China Did Negotiate And So Will The US Congress…NOT!

US and China negotiated Chen Guangcheng’s release.

It’s a pretty sad state of affairs when China is willing to negotiate and compromise with the United States President, but the US Congress refuses to find any common ground with President Obama to solve major economic problems facing the country.

Since the election of Barack Obama, the GOP have voted NO! NO! NO!

The entire 2012 Republican Platform  is based on the hope that the economy is still sluggish and the unemployment rate stays at 8.1%  The most bizarre fact about Romney’s platform is that he is touting the exact same policies that brought the United States to the brink of a depression.

If the voters fall for the Romney line it will be shocking. And frightening.

Don’t Raises Taxes Cut Foods Stamps

Mario Batali

The United States House of Representatives refuses to consider any tax increases, the most logical would be letting the deficit exploding Bush era tax cuts expire  This would return the tax rate to the booming Clinton era rates. Instead they want to savage the safety net for poor people.  They actually want to cut food stamps—this  benefit program is used by more than 46 million Americans, mostly children!

Food Stamp recipients receive $31 per person for the week—-that about $1.48 for each meal per person. Try to eat well on that!

Well, Star Chef, Mario Batali, accepted a challenge by the Food Bank of NYC, of which he is a board member, to eat on a food stamp budget for a week.

The Batalis were joined on the weeklong challenge, which ended Thursday, by wholesale meat purveyor Pat LaFrieda, who has a new Food Network series, Meat Men, Margarette Purvis, who heads the food bank and more than 200 others.

“We’re not trying to compare the food stamp challenge to the very real challenges people face,” Purivs said. “We’re just trying to raise awareness that it’s no longer just the homeless. It’s working families who use the food stamp program. It’s seniors. It’s a lot more children, in every single neighborhood.”

FEAR…

“Why Can’t We All Get Along?”

I can not get over the Tea Party mantra…” I want my country back!”  What do they mean?  Well, it’s the FEAR of the minority becoming the majority and the fact that President Obama represents that new America. Two front page stories in the NYT today connect that FEAR to the GOP’s possible radical racist  strategy to bring President Obama down— so they can continue to keep power in the hands of corporations and the mega wealthy. Let’s see how the Moral Mormon Mitt Romney deals with this?

WHITES ACCOUNT FOR UNDER HALF THE BIRTHS IN THE US—NYT…

After years of speculation, estimates and projections, the Census Bureau has made it official: White births are no longer a majority in the United States…

GOP ‘SUPER-PAC” WEIGHS HARD LINE ATTACK ON OBAMA—NYT…

A group of high-profile Republican strategists is working with a conservative billionaire on a proposal to mount one of the most provocative campaigns of the “super PAC” era and attack President Obama in ways that Republicans have so far shied away from.

Lamenting that voters “still aren’t ready to hate this president,” the document concludes that the campaign should “explain how forces out of Obama’s control, that shaped the man, have made him completely the wrong choice as president in these days and times.”

Americans Like President Obama…Romney Not So Much

Through out the financial crisis, the shooting of Gabby Giffords, the Congressional gridlock, the impatience over the repeal of DADT and Gay Marriage acceptance, blatant racism, the Tea Party “I want my country” back sillies—President Obama has been a rock. Working in a steady methodical way to better the lives of all  Americans.  I predict that this quality will ensure President Obama’s reelection.

Charles Blow   Believing In Obama …

You gotta have faith.

Democrats have it. Republicans don’t. That is the finding of a USA Today/Gallup poll that was released on Tuesday.

The poll found that:

Fifty-six percent of Americans think Barack Obama will win the 2012 presidential election, compared with 36 percent who think Mitt Romney will win. Democrats are more likely to believe that Obama will win than Republicans are to believe Romney will. Independents are nearly twice as likely to think that Obama, rather than Romney, will prevail.

This is utterly unsurprising. Romney is the most awkward, clumsy Republican nominee since Bob Dole in 1996.

Why does all this matter? Because, as Gallup points out, “Americans’ predictions of the four prior presidential elections were also generally accurate.” Rather surprisingly, “Americans are a bit more likely now to say Obama has a better chance of winning than they were at a similar point in 2008.”

Mitt Romney…Compulsive Liar

Yes, the word on the street is that all politicians lie, but Mitt Romney seems to lie every single day.

This is a huge character flaw.

His latest whopper is that he does not remember holding down a young man and cutting off his hair—no way! can that be believed. Another is his insistence that marriage has been between one man and one woman for 3000 years —omitting the fact  his great- grandfather had 5 wives and his great- great- grandfather had 12!  And how about the one regarding Obamacare?  He’s going to repeal it on day one of his presidency  (which he can not do)  and that it is nothing like the health care plan he passed in Massachusetts.  Believe that and he’ll tell you another one—and he does…

He saved the auto industry not President Obama!

President Obama is weak on national defense.

President Obama made the recession worse.

My dog loved riding on the roof of the car!

Follow Romney Lies at the Daily Kos

Environmental Justice and Ringwood Borough…Never Happen

Sludge being removed from a yard in Upper Ringwood—notice the protective gear being worn by the person digging up the sludge. Photo Chapin Engineering

Ringwood is in the New Jersey Highlands surrounded by the Wyanokie and Ramapo Mountains less than 40 miles outside NYC.  It is home to the Wanaque Reservoir (serving millions) and the Ringwood/Mines Landfill Superfund Site.  It is the only superfund site in history where people lived at the site while the dumping was taking place and also the only site to be re-listed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Ford Motor Co. dumped millions of gallons of sludge in Upper Ringwood, home to the Ramapough Indians for over 400 years, from 1964 to 1975 with the blessings of the local government.

After years of reinvestigation, the time for a decision concerning remediation is approaching.  The EPA Community Advisory Group is advocating for a total clean up and removal of the toxic sludge.

Last night I sat through the dog and pony show presented by the Borough of Ringwood’s professionals concerning the Ringwood/Mines Landfill Superfund Site and it’s clean up. Never mentioned once were the approximately 400 people that live ON the superfund site or the lead contamination children have lived with for over 40 years!  The meeting’s main purpose was to scare the other residents of Ringwood about the cost of a complete clean up.  Ringwood has $87M in indemnity insurance to cover the town,  which they are tapping into right now to pay for these “professionals”.  But, the other point which was soft peddled last night, is that Ford is and should be paying for the clean up. What  was obvious last night, is that Ford and Ringwood Borough are in this together, just as they have been since the beginning of the dumping.  Their mantra is—do it the cheapest way possible, the heck with the people and the Wanaque Reservoir— which is less that a mile down gradient of the superfund site. This outrageous reasoning is exactly why we are where we are today—reinvestigating a site that was deemed clean over 20 years ago.

This meeting was extremely disturbing ( there were two police officers at the door) because it was the same old guard sitting on the dais that originally agreed to the de-listing of the site—even though there was toxic sludge visible all through out the community. I don’t know how these people sleep at night.

There should be nothing less than a total clean up  and remediation of the site. Finally, bringing justice to the Ramapough’s who have suffered needlessly for over 40 years—living on a chemical wasteland.

The HBO documentary Mann vs. Ford is about this human tragedy as is Toxic Legacy by the Record.  But, unfortunately, there is a major omission in both stories—which is the complicity of the local government.

Equal Rights For All!

President Obama made the morally right decision today and I’m very proud I supported this man.

“At a certain point, I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” 

President Obama May 9, 2012

BACKWARDS!

HELP!

Mitt Romney want to go back to the future and that’s an amazing feat, if he can pull it off.

His fiscal policies are the same ones that put our economy into a tailspin.  Lowering taxes for the wealthy AGAIN, which include taxing capital gains at a lower rate than the salaries of working people (Romeny’s tax rate is only 13%, since all his income comes from capital gains),  continue tax subsidies for oil and gas companies that makes billions, repeal all banking and financial market regulations, allow corporations to skirt the Clean Air and Clean Water Act.  And privatize, privatize, privatize.

“Corporations are people, my friend,” he replied to someone who questioned his policies.  That quote says it all.

Repeal the Affordable Care Act, defund Planned Parenthood and Public Broadcasting, gut the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency. Attack a women’s right to choice and contraception. Attack gay and lesbian’s civil rights. Ignore alternative energy.

He touts his fiscal acumen, but as Governor of Massachusetts he devastated public education, cut revenue to local governments, and raised fees on everything from college students to mortgages, from buying a boat to opening a bar. Massachusetts was also 47th in job grow when he was governor.

The most frightening thing about Mr. Romney is the very very easy way he lies—it’s second nature to him.  Just yesterday he insisted the auto bailout was his idea! That’s got to give him at least 5 Pinochios!

I have yet to hear one forward looking idea from Mitt Romney, he’s recycling the past and he thinks that’s the future.  Bizarre!

Mitt Romeny Has A Huge Problem…

He has absolutely no Emotional Intelligence. Emotional Intelligence  is the ability to perceive, evaluate and control emotions.

From his stiff nervous laugh to the sad sack expression he uses when he is watching someone speak plus his aggressive behavior if someone interrupts him while he is speaking— all point to a person who cannot read the people around him.  He’s oblivious. This very “robotic” personality may be an asset when your main focus in life is making money.  But, it is a negative trait for a president.  A president must  be able to connect and relate to all types of people and actually enjoy doing  so.

It  is becoming clearer everyday that Mr. Romney, who is by all accounts is a smart man, is lost when it comes to real life interactions with regular folks.   Ann Romney is supposed to soften his image, but she seems just as out of touch as her husband—it’s tough living in an ivory tower when you want to be president of the United States.

President Obama Made The GOP Go Bezerk…

President Obama is natural with children

Once reality set in that Barack Obama was actually President of the United States of America, the GOP went crazy.  And their outrageous behavior has not stopped.

The screams of “we want our country back” from “Right Wingers” can only be taken as racist.  The Republicans in Congress became bottom feeders—vowing never to compromise with the President and by design played into the racist paranoia that the Obama Presidency awakened.

It’s been obvious to sane people that for almost 4 years the GOP has just about stopped  any progress in Congress—finally a book has been written that puts this gridlock squarely where it belongs—at the Republican’s feet.  It’s Even Worse Than It Looks by Congressional scholars Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein blames the GOP for the dysfunctional government that we are stuck with today.

Let’s face it, a political party who flirts with constituents that actually believe  President Obama is NOT a United States citizen, has absolutely lost it’s way. They are blinded by hate.  And the Republicans in Congress are happy to use that hate for their agenda—welfare for corporations and the 1% by derailing the safety net for the needy.

A  political party, who touts as one of their fiscal leaders Paul Ryan, a devotee of Ayn Rand, has got to be nuts—Rand’s books were fun to read in High School, but as a governing philosophy?  That’s absolutely ridiculous. Extreme selfishness is not a philosophy—it a mental disorder.

BTW, George Romney, Mitt’s father, was born in Mexico and he ran for president—-no problem there for the GOP!