sherrod brown Archives - Where Is The Outrage?

Tuesday Morning News Roundup

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia equates homosexuality, gay marriage, with murder. He’s using the time old slippery slope argument. Personally, I believe that Scalia is wrong. If homosexuality and gay marriage were that much an abomination in the eyes of the Lord, Jesus would’ve railed on it. He didn’t. If the Lord believed that that was such an abomination, there would be an 11th commandment. There isn’t.

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Once again, union workers, this time in Michigan, are facing having their collective bargaining rights removed. The one big difference that I would point out between Scott Walker’s move two years ago and this move is that there’s no attempt at open discussion. There’s no attempt at trying to use the normal legislative process. Instead, I get the clear feeling that they’re trying to do as much as they can behind closed doors. In my opinion, “right to work” basically insures the right to work for lower wages. A recent study from the University of Notre Dame found that right to work states have higher poverty rates and lower rates of healthcare coverage. This finding is a no-brainer. One thing is clear. The prosperity that we enjoyed in the United States from the 1950s through the mid-1970s was in part due to wide unionization. Unions guaranteed that middle-class Americans received a living wage.

Senator Lindsey Graham (Republican, South Carolina) is on a roll. He spent most of the last several weeks bashing ambassador Susan Rice for reading talking points that the intelligence community gave her to read. Now he’s attacking the president over Medicare cuts. I have no problem with your criticizing the president if you disagree with him. This is cool. I have a huge problem when you say, “How about manning up here, Mister President, and use your mandate to bring this country together and stop us from becoming Greece?” Manning up? So Lindsey Graham is saying that the president does not have enough masculinity to do the right thing? Whatever?!?!?

There are many reasons that I’m happy that Senator Sherrod Brown was reelected. He is smart, thoughtful and doesn’t back down under conservative scrutiny. On Morning Joe, Senator Brown was being pressed on raising the eligibility age for Social Security and making cuts in Medicare to make the program “more sustainable.” Brown replied, “I don’t buy that they’re not sustainable any more than the defense budget is not sustainable. We owe billions of dollars down the line, of course. We can fix these things with changes at the margins without radical surgery.” He is exactly right. Let’s look again at what is driving the deficit. (See graph)

Current deficits are being driven by the Bush tax cuts and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq which were never paid for. Conservatives continue to point out that Obama has been in charge of the economy/government for four years. When is he going to take responsibility for his government spending? Look at the graph. The economic recovery measures are in there. What Obama should own up to is not repealing the Bush tax cuts when he had an opportunity – oh yeah, he did own up to that.

By ecthompsonmd|2012-12-11T21:00:34-04:00December 11th, 2012|Economy, Obama administration, Party Politics|4 Comments

JP Morgan and Greed

There is no reason for a $2 billion bet on anything. There is no reason outside of trying to prove something or trying to make something like a bigger commission.

This is so pure. It is so Wall Street.

Byron Dorgan says we need to do three things to fix this country:
Restore Glass-Steagall Act
Ban Naked Credit Default Swaps
Break up companies that are too big to fail (more…)

By ecthompsonmd|2012-05-16T01:52:21-04:00May 16th, 2012|Economy|2 Comments

Grab Bag – Tuesday Evening

I don’t know how other bloggers like Steve or Markos come up with their ideas of what to talk about. I don’t know if they sit down in front of the computer, like I do, and scan multiple news sites before they find something that clicks. Sometimes, I can spend more than an hour just looking for the right thing to write about. Anyway, I threw a few ideas together in tonight’s grab bag.

I’m not sure what went wrong when Israel decided to stop a flotilla in international waters. The flotilla was heading for Gaza. They suspected weapons or terrorists or both. Several people are dead. Turkey and Israel are pointing fingers at each other and we’re in the middle.
The guys over at Crooks and Liars have written a new book called Over the Cliff: How Obama’s Election Drove the American Right Insane. I’m buying a copy and I hope you are too.
Labor unions are pulling out all the stops against Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln, who has consistently sided with big business over labor.
If you and I and all of our friends in the progressive blogosphere donate $50 to help strengthen financial reform, could we change Congress? Could we change the bill? I doubt it. The financial sector is simply awash in truckloads of money.
The teeth in the financial reform bill was an amendment named after Sherrod Brown and Ted Kaufman. The Brown-Kaufman amendment would’ve limited the size of banks and held the amount of risk that they could take. How did 27 Democrats vote against this amendment? How did this amendment go up in flames so quickly? It is clearly a testament to the power of Wall Street.
I know that people are clamoring for president Obama to do something with this oil spill but for the life of me I can’t think of what it is he would need to do. Send in the Navy? And do what? How would the Navy stop the oil spill? By the way, how come we’ve been drilling off the coasts of the United States for over 30 years and we don’t have a viable plan of how to fix it if something goes wrong?
The Prince of Persia is really a good movie. My wife and I just saw it and we both enjoyed it. It is a little clichéd at times but still very enjoyable.
Finally, I feel sorry for Al Gore and Tipper Gore. They should be able to suffer through their divorce in private.

By ecthompsonmd|2010-06-01T22:49:35-04:00June 1st, 2010|Big Oil, Economy, Israel|Comments Off