Putting to rest the argument that Hillary Clinton lost because she ignored the Middle Class. She didn't.

Courtesy of The Atlantic:

In the days after her shocking loss, Democrats complained that Clinton had no jobs agenda. A widely shared essay in The Nation blamed Clinton's "neoliberalism" for abandoning the voters who swung the election. “I come from the white working class,” Bernie Sanders said on CBS This Morning, “and I am deeply humiliated that the Democratic Party cannot talk to where I came from.” 

But here is the troubling reality for civically minded liberals looking to justify their preferred strategies: Hillary Clinton talked about the working class, middle class jobs, and the dignity of work constantly. And she still lost. 

She detailed plans to help coal miners and steel workers. She had decades of ideas to help parents, particularly working moms, and their children. She had plans to help young men who were getting out of prison and old men who were getting into new careers. She talked about the dignity of manufacturing jobs, the promise of clean-energy jobs, and the Obama administration’s record of creating private-sector jobs for a record-breaking number of consecutive months. She said the word “job” more in the Democratic National Convention speech than Trump did in the RNC acceptance speech; she mentioned the word “jobs” more during the first presidential debate than Trump did. She offered the most comprehensively progressive economic platform of any presidential candidate in history—one specifically tailored to an economy powered by an educated workforce. 

What’s more, the evidence that Clinton lost because of the nation’s economic disenchantment is extremely mixed. Some economists found that Trump won in counties affected by trade with China. But among the 52 percent of voters who said economics was the most important issue in the election, Clinton beat Trump by double digits. In the vast majority of swing states, voters said they preferred Clinton on the economy. If the 2016 election had come down to economics exclusively, the working class—which, by any reasonable definition, includes the black, Hispanic, and Asian working classes, too—would have elected Hillary Clinton president.

The Atlantic goes on to report that it appears the reason that Trump did as well as he did is because he essentially promised people whatever they wanted to hear.

Rather than talking about the economy and jobs in a broad sense, Donald Trump promised that he would protect the jobs of each and every person who came to his rallies. A promise that there is no way in hell he could ever keep.

If Hillary Clinton made a mistake it was by telling the truth, while many much preferred the lies spilling from the orange anus shaped mouth of Donald Trump.

Hillary Clinton did not fail to make her argument to the Middle Class, it's just that many in the Middle Class failed to understand the truth in what she was saying.

Of course we have to add that fact to the fake news stories, the Russian hackers, and the FBI sabotage as well.

Max Weiss over at HuffPo listed all of the things he blames for Hillary's "defeat" including misogyny, fake news, and Bernie Sanders but does NOT include Hillary Clinton in that list:

She won every debate. She came up with well thought out, concrete plans to govern. She carried herself with dignity and grace, despite all the endless, misogynist shit that was hurled at her. She was nothing short of heroic.

Exactly. 

At the start of this election cycle way back in 2015 I was a lukewarm supporter of Hillary's. But by the time we reached election day I was an honorary "nasty woman" doing everything I could to spread the news that she was uniquely qualified for the job of leading this nation.

I did not come to that conclusion based solely on my disgust with her opponent, I came to that conclusion based on what a bad ass she turned out to be. 

I make this point because it is important historically for us to remember that we did not run a deeply flawed candidate in 2016, but rather that the campaign against her was unprecedented in the fact that it used the illegal activities of a foreign government, the intrusion of the FBI, very likely some vote tampering, and the ignorance of a large segment of the American population to beat her.

And yet, despite all that, Hillary still won the popular vote by over 2.5 million.

President Obama points out that the Americans who were disappointed with his presidency and came out to vote for Trump were the folks the Republicans would not let him help.

Courtesy of Politico: 

President Barack Obama blamed congressional Republicans on Tuesday for blocking his efforts to address the economic concerns of the American people before President-elect Donald Trump and others exploited it for political gain. 

“And frankly that was — that's been my agenda for the last eight years,” Obama said at a joint news conference with Greece Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in Athens. “I think raising wages, investing in infrastructure, making sure that people have access to good education that equip them for the jobs of the future, those are all agenda items that would help alleviate some of the economic fractures and dislocations that people are experiencing.”

That was the objective all along wasn't it?

To undermine Obama's presidency and keep it from being successful so that you could then convince disappointed voters to support your candidate. 

It doesn't make any difference how much you add to the American people's suffering, or block them from receiving any kind of relief, just so long as they then become desperate enough to believe your bullshit.

Anybody who does not think that the Obama administration was trying to help ALL Americans, is either a complete idiot, an internet troll, or a Trump supporter.

Bill Maher eviscerates the Republicans, and Sarah Palin, concerning their sudden interest in protecting the middle class.

"Now this raises a troubling question, which is, if Sarah Palin suffers a stroke how will we know?"

Best line ever!

Former conservative icon "Joe the Plumber" now working in a union shop just like any other pinko commie. Say it ain't so Joe!

Courtesy of Wurzelbacher's Right Wing blog Joe for America:

 In order to work for Chrysler, you are required to join the Union, in this case UAW. There’s no choice – it’s a union shop – the employee’s voted to have it that way and in America that’s the way it is. I have lived in Toledo, Ohio off and on throughout my entire life and I have plenty of friends who are union members. Sometimes we agree politically and sometimes not, but it has never kept us from being friends. I wondered if this would be the case at my new job, so.. 

I had three days of orientation, and now I’m “on the job” over here at Chrysler and on Day 4, I’m outside on a break smoking a cigarette and right on cue – some guy calls me a “teabagger.” 

Now, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Democrats and liberals, who are supposed to so tolerant and enlightened regarding homosexuals have for three or four years now, have been using a gay slur to describe people who they think are associated with the Tea Party. “Tea Bagger” has traditionally been a derogatory slur used to intimidate, put down, humiliate and otherwise taunt, smear, bully or just discriminate against gays – usually gay men – based on a sex act that gay men apparently made popular. 

Decorum prevents me from describing it – they got this thing called “Google” now for that – but suffice it to say that the double-standard for what Democrats can say and what conservatives can say continues unabated, but still I thought to myself, did this guy think I’m gay, or was he making a statement of my political affiliation? I tried talking to him, but he went off about how he was a “journeyman” and started walking away. 

Wurzelbacher's thin skin is kind of humorous considering the crap he said about the President.

However if he actually used this Google thing he is talking about, he might learn that the word "Teabagger" was NOT a disparaging label used to describe gay men.

In fact according to the Urban Dictionary it is either a person who dangles their testicles in another person's mouth (Described as a male on female activity) or:

A fascist right-wing conservative who opposes affordable healthcare by shouting at public gatherings.

In other words Joe Wurzelbacher.  (There were a few other definitions, but they were pretty racy.)

Besides as The Week reported back in 2010, the term Teabagger was NOT originally chosen as a derogatory remark by the Liberals.

Here is how the term evolved: 

Feb. 27, 2009 
At the first anti-stimulus "New American Tea Party" rally in Washington D.C., a protestor carries a sign reading "Tea Bag the Liberal Dems before they Tea Bag You!!" The Washington Independent's David Weigel calls it "the best sign I saw." 

March 2 
Americans for Prosperity, an anti-tax group, is one of the first Tea Party organizations to advocate sending tea bags to elected officials to protest the stimulus package. Several other lobby groups follow suit. 

April 1 
Several Tea Party protest sites encourage readers to "Tea bag the fools in DC." Jay Nordlinger at National Review Online later admits: "Conservatives started [using the term]... but others ran and ran with it." 

April 9 
Rachel Maddow is the first to mock the Tea Party's use of the phrase on her left-leaning MSNBC show. "Even Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina is getting in on the hot tea-bagging action," she says, stifling laughter. (Watch Rachel Maddow joke about the "tea baggers")

So like all Teabaggers Wurzelbacher is just upset that his group was so ignorant that they chose an easily mocked sexual term to describe themselves that the Left Wing will not let them forget.

Oh well, deal with it!

However if Wurzelbacher wants to avoid being mocked in the future he might think about not posting articles with headlines like these:  

The NAACP Is A Racists Bigoted Organization 

The Republican Establishment wants the IRS harassing the Tea Parties more than the Democrats 

Obama’s despotic rule: Montesquieu knew this would happen 

Let's face it, much like Trig, Joe the Plumber was a tool of the Republican party, and once they are done with you they simply toss you aside.

If he wants to fit in with his new, and possibly more liberal, co-workers he might want to think about no longer carrying water for the conservatives, and start thinking of who it is that is working to help the middle class union members.

Here's a hint, it sure as hell is not the Republican party!

Robert Reich explains the Republican war on America.

Courtesy of MoveOn.org:  

Connect the dots between policies that keep many of our fellow Americans desperate, and you’ll see they add up to a war on the poor and working families. 

I bet you thought my headline was hyperbole didn't you?

Sadly, it is not.

It is time for the Democrats to start fighting as if they are fighting for their very lives.

Because they are. 

Proof that the current health care system is robbing the middle class.

On last night's 60 Minutes Steve Kroft reveals the real reason that health care costs are so high in this country:

If you want to know why healthcare cost so much in this country, consider this. It is estimated that $210 billion a year, about 10% of all health expenditures, goes towards unnecessary tests and treatments and a big chunk of that comes right out of the pockets of American taxpayers. 

I doubt there are too many of us surprised to learn that our "for profit" approach to health care is encouraging malfeasance within the medical community and  making it almost impossible for the average American to afford necessary medical treatment.

And yet there are no lack of those on the Right Wing willing to yell from the mountaintops that our health care system is "the best in the world."

You know saying something over and over does not make it true.

My fervent desire is that after the Affordable Care Act is fully implemented that it will eventually evolve into a single payer system that will ultimately replace the corrupt and predatory system that have currently.

Hey, a liberal can dream can't he?

(H/T to Addicting Info)

Another GOP talking point refuted, people in lower income brackets give MORE to charity than do the wealthy in this country.

Courtesy of the Atlantic:

One of the most surprising, and perhaps confounding, facts of charity in America is that the people who can least afford to give are the ones who donate the greatest percentage of their income. In 2011, the wealthiest Americans—those with earnings in the top 20 percent—contributed on average 1.3 percent of their income to charity. By comparison, Americans at the base of the income pyramid—those in the bottom 20 percent—donated 3.2 percent of their income. The relative generosity of lower-income Americans is accentuated by the fact that, unlike middle-class and wealthy donors, most of them cannot take advantage of the charitable tax deduction, because they do not itemize deductions on their income-tax returns. 

But why? Lower-income Americans are presumably no more intrinsically generous (or “prosocial,” as the sociologists say) than anyone else. However, some experts have speculated that the wealthy may be less generous—that the personal drive to accumulate wealth may be inconsistent with the idea of communal support. Last year, Paul Piff, a psychologist at UC Berkeley, published research that correlated wealth with an increase in unethical behavior: “While having money doesn’t necessarily make anybody anything,” Piff later told New York magazine, “the rich are way more likely to prioritize their own self-interests above the interests of other people.” They are, he continued, “more likely to exhibit characteristics that we would stereotypically associate with, say, assholes.” 

You know I was thinking about this back during the election when the Republicans were talking about Mitt Romney's generosity as defined by how much he donates to the Mormon Church.  I remember thinking, "That's not generosity. He is giving to his church which is self serving, and then writing it off on his taxes. That does NOT meet the definition of generosity for me."

And it stands to reason that people who accumulate great wealth place a great deal of importance in having a lot of money, and in possessing the things that money will buy for them. (I am thinking of Donald Trump here.) So I don't think I ever truly bought into the talking point that taxing these wealthier individuals would negatively impact charitable organizations.

Now only speaking for myself, and I am probably considered relatively middle class, I have NEVER written off a charitable donation on my taxes. In fact to me doing so would completely negate the idea of charity.

In my mind charity is a sacrifice of your time, resources, or money, for the good of others. If I was in some way compensated for that it would undermine the very idea of giving to others.

Well at least that is how I always looked at it.

Besides those of us living paycheck to paycheck, and who have to save up for the things we want, understand sacrifice and what it means to do without. For many of us we have undoubtedly experienced times in our lives when we needed support from our community, our friends, or our families, and understand on a visceral level how important it is to have help when you are struggling.

So of course it makes perfect sense to me that those of us who have little to give, give more of what we have. And that those who have much to give, give much less. After all that attitude probably contributes in many ways to why THEY have so much and WE often have so much less.

Wealth inequality in the United States. A video to blow your mind.

This is a very well made video, and I urge you to share it far and wide.

I don't think that most of us understand that the policies of the Republican party have ALWAYS been to make the rich folks richer and to keep the burden of supporting the government squarely on the backs of the working class.

And they have proven to be frighteningly adept at accomplishing that feat.

Today we are seeing a virtual destruction of the Middle Class and STILL the Republicans are not satisfied, and are continuing to work to strip away the government programs that keep these people from falling into abject poverty.Is it any wonder that the President wants to raise the minimum wage in this country?

No more Saturday delivery by the Post Office? Ed Schultz has something to say about that! And you should listen.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Last night I was thinking about writing a post about this (As I have in the past), but then I saw Ed Schultz essentially explode on the air and realized that nothing I could write would match his passion and justified outrage, so I decided that you needed to hear it from him instead.

I often find Schultz a little bombastic for my tastes, but on this issue I am with him 100 percent.

He can get loud and abrasive sometimes but I urge you to listen to what he says, because the Republican's plan to privatize government services is certainly not limited to just the post office of even our public school system, they want to  make EVERYTHING to be for profit only.

Mitt Romney has referred to President Obama as the "outsourcer in chief." However in the nineties Romney invested heavily in companies that SPECIALIZED in outsourcing. Hypocrisy at its finest.

Courtesy of Mother Jones:  

In recent weeks, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have accused each other of being an "outsourcer in chief," as their campaigns have tussled over Romney's past at Bain Capital and the (non)release of his tax returns. But all this scuffling hasn't taken into account an until-now unreported fact about Romney's days at Bain: When he was running the private equity firm, he invested tens of millions of dollars in a pair of companies that specialized in outsourcing high-tech manufacturing and that developed offshore production facilities in Mexico, China, and elsewhere to build electronics for US firms. 

In March 1999, shortly after Romney left Bain to take over the troubled Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Brookside Capital Investors Inc., a Bain-related entity wholly owned by Romney, filed a report with the Securities and Exchange Commission that listed dozens of companies in which Brookside held a stake the previous quarter. The roster included investments in Singapore-based Flextronics International ($13 million) and Florida-headquartered Jabil Circuit Inc. ($41 million), two companies that were leaders in the fast-growing field of outsourcing electronics manufacturing and offshoring production to low-wage countries. Together, these two investments represented almost 10 percent of Brookside's $559 million portfolio. 

For much of the 1990s, most overseas outsourcing involved unsophisticated products like apparel. But in the second half of that decade, US high-tech companies producing computers, telecommunications equipment, and other electronics began contracting out their manufacturing to firms that had established production facilities both in the United States and in overseas locales where labor was cheap. 

Such was the case with Flextronics and Jabil Circuit. They were two of a handful of companies that, according to the Los Angeles Times, "exploited the boon in high-tech outsourcing, or 'stealth' manufacturing," producing components or products for American businesses including Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems, and Microsoft. When Romney was acquiring stakes in these two companies, they were hot tickets for investors. During the second half of 1998, the leading electronics manufacturing contractors—including Flextronics and Jabil Circuit—averaged an 85 percent boost in stock prices. That year, Flextronics doubled its revenues.

You know this is the thing that REALLY nags at me when I hear Romney surrogates talking about how this country needs HIS expertise on creating jobs to turn our economy around.

Somebody really needs to sit me down and explain to me how somebody who made his money in this manner:

As the founder of Bain Capital, Romney became a brilliant LBO buccaneer who specialized in buying up firms by taking on a lot of debt, using the target firm as collateral, and then trying to make the firm profitable -- often by breaking it up or slashing jobs -- to the point where Bain and its investors could load up the firm with even more debt, which Bain would then use to pay itself off. That would ensure a profit for Bain investors whether or not the companies themselves succeeded in the long run. Often, burdened by all that debt, these bought-out companies did not succeed, costing thousands of jobs as they were downsized, sold off and shuttered. Other times they did phenomenally well, as in the case of Sports Authority and Domino's Pizza.

Has ANY insight into how to create jobs for hardworking Americans in THIS country.

After all you cannot load up a country with piles of debt just to ensure that IT'S top one percent make a profit, with no consideration for the middle class workers that are the foundation for its ability to prosper?

Or can you? And did I just describe all eight years of the Bush administration?

So it appears that Joe Biden was right, Mitt Romney is essentially "George Bush on steroids."

Personally I think that if THAT comparison is made over and over again, that President Obama should have this election in the bag.

More good news for Wisconsin as judge blocks collective bargaining law.

From Business Week:

Dane County District Judge Maryann Sumi granted the temporary restraining order in response to a lawsuit filed by the local Democratic district attorney alleging that Republican lawmakers violated the state's open meetings law by hastily convening a special committee before the Senate passed the bill.

Sumi said her ruling would not prevent the Legislature from reconvening the committee with proper notice and passing the bill again.

But Walker's spokesman and Republican legislative leaders indicated they would press on with the court battle rather than consider passing the bill again.

"We fully expect an appeals court will find that the Legislature followed the law perfectly and likely find that today's ruling was a significant overreach," Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and his brother, Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, said in a joint statement. "We highly doubt a Dane County judge has the authority to tell the Legislature how to carry out its constitutional duty."

Well that appears to be the line in the sand folks.

The Republicans realize they have little chance of going back and passing the law again, so they are going to have to fight it out in court.  Let's hope that Lady Justice decides to peek out from under her blindfold just a little to ensure that the law protects those that deserve protection and not those with the most money to spend.