SUBSTANCE AND SUPERFICIALITY

Ryan Voted "For":

• Opening the Outer Continental Shelf to oil drilling. (May 2011)
• Barring EPA from regulating greenhouse gases. (April 2011)
• Drilling the Outer Continental Shelf and licensing new nuclear power plants. (March 2011)
• Barring greenhouse gases from Clean Air Act rules. (January 2009)
• Making tax deduction permanent for conservation easements. (March 2009)
• Inter-state compact for Great Lakes water resources. (July 2008)

Ryan Voted “Against”:

• $2 billion more for Cash for Clunkers program. (July 2009)
• Protecting free-roaming horses and burros. (July 2009)
• Environmental education grants for outdoor experiences. (September 2008)
• Enforcing limits on CO2 global warming pollution. (June 2009)
• Tax credits for renewable electricity, with PAYGO offsets. (September 2008)
• Tax incentives for energy production and conservation. (May 2008)
• Tax incentives for renewable energy. (February 2008)

***

SUPERFICIALITY

expialadocious

NOT.

The Republicans had a lot of show, but not much was showing.

Distortions

and

Contortions.

Pistol-pointing

 at

Empty chairs.

A lot of bashing

And

 Trashing,

But very little substance.

Smoky mirrors

And

Shady mirages. 

Where were the specifics?

FABRICATIONS

vs.

 Facts.

Here is one glaring example:

During his speech, Eastwood said he was crying for the 23 million unemployed Americans. The only problem: there are actually only 12.8 million unemployed Americans as of July, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, whose job it is to keep track of that sort of thing.

The BLS doesn’t keep track of the number of Americans who are underemployed because of the “difficulty of developing an objective set of criteria,” according to the agency's website. But if you add the 8.2 million Americans working part-time who wish they had a full time job and the 2.5 million people.who are “marginally attached” to the labor force to the 12.8 million officially unemployed bisjAmericans, then you can get to Eastwood’s 23 million figure.

[From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/31/clint-eastwood-unemployment_n_1846779.html]

But word is out that if Romney and Ryan are elected---and “win back America”---they will recruit most of the George W. Bush’s White House.

Nonetheless, Romney and Ryan have some things

On

 Their

 Chairs…I mean table:

ELIMINATE MEDICARE

ELIMINATE 

THE E.P.A. (again!)

ELIMINATE IRAN

ELIMINATE SOCIAL SECURITY

ELIMINATE THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

ELIMINATE GREEN ENERGY FUNDING

END THE WORLD (Only kidding, OR…)

Or do I exaggerate

 And

 protest too much?

Let me know.

IT’S THE OIL STUPID!

*** 

Labor Day Question: Are you Better off than You were in 1970?

Posted on 09/03/2012 by Juan

 [http://www.juancole.com]

Thoughts for a Labor Day in 2012:

The real question isn’t whether we are better off than we were four years ago. It takes a long time to recover from burst bubbles and near-depressions (the Japanese have still not recovered from their burst bubble of the early 1990s). The real question is whether the working and middle classes of the United States will go on allowing themselves to be taken advantage of by our super-rich, who are gathering to themselves more and more of the national income. The top 1% owned 25% of the privately held national wealth in the United States in the 1950s, but have 38% of it today.
In contrast, real wages per hour for the average worker in the United States, adjusted for inflation, peaked in 1970. We’re now down from that, with a generation and a half blocked from meaningful economic advancement.

h/t Faustian urGe.
But, you will say, the US is a much wealthier society now than it was in 1970 or 1990. Where has all the extra money generated by American labor and investment gone?
It has gone to the rich. Yes, folks, the rich are taking home a fifth of everything we make as a country each year, up from ten percent in 1970. We are 310 million people. About 3 million get a fifth of the annual income. Those 3 million people are 3 million Mitt Romneys. They want low taxes and they want to get rid of social security, medicare and Obamacare.

h/t Adviser Perspectives
See, in general, Who Rules America?.
The rich in this country now see an opportunity to take us back to the age of the robber barons– and get rid of all government programs for the middle classes and the workers and make us wait to age 70 (when most people will be more decrepit than they expect) to retire. Because the more of the national income they take home every year, the more politicians they can buy, and the more they can cut their taxes and shift the burden of road-building and other government services to the middle classes and workers.
It is a ratcheting process that is leaving the US an increasingly unequal society, and one in which hopes of upward mobility for ordinary people are increasingly crushed. Indeed, Europe (the “Old World”) now offers more opportunities for upward mobility and getting ahead than the United States.
The way to reverse this crisis of income stagnation is to restore rights to unionize and collectively bargain and to make the rich pay their fare share for government-provided infrastructure and for educating the work force they exploit.
Guess who will do the opposite if they win in November?