Late Night Karaoke

post from Docudharma - Front Page on 06 May 2012 03:00:00 AM. © Docudharma - Front Page

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Thanks, Jesus

post from jobsanger on 06 May 2012 01:07:00 AM. © jobsanger

Found on Facebook.

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CEOs Get Huge Raises While Workers Suffer

post from jobsanger on 06 May 2012 01:06:00 AM. © jobsanger

Times are very good if you're a corporate CEO. Figures from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) show that CEO pay rose by 15% in 2011 (after an even larger raise of 28% in 2010). Those are massive pay raises -- especially since these same companies are whining about taxes and government regulations hurting their bottom line. Since 1978, corporate CEOs have seen their pay rise by a phenomenal 725%.

And how are the workers doing in these companies (the people who actually produce the product or service that makes the corporation their massive profits)? Not too good.

The Labor Department says that after inflation is figured in the workers pay actually dropped by 2% in 2011 (meaning they had less buying power than they did the year before). In fact, since 1978 workers have only seen a 5.7% growth in wages -- a figure that is more than swallowed up by inflation over that same period. Workers don't just have less buying power than they did last year, they have significantly less buying power than they did in the 1970s.

It is this kind of unfairness that has been encouraged by the failed Republican "trickle-down" economic policies (initiated by Reagan and doubled-down on by Bush II). That policy, which the Republicans are still trying to push, is destroying the middle class and turning the United States into a banana republic -- people by haves and have-nots. In fact, the wealth and income inequality in the United States is already greater than that of many third-world countries (and even greater than the inequalities seen in ancient Rome).

This is why it is mandatory to keep Romney out of the White House. He is still a true-believer in "trickle-down" economics, and his cure for our economic woes is to give even a larger share of national income to the rich. Romney would just finish the job of destroying our economy that Reagan and Bush II started.

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The Avengers

post from jobsanger on 06 May 2012 01:05:00 AM. © jobsanger

Political Cartoon is by Joe Heller in the Green Bay Press-Gazette.

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Libertarians Choose Their Candidate - Greens
Still Pondering Their Choice

post from jobsanger on 06 May 2012 01:04:00 AM. © jobsanger

For those of you who don't want to vote for the candidates of either the Republican or Democratic parties, there is now an official third-party candidate. The Libertarian Party met in Las Vegas this weekend, and they have nominated former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson as their candidate for president in the November election.

Johnson (pictured above) had originally tried to get the Republican nomination this year, but his candidacy could never get any traction. He finally dropped out and went after the Libertarian nomination. And he didn't have any trouble getting it -- winning 70% of the delegate vote on the first ballot (getting 419 of the 595 votes cast). I think the Libertarians were thrilled to have someone with at least a little name-recognition as their candidate this year.

In his acceptance speech, Johnson told the delegates, "I am honored and I just want to pledge that no one will be disappointed. We're going to grow the Libertarian Party." Johnson also promised solutions to the sluggish American economy and widespread unemployment, but offered no specifics (probably because the Libertarians don't believe in government solutions to national problems -- economic or otherwise).

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Meanwhile, the other major third party (the Green Party) is still pondering their choice for the presidential nomination. They will make their choice at their national convention to be held in Baltimore from July 12th through July 15th. The main candidates are Dr. Jill Stein (medical doctor, author, and political activist) and Roseanne Barr (actress and comedian). It should be interesting to see who they choose, since one candidate has the political gravitas and the other has name-recognition. Stein (my choice) is pictured below.

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Role Models

post from jobsanger on 06 May 2012 01:03:00 AM. © jobsanger

Political Cartoon is by Lee Judge in The Kansas City Star.

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Texas Wesleyan Is Conference Champion

post from jobsanger on 06 May 2012 01:02:00 AM. © jobsanger

I need to depart from politics for a minute to do a little bragging about the school I earned my college degree from -- Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth. The girls on the TWU Rams softball team have grabbed a well-deserved berth in the NAIA national softball tournament.

The Wesleyan girls had a great season, finishing first in the regular conference schedule with a 20-4 record. That was good enough to give them the top seed in the Red River Athletic Conference tournament. They then went undefeated in the conference tournament, beating Our Lady of the Lake 5-2 in yesterday's championship game.

I congratulate the Texas Wesleyan Rams softball team on what has already been a great season. They should all be proud of their accomplishment. But now they get the chance to go even further. They get to play in the NAIA national playoffs.

Good luck, and know that the Wesleyan alumni out here are proud of you and are pulling for you. We know you'l do your best.

For those of you not familiar with the Red River Athletic Conference, here are the other schools in it:

Bacone College (Muskogee, Oklahoma)
Huston-Tillotson University (Austin, Texas)
Jarvis Christian College (Hawkins, Texas)
Langston University (Langston, Oklahoma)
Louisiana State University-Shreveport (Shreveport, Louisiana)
Northwood University (Cedar Hill, Texas)
Our Lady of the Lake University (San Antonio, Texas)
Paul Quinn College (Dallas, Texas)
SW Assemblies of God University (Waxahachie, Texas)
Texas College (Tyler, Texas)
University of St. Thomas (Houston, Texas)
University of Texas-Brownsville (Brownsville, Texas)
University of the Southwest (Hobbs, New Mexico)
Wiley College (Marshall, Texas)

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Suspended

post from jobsanger on 06 May 2012 01:01:00 AM. © jobsanger

Political Cartoon is by Lee Judge in The Kansas City Star.

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Late Late Night FDL: Lighter Than Hare

Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam -- Lighter Than Hare. This Warner Bros/Merrie Melodies cartoon was released on December 17, 1960.[...]

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Meanwhile, Across The Pond, The Voters Have
Tasted Austerity-- And Are Defeating The Politicians Who Are Force-Feeding It To Them

Tomorrow France is electing a president and thing look pretty dire for conservative incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy. France's Bling Bling president is the only politician on the planet who eats in fancier and more expensive French restaurants than Newt Gingrich and, other than perhaps Mitt Romney, there is no one more clearly identified with the aspirations of the one-percent. He's the most unpopular president since World War II and seems likely to be spending his final days at the Élysée Palace. After is stunning defeat in the first round of voting, he's moved abruptly right-- in the direction of the teabagger (or populist right)-- beyond the traditional concerns of the 1%. And then the accusations of how his first election was funded by Qaddafi has further roiled the waters and added to the mistrust most Frenchmen feel towards him. Yesterday was the final day of campaigning and the big headline is that former candidate, centrist Francois Bayrou, who took almost 10% in the first round, said he's voting for Hollande. Worse news for Sarkozy is that the far right candidate, Marine Le Pen, who came in third, called on her supporters to sit on their hands and not close ranks behind Sarkozy. That was pretty much the death knell for his chances at reelection. Sarkozy's desperate followers are reacting to the impending defeat the way right-wing thugs always react to adversity-- violently.

Meanwhile another Austerity advocate, British Prime Minister David Cameron, saw his party-- and his coalition-- decimated in local elections across the U.K. Cameron apologized to hundreds of Conservative councillors who lost their seats and his coalition partner, Nick Clegg, will be lucky to hold onto the Lib-Dem leadership. Looks like Labor took 823 new Council seats while the Conservatives lost 405 and the Lib-Dems lost 336. The Conservatives wound up with less than a third of the votes cast. The radical right faction within the Conservative Party are claiming that Cameron hasn't been far enough right, even though the BNP (a local Nazi-like party that resembles the GOP lost at least 75% of it's seats). Sound familiar? At the same time, the Lib-Dems feel trapped in a coalition many of them would like to get out of.

Lord Oakeshott, an irritant to the leadership and an adviser to the business secretary, Vince Cable, issued a blunt warning.

He said: "The facts are that two out of every five of our very hard working councillors last year and this year have lost their seats. We have got to face it, we have had another very substantial swath of our crucial activist base wiped away. We have had a few successful rearguard guerrilla actions, but what matters for me is whether we can fight the next election as a nationwide, powerful, independent force. If we have another year like this we will not be able to.

"Two years on from the election the economy is flat on its back, and if we cannot get the economy to grow we cannot get the deficit down. So unless there is a change, both coalition parties and our country are heading for the rocks."

He called for bold action, saying the banks including RBS had to be forced to lend.

He said all that was coming from the Treasury and David Cameron was pussyfooting about. "They talk about it, but they won't act."

The party president, Tim Farron, admitted the two parties believed wildly different things, but they had to co-operate like grownups. But he added "the party had to be a bit more spiky and a bit more independent."

Will American voters need to be further ripped off by the Lords of Austerity before they have the good sense to defeat every Republican and every Blue Dog Democrat running for Congress? That would send a clear message-- although I'm sure the Beltway media would find a way to muddle it.

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http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2012/05/meanwhile-across-pond-voters-have.htm
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