seven years Archives - Where Is The Outrage?

Local Edge Radio – Focus on Jobs

A couple weeks ago I hosted local edge radio and I spent the whole segment talking about the fact that our government needs to focus on jobs like a laser. Our problem is not our debt. Deficit spending is not what is on the minds of the average American. The average American is wondering how to make ends meet. The average American is either out of work or knows somebody who’s out of work. This is what we need to fix. In my opinion, there’s nothing more important than fixing our job situation. There’s plenty of blame to go around. Whether you want to blame the Obama administration for not asking for a large enough stimulus in order to really fix the jobs problem or you’d like to blame House and Senate Republicans for blocking every jobs bill since the stimulus – the bottom line is that it really doesn’t matter whose fault it is. The problem is that neither party is 100% focused on jobs.

The job situation is improving, but we have to do better. Economists calculate that at our current rate we will not achieve full employment (unemployment rate below 5%) for another five – seven years. Most Americans should not have to suffer for five to seven years because we don’t have the political will to do what’s necessary. We need to fix this problem.

LER - jobs discussion [ 12:23 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

By ecthompsonmd|2012-08-30T20:23:53-04:00August 29th, 2012|Economy, Podcasts|Comments Off

Paul Ryan fumbled the hand off

Paul Ryan was sent into the friendly confines of Fox News and he fumbled the hand off. This one was easy. He simply screwed up a simple question, a question which a ninth-grade debate student would have been ready for. Paul Ryan is the Republican financial guru on Capitol Hill. He developed the last two Republican budgets. Yet, when he was asked by Brit Hume about when his budget balances, he couldn’t answer the question.

Watch it:

Now, he should have planned for this question. It should have been obvious to everyone that he would get the question. He could have said, “The problem is that we are in such a huge deficit hole that we can’t balance the budget in the next five to seven years without huge cuts to social services which would devastate the elderly and poor and that is just not realistic at this time. Our plan is a nice step in the direction of fiscal health.” That would have been pretty good, but he didn’t say that.

By ecthompsonmd|2012-08-18T23:19:30-04:00August 17th, 2012|Economy|4 Comments

Attack on voters

Here’s the deal. If you are able to limit who votes, then you can get your voters to the polls and lock out those other guys. Democrats want everyone to vote. This favors the Democratic Party. Republicans have found that an open process kind of hammers them at the polls, so they try to limit who can vote. The new rules in Florida are all about Republicans winning elections.

From HuffPo:

In less than an hour yesterday, Florida Governor Rick Scott denied the right to vote to hundreds of thousands, maybe as many as a million, Florida citizens, turning back the clock decades and making Florida the most punitive state in the country when it comes to disenfranchising people with criminal convictions in their past.

The Florida constitution denies the right to vote for life to anyone with a felony conviction, unless he is granted clemency by the governor. Essentially it gives the governor, an elected official, the power to decide who will (or won’t) be allowed to vote in the next election.

The new clemency rules not only roll back reforms passed by former Governor Charlie Crist, they are far more restrictive than those in place under former Governor Jeb Bush. Under the new rules:

People with even nonviolent convictions must wait five years after they complete all terms of their sentence before even being allowed to apply for restoration of civil rights.

The clock resets if an individual is arrested for even a misdemeanor during that five-year period, even if no charges are ever filed.

Some people must wait seven years before being able to apply, and must appear for a hearing before the clemency board.

A provision allowing people to apply for a waiver of the rules, in place under Bush and Crist, was eliminated.

Everyone applying for clemency must provide various documents with their application – Bush and Crist had made an exception for those applying for restoration of civil rights. (more…)

By ecthompsonmd|2011-03-11T07:46:50-04:00March 11th, 2011|Domestic Issues|Comments Off