …
1:51 PM - 25 Nov 2016
42 42 Retweets 149 149 likes
Read more
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/11/25/the_seven_main_reasons_democrats_shouldn_t_contribute_to_jill_stein_s_recount.html
GOP Makes VERY Disturbing Medicare & Social Security Announcement (DETAILS)
By Elisabeth Parker - November 25, 2016
Donald Trump once claimed he wants to keep Social Security and Medicare intact. But when he takes office, the people who voted for him may get a nasty surprise.
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) just began doubling down on his scheme to shred Medicare. This federally run program provides seniors age 65 and over and disabled people with health care coverage. In an interview with Bret Baier from Fox News, Ryan said he wants to throw Medicare to the jackals and let them have their way with it.
‘This reform ensures affordability by fixing the currently broken subsidy system and letting market competition work as a real check on widespread waste and skyrocketing health-care costs.’
Apparently, Paul Ryan never got that memo from 2008. For most of us, the Great Recession proved beyond all doubt that for-profit companies and the so-called “free market” are terrible at cutting costs and checking waste and fraud. He also conveniently forgets that we are entitled to what Ryan sneeringly call “entitlements” because we pay into them our entire working lives.
The House Speaker and other budget-slashing Republicans don’t care that a vast majority of us oppose all cuts to Social Security and Medicare. A poll by NCPSSM/Lake Research poll found:
And then in 2013, Donald Trump warned his fellow GOPers at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that they can’t change Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare and still win votes.
But now that the president-elect is no longer an outsider, he’s singing a different tune. During Tuesday’s PBS News Hour, Judy Woodruff asked senior adviser Kellyanne Conway whether her boss is “open to hearing” about Paul Ryan’s “premium support system” (privatization) for Medicare. Her vague response is not reassuring.
‘President-elect Trump has made very clear that he wants to make good on the promises that we as a nation have made to the seniors who rely upon Medicare, and certainly the lower income Americans who rely upon Medicaid and other entitlements like Social Security, frankly, for those who receive that.’
Kellyanne Conway added that Mein Trumpf is now willing to “take a look” at Paul Ryan’s proposal to raise the retirement age for Medicare, turn it into a voucher system, and have Wall Street manage the funds.
Watch: Donald Trump will “take a look” at Paul Ryan’s Medicare proposal.
[...]
Those who hope a white supremacist movement to restore our nation’s former herrenvolk democracy will improve their economic prospects may bitterly regret voting for Donald Trump as we all learn the hard way that we get the America we deserve.
Read more
http://bipartisanreport.com/2016/11/25/breaking-gop-makes-very-disturbing-medicare-social-security-announcement-details/
Donald Trump once claimed he wants to keep Social Security and Medicare intact. But when he takes office, the people who voted for him may get a nasty surprise.
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) just began doubling down on his scheme to shred Medicare. This federally run program provides seniors age 65 and over and disabled people with health care coverage. In an interview with Bret Baier from Fox News, Ryan said he wants to throw Medicare to the jackals and let them have their way with it.
‘This reform ensures affordability by fixing the currently broken subsidy system and letting market competition work as a real check on widespread waste and skyrocketing health-care costs.’
Apparently, Paul Ryan never got that memo from 2008. For most of us, the Great Recession proved beyond all doubt that for-profit companies and the so-called “free market” are terrible at cutting costs and checking waste and fraud. He also conveniently forgets that we are entitled to what Ryan sneeringly call “entitlements” because we pay into them our entire working lives.
The House Speaker and other budget-slashing Republicans don’t care that a vast majority of us oppose all cuts to Social Security and Medicare. A poll by NCPSSM/Lake Research poll found:
- “Voters strongly oppose cutting Social Security benefits with 71% opposed to means-testing and 67% opposed to raising the retirement age.”
- “64% strongly oppose cutting Medicare benefits for future retirees and 59% oppose cutting payments to Medicare providers.”
- “On Social Security, voters across party lines support lifting the cap on wages above the current level of $110,100. We know from focus groups that voters see this cap as an unfair loophole that they did not even know existed. Sixty-five (65) percent of voters favor gradually lifting this cap for both employees and employers, including 75 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Independents, and 54 percent of Republicans.”
- “On Medicare, overwhelming bi-partisan majorities support allowing Medicare to negotiate with drug companies to bring down the cost of prescription drugs. Eighty-six (86) percent of voters favor this, including 77 percent who strongly favor it. By party, 91 percent of Democrats favor allowing Medicare to negotiate with drug companies (81 percent strongly favor), as do 85 percent of Independents (75 percent strongly favor), and 81 percent of Republicans (75 percent strongly favor).”
- In fact, a Kaiser Poll revealed that 58 percent of us want Medicare expanded so all Americans can have a public option for their health care coverage. Among those who’ve opposed cutting or privatizing Social Security and Medicare was Donald Trump. Back in 2000 he wrote in his book, “The America We Deserve“:
‘I would never support what has to be the craziest ideas in the history of U.S. politics: allowing the government to invest Social Security retirement funds in the stock market. Not only would a market downturn spell disaster for millions of retirees, but the process by which government would choose stocks would also be entirely political, making lobbyists and other political hacks the new masters of the universe.’
And then in 2013, Donald Trump warned his fellow GOPers at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that they can’t change Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare and still win votes.
‘As Republicans, if you think you are going to change very substantially for the worse Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security in any substantial way, and at the same time you think you are going to win elections, it just really is not going to happen […] What we have to do and the way we solve our problems it to build a great economy.’
But now that the president-elect is no longer an outsider, he’s singing a different tune. During Tuesday’s PBS News Hour, Judy Woodruff asked senior adviser Kellyanne Conway whether her boss is “open to hearing” about Paul Ryan’s “premium support system” (privatization) for Medicare. Her vague response is not reassuring.
‘President-elect Trump has made very clear that he wants to make good on the promises that we as a nation have made to the seniors who rely upon Medicare, and certainly the lower income Americans who rely upon Medicaid and other entitlements like Social Security, frankly, for those who receive that.’
Kellyanne Conway added that Mein Trumpf is now willing to “take a look” at Paul Ryan’s proposal to raise the retirement age for Medicare, turn it into a voucher system, and have Wall Street manage the funds.
‘He will, I’m sure, take a look at Speaker Ryan’s proposal and other proposals. In this case, he will go ahead and look at alternatives…as long as it does not interfere with what he has said, his commitment to keep the promises to those currently relying on them.’
Watch: Donald Trump will “take a look” at Paul Ryan’s Medicare proposal.
[...]
Those who hope a white supremacist movement to restore our nation’s former herrenvolk democracy will improve their economic prospects may bitterly regret voting for Donald Trump as we all learn the hard way that we get the America we deserve.
Read more
http://bipartisanreport.com/2016/11/25/breaking-gop-makes-very-disturbing-medicare-social-security-announcement-details/
Monday, November 28, 2016
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