Another useless bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives

Yesterday the U.S. House of Representatives passed new legislation.
One would assume that they dealt with the extension of the payroll tax holiday, or maybe that they passed a jobs bill that would put Americans to work.
Unfortunately that would be wishful thinking.
They passed another bill that would cut the powers of the Executive branch, and its supposed group of bureaucrats who pass new regulations.
This has been possibly the most do-nothing Congress in history.
They have worked arguably the least amount of days in the history of country, and have passed bills in the House of Representatives that they know perfectly will never make it to the floor of the Senate. And the reason that they will never see the day of light in the Senate is because they do nothing for the millions of unemployed in the US.
This bill would actually give the party who only runs one chamber of the U.S. Congress the power to veto regulations that supposedly would stop business from creating jobs.
I should clarify that the actual do-nothing is the House of Representatives. These are the same members who wanted to push the country into default and who ended up causing the lowering of the credit of the country. They are a group of extremists who want to see the safety net of this country dismantled.
This same group will hurt millions of Americans as of January 1st of 2012 because they don’t want to touch the pockets of the ultra wealthy. Almost 70% of Americans say that they believe that the wealthiest Americans should pay higher taxes.
This people are a disgrace to this country.
And when last week they saw that the unemployment had gone down from 9% to 8.6% they went berserk. The unemployment has gone because of the stimulus that was put into place in 2009, and now we are starting to see the effect of it, with people spending more. Housing saw in increase of over 10%.
These are all bad news for people like Mitch McConell, U.S. Senate minority leader, and who said almost at the beginning of the current administration that his main goal is to defeat Obama at the next. Republicans are more concerned in blocking, stopping, and potentially damaging the country as long as they can defeat the current president in the next election in 2012. That is truly pathetic. These representatives should start representing the will of the people, and not their own agenda, they should start governing, not passing useless bills that do absolutely nothing for the country. The U.S. is in a financial bind, with high unemployment, high deficits, and a bleak future, and these people are only worried in bringing down the current administration at whatever cost.
Let us not forget that many of the same people spent precious time over a decade ago impeaching a president for infidelity, while many of them where being unfaithful during the process.

The Buffoons at the debate

Last night we saw a new debate of the Republican Party. With few exceptions they were a bunch of buffoons. When I say that I mean literally. Let us look at the meaning of the word buffoon:
1. a person who amuses others by tricks, jokes, odd gestures and postures, etc.
2. a person given to coarse or undignified joking.
That fits perfect the candidates for the Republican Party. They talk about invading or attacking countries around the world, to keep on increasing the defense budget, crying foul at the fact that the Super Committee failed in its negotiation and thus 1.3 trillion in cuts will start as of January of 2013, half of it coming from defense, the Republican Party’s favorite cow.
Now let us look at the Super Committee, it was a concept of Congress for their unwillingness to negotiate and reduce the budget by over 4 trillion in the next 10 years, and the only reason the Super Committee failed is because Republicans are so obsessed with protecting the income and taxes of the top 1% of income earners that they will allow the country to go to hell in a hand basket. 67 % of the U.S. population believe that the wealthy should pay higher taxes.
Now going back to the debate, it is really worrisome to watch these comedians and think that they may be a possibility for one to become the next president.
The only one with some senses is one that will not win the nomination, Governor Huntsman. He says that the only way of maintaining a large military is based on our financial picture. We are on the brink of bankruptcy, and the main reason is because we exported all the technologies and manufacturing jobs overseas, based on lack of incentives in the tax code passed by Ronald Reagan in the 80s, reduction of taxes for the wealthy, passed by Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, who have only hurt the country, by eliminating money that was being invested in education and research.
The U.S.A. is no longer the number country. Unless we accept that for a fact we will not deal with the issues we have as a country. We are like the alcoholic or drug addict who says that he controls the drink and drugs he or she consumes. This is a joke.
These candidates talk about privatizing the TSA (Transport Security Administration), not that I am a big fan of them, but the last time that we had private security at the airport, that was making five or 6 dollars an hour was on 09/11/01. Is that what we want to go back to? They want whoever replaces the TSA to do racial profiling. That is another way of discrimination.
These candidates are so out of sync with the majority of the country, just like the rest of the Republican Party, that they will say and do anything to please the right fringe of the country.
The next election unfortunately will not be a choice of the best candidate but a referendum on Obama’s performance, and that is what so worrisome to consider that one of these ignorant, multi-position, fanatic group ofjokerscould be the next commander in chief.

Occupy Wall Street

For weeks I have reluctant to comment about the “99%” or Occupy Wall Street movement. The main reason of that is because I did not want to sound that I was jumping on the bandwagon. I have supported this ideology because I have said time and time over that the right thing to do as a nation is tax the people who have the money, just we did until 1981.
Recently a chart has been shown about the income disparity between the 1% of income earners or like the Republican Party calls “Job Creators”. What a crock. They may be creating jobs but not in this country, maybe in China, Mexico or other country that has no regulations against pollution or child labor exploitation, like many countries out there.
Isn’t it just a coincidence that the disparity starting growing since 1981, this is in my book the beginning of running this country into ground, and it starts with Ronald Reagan and his policy of government destruction, except for the wasteful Department of Defense, and the reform of taxation favoring the wealthiest at the expense of the rest of the country.
Now let’s look at what O.W.S. (Occupy Wall Street) stand for compared to the Tea Party. The OWS believes that Wall Street and the wealthy should start paying their fair share of taxes, not what they are paying now, they believe in a function of government, by loaning or pardoning loans to students, fairness in society. They represent different walks of life, different backgrounds, different income levels, different age levels. This movement has spread across the country to many cities including L.A., Denver, Boston, Chicago, Oakland, Kansas City. They were small business owners, students, retired people. There were no guns at any of the Occupy rallies across the country. They were funded by donations by people who supported the people who were camping in these cities. The OWS say they are unhappy with both parties because both of them have sold themselves to Corporate America.
Now let us look at the Tea Party. They cannot say that they represent the vast majority of the population as they only represent the fringe of the Republican Party. They are in their vast majority white people. That in itself tells me that there are not representative of the country. The Tea Party was funded by groups such as Americans for Prosperity who is funded by the Koch Brothers, the oil barons of the country, and by Karl Rove’s American Crossroads that is funded by 3 billionaires. They showed up at events with hand and machine guns, because they said that the 2nd Amendment protected them.
This group believes that the wealthy should pay less in taxes, even if it means bankrupting the nation, and that we should “flatten” the tax code, so that the 46% who don’t pay federal income tax, because their income is not high enough start paying more, that only the few have options with education, that we should spend limitless amounts of money for the Department of Defense, that we should cut benefits for seniors and the poor by cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
The Republican Party and its spokesperson Fox News have started name calling the people who have been demonstrating now for two months, by calling them bums, drug addicts, criminals, while there is no proof of any of this. This shows a total lack of sensitivity for what the middle class and poor are going through as the OWS is Middle America. Those same republicans we saying in 2010 that America was taking back the country from the socialist measures of Obama. I guess that the 99% does not suit the needs of the Republican Party and its radical agenda.
The OWS has its work cut out for itself as rough days lay ahead because as we have seen lately cities across the country are using brutal force by the police to disband them. Many of these mayors have received campaign funds from Corporate America, so they cannot allow the middle class and the poor to rebel against the status quo.
Pundits such as Bill O’Reilly are saying that the Occupy Wall Street group is finished. I disagree with that opinion, not only because I believe in their agenda but also because I believe that you cannot kill an ideology, even if you beat up or get rid of their leaders. If that would have been the case the Civil Rights movement would have died, the demonstrations against the Vietnam War would have faded with no results, Gandhi’s non-violent movement would have failed and Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette would not have been beheaded.
We will need to see if this grass movement will use its message and energy to put their ideas into action next November elections.

The middle class fights back

When Governor John Kasich, Republican from Ohio won the governorship last November his main objective was, just like other Republican governors across the nation, to dismantle the unions at the state level, and by doing so weakening one of the pillars of the Democratic Party.
The Republicans governors have used the excuse in states such as Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida, Nevada was that cutting costs was good for the economic health of the states. That made sense to a lot of people, but what people were not being told was that in the case of Ohio, the governor gave himself a pay increase of $10,000 dollars, he cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy, cut funding for education and services, including firefighters and police, thus not helping but hurting communities.
When Governor Kasich, and his majorities in both the State Assembly and Senate were not counting on was that the people would organize a recall of the law to ban collective bargaining, the main tool that people have to negotiate their income and benefits, as a unite, not individually, also called union.
This election is being watched across the country because it may indicate how the middle class may look at the election of November 2012. It also is being watched because, as I said earlier, people in many states are unhappy and are having second thoughts with the people whom they elected in 2010.
It is also an indication of what a president Mitt Romney or Herman Cain may be if they win the White House in 2012, cutting taxes for the wealthy, for corporations, eliminating protective regulations and the institution that control some of those regulations such as the E.P.A. (Environmental Protection Agency), cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, thus hurting the middle class and the working poor.
The Obama Administration was more involved in the Ohio voting at least supporting the people who did all the leg work by making phone calls, knocking on doors, than it was with the recalls of some of the senate members in Wisconsin.
Let us hope that the working people of this country use this election as a reason to fight back against the obstructionist Republican Party that has controlled the U.S. House of Representatives since January, and they fight back, not just only in Ohio, but also across country in the election of 2012.

Argentina y otro traspie

La eleccion para presidente en la Argentina en el dia de la fecha es una nueva prueba de como la gente de distintos medios economicos y sociales aprueba de la epoca y la situacion en la que el pais vive.
Para la gente que no trabaja y que no le interesa trabajar sabiamos que votarian por el modelo actual, un modelo que no unicamente ayuda a la gente desfavorecida (algo que yo creo que es necesario, dado que toda sociedad debe tener una red de sosten para los que no pueden mantenerse) sino que fomenta la vagancia.
Es muy facil, como lo hizo Peron en sus dos primeros gobiernos y con la influencia de Evita, de derrochar las arcas del pais para contribuir, como dije anteriormente, a la vagancia.
Esto no hace a un major pais, sino a un pais donde la mitad de la poblacion esta sentada en el carro mientras el otro 50% tira. Tampoco debemos olvidarnos que los mandatarios de este gobierno han visto sus fortunas personales incrementadas de una manera considerable, como tambien lo hicieron Peron y Evita en su momento.
Lo que es inexplicable es que parte del otro 50% este no solo conforme sino que pareciera feliz con el “Status Quo”.
La falta de seguridad, la vagancia, el robo y la dictadura que representan estos mandatarios y su circulo de secuaces es un muchos casos algo nunca visto antes en la Argentina.
Cuando yo era joven uno sabia que los gobernantes tenian metida la mano en la lata, dado que los politicos son iguales en todos lados, siempre tratando de beneficiarse, pero la inseguridad, la vagancia y el robo han alcanzado niveles record. Han vuelto a los juicios de los militares, muchos de ellos que fueron enjuiciados en el gobierno de Alfonsin. Un pais mirando siempre para atras no puede planear para el futuro,
Mucha gente piensa que la falta de seguridad es algo que nunca les va a pasar a ellos, hasta que les pase, lo mismo con los secuestros y la violencia.
Cuando estuve recientemente en la Argentina y comente lo que leia en los diarios sobre estos problemas se me dijo que las cosas publicadas en El Clarin y La Nacion eran mentiras. Hay un dicho que dice que la mentira tiene patas cortas. La mentira nunca subsiste. Pero cuando se le bloquea la entrega de los diarios que opinan algo distinto, o que tratan de investigar las cosas cuestionables a esta administracion eso me da la pauta que tal vez parte de eso es verdad. Este gobierno ha tomado todos los peores ejemplos de la epoca de Peron, como cuando cerro el diario La Prensa. El diario se cerro porque era una voz opositora al gobierno. Tambien se me dijo que en EEUU hay mas violencia que en Argentina dado que mas de un loco ha asesinado gente en universidades, etc. Jamas negaria eso. Pero yo saco a caminar a dos perros por el vecindario todas las noches y nunca he tenido alguien con un revolver que me quiera secuestrar o robar. No tengo barrotes en mi casa. Cuando escucho gente discutiendo en la calle llamo a la policia y viene en menos de 5 minutos. En Argentina hay 40 millones de habitantes, en EEUU hay 320 millones. La diferencia de poblacion es un poco mas que considerable.
Una alternativa es hacer como hace el avestruz, y meter la cabeza en el agujero. De esa manera no tiene que lidiar con la realidad. Todos esos impuestos que "supuestamente" se le retienen al campo por exportar, a donde van a parar? Van a parar al bolsillo de algun funcionario?
No podemos decir que van a inversiones dado que se importa combustible y gas, cosas que anteriormente eran en gran parte de produccion local.
La realidad es que van a la cuenta corriente de la presidenta para que en cada viaje al exterior se pueda comprar joyas, o bolsos Louis Vuitton, al mas puro estilo Evita.
Que va a suceder cuando esas exportaciones de soja disminuyan, o aparezca un competidor mayor?
Lo que mucha gente que piensa que esto va a durar para siempre, pero nada nunca lo hace. Uno lo puede ver en Europa y en EEUU. Esa ola de problemas economicos va a llegar a las orillas de la Argentina, como llega todo, como llego en su momento la depresion del 30, y mas con la interrelacion del todos los mercados.
Cuando esta eleccion sea parte del pasado, como lo han sido toda otras elecciones anteriores, que les va a quedar a los argentinos? La misma inseguridad? La misma violencia? Los robos? La misma clase parasita?
Seguramente van a tener algo nuevo, aumentos de las prepagas, de luz, de gas, de nafta, de telefono, de costo de celulares. El dolar bajo como esta tampoco va a durar, como nunca en el pasado ha durado.
Los argentinos tardo o temprano despertaran de esta “burbuja” y descubriran, como le ha pasado en otras epocas, y descubriran que era otro mirage, como vivieron en los 90s, en la epoca de Martinez de Hoz, y otros tantos en el pasado.

The End of "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds"

In the 1990s former President Menem of Argentina started selling all the companies that were under the jurisdiction of the Central Government. In order to make these companies more attractive for investors he first went through the process of dismantling them, selling parts of them, shutting down part of their operations, or cutting funds so that the service would deteriorate to the point where the public asked for something to be done. The President and his cronies were all involved in the sales, receiving kickbacks from the institutions that purchased these enterprises.
Representative Issa from California, Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and arguably the wealthiest member of Congress, has a proposal to put up of 120 thousand Post Office employees in the street. His real objective, and of his buddies, is to privatize an institution that has been in service 235 years delivering mail to both cities and rural areas.
The United States Postal Service is a self-sufficient entity, that receives zero dollars from the Federal Government. They deliver to the most remote places in the country. Federal Express and UPS, the two private competitors only cover 75% of the US. The USPS delivers packages of their competitors to the other 25% that the private sector does not cover.
The reason he wants to propose the dismantling of this great institution is because in the lame duck session of 2006 the Republican Majority, knowing that it had lost the election, passed a law that forced the Postal Service to fund its pension plan for the next 75 years in 10 years.
That put the USPS in the red. No other federal or private organization is forced to do such a thing.
The cost of a stamp is less than 50 cents. The private sector does not and would never deliver for such a lower price.
This measure would also force to cut delivers from 6 days to 5 days a week.
It would hurt rural areas, small businesses, lower income people and put a huge amount of people in the street.
This is another proof that the fanatics running the US House do not have the best intention for this country. They only want to benefit their friends in the private sector, and in the words of Senator McConell: Making Obama A One-Term President Is My Single Most Important Political Goal, even if that means the destruction of the country we used to know.

A do-nothing U.S. Congress

The United States has as of today a 9.1% unemployment or 25 million people without a job.
We are also seeing was is probably the most “do-nothing” Congress in history.
They ran on jobs. As of today October 14th, 2011 they not have not offered one single proposal to reduce unemployment.
They have spent the last few months trying to push the country into default, its first in history, regardless the cost to the wellbeing of its population.
October 13th the U.S. House of Representatives spent the whole day proposing a ban on finding abortions with public funds. This ban has been in place since 1976.
Since the House has been in session since January 2011 the main topic has been abortion. They have brought the same proposal to the floor 7 times.
The U.S. has faced weather related in 2011 including tornados that destroyed cities such as Joplin, Missouri, and hurricanes such as Irene that left many states devastated such as Vermont, where there are still feeling the effects, even though the storm didn’t hit at its worst. The position of the republicans in the House is that there is no money to help these communities unless it comes from another part of the budget, therefore taking the money out of programs for people who need them. In other words you help one group of people at the expense of another.
But the interesting thing is that does not happen with the people making millions and billions, such as hedge fund managers. Their taxes are in many cases half of the average middle class person pay.
We can also subsidize oil companies, and corporations such as GE that didn’t pay a penny in taxes.
So the hypocrisy is that there can be tax breaks and money to give away to the top 1% percent and corporations, but we cannot help the people who need money to rebuild their communities.
The House has been hijacked by fanatics who don’t care about unemployment, don’t care for the future of the country, but that their only drive is to stop abortions, to outlaw it.
Polls show that Americans want the government to deal with unemployment, not with abortion.
I find it very interesting that in the first 6 years of the previous decade republicans had the three branches of the Federal Government, the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial, and DID NOTTHING to challenge Row vs. Wade.
The only thing they want to do is take women’s rights away, and push people into poverty, and the shameful thing is that they want to rap themselves in the Christian flag.