Denver voters could soon make a choice as to whether or not employees will be able to take a few days off to recover from the inevitable communicable illness without worrying about losing pay. Since the poor are getting poorer, and the businesses that will whine about this the most are the businesses that exploit the poor, let's do some generous quick math just to get a rough idear of what this would mean for the bottom line.
5 sick days = 1/50 of the working year or 2% of worker's income.
The average overhead percentage of labor is maybe 75%.
A potential increase of 2% in 75% of overhead is 1.5% of overall.
So here's Kelly Maher Republican bleach troll's, (no wait, this is the right link) apt and telling portrayal of a drunk ditz trying to make a point about how mandatory sick days can be abused by alcoholic white girls. Hers is a yarn of irresponsibility so note how she uses her token black friend as a prop so as to convey further irresponsibility (that racist BITCH!)? She gets hammered, and then calls in to work drunk and says "it's the law" that she get this day off paid:
Yesterday one of the questions that we though was for the ages was answered. Was there anything that you could say on Fox "News" that was too far out there, too crazy even for the propaganda arm of the Republican Party? Now we know the answer is yes, but you have to do it for nearly two years before it has an affect.
There is a question that is a corollary to that one; is there anything that Bryan Fisher of the American Family Association, and a radio personality on the Right, can say that is so crazy and offensive that Republican presidential hopefuls won't go on his show?
The answer to this one is; apparently not. For those who really don't have time to follow abject assholes like Fisher he is one of the Terry Jones and Fred Phelps type of Christianist. He has insisted that there be no more Mosques built in the United States, he believes that American Muslims don't have First Amendment Rights and that the U.S. military is run by homosexual and Muslim activists.
You know, just your average foaming at the mouth Religious Right Conservative. It is possible that he has gone too far this time though. Recently in a rant against the War on Poverty he said (From RightWingWatch) :
Welfare has destroyed the African-American family by telling young black women that husbands and fathers are unnecessary and obsolete. Welfare has subsidized illegitimacy by offering financial rewards to women who have more children out of wedlock. We have incentivized fornication rather than marriage, and it's no wonder we are now awash in the disastrous social consequences of people who rut like rabbits.
Now, I already considered this guy a bigot, but he is getting into open racism with this stuff, and as we found out with Glenn Beck when you do that, you are probably a bridge too far.
In recent months his show has hosted many of the 7 dwarfs of the supposed Republican field. Fisher has hosted Tim Pawlenty, Mike Huckabee, Michele Bachmann, Haley Barbour and Newt Gingrich on his show. It would be great to think that they would understand that Fishers brand of toxic crap against Muslims and Muslim Americans was enough to keep them away, but we all know that the Right is not going to punish you for bashing Muslims.
However, folks like Gov. Barbour have enough race issue problems already without being tied to someone who is comparing poor African Americans to rabbits and saying that they are willing to be paid to fornicate.a>
Mississippi Governor and probably presidential hopeful Haley Barbour is a real piece of work. With his Boss Hogg good looks and his penchant for idolizing Jim Crow groups like the Citizens Council (who enforced an economic apartheid on Southern Black citizens) but thus far that has not stopped him from looking like he might be a viable candidate.
Still the level of mendacity and crypto-racism from the Deep South Governor is not something I think will play in the larger election. Sure whoever the Republican candidate is will be going up against an African American in the general election and the racist minority in this nation is going to be wanting to line up behind anyone (who is white) who will run against him, but the vast majority of the nation is not going stand for that kind of thing.
Still Gov. Barbour can't seem to help himself when it comes to making statements that are not only false but also laced with more than a hint of racism. At the recent governors conference Barbour was front and center in trying to get the Federal Government to relax the requirements for coverage in Medicaid that went with the stimulus money which boosted the state coffers.
"We have people pull up at the pharmacy window in a BMW and say they can't afford their co-payment."
When arguing that States should be allowed to make Medicaid recipients pay for some of their medication. If that statement sounds familiar to you, it did to me too. It is right along the lines of the infamous story of the "Welfare Queen".
For those who have heard the term but forgotten the story, let me refresh your memory. It was President Reagan who told the anecdote about one woman who defrauded the welfare program for $150,000 dollars, and driving a Cadillac. The only problem with this story is that it was $8,000 not 150K, and the woman went to jail on fraud charges
The Republicans have a real problem, no not genetic, hygienic or even esthetic (though way too many of them do fall down in these areas) no, their problem is a moral one. It is hard to give any credibility to a party and a movement that venerates a racist douche-bag like Rush Limbaugh. This is a man so powerful in the Conservative movement that no sitting Senator or Representative, no Governor or elder Statesman or woman of the party can call out his blatant and disgusting rhetoric without having to walk it back nearly immediately or be destroyed by the party faithful.
Limbaugh has made a career of being a fire-breather. He has addicted his audience to the dark sweet candy of anger at faux causes and misinterpreted remarks. However his long history of anti-African American racism is well known. He lost his position as a football commentator for ESPN because he could not help himself when he attributed Donavan McNabb's popularity to the fact he was black. He said it in an off hand way that showed it was he true feelings and he expected to be agreed with.
We last got together about ten days ago, when I put up a story that hoped to explain to the Islamic world that, Qur'an burning aside, we don't really hate either them, or our own Constitution.
I pointed out that, just like everywhere else, about 20% of our population are idiots, that this means about 60,000,000 of us might, at any time, be inclined to burst into fits of random stupidity, such as the desire to burn Qur'ans to make some sort of statement, and that the same First Amendment that protects the freedom of stupid speech also protects the rights of Islamic folks to freely build mosques...and finally, that this apparent "paradox of freedom" is exactly why the US is the kind of country that many Islamic folks the world over wish they lived in as well.
I then went off to enjoy my Godson's wedding, and I ignored the posting until the next Monday.
On the two dozen sites where it could be found, this was apparently considered to be a fairly innocuous message...with one giant exception, which is what we'll be talking about today.
Long story short, some portion of this country's population has some bizarre ideas about Islamic folks...but maybe if they knew my friend Wa'el, they might see things a bit differently.
The anti-Muslim whirlwind continues to be reaped in the United States. For all that the Sarah Palins and Rudy Giuliani's of the world think that the fight over the Park51 Islamic Center is confined to Manhattan the reality is that it is spreading and getting more and more violent. This weekend the site of new Islamic center outside Nashville was fire bombed. No one was hurt but some very expensive construction equipment was destroyed. Then when some of the members of the group building the mosque were looking at the site, they heard shots fired and reported it to local police.
Do you know what was the second biggest demographic group that voted for Obama, obviously the blacks were the biggest demographic group, but do y'all know what was the second biggest? Unmarried women. 70% of unmarried women voted for Obama and this is because if you kick your husband out, you gotta have Big Brother goverment to be your provider, and they know that! And they've admitted it.
I don't have a picture of the new billboard but Maes is what trumps white, used car salesmen rage?
Now it's a Dan Maes billboard.
Who else automagically doubts anything or anyone espoused by a Republican simply because it comes from a Republican pie hole (or billboard pie in the sky)?
(Rand Paul is taking $$ from white supremacists? What??? - promoted by Fong)
This must be seen across America.
Stormfront.org, which was founded to support David Duke for senate by another KKK Grand Dragon, Don Black, has been promoting and contributing to Rand Paul's moneybombs. Palling around with WhiteSupremacists much?
That's a tweet from Don Black, head of the white supremacist group Stormfront. Wow.
~snip~
So, Trey Grayson should reject donations from Republicans who voted for the bailout........but it's okay for Rand Paul to accept donations from Stormfront?
STOSSEL: because private businesses ought to get to discriminate.
~snip~
(I)t should be their right to be racist.
"I want my country back"
Back to when? 1963? or 1910? or 1810?
When Rosa Parks was thrown off of a bus for refusing to sit in the back in accordance with discriminatory Jim Crow laws it helped begin the Civil Rights movement.
It was racist then, and it would still be racist now.
Except, of course, if you are a libertarian or a Republican.
In the last 24 hours, both Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul and Fox News Corp employee John Stossel have made the case that it is OKAY to throw Rosa Parks off the bus if it is owned by a private business.
(editor's note: I screwed this up, it's not a new site, it's an updated site. Still, let's vote for the non-stigmatized logo, mmkay?)
It's been about four months since he announced so this is a GREAT site: Hickenlooperforcolorado.
There is a contest to choose between the two logos. Click on the image to submit your suggestion. I really, really, really hope you don't pick "Hick for gov". I believe that one should only go on beer coasters under Budweiser. Let's let the Republicans make the racist connotations this time around, okey?
When a person becomes convinced of a conspiracy, it is often impossible, short of total confirmation of the theory, to get them to give up on it. This is due to the nature of conspiracy theories. They are often based on the idea that all the facts are actually facts and are know able. Any trial lawyer will tell you that the facts are not always knowable, that even the most sober of people will edit their memories in the way that is favorable to their point of view. Sadly reality is not as neat and tight as we would like to pretend.
The fact that Hawaii is invoking the Act 100 clause of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) combined with the Republican Governor of that state saying that she has viewed the presidents birth certificate would be enough to kill the beast that is Birtherism. Sadly Birtherism is a hydra, when you cut off one head, two more grow back.
Everyone knows that the Republican Party thinks there are things that are fine when they do it but are a problem when anyone else does them. This is the It-Okay-If-Your-A-Republican or IOIKYR meme. It is starting to look as though there is another one, MIOFWP or Miranda-Is-Only-For-White-People.
We have heard the predictable and flatly wrong whines from Republicans that terror suspects like Umar Abdulmutallab (the Fruit of the Boom attempted bomber) should not be given any kind of rights, regardless of years of Supreme Court decisions that require it and the highly successful prosecutions that have arisen from them. They are "terrorists" and the must be put in to the hands of the military tribunal system!
Defenders of the Arizona "Papers Please" law are quick to say that it is not racist. They don't want it to be seen clearly that this is aimed at Latino immigrants and people from Mexico specifically. The problem is that they are defending the indefensible. The supposedly non-partisan and non-racist folks at FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) who wrote the law points to the fact it does not single out any immigrant group.
The thing is that it does. There an estimated 12 million informal immigrants in the United States today. When many people hear that they think of a brown hoard of folks who speak Spanish and come from places like Mexico or Guatemala or Honduras. Just like most race based images they are wrong. At last estimate more than 10% of those 12 million are not brown skinned, they are not from places to our south, and they are actually from Europe.
And here is J.T. Ready (Left) with Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce, the author of the new Arizona police state "show me your papers" law, who has his own history of ties to Neo Nazi white supremacist groups.
In most states being seen publicly with a Nazi would ruin your political career. In most states you would be shunned by your political party. But not in Arizona, and not in the Republican party.
Arizona's SB 1070 is some of the worst, most racist and counter-productive legislation in recent memory and people are speaking out against it and getting arrested for it. I want to show you some footage of that arrest, what an Arizona business and immigration attorney has to say about how this subsidizes racist lawsuits, and the list of only a few of the egregious points from the bill.
I would also like to note the acronym GIITEM for Gang and Immigration Intelligence Team Enforcement Mission.
1. Requires a reasonable attempt to be made to determine the immigration status of a person during any legitimate contact made by an official or agency of the state or a county, city, town or political subdivision (political subdivision) if reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the U.S...
5.Allows a law enforcement officer, without a warrant, to arrest a person if the officer has probable cause to believe that the person has committed any public offense that makes the person removable from the U.S...
7.Disallows officials or agencies of the state or political subdivisions from adopting or implementing policies that limit immigration enforcement to less than the full extent permitted by federal law, and allows a person to bring an action in superior court to challenge an official or agency that does so...
8. Requires the court, if there is a judicial finding that an entity has committed a violation, to order any of the following:
a)that the plaintiff recover court costs and attorney fees;
b)that the defendant pay a civil penalty of not less than $1,000 and not more than $5,000 for each day that the policy has remained in effect after the filing of the action.
9. Requires the court to collect and remit the civil penalty to the Department of Public Safety (DPS), which must establish a special subaccount for the monies in the account established for the Gang and Immigration Intelligence Team Enforcement Mission GIITEM appropriation.
14.Directs the person to pay jail costs and an additional assessment of at least $500 for the first violation or at least $1,000 for subsequent offenses...
18.Specifies that it is unlawful, if a motor vehicle is stopped on a street, roadway or highway and blocks or impedes the normal movement of traffic:
a)for a motor vehicle occupant to attempt to hire or hire and pick up passengers for work at a different location;
b)for a person to enter the motor vehicle in order to be hired by a motor vehicle occupant and to be transported to work at a different location...
29. States that it is not entrapment for law enforcement officers or their agents merely to use a ruse or to conceal their identities
30. Directs employers to keep verification records of their employees' work eligibility through E-Verify.
31.Establishes a class 3 felony for failing to:
a)verify employment eligibility through E-Verify or
Yes, I'm stretching but it's Schultheis so I'm allowed.
If you haven't heard, the Republican Arizona House has passed a bill that would allow the police force (who opposed the bill) to commit racial profiling and arrest citizens who don't have their "papers".
Tancredo and Schultheis are all up in that. Tancredo wants the the Arizona bill to spread like a disease to the Colorado legislature but since Democrats in the majority aren't completely batshit, he thinks they'll have to put it on the ballot. Ho hum.
..."excited" that progress is being made in other states, because that may influence legislation in surrounding states. "I'm really excited about the fact that Arizona passed this new law. I think it's a major step towards trying to institute the rule of law in Arizona - I just wish we could do something like that here," said Schultheis.
He added that if the Legislature doesn't introduce such a measure next year, then he believes the people will take matters into their own hands. "If we try to run something like this next year and it fails, I think there will definitely be an initiative proposed to take care of it," said Schultheis. "The people want this kind of thing. Probably 80 percent of the population wants something done and they're very frustrated with the inaction of this Legislature."
Can't you imagine a paradise where you have to have your papers with you at all times or you run the risk of being deported? Perhaps we can eventually wear an emblem on our coats that signify whether or not we are citizens. Perhaps it could look like this:
In a disappointing loss in the fight against workplace discrimination, HB1269 which would have afforded equal protection against harassment and illegal behavior against small business employees fails on the same, tired argument from Rep Joe Rice (Littleton) who says "What I fear here is that by implementing this bill the way it is, we are taking it too far and there are a lot of small businesses that will be burdened with legal fees ... when things are just starting to turn around and they're starting to focus on the business."
Right. Because of that strong correlation between the recession and "frivolous" charges of discrimination, 80% of the jobs, according to Senator Michael Bennet, that will pull us out of the recession will come from small businesses, but we won't be able to get any real legal protection against discrimination.
I highly doubt that in a recession a creepy employer on a power trip is less likely to be a creepy employer on a power trip. We should all just start praying we aren't preyed upon.
There is this idea in physics called the Planck length. It is thought that if you take something this infinitesimally small and fold it over it describes the event horizon of a black hole. This is a singularity; when something passes it never returns. Anything going over the event horizon has effectively been cut off from the universe that we know. This is where Rep. Michele Bachmann and other Republicans have gone.
Over the weekend she was heard telling a rally in Duluth MN the following:
"Democrats said that they were called the 'N word,' which of course would be wrong and inappropriate. But no one has any record of it. No witness saw it, it's not on camera, it's not on audio," she said. "They said that they were spat upon. No one saw it."
She went on, "There's a $10,000 reward right now for anyone who can produce a video or an audio. Don't you think we would have seen a video or an audio by now if there was something out there?"
I'm not going to make an argument why health care in this country is decades behind. We all know that. I'm not going to tell you how utterly illegitimate the scare tactics from the Right have been in this argument, mostly because we all know it and if we don't, then they're are too numerous to list here.
I hope everyone is watching or listening to thing unfold on C-SPAN. The Republicans can't STFU because they've finally fulfilled their wet dream of feeling like victims. Please help me with the highlights of the event in the comments below.
Let us not forget the racism and biggotry so entrenched in the opposition's ideology and their corporate sponsors:
OMG remember this? 
