elections

The Browbeat and Baffle Political Battle

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It never ceases to disgust, horrify and amaze how people are hoodwinked by marketing, media and advertizing.  A textbook case is election 2014.  States have measures on the ballot, and Oregon has one that big business in particular doesn't like.  As a result the campaign to defeat it has become the costliest in Oregon history as big business pounds the airwaves with their deep pocket funded misleading and manipulative ads.

Manufacturing Matters

On Manufacturing and Innovation

Manufacturing was once widely recognized as the outstanding strength of America and the basis of its prosperity, but manufacturing also has a more recent history of being almost a pariah.  This newer view equated computer chips with potato chips, asserted that manufacturing is better left to others, and suggested that the nation is actually fortunate to be losing manufacturing and aiming to replace it with design, research, and services.

Do You Know Who Owns Your Congressional Representative?

Bloomberg has yet another stunning revelation that Tea Party Congressional members are being funded heavily by the Banksters.

Tea Party favorites such as Stephen Fincher of Tennessee were swept into Congress on a wave of anger over government-funded bailouts of banks.

Now those incumbents are collecting thousands of dollars for re-election campaigns from the same Wall Street firms whose excesses they criticized. They have taken no significant steps to curb them or prevent future taxpayer-financed rescues.

Cheese Whiz Wisconsin - Do Over Comes Up Short

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cheese whiz
Wisconsin Just Showed Us. You can call a do over on your reactionary votes from 2010. Hate your representative? Completely upset with the jobs crisis, now projected to continue ad infinitum?

Have a recall!

In the largest clustered recall ever, six Wisconsin State Senate Republicans faced a recall election and special interest money poured into the State:

Spending on the nine elections had reached $33 million, most of it from outside special interest groups. Interest group spending has far eclipsed the Wisconsin record of about $20 million set in 2008 elections that covered half the state Senate and all Assembly members.

The fight is over Governor Walker's war against organized labor in Wisconsin, along with his Tea party cohorts. His anti-labor legislation prompted a massive recall effort of State Senators who helped Walker push through his anti-labor agenda. The voter turnout is hitting Presidential election levels.

The Bipartisan Citizen Beat Down and the End of Democracy

Michael Collins

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Both political parties are manifestly hostile to citizens. This hostility reduces electoral participation to just over 50% of the voting age population for presidential elections and less than 40% for off-year congressional elections. The absence of 50% to 60% of those eligible to vote creates minority rule and threatens the legitimacy of any ruling party. Truly, every election ratifies the rejection of both parties.

Pickin' The Bones of Election 2010

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political graveyard We now have various analysts pickin' the bones on election 2010, many trying to justify some political position or cause. This site already had it's say and proclaimed it was about jobs. What say others?

Public Citizen says Democrats who had strong positions on reforming trade agreements and policy won and those who didn't lost.

House Democrats that ran on fair trade platforms in competitive and open-seat races were three times as likely to survive the GOP tidal wave than Democrats who ran against fair trade, according to a comprehensive 182-race, 70-page report released by Public Citizen. The GOP tsunami obliterated many candidate-specific features of the midterm contests, but trade, job offshoring and/or government purchases of foreign-made goods were a stunningly persistent national focus of midterm election campaigns, with 205 candidates campaigning on these issues. A record number of 75 Republicans adopted some fair trade messaging as well, 43 of whom won their races. More than sixty races became “fair trade offs,” where both the Democrat and Republican ran on fair trade themes. Only 37 candidates campaigned in favor of more North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)-style trade agreements - about half of these candidates lost.

A "Decisive Defeat" But Is Anyone Winning?

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On the eve of Election 2010, most pollsters and pundits are predicting a decisive defeat for Democrats with most claiming this is a referendum of the Obama administration. But, what, exactly does this vote mean for the economy and U.S. middle class?

Reading the tea leaves, pun intended, one must wonder how the media can be so disconnected with what is really going on in America.

What are people so pissed about? Is it bi-partisanship, Obamacare, the Stimulus, taxes? Is it elected officials are not liberal, moderate, conservative, work across the aisle enough?

All of that is wrong.

As a site which has daily written about the United States economy, I can definitely say it's about jobs.

Wall Street got a bail out and bonuses, Americans got laid off and made poor. Special interests and even China got Stimulus, Americans got more jobs offshore outsourced and foreclosed upon. High frequency traders made billions, regular Americans lost their meager retirement.

Now there is pressure for Obama to shed himself of his advisers.

Among the complaints: Mr. Obama conveyed an incoherent message that didn't express what Democrats would do over the next two years if they retain power; he focused more on his own image than helping Democratic candidates; and the White House picked the wrong battle when it attacked Republicans for using "outside" money to pay for campaigns, an issue disconnected from voters' real-world anxieties.

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