Politics What is happening????

redux · Mar 24, 2014

On the plus side, I received an award at our recent legislative conference for a program that reached a milestone of saving cities, counties and schools more than $1 billion.

Mayor of Salt Lake City, Mayor of Saint Paul, Me, My Boss (L to R)

rogue49 · Apr 2, 2014

And they make a bad thing worse...
We need a new amendment...but they won't agree, until they're suffering too much begging for funding (as if they aren't already... )

Supreme Court strikes down aggregate campaign giving limits
By: Josh Gerstein - April 2, 2014

The Supreme Court ruled, 5-4 that caps on the total amount of money an individual can give to political campaigns and PACs are unconstitutional.

The court’s Republican-appointed justices joined in overturning the so-called aggregate limits on the grounds that they violated the First Amendment.

Democratic appointees dissented said the limits were constitutional as a means to guard against corruption and circumvention of the still-valid limits on donations to individual campaigns and political committees.

© 2014 POLITICO LLC
Click to expand...

ASU2003 · Apr 2, 2014

Have any Democrats written up that Constitutional Amendment yet?

Here is one group that has:
Move to Amend's Proposed 28th Amendment to the Constitution | Move to Amend

It is what is needed.

rogue49 · Apr 2, 2014

ASU2003 said: ↑

Have any Democrats written up that Constitutional Amendment yet?

Here is one group that has:
Move to Amend's Proposed 28th Amendment to the Constitution | Move to Amend

It is what is needed.
Click to expand...

Actually, both sides may do it...I'm sure after awhile they're tired of grubbing for money from both grassroots and billionaires.
I hear it's exhausting...much less having to cater to the big players afterwards.

Street Pattern · Apr 3, 2014

rogue49 said: ↑

And they make a bad thing worse...
Click to expand...

War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Money is speech.

redravin · Apr 3, 2014

rogue49 said: ↑

Actually, both sides may do it...I'm sure after awhile they're tired of grubbing for money from both grassroots and billionaires.
I hear it's exhausting...much less having to cater to the big players afterwards.
Click to expand...

It's not exhausting anymore, they just go to Sheldon Adelson, kiss his ring and get all the money they need.

rogue49 · Apr 4, 2014

EXACTLY!!

That or start paying me for all my words.
I'd be frickin' rich...

rogue49 · Apr 16, 2014

This is an interesting perspective...I don't know if I fully agree with it.

While the recent changes in law by STOTUS, unrestricting campaign financing is something to be concerned about.
I still see quite a few checks...and the public still has significant influence. (this is not Russia by example)
Both parties, while currently taking advantage of the unregulated scene, are starting be worn by the constant hunt for money. (M.A.D.)
And the media is noting those that have undue influence. (hey, when the spotlight shine...it is bright and hot)

We'll have to make some adjustments...hell, perhaps even have our first amendment in awhile.
But I don't think we've gone overboard...Yet...

US oligarchy study: Eye-opening study reveals disturbing facts about the US
April 15, 2014

A first of its kind US oligarchy study yielded a rather troubling discovery and the results of the study are definitely cause for concern for most Americans. The US oligarchy study was conducted by researchers from Princeton and Northwestern Universities and the study showed that the United States is not a republic in substance, but rather an oligarchy where the rich rule and the majority of Americans have virtually no impact on policy decisions, today's report from FDL explained.

To those unfamiliar as to what exactly an oligarchy is, here's how Wikipedia defines the term: "Oligarchy is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with a small number of people. These people could be distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, education, corporate, or military control. Such states are often controlled by a few prominent families who typically pass their influence from one generation to the next, but inheritance is not a necessary condition for the application of this term."

As RT News points out, the US oligarchy study focused on policy changes between 1981 and 2002 in an effort to answer elusive questions about who really rules in the United States. The researchers measured key variables for 1,779 policy issues, RT said.

The following paragraph pretty much sums up the findings: "The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence. Our results provide substantial support for theories of Economic Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism."

The problem facing the US with the oligarchy is the inordinate power exerted against certain stocks or sectors of society in the country. The oligarchy monopolizes the possibilities of progress of individuals and human groups.

The oligarchies pressure on governments and societies towards their relative superiority. A well known example is how big corporations manipulate public opinion and the media. The elite and the big corporations not only seek to grow, but have absolute market dominance in some regions. The main purpose is to remove competition and own absolute power and dominion to bid in the market.

People who are major shareholders, or simply part of the elite and wealthy, possess the ability to basically control the rest of humanity. Individual guarantees have been violated within the same capitalism, and socialism to capitalism is the exclusive ruling class. The reality is that there will always be small groups of powerful individuals who control the masses. As Gawker puts it..."regular people tend to think that their political interests are being represented when they see the triumph of some political position that they agree with. In fact, the researchers say, this is a mere coincidence. Yes, the average American will see their interests represented—as long as their interests align with the interests of the wealthy."

Do you agree with the results of the US oligarchy study? Share your thoughts and concerns...
Click to expand...

redux · Apr 18, 2014

Here is an interesting right wing argument against gender pay equity.

President Barack Obama and his feminist friends have been trotting out their tiresome slogan that women are paid only 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. Every reputable scholar who has commented has proved that this is a notorious falsehood that anyone should be embarrassed to use.

U.S. law calls for equal pay for equal work, but the feminist slogan is not based on equal work. Women work fewer hours per day, per week, per year. They spend fewer years as full-time workers outside the home, avoid jobs that require overtime, and choose jobs with flexibility to take time off for personal reasons. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, men are twice as likely as women to work more than 40 hours a week.
Women place a much higher value on pleasant working conditions: a clean, comfortable, air-conditioned office with congenial co-workers. Men, on the other hand, are more willing to endure unpleasant working conditions to earn higher pay, doing dirty, dangerous outside work. In 2012, men suffered 92 percent of work-related deaths.

If a man is supporting his family, at the peak of his career, he often works longer hours to maximize his earnings. By contrast, a successful woman who reaches a high rank in her career is more likely to reduce her working hours.

All these reasons for women voluntarily choosing lower pay are now beyond dispute among those who have looked at the facts. But even those explanations for the alleged pay "gap" are still only part of the story.

Perhaps an even more important reason for women's lower pay is the choices women make in their personal lives, such as having children. Women with children earn less, but childless women earn about the same as men.

Another fact is the influence of hypergamy, which means that women typically choose a mate (husband or boyfriend) who earns more than she does. Men don't have the same preference for a higher-earning mate.

While women prefer to HAVE a higher-earning partner, men generally prefer to BE the higher-earning partner in a relationship. This simple but profound difference between the sexes has powerful consequences for the so-called pay gap.

Suppose the pay gap between men and women were magically eliminated. If that happened, simple arithmetic suggests that half of women would be unable to find what they regard as a suitable mate.

Obviously, I'm not saying women won't date or marry a lower-earning men, only that they probably prefer not to. If a higher-earning man is not available, many women are more likely not to marry at all.
Facts and Fallacies About Paycheck Fairness
Click to expand...

Fuzzy math to the extreme -- paying women less is better for women's marriage prospects.

Baraka_Guru · Apr 18, 2014

redux said: ↑

Here is an interesting right wing argument against gender pay equity.

Fuzzy math to the extreme -- paying women less is better for women's marriage prospects.
Click to expand...

It's not just fuzzy math; it's fuzzy logic.

Setting aside all the other problems in this article, let's just look at what you highlighted:

Suppose the pay gap between men and women were magically eliminated. If that happened, simple arithmetic suggests that half of women would be unable to find what they regard as a suitable mate.

Obviously, I'm not saying women won't date or marry a lower-earning men, only that they probably prefer not to. If a higher-earning man is not available, many women are more likely not to marry at all.

Even if we aside the assumption that "all women prefer higher-earning partners (that are men)," it still doesn't make sense.

Simple arithmetic? What is he talking about?

Seriously. Who the fuck wrote this shit and had the gall to include "facts and fallacies" in title. What is this, self-parody?

Street Pattern · Apr 18, 2014

Baraka_Guru said: ↑

Simple arithmetic? What is he talking about?
Click to expand...

Not "he". It's Phyllis Schlafly.

I have to grit my teeth and remember that she's an unlikely ally on copyright issues.

Baraka_Guru · Apr 18, 2014

Street Pattern said: ↑

Not "he". It's Phyllis Schlafly.
Click to expand...

Sorry. The link didn't work when I tried to click it.

She...what is she talking about?

I have to grit my teeth and remember that she's an unlikely ally on copyright issues.
Click to expand...

Which ones?

Street Pattern · Apr 18, 2014

Street Pattern said: ↑

I have to grit my teeth and remember that she's an unlikely ally on copyright issues.
Click to expand...

Baraka_Guru said: ↑

Which ones?
Click to expand...

Well, for example, in the case of Eldred v. Ashcroft, when Lawrence Lessig unsuccessfully challenged the awful "Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act" (extending all copyrights another 20 years), Phyllis Schlafly and her Eagle Forum filed an amicus brief supporting the challenge. I am still grateful to her for that.

Baraka_Guru · Apr 18, 2014

Street Pattern said: ↑

Well, for example, in the case of Eldred v. Ashcroft, when Lawrence Lessig unsuccessfully challenged the awful "Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act" (extending all copyrights another 20 years), Phyllis Schlafly and her Eagle Forum filed an amicus brief supporting the challenge. I am still grateful to her for that.
Click to expand...

Wait, what? They want to extend copyright further? Doesn't the U.S. have the longest copyright period in the world as it is?

redravin · Apr 18, 2014

Baraka_Guru said: ↑

Wait, what? They want to extend copyright further? Doesn't the U.S. have the longest copyright period in the world as it is?
Click to expand...

Blame Disney
Every time The Mouse is about to hit the end of it's copyright they get the copyright law stretched out even further.

Baraka_Guru · Apr 18, 2014

redravin said: ↑

Blame Disney
Every time The Mouse is about to hit the end of it's copyright they get the copyright law stretched out even further.
Click to expand...

I already knew about the Disney thing.

redux · Apr 18, 2014

Baraka_Guru said: ↑

I already knew about the Disney thing.
Click to expand...

But did you know that Disney movies are left wing propoganda?

Disney's "Frozen" is a Satanic Push to Turn Kids Gay

Street Pattern · Apr 18, 2014

Baraka_Guru said: ↑

Wait, what? They want to extend copyright further? Doesn't the U.S. have the longest copyright period in the world as it is?
Click to expand...

Only Justices Breyer and Stevens were willing to stand in the way. And Stevens is off the court since then.

The Constitution gives Congress the authority to grant copyrights "for limited Times". But seven justices saw no problem with perpetuity on the installment plan, which is what they are openly doing.

The four conservatives, the ones who say they believe in the doctrine of inherent limits on congressional action as announced in the Lopez case, made no attempt to distinguish Eldred from Lopez. They knew it would look ridiculous.

So they just silently voted in the majority. And discredited themselves completely. Their supposed principles are easily cast aside whenever their corporate owners tell them to.

rogue49 · Apr 18, 2014

In some ways, I'm almost tempted to let everything start from scratch...even the Constitution.
Let the chaos reign for a while.
Lessons learned...then start reapplying all the laws again.

However, there's no guarantee that would do it right...or in a timely manner.
Kind of like the concept of term limits.
Sounds nice...then you figure out there's no guarantee of getting someone better...in fact, you may get worse. (AND they are starting from nothing too)
However, SCOTUS should not be forever anymore ...people live longer now than when started. Perhaps 20 years max.

But the real key is...get out the vote. get out the vote. get out the vote.
Make it a friggin' weekend...hell, all weekend too... (and make the following Monday a federal holiday for a 3 day weekend - combine it with Veteran's Day)
Allow any citizen with a picture ID to vote. (you can register there)
Get rid of gerrymandering. (in a grid, each equidistant from the center, set by a non-partisan panel)

All candidates must attend a national history class, an economics class and ethics class. (this is again, even if you've taken it already)
(just a month...they can deal with it if they want it, kind of like campaign financing...you have to do it always, every time)

rogue49 · Apr 19, 2014

Treat wage theft as a criminal offense
By Catherine Rampell, Published: April 17

Forget raising the minimum wage. How about enforcing the meager minimum already on the books?

Over the past year, low-wage workers and their supporters have protested, struck and polemicized for a raise of some kind, a proposition that has support from the White House and most Americans, if not Republican politicians. But low-wage workers face an even more upsetting affliction that both parties should feel comfortable condemning: Employers are stealing from their employees, often with impunity.

“Wage theft” is an old problem. It can take many forms, including paying less than the minimum hourly wage, working employees off the clock, not paying required overtime rates and shifting hours into the next pay period so that overtime isn’t incurred. Unfortunately, reliable data on the magnitude of the problem are scarce. Workers can be afraid to report the theft for fear of losing their jobs altogether, especially in today’s terrible economy, and many don’t know their rights. Often workers don’t even realize their pay is being skimmed.

Take Ashley Cathey, 25, a six-year McDonald’s employee who participated in a national one-day strike last December. A couple of months later, she got a 25-cent raise, to $8 an hour from $7.75. But something about her next paycheck looked fishy: Her pay seemed short given her raise and new, longer hours. She usually works overnight, and in recent months her shifts have frequently stretched to 12 or 14 hours because her Memphis restaurant has been short-staffed. (Perhaps because its wages are still too low to retain enough employees.)

She asked a friend who is a manager to print out her time sheet and noticed that someone had clocked her out for breaks she never took. Other co-workers spotted hours shaved from their time sheets, too. When employees brought this to the attention of a more senior boss, they were told the wrongly subtracted hours would appear in their next paychecks. Meanwhile, the helpful manager who had printed out the time sheets was reprimanded for sharing official time records with workers and told that he’d be fired if he did it again, Cathey said. Now Cathey keeps a personal record of the hours she clocks in and out.

“I never paid attention before,” she told me in a phone interview. She suspects that someone has been doctoring her hours for years, but she doesn’t want to endanger her manager friend’s job by asking for help obtaining proof. Even without proof she is convinced: “They’re hiding something, obviously,” she said.

This is not a one-off accusation. In the past few weeks, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman extracted settlements from dozens of McDonald’s and Domino’s locations around the state for off-the-clock work. Last month, workers in California, Michigan and New York filed class-action lawsuits against McDonald’s alleging multiple charges of wage theft. These suits have upped the ante by implicating the McDonald’s corporation, not just individual franchisees, in bad behavior. The plaintiffs allege that McDonald’s corporate office exerts so much control over franchisees — including by monitoring their hourly labor costs through a corporate computer system — that it had to have known what was going on.

“It doesn’t take a company dictating the specific method for violating the law in order to obtain those violations,” Michael Rubin, an attorney with Altshuler Berzon LLP who filed the California suits, told me. “If you keep coming with this directive that labor costs must be lowered, there are only a finite number of ways that can be done, most of which are unlawful. The lawful ways get exhausted quickly.” (McDonald’s said in a statement that it is “undertaking a comprehensive investigation of the allegations.”)

These cases aside, wage theft mostly goes unreported. Workers who do report the stolen wages to authorities — lately, at the urging of national labor campaigns such as Good Jobs Nation — can wait months before an investigation is resolved, even though they probably need the missing money to pay their next electricity bill. (This has been the case with fast-food workers employed by government contractors at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, who filed a wage-theft complaint with the Labor Department last summer.) The consequences for wage theft are rare, small and not particularly deterring. Even when government investigators pursue these complaints, for example, criminal charges are rarely filed.

Harsher penalties, including prison time, should be on the table more often when willful wrongdoing is proved. Thieves caught stealing thousands of dollars from someone’s home can go to jail; the same should be true for thieves caught stealing thousands of dollars from someone’s paycheck.
Click to expand...

I'll add to it, from a different angle.

This is one that has gotten me, I'm very careful to ask when I'm interviewing, about the company dynamic.
With companies abusing the Salary option...one set income, no bonus...LOTS of hours...no limits or boundaries on your schedule.
This is especially true with the IT industry, if not others.

I don't mind being on call 24/7. I don't mind kicking it up a notch...for a bit.
But many companies start using this as a constant MO...presuming you'll be there at all times, pick up everything.
For not an ounce more in compensation.

For example, I worked at a company for one year, 90 hours a week, in the end. Tethered to my laptop, even at home.
Called at all hours of the day, night & weekend.
Bonuses never showed up, always another excuse, another adjustment to the rules.
It looked gorgeous, they said all the right things, seems like they were invested into you...it was all a trap. A sweatshop.

Just like they need to look into unpaid interns. Hours for doctors.
Many companies and industries have gotten into the habit of presuming infinite work...all for free.
Hey, they charge a fee for everything.
Service, for every hour.
Product, for every part.
Then I think it only fair, they pay for services rendered...for the hours you work.
It's one thing for Salary...but they're pushing the concept overboard.

I protect myself now.
It's not just money...it's your time, your energy, your life.

Log in or Sign up

Politics What is happening????

redux Very Tilted

rogue49 Tech Kung Fu Artist Staff Member

ASU2003 Very Tilted

rogue49 Tech Kung Fu Artist Staff Member

Street Pattern Very Tilted

redravin Cynical Optimist Donor

rogue49 Tech Kung Fu Artist Staff Member

rogue49 Tech Kung Fu Artist Staff Member

redux Very Tilted

Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

Street Pattern Very Tilted

Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

Street Pattern Very Tilted

Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

redravin Cynical Optimist Donor

Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

redux Very Tilted

Street Pattern Very Tilted

rogue49 Tech Kung Fu Artist Staff Member

rogue49 Tech Kung Fu Artist Staff Member

Log in or Sign up

Politics What is happening????

redux Very Tilted

rogue49 Tech Kung Fu Artist Staff Member

ASU2003 Very Tilted

rogue49 Tech Kung Fu Artist Staff Member

Street Pattern Very Tilted

redravin Cynical Optimist Donor

rogue49 Tech Kung Fu Artist Staff Member

rogue49 Tech Kung Fu Artist Staff Member

redux Very Tilted

Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

Street Pattern Very Tilted

Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

Street Pattern Very Tilted

Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

redravin Cynical Optimist Donor

Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

redux Very Tilted

Street Pattern Very Tilted

rogue49 Tech Kung Fu Artist Staff Member

rogue49 Tech Kung Fu Artist Staff Member

Useful Searches