Category Archives: Politics

Mainstream Media Picks up Oswald Krell Post on Tax Inequality in Rhode Island

Posted on by Kiersten Marek

If you listen to most politicians in Rhode Island, they will try to tell you that we can’t tax the rich because “they might leave us!” Well, if we had national legislation to tax the rich such as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse is proposing, they wouldn’t have anywhere to go. And furthermore, it’s just not true that our neighboring states are tax havens compared to us. From RI FUTURE (still one of the only sources for independent political thought in the state!):

The median state is Mississippi. The poorest 20% pay about 10.8% of their total income in taxes. The top 1%, OTOH, only pay 5.5% of their income.

In other words, the effective tax rate of the bottom 20% is about twice as high as the tax rate for the top%–despite paying no fed taxes.

And how does RI stack up? We’re worse.

Here, the bottom 20% pays about 11.9%, while the top 1% pays 5.5%.

In other words, the bottom 20% pays a rate that is more than twice the rate paid by the top 1%.

And Mass is two spots worse, CT is one spot better, so spare me the “Oh, I could just move to Mass and save all this money” lie. And founder of a certain ‘alternative’ party, I’m looking at you.

This story was picked up by Ted Nesi at WPRI Eyewitness news. You know the local mainstream media isn’t running the way it used to (yes, Projo, I’m looking at you) when we are getting some of our better news analysis from nom de plume bloggers.

Show Your Papers

Posted on by ninjanurse

Daily Kos thinks that President Obama’s release of his long-form birth certificate is a smart move because Republicans who are not tanked up on tea see the birther issue as bad for the credibility of their party.

The President’s own statement is that our country is facing urgent problems, and this issue is enough of a distraction to need putting to rest.

Of course, it will not be put to rest because it was never about place of birth or the Constitution. It’s about a man with brown skin and a funny name, whose father was from Kenya and whose mother was unconventional. It’s about race-mixing and a fixed race that didn’t come through in 2008, when McCain was supposed to win. McCain was on deck, he had the right pedigree– that’s how it’s supposed to work.

When Barack Obama was elected, it was a message to the entire world. America, for all its flaws and failures, is a democracy. Any eligible citizen can run for office, even run for president. Despite our troubled racial history, we showed the world that Americans are equal in fact as well as in law.

And now we have the loudest voices in the Republican Party demanding that the President show his papers. The Republican politicians who should have stood up to this, who should have set an example of reason and civility, have been timid and afraid to offend their fringe. They deserve to have Donald Trump win the nomination, they paved the way for him. I’m disgusted with all the politicians who tip toe around ‘what people believe’ as if the truth doesn’t matter. It’s time for the adults in the Republican Party, if they can find the courage, to show leadership.

The whole world is watching, and today we are not looking so good.

UPDATE: A smart take on why there will never be enough ‘evidence’ to appease those who want to believe. You can’t cure stupid.

PERSONAL ANECDOTE: I used to have panic attacks and experience a convincing sense that something was really wrong. If I checked and confirmed that the iron really was turned off, then I’d worry about the gas stove blowing up. You can’t fix irrational anxiety with reason. Maybe I should have got some Xanax. Whatever.
Anyway, the instant shift in focus from one crazy conspiracy theory to the next just backs up the fact that this isn’t a rational issue, it’s a hysteria afflicting a group of believers who are convinced something is wrong and are looking for a narrative to make sense of a changing world. A lot of them are waiting for the Rapture too. People are entitled to their beliefs, but when beliefs replace facts in politics we are in trouble.

UPDATE II: Convincing evidence that Barack Obama is an alien from the planet Slzrd. Wait– that might be satire… good thing I deleted it. People might think I’m credulous.

Sign the Petition to Support Teachers in Providence

Posted on by Kiersten Marek

Go here to sign a petition demanding that the new Mayor of Providence, Angel Taveras, stop the unfair labor practice of terminating all Providence teachers. The petition states:

We demand a reversal of the dismissal of Providence teachers. Students deserve stable schools where teachers are not punished for a fiscal crisis they didn’t create. Teachers deserve to be treated with respect for their commitment and hard work.

Here is another link to the petition.

Do Providence Teachers Have to Apply to Be Rehired or Not?

Posted on by Kiersten Marek

It’s understandable that teachers are feeling anxious and afraid in Providence. But let Mayor Taveras reassure you — he is not out to bust the unions, so that solves that question. Whew, glad the Mayor is still the moral, union-supporting person that I thought he was. Still, a lot of other unanswered questions linger about the changes that teachers in Providence face due to the termination notices they received.

The biggest unanswered question in my mind is whether every teacher will need to go through the hiring process in order to have a job. Along with this being a tremendous insult to people who have poured their lives into their jobs, it will also be extremely expensive to carry out all of those interviews. Note to Mayor’s office — Think: interviews = expensive, like money that could be spent to keep teachers. But perhaps we don’t have to worry about that, as according to a Business Week article published today, teachers will not have to reapply and be rehired. From the article:

There are echoes in this week’s move of last year’s decision in nearby Central Falls, where every teacher at the high school was fired. Those firings, however, were the result of the school’s poor performance, not because of money. And unlike Central Falls, where a compromise was struck and all the teachers were rehired, teachers in Providence won’t have to reapply to keep their jobs. [bold mine]

And yet, in today’s Projo,

But David V. Abbott, the state’s deputy education commissioner, said the difference between layoffs and dismissals is this: When a teacher is laid off under state statute, he or she is put on a recall list. Although that teacher is no longer working and no longer paid, that person exists in an employment “limbo.” The teacher hasn’t been actually dismissed.

If a job becomes available for which that teacher is qualified, that person must be rehired based on seniority.

“If you are laid off, you have the right of recall,” Abbott said Friday. “You still have one stick in your bundle. If I’m dismissed, I’m out of work and I need to be rehired.”

In effect, every teacher who is terminated has to re-apply for his or her job as would any new teacher entering the system.

So which is it? You’ll forgive me if I’m still a little confused, and feeling some angst for the teachers in Providence. Yet, perhaps it’s not worth worrying about because it’s just a power play in a political game that is going to take months to play out. As the Business Week article put it, “The decision to send the notices was seen by some as another signal to public sector workers that government officials are ready to play rough to win changes to labor contracts.”

All You Need is Love….And Unions

Posted on by Kiersten Marek

Just read this long piece by Kevin Drum about why unions improve life not just for union members, but for the entire middle class. The ultimate fact, as research in Drum’s article shows, is that politicians don’t do things for the middle class or the working class. We like to think Senators Whitehouse and Reed just love us because we’re their li’l peeps and they want to take care of us, but the truth is that politicians respond to powerful lobbying forces, and the past 30 years has seen a marked decline in powerful lobbies for the middle class. Drum presents two things you need to understand to get why our politicians have become so unresponsive to the needs of the middle class:

The first is this: Income inequality has grown dramatically since the mid-’70s—far more in the US than in most advanced countries—and the gap is only partly related to college grads outperforming high-school grads. Rather, the bulk of our growing inequality has been a product of skyrocketing incomes among the richest 1 percent and—even more dramatically—among the top 0.1 percent. It has, in other words, been CEOs and Wall Street traders at the very tippy-top who are hoovering up vast sums of money from everyone, even those who by ordinary standards are pretty well off.

Second, American politicians don’t care much about voters with moderate incomes. Princeton political scientist Larry Bartels studied the voting behavior of US senators in the early ’90s and discovered that they respond far more to the desires of high-income groups than to anyone else. By itself, that’s not a surprise. He also found that Republicans don’t respond at all to the desires of voters with modest incomes. Maybe that’s not a surprise, either. But this should be: Bartels found that Democratic senators don’t respond to the desires of these voters, either. At all.

Senator Whitehouse Community Dinner on Jobs and the Economy

Posted on by Kiersten Marek

You’re Invited to a Free Community Dinner with…

U.S. SENATOR
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE

Please bring your family
and friends for a
FREE MACARONI AND MEATBALL
COMMUNITY DINNER
to share your personal stories about the economy and your ideas for putting America back to work.

When: Sunday, February 13th
5:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Where: Pilgrim Senior Center,
27 Pilgrim Parkway, Warwick

This dinner is free and open to the public.
If you would like to RSVP or would like more information please call Senator Whitehouse’s office at 401-453-5294.

Ceasar and God

Posted on by ninjanurse

From AmericaBlog, investigation of how taxpayers subsidize an activity that looks suspiciously like evangelism in Uganda…

There was an article published in 2008, in the Daily Oklahoman, that detailed Inhofe’s more than twenty trips to Uganda. Senator Inhofe described his influence there as “A Jesus Thing.”

WASHINGTON — In the past decade, Sen. Jim Inhofe of Tulsa has made at least 20 trips to Africa as part of a mission that he frequently describes in religious terms.

Inhofe’s African trips have cost taxpayers more than $187,000 since 1999, according to a review of expenses Inhofe and staff members have submitted through the Armed Services Committee.

Some of the trips have been taken on military planes that cost thousands of dollars an hour to operate. The military does not disclose the cost of flying members of Congress to their destinations.

In fact, Senator Inhofe has made 108 visits to Africa, more than any other Senator in U.S. history. Although it can be argued his trips could be justified by work that is focused on disbanding the “The Lord’s Resistance Army,” and protecting African children from kidnapping and made into child soldiers; his influence extends far beyond military interests. The homophobia that has been spread via taxpayer expense through the flavor of homophobic evangelizing supported by Senator Inhofe needs to be investigated. The blood of David Kato cries out for justice, and a determination of just what Senator Inhofe meant by his taxpayer funded trips to Uganda being described as “A Jesus Thing.”

Inhofe attempted to explain, “I’m guilty of two things. I’m a Jesus guy, and I have a heart for Africa.”

Jesus himself was once approached by a group that wanted him to join in tax resistance against the Romans who were occupying and oppressing their nation. His answer seems to draw a line between church and state–’give to Ceasar what is Ceasar’s and to God what is God’s.’

Sen. Inhofe can leave politics and join the ministry, he can donate his own time and money to missionary work in Uganda, but instead he blurs the lines between his office and his religion. He is promoting a kind of religion that many Christians disown. He doesn’t speak for America, and should not be supported by our tax dollars.

Thorns in Her Crown

Posted on by ninjanurse

I know I should leave this alone, but Talking Points Memo has a quote from an editorial about the blood libel of Sarah Palin in the Washington Times…

This is simply the latest round of an ongoing pogrom against conservative thinkers. The last two years have seen a proliferation of similar baseless charges of racism, sexism, bigotry, Islamophobia and inciting violence against those on the right who have presented ideas at odds with the establishment’s liberal orthodoxy.

The word ‘pogrom’ refers to a terrible episode in European history where Christians persecuted the Jewish minority by saying really, really hurtful things. And taking statements and tweets that didn’t mean anything and making a big deal out of it. And embarrassing Jews with tough questions in interviews so that they would get all rattled and mix up their Koreas. It was dark times.

Sarah Palin’s publicists are saying that she’s getting increased death threats, which is not okay. She should call the police, but it’s unclear whether she has. It’s unclear how many threats she got before, is getting now, from who or what or any details. But her people say she’s getting threats and the press reports this as fact. The Nation thinks the press should dig a little deeper.

I think that everyone in public life must be getting flamed all the time. And actual threats are all too common. Incivility makes it harder to sort it out. Also, crying wolf.

If our leaders can’t find it in themselves to embrace civility for its own sake, they need to think about the down side of raising the level of anger. They have to meet the public, and when everyone is yelling it’s hard to spot the one dangerous face in the crowd.