Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Cutting Programs for Homeless Veterans So Rich Slimeballs Can Avoid Taxes

In a state that is near the top of the national chart in food insecurity, Governor Rick Scott (Republican of Florida) took time this holiday to pass out Thanksgiving dinner to about 1,000 families at a shelter in East Naples. The shelter’s program fed about 7,000 families last week, with roughly 200 volunteers packing and distributing meals.

“I care completely about all [homeless relief] programs,” said Scott while handing out food. However, he displays an odd way of showing it, as his sweeping budget cuts this year ended funding to veteran and farm surplus programs that helped the homeless. To justify those cuts, Scott simply explained, “All the programs are very important, but nobody wants their taxes to go up."

Republicans sicken me, to my very soul.

One Jacksonville homeless shelter official noted that Scott “zeroed out all homeless funding” — $7 million worth — in his budget proposal. That funding supported programs dedicated to homelessness prevention, housing initiatives, and programs that “re-house” people once they’re on the street. “Not only that, he took out the line items so it can never be funded again,” said the official.

To show how much he cares about the homeless, Scott went further by vetoing $12 million in funding that the state legislature had passed to support homeless veterans. There are an estimated 17,000 homeless veterans in Florida — the most of any state.

Nationwide, according to the most recent statistics, 75,609 veterans are homeless on any given night and twice as many experience homelessness during a year. Right now, the number of homeless Vietnam era veterans is greater than the number of service persons who died during that war. Already, veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are appearing in the homeless population, all across the US.

A few weeks ago, I read this article in the Boston Globe, about Occupy Boston bringing together veterans, students, and the homeless (some are all three). I'll post it below. Just remember, fellow citizens, that signing a "no tax pledge" is dangerous and stupid, and a lot of people are watching their lives get turned upside down because of the no tax gimmick. In America today, we are engaged in class-warfare unlike anything we've seen before. The very wealthy have done extremely well over the past two decades, while the poor and middle class have not. If this continues, the US will become a "Banana Republic," with no middle class, a small minority controlling the machinery of government, and wealth concentrated at the top among a very small number of people (less than one percent).

We won't even take care of our veterans just to avoid tax increases on the rich? What has become of us? This country has become a moon-cast shadow of what it once was, and it makes me sad and very angry.


The Boston Globe article:
Students, homeless, veterans find common ground at OCCUPY BOSTON By Martine Powers, Boston Globe Staff

Their identities are as diverse as their demands: born-and-bred Bostonians, students from elite universities, homeless people, veterans, owners of small businesses. They are people who, in other times, would seldom cross paths or purposes.

Now, they huddle under the same ideological umbrella: Occupy Boston.

Cheri King, 36, is one of them. Four months ago, she was caring for her dying mother at a hospital in Arizona. She quit her job to provide full-time care. Now, after moving to Boston to find a job, she is homeless, shuttling from shelter to shelter and, for the past week, living at the camp of Occupy Boston.

She has been living on the streets since August, she said, but in that time she has quickly come to know the injustices of homelessness. “It hasn’t been that long, but it feels like it’s been forever,’’ said King.

King ended up at Occupy Boston, she said, because she feels safer there than in a shelter: no curfews, no fight for beds. Still, she said, many people in the Occupy Boston movement do not understand the challenges she and other homeless people face.

When the police approached Monday night, she crossed the street to watch from a distance; she said she cannot afford to be arrested, because it could jeopardize her ability to get a job or a spot in a shelter.

“A lot of people here are just playing house,’’ King said. “They have a home to go to or a dorm to go to or a dad or a mom to bail them out if they get in trouble.’’

When Bob Funke, 59, was 12 years old, he marched with his neighbors for civil rights. They were Jewish, he recalled, and explained to him the terrible things that could occur when people are afraid to do what is right.

Occupy Boston, he said, awakens those same activist feelings inside him.

Funke spent 13 years on and off in the military, and he served in Vietnam. Now, he is unemployed. He and other members of Veterans for Peace have been at Occupy Boston since the first day, he said.What he wants is a job, for the wealthiest Americans to pay for higher taxes, and an end to American-funded wars overseas.

Now, his son, who lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, has also joined the Occupy movement. “He called and said, ‘Dad, I’m involved with this thing now!’ ’’ Funke said. “It’s really got momentum.’’

Next to Funke was Lisa Doherty, 56, munching on a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich while waving at motorists honking their approval.

Doherty has spent her whole life in Charlestown; since losing her job three years ago, she has moved in with relatives who live nearby.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Class Warfare and the Myth That Free Market Capitalism is a "Meritocracy"

The rich always get their way. It needs to change. Reform isn't enough, we need a Socialist revolution. Capitalism is NOT a meritocracy and poverty is NOT a sign of weakness or failure. The 1% at the top are gaming the system and destroying our republic with absurd notions like "corporate person-hood," and by corrupting the democratic process via PACs, lobbying and gerrymandering. 

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Life Without The Internets

These days find me without a computer, and thus unable to post to this blog or explore the series of tubes that make up the Internet. To all of my friends, I miss our conversations. On the plus side, I'm getting some serious reading in, which is good. I've just finished Dan Simmons' Black Hills, and plan to start Julia Phillips' You'll Never Eat Lunch In This Town Again. If you have a recommendation, write me at DWLyle@gmail.com.

A novel that will haunt you long after you've returned it to the library.

Monday, November 07, 2011

The Search for Lefse!

My wife is from Minnesota, an oasis of civilization located next to the armpit of the known universe. To the West of The Star of the North is North Dakota and South Dakota, with Iowa to the South. Wisconsin is to the East, which is a good thing, as Wisconsin is a super-fine state and a bulwark against the evils of Governor Walker.

Minnesota is also the home of The Mayo Clinic, one of the best hospitals in the world, along with about 12,000 lakes (even more than the 10,000 advertised). During my visits there, I've found affable, cool people who will happily buy you a drink  if you look a little down.

Bob Dylan is from Duluth, but he is an asshole who never shows any appreciation for what he learned  on the mean streets of that fair city. The time I spent in Duluth was very interesting. My guide and future wife, Nancy Welharticky, loves her adopted city, even though it has not always been kind to her. Duluth is like that...a lot of character, but quite dangerous if you don't want neighborhoods to avoid. Duluth is also a hilly town, and when the cold air blows through town, those hills get icy as all hell. Nancy slipped and nearly broke her ass at least five times.

Merv is a gregarious gentleman who will buy you a drink, as long as you're with Nancy. Kurt is also a Duluthian, and one amazing musician. A kinder man you will never meet. Leigh, too, is super cool. She lives across the lake a bit in Superior. Wonderful people all. Prince is from Minnesota, and I'd love to pat him on the bum when he visits.

I'm in love with Boston, but if I ever cheated on her, it would be with Duluth.

Nancy tells me that there is a Norwegian food that can only be found in Scandinavian enclaves in the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. The food is called, "Lefse." A little about the delicacy here.

If you know where this thing can be found in the Boston area, email be at DWLyle@gmail.com toute de suite!  This poor woman (Nancy Pants) is JONESIN'. Better yet, if you know of a Scandinavian bakery, all the better.

While you're here...donate to my cause...I need a computer!






Saturday, November 05, 2011

Massive Income Gap Between Rich and Poor Is Killing America

To the very, very wealthy in America, no amount of money is too much. 


Any Conservative in this country will refuse to admit that our country's economic problems spring from one main source; the huge and widening wealth gap in America. While they wage war on working Americans they seek to enact policies that do one thing, widen that gap even further. Now, with all the wealth already horded to the very top Americans have little hope if more radical right-wing economics are enacted.

The fact is that the current rate of wealth distribution is unsustainable for our economy. Wealth is important to working American families for several reasons. This quote is taken from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
Why is wealth important? Like wages and income, overall wealth is central to a family's standard of living. Wealth-particularly liquid assets such as savings and checking account balances and direct holding of stocks and bonds-can help families cope with financial emergencies that arise due to unemployment or illness. Wealth also makes it easier for families to invest in education and training, start a small business, or fund retirement. More tangible forms of wealth such as cars, computers, and homes can directly affect a family's ability to participate fully in work, school, and community life.


http://www.epi.org/publication...


Sadly as this chart demonstrates more Americans have been losing more wealth as the very few have seen their wealth skyrocket:
Photobucket
Even more discouraging for working American families is the fact that the Republican recession of 2008 eroded the wealth of working America even more by destroying the main source of wealth for millions of them:


The deflation of the housing bubble which started in 2006 pushed the U.S. economy into recession by the end of 2007. As house prices fell and already low equity (due to second mortgages) vanished, foreclosures and "upside down" mortgages, in which homeowners owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, became a vicious cycle. Given the reliance of typical families on housing as a source of wealth, the housing debacle has devastated the net worth of millions of American households.


Which follows the cycle of the last thirty years and proves the "Two Americas" theory of John Edwards. You see those in the other America have seen a much different recovery from the recession they caused than the rest of us have:


The Great Recession officially lasted from December 2007 through June 2009-the longest span of recession since the Great Depression. The recovery since then has proceeded on two tracks: one for typical families and workers, who continue to struggle against high rates of unemployment and continued foreclosures, and another track for the investor class and the wealthy, who have enjoyed significant gains in the stock market and benefited from record corporate profits.


Now even with all of this inequality and with the lack of wealth for millions of American families what are the solutions offered by too many Republican and Corporate Democrat politicians? Do they seek to close the wealth gap in America giving more money to more families to spend reviving the economy?
No. Republican policies seek to do merely one thing. Ignore the huge wealth discrepency in this country and horde even more wealth to the top and heap even more damage onto our already decimated economy. They seek to lower the wages of any middle-class workers who are left and destroy any chance of them to negotiate fair compensation for their skills.


The most discouraging part is that many Americans either through hate, or ignorance or just a stubborn refusal to admit that they were wrong in electing people who work against them too many Corporate stooges and millionaires are elected to continue waging war upon working America.


As long as we allow the elites to tell us that they live in a different America than we do we our country will never recover and live up to the principles of freedom and equality it was founded upon. Unfortunately it appears as if the people of this country do not wake up soon we are indeed a nation that has seen its better days and will never recover from the slow and steady decline that those who dream of an old world Europe in America have initiated.


Supply side economics is a pleasant fiction that doesn't work. George Bush the First called it, "Voodoo Economics" for a reason. Reducing or eliminating taxes on the very rich doesn't create jobs. It simply does not.


And contrary to the assertions of the very wealthy, we do NOT live in a meritocracy. The vast majority of the obscenely wealthy have obscenely wealthy parents.


Class warfare is already here...are we going to fight back?


Consider a donation to The House of Four Cats...my computer died. My hat in hand is extended to you!





Friday, November 04, 2011

My Computer, Mortimer, Is Dead...Help Me Fix It With Donations!

I'm not too proud to beg, and I'll prove it right now. At the bottom of this paragraph you'll see a PayPal "donate" button. Click on it to make a donation to the Darren W. Lyle "Race for a Cure 'Cause I'm Poor (and need a computer) Fund." Any amount will help, and 100% of the money received will go to a new computer for me. I so need one! Thank you in advance, my friends. Donate here:










A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.
Joseph Joubert 

Herman Cain Proves Republicans Are Out Of Touch, Insane, and Stupid

The news broke on Sunday when the website Politico reported that Herman Cain settled 2 sexual harassment suits in the 90’s while he was head of National Restaurants Association. Mr. Cain has followed the standard for all political figures caught with their pants down (pun intended) – deny, deny, deny, then admit. At this point, it seems that these allegations are completely true, though the circumstances behind the actual accusations remain unknown. One thing is for sure, while the reporting of the lawsuits may be politically motivated, the original accusations certainly weren’t, as they happened well before Mr. Cain had any political ambitions.
What this says about Mr. Cain’s character is in the eye of the beholder. His supporters will certainly insist that the original accusations were baseless attacks motivated solely by money. His detractors (myself included) don’t really need any other evidence that he’s a ridiculous excuse for a presidential candidate – the hopper is already pretty full on that count.
But what’s truly fascinating is the way the Right Wing Sock Puppet Gallery shifted into overdrive. Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter, and Sean Hannity quickly went on air to decry the “liberal media” for the attacks. The extent these people will twist reality is quite stunning – that he was “set up” by the liberal media and that liberals are threatened by a black conservative.
The language these people use is pretty over-the-top: Coulter said, “Our blacks are so much better than their blacks.” Classy, no? Hannity insists that this is another “high tech lynching” that liberals are apparently so famous for. Limbaugh shrieked that “‘mainstream media’ goes for the ugliest racial stereotypes they can to attack a black conservative.”
This is absurd on so many levels and speaks more to the paranoid delusion of the right than anything else.
Politico is hardly an arm of the ‘liberal media’ (whatever that is). Their CEO (Frederick Ryan) serves as chairman of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation’s board (damn commie!). When the right screams about the ‘liberal media’ or the ‘mainstream media” what they mean is anyone who writes anything they don’t like.
The argument that liberals are afraid of Herman Cain is quite a stretch. Ask any Obama supporter which candidate they would prefer face Obama in the general election and Cain will undoubtedly be at the top of the list. It would be like a liberal dream come true to have someone so eminently unqualified, so obviously unserious, running for president in 2012. Really, we are drooling at the prospect.
And the obvious inference to Clarence Thomas is equally suspicious. This story is not like Clarence Thomas’s. In that instance, a woman came forward at a seemingly opportunistic moment to make a charge that she had never made before. In this instance we are talking about a matter of record – Herman Cain was sued for sexual harassment and paid at least 1 and maybe 2 women to settle, which he now admits. These are facts.  It is certainly well within bounds for a front-runner in a presidential campaign to have his or her background scoured. Who leaked what to who and why doesn’t really matter when the story is true.
The reality of this is that there can be almost no doubt that it is the republicans who are threatened by Cain’s candidacy. Given that Cain has received zero support from any major political figures in the Republican Party (contrast this with the legions that have lined up to endorse Perry or Romney), there can be no doubt that Republican leaders don’t want Cain running against Obama. Luckily for the nation, there are still some conservatives who are not enamored with the anti-intellectual radicalism of the Tea Party. But they are getting increasingly frightened and desperate at the prospect of a Cain candidacy. The ‘establishment’ conservatives have been on a full anti-Cain press for a couple of weeks now, yet Cain remains the front runner. And he’s doing it without really campaigning in the early states, which makes the Republican Party in Iowa and New Hampshire nervous that they are becoming irrelevant.
Liberal media hit-job? Not quite.

Thursday, November 03, 2011

Republicans Are Obstructionist Corporate Whores


My computer has experienced an early demise, and it's unlikely that I'll be back online (except when Nancy lets me use her computer, which is rarely) for several months. Let me just say that I hope that Herman Caine gets the nomination for the Republican Party Presidential Candidate in 2012. The Republicans have finally gone off the deep end and embraced class warfare, their pathetic desperate attempts to get the White House, the corporate whores that they are, as well as their complete lack of moral scruples, common decency, and compassion. Herman Caine, keep up the good work and help us ensure a new Obama presidency.