Rascism is Still There!

In the United states we all knew that racism was still there, but the ratio between white and minorities has gotten bigger. In fact a white households make 20 times more than an African American household, and 18 times more than Hispanic households.

"These lopsided wealth ratios are the largest since the government began publishing such data a quarter-century ago and roughly twice the size of the ratios that had prevailed between these three groups for the two decades prior to the Great Recession," reported Pew.

 Unemployment of African American is 16.2 percent. White unemployment is half of that! The reason for this was not just because discrimination practices in business, but the reason for this record gap was because most minorities went into jobs that left away during the recession. Jobs like infrastructure and construction. What the U.S needs to do is to balance the budget, but while still offering more help to poorer Americans which today tend to be minorities. The problem is that this is hard to do. Everyone should sacrifice to balance the budget, but we must priorities. The top 500 Americans make more money than the bottom 50% (150 million) That means that clearly those 500 Americans should pay first! Increase the income tax on the rich not only to 40% (bill Clinton era) But raise it to 50%. Then cut government programs for the rich. Before we throw the poor under the bus let's see how much we can make the rich pay so the poor people in the U.S don't pay too much. The problem for minorities is that they can't move up the ladder, because the U.S has been making it harder for the poor to get higher, And since the poor tend to be minorities they stay there on the bottom.

Read more here 

Wow Republicans !

Last few years when the Dem's held both houses the Republicans stood united against almost every single thing the Democrats proposed. The Republicans now are somewhat divided in passing Boehner plan. It seems the curse of being the party in power has now been caught by the Republicans. The Republicans see that it is harder to be the party that has to actually make decision rather than to be the party that just votes NO! The Republicans have no big plan. I am slightly disappointed in the Boehner plan. Nine hundred somewhat billion over a decade is actually just 90 billion a year. The deficit is now 1.2 trillion and will only get as low as 600 billion in a few years then get even worse later on. This plan is maybe a baby step. I still would disagree with this bill as it is just cuts important programs and there are no tax increases. At least Reid's plan is twice as big and for that matter still has no tax increases. I still don't support Reid's plan as it would just be 200 billion a year which is a good start, but not enough, but we could close the rest of the deficit putting the taxes back to there 1990 levels. Where Clinton who also faced a deficit made tax increases and payed record amounts of the debt. It's funny Ried has a plan twice as big in just cuts while Boehner has just 900 billion. No wonder it he kept delaying his plan multiple times his plan is a joke. Even Bachman is against the bill, and the tea party part of congress is also very much against it. I am glad now to see the Democrats are united. To be quite honest we need to reduce entitlements, by increasing the medicare age and the retirement age to 70, while also stopping the Bush tax to all, end the mission in Afghanistan and Iraq, eliminate subsidies to big oil and finally pass bowl Simpson plan which will reduce the corporate tax rate and eliminate loopholes and increases revenue.

update: I support the Bowl Simpson plan, but I think we should eliminate loopholes and reduce rates only a little or nothing, because the U.S needs to balance the budget, but for a compromise I would agree with reducing corporate tax rates by 7% while eliminating loopholes, even though my ideal situation is eliminating all loopholes and no change to the tax rate.

National Popular Vote

We all know that the current electoral system is broke in the U.S . In 2000 Al Gore won the Popular vote and he still lost the election. 2000 wasn't the only time if you continue to look back in history 1 in 14 times the winner of the national vote lost the election. In order to change the system is all that hard when a recent poll shows that 70% are willing to change the system. In order to change the system you don't need to change the constitution. As the electoral votes of a state is given according to the state laws. Meaning that if every single state pass a bill to give there electoral vote to the candidate who wins the national vote versus the candidate who wins the state vote.

Right now, presidential campaigns focus their attention mostly on the so-called swing states, where the vote could go either way, ignoring a good portion of the electorate. The consequence is that the popular vote totals in any election are not what they might have been had the candidates known they would have to maximize their nationwide vote in order to win.

Watch this here

If this solutions seem far away it isn't currently 8 states have passed the NPV (National Popular Vote). which means that these states promise that in an election if a candidate wins one of these states they will not just give the electoral votes to that state winner. The state will give it's electoral votes to the winner of the popular votes. California, Colorado and Rhodes Island have already passed NPV and is sending it over to the governor. Another 10 states have passed NPV in at least one house. The NPV will not go into effect until enough states have adopted NPV that together they hold the majority of the electoral votes.

This isn't perfect, as it doesn't mean that a candidate needs over 50% which is why the NPV should include IRV, but in a political system where there are only 2 major political party this isn't a major issue at the moment, but should never the less be included in the future.

Read more here

Read more about NPV

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/07/22/sracic.president.election/index.html?hpt=po_bn1

Extremism is Blind to All

just like how Love is blind so is extremism. Love is blind to race and gender, and Extremism is blind to race and religion  The last tragedy that happened in Norway showed us that anyone can be an extremist and do many terrible things. Muslims aren't the only one's who have committed terrible acts. The Norwegian was a christian fundamentalist. We should learn that all religions have terrorist group, and not point the figure at one specific religion and say they are the cause of everything or the most. the vast majority of terrorist attacks are non religious. In the U.S a large part of terrorism is caused by Eco terrorism and animal rights terrorism. left wing terrorism any many circumstances is higher than right wing terrorism. So we can see than no one political ideology has the monopoly on terrorism. There should be no racial profiling, because anyone can be a terrorist. Not just one group. I think if people need to be stopped on an airport they should stop everybody. If there is real danger of an attack then the safest way to stop attacks is to watch out for everyone. If we watch out for a certain group then we allow big gaps in security which leads to other terrorist groups committing the crime. we have to learn from history to never assume that one group is responsible for everything. because there is lot's of blame for terrorism to go around.

Problem with Rebuilding

Me like many Liberals are facing an identity crisis. We have no longer became the natural governing party of Canada we are rather seen as another left wing party. In order for us to rebuild we need to attract the votes that we lost which are old Green party voters that latter turned orange. I am not a green party person, but I have always kind of liked Elisabeth May. My support for her has dwindled lately. As I always agreed with her on a Carbon tax, High speed rail , legalizing pot, green jobs and democratic reform. ever since the beginning I knew the greens where very much to the left, and knew the Liberals where of course the party I wanted to win, but I always thought that there left policies would be okay for me as long as the issue's I stated above was still in there platform. In 2008 when Dion made a deal with May to help her get elected in Central Nova I was hoping for May to kick out Peter McKay. in 2011 I felt we could have helped her win SGI. I supported her in SGI not because she was better than the Liberal candidate, but because she was the only person I felt could have won. If you have the leader of the greens running in a riding it will create a split of the left vote. I felt that In order to beat the Conservative Gary Lunn Elisabeth May was the only Viable candidate. Clearly she was since she won the riding. Now if we want to those old Liberal voters who moved to the Green and then the NDP we have to attract them  back, by making it so that we are united with the greens to eliminate Harper. I am no green party person , but the having a more Greens in Parliament is much better than having the Conservatives.How we do this is we help another Green get elected in West Vancouver sunshine coast- sea to sky country. Where we got 22% and 3rd place and the greens got 7% the Conservative got 45%. If the Greens put a high profile candidate in the riding and we eliminate our Liberal candidate, and ask the Liberals in the riding to unite to beat Harper. In return the Greens would take out some of there candidates to make up the loss we lose in West Vancouver. I chose Toronto as it is the place we need to start rebuilding. Pickering Scarborough east (where we lost by 1200 votes and the Greens got 1600) Don Valley east ( where we lost by 2% and the greens got 3%), Don Valley west (Where we lost by 1% the greens got 3%), Etobicoke Center (where we lost by a few dozen votes the Greens got 3%) and of course Etobicoke lakeshore (where we lost by 5% and the greens got 4% we can still make up the difference I think) If we also shift our policies to democratic reform, Carbon tax and legalizing pot all worthwhile ideas that many Liberals support we can help make the case to the green voters that we are helping Greens getting elected, and eliminating Harper. This will also help us rebuild our Toronto base and stop Harper from getting another majority in 5 years.

P.S there are many other riding's that we the Greens can help the Liberals I just used Toronto, because we really need to rebuild our base there.

Political Rights

My condolences to the families of the 92 people killed in the Norway attacks. It is a horrible thing to kill children and terrible to kill fellow human beings in the first place.

News has come out that the killer belonged to party promoting intolerance to immigrants, particularly Muslims as tehy think that a lot of them are terrorists. This incident just goes to show that anyone, regardless of ethnicity can be evil. The Norwegian PM is right when he called that there needs to be more transparency and more openness. Moving into the future, we must be more tolerant and accept other human beings.

OSLO, July 23 (Reuters) - The Norwegian charged with killing at least 92 people in a gun and bomb massacre had belonged to an anti-immigration party and wrote blogs attacking multiculturalism and Islam.

Police said Anders Behring Breivik, detained by police after 85 people were gunned down at a youth camp and another 7 killed in a bomb attack on Friday, was unknown to them and his Internet activity traced so far included no calls to violence.

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Accused+Norway+killer+attacked+multiculturalism+online/5149857/story.html#ixzz1Sxik9qwx

Pigheadedness Makes us Uncomfortable

Every summer, the topic comes up: why don't we have AC on Montreal's public transit. The basic answer is that our pigheaded mayor, Gérald Tremblay insists that it's too expensive and it decreases fuel efficiency, thereby harming the environment. Yet, poll any transit rider and ask them if they would pay more for air conditioning and they will say yes. Who really wants to take a hot crowded bus? Nobody. AC would attract more transit riders and that's why Montreal should catch up to the standard being adopted around the world. Montreal needs comfortable and cool Metros and buses.

MONTREAL - If you rode a bus or métro in Montreal on Thursday, chances are you arrived at your destination hot, damp – and more than a bit cranky.
The searing temperatures on the Société de transport de Montréal’s transit network are a reality of life in this city.

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/Montreal+m%c3%a9tro+stations+become+underground+saunas/5141074/story.html#ixzz1SqNv4AwH

Canada Taking a Stand!

If there is one thing I agree with the Conservative party it would probably be some of there foreign policy decision. Canada will not go to the The Conference on Disarmament, because North Korea is the chair of the conference. That is more than insane! We should boycott that conference till North Korea the only nation in the world that withdrew from the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. That's like Libya on the Human rights council...Wait they were on the Human Rights council, And Saudi Arabia is on that council as well.... Interesting. On the commission's the status of women Iran and Thailand are on that council. Who picks these guys. That answer is the countries in the UN. That means countries like Libya can vote to elect countries that have similar human rights as them to get elected into the council, so that they can continue to what they are doing. Don't think it is just a few bad nations on these council. The Human rights council has more countries that aren't at all democratic than countries that are democratic. I have nothing against the UN, but the UN must restructure we don't want the people who are at the bottom of the barrel pointing at people that are clearly higher than them. That is why maybe it would be a smart move take North Korea the country that has been aiming for nuclear weapons shouldn't be the chair of the department that is suppose to look into countries like North Korea. I never though I would want to quote John Baird, but I give credit where credit is due.

"North Korea's chairmanship undermines the integrity of both the disarmament framework and of the United Nations, and Canada simply will not support that."

This is why we should continue to fight to eliminate other countries that are against the values of the council they are in. I think for many of the councils in the UN we should make a study to find out which countries are the best in practicing the values of that council, and then the top countries get in the council then we can have the people on the top look down at the people on the bottom

"It puts one of the world's worst offenders in the chair. It hurts the crediblity of the United Nations and it's a blow to any meaningful effort at disarmament," said Baird. "I think there's a lot of symbolism here but I think it is important that Canada put forward its voice strongly on this issue."

Read more here

Cut, Cut, Cut

Stephen Harper would like to cut 4 billion dollars in spending in order to help balance the budget. knowing Harper these cuts of course attacks agencies he is against like Environment Canada that will be getting a 21% cut this year. which is over 220 million dollars in cuts. Now I am all for balancing budget's, And I support cuts, but I think we need shared cuts around the board. The cuts should of course depend on the countries priorities. The Conservative Priorities are represented quite nicely under the current cuts. Cut Statistics Canada, Environment Canada, Natural resources Canada, the Royal Canadian mounted police. It seems that these cuts effect agencies that Harper doesn't like a lot. In fact one of the biggest agencies that are getting the cuts is of course Environment Canada which as I said is getting cut by more than 20%. Most of the cuts are climate change research and scientist. The parts of the budget that is getting more money is of course correctional services which don't need any more money as are crime rates are already low, and are rehabilitation rates are very good. This money is just really going to build more prisons. OOh! I know where Harper can find billions of dollars in cuts and he won't need to cut important agencies like Canada' Research council. He could just cut 10 billion in mega prisons and another 30 billion in jets. We can also put the corporate tax rate at 18% and more than balance the budget, so we can put in policies like national Day Care system, or a National Pharma care system. Or just Maybe make all the family tax cuts promises Harper made to voters during the election. It seems Harper's priorities are already made.

1. Big Corporations
2. Prisons
3. Jets
......
100. Hard Working Canadians
....
125. Health care
.....
Last: Environment

Carbon Tax helps Seniors!

Many people think that a Carbon Tax doesn't help anybody especially struggling seniors. In Australia where a Carbon Tax is being proposed thanks to the Greens in Australia, the Labor party and a few independents. Now Australia will join many other nations that have a carbon tax that will combat climate change. In Australia pensioners will be an extra 200 dollars off every year. This 200 dollar increase is well above the actual money needed to compensate them for the carbon tax. I will agree 200 dollars isn't a lot, but it proves that people can be not effected by a carbon tax. Canada is officially moving backwards, and considering people think that a carbon tax is considered political suicide although might I just say we did better in 2008 with a carbon tax then we did in 2011 without one. A carbon tax is actually very popular in Canada in 2008 over 60% of Canadians like a carbon tax. The only problem is that we split that 60% with the other left wing parties even though they aren't proposing a carbon tax.

The Republicans are Getting Old part 3

Other issue's the Republicans stay constant is there obsessive ideology that if you have free markets everything will be okay.

Free Market:
Is the corner stone of any good Republican. This idea of freeing capitalism has been the litmus test for quite a while. If you ain't for eliminating "red tape" then you are "bad for America." Michelle Bauchman even wanted to eliminate the EPA! When ever there is a recession the Republicans must blame regulation even though Countries like Canada who had stronger regulations on our banks survived the recession better.

appalling Values :
I have nothing against the family values of the Republican party, but I do have a problem with how they show it. The Republicans have always been more interested in Big business instead of helping middle income families. Instead of supporting a universal health care system they want to go the pro business way of letting companies continue to make cost more expensive so they can make more profit. The Republicans give there  tax cuts or money to first major industries then the rich then foreign countries then to pork projects for things like (pickle technology) then they consider cutting taxes on the middle class, but if the middle class gets a 1% tax cut the rich must get at lets a 1.01% tax cut.

Everyone Can get a Job:
The Republicans like to make Americans feel that anyone can be a rich millionaire, but the system that the U.S currently has where the rich gets richer and the poor get poorer. In fact the top 500 incomes in the U.S. is equivalent to the bottom 50% of the country. The system the Republican want to create where there is no room for middle income (an endangered specious in the U.S) or for that matter the lower income to climb the economic ladder.

The Republicans are Getting Old part 2 (Part 3 will come soon)

Republican morals have of coursed seem the same at least in the capital. one of the most pointless morals that Republican politicians tend to agree with is that

Drugs are Bad!
Republicans, have always were against Marijuana legalization and are always ready like Stephen Harper to spend billions of dollars putting the people who use marijuana (a substance less addicting then coffee and less harmful then Alcohol) in prison. The Republican Idea of "War on drugs is getting very old"

The Rich create jobs.
We all know since a very long time ago that the Republicans believe that if you give a billionaires 1 million dollars somehow a middle income family will all of a sudden increase. During the Regan years where the rich got there taxes almost cut to 1/3 the size the rich got richer and average income for everyone else increased by about nothing. Reaganomics don't work fiscally as the debt ballooned during his years (the Republicans should think next time they praise his policies), and it didn't work in increasing income for middle and lower income Americans. Trickle down economics don't work yet all the Republicans currently are offering more tax cuts for the rich and almost nothing for the poor.

The Republicans are Getting Old! Part 1

The Republicans leaders all over the U.S are getting any new material, and quite frankly I am getting a little sick of proving there ideology wrong, but let's summaries there whole platform shall we.

1. Cut spending
seems simple and okay enough, but where? well they want to cut medicare and medicaid, which would leave seniors and poor income Americans with more bills that can't afford currently. What is there plans to help these people nothing!!! They claim they are saving medicare and to be true they are in a way by making it less expensive, but by doing that they are making medicare less helpful to the people who need it.

2 the debt of the future
If I had a nickle for every time I heard a Republican say the words "this debt will crush are children" or "the Government is going to leave this mountain of debt on are children." I would probably have enough money to pay off this years deficit. While I agree debt is bad long-term, and the U.S currently has a structural deficit I don't see that as an excuse not to raise taxes as a part of stooping this debt on our children.  which brings me to the third point

3. "No new taxes"
The Republicans are crazy when they hear the word tax. If there isn't the word "cut" next to it they go crazy saying this is no time to raise taxes. Well then why can't I say this is no time to stop giving aid to seniors or to the poor especially when it comes to medicine. Even a tax on the very rich who defiantly don't need it would somehow "kill the economy", but taking money out of medicare won't hurt the economy. Come on get real the Rich in the U.S are beeing taxed like nothing compared to other countries (that are developed).

Cut Defense!!!!!!!!!

The Defense budget in the U.S is 20% of the U.S budget. That is of course double than what it was in 2001. If the U.S wants to get back to the surplus years of the 1990's then they will have too cut into defense heavily. Except a lot of the defense spending is in the two wars one is almost finished except there is 50,000 troops still left in Iraq, and Afghanistan is slowly going to be stopped. Not much savings so far. This means that the U.S should maybe look at the pentagon which is spending over 500 billion dollars a year. Maybe look into massive cuts into the pentagon. Even though most people would agree the pentagon needs a lot of money, and I agree with that, but if the U.S wants to reduce the deficit than they are going to need to cut important aspects of the budget. And to be truthful the pentagon is spending a much more than before. I am not saying kill the pentagon, but cut it by 80 billion minimum this year alone. The U.S should also cut homeland security, and many other security programs that have billion of dollars in the budget that the U.S can't sustain. Here in Canada we have a defense budget of about 7% , and it doesn't need to grow any more in fact with the mission in Afghanistan ending the defense budget should lower in value of the total budget. We don't need a big army. We don't have any country to fear except maybe North Korea and Iran and they have bigger fish to fry, and nevertheless we do have allies with similar defense spending then us who can join in if needed.Our defense funding is fine where it is now we have the 13th highest defense budget in the world. The U.S is of course way on top of the packed and can afford (or really needs to) cut it's military capacity.

By taking a holistic approach, $80 billion could be slashed from the $553 billion the Pentagon has requested for 2012, the authors say. Expensive projects ill-suited for today's wars -- like missile defense and the V-22 Osprey -- would be cut.

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Gay Rights Moving Forwards

Even though I don't support Civil Unions, because they aren't enough Gay people should be given complete marriage rights, but In Rhode Island a bill passed to give civil unions to Gay couples in that state. Now that means that all the new England states either have full marriage or civil unions. Hawaii and Delaware will allow Civil unions in 2012. Of course this still isn't enough the majority of state's still don't give anything to gay people in respects of civil unions or marriage, but at least thanks to the momentum of New York some progress is being done, and hopefully more states will soon allow full marriage equality. In some states like Texas it has in it's constitution no same sex marriage or civil unions. That would mean a vote would have to be held to overturn that piece of constitution in order to allow it.

Meanwhile, gay rights activists -- like Marriage Equality Rhode Island -- say that while they support the civil union bill, they would prefer legislation that permits same-sex couples to wed.

  Of course even if all states legalized Gay marriage if the federal government doesn't recognize it then many rights aren't granted.

Federal recognition, however, was not a part of Friday's vote, leaving benefits like Social Security and ease of immigration largely out of reach for same-sex couples.

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