WEEKEND READING (Nov. 8, 2014)

6 brilliant ways Sweden recycles its garbage (1 Million Women).

Glenn Greenwald and Snowden: 'Nobody should use Facebook' (Mediaite).

Playboy's top party schools (Playboy).

752 people have exercised their right to die in Oregon - why you've only heard about Brittany Maynard (QZ).

DOLLAR POLITICS
I think we should be looking at the dollar over a 20 year period, but what the heck ... "What the dollar's recent rise tells us about the global economy" (NY Times).

3 ways a strong dollar impacts the global economy (Barron's).

Sorry fracking enthusiasts, oil's price decline is wholly a dollar story (Forbes).

EXPLAINING THE GOP's ELECTORAL VICTORY
The South is essentially a solid, grim block of poverty (Huffington Post).

Paul Krugman divulges the real reason why the 'wrong about everything' party won (Alternet).

Working Class Voters In America: Why America's poor are willing to vote Republican (The Guardian).

2014 Exit polls (NY Times).


THE DEMOGRAPHICS BEHIND THE GOP's VICTORY
Chill out Liberals: The 2014 electorate was really old, and white (TPM / Slate).

How much difference did new voting restrictions make in yesterday's close races (Bill Moyers)?

Gerrymandering rigged the 2014 elections for the GOP advantage (Bill Moyers).


THE PEOPLE WHO WON
Meet your new craziest Republicans (Daily Kos).

Ted Cruz and Paul Ryan are so scared of Jon Stewart that they won't go on The Daily Show (Politics USA).


FINANCIALIZATION
Opinion: Controller John Chiang drops bombshell on California public pensions (Sacramento Bee).

The size of the derivative bubble hanging over the global economy hits a record high (Global Research).


MISCELLANEOUS
From the U.S. Senate ... an up to the minute count on the number of filibusters filed over time (U.S. Senate).

What Liberal media bias? Conservatives tip the scales to the right on Sunday talk shows (NY Times).

Mexico captures fugitive mayor, wife accused of ordering students' disappearance (Huffington Post).

Interesting numbers ... Thanks GOP, America's poor now worse off than citizens of Third World Nations (Addicting Info).

- Mark

ANOTHER REASON WHY THE DEMS LOST IN 2014

Want to know why you didn't hear about this stuff ...

Then we need to consider this ...

A political narrative doesn't get created on its own. The groundwork has to be prepared for messages to be embraced, and acted on.

- Mark

P.S. Also, let's also not lose sight of the fact that Democrats across the country ran away from President Obama's successes, while ignoring the legacy of the Democratic Party. Yeah, our political players have to assume some of the blame too. 

FREE COLLEGE TUITION? NOT ON YOUR LIFE ... GO TO WAR AND EXTEND BUSH TAX CUTS? NO PROBLEM

Let's assume states continue funding state colleges at the rate they do today. If they did, according to the Atlantic Monthly, it would cost the federal government about $62.6 billion to make college free for every student attending a public university in America.

If we can spend $85.4 billion fighting in Afghanistan, we should be able to find $60 billion to help educate our nation's future.

Want to know what else costs us $60 billion?

Rebuilding Iraq. We spent $60 billion trying to rebuild Iraq. That's money well spent ...sigh.

Extending the Bush tax cuts for people making $250,000 (or more) costs us $60 billion per year.

Two months of interest payments. About 2 months of interest on our national debt can be paid with $60 billion.

Tax loopholes for U.S. corporations cost us about $60 billion.

Medicare fraud. We lost about $60 billion to Medicare fraud.

We could feed the world for two years with $60 billion.

We could build high speed rail in Colorado for $60 billion, twice.

Overdraft fees ... over any given two years banks make $60 billion charging overdraft fees.

- Mark

ADDENDUM: One more thing. To date, the bailout of Wall Street has cost us $4.76 trillion, and counting. To put this in perspective, for what we've put into bailing out Wall Street we could have paid for America's college students to attend our public universities for free for the next 50 years, and still have well over $1 trillion left over for investments in our nation's infrastructure. Think about that for a moment.  

FOXBOLA IN AMERICA

Too funny ...

- Mark 

ON SECOND THOUGHT ...

OK, I posted this in jest two weeks ago ...

I have to admit, it's not so funny today because it feels more like this ...

Still, we want to keep in mind that with the exception of 1998, when the Republicans over reached with Monica Lewinsky, every two-term president has lost seats in Congress in their sixth year. Check out the numbers here.

What was lost in 2014 is not out of the norm. What's hard to stomach is how the GOP is being rewarded for deliberately sabotaging President Obama's agenda since he entered office in 2009.

- Mark 

2014 ELECTIONS EXPLAINED ... WHAT THE MEDIA'S NOT GOING TO TALK ABOUT

One of the reasons the Democrats took a beating yesterday is because they allowed a group of scared white men to set the political narrative (more on this below). As well, instead of embracing President Obama's hard fought successes and achievements from the past 6 years, the Democrats chose to distance themselves from the President - as if he was the obstructionist.

Let's take a look.

No one embraced the successes of Obamacare ...

No one mentioned the Obamacare rebate checks insurers had to send back after charging policy holders too much ...

No one mentioned the differences between what President Obama inherited and where we are today ...

No one mentioned the record obstructionism in the U.S. Senate, where the filibuster effectively became the "60-vote rule" that's stalled hundreds of pieces of legislation on President Obama's agenda ...

Instead, Democrats allowed a small group of paranoid crazies - who vowed not to work with President Obama, and then worked to shut down the federal government - to set the narrative ...

This same group of people not only worked to sabotage the president but encouraged America to see the worst in a man simply - as Lyndon Johnson understood very well - because he's African-American, which riled up the base and made for good politics ...

How else do you explain America ignoring the successes that the GOP deliberately tried to stall, and worked to discredit?

You know the media's not going to talk about any of this.

Just saying.

- Mark

Click here for a mainstream media version of what I'm saying from the Washington Post. And, yes, the GOP makes it all about Obama, which the Democrats ran away from without even trying to embrace the advances and successes. 

OUR REAL FEAR IF THE GOP WINS BOTH HOUSES

- Mark 

KEEP THIS IN MIND WHEN VOTING ...

If you are a female and voting today, try to keep in mind these developments - past and present - as women have sought equal status in society, and in the voting booth.

Suffragists in America at the turn of the 20th century ...

Fast forward to the modern era. Remember this guy?




After having his comments dug up by the Maine Democratic Party, Lawrence recanted and now "regrets" his unfortunate choice of words.

Still, via Addicting Info, we learn that Kansas Republicans want to assign birth certificates to miscarriages, which will then to be reported to the government.

We also have this from Jezebel ... a proposed Arizona law would allow employers to fire women for using whore pills if they can't prove they're using them for non-sexual reasons.

There's more, but you get the point. The struggle for respect and equality in America continues.

Keep this in mind when you vote today.

- Mark 

ELECTION DAY GUIDANCE

Keep this in mind when you vote tomorrow ...

- Mark 

MORE GOOD NEWS FOR FOX TO IGNORE (OR TRASH)

I've commented on President Obama's economic achievements before (click here and here), but this deserves repeating ...

You can read about the growth story here, here, and here.

With an eye towards what President Obama inherited (negative growth rates), here's what America's GDP/Economic growth looks like since his first inauguration ...



Finally, it should be noted that all these achievements are happening with the Republican Party doing everything they can to sabotage President Obama's efforts.

Think of that when you vote tomorrow.

- Mark