INEQUALITY FOR ALL

INEQUALITY FOR ALL, the Robert Reich film about the exploding income gap in the United States, is on the big screen. It is playing in a number of major cities and will be opening at more locations, including the Regal Downtown Mall 6 in Charlottesville, VA within days. Hopefully other theaters in western Virginia, perhaps the Visulite in Staunton, will schedule it too.

INEQUALITY FOR ALL is currently playing at the E Street Cinema in our nation's capitol. General admission is $11.50 but, since he's not doing much of anything right now, maybe Bobblehead Bob Goodlatte can catch the bargain matinee for just $8.50! He might just learn a few shocking things about America the Beautiful (for some but not for all):

• The 10 richest men in America make more than the entire U.S. government housing budget.
• The poorest 47% of Americans have zero wealth.
• Out of 141 countries the United States ranks 4th in the highest degree of wealth inequality trailing only Russia, Ukraine, and Lebannon.

Reich advocates (and tells us how to get these things done) raising the minimum wage, giving workers a stronger voice, reforming Wall Street, fixing the tax system, investing in education, and getting the corruption of money out of politics.

Hey Bob, make it fun afternoon. Invite your obstructionist buddies Eric Cantor, Randy Forbes, Robert Hurt, Morgan Griffith, and Robert Wittman to join you. Enjoy a bitter tea party afterwards!

Truth is a stranger

In much of our politics, be it local, Virginia, or nationwide, the truth has become a stranger.

All politicians of whatever stripe, from whatever era, and manipulating whatever form of government engage in exaggeration and boasts, in selective forgetting and remembering, and in false advertising. But in modern American politics, especially on the Republican side, the truth has become an absolute stranger.

Consider that the forces driving today's GOP reject science (until they need a transplant) in fields such as biology and climatology. They refuse to accept the president's (how many ways can you prove it is valid) birth certificate. Republicans, tea partiers, and their honchos on Fox and talk radio regularly engage in spewing "false facts." Oh, I guess they sound knowledgable and convincing to the ditto heads, but truth has become a stranger. Facts don't matter. Repeat lies often enough and big enough and there are fools who will believe.

As Leonard Pitts noted in a recent column, "...Americans increasingly occupy two realities, one based on the conviction that facts matter, the other on the notion that facts are only what you need them to be in a given moment."

The recent Supreme Court decision on health care has ginned up the Republican "false facts" talking machine to new levels of dishonesty. Mitt Romney, for example, just earned 4 Pinocchios for Romney’s claim on an Obama health care pledge for twisting and perverting the meaning of 2008 campaign statements made by candidate Barack Obama.

Before the ink was close to dry on Chief Justice Roberts' decision, the Fox fact-free zone was deriding the mandate and penalty as a "tax." Arrogant Eric Cantor went into hyper-lie mode as he promised to hold a (political posturing and meaningless) vote on July 11 to repeal Obamacare. Those talking points have filtered down to local tea partiers and wingntus and are being heard on call-in shows and in barber shops in the Shenandoah Valley.

Permit this bird to push back against the distortions and false facts currently littering my nest. I guess the  mandate and penalty in the Affordable Health Care Act is a "tax" in the broad sense that every payment to government is essentially a tax. Shenandoah National Park entrance fees are a "tax." Get caught failing to drive by the rules you get a fine... I mean penalty... I mean "tax." The mandate and penalty in the Affordable Health Care Act is quite similar to the well established principle that if you want to license a car and drive on our government built roads you have to have insurance. If you fail to do so, you must pay a uninsured motorist fee... or a penalty... or a "tax."

Ezra Kline @ The Washington Post.

Another oft repeated Fox/Republican false fact that is making political rounds locally as well as nationally is that Obamacare represents the largest tax increase in history. Wrong. False. Untrue. As the Washington Post's Ezra Kline concludes, "So no, the Affordable Care Act isn’t the 'biggest tax hike in history.' It’s not even the biggest tax hike in the past 60 years. Or 50 years. Or 30 years. Or 20 years."

I'd like to add that the mandate and penalty, if it is a "tax," is (like the uninsured motorist fee) a voluntary tax. You choose to be irresponsible and not be insured... then, and only then, you pay the tax. It is all about personal responsibility and paying your own way. But, we shouldn't be surprised that Republicans only give lip service to personal responsibility and paying the costs of what they want.

In their zest for removing President Obama and putting politics above nation, Republicans appear to have taken to heart the advice of Mark Twin when he wrote in a letter to San Francisco Alta California, dated May 17, 1867, "The most outrageous lies that can be invented will find believers if a man only tells them with all his might."

More Mark Twain wisdom on lying liars and the lies they tell.

Pundits, Republicans, and other fools

I am growing tired of stupid pundits on MSNBC and Fox. The Repubs and Fox nearly always piss me off. What am I talking about - all the absurd commentary on the new jobs numbers that came out today. A big part of our economy's problem is the Bush (and yes, Clinton) "go-go" economics that tossed regs out the window and allowed out of control "capitalism," spiked with greed, to totally f*ck us over. Pundits like Chris Matthews on Hardball think it will be five years before jobs return. And fools like the new House Majority Leader give zero credit to President Obama for the (rather anemic) job growth we've have since Bush policies tanked the economy. But, with his appointments today is the president kissing up to big business and forgetting the people who elected him?

Huge global structural changes have fundamentally changed the US economy. Chris, I doubt those jobs will "return" in five years or ever. Eric, instead of partisan BS like calling every Obama initiative "job-killing," how about some real thinking, some real ideas for moving America forward. I suppose that is far beyond your capabilities.

In the meantime, the most insightful commentator on jobs and the condition of working folks in the USA was, and is, Bruce Springsteen, who in My Hometown, told us "these jobs are going boys and they ain't coming back." Springsteen was absolutely right - the manufacturing jobs of the 50s, 60s, 70s are gone to China, India, Indonesia. If Chris Matthews thinks they'll come back in five years he's a yapping fool. But, if Eric Cantor thinks cutting spending and rolling back health care reform will fix things, he's clearly just another partisan fool on the hill.

Goodlatte reliable ally in politics of division

Some Republicans in the House of Representatives are so blindly partisan that they'll vote against constituents and common sense in order to get their jabs in at President Barack Obama and their Democratic colleagues. Here in the 6th District of Virginia, we're "lucky" to have such a congressman - one who votes the party line even when patently wrong.

Earlier this month the House of Representatives voted 357-70 to curb credit card companies from charging excessive fees and jacking up interest rates unreasonably. Only two Virginia representatives voted with the minority - the minority whip Eric Cantor (R-7th) and Bob Goodlatte (R-6th). Cantor attempted to explain his vote by taking a line from Capital One which argued some people would have credit denied (sounds eerily similar to the payday lender line). Capital One is a big player in Cantor's district, but the real reason for his vote was the politics of division - it is Cantor's job #1 as minority leader to oppose anything and everything the Democrats are for.

What about Goodlatte? As far as I know he hasn't explained his vote on this bill, but ever since he was first elected he's been a reliable vote for the GOP leadership - when in the majority and now that they are an incredible shrinking minority. On the credit card bill, Goodlatte clearly forgot his constituents, fairness, and common sense. He owes 6th District residents an explanation. Don't hold your breath! Besides, we already know the answer.

Quotes from the grist mill

"So I suppose you have to first ask the question, can we improve on a document drafted by George Mason?"

~ House Minority Leader Ward Armstrong commenting on Delegate Chris Saxman's proposed bill to rewrite provisions of Virginia's constitution.

•••••

"Cantor may think the greatest economic crisis in 70 years is a joke, but we don't."

~ AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee remarking on a profanity-laced video clip sent out by U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor's office. More.

Playing Chicken?

Last Monday Governor Tim Kaine invited Virginia's congressional delegation to breakfast to discuss the commonwealth's economic and budget situations and the stimulus bill pending in Congress. The breakfast is a time-honored annual tradition that brings together the top elected officials to discuss issues facing the state and ways our representatives in Congress can help address them. Typically, the representatives and senators attend, or if they can't, will send a top aide.

This year, in a bit of political chicken, all the Republicans (including Bob Goodlatte) stayed away. None even sent an aide. That's right, they boycotted because (pick your fowl excuse):

• Rep. Eric Cantor, a house whip, couldn't be there because he was on a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan and Iraq - Kaine picked the date to exclude him, or
• For the first time in years there were more Democratic than Republican seats at the table, or
• Governor Tim Kaine is also the DNC chair and it would be a partisan breakfast.

Mr. Cantor, whose absence is excused, could have done as Rep. Rick Boucher did - send his chief of staff.

Rep. Randy Forbes said he didn't want to have breakfast with a man who would later be plotting Forbes' defeat in the next election. So, Mr. Forbes, why did Democrats join the meeting with former Governor Jim Gilmore when he was also the RNC chair?

The most likely reason for their absence is that Virginia, like nearly every other state no matter which party governs it, is looking for help in the economic stimulus bill. All of the Republicans in Virginia's congressional delegation, following party marching orders, voted no.

Whatever the reason for their petty boycott of this meeting of Virginia's elected officials, it is a very bad time to play the old partisan game of chicken. To move our nation forward, we need more talking and listening, not less. Your 6th District constituents were not represented at this meeting, Mr. Goodlatte. You didn't have input, nor did you learn about critical issues facing my family and our communities in the Shenandoah Valley.

To everything there is a season: a time for partisan politics, and a time for statesmanship and good government. Apparently our elected Republican leaders have yet to learn this lesson.