No more Texas governors for president
Mitt Romney to WBTV in Charlotte, N.C., discussing the protests at Bank of America.
Oh, we young people don’t understand “real jobs” and “what banks do,” yeah?
I argue we do. There’s a lot of us working two and three minimum wage jobs, going to school, graduating, barely surviving, or some combination of the above.
We’re consistently screwed by people like you, Mitt, who gambled with our parents’ retirement, who ensured most of us can never retire, who foreclosed on our families, who laid us off in the name of savings, who pissed away bailouts in executive bonuses and back slaps, as you grin in your expensive suits and tell us repeatedly that we DON’T GET how it works, as you reach into our back pockets for yet another checking account usage fee because we can’t keep a minimum balance, let me tell you…
WE GET IT.
We are fully proletarianized, working ourselves to the bone, paying the same tax rate as you, and praying to whatever is sacred that we do not get sick or injured because we are one paycheck or missed unemployment check away from completed ruin, while you and your cronies line up for another spin at the roulette wheel, your wallets fat from the products of our intellectual and physical labor.
FUCK YOU and your patronizing condescension. Fuck you with the all the fucks my exhausted self has left to give.
(via cognitivedissonance)
Infographic that breaks out the kinds of priorities we’d have to give up for the $150,000 tax break that Republicans want to give to the nation’s millionaires and billionaires.
Republicans are desperate. They can’t attack Obama on jobs because the jobs picture is improving.
Their attack on the Administration’s rule requiring insurers to cover contraception has backfired, raising hackles even among many Republican women.
Their attack on Obama for raising gas prices has…
WORD.
Maryland is also on track to become the next state to legalize marriage equality. Go MD!
An interesting graph of jobs in the movies by decade.
Occupations of the two top-billed characters, in the top-ten highest grossing films per year (1926-2010). Each job arranged by gender distribution and the decade of most frequent occurrence. In cases of ties between decades the size of the circle and gender distribution shows is that of the job, total. The 50 most common jobs are shown.
In the 2000s, if you’re a woman: nurse, If you’re a man: professor. Hm.
We’ve updated our jobs chart again with the good news out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning: the economy added 257,000 private-sector jobs in January, making it the 23rd month of growth in a row.
Can you find the word “jobs” in Mitch Daniels’s Republican rebuttal?
Pres. Obama’s 2012 Campaign Is Hiring. There Are Hundreds Of vacancies: State Directors, Press Secretaries, State Digital Directors, Deputy Field Directors, Deputy Field Director, Deputy Field Director For Training And Internships, Field Organizers, Regional Field Directors, State Operation Vote Director, State Women Vote Director, State Youth Vote Director, Help Desk Support, etc!
The 99% Act is the best bill we’ve seen in Washington in a long time. But it can be hard to remember the details or explain them to friends and family. This infographic spells out exactly how the 99% Act will help turn our economy around.
MYTH #1: The congressional Super Committee failed because both sides refuse to compromise.
REALITY: The Super Committee failed because Republicans’ number one, non-negotiable priority is to protect millionaires and billionaires from paying even one more penny in taxes.1 Democrats repeatedly offered deep spending cuts (far deeper than most progressives would like) in exchange for raising taxes on the wealthy and closing corporate loopholes, only to be refused again and again.2 So even though the vast majority of Americans say they want to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits, and raise taxes on the rich and corporations,3 that won’t happen until Republicans put aside their extremist stance.
MYTH #2: Nobody knows what Occupy Wall Street is about.
REALITY: Occupy Wall Street may not have a formal list of demands, but anyone who’s been paying attention understands the core problems that occupiers are protesting–that corporations have far too much power in our political system, that Wall Street banks crashed our economy but were never held accountable, and that the richest 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans–156 million people–combined.4
MYTH #3: Occupiers should stop protesting and just get a job.
REALITY: As anybody who’s looked for a job in the last few years knows, there just aren’t jobs out there. That’s a big part of why occupiers are protesting. In September, there were four times as many unemployed people as job openings.5 And for those who are lucky enough to find a job, median wages today are lower than they were a decade ago.6
MYTH #4: Occupy Wall Street is intent on provoking violence, especially against banks and the police.
REALITY: Occupations across the country have committed themselves to nonviolent protest, in the greatest traditions of protest movements. Some of their protests have been met with acts of police violence–tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets7–but in many cases, protesters have reminded police that the police are part of the 99%, too.8 And in the few cases when people have shown up at occupations and committed acts of vandalism, other protesters have even repaired their acts of vandalism.9
MYTH #5: The biggest crisis facing our country is out of control government spending.
REALITY: The two biggest drivers of our deficit–by far–are the economic crash and the Bush tax cuts.10 We have millions of people out of work, corporations hoarding cash, and factories sitting idle. If we put all those people back to work–rebuilding infrastructure, educating our children, and researching new technologies–it’ll shrink the deficit and make our economy stronger for the long haul. And we can easily afford it if we make sure the rich–who are taking home a larger percentage of income than any time since 191711–pay their fair share.
Sources:
1. “No, ‘both sides’ aren’t equally to blame for supercommittee failure,” The Washington Post, November 21, 2011
2. “Wonkbook: In supercommittee, Dems moved right and Republicans moved righter,” The Washington Post, November 22, 2011
3. “CNN Poll: What The Super Committee Produced Is…Exactly What We Don’t Want,” Talking Points Memo, November 21, 2011
“Medicare, Social Security & The Deficit,” National Committee to Preserve Social Security & Medicare, September 2011
http://www.ncpssm.org/pdf/poll.pdf
4. “Michael Moore says 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined,” Politifact Wisconsin, March 10, 2011
5. “Fact: 4 job seekers per opening in U.S.,” CNN, September 12, 2011
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/12/fact-4-job-seekers-per-opening-in-u-s/
6. “Median household income,” Wikipedia, Accessed November 22, 2011
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income#Median_household_income_and_the_US_economy
7. “Occupy movement: police reaction in pictures,” The Guardian, November 21, 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/nov/22/occupy-movement-police-brutality-pictures
8. “Occupy Demonstrators Mark Two Months of Protests,” NPR, November 17, 2011
http://www.npr.org/2011/11/17/142462305/occupy-demonstrators-mark-two-months-of-protests
9. “Occupy Oakland protesters assist in cleanup efforts,” News 10 ABC, November 3, 2011
http://www.news10.net/news/article/161383/2/Occupy-Oakland-protesters-assist-in-cleanup-efforts-
10. “Economic Downturn and Bush Policies Continue to Drive Large Projected Deficits,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, May 10, 2011
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3490
11. “Income Inequality Is At An All-Time High: STUDY,” The Huffington Post, September 14, 2009
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/14/income-inequality-is-at-a_n_259516.html
GOP jobs plan.
