Showing posts with label anti-American vulture capitalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anti-American vulture capitalism. Show all posts

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Conservative Two Faced Hypocrite of the Week Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR) - Thinks Government Subsidized Education is OK for Him, Not for American Moms















Conservative Two Faced Hypocrite of the Week Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR) - Thinks Government Subsidized Education is OK for Him, Not for American Moms

To avoid a government shutdown at the end of 2011, Republicans succeeded in their campaign to cut the federal Pell Grant program by effectively kicking up to 100,000 low-income students off the rolls.

Last week, Arkansas constituent Kelly Eubanks, a college student who has two jobs and two children, confronted her Congressman, Rep. Steve Womack (R), at a town hall meeting over his attack on the program she now relies on. But instead of any explanation, Womack lashed out at Eubanks, telling her to pay her own way by “joining the military” like he did. After refusing to answer her question, he finally just asked her to “be quiet and listen.” Blue Arkansas reports:

    According to Kelly and a handful of other witnesses, Womack happily retorted that it wasn’t the federal government’s job to pay for education (he’s doing this in a college town mind you) and then quickly added that he paid for his education by joining the military, apparently suggesting that the mom of two do the same and totally oblivious I guess to the fact that it was, in fact, the federal government that paid for his education then. Well Womack tried to skirt the rest of Ms. Eubanks question and she proceeded to try and get him to address the discrepancy she pointed out. Well at this point, according to Kelly and several other people that were in the room, Womack blew a gasket.

    He skirted the rest of my question and I called him out on it.. he ended up getting pissed off.. and screaming at me.. “are you going to be quiet and listen”, [Eubanks said.]

    According to Kelly, some of his aides came up and tried to get the mike from her, but she held her ground and kept her cool, insisting her congressman answer her question.

Watch KHBS news coverage of the town hall:

The irony here, as Campus Progress’ Emily Wood notes, is that Womack actually attended college on taxpayer money by joining the National Guard. But instead of acknowledging that fact, he dodged the issue and had the mike taken away from Eubanks. Eubanks attended the town hall with the hopes of understanding Womack’s view. “I thought maybe meeting him and asking him why he’d vote to hurt students but protect Big Oil interests, face to face, would get me a real answer,” she told the Arkansas Times. “I really thought maybe he could explain it somehow. I did not think he was a heartless or arrogant person going in to this, but I definitely do now.”

Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR) is just one of your typical smiley faced fascist hypocrites otherwise known as a conservative. Government is here to serve the arrogant elite like him, not American moms who are trying their best to improve their lives and that of their children. The fanatics like Womack are destroying America from within. Taking down the educational opportunities that are frequently the only path to a better life - especially sine it has been the policy of conservatives not to attach any strings at all to those jobs big corporations that help Womack get into office, sent to Asia. Womack might be a good citizen we just need to figure out what country he is a good citizen of. It sure isn't the USA.

Friday, January 13, 2012

What Does Mitt Romney Want to Talk About in "quiet rooms"





















What Does Mitt Romney Want to Talk About in "quiet rooms"

The GOP primary keeps getting funnier. Just as Newt Gingrich was telling a South Carolina Romney supporter “I agree with you” that attacking Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital career could help Democrats on Wednesday, his friendly Super PAC “Winning the Future” released the long version of its hit piece “When Mitt Romney Came to Town.” I thought MoveOn did a bang-up job last week with an ad profiling a pair of older Kansas City steelworkers left jobless thanks to Bain; this ad is so slashing MoveOn might have thought twice about releasing it. If you haven’t seen it, it’s here. Clearly, Gingrich is trying to have it both ways: Mollifying wealthy GOP donors horrified by his attacks on capitalism while continuing to bloody Romney. We’ll see how well it works.

Romney continues to insist Democrats, as well as some of his GOP rivals, are practicing “the politics of envy,” and on NBC Wednesday made what might be his dumbest remark yet. Asked whether there was ever a fair way to discuss income inequality, the GOP front-runner replied:

    I think it’s fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms and discussions about tax policy and the like. But the president has made it part of his campaign rally. Everywhere he goes we hear him talking about millionaires and billionaires and executives and Wall Street. It’s a very envy-oriented, attack-oriented approach and I think it will fail.

Maybe Mitt wants to confine talk of inequality to “quiet rooms” because he’s seen the Pew Research Center data showing that Americans think conflict is growing between rich and poor.  Two-thirds of Americans see that conflict, up 50 percent since 2009. While African-Americans are still more likely than whites to see that conflict, the percentage of whites who agree tripled. Credit Occupy Wall Street for hiking consciousness about the gap between rich and poor, but credit the GOP for creating the conditions that allowed income inequality to soar, and the top 1 percent to gobble up 40 percent of the nation’s wealth.

A sly Sarah Palin called for Romney to release his tax returns on Sean Hannity’s show last night, to Hannity’s seeming distress. Palin defended Rick Perry’s “vulture capitalism” attack even as Hannity kept trying to get her to declare it unfair. She’s gone rogue again! We can only dream that Romney releases his tax returns. I think he’s less scared about showing his staggering wealth than revealing the scandalously low tax rate he pays, given how much of his income comes from investment and is thus subject to lower capital gain taxes. (I’m sure we’d also learn a lot from the tricks Romney’s accountants use to keep his effective tax rate even lower.)

Palin also demanded that Romney substantiate his claims to have created 100,000 jobs while at Bain, calling it a “come to Jesus” moment. What is she up to? Her snow-machine-driving husband Todd endorsed Newt Gingrich last week, to great derision, but it did raise questions about what the nominally neutral ex-V.P. nominee is thinking. She’s not thinking good thoughts about Mitt Romney, that’s for sure.

Meanwhile, the man who foisted Palin on the world, John McCain, today accused Romney’s anti-Bain attackers as supporting “communism.” But BuzzFeed recalls that in 2008, McCain himself attacked Romney’s Bain days. “He presided over the acquisition of companies that laid off thousands of workers,” McCain complained back then, and campaign manager Rick Davis told the National Journal:

    “He learned politics and economics from being a venture capitalist, where you go and buy companies, you strip away the jobs, and you resell them. And if that’s what his experience has been to be able to lead our economy, I’d really raise questions.”
 Below is the video a conservative PAC is running against Romney: