It's time for us to review the GOP's state legislative priorities for 2017 and don't be surprised that it's all about denial of right to women, the destruction of middle class jobs, poor education for students, and screwing the victims of malfeasance. Let's start with women: The 20 week "ban on most abortions" ignores Supreme Court decisions that: A) Women have a Constitutional Right to an abortion, and; B) the Supreme Court precedent establishes that the "viability of a fetus" is to be determined by the attending physician and not by a bunch of anti-women politicians. Note: Natural viability remains at about 28 weeks and that will never change. Banning "dilation and extraction" adds costs for an abortion without stopping an abortion, adding "consultation time" and denying funding to Planned Parenthood (that doesn't use any government funds of abortion services) are measures designed to "deny access to abortion" for women in an effort to deny the woman her Constitutional Rights. Denial of Access = Denial of the woman's Constitutional Right. Moving on.... Please note the complete absence of any commitment to improve education in our public (or even private) schools. This is really about a GOP agenda to provide funding to Christian K-12 religious education and reducing funding for education instead of providing the funding and programs necessary for quality education. The GOP prefers ignorant white Christians voters because it's agenda is based upon denial of facts and it's easier to convince people of that are ignorant and relatively uneducated with propaganda than it is with an educated electorate. Moving on...... The limitation on awards to the plaintiffs is a direct attack on the victims of heinous acts committed against them. Instead of limiting the "attorney fees" that account for 1/3rd or more of the settlement to reduce the total cost of the settlement where the victim retains the same compensation the GOP would rather screw the victims, that often have their entire future standard of living destroyed in these high cost settlements. The restrictions upon where the case can be filed can be good but the jurisdiction of where the plaintiff resides must always be included and take precedent over the defendant's court jurisdiction location (e.g. if the plaintiff is in Georgia while the corporate headquarters of the defendant is in Chicago then the Georgia jurisdiction should take precedent in filing a lawsuit) Restricting who can provide expert testimony can significantly increase the costs for the plaintiff increasing the difficulty for the "victim" of a wrongful action. The jury or judge can use judgement in determining the validity of the "expert" testimony as opposed to increasing the costs for the plaintiff and making it harder for the plaintiff to address a wrongful action. "Reduce the interest rates" is simply a "screw the victim by giving a break to the person/entity responsible for the victimization" (often a corporation). This GOP favoritism for corporations and the wealthy over the average American that often falls victim to corporate malfeasance is inexcusable. Moving on.... This is just the continuation of the "Crony Capitalism" agenda of favoritism for corporations and the wealthy that started with the Republican Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. By 1973 the Republicans had weakened the unions to the point that hourly wages stopped increasing with increased productivity that effectively ended the growth of the Middle Class in America. By the 1980's the "Supply Side" (trickle down) economics under Reagan resulted on the bottom 50% of income earners losing "real wage" with the bottom 10th Percentile losing over 14% of real wages between 1979-1989. This anti-worker Republican agenda going back to the 1940's created the huge growth in income inequality and the explosion of welfare benefits because roughly 40-50 million households and the necessity for programs like Obamacare because the workers can't afford to live on their wages while to super-wealthy (top 1%) scrap 40% off the top of every oncome dollar in the United States. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/gop-agenda-unions-lawsuits-abortion-school-choice-44381785 If the "Economically Hurting Americans" that voted for the GOP and Donald Trump think the GOP and Trump will help them economically then they've been sadly deceived.
Shouldn't we be applauding Donalds wish to give foetuses rights? When my mother became preggers carrying me out of wedlock 60 years ago she and my dad had a shotgun wedding to "make it right", but other couples in the same boat often had abortions to sweep it under the carpet, and friends and neighbours usually said "Oh well, it was for the best", and wouldn't have minded. But if my mother had aborted me I might have minded..
For those not from the United States our political system can be a bit confusing because we have federal authority and state authority in our political structure. The above Republican agenda is based upon the 33 (out of 50) states that are controlled by Republican legislatures. In the United States a woman's right to an abortion is protected by the US Constitution established by the US Supreme Court and the states can't literally deny a woman's right to an abortion. What Republicans, that don't typically let the US Constitution interfere with their political agenda, attempt to do is circumvent the US Constitution to indirectly deny a woman an abortion and they're quite nefarious in doing so. Their favorite tactic is to deny access by imposing laws that shut down abortion clinics or by trying to run the medical providers that perform abortions out of business (e.g. cutting off funding to Planned Parenthood that is the largest single provider of women's reproductive services in the United States and that also performs abortions (that can't be funded with federal dollars).
Odd, pretty much the entire list of "bad" things the OP listed I considered to be "good" I guess we're on the opposing POV here.
So the opinion is that it's "good" for Republican controlled state governments to use nefarious laws to deny Constitutionally protected rights? So the opinion is that instead of fixing the educational problems for the public schools, that the government is responsible for, it's a "good" thing Republicans to degrade the public school system by diverting the taxpayer funding for the public schools into the pockets of private individuals and private companies.. So the opinion is that it's "good" for Republicans to provide financial protection for those in the most serious of cases that cause the greatest harm to others, often leaving the victim impaired for life, by denying just and fair compensation to the victim as determined by our legal system. So the opinion is that it's "good" to continue the Pro-Corporation-Investor/Anti-Organized Labor Republican crony capitalism economic polices that are resulting in a loss of real wages for the vast majority of America's workers today, increasing poverty, and expanding necessity for the welfare state as more as more and more Americans are unable to earn a living working fulltime in America because there's no opposing economic force to the downward pressure of the market on compensation that was once provided for by the unions. I guess that we do have an opposing point of view because I support our Constitutional Rights, I advocate fixing our public education systems and not abandoning them, I believe the victims of the heinous acts of others should receive just and fair compensation as determined our civil court system, and I support economic policies that provide balance between the workers and the enterprise so that both benefit equally from the US economy as opposed to crony capitalism that favors the wealthy over the workers.
Yes... Ps. I'm against long winded partisan rants. How do you feel about those? In 1,000 words or less please
Excellent. Best thing that could happen to education. We agree on this one. These protect the bad guy. Lawsuits need to be reformed, but not with the above. Good, but does not go far enough. Abolish all public employee unions and end the utterly corrupt incestuous relationship between politicians and govt workers.
I appreciate the opinions but I would like to address potential problems with a few of them. There's a serious concern with this opinion. The Constitutionally protected Rights of the Person. Based upon the 9th and 14th Amendments the woman has a Right to abortion based upon a conservative interpretation of the Constitution because the woman is the only "person" involved in the abortion issue. Based upon a progressive interpretation of the 9th and 14th Amendments limited restrictions are also imposed upon the Right of the Woman based upon "potential personhood" of the fetus at natural viability where generally the fetus can live outside of the woman's body as an "independent person" which establishes "personhood" and the applicability of Constitutional Rights. Instead of addressing this directly let's use a different Constitutionally protected right and let's see if similar criteria imposed would also be considered as "Excellent" or would it be condemned reflecting hypocrisy in the opinion related to abortion. THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS - Ban the purchase of firearms in most cases after the person reaches the age of 25. - Ban firearms that are similar in appearance to military firearms because they scare some people. - Extend the waiting period for the purchase of a firearm to 12 months. - Prohibit firearms sales by sporting goods stores, general retail stores, and other stores that predominately sell products other than firearms and ammunition. This is a pretty close analogy to the legislative agenda related to the woman's Constitutionally protected rights to an abortions as applied to the Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. If we support the Constitutionally protected Rights of the Person then we need to do so universally and not based upon a "I like this one but don't like that one" basis Still Excellent? Yes or No? Wouldn't substantially improving public education that provides education for the majority of children be a substantially better thing for education? I'm retired and living in Arizona, I own my house, and pay property taxes part of which are dedicated to funding public education. I've never had children but I've never objected to paying property taxes to fund public education because I received my own K-12 education in public schools. So how is the misappropriation of my tax dollars to fund individuals and privately owned schools justifiable by any standard. If my tax dollar aren't going to the public schools, as intended under the State Constitution, then I shouldn't be required to pay those taxes. The Arizona Constitution requires that the legislature commit to not only the proper maintenance of education in our state, but its development and improvement. I don't quite see how the improper diverting of taxpayer dollars away from public education, to be used for private purposes, that removes vital funding for the "proper maintenance of education in our state, but its development and improvement" is beneficial at all for education. It's somewhat interesting because Republicans often claim support for "original intent" when it's always been the original intent that public education funded by taxation would be the primary source for education in the United States. Are Republicans once again disparaging that which they claim they support reflecting a little crack of hypocrisy in their ideology? Based upon agreement might I suggest a limit (cap) on the attorney fees, less actual expenditures by the attorney's office, that are typically 1/3rd to 40% of the entire settlement. A cap on attorney's fees on these very large settlements (which are actually quite rare) doesn't financial harm the plaintiff and could actually increase the net payment to the plaintiff. I'm not aware of the basis for the statement "end the utterly corrupt incestuous relationship between politicians and govt workers" comes from so perhaps some examples would help. My concern should be obvious because Republican propaganda about the unions has been less than honest over the last 45 years. For example "union corruption" was a valid compliant because it related to organized crime involvement but that ended in the 1960's when Robert Kennedy took on organized crime as the US Attorney general and purged organized crime from the unions. . there is something that strikes me as odd when it comes to rank-and-file Republican opposition to the unions today. Today the middle class is shrinking as middle income blue collar jobs disappear. It was this group of Americans that had a significant impact in electing Donald Trump in November. Real wages are down and new jobs are virtually all lower paying service sector jobs. When we look back and the "good old days" where the middle class was really created in was in the 1950's and 1960's. So what made the 1950's and 1960's when the middle class was expanding and today with the middle class shrinking? Studies of the middle class after WW II identifies three fundamental elements that created the expansion. First was the GI Bill that provided both college education and technical training for roughly 7.8 million returning WW II veterans with the majority f those, about 5.2 million, receiving training in technical fields. There was also the Federal Housing Administration from the Depression that provided funding for home ownership that resulted in a construction boom. Finally there was the elephant in the living room, the Unions. By the mid-1950's 35% of the private sector workforce belonged to the unions. Today the GI bill still exists but there are far fewer veterans to take advantage of it while college and technical training have become more expensive and less affordable for Americans overall so there's a slight negative when it comes to education/training. Federal programs for home ownership are arguably better than in the 1950's and 1960's so this can't be the difference. Where we find the real difference is in union membership where, starting at 35% of the private sector in mid-1950's, it has plunged to only 6.6% today. It was the power of the unions to provide a counter-acting force to the market based upon productivity increases that helped build the middle class. Between 1948 and 1973, when the unions were at their strongest, while the productivity increased by 96.7% the hourly wages also increased by 91.3%. Following 1973 through 2014 productivity increased from the 1948 lever to 238.7% while hourly wages only increased to 109% (+72.2% productivity, +9.2% wages from 1973-2014). While there were two factors related to this change the most significant was the Republican Taft Hartley Act of 1947, overriding a Truman veto, that diminished the powers of the union finally having an impact on the union contracts. Taft Hartley had an even greater impact when used by Reagan in 1981 that resulted in a loss of real wages for the bottom 50% of all workers between 1979-1989 under Supply Side Economics (trickle down). I'm not a "union" person per se but it's clearly evident that the unions need more power, not less, so that a balance can be re-established between the downward pressure on compensation by the market and the upward pressure on compensation by organized labor. If we don't re-establish that balance we're all going to end up in the poor house.
Your opinion: Oppose the Constitutional Protection of Rights, Oppose Quality Primary Education for All Americans, Support the top 1% of the People and oppose the bottom 99% of the People.. My opinion: Support Constitutionally protected Rights, Support Quality Primary Education for All Americans; Support 100% of the People equally.
1) how can jobs be unionized when they're outsourced? unions are tricks to make it appear democrats are for the working class. 2) private school education is better than public school education, that is a fact and not an opinion any longer. 3) hurting babies in abortions is bad, fornication is no excuse. 4) lawsuits are scandalous, why should few individuals become multi millionaires from lawsuits instead of fixing the problem equally for everyone?
Abortion - the entire debate is over the status of the unborn baby, that is the prime issue.Until that issue is resolved, the abortion debate is far from over. You can retreat into the law, that is secondary to the prime issue. And simply claiming "its the law" does absolutely nothing to resolve the issue. Public education - the cost has gone up steadily, the quality of education has gone down steadily. No surprise - public education is a monopoly in most places, teachers are safe with life time employment, no reason to improve. Throw in the political aspect of teachers unions, and the system is broken and beyond simple repair. What is your solution? Throw even more money at public education? Private schools do more with less, money isn't the answer. Standardized testing and grading teachers and schools has not worked, schools just teach the test. Money talks. The money should go with the student. Or even better, get the feds out of education entirely and let it be handled at the local level, with schools responsible to their "customers" - the students and their parents. As to your comments - "It's somewhat interesting because Republicans often claim support for "original intent" when it's always been the original intent that public education funded by taxation would be the primary source for education in the United States. Are Republicans once again disparaging that which they claim they support reflecting a little crack of hypocrisy in their ideology?" I have, never, ever made such a claim nor heard conservatives make such a claim. The common refrain from conservatives is to entirely remove the federal govt from public education. And the Constitution does not grant the federal govt the authority to provide public education, and certainly not to tax for it (if you are going to claim "welfare clause", skip it, original intent regarding that phrase does not allow the fed a blanket license to provide for whatever the current politicians deem to be in the interest of the public, the Founders made that very clear in their writings). Lawsuits - I can agree to a cap on attorney fees. Unions - in the past, unions had a legitimate purpose when unions were truly the coming together of local workers in order to present their position to employers. Unions now are political organizations which work cooperatively with the govt - for example, unions work to get a politician elected, the politician supports pro union laws such as having employers automatically confiscate union dues from paychecks, or forcing people to join unions. If employees want to organize and work together, fine. But keep the govt out of it. And govt unions are the worst. The boss (politicians) and the workers (so called public employees) have a cozy relationship feeding off of each other and making the tax payer pay the bill. Outlaw all public unions.
