113th Congress is the Worst in American History!

Today is Monday September 30th 2013 and we are just a few hours away from a government shutdown that the Republican party has caused because they won't stand up to their far right wing of their party better known as the Tea Party. The quote "mainstream" republicans are too afraid of these crazy tea party members. There have been many Congress' throughout history that have been called the "Do-Nothing Congress" however the 113th Congress is the embodiment of that saying. No important bills have been passed and on top of that now the government is most likely shutting down because the republicans insist on putting Obamacare provisions in their continuing resolution in order to continue to fund the government for just two more months. The Republican party has turned the congress into a waste of money for the tax payers that they claim to protect from wasteful spending. Let's look at some of the wasteful spending that the Republicans have done in this Congress. According to a CBS piece called "Obamacare Repeal Votes Costs Tens Of Millions" The cost of each vote to repeal Obamacare was 1.45 million dollars to the tax payer, so if we do the math on that the cost of 42 votes to repeal Obamacare was $60.9 million dollars to the taxpayer. (1.45 million times 42 votes to repeal Obamcare = 60.9 million dollars) $60.9 million dollars wasted because the Republicans want to fight a law that was already passed by the last Congress. Let's look at the salaries that each Congressperson makes $174,000 dollars a year and there are currently 232 Republicans in the House and since we are paying each of them and we are wasting our money let's look at how much money we are wasting in total. The total is $40,380,000 in salary that we are paying republican congresspeople ($174,000 times 232 House Republicans) That total does not include the house speaker John Boehner. That's a lot of money wasted by the tax payer in this country.

Now we've talked about all of the money that the tax payer has wasted on the Republican congresspeople Now let's talk about who's at fault for this do nothing congress. The conservatives will blame President Obama and that is the most asinine statement I've ever heard. President Obama has been willing to negotiate with the Republicans and at times I've been frustrated with President Obama because he negotiates too much with the Republicans. Now the President won't negotiate with the Republicans are they will have to nerve to blame him for the government shutdown. The Republicans are totally at fault for coming government shutdown, I keep getting tweets from conservatives that they can shutdown the government in order to defund Obamcare and even if they shutdown the government, Obamacare will be funded so that's a foolish idea but conservatives are foolish people. Another point that conservatives make that I hate is that most Americans are against Obamacare. The reason why that's true is because most Americans do not know what's in Obamacare and the media has failed to report the truth about Obamacare and Americans believe whatever the conservatives say about Obamacare which is why they don't like Obamacare. Which is why we must let Americans know what's actually in Obamacare once that happens more and more people will like Obamacare. The Republicans have nobody to blame but themselves when the American people turn their back on their party and vote them out of the house in 2014. Let's make that happen!

Update: The government shutdown is coming the republicans in the house just passed another bill to fund the government and once again it had the provision that delays the individual mandate for one more year. On top of that Boehner had the nerve to mock President Obama, how disrespectful whether he likes him or not he's the President. So the republicans have set themselves up for their political death in 2014 and I do not feel bad for them at all, that's what they get for aligning themselves with the tea party.

Huffington Post Piece: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/30/john-boehner-mocks-obama_n_4019867.html

Government Shutdown Coming GOP to blame!

Yes I know that today is Sunday, and I never write a blog post on Sunday, but events say that I must write this post. Unless there is a deal, Tuesday at midnight the government will shut down for the first time since I was nine or ten years old. What a coincidence that the last time the government shut down there was a Democrat in the White House and the Republicans controlled the House of Representatives, the last time there was a government shutdown in 1995/1996 it did not go well for the Republican party and the shutdown was part of the reason why Bill Clinton was reelected in 1996 and the Republican party was hurt politically by the shutdown but it did not last long because in the 2000 elections we saw George W. Bush get elected President and he somehow lasted for eight years. The 1995/1996 shutdown and the shutdown threats that the Republican party is making now, shows me that they don't give a damn about the people of this country that they claim to represent. All the republicans give a damn about is their rich donors and they are deathly afraid of the far right wing of their party.

Now the Republicans are also threating not to raise the debt ceiling, the debt ceiling has been raised over and over again by Republican and Democratic Presidents and the Republicans in Congress have never ever made a issue of the debt ceiling. So why are the Republicans now making an issue of the debt ceiling? The reason why is because they want to oppose Barack Obama no matter what he tries to do, which is why the Republican Party had the nickname "The Party of No" but it's much worse than that because I will say that this about President Obama's race if he was a white man like Bill Clinton was than the debt ceiling would not even be an issue but since the President is black the Republicans now want to make an issue of the debt ceiling. Anyway to the tea party and the far right wing of this country, the debt ceiling does not authorize more spending but by raising the debt ceiling it allows the US government to pay the bills that it currently owes. To make it more simple you are allowing the republicans to make America into a deadbeat country they don't want to pay the bills because Obama will not delay is signature health care plan that will help millions of Americans to get health care. Anyway Perry v. United States says that we have to pay our bills no matter what, look it up Supreme Court Ruling.

It's time for progressives and the Democrats and President Obama to become a team and fight these republicans that want to scare us into delaying a health care law that will help millions of Americans and we must not give in to these terrorists, yes that's what they are terrorists, I recognize that this is strong language but it's nothing but the truth, they want to scare us into doing what they want us to do even though they lost the election in 2012. That's the definition of terrorist, we also must not give in on the debt ceiling why? Because the Republican party is funded by the corporations and the big banks and they will not allow the Republican party to not increase the debt ceiling or else that will destroy the profits of the corporations and the big banks and they will come and crush the republicans if they don't raise the debt ceiling. My opinion is that we don't do anything and watch the Republican fold on the debt ceiling and they will raise it whether the tea party likes it or not.  I say to the Republicans try and shut down the government and not raise the debt ceiling and very soon I'll be going to your funeral.

Conservatives have always been against America's progress!

The weekend is coming up and I'm going to write this blog because it's the total truth and I'm sick of conservatives who think that they own the Constitution and/or the American flag. If you look through out American history you will see that progressives have had the backbone to change what needed to be changed and all through out American history you will see conservatives crying and whining like babies while that change for the better is being made. Before I continue I understand that not all progressive policies work however at least progressives or liberals whatever you want to call us, want to try and make things better in this country, meanwhile conservatives don't want to do anything and they want to keep the status quo. Conservative policies have always caused problems for this country and it seems like conservatives will never change, if we keep giving them power things will get worse and worse. Primary example of that is the state of Mississippi the poorest state in the union. The last time a Democrat was governor of Mississippi was in 2000 over ten years ago. I think that progressives should call out conservatives who use the flag and the constitution as political props they are not the only real Americans, we are all real Americans no matter what's your political affiliation. So now let's start with the era of the American Revolution, because these conservatives think that the founding fathers were conservative and they would've agree with their world view.

Let's briefly look at the era of the American Revolution the founding fathers were sick and tired of the tyranny of the British King George III and they wanted to create a new nation based on a fundamental rights and principles that every person should be created equal. The founders created a document called the Declaration of Independence, and later on the Constitution. The founding fathers created the two most progressive documents in the history of the world at the time. However there were other people that were called "loyalists" these people were still loyal to the crown and they did not want to fight for their freedom from the crown. These people were very conservative and they wanted to keep the status quo. In my opinion the founding fathers had the foresight and the guts to fight for what they believed in which is why these are the most progressive men of the 18th century. That's the total truth and I'm sick of today's conservatives and the tea party claim that these men were conservatives. That's the biggest joke of all.

Now let's jump ahead to 1860 when Abraham Lincoln was elected President and as we all know Lincoln was the first Republican President and at this time no one knew how Lincoln would govern as President. eight of nine states had seceded from the union and Lincoln had publicly been against slavery since the 1850s. and he knew that slavery was morally reprehensible and as a country we could not allow this policy to be continued. The people in the south were very conservative and they are for the most part still very conservative today. Over 600,000 people died in that brutal Civil War and Lincoln wrote the The Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 which was one of the most famous executive orders ever written by a US President and this executive order ordered the army to free all of the slaves in the south during the war. President Lincoln was one of the most progressive Presidents in American history and I'm proud to be a progressive just like President Abraham Lincoln. I laugh whenever conservatives pretend that President Lincoln was a conservative and he would have agreed with them. If Abraham Lincoln knew what his Republican party has turned into today, he would be sick to his stomach and he would turn over in his grave has well.

I could go on and on but I'm going to move on to today, we see that conservative policies are destroying America and these conservatives do not care about governing and fixing the problems that they created quite frankly instead they talk about shutting down our government and they refuse to pay the bills that our government has incurred, these people are holding the debt ceiling hostage in order to defund the Affordable Care Act better known as Obamacare and if we don't raise the debt ceiling then we can't pay our bills and if we won't pay our bills then we will destroy our economy and the world's economy. These people are the most anti American group of people in the country and they will not stop until they destroy our country. We progressives need to take power back from these crazy people and we need some sensible leaders in Washington again. Because Ted Cruz and his ilk are not going to help things, they are going to make our problems worse for our country. It's time to fight these damn fools and vote them out of office.

Progressives Need to Vote in every Election!

Hello everyone I know I did not write a blog post yesterday and I'm sorry about that. I know how my readers like to read my blog and I appreciate that very much. However I had a lot on my mind lately and I felt a little down, however I'm back and ready to keep fighting for what I believe in and nobody is going to stop me. Now I need to talk about why progressives need to vote. Voting is the key to democracy, in my opinion if you did not vote in 2010 then I don't think that you have the right to complain about what's our government is doing wrong.  I don't care if you are a progressive, you should have voted in 2010 and you should vote in every election after 2010 and please vote in 2014 and 2016 and in very election after that. If not then conservatives will continue to have power in our government, and as we all know conservatives have no interest in governing but there interest is to destroy our government and cut taxes on the top 1% and corporations, that's all they care about. If you've read my blog, you know that I love philosophy and I love Plato and Socrates and I'm going to quote Plato because what he said about politics is so apt he said "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."

Plato was so right in his time and his words are so true in today's politics, because if we look at 2010 progressives did not vote, I don't really know why progressives did not vote in 2010, the only reason I can think of is because progressives were intimated by the tea party and they thought that the tea party were going to win anyway so they did not bother to come out and vote. I could be wrong but that's my personal opinion on why progressives did not come out and vote. Now let's go back to what Plato said "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." Now because progressives did not come out and vote we are now governed by the tea party and they are clearly our inferiors so progressives got what they deserved because they did not come out and vote. To be fair to progressives they did come and vote in 2012 which is Obama was reelected and house democrats got more votes then house republicans however because of the gerrymandering that republicans did so they retained control of the house, and why did that happen because progressives did not vote in 2010 and now we have to wait until 2020 until the next census before we can fix the mess that republicans made. So what's the lesson here if you don't listen to me listen to Plato when he says "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." So let's fight and make sure that our inferiors which are conservatives do not take power from us anymore.

PS I know that there are no pictures on my blog today but I think my message that I have to say is much more important than making this post look nice and pretty.

Corporate money is destroying our democracy!

Today I must write the truth about corporations and the wealthy have stolen our democracy in order to create a government which works for corporate interests and the interests of the wealthy first and they don't give a damn about the average person in the United States. If you look back at American history you will see that corporations and the very wealthy have been trying to take over our government since the 19th century. The beginning of the modern corporation can be traced to the late 19th century Supreme Court ruling "Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad" in 1886 and other cases like "Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward" in 1819 which for the first time held that the Contract Clause of the United States Constitution applied to private corporations. I can go on and on but these are some of the rulings that created today's modern corporation. Before I go on in this post I have to say that I don't think that corporations are bad for our country, they employ many Americans and they also donate money to charities and their money can be used for good. However when we allow corporations to donate to our politicians then they become a cancer to our country and as we've seen today after Citizen's United decision which I'm going to talk about later in this post. Corporations can't donate anything to Political Actions Committees (PACs) or Politicians that's the only way that we will get our democracy back.

Now let's discuss something that very few people know about or even talked about and it's been called the "Business Plot" These two videos which I'm going to post will describe what happened in  the "Business Plot"  The first video is General Smedley Butler explaining what happened when he was approached by the business leaders in the United States at the time and why he reported them to Congress. I personally think that Butler is a hero because I do believe him and Congress believed him as well at the time and even though there were no arrests made but I still believe that Butler stopped what would have been a fascist dictatorship in the United States. The second video was made by "Stuff they don't want you to know" They investigate conspiracy theories and they a entire video explaining the "Business Plot" It's very well done and I recommend you check out both videos.

Prescott Bush

The most powerful and richest corporations and people in the country were rumored to be involved in the "business plot" including Prescott Bush the father of George HW Bush and the grandfather of George W. Bush. Prescott Bush as well was involved in the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany is the 1930s and if you don't believe me check out the piece that The Guardian wrote back in 2004 called "How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power" It's a very interesting piece and the reason why Prescott Bush was one of the people that helped Hitler get into power is because it made his companies more money. In my personal opinion the reason why Congress did not prosecute anyone for their roles in the business plot is because they came to Congress in private and came to a deal with them in order to avoid any treason charges filed against them and there was really no proof besides the testimony of General Butler so Congress just agreed with them not to charge anyone. I do not have any proof for my theory but it's the only one that makes sense. Corporations have always wanted control over the government in order to make more money and to have the laws in their favor. Now they've found a new way to get the government to do whatever they want to, just corrupt the Supreme Court.

US Supreme Court 

The reason why I make this point is because in the last ten years almost every ruling that the Supreme Court has handed down has in one way or another benefited corporations and the wealthy. As we all know about the Citizens United v. FEC ruling which recognized corporate person-hood and then the case that did not get as much press attention was American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock  which reversed a decision by the Montana Supreme Court Western Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Attorney General of Montana this cased held that "the broad free speech protections given to corporations in Citizens United v. FEC do not apply to Montana's campaign finance laws." Which of course the Supreme Court reversed so corporations won again of course. So now corporations and wealthy people can donate whatever amount of money they want and they buy our politicians and those politicians do the bidding of their corporate donors, every republican works for their corporate donors and I believe most democrats work for their corporate donors as well. However there are some principled Democrats left and they do want to work for the people that they represent.

So what do we as progressives do about this? Since the Supreme Court has handed down their decision in Citizens United the only way to overturn a Supreme Court decision is by a constitutional amendment. We need a constitutional amendment that bans corporate money from our politics. Simply put the first amendment does not guarantee corporations free speech because corporations are not people, corporations do not vote in elections so they can't be a person. We need this  constitutional amendment in order to get back our democracy. If we keep letting corporations and rich people control our government then we will have the fascist government that the corporations and the rich tried to fund back in the 1930s, in fact in my opinion we have a fascist government today right now in 2013 because all of the laws that are passed seem to benefit corporations and the wealthy. We as progressives need to fight this because if we don't we will lose our democracy, and don't listen to conservatives that say that we are not a democracy but we are a republic, we are a democracy we have freedoms and rights as Americans and we have to fight to keep our rights.

Republicans don't give a damn about Latinos!

Hello to all of my readers I hope that everyone has a great weekend. I had a great weekend hanging out with my nephew. However my nephew went back to his mother my sister, and now it's back to writing my blog posts. Today I have to write about the Republican party and how they don't care about Latinos. The reason why I have to write about this is because I'm a proud Latino (Both of my parents were born and raised in Puerto Rico and I'm in the first generation in my father's side of the family to be born in the Untied States) and I can't ever vote or support a political party (Republicans) that will vote against the interests of my people and uses my people in order to foment hate and to get people to vote in their favor because of that hatred. I can't believe that any Hispanic can vote or support the Republican party when they hate immigrants and purposely put in policy that discriminates against Hispanics. I will list examples later in this post. For now I want to talk about the asinine attempts that the Republican party has made to try and "connect" with the Latino Community. I'm pretty sure that everyone has seen or at least have heard of this video.

 

This is the video that the republicans released earlier in the month talking about how awesome we Latinos are. However in this video that the Republicans put out there are no mentions of any policy changes that they are going to make in order to protect the interests of Latinos or talked about any meaningful immigration reform,. Instead all we got was some nice words and a couple of Latinos that are Republicans and uncle toms talking about how awesome the Republican party is to Latinos. Which most Latinos know which is a bunch of BS. The Republican party is nothing but a bunch of old white men that hate any change what so ever to the status quo. What do I mean by the status quo? Meaning that the Republicans want to keep things they way that they always were. The white man has all of the power while the minorities have none of the power and no say in the direction of the government and the country. Which is why the Republicans would discriminate against Latinos to make sure that we have no power or say in the voice of the government. Everything I said in this paragraph is not only apply to Latinos but also to black people and in my opinion the republican party's hatred for black people is worse than it is for Latinos, which is why black people must stand up to these racist assholes and not let them get their way. Now let's talk about the discrimination that Latinos suffer from the Republican party.

I could cite many examples of discrimination that Latinos suffer from the Republican party or conservatives. How about the anti-immigration law that Arizona passed called SB-1070 in 2010. One of the provisions of SB-1070 called for local law enforcement to check the papers of every person that looked like that they could be an illegal immigrant. Now any commons sense person can tell what's the problem with this? The problem is that most of the people that look like they can be illegal immigrants are Latinos, and that's the whole point of this law is to discriminate against Latinos. To me any type of discrimination is horrible and should not be done no matter the race of the person, I as a Latino felt discrimination and I hated it and I know how it feels and I want to make sure that no one ever feels what I felt. Maybe some people may think that I care too much, but I still care about my fellow American, we are a team and it's time we come together and fight against discrimination in America. We are supposed to be the melting pot meaning that no matter what race we are we are supposed to come together and make America work for the better. I still believe in that which is why I love this country. The Republican party does not believe in the essence of America, instead they want to discriminate against Latinos and Blacks and suppress our voice and our right to vote and these are the reason why I can't support or vote for the Republicans, and latinos that support or are republicans politicans are uncle toms and they should be ashamed of themsevles. The Republican party represents the rich and powerful and they do not give a damn about the interests of latinos or black people.

Private Prisons Profit Even When Crime Rates Drop

Today is Friday and I came across a piece by Mother Jones about how private prisons make money even though crime rates are dropping. Mother Jones quoted a group called In the Public Interest, they are a anti-privatization group and I read their entire seventeen page report and I thought the report was very well done and I learned a lot about the way that the contracts that private prison companies sign with states. There's a clause that private prisons love to put into a contracts which are called occupancy guarantees or quota no matter how high the crime rate is. Before I even read the report I have to say that this clause is going to destroy state budgets because no matter what these corporations will get paid if these prisons are full or not, and these corporations even admit that is there business model and they make hundreds of millions of dollars, and as long as states allow these corporations to get away with this, then they will continue to do it, because a corporations primary responsibility is to make as much money as possible, I know that because I go to college and I major in business administration. Now here the main findings of the report in this picture:

These are the main findings of the report and you can read the entire report at the link that I'm going to provide at the end of this post I recommend that you read the entire report if you have the time. Now I'm going to talk about my opinion, simply put the private prison corporations should not even exist because states and federal government should be running these prisons. In my opinion prisons should not have a profit motive because if prisons are profit driven then they will be problem as the report showed. The report talked about what happened in the state of Colorado "In 2012 the state began a utilization study to analyze which facilities made the most sense to close, but did not want to shut down any facilities until the formal analysis was complete. In response to these preliminary discussions, CCA (Corrections Corporation of America) threatened to close one of its private facilities. Behind closed doors and without any public hearings, CCA and the governor's office and the Joint Budget Committee negotiated a deal. In exchange for keeping the facility open, the state agreed to a bed guarantee, which required Colorado to keep at least 3,300 prisoners in the three CCA facilities, at an annual rate of $20,000 per inmate for the 2013 fiscal year." (pg.7) My question is why would the state want to negotiate with CCA? Let them close their prison the crime rate in Colorado is dropping so why would they care if CCA closed one of their facilities. This is another example of the government working for private corporations and protecting their profits over the interests of the taxpayers of the state of Colorado. There are many more examples in the report which you can read for yourselves.

The report also quotes a CCA annual report from 2010 and it says that "Historically, we have been successful in substantially filling our inventory of available beds and the beds that we have constructed. Filling these available beds would provide substantial growth in revenues, cash flow, and earnings per share." (pg. 4) First of all I don't like how CCA dehumanizes the inmates calling them "inventory" and CCA admits that in order to make more money they will strong arm states to agreeing to these occupancy guarantees between 80% and 100%  occupancy rates and the states will pay a penalty for the beds that are not filled. This is more proof that privatizing the prisons will not save the states money but will cost the states or taxpayers more money in the long term.

There is more and more people going to prison every single year in this country and there is a number of reasons why in my opinion one the private prisons have been lobbying state and federal governments in order to put more and more people in prisons. Fox example CCA themselves spent $1,070,000 in 2011 and $980,000 in 2012 to lobby congress in order to get tougher immigration laws in order to make more money for themselves obviously.(http://grassrootsleadership.org/blog/2013/02/meet-private-prison-industry-s-lobbyists-who-could-shape-immigration-reform) 

The prison-industrial complex it's been called and it started with Richard Nixon's "War on Drugs" and it's been getting worse and worse in the United States, there are around 2.5 million people currently locked up in the United States and our policies are not getting better they are getting worse. 

So what do we progressives do about this problem? My opinion we need to end the "War on Drugs" we need to legalize marijuana, we need to eliminate minimum sentencing and let judges decide sentencing on a case by case basis. I think that we need to eliminate or heavily reduce the private prisons in the United States, the government should the ones who are running the prisons not private corporations who are trying to make a profit. After we put in these reforms things should get better...I hope 

Link to report: http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/sites/default/files/Criminal-Lockup%20Quota-Report.pdf

Link to Mother Jones Piece: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/09/private-prisons-occupancy-quota-cca-crime#13796889600211&action=collapse_widget&id=4393633