democrats and republicans Archives - Where Is The Outrage?

Misquoting Obama for political gain

Here’s what the President said at Lorain Community College on April 18, 2012.

Investing in a community college, just like investing in a new road or a new highway or broadband lines that go into rural communities, these investments are not part of some grand scheme to redistribute wealth. They’ve been made by Democrats and Republicans for generations because they benefit all of us. That’s what leads to strong, durable economic growth. That’s how America became an economic superpower. That’s how we built the Transcontinental Railroad. That’s why we’ve got the best universities and colleges in the world. That’s why we have cutting-edge research that takes place here, and that then gets translated into new jobs and new businesses, because somebody did the groundwork. We created a foundation for those of us to prosper.

Somebody gave me an education. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth. Michelle wasn’t. But somebody gave us a chance — just like these folks up here are looking for a chance.

Here’s what Fox News’ Steve Doocy reported, “Unlike some people, I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth.”

By inserting just a few words, there is an attempt to turn a speech about opportunity and investment in the middle class into some jab at Mitt Romney. This is sad. A “news” organization should at least get the facts right. Worse, NYT and WaPo passed on this misinformation to their readers without doing the homework necessary to look up the quote. There is no excuse for this kind of lazy reporting. None.

By ecthompsonmd|2012-04-23T09:27:47-04:00April 23rd, 2012|Media, Party Politics|Comments Off

Redistricting confusion in the Lone Star State

There are several things that I truly hate about our political system. One of them is the intentional gerrymandering of voting districts which seems to occur in every state every 10 years. It doesn’t seem to matter who’s in power, the overall purpose of redistricting seems to be to openly suppress the vote of your opposition. I feel pretty confident this is what’s happening in North Carolina as well is Texas. The Supreme Court has rejected the redistricting map from Texas because it appears that it has violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. For this conservative court to unanimously reject a redistricting map is extraordinary. Texas now has to scramble to get a map approved before its April first primary. This is a daunting task.

We need to adopt a computer-generated nonpartisan redistricting process. (This is a very detailed map using a nonpartisan process.) In my opinion, this is a must in order to take back our democracy from special interests which includes both Democrats and Republicans.

By ecthompsonmd|2012-01-22T12:35:48-04:00January 22nd, 2012|Civil Rights, Elections|Comments Off

Super Committee – super, colossal failure

The super committee has until Wednesday, if I’m not mistaken, to come up with a solution to our budget crisis. They were charged with coming up with $1.4 trillion worth of cuts/savings. I basically ignored the super committee from the moment the idea was floated on Capitol Hill. The idea sounded moronic. If Congress cannot come up with a solution to our budget “crisis” then why should we believe that a committee made up of six Democrats and six Republicans would be able to solve the problem? The reason we had an impasse in Congress was that the Republicans insisted that there be no new taxes and no increase in revenue. The Democrats, as usual, caved on core values and offered up spending cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The Republicans didn’t budge. So why would the dynamic be any better or any different in the super committee?

Over the weekend, there’s been no movement on the super committee. There have been some reports that the subcommittee is trying to figure a way to save face. As you recall, if the super committee fails, and they will, automatic cuts go into effect. These cuts are across the board and they include cuts to military spending and cuts to homeland security and other pet projects that both Democrats and Republicans hold dearly.

While the media continues to be focused on the super committee, America needs jobs. Who is focusing on helping the American worker?

By ecthompsonmd|2011-11-20T21:05:11-04:00November 20th, 2011|Congress, Economy|Comments Off