Category: Bad Politics

Video: Republicans in Congress are Blocking Immigration Reform

Immigration reform. Another GOP lie?

From Democrats.org:

While the majority of Americans support comprehensive immigration reform, Republicans continue to stand in its way. They have had more than enough time to get this done but continue to hide behind excuses.

And the worst part is that they could make a choice to pass immigration reform tomorrow. There’s a bipartisan bill that has been in the House for nearly 5 months, which already has enough support to pass — all we need is a vote but Speaker Boehner refuses.

If we want to move forward with immigration reform and the rest of President Obama’s agenda, we need to elect a new Democratic majority. Watch this video on immigration, then donate so we have the resources it takes to make John Boehner an ex-speaker come 2014.


Robertson: “Miserable” Atheists Trying To “Steal” Christmas (Video)

I honestly don’t know how this man comes up with this stuff, why he’s still on television, and I really, really don’t understand the person who would take him seriously.

The video is mercifully short. Enjoy.


Damn the GOP. What They’re Doing Is Unprecedented, Immoral, and Evil

The GOP government shutdown just hit home for a close friend.

His son, a laborer who lives in a so-called "Right To Work" state, was out of work. He had been let go from his previous job because he became injured outside of work. Rather than give him a month to heal, which is all he needed, his employer at the time just let him go. Tried to tell him that he was doing him a favor. That he could collect unemployment, as opposed to making nothing for the 30 days or so he would need to heal.

And his employer knew that this lad had only worked for him for five months, therefore not qualifying for unemployment. And, it turns out, this employer has done this to other workers, letting them go in the fifth month of employment, so the employer has to pay neither benefits nor unemployment.

This is what the GOP refers to as "Right To Work," the myth that, forbidding unions from requiring workers to join a union when they get a job, workers now can be "free" of union dues and work, because, dammit, they have the right to work.

In reality, it means states full of workers, like my friend’s son, who have no union protection, no unions who negotiated fair working conditions. None of that. Not at all.

And employers can be as ruthless as the nasty members of the GOP, some of the meanest pols we’ve seen since just before the Great Depression, when robber barons ruled, and pols danced to their commands.

So my friend’s son applied for another job. Went through the entire interview process. Passed every background check, drug test — paid for by the hiring company — and was given his "new employee" packet.

And, on what was supposed to be his first day of work, was told that the company could not start him, because of the government shutdown.

Because of the government shutdown, the company was not certain that some contracts would be upheld.

That’s not what they told him at first. But, after he pressed them, they admitted this was, in fact, the case. The government shutdown.

The damn GOP government shutdown.

His son says it was evident the company was scrambling. Some news from on high had reached the blue collar workers, and the company, and American company, was being downsized.

These inglorious GOP members of Congress have got to go.

All of them.

They claim that this shutdown is the fault of the Democrats and the Democratic President who "refuse to negotiate.

Bullshit.

And here’s proof.

From BillMoyers.com, proof that this debt ceiling crisis is not politics as usual:

Never before has a minority party linked controversial legislative demands with a threat to shut down the government or imperil the global economy. But House Republicans would have you believe otherwise.

In an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal this morning, Rep. Paul Ryan writes that president Obama “says he ‘will not negotiate’ on the debt ceiling. He claims that such negotiations would be unprecedented. But many presidents have negotiated on the debt ceiling—including him. ”

Ryan was referring to a speech given in September before the Business Roundtable — an association of CEOs of large US companies — in which the president said, “You have never seen in the history of the United States the debt ceiling or the threat of not raising the debt ceiling being used to extort a president or a governing party, and trying to force issues that have nothing to do with the budget and have nothing to do with the debt.”

Ryan continued: “He’s refusing to talk, even though the federal government is about to hit the debt ceiling. That’s a shame — because this doesn’t have to be another crisis. It could be a breakthrough.”

But that’s spin: Negotiating would set a dangerous precedent, because Obama’s right that this time really is different. Here are three reasons why.

Go to the original article here and read, and then act.


Video: Shutstorm 2013: America Sits on Its Balls – Bias on Bulls**t Mountain, Jon Stewart

Could there be a higher octane fuel for the Fox News false outrage exploitation engine than wheelchair-bound World War II veterans?

Jon Stewart at his best. Surgical. Precise.

And with firm proof that the GOP planned and engineered this shutdown.

Proof.

From 80 Congressional members of the GOP.

And don’t forget Smokey the Bear.


Oak Park Plays Annual Shell Game with Property Taxes

Here’s the “big news” from Oak Park:

Orland Park trustees on Monday night approved rebating a portion of the village’s property tax paid by homeowners this year.

A total of $2.2 million is being earmarked for the program, with applications being accepted this fall. Postcards with application instructions will go out in late October or early November.

Read more here

Okay, here’s my problem with this.

Rebating $2.2 million means that Oak Park levied $2.2 million too much.

OR, let’s assume for the moment that they were levying exactly what they thought they would need, even on a conservative estimate.

Why? why?

Why not use the current $2.2 million surplus to “buy down” the levy for next year, so Oak Park residents don’t have to pay so much out-of-pocket, and then wait so long for this so-called “rebate?”

That’s what Park Forest, and other wise municipalities, do, year after year after year after year.

Sending a “tax rebate” and then levying more than you need, so that you can send a “tax rebate,” well, that’s just bad politics and a dishonest shell game.

If you aske me.


I Don’t Trust the Government with All This

Wow.

This has been going on for quite some time.

I don’t trust the government with all this.

Not. At. All.

From the New York Times:

The National Security Agency is winning its long-running secret war on encryption, using supercomputers, technical trickery, court orders and behind-the-scenes persuasion to undermine the major tools protecting the privacy of everyday communications in the Internet age, according to newly disclosed documents.

The agency has circumvented or cracked much of the encryption, or digital scrambling, that guards global commerce and banking systems, protects sensitive data like trade secrets and medical records, and automatically secures the e-mails, Web searches, Internet chats and phone calls of Americans and others around the world, the documents show.

Read more here.


Is the United States in Good Company on the Death Penalty?

Is the United States in good company?

These are the countries that permit the death penalty:

Death Penalty Permitted

  • Afghanistan
  • Antigua and Barbuda
  • Bahamas
  • Bahrain
  • Bangladesh
  • Barbados
  • Belarus
  • Belize
  • Botswana
  • Chad
  • China (People’s Republic)
  • Comoros
  • Congo (Democratic Republic)
  • Cuba
  • Dominica
  • Egypt
  • Equatorial Guinea
  • Ethiopia
  • Guatemala
  • Guinea
  • Guyana
  • India
  • Indonesia
  • Iran
  • Iraq
  • Jamaica
  • Japan
  • Jordan
  • Kuwait
  • Lebanon
  • Lesotho
  • Libya
  • Malaysia
  • Mongolia
  • Nigeria
  • North Korea
  • Oman
  • Pakistan
  • Palestinian Authority
  • Qatar
  • St. Kitts and Nevis
  • St. Lucia
  • St. Vincent and the Grenadines
  • Saudi Arabia
  • Singapore
  • Somalia
  • South Sudan
  • Sudan
  • Syria
  • Taiwan
  • Thailand
  • Trinidad and Tobago
  • Uganda
  • United Arab Emirates
  • United States
  • Vietnam
  • Yemen
  • Zimbabwe

Read more: The Death Penalty Worldwide | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777460.html#ixzz2dJ2nEMbb


Suffer the Soccer Children: Crestwood Mayor Lou Presta is a Real Piece of Work

Village of Crestwood

First the water, now the vindictive mayor.

It wasn’t too long ago we were all saying, "If you go to Crestwood, don’t drink the water."

Now?

"If you go to Crestwood, beware the mayor."

Especially if you play soccer.

Play soccer in a league that has been in existence for more than 40 years.

A league that is its own not-for-profit (NPF).

Do you get that?

An independent corporation.

In existence for more than 40 years.

Feel so, so very sorry for this Illinois village, stuck with a mayor hell-bent on stepping on children for political gain, clawing his way to the headlines, making a name for himself as a perpetrator of political vendetta.

The mayor wants to see the books.

The mayor wants a cut of the pie.

The mayor has a political vendetta.

Suffer the children.

Here’s some background from Phil Kadner’s recent contribution to the Southtown Star, Kadner: Mayor picks fight with soccer club.

I like and enjoy reading Phil Kadner. Please make a point of reading him.

Ahem. Yes. The background, from Phil Kadner:

At issue are the soccer fields just south of 138th Street and Lavergne Avenue, which are on ComEd land overlooked by high-tension towers.

According to soccer club board members, 32 years ago former Mayor Chester Stranczek agreed to let the club use the property rent-free after the village signed an agreement with the utility company for use of its easement.

Volunteers with the soccer club leveled the land by hand, raised money to construct a $22,000 fence and gate, more money to buy soccer goals and an additional $13,000 to build a garage to house equipment.

The village cuts the grass on the field. But, for 20 years, the field has been in use by the not-for-profit Crestwood Soccer Club, composed of "more than 500 children signed up for its fall season; about 70 percent Crestwood residents and the rest from the surrounding suburbs," according to Kadner.

Seventy percent is an amazing figure for a club, and political suicide for anyone to mess with. Especially a 20-year agreement.

But why should that stop Lou Presta?

There are 40 recreation teams and five travel teams in the club.

That’s amazing.

So why, pray tell, is the mayor, Louis Presta, messing with this fine organization, and the 500+ children (70% from Crestwood) who are members?

First, Crestwood Trustee John Toscas is president of the not-for-profit (NFP) Soccer Club.

And Toscas, it appears, is not a strong-enough supporter of the mayor.

The proposed solution?

Again, from Phil Kadner:

A proposed village ordinance would create a new seven-member parks commission appointed by the mayor, and create a new position of director of parks and recreation.

Presta told me the position would be filled by a current village employee at no increase in salary.

But the ordinance says compensation for the director “shall be established by the board of trustees annually.”

Get this straight.

Crestwood does not own the land. ComEd owns the land. Kids play under high tension wires. ComEd leases the land to Crestwood.

Now Presta wants to call that land a park.

A village park.

Even though Crestwood does not own the land.

And there’s more, and it’s about money:

Not only that, Presta indicated he wants the soccer club to share the money it raises with the rest of the village’s recreational programs.

“Some recreation programs make money and some don’t,” Presta said. “I believe the money should be spread around so that those that make money can help support those that don’t to provide opportunities to everyone.

Of course. So this private corporation must now open its books to the village.

And pay, pay, pay.

Because Lou Presta, mayor of Crestwood, is a real piece of work.

A real, real piece of work.

Please read Phil Kadner’s entire column here.