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Remember when Republicans were cool? I do. I think back fondly to Halloween 1993 a few days before the New York City mayoral election rocking out with Rudy Giuliani, Senator Roy Goodman and hundreds of Young Republicans from around the country to pulsating neo disco music and gyrating transvestite pole dancers at Webster Hall in Manhattan.
A heated discussion last night on RNN-TV,
Blocking the Ballot Box: Voter Disenfranchisement in 2012.On Richard French Live, Political TV Newsman Dominic Carter, Andrew Whitman,David Webb of the National Tea Party Federation, and Liz Kennedy of Demos. Just Click Here.
On RNN-TV this week: Talk of the Table Topics range from Dharun Ravi Released and The Big Brother Generation where Drove Planes are looking in your backyard. Just Click here to see the Richard French Live show this week.
Charlie Rangel has been getting a lot of flack about his ethics, almost all of it well deserved, but another member of the City’s Congressional delegation has gotten off relatively Scott-free for improprieties which, if anything, appear to be far worse.
Vito Lopez explains the only issue in the 7th CD race (and gets the Gatemouth Award for candor beyond the call of duty):
I’ve been pretty unrelenting in criticizing Charles Barron, and Israel has been only one of the issues.
There is no doubt that even without Israel, I’d have plenty of reason to oppose Barron.
Russians found to be apathetic about turning out in the Barron/Jeffries race.
There is a commercial on the airwaves right now that I just can’t stand: an investment company provides some quotes from a series of people on the first day of their retirement – the first of an average of 6,000 days, they say. That’s an average of 16.4 years. For most of human history, however, “retirement” has meant a brief period of leisure after a full life of working, generally a period when working was no longer possible. According to the Historical Statistics of the United States, the 1890 the decennial Census found 68.3% of American men age 65 and over to be in the labor force, working or looking for work, even though back then “work” usually meant physical labor. The figure drifted down to 54.0% in 1930, before the passage of Social Security, and may have hit bottom around 1985, when just 16.8% of married men 65 and over were in the labor force. The large-scale entry of married women into the labor force obscures other trends, but the percentage of single women age 65 who were in the labor force fell from 19.7% in 1970 to 9.7% in 1998.
For a fortunate generation or two, some workers were allowed to spend decades in retirement, often having as many non-working years supported by others as they had previously worked. That was possible because younger generations were richer, larger, better educated and more productive, and could easily carry the smaller number of modestly living retirees from prior generations. It was also possible because those older generations had saved for retirement. Today, younger generations of Americans are no larger, no better educated, and lower paid than the retirees they are expected to carry. The generations now in or near retirement have been more affluent during their working years, and expect to live similarly well in retirement, and yet most of them have borrowed rather than saved. Those younger, for the most part, will not get pensions, and may not get much Social Security. But encouraged by Wall Street firms seeking fees, the myth of decades of high consumption leisure lives on. Something that is only really possible at other people’s expense.
Room 8 Comment of the day:
Help Ben, Hurt Mitt
Submitted by Google Ad-Dict (not verified) on Thu, 06/14/2012 – 5:41pm.