A quick look inside the Tea Party's America.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said “When you look at people in the bottom 5th of the economic ladder — those at the bottom — only 5 percent are there after 16 years. People move up, the American dream does exist…The rich are getting richer, but the poor are getting richer even faster.” Maybe only 5 percent are still there because the other 95 percent died off.
At Republican Presidential debate Monday night people actually cheered the idea of letting people die because they don't have health insurance. This after executions in Texas got a standing ovation at the first GOP debate. In 2007, the last year I could find the data for, 52 people were executed in the United States. That's enough to put us 5th in the world behind only China, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Good company all.
After Hurricane Irene House Majority Leader Eric Cantor announced “The House has passed $1 billion in disaster relief funds that is fully offset, which we will look to move as quickly as possible.” Where do the offsetting cuts come from? It slashes founding to train and equip first responders by 40 percent. The Homeland Security Appropriations bill now contains just $2 billion for first responders in the US while the House defense appropriations bill provides $12.8 billion to train and equip troops and police in Afghanistan.
ThinkProgress used data from the CIA to chart how income income inequality in the United States is greater than in the Ivory Coast, Pakistan, or Ethiopia. We seem to be on the level of Uganda. In education the United States ranks 33rd in reading, 27th in math, and 22nd in science worldwide.
“We humans have the brains and the means to reach real planetary sustainability. The problem is with us and our focus on short-term growth and profits, which is likely to cause suffering on a vast scale. With foresight and thoughtful planning, this suffering is completely avoidable.” Jeremy Grantham, the so called Wall Street environmentalist, in the August 14th issue of The New York Times Magazine.
In Republican controlled Pennsylvania a GOP plan would change the way electoral votes are allocated in presidential elections and there is no legal way to stop it. Instead of winner take all it would give each congressional district its own vote and due to redistricting guess which party controls the most districts. A candidate could easily win the state's popular vote yet lose the electoral vote. Seems your vote counts less every day.
'Legally' speaking more and more the Republican party operates less like the party that gave us Abraham Lincoln and more like the one that gave us Adolf Hitler.
What the hell is going on in this country ?
update - I really hate that Hitler analogy but all the voting rule crap just reminds me of the NSDAP (ok, Nazi) rise to power in Germany. All perfectly legal and all perfectly immoral.
