Paul Ryan's Poverty Plan: Stop Being Poor
Five years to the day after our last national minimum wage increase, Paul Ryan is set to lay out a "new" six-pillared poverty plan. Ryan has long preached about how to tackle poverty and fashions himself as a serious politician and policy wonk. But if you believe that, I've got a 2 hour marathon time to sell you! Here are the six tenets of Paul Ryan's poverty plan, as told by his career rather than his rhetoric:
- Never Raise The Minimum Wage. Time and time again, Ryan has voted against raising the wage for hardworking Americans, and even argued that doing so would actually harm low income Americans.
- Oppose Unemployment Insurance. Since 2010, in the depths of the Great Recession, Ryan has voted at least six times against extending unemployment benefits for American job-seekers.
- Gut Medicaid, Leaving Low-Income Americans Uninsured. Ryan's most recent budget would take an ax to Medicaid, taking health care away from between 14.3 and 20.5 million low income Americans.
- Slash Nutrition Assistance Programs. The FY15 Ryan Budget would slash an astonishing $137 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps, which lifted 4 million Americans out of poverty in 2012. Almost half of SNAP recipients are children.
- Fight Against Protections For Low-Income Consumers. Ryan has consistently taken the side of big banks and credit card companies over Americans fighting to stay afloat, even after the 2008 financial crisis.
- Divisively Demonize The Poor For Their Situation. As if his policy attacks on low-income Americans weren't offensive enough, Ryan infamously blamed poverty in part on the "real culture problem" of "inner city" men who don't want to work.
Georgia, Meet Mitt Romney Lite
When Mitt Romney got pummeled in the 2012 election, the GOP was forced to reboot and consider how to attract candidates who can be more competitive. In Georgia, the GOP's conclusion was to run an elitist millionaire with a checkered business record and an inability to understand the concerns of working families. Sound familiar? But don't worry, David Perdue isn't a total clone of Mitt Romney. While Romney was serving as Governor of Massachusetts, for instance, David Perdue was busy tanking a company called Pillowtex, leaving its 7,500 workers out to dry and pocketing a cool $3.1 million in the process. It wasn't the first batch of American jobs that was killed under Perdue's stewardship. From 1994 to 1998, Perdue served as a senior vice-president at Haggar. Under his leadership, Haggar implemented an enormous shift of company employment and operations overseas. Thousands of American workers lost their jobs, and nearly 50% of the company’s domestic workforce was laid off, but Perdue brushed it off as being "in the best interest of the company."
Rep. Ellmers And That Elusive GOP Rebrand
Hmmm, the new GOP looks conspicuously like... the old GOP. I suppose you can give them credit for trying. After…
Dave Brat's Grand Old TEA Party
The Republican establishment was dealt a shocking blow last week when Eric Cantor, an ardent conservative and supposed young star of the GOP, was defeated by little-known Tea Party candidate Dave Brat. The upset sent shockwaves through the Republican Party, and Brat wasted no time in demonstrating his extreme views. In an interview with Chuck Todd the day after winning his primary, Brat, an economics professor, appeared to lay out a case for abolishing the minimum wage, before backpedaling and claiming that he didn't have a "well-crafted response on that one." But the real story isn't Brat's bumbling, or even Cantor's fall from grace. The real story is that the positions of Dave Brat and his Tea Party friends and the positions of today's "Republican establishment" aren't any different. Whether you ask overnight Tea Party sensation Dave Brat, or longtime Washington elite Speaker Boehner, they'll tell you the same thing. There ain't any difference between the Tea Party and the GOP.
Floundering Republican Elites Lose Control of Party, Ask "What Civil War?"
Ask the elites of the Republican establishment in Washington about the civil war within their party, and you're likely to be met with feigned bewilderment. Well golly, I've got no idea what you're talking about! It's a strategy that has been an almost religiously adhered to by the so-called adult types - the John Boehners and Paul Ryans in Congress, and George Wills and Charles Krauthammers of the punditry class - who are grasping at straws in an effort to keep the party from coming completely unglued. But now, even the most wide-eyed supporters must now see through this guise of unity. This week House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who boasts a 95 lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union, was tossed aside for Dave Brat, an unknown ultra-conservative Tea Partier. That's right, the same Eric Cantor who has been long-considered a young star of the party, known for being a constant thorn in the President's side for his refusal to compromise his conservative values, was toppled by the Tea Party in the blink of a primary. He became the sitting first majority leader in history to lose a primary since the position was created in 1899. Just hours later, extreme Tea Partier Chris McDaniel, who is running to unseat incumbent conservative Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran in another nasty and drawn out intra-party fight, sent a fundraising email with the subject line "We Just Beat Eric Cantor." Now that the Tea Party has killed the narrative of its decline with a single swift victory, what will be their next target? The American people can only await complete and utter government gridlock in the coming months.
Rick Scott's History of Discrimination
Rick Scott's campaign has been facing increasing fire for its outreach to Latino Floridians since his top fundraiser quit last week and claims surfaced that Scott's campaign staff made racially insensitive comments. Unfortunately for Scott, his association with claims of discrimination extends much further back. Before he became governor, Scott co-founded a chain of walk-in health care clinics called Solantic. One former Solantic employee - Dr. David Yarian - accused Scott of discriminatory hiring practices when it came to Latinos. Yarian claimed Scott encouraged "mainstream" hires when faced with a Latino job candidate, and that Scott said "no" to hiring an otherwise qualified candidate based on his "slight accent." In addition to Yarian, Solantic came under fire from multiple other employees with similar claims. Between 2003 and 2005, five Solantic supervisors and two employees claimed the company prevented hiring based on race, age or weight. These seven employees filed a combined lawsuit in 2006, and Solantic settled for an undisclosed sum in 2007. Between Solantic, Scott's support for extreme Arizona-style anti-immigration law, and his recent campaign drama, the choice for Latino Floridians is clear: Rick Scott is bad for Florida.
Ed Gillespie & Mitt Romney's 47% Problem
As Ed Gillespie prepares to campaign with Mitt Romney in New York City this evening, Virginia voters should take a look at Gillespie's record as a surrogate for Romney's losing presidential campaign in 2012. When Romney's infamous "47 percent" comments came to light, disparaging millions of Americans like seniors who rely on Social Security and veterans who receive benefits from their service to the country, Ed Gillespie came to Romney's defense. Gillespie backed up Romney's comments when asked about it during an appearance on the Today Show, saying: "that's political analysis, that's not a governing philosophy."
VIDEO: Republican Rebrand: New Year, Same Old Party
From the Party that brought you "legitimate rape" and "forty seven percent" in 2012, what did you expect after its self-imposed autopsy of 2013? The new, improved GOP of the past 365 days has included such classics as Rep. Don Young reminiscing about hiring "wetbacks," Senator Saxby Chambliss blaming sexual assault on "hormones," Iowa Rep. Steve King...being Steve King, Michigan Republicans trying to ban insurance from covering abortion services for rape victims, and Rep. Steve Pearce claiming wives should "voluntarily submit" to their husbands. On the anniversary of this momentous shift in the GOP's strategy, American Bridge brings you the Republican Rebrand: New Year, Same Old Party.
VIDEO: GOP's Botched Rebranding: North Carolina Edition
Last Monday, the RNC opened up a new "African-American Engagement Office" in North Carolina. Later that day, State Rep. Larry Pittman uttered his now-infamous joke about President Obama not being a traitor... because he's never harmed Kenya.
Cuccinelli clings to Tea Party extremism in final debate
At tonight's debate, Ken Cuccinelli returned to his roots by embracing the extreme agenda of the Tea Party at every turn. Virginians are seeking a mainstream leader to boost the Commonwealth's economy and create jobs, so it's no surprise that voters are rejecting a candidate who made a name for himself by waging unpopular fights to further his extreme agenda. After three debates, voters know who Cuccinelli is and what he stands for:
- Banning abortions, even in cases of rape and incest
- Refusing to support the Violence Against Women Act
- Believes birth control is a form of abortion
- Believing homosexuality "brings nothing but self-destruction, not only physically but of their soul."
- Make it harder for people to escape bad marriages by eliminating no-fault divorce
- Directed public universities to remove discrimination protections for the LGBT community