July 30, 2012

A few thoughts on the Olympics and our corporate sponsor overlords

I was listening to today’s Citizen Radio episode “(2012/07/30) What the Olympics and the Springfield monorail have in common, Georgia prison hunger strike” where Allison and Jamie were slamming the corporate sponsorship at the Olympics, specifically McDonald’s and Coca-Cola. These companies are so greedy that they have exclusive rights arrangements with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) which means that your local pub can’t advertise the simple fact that they have a TV, and it can be tuned to the Olympics coverage on NBC. All of these things are facts about this hypothetical pub, but if they put a sign outside stating these facts, they will get their asses sued by their corporate overlords

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July 29, 2012

Conservatives continue the Obama “you didn’t build that” nonsense, because lies come naturally

When you have nothing to run on, nothing to cite as success and you are all out of ideas, you can always fall back on lying. You can always take someone’s words out of context so that you can extract meaning to match up with a preexisting narrative. This is what conservatives are good at. This is what they do. So it’s not a surprise that conservatives are still citing Obama’s “you didn’t build that” line out of context over two weeks later.

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July 28, 2012

Is Mitt Romney suffering from a likability problem?

In this brave new world of hyper-partisan politics, I’d say no. I certainly wouldn’t discount the “he’s not Obama” sentiment creeping into the perception of Romney and his overall likability. I mean, if you are THAT against President Obama then you are likely to overlook the negative aspects of the other candidate, maybe even to the point of liking him. Of course I don’t dismiss the opposite is true when considering Obama supporters’ and their likability rating of Romney vs. Obama. But I don’t think the pundits are wrong when they say Romney is less in touch with the struggles of the average person, and that is going to play into his overall likability.

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July 27, 2012

House Democrats propose legislation to increase minimum wage to $9.80 an hour

On Thursday more than 100 House Democrats voiced supported for legislation to increase the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9.80 an hour. Introduced by Representative George Miller (D-CA), the proposed legislation (known as Miller’s Fair Minimum Wage Act – H.R. 6211) would increase the minimum wage in 85 cent increments each of the next 3 years. When it reaches $9.80 in 3 years, the proposed legislation would link minimum wage to inflation. “Anyone who works hard and plays by the rules should not live in poverty. Yet 47 million Americans now qualify as the working poor. Raising the minimum wage helps families make ends meet,” said Rep. Miller.

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July 27, 2012

Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos pledges $2.5 million in support of same-sex marriage in Washington

Well this makes me feel good about the years of patronage I’ve given to Amazon. Billionaire Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, has pledged $2.5 million in an effort to keep same-sex marriage legal in the state of Washington. Earlier this year Washington passed a law that legalized same-sex marriage but the law is being challenged and will be put on the ballot in November. This means the rights of a minority group will be put to a popular vote. It should be noted that same-sex marriage has failed every time it has been put to a popular vote in other states. This is why we should never put rights to a vote. Rights are not something that we decide. That’s why they are rights. Hmm, I hear Rachel Maddow’s voice in my head right now. Anyway, the $2.5 million pledge from Bezos doubles the amount of money that proponents of same-sex marriage have available to protect the rights of same-sex couples in Washington state. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s coming from a high-profile business owner.

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July 26, 2012

Fixing America: The Republican all style, no substance approach could spell misery for us all

Let’s face it, Republicans are much better at messaging. They’ve had decades of practice in what to say and how to say it to get their message across. To be certain it’s all style and no substance, but Republicans are really good at it. Republicans have a way of framing a solution to a (real or imagined) problem so that the public hears it and believes that it is a common sense approach to an apparently serious problem. But Republicans count on the thought process ending right there. If people do a little more research and consideration of all the facts, a lot of Republican “ideas” start to break down. I’ll give you two examples.

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