NEON GODS

Rail ridership is up significantly. That's encouraging.

Elkhart, Indiana, is small city of about 50,000 people 100 miles east of Chicago.  To get to Chicago, you can drive, fly, or take the train.  Driving used to be the preferred choice, but the Interstate highway to Chicago is a toll road which adds to the cost, on top of the increased gas prices, not to mention the increased traffic in and around Chicago.  Suddenly the train looks pretty good. 

Evidently that's the case because last year the number of Amtrak passengers from Elkhart increased from 13,000 to almost 16,000, and through April of this year they have already seen 7,000 passengers, which projects to over 20,000 for the year. And this from a city that is currently experiencing very high unemployment. 

Republicans hate Amtrak because it is subsidized by our tax dollars.  If it wasn't it's likely Elkhart, and most of the country outside of the northeast corridor, would not have train service.  I believe the current increases in ridership is indicative of a growing demand for passenger rail travel.  Congress needs to do everything they can to modernize Amtrak and add some more passenger lines.  Rail is an excelent way to go 75  to 250 miles away, so we should start by focusing on this. 

Flying has become a major hassle, and it's often uncomfortable.  It's time to see what rail can do for us.

--Trakker

 

We need to primary Obama!

I'm just flat out disgusted with President Obama.  President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was physically paralyzed, he had to use a wheelchair to get around, but he made up for that with vision and courage.  Our President is by all accounts very physically fit, and yet seems paralyzed mentally.

Paul Krugman continues to highlight the Obama administration's paralysis and wrong-headedness about our failing economy.  In this post he concludes:

And yet the WH buys into the doctrine that failed.

Barack Obama is not a Democrat, at least not the Democrats of my youth.  He does not deserve another four-year term.  We desperately need a viable primary candidate to run against him.  We need a way to show this country that many of us are disgusted with this right-leaning administration. 

We need a real Democrat to run who will tell the voters what this administration should have done but didn't.  We need someone to tell America why the government is vital to the people, and what it can do to reduce unemployment and eventually restore a vibrant middle class that can afford to send their kids to college, work a regular 40-hour week with decent wages, so people can spend more time with their families. 

Republicans see the American worker as a resource to be exploited: work until you drop and then get out of the way so a younger stronger worker can take your place.  And shame on you if you can't afford to live once you've been kicked to the side at age 50.  We need someone who can expose what kind of future the Republicans have in store for us.  The Obama administration certainly hasn't sounded the alarm.

--Trakker

How to win the class war? Pit the middle class against itself.

I'm having breakfast at a local (air conditioned!) bagel place (it hit 102 yesterday).  The guy in back of me is older than I am, obviously in his 70s at least.  He's reading the paper and drinking coffee.  Another guy, in his 40s, comes in and sits next to the older guy.  After a bit he looks over at the older guy and says, "I bet you're enjoying your retirement with your monthly Social Security check."

Older guy (taken aback): "Well, yes, it is nice not having to work anymore." 

Belligerent guy: "I bet you're worried about Social Security running out of money, huh?"

OG: "No, not really. Why?"

BG: "Because we have too many people on the dole and the rest of us can't afford to support you all."

OG: "It's my money. I paid in to Social Security for over 40 years."

BG: "Yeah, so did my Mom and she died when she was 64 and all she got in return was a $300 death benefit.  I guess that's what the government counts on, people paying in all their lives and then dying before they have to pay anything out.  I guess that's how they can pay you every month, because some people die young."

OG: "I'm sorry about your Mom, but Social Security is more like an insurance policy than a savings acount. It doesn't pay much but ensures that the elderly don't have to go on welfare when they retire."

BG (getting angry): "Well, I work my ass off every day and I'll probably die before I get a penny of Social Security, so I guess that leaves more for you."

OG (finally showing offence): "Well, thanks. I plan to live to be 90."

BG (loudly, getting up and walking out): "Fine. I hope you live to be 91. Just don't let me find you walking in front of my truck!"

Sigh. Just another example of the middle class eating it's own.

--Trakker

 

GOP: busy drowning government.

I think Republican candidate for President, Tim Pawlenty, revealed what the Republican party's ultimate goal is (via Think Progress): “If you can find a good or service on the Internet, then the federal government probably doesn’t need to be doing it,” Mr. Pawlenty says.

As the Think Progress article mentions, that would include things like "...law enforcement, firefighters, food safety, road construction, arbitration, Social Security, and Medicare." 

The Republican's loathing of anything government runs so deep I suspect they will spend the next decade eliminating as many governmental functions as possible and either turning them over to the private sector or creating a vacuum for the private sector to fill.

Why do the hate the government so?  First, much of what the government does benefits the people, not business owners or shareholders.  Ultimately any work done by the government is answerable to elected officials - in other words, the people.  If the government does a bad job, constituents complain and someone's head could roll.  Second, the government is an easy target.  Few voters know how much they benefit from the silent, anonymous, work done in Washington and other government facilities.  Everyone has had a bad experience with a government employee at some time in their life, and so it's not hard to convince voters all government employees are parasites who get paid to do nothing.

It's funny because we've all had bad experiences with private sector workers too, and yet I've rarely heard anyone turn against private enterprise because of it. 

Anyway, here is more evidence that the Republicans are intent on turning over efficient government services to the private sector.  It comes, of course, from Wisconsin. From Balloon Juice,

...the Wisconsin legislature’s joint finance committee just passed a measure that would:

(A) force the University of Wisconsin to give back $39 million in federal funds to support the spread of high speed internet across the state…

(B) would essentially kill the nonprofit internet provider network that serves most of Wisconsin’s public schools and almost all of its libraries.  Oh, and

(C): “Another provision in the plan would bar any University of Wisconsin campus from participating in advanced networks connecting research institutions worldwide, according to [state superintendent of public instruction] Tony Evers’s memo.”

Amazing. Keep the people stupid and make sure the private sector controls everything that goes on in the state.  This is a recipe for becoming a banana republic.  Really.

Trakker

How can I bame this on the Republicans?

The temperature here in DC hit 99 yesterday.  I was packing up the car to head for the cooler temps in West Virginia when I noticed the house was getting uncomfortably warm.  Found out our air conditioner compressor died.  Called our AC company and they said Tuesday at the earliest - unless we're willing to pay overtime rates.  If so, then maybe Saturday.

Today is even hotter. We have all the fans going but it's still damn uncomfortable (how did I survive my whole childhood without air conditioning??). 

It seems to be harder on the cats than us.  They look like limp rags.  Poor things can't take cold showers like we can!

--Trakker

Wisconsin Republicans: thanks for your money, teachers!

Remember when newly elected governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, was on TV wringing his hands about how broke his state is and how that meant that all those well-paid government workers, you know like teachers and game wardens, were going to have to help save the taxpayers by paying more for their benefits.

Oh, boo-hoo.  But, of course, it was all a ruse to give the Republican legislators more money to play with.  Guess how they plan to spend that new money?  They are going to have Republicans run as Democrats in the recall elections.  Since there are already Democratic candidates running in these recalls, this will force Wisconsin taxpayers to pay for a primary election before the recall election!  There's not a chance in hell those pretend Democrats will win, all it does is buy the Republicans more time for the Koch Brothers, the Chamber of Commerce, and the rich tea party organizations time to flood the state with non-stop ads against the Democratic challengers.

Here's Greg Sargent, writing on Plum Line:

Keep in mind that the number one justification Wisconsin Republicans offered for taking away the collective bargaining rights of public employees — the proposal that got this whole fight started — has been that it’s necessary to protect Wisconsin taxpayers! ...

Now that Wisconsin GOP state senators are staring into the recall abyss, however, Wisconsin Republicans are willing to waste the money of those very same taxpayers on a scheme to tamper with Dem primary politics in a last-ditch effort to push back the recall elections in hopes of saving their hides.

To be sure, recall elections are going to cost taxpayers money no matter what. But Dems have secured these elections through the arduous collection of tens of thousands of signatures — they have gotten past hurdles which are meant to insure that there’s genuine and widespread public support for holding them.

Greg ends his post with two words:

Just amazing.

--Trakker

The Shame of Anthony Weiner. What an ass.

Speaking of disgusting, I give you Anthony Weiner.  Not only has he admitted engaging in inappropriate Tweeting, he then lied about it and tried to cover it up.  This also allowed that slimy, bottom-feeder, Andrew Breitbart a chance to crow about how he was right all along.

I have been a big fan of Weiner's for his outspoken attacks on the right.  He's been one of the few who has had the courage to call the Republicans out, but with this stupid behavior he actually halted some of the momentum the left has been building up as the Republican circus of clowns running for President has turned voters off. 

Resign, Anthony.  Go home and explain to your wife what a scuz you are.  You've embarrassed her, brought unwanted press attention to an innocent college girl, and disappointed your supporters like me.  Fuckin' shame on you.

Trakker

I often fume about how the right has become so anti-education, anti-science, and anti-smart, but blocking the nomination of a Nobel Prize winner from a seat on the federal Reserve Board is just incredable!

Republicans are acting more and more like spoiled teenage brats, who are certain they are right and everyone else, even Nobel Prize winners are stupid and misguided.  Worse, the media just reports everything they do as though they were adults.

The Republicans want to bust us, their goal is to make America into rual Teas or Mississipi, and as we sit around unemployed and starving they will tell us it's our fault we are too lazy to find a job and they will blame our poverty on the Democrats.

And speaking of stupid and Mississippi, guess what Haley Barbour told CBS news?  He claims the Obama administration is jacking up the gas prices on purpose to get us to drive less.  Yes, that's someone who was planning to run for President!  What a great country this is when you can say anything, no matter how stupid and there are no consequences.  Remember when you were a kid and you got caught lying?  There was hell to pay, right?  Well, evidently kids in conservative households are never punished for lying because as adults they actually become rich and famous for lying on Fox News and elsewhere.

You're damn right I'm disgusted.

--Trakker

Obama. The new President Hoover?

Well, based on the latest economic figures it seems pretty clear that all that talk earlier this year about how the economy is beginning to bounce back and by summer we should see employment picking up was just wishful thinking at best.  Or maybe it was just cover to allow Washington to concentrate on how much we should slash government spending in return for raising the debt ceiling.

It's painfully obvious to most of us that unemployment is the number one problem facing our country, but Washington just ignores the millions who are hurting, and looks for more ways to take money out of the economy, throw more government workers out of their jobs, and ensure future retirees won't have much to look forward to in their later years.

President Obama is looking more and more like President Hoover every day.  Here he is, the one man with the bully pulpit and the oratorical skills to convince Americans that we must first put people back to work, then worry about our debt problem, but instead he's engaged in cutting more spending.

He needs to stand up and convince Americans that putting people back to work will actually reduce our federal debt - and reduce the budget problems of the states.  Workers pay federal, state, local, and sales taxes, revenue that goes into state and federal treasuries!  This is such a simple concept that one almost wonders if ignoring it could be considered tacit evidence that the President and both parties are working together to dismantle the middle class and starve the poor.

Our federal government was conceived as a structure supported "by the people, for the people."  In other words the government was envisioned as the mechanism where the people ("by the people" through their self-imposed taxes) help make life better for all of us ("for the people").  Here we have this supposedly smart President sitting at the wheel of this impressively powerful car called the government, and he just sits there, key in the ignition.  All he has to do is turn on the engine and put this big car in motion to help get people back to work (we saw George Bush turn on the ignition and put the car in motion, but instead of helping Americans, he used it to invade a country of his choice and kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people.) 

Politicians tell us they are more concerned about our debt than unemployment because that's what the people are demanding.  Well, of course that's what they're demanding because that's what you have been telling them is our number one problem!  Where is our President in all this?  Mute.  This is a guy that is so articulate that he convinced millions of us to vote for a black man with a strange name instead of a war hero!  If he can do that, surely he can convince Americans that unemployment is our biggest problem, that if we put people back to work it will reduce the debt and provide tax dollars to hire back laid-off teachers and policemen.  This will increase demand and companies will start hiring workers to meet that demand and it will just begin to snowball.  Instead, Obama is sitting at the wheel of the car, watching the Republicans make the car less powerful.  Brilliant!

Back in the 50s and 60s the Democratic and Republican parties concentrated on how to make America better.  When one party's leaders faltered like Hoover or Obama, the other party would counter with a leader they thought had better ideas.  When Hoover let the country slide into depression, the Democrats ran Franklin Roosevelt who was able to get the country moving.

President Obama, in my opinion, does not deserve to be re-elected but he most likely will because the opposition party has no one even half as smart.  Today's Republicans don't want to make America greater, they want to make America a third world nation run by white Christians for white Christians.  Really.

After dinner last night I asked my son (a 30 year-old liberal who has said he will not vote for Obama in 2012) if he thought America will eventually become a progressive nation in the European mold (greater government services and safety nets) or will we continue on our path to becoming a backwater nation for a few decades.  He believes we will bounce back and see a renaissance of greatness.  Good, I'm glad he's optimistic. 

I'm not as optimistic.  I think the first indication of how our future will look is the success or failure of the recalls in states like Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan.  These are the states where angry, energized, people are pitted against the wealthy.  The second indication of our future will be the House and Senate races in 2012.  If the loony, class-war Republicans keep the status quo or make gains in 2012, our future looks grim.

--Trakker

Krugman: "We really are in meltdown territory" Eek!

According to the latest economic indices that out "recovery" is not going very well.  At all.  If you read Paul Krugman regularly you are probably not surprised that our economy is stuck in neutral.  Paul is usually right about the economy, which makes his recent post about the plight of the Euro downright breathtakingly frightening.

You can see why we’re now at the panic stage. The Bundesbank is already very upset about its large claims on troubled debtors, which are backed by sovereign debt as collateral. Yet if financing stops in the wake of a debt restructuring, the result will be to collapse the debtor nations’ banking systems...

So the ECB keeps saying that restructuring is unthinkable. Yet austerity programs are not working; the prospect of a return to normal financing is receding rather than approaching.

If you ask me, the water level has now dropped so far that the fuel rods are exposed. We really are in meltdown territory.

I've never heard Krugman sound this pessimistic about something so important.  A meltdown by the Euro and some European economies could have a negative impact on our economy too - could it tip us back into a recession?  A depression?  Like we needed more bad news...

--Trakker