Showing posts tagged politics

Goodbye 112th Congress!

think-progress:

A few of the worst moments from the least productive, most partisan Congress:

  • Almost shut down the government and hit the debt ceiling.
  • Let the Violence Against Women Act expire. Voted 33 times to repeal Obamacare.
  • Created, then went over, the Fiscal Cliff.
  • Voted 317 times against the environment.
  • Shut down half the internet by proposing SOPA.
  • Ignored gun control after their colleague was shot.
  • Held a hearing on birth control where women couldn’t testify.
  • Gave the NRA veto power over judges.

And that’s not even the end of it.

(Reblogged from think-progress)
widdershinsgirl: Studies have found that consistent conservative voters show lower levels of electrical activity in their brains, make decisions with less study, and are less likely to consider evidence that contradicts their initial impressions of a situation or issue. Now who actually ‘thinks’ again?

widdershinsgirl:

Studies have found that consistent conservative voters show lower levels of electrical activity in their brains, make decisions with less study, and are less likely to consider evidence that contradicts their initial impressions of a situation or issue. Now who actually ‘thinks’ again?

(Source: confessionsofabibliomaniac)

(Reblogged from widdershinsgirl)

agender-queer:

There’s nothing “morally controversial” about sex work or any variation of the phrase.

What’s morally controversial is the way women are treated in comparison to men. And the way race and class only heighten these differences leaving poor women with few options. (And on that note, talk about how white feminists are morally controversial because we’re quick to ignore race issues and present this image that woc receive the same pay as white women. And then look at those sex positive feminists who are pro sex work but assume that sex work is a way to get out of poverty when really it’s only a way to survive but still remain in poverty) What’s morally wrong is leaving people with no other choice. Sex work shouldn’t be a topic of moral debate when you have to choose between staying alive and fucking some guy for money. 

What’s morally wrong is how trans* people are forced into sex work because there’s not a place for them to have the resources they need. When LGBTQ people are kicked out of their families and homes because they’re not accepted (let’s talk morals with the cis white gay men who think marriage equality will solve this problem) It’s wrong to make a queer person choose between living in a household that’s dangerous and doing sex work or making someone decide whether it’s worth it to be a sex worker in order to pay for a place to stay, hormones, or surgery. Because for a lot of people, you transitioning is necessary for survival. 

How about people struggling with addiction but can’t get the help they need and are trapped in a destructive cycle because anyone with a problem is treated as if they brought it on themselves. When they’re struggling with addiction and use sex work to pay with it but can’t get treatment? That is what’s morally controversial. 

If you want to talk morals, you need to talk about how capitalism breeds the perfect environment for sex work because it keeps people poor and transient. No one notices if a sex worker goes missing. But luckily, there will always be someone to take their place. Our education system feeds into this by forcing (incorrect) facts down our throats without preparing us with information that we really need to know so that we are doomed to fail (and then turn around and blame it on us). Or pushes people into college and then makes it so they can’t afford college. And then sex work becomes a way to take care of the debt that was piled up. 

Talk about the way a person’s body is so policed that it’s not even their body anymore. 

These are the things that are morally controversial and this is what needs to be discussed when you’re talking about sex work because sex work is not the problem. It has never been the problem and it will never be the problem. 

(Reblogged from everythingbutharleyquinn)

It's really fucked up how right wingers have tried to turn George Zimmerman into some kind of folk hero.

sonic-hip-attack:

“George Zimmerman would have stopped the Sandy Hook killer”

no he wouldn’t 

it was a white guy

(Source: abaldwin360)

(Reblogged from witchsistah)

Sherrod Brown exposes Republican motives for deep entitlement cuts.

think-progress:

Boom!

(Reblogged from think-progress)

17 bills the Senate filibuster killed

downlo:

Included on this list are the DREAM Act, the public option for healthcare, the Paycheck Fairness Act, the Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act, and tax hikes on the wealthy.

(Reblogged from downlo)

Maddow: Secret Petraeus audio means Fox News ‘officially’ part of the GOP

When Fox News chief Roger Ailes sent one of his national security correspondents to interview then-General David Petraeus in 2011, chances are he didn’t want the full conversation to ever see the light of day — because if it did, the network’s claim of being “fair and balanced” could be forever buried.

As it happened, someone was recording. The Washington Post revealed Monday that Ailes had contributor K.T. Mcfarland deliver a message to Petraeus directly: run for president as a Republican and News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch will bankroll you.

Audio of the discussion, published by reporter Bob Woodward, was aired again Tuesday night by MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, who couldn’t quite figure out why such a “strange bombshell” of a story would run in the Post‘s “Style” section instead of near the front of the paper.

“That recording was made April 16th of last year,” she explained. “A week and a half later the president announced he was nominating General Petraeus to head the CIA. Right before the president announced him as his choice, the chairman of Fox News was urging the general not to take the job, not to take any job short of being [chairman] of the Joint Chiefs, saying he should run for president instead as a Republican against President Obama in this past election. And it’s all on tape.”

The moral of this story: Maddow explained that almost more than anything yet revealed, this audio makes it clear that Fox News “seriously is not like anything else in news. They are officially just a media arm of the Republican Party. They are a political operation serving the needs of the Republican Party. That’s okay, but we should stop thinking of them as something other than that.”

(Reblogged from invisiblelad)

Corporate Profits Hit Record High While Worker Wages Hit Record Low

A constant conservative charge against President Obama is that he is inherently anti-business. However, businesses keep defying the storyline by making larger and larger profits, rebounding nicely out of the Great Recession.

In the third quarter of this year, “corporate earnings were $1.75 trillion, up 18.6% from a year ago.” Corporations are currently making more as a percentage of the economy than they ever have since such records were kept. But at the same time, wages as a percentage of the economy are at an all-time low, as this chart shows. (The red line is corporate profits; the blue line is private sector wages.):

Corporations made a record $824 billion in profits last year as well, while the stock market has had one of its best performances since 1900 while Obama has been in office.

Meanwhile, workers are getting the short end of the stick. As CNN Money explained, “a separate government reading shows that total wages have now fallen to a record low of 43.5% of GDP. Until 1975, wages almost always accounted for at least half of GDP, and had been as high as 49% as recently as early 2001.”

(Reblogged from invisiblelad)

con-tem-plate: Elizabeth Warren Wins Senate Banking Committee Seat

con-tem-plate:

Okay, somethings are just meant to be and this is one of them! Great news!!

“Nearly two years after Wall Street waged a successful campaign to keep consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren from running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the incoming senator will be tapped to serve on the…

(Reblogged from invisiblelad)

State Dept. slams new Israeli settlement plan as ‘especially damaging’ to peace | The Hill's Global Affairs

theamericanbear:

Unsaid is that the U.S. government will do nothing but symbolically huff and puff for a day or two and then go back to uncritical support. But yeah, ouch.

Interesting that the Israeli operations Cast Lead and Pillar of Cloud were never seen as “especially damaging” to peace in the eyes of our fearless leadership…

(Reblogged from invisiblelad)