BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class

Subject: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Songwronger
Date: 05 Aug 13 - 08:57 PM

He's been waging war against the middle class for so long it's hard to know where to begin.

His first big victory was in having the media report on how he "saved" Detroit and the auto industry. Detroit is now broke, and he saved the auto industry by cutting starting wages for auto workers in half.

But that's old news. Here's new news:


77% of Obama's New Jobs are Part-time

For the year through July, only 222,000 jobs created were full-time — representing just 23 percent of the total of 953,000, according to Zero Hedge.

Some economists are raising warning flags over the fact that 77 percent of this year's new jobs are part-time, saying the numbers provide a bleak portrayal of the labor market.

http://www.moneynews.com/StreetTalk/Obama-new-jobs-part-time/2013/08/04/id/518592


Obamacare Leads to More Part-Time Employees

In order to avoid paying for insurance benefits mandated by President Obama's health care law, employers are moving rapidly to shift their workforce to more part-time and temporary employees.

Employers are also finding other strategies to minimize their exposure to the law's heavy regulatory burdens, according to Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute.

"ObamaCare is the single biggest deterrent to job creation in our economy," said Turner. "And it is hurting those at the lower end of the income scale the hardest. Young people can't get a job to get their foot on the economic ladder. People with minimum wage jobs are being cut from fulltime to part-time to meet the law's arbitrary definition of 30 hours as full-time work. And employers are seriously considering getting out of the business of providing health coverage altogether."

http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2013/07/31/obamacare-leads-more-part-time-employees


Making 9 Million Jobless "Vanish": How The Government Manipulates Unemployment Statistics

As we will explore herein, a detailed look at the government's own data base shows that about 9 million people without jobs have been removed from the labor force simply by the government defining them as not being in the labor force anymore. Indeed - effectively all of the decreases in unemployment rate percentages since 2009 (beginning of Obama's presidency) have come not from new jobs, but through reducing the workforce participation rate so that millions of jobless people are removed from the labor force by definition.

http://danielamerman.com/articles/2012/WorkC.html


And so on. Obama promised to redistribute the wealth, but he left out the part about redistributing it from the working class to the banks.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Aug 13 - 08:59 PM

Mentally ill thinking...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Songwronger
Date: 05 Aug 13 - 09:00 PM

I agree. You should leave the cult.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 05 Aug 13 - 09:33 PM

The numbers don't lie....but liars can manipulate the numbers. Songwronger didn't make up the stats....those are issue from the liars at the top, wanting things to not look as bad as they are...then people like the 'robot' and 'friends' can call the people who call that into attention, all sorts of names...like it's going to stick(rolls eyes).

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Rapparee
Date: 05 Aug 13 - 09:36 PM

Heard the same damned things during Nixon's, Reagan's, and Bush I's presidencies.

BFD.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 05 Aug 13 - 10:01 PM

..and Rapparee is correct...however this one is a little more than usual.

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Aug 13 - 10:10 PM

There's been a government war on the middle classes happening all over the western world ever since the mid-70s, songwronger. Obama's administration is only more of the same, so I think you titled the thread in a way that will only raise instant rejection from a whole bunch of people here, because you put "Obama" in the title...and that will obfuscate the entire discussion and turn it into another useless slagfest between you and your loyal opposition.

You might better have titled it "The War on the Middle Class".

Remember: Obama is just temporary. Like all presidents. He'll be replaced by another soon enough, and the likelihood is that the same kind of things will keep happening regardless, because he's in the grip of much larger interests, just like all his predecessors were.

The middle class has been dwindling for some time now all over the western world. Where you see expansion is among the ranks of the poor, the homeless, and the unemployed...and in the bank accounts of the richest half a percent of the population.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Songwronger
Date: 05 Aug 13 - 10:41 PM

Yes, well, the original post points up two specific aspects of Obama's brand of warfare against the middle class--his bullshit counting system, and Obamacare, which forces employers to hire part-time help instead of full-time. Nixon, Carter and all of them did what they could to destroy the middle class, but Obama elevated the game. Obamacare will be remembered as the monolith that broke the camel's back.

But at least the working class is fighting back. Last week the House of Representatives (the people's voice) voted to disallow the Internal Revenue Service as Obama's strongarm collection squad. The whores in the Senate will go along with Obama of course, but at least the people's representatives said no, the IRS cannot harass the poor out of their hard-earned nickles to pay for mafioso protection money.

Obama is such an over-the-top enemy of working people. It amazes me that any "liberals" can still support him.

House votes to block IRS from Obamacare role

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 Aug 13 - 11:58 PM

Same old same old.

With the usual suspects.

YAWN.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 06 Aug 13 - 12:56 AM

Good!..Go to sleep..and stay there!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Aug 13 - 02:46 AM

Over on the "respect" thread I pointed out that respect had to be earned. Epic fail here.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Aug 13 - 07:38 AM

The main reason they support him, Songwronger, is elegantly and utterly simple: he's NOT a Republican! ;-) They feel, therefore, that they have to support him...and are further encouraged to do so because he's a "black" man...therefore NOT to support him would be utterly unconscionable, right? After all, we must always react in a predictable way on these matters in order to expiate the collective white man's guilt over the long history of slavery, apartheid, segregation and all that other unquestionably unjust stuff in the past....therefore DON'T judge a American man by what he DOES! Judge him by the color of his skin, and you will be on entirely safe ground amongst your peers, and no one will call you a "racist"....a terrifying word indeed, one that could damn you for all eternity if you get labelled as one!!!!!!

If he's black...and not a violent criminal...then he MUST be seen as either a victim or a saint.

Read the F-ing program, man! I've just explained to you how not to offend the various people on this forum who customarily go after you like the Inquisition went after their "witches". ;-D

And another point to consider: You may despise the Republicans...just like most of the membership here does. I certainly despise them. You may think they're quite a bit worse than the Democrats. I think so. But that will not even be noticed if you go after Mr Obama. Nope. You can't touch Obama, because if you do you will be assumed to be a rightwing nutcase, a Tea Partier, a died-in-the-wool Republican loony bin candidate AND a racist!!!!! So there. That is all you need to know.

Therefore, get the thread title changed so it's inoffensive on Mudcat. Remove the word "Obama". ;-D Change it to: The War on the Middle Class

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Aug 13 - 09:23 AM

Here's the real deal...

The middle class has been the enemy of the robber barons going back to the late 1800s...

Their war on the middle class was slowed by the American labor movement and in the 1930s and again in the 1960s the middle class was winning the battle with first the New Deal and then the Great Society... Social Security and Medicare have provided a somewhat safety net...

Since the early 1980s there has been a massive counter attack by the right wing and the Republican party on the American labor movement and, as we saw two years ago in Wisconsin, elected officials are using their power to clean out those last pockets of resistance... But this all started when Ronald Reagan used the full force of the federal government to take out the Air Traffic Controllers Union and signal that it was open season for the goons and the goons have done a masterful job taking down one union after another and passing legislation that further erodes any power that unions used to have...

That is the situation in a nutshell... It's not on Obama... He came along at toward the end of the onslaught and really hasn't any tools in the presidential toolbox to change that reality...

To make things worse, the Supreme Court with its "Citizens United" decision has allowed the House of Representatives to be purchased by the goons and thus beat down any legislation that might help the middle class... We have all witnessed that process over the last 3 years as every piece of legislation that would help the middle class has been shoved aside like a rag doll...

This ain't on Obama...

This is on the corrupt Supreme Court and corrupt Republican states... They are the ones busting on the middle class...

And in the words of the late Walter Cronkite, "And that's the way it is"...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Elmore
Date: 06 Aug 13 - 10:30 AM

Typical Republican obstructionist ploy. Create or exacerbate a problem, then blame your opponent. Whatever you do don't try to ameliorate the situation.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Aug 13 - 12:01 PM

Two good posts there.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Aug 13 - 12:15 PM

Got it in one, Bobert.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Aug 13 - 12:19 PM

If he's black...and not a violent criminal...then he MUST be seen as either a victim or a saint.

Now, back to our usual Shit Wringer & Hawk Bullshit Fest.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: gnu
Date: 06 Aug 13 - 12:56 PM

This game ain't no fun when ya know who the OP is damn near every time. It's like startin a thread about puppies and BOOM! Someone posts about Bo crappin on the White House lawn. And they probably don't even know why he is named Bo.

Yeah. That's thread drift. I have been told it's perfectly acceptable and not rude and should be accepted by the OP as fair play, indeed as expected because, hey, this is the internUt.

Dunno if this thread is even worth reading. Just read the OPs name and decided to post what you have just finished reading.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Aug 13 - 02:39 PM

Just to keep myself up on what people are saying, I get a number of newsletters in my daily e-mail. I include some things like WND (World Net Daily) and others so I'll know what the latest conspiracy theory is. Or the latest "Why we should impeach Obama," and all that.

When I look at certain thread titles, I can generally make a pretty good guess as to who started it. Such as this one. And I hardly need to do more than glance through it because, more often than not, I already have. In one of those rabid, spittle-spraying e-mails.

Some folks need to get out more, smell some fresh air, and take a good, long look at the REAL world.

Don Firth

P. S. And more often than not, there is Diminutive Raptor, clapping his wing-tips and calling, "Yessir, yessir, three bags full!" while trying to ride thermals high above the fray.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Elmore
Date: 06 Aug 13 - 02:50 PM

I mistrust SW's sources on for this thread. They appear to be fat cat Republicans like the Koch Brothers.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: GUEST,FROM INSANITY
Date: 06 Aug 13 - 03:53 PM

Obama is a big disappointment, an Uncle Tom who made everything that was wrong even wronger. I am having a lucid moment (unlike my alter ego who makes sense all the time).

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Elmore
Date: 06 Aug 13 - 04:13 PM

Uncle Tom, Not so much. A disappointment, hard to say. . Maybe President Clinton will have better luck in 2017 with a majority in both houses.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Aug 13 - 04:19 PM

Yeah, Oral Roberts wouldn't have gotten anything more from this Congress...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Jeri
Date: 06 Aug 13 - 05:16 PM

Sock Puppet Susie strikes. (at 3:53)

You know, I get the feeling some people think everyone is doing it. In reality, there are only a couple of members logging out and pretending to be more than themselves. TWO I know of...

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Songwronger
Date: 06 Aug 13 - 08:35 PM

Well, Obama's the president right now, so he's the point of focus. Romney would have been just as evil probably, but he lost. So it's Obama's show. And he's doing all he can to redistribute the wealth away from middle class Americans.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Aug 13 - 08:39 PM

You, wrongman, are not only ignorant of the real world of how the American government works but also delusional...

B~ (former high school "US Government" and "US History" teacher)

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Aug 13 - 08:52 PM

"... he's doing all he can to redistribute the wealth away from middle class Americans."

Bobert hits it on the nose. You are parroting catch phrases and making no sense at all.

Now if you had said that about the Republican House members....

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Aug 13 - 09:00 PM

Yeah, Bill... Both wrongman and I see the same thing... Wrongman misplaces the cause on Obama because he hates Obama and uses anything bad that happens as another opportunity to blast Obama...

The problem is that this ain't on Obama... Its on the Republoicans in Congress who won't allow any middle class friendly legislation to see the light of day...

Example: Obama has proposed over and over a jobs program that puts federal money into infrastructure, research and development... Republicans say no, no and no again... This program would fix a lot of broken stuff and put a million people to work...

Who says no???

Wrongman and his Republican buddies...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Songwronger
Date: 06 Aug 13 - 10:50 PM

I'm an independent and a moderate; Bobert is a partisan extremist. He seems to have some kind of homoerotic fixation on Obama, too. I mean, why else would he be so enamored of a guy who's forcibly fucking him? Not that Bobert's gay. I'm sure he's hetero, so God help us when he gets a whiff of Hillary as she trots past him on the campaign trail. He's a former high school "US Government" and "US History" teacher, too, so he'll lecture us on why she's the bestest thing to ever happen to the country since, well, since The Anointed One was racially prevented from serving a third term.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Aug 13 - 11:21 PM

Look who's accusing others of being "extremist!!"

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Aug 13 - 10:37 AM

Bobert, I think your lengthy summation back at 06 Aug 13 - 09:23 AM is very well thought out, and I agree with it.

(This will be disappointing to those certain individuals here who would prefer I didn't agree with what Bobert said, just because they also happen to agree with it and therefore wish that I didn't!... Heh! Too bad, Greg, etc!)

The only thing I would add to what you said, Bobert, is that the Democratic Party has been basically bought out by the same rightwing monetary interests that the Republicans so proudly champion...and so the Democratic presidents have repeatedly caved in to and actively served those same rightwing forces ever since the Reagan era, if not even before then. There has been a profound shift to the Right in politics all over the western world since Reagan was elected in 1980, and the middle class has been getting robbed ever since.

It's being driven by money concerns, and it's being done to ensure that the richest people at the top of the financial elite get richer and the American dollar remains the world's reserve currency, despite the fact that it now basically is hardly worth the paper it's printed on. (but if it collapsed, then the entire world's financial stability would collapse, and we'd probably have a major war on our hands soon after that, so...let's hope it doesn't).

Best we all just continue to pretend it's worth something. In other words, continue to believe in the Great Oz, and Oz can keep functioning for awhile longer. My own business, for example, would be wiped out if the American dollar collapsed, and so would most other people's means of making a living. There'd be food riots, a state of emergency, martial law, revolutions in various places, wars between nations, civil wars within nations, hell to pay.

I doubt that anyone here would prosper under those circumstances.

I expect Obama will muddle through the rest of his 8 years in office somehow...as presidents usually do. Afghanistan will be lost. Iraq will continue to spiral down and fragment. Other unwinnable wars will smoulder on in Africa and the Middle East. Then Hillary may get elected. Or she may not. That depends on how bad the economy and the general situation is toward the end of Obama's term.

Meanwhile, each one of us has a personal choice to make: Are we going to enjoy the few years that remain in our lives, be creative, and have good relationships? I hope so, because THAT's really what our lives are about...not all this political stuff that a (very) few of us fight about each day on Mudcat. (most of the membership, you'll notice, has enough sense not to bother...you can find them above the BS line)

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Elmore
Date: 07 Aug 13 - 11:29 AM

Little Hawk: I'm an Independent; a Bernie Sanders Independent, so I forget whether I'm supposed to agree with you or not. However your latest post makes a great deal of sense. I suspect even Bernie, one of a handful of politicians whom I trust would agree with it. Regards, Elmore.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Aug 13 - 11:40 AM

Here's the deal, LH... Had the Dems had the votes they would have passed a single payer health insurance system, much like you enjoy... An overwhelming number of Congressional Democrats were on board... Just 3 Democratic Senators stopped it...

Only 1 Republican even voted for the crappy bill we got...

I think that one issue along points to the fact that your premise that the Dems and Repubs are "the same"... At no point in the last 40 years have they been more different...

Yes, they each get $$$ from people and businesses... Dems get the bulk of their $$$ from individuals who give less that $200... The Repubs get the bulk of their $$$ from corporations... It is not true that the funding sources of the two parties is the "same"...

I mean, you can repeat it over and over but that doesn't make it so...

Your song is dated... It played well in 2000 but it's gone way out of tune since then...

It was a new day yesterday, it's an old day now...

Get off the "Classless and Free Express" and hop on the "Reality Express"...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Greg F.
Date: 07 Aug 13 - 04:18 PM

You just don't understand, Bobert- to Hawk, there's no difference between Dems & repubs, or between either and a whole in the groud. Its all hopelesss. Just roll over and take it. Resistance is futile- you will be assimilated by radical relativism.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Aug 13 - 04:38 PM

I know that LH is stuck in his position as if someone had poured concrete around him...

I also understand that ya' have to keep and open mind... I was a precinct captain for Nader in 2000... I know the routine... The facts on the ground have changed dramatically sine 2000...

Some times I think that LH wishes he'd worked for the Green Party somewhere along the way and is trying to relive a portion of life where he felt he should have done something... I donno???

I do know that the biggest of the big lies that Boss Hog and his Republican puppets are pushing is the "both sides do this and that"... That gives them absolute cover to do some of the most corrupt things we have seen since the robber barons of the late 1800s and early 1900s... Yup, if you can get otherwise reasonable people to perpetuate this mythology then it's "Katir bar the door"...

No thanks... I have been paying attention and right now the Dems are one shit load better to have than the Repubs... At least the Dems want single payer... The Dems support labor unions... The Dems support a minimum wage increase... The Dems are for protecting the safety nets... The Dems are not for forced austerity, trickle down...

That's just today's reality...

Stop the bleeding (Repubs) first and then get back on the Dems back...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Aug 13 - 06:23 PM

Seattle citizens just lucked out!

The primary election for mayor was held yesterday. Of the multitude of candidates for the job, there were a number of progressive candidates, there were a couple who would have just drawn their salaries and twiddled their thumbs, and a couple who would have been a total disaster.

Two of the activist, progressive candidates came up one and two. These two will face off in the general election in November.

BOTH candidates are excellent. We can't lose!!

They're NOT all the same, and anyone who doesn't know that apparently simply can't be bothered to pay attention to what's going on and who's doing what to whom!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Aug 13 - 06:52 PM

Now, in rereading my post just above, it occurred to me that there are those who will accuse me of contradicting myself. But the real deciding point was yesterday's primary election.

Two, out of a field of five progressive candidates, were elected to be the candidates in the main election. And, yes, it really doesn't make a great deal of difference to me which of them wins because they are both good.

But I think this is a somewhat unique situation. There were ALSO some very conservative candidates in the primary who, if elected, would have worked hard to drive the city all the way back into the Nineteenth Century, favor developer$$ who want to build "apodments" (where you live in a storage locker and share a kitchen and bath with the rest of the tenants) in already overcrowded areas and where it's already damned near impossible to find a parking place or garage, do little or nothing to fund good public schools, maintain Seattle's public parks, and would simply let Seattle's growing traffic problems and population density go into a state of gridlock!

NEITHER Ed Murray or Mike McGinn will allow that to happen. So--we find ourselves in a unique situation and are very fortunate.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Songwronger
Date: 07 Aug 13 - 10:33 PM

In your post you say that progressives will:
*NOT allow construction of small housing,
*NOT allow construction in already crowded areas,
*Do something about providing you with convenient parking,
*Fund "good" public schools,
*Maintain public parks,
*Fix the Seattle's growing traffic problems,
*Not let the city's "population density go into a state of gridlock," (whatever that means).

Sounds like a couple of men with PLANS. Of course, they'll need to raise your taxes to realize them. They'd tax Boeing some more but that company already moved to Beijing because of the tax thing, so now you'll have to take up the slack. But that's the price you pay to keep the riffraff and their apodments out of your neighborhood.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Songwronger
Date: 07 Aug 13 - 10:43 PM

O what an elightened city Seattle is:

Seattle Progressives Call for Ban on 'Offensive' Language

Government workers in the city of Seattle have been advised that the terms "citizen" and "brown bag" are potentially offensive and may no longer be used in official documents and discussions.

KOMO-TV reports that the city's Office of Civil Rights instructed city workers in a recent internal memo to avoid using the words because some may find them offensive.

"Luckily, we've got options," Elliott Bronstein of the Office for Civil Rights wrote in the memo obtained by the station. "For 'citizens,' how about 'residents?'"

In an interview with Seattle's KIRO Radio, Bronstein said the term "brown bag" has been used historically as a way to judge skin color.

"For a lot of particularly African-American community members, the phrase brown bag does bring up associations with the past when a brown bag was actually used, I understand, to determine if people's skin color was light enough to allow admission to an event or to come into a party that was being held in a private home," Bronstein said.

According to the memo, city employees should use the terms "lunch-and-learn" or "sack lunch" instead of "brown bag."

Bronstein told KIRO Radio the word "citizen" should be avoided because many people who live in Seattle are residents, not citizens.

"They are legal residents of the United States and they are residents of Seattle. They pay taxes and if we use a term like citizens in common use, then it doesn't include a lot of folks," Bronstein said.

http://newmediajournal.us/indx.php/item/10115

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Aug 13 - 11:17 PM

Songwronger, there are so many errors and misrepresentations of what I said, plus your own denigrating interpretations of those misrepresentations, that it would take me about twenty pages to set you straight.

And I have never heard ANY of the things you claim "progressives" are allegedly pushing.

I may be back and wipe you out, point by point. But I'm busy right now.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Ebbie
Date: 08 Aug 13 - 12:11 AM

"it (USA money) now basically is hardly worth the paper it's printed on. (but if it collapsed, then the entire world's financial stability would collapse, and we'd probably have a major war on our hands soon after that, so..." LH

Little Hawk, would you agree that ALL currency EVERYWHERE is worth scarcely more than the paper it is printed on? Sure, some countries have gold/silver/whatever that the paper can be turned in for- but what is THAT worth? You can't eat it. It will not keep you alive.

Given that premise, I'd say you are wrong; if it is true that "if it collapsed, then the entire world's financial stability would collapse, and we'd probably have a major war on our hands soon after that, so..." I'd say it is worth a LOT.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Aug 13 - 12:56 AM

There were NINE candidates for Seattle mayor altogether, five of whom could be classified as "Liberal" or "Progressive."

The two leading candidates WILL allow construction of small, affordable housing, but NOT in already densely populated areas, where developers want to pull down perfectly sound older buildings that are already occupied, including certified "historical buildings" (such as the one my wife and I live in).   Although parking in this area is tight, there are some garages that can be rented, and on-street parking (with permit) is permitted to residents of the area. But it's strictly "catch as catch can." (We, fortunately, were able to rent a garage).   

Tearing down already occupied, perfectly sound buildings in order to build "apodments," would destroy historically significant areas in the city, increase the population density tenfold, and turn them into, essentially, slums.

Building further out and improving the mass transit system would be a much better alternative, and that's what the two leading candidates favor.

And as to funding of schools, parks, and cultural things such as Seattle Opera (fourth largest opera company in the country, incidentally), Pacific Northwest Ballet, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra (considered World Class), and several live theaters, the funding has been in place for a long time (since at least as far back as the Seattle World's Fair in 1962, which provided the city with the opera house, the playhouse, the Pacific Science Center, and many other public facilities—putting the city at or near the top of the list of the country's most livable cities.

Boeing did not leave the area (in fact, at least three of their assembly plants are in the immediate area, including three adjacent airfields owned by the company (that does not include the Seattle-Tacoma International airport south of the city). Boeing employs a large number of Seattlites, but, like many companies these days, farms out a lot of work to places like China and Japan.

And the necessary taxes are already in place and have been for many years. The NON-Progressive candidates want to divert the money into different things—about which it's a bit difficult to get them to be specific.

And it's interesting, Songwronger, that the post you cut and pasted is from FOX NEWS's "New Media Journal."

I watch KOMO-TV news frequently, and I have seen nothing about this. And being a long-time Seattle resident, I am aware that, from time to time, KIRO radio can be pretty flaky. In fact, a couple of decades ago, when the manager of KIRO wanted to include Rush Limbaugh in their program line-up, several of their top personnel threatened to walk out—so they dropped the idea.

Songwronger, you are engaging in pure nincompoopery.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: kendall
Date: 08 Aug 13 - 07:21 PM

If Obama was out to destroy the middle class, the right wingers would be backing him to the hilt. They have been at it for years.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Jan 14 - 05:34 PM

"...popular anger over its right-wing social policies..." Wronger

Good gracious. The President has gone from being a Muslim, Communistic, Fascistic, New World proponent/activist to being RIGHT WING. The man just doesn't stop.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Songwronger
Date: 09 Jan 14 - 10:18 PM

Obama's cheap-labor "promise zone" fraud

In a White House speech Thursday promoting his supposed offensive against inequality, President Barack Obama will formally name five communities as so-called "promise zones." ... Besides the "promise zones," these measures include a restoration of three months of jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed and a small increase in the federal minimum wage.

This compares to the trillions of dollars handed over to the banks and corporations in the form of taxpayer bailouts and the tens of billions in monthly subsidies to the financial markets provided by the Federal Reserve Board. The Democratic-controlled Senate this week ensured the continuation of this policy by handily confirming Obama's nominee and Wall Street's pick, Janet Yellen, to succeed Ben Bernanke as the next Fed chairman....

Obama's singled-minded focus on covering the bad bets of Wall Street and further enriching the financial elite, in part by driving stock prices and corporate profits to record highs, has fueled a staggering increase in social inequality. The total wealth of billionaires has more than doubled since the stock market hit bottom in March of 2009. Since then, the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index has risen by 170 percent. More than 95 percent of all income gains in the US during Obama's first term went to the richest 1 percent of the country....

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/01/09/obam-j09.html

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 10 Jan 14 - 05:43 AM

Just for the record, This post is not from me.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: GUEST,FROM INSANITY
Date: 06 Aug 13 - 03:53 PM

OK...

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's War on the Middle Class
From: Songwronger
Date: 13 Jan 14 - 08:54 PM

Democrats attack the unemployed and the poor>/b>

Congressional Democrats this week publicly offered to join Republicans in cutting back extended benefits for the unemployed and slashing food stamp benefits for the poorest sections of the working class....

Ever since President Obama declared, in a mid-December address, that income inequality was the great issue to which he would devote his remaining years in office, there has been a systematic effort in the media and by Obama's liberal and pseudo-left apologists to portray the Democratic Party as spearheading a new era of "progressivism" in US politics.

Such claims were always a fraud, since they covered up the consistently reactionary record of the Obama administration in attacking the living standards and democratic rights of working people, pouring trillions of dollars into bailing out the banks and propping up the stock market, while devoting massive sums to financing US military aggression around the world.

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/01/13/pers-j13.html