Janet-mandering the Arizona districts

Started in 1790, the US Census is a tool used by the United States government to find out its population. After finding out what the population is, the government can then allocate funds to where it  deems necessary based on the population. It also helps states divide congressional districts. After the 2010 Census, Arizona was given a new seat in Congress. This meant re-drawing the congressional districts, normally an easy task.

Not the case in Arizona.

In 2000, a bill was passed by the people of Arizona saying that the state government will not draw the lines, but rather an independent group of five people: two Democrats, two Republicans and an independent. The now nine districts were re-drawn, of course not without some name calling and about were about to be finished. However, in her infinite wisdom, Jan Brewer blew a hissy-fit.

Northern Arizona, a normally liberal district, is facing a huge problem. What is the district going to include? There were certain areas in Arizona that were meant to be a strictly Republican, or strictly Democrat to appease both sides. However, some districts are being contested, like District 1. The design is meant to have the district split almost 50-50. Brewer did not like that.

There is something odd about this all. Brewer is in New York touring for her new book. She is not in Arizona, where she should be when a problem like this arises. She is the one that caused this problem, and is on the opposite side of the country.

What many people do not know about Arizona is it is not as blood-red as the media has made it out to be. It is known as a “purple state,” meaning it is almost evenly split. Numbers have shown the state to be a third Independent, a third Democrat, and a third Republican, although that third Republican has a little more of the cookie than the other two.

Why does Arizona have such conservative laws?

Simple reason. Gerrymandering.

Gerrymandering is where government district lines are drawn to favor a particular political party, or discriminate against a certain group of people. Arizona has districts set up to favor Republicans. Look no further than the current shape of District two. Basically a circle around areas with high Native American population, then a thin squiggly line to all of Mohave County, which is mostly Republican. That make the Natives votes almost irreverent. The state is not as far right as it is made out to be. Only reason why is because the districts are drawn to favor Republicans.

This is what Brewer wants to do with these districts. She impeached the independent chairwomen, and then called for the two democrats to be replaced too. Meanwhile, leave the two Republicans on the board, one of whom received tons of complaints from the other chair people, and find a new group to draw the districts.This shows a blatant attempt to gerrymander the state to favor Republicans. Even after the people of Arizona voted to keep state government out of redistricting, Brewer is going against the people.

It isn’t only here that events like this are taking place. Similar stories are popping up in Texas and Nevada. It just goes to show Republicans trying to go after personal agendas, rather than listen to the people. Republicans should listen to their independent boards and accept what they are given. Compromise is not giving one side what it wants, while the other side gets the shaft. It is time listen to what the people voted for. Now is not the time to create a dystopian world for your liking, while leaving the people of your state in the dust.

Class warfare? Really, who's really committing "class warfare"

Weekend is over it is time to throw your nose to the grind stone and start all over. Ah, yes, the start of another 40 hour work week, a fresh five days of rants, facts. So where to begin.

CLASS WARFARE:

A new term that Republicans started throwing around Monday. Here is the correct definition of "class warfare:"

"Refers to a class conflict, or tensions between members of different social classes."


To summarize what the means is say the upper, or lower classed bickering, or actually fighting over who is in control, or one fighting back against oppression. There were numbers that have come out over the past few days that are very interesting, and a Ed Schultz pointed this out. In this chart it showed that the upper 4% of Americans, those making in excess of one million dollars a year, over all wealth increased by a whopping 42%. Meanwhile those in the lower ranks, their wealth actually decreased by 8%. This is a growing disparity in this country, and it doesn't show signs of stopping any time soon.


President Obama finally spoke out though yesterday, saying that they will not make any cuts to Medicare without having some kind of tax raise, and that Social Security is untouchable. It is about time he has said this. Obama also said that we can't keep going on this cutting spree and intend it to work. He also said that this kind of approach is just simple math, and the Republican theory is illogical to fix it. 


Now, let me put this into perspective on how the republicans want to fix things on a very small, personal scale.


You are a working, you make your own hours, which effects how much you make. You also like to spend money frivolously too. For the longest time this has not been a problem, you are able to cover all your costs, as in housing, food, and your kids going to college. Now after a while you have a, what you think is, large surplus of cash. With this surplus, you decide to start cutting your time working (taxes) which decreases your income. However, this does not change your spending habits. Then you open a high limit credit card, and think this now gives you more money, so again, you cut back your time working, and again your over all income take a hit. The credit card reaches its peak, and now you can't pay off your bills, so you immediately start cutting things, and don't pick up your hours at work, you cut off your kids on college, you drop your health care, and all almost essential things that we pay for, but still continue to buy excessive things. 


That is basically how Republicans work things. Continue spending money on excessive things, like two unfunded wars, and disregard the fact that the rich 2% in this country pay almost nothing in taxes. Meanwhile, the Warren Buffet rule is starting to become a hot topic. Buffet's secretary currently pays a larger percent of their income in taxes than Mr. Buffet who is a billionaire. Buffet has spoken out and said that he, and a bunch of other million, and billionaires would pay a more fair share in taxes, they don't need that much money. Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, said the if he had to pay higher taxes, he said it would hurt at first, but then he would feel really good about it because he knows he is helping millions of Americans.


So Republicans really need to re-think their stance and calling raising the taxes on the rich, "class warfare." Why? The rich aren't the ones being oppressed, the lower classes are being held down by these ridiculous tax laws, and loopholes. In a previous blog I talk about the parallels George Orwell's novel "1984." In the book, the reason why the current government was in place was because the lower classes got fed up with the capitalists, and their stranglehold over the lower classes. Obviously it didn't work out that well in the long run, but that is where we are heading. There will be true class warfare in the coming years if we don't fix our current ways.       

There is power in a union

The union. A term that many Republicans fear. Why? They are groups of people that they don't particularly like forming groups that force fat cat corporations to give them what they want, and have to spend extra money. Before I go on, there are downsides to unions. Biggest is is a union goes on strike, sometimes members don't have control over it, and they may lose their job. Then of course, there is the fact that a worker may have to pay X amount of dollars from their pay check to the union. It is a small price to pay when the union will step in if you are fired without a legitimate reason, or treated unfairly. There has been corruption in unions before, but not so much these days.

Without a union there is no 40 hour five day work week, minimum wage, or even a weekend. There is one candidate that is running on abolishing minimum wage, Ron Paul. What Paul is reading is flawed economics. He believes if there is no minimum wage, employers will pay more. However, that is not the case. They would pay an employee nothing because they can. Paul is not really much of a factor in this talk. There are two battle grounds right now, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

Let me side track for a moment.

Arizona is a "right to work state." According to legal-explanations.com a right to work state is:

"State labor law that permits someone to determine for himself/herself whether or not to join a labor union. The law avoids employers from making union membership a condition of employment" 

Basically what that states is that you don't have to join a union in order to be employed. What that seemingly brilliant law forgets to mention is that a employer can terminate a worker without reason, or cause. They could fire a worker because they don't like them as a person, racial, or thousands of other reasons. It is a law created to water down unions, and make these protective unions all but go away.

As we know, the state of Wisconsin had no real choice in what happened. Tea Party governor Scott Walker forced his union busting agenda down the peoples throat, and said unions are bad, and are hurting the state budget. Now Ohio is facing something very similar. Watching the Ed Schultz Show earlier, Ed seemed like he wanted to strangle governor Kasic of Ohio for his lack of courage to come and talk to him.

They want to do away with higher pay, and benefits for public workers. The have this strange notion that by creating these union busting laws, that it will somehow help their states dire budget situations, There are other ways to fix those problems. All these Republicans say they have a better job plan than Barack Obama, but meanwhile they keep on coming up with legislation that will destroy jobs, not create them.

Now just if you take one thing from this know this. Unions have downsides, but their upsides out weigh the bad 10-1. They protect your job, they help you get the pay you deserve, and they support you if treated badly. We lose unions, we will lose so many things that we have become to accustomed to. Don't let them keep the middle class down, lets not lose out minimum wage just so some billionaire can count his money in his high rise glass tomb. We're better than this!

Vacation's all I ever wanted

What? Obama has taken only 70 days for vacation in three years? Not that bad, when you consider the facts above that George W. Bush took 225 days off. If you do that math that is about one fifth of his time in office at that point. Now remember this, with Bush's term it was 2003, we were at war with both Iraq and Afghanistan at that point in his first term. A president, while in the middle of two wars decides to go on vacation. Meanwhile, president Obama has only taken 70 days off while facing a true crisis. Who has their priorities straight.

Then you have those who wish to place the blame on Obama for creating this mess we are in, but those stats do not lie. Bush was a very complacent president in times of true need and war. During Obama's first three years he has had to avert the greatest finical disaster in the United States, deal with the two war mess left by his predecessor, and still has had time for even 70 days. Yet, Republicans and certain pundits have called for him to limit his vacation time. Where were they from 2001-2003 while Bush wasted one fifth of his time in office on vacation.

More hypocrisy. Have to love it!

The first drop

Instead of boring everyone with an introduction of who I am and what I am here for I will go straight into the meat of the opinions and just all around fun stuff. There has been a lot going in in the past few days, so there is no time here to sit and babble about nothing.

According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the current unemployment rate in this country is holding 9.1%. Believe it or not, that is not the highest unemployment rate in the past 30 years, and yes, that does include the 10.1% in October 2009. Back in November of 1982, this country had a 10.8% unemployment rate, which was during the modern conservative's "god" Ronald Regan. Going with more stats, at the end of Bill Clinton's term we have as low as a 3.8% unemployment rate as of April 2000. Three years later, under George Bush, and a Republican lead House and Senate, it spiked to a 6.1% in May of 2003.

The unemployment rate came back down, but came down to a 4.6% Oct 2006, but was on the rise from there on out. This is before the Democrats took back the house and senate in 2006. Many people are pointing fingers at the Democrats for the reason for large unemployment numbers, but take this into consideration. Through out the Bush administration many corporations started outsourcing to places like India, and China. This was a problem that was brought up during the 2004 presidential election, and the majority of Americans stood against outsourcing, and even believed it hurt the economy. Of course, the story goes Bush won re-election, and was a "lame duck" according to many from the start of his second term. Forcing some regulation here would keep jobs in America.

Now, here is what we have come to. Unemployment does not appear it wants to budge lower, and the numbers are starting to show steps backwards, hence there being no new jobs created last month. Yes, a goose egg. The mid-term election had a slew of candidates appear to run on the platform of wanting to create jobs, and focus on the American people, hasn't happened yet. Almost a year in their position, and they have not done anything. If anything they have forced anti-job creating policies, see Wisconsin union busting law. Finally, President Barack Obama is pushing hard to create jobs, and showing his cards that appear to follow Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, which focused on infrastructure jobs.

Can someone please tell me what is so bad about updating schools, fixing roads, and our outdated infrastructure? Anybody? According to Republicans Mitch McConnell, and Eric Cantor, Obama is "playing politics." Meanwhile, Obama has said it isn't about him winning re-election, it is about getting people to work now, not in 14 months when the Republicans may take back the White House. Sadly the president did cave to some Republican wants, like more tax cuts for the rich, and such. They are speaking out against this plan. While this bill that is being proposed isn't as popular among the American people as one might think. Why? Tax cuts. The American people have been lead on to believe that tax cuts would create jobs over the last decade, which it has done nothing but make corporations want to keep their money more.

The correct answer to my poll that appears below, is both are playing politics, but one party is playing it in favor of the American people, one is not. Food for thought. During the debt ceiling debate Republicans wanted tax cuts otherwise they would have let the country default, and would have shoveled all the blame on Obama for not acting. Even this chunk of awesome, Eric Cantor was quoted before saying that there would be no aide to those effected by Irene until there were more tax cuts. Yes, he said that, look it up. Now, McConnell said this country is a two party system and Obama needs to know how to compromise...

Huh?

Wait, Mr. McConnell, refresh my memory. This is a two party system, and there needs to be compromise? How many times have you and your Republicans made compromise since Obama became president. You have also said that it is your mission to make Mr. Obama a one term president. You have the nerve to call him out for playing politics. I am flat out disgusted. I didn't even get a chance to mention all the "compromise" the  Democrats have made with Republicans just to get simple legislature passed in the house.

So for now this country will sit in the hands of the most unpopular congress ever, and all that the American people can do is wait for the rest of the country to come to their senses. There is a reason why we are call the United States, and right now this country is so far divided, and it is very sad. Our founding fathers would frown upon the Democrats, and be furious at the Republicans. So again, we sit and wait... Again...

(All quote have been paraphrased from assorted sources like AP, MSNBC, Huffington Post.)