Bootstraps For All

Dedicated to US Domestic Politics at the Federal and State Level. Specifically the GOP, Tea Party, and BOOSTRAPS! supporters everywhere.

[whiskeydaisy-deactivated2015080]

For people interested in U.S. voting rights issues, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU’s School of Law has got you covered.

[bootstrapsforall-blog]

SCOTUS: "But it totes cool, we can obviously trust the local governments to protect people's voting rights!"

[14kgoldupgraded]

The Supreme Court’s decision puts millions of voters at risk, but the fight for voting rights remains! Sign our petition to Congress today.

I’m really not one for petitions to Congress in that I know Congress doesn’t actually give a shit about citizens. But it is a good way to show some solidarity.

[twodotsknowwhy]

Within four hours of the Supreme Court's decision, two states have announced new voting laws

North Carolina is moving forward with a Voter ID law and Texas

has implemented voter id and is redistricting.

You almost have to admire their ballsiness. They are basically saying that they know these laws discriminate against minorities but the only reason that they haven’t enacted them until now is that they weren’t allowed to

[the-goddamazon-deactivingsoon-d]

All the Red States finna hop on this shit with the quickness.

[think-progress]

There were plenty of terrible Supreme Court decisions recently:

— Gutted voting rights (Texas is already trying to suppress minority voters).

— Stomped on workers’ rights, leaving them vulnerable to sexual and racial harassment.

— Protected mega-corporations from liability.

— Undermined environmental progress.

— Increased your prescription drug costs. 

— Allowed police to access your DNA without a warrant. 

— Sided with giant corporation Monsanto over a soybean farmer. 

— Rolled back human rights protections *Updated

[commune-or-nothing]

* Thirty million workers are making less today than workers made in 1968, adjusted for inflation. Had the minimum wage kept pace with inflation over these forty-five years, it would be $10.56 per hour instead of the current federal minimum wage of $7.25

* While the minimum wage has lost nearly 33 percent of its value since 1968,average CEO compensation has skyrocketed over 900 percent.[i]

* Raising the minimum wage would stimulate the economy. Raising the minimum wage to $10.50 per hour would add at least $30 billion in additional spending to the economy each year for a two-year period.

* For every dollar increase to the hourly pay of a minimum wage worker, the result is $2,800 in new consumer spending from that worker’s household over the year.

* The United States has one of the lowest minimum wages when compared with other western, industrialized countries. Australia’s minimum wage is more than double the minimum wage in the United States – about $16 per hour. Of ten countries with minimum wages higher than the United States’, eight of them have unemployment rates lower than ours.[ii]

[bootstrapsforall-blog]

Obviously the CEOs just have sturdier bootstraps. 

Meanwhile those making minimum wage are lucky to own boots. 

[postleoism]

[bootstrapsforall-blog]

White Student Union (Vice Documentary)

[buffleheadcabin]

Half of Americans below or near poverty line

[bootstrapsforall-blog]

The Census Bureau says 15 percent of the country is living in poverty, but the reality is much worse

Obviously this isn't the fault of capitalism, just people getting lazier and lazier.   We blame the internet.

[workingamerica]

via Blue Street Journal on Facebook

[bootstrapsforall-blog]

It's almost like the system's stacked in favor of the wealthy.

[liberalsarecool]

A George Mason University study finds that Republican claims are far more likely than those made by Democrats to be rated false by the fact-checking site PolitiFact.

Some major findings:

PolitiFact rated 32% of Republican claims as “false” or “pants on fire,”...

[bootstrapsforall-blog]

We don't need facts.  We have truthiness. 

[revolutionary-afrolatino-deacti]

China denounces America’s treatment of Afro-descendants

“In conclusion, The People’s Republic of China demands that America stop using their cry of human rights violations against other sovereign nations in order to declare war on them to steal their resources when America flagrantly violates the human rights of Afro-descendants and other minorities within its own country.”

this article just drops stat. after stat. on the racial inequalities in the U.S. good read.

[jethroq]

When China calls out your shit about human rights. And has the numbers to back it up. Then you know you’ve fucked up.

[bootstrapsforall-blog]

But we already provided them with boostraps, what more can you want?

[workingamerica]

REBLOG if you agree that something is very wrong with this picture.

[bootstrapsforall-blog]

Obviously people who start out with wealth are just better that pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.

[corporationsarepeople]

[bootstrapsforall-blog]

But Bootstraps... and welfare state...

[workingamerica]

A new report shows the real cost of Walmart’s low wages: a single 300-employee Walmart Supercenter in Wisconsin may cost taxpayers anywhere from $904,542 to nearly $1.75 million per year, or about $5,815 per employee. While taxpayers foot the bill for subsidized housing assistance, the food-stamp program, child-care subsidies, energy assistance, and reduced school meals for Walmart’s low-paid workers, Walmart profits.

LIKE and SHARE if you didn’t agree to subsidize Walmart!

Learn more here: http://1.usa.gov/17zQJot

via American Rights at Work on Facebook

[thenationmagazine-blog]

I have no fear of being retaliated against, because the whole reason that I’m speaking out is bigger than me… I’m more scared about my son one day having to work for Walmart.

Striking Walmart employee Dominic Ware, who is part of the first ever prolonged strikes that kicked off this morning at Walmarts in three states. Josh Eidelson has the story. (via thenationmagazine)

But everyone who wants a union or cares about workers rights it lazy right?

[politishaun-deactivated20230409]

Bob Dole gets it wrong. The GOP shouldn't be closed for repairs, it should be condemned.

[bootstrapsforall-blog]

Luckily we're America where things (like bridges) that should have been condemned years ago still enjoy every day use and popularity. 

[jayaprada]

As a result, Texas is not the nation’s most populous state but nonetheless sports “the nation’s highest number of workplace fatalities.” When it comes to industrial disasters, the Times notes that Texas has only about a quarter more “high risk” sites than the state (Illinois) with the second most number of such facilities. However, it has, according to the Times, “more than three times the number of accidents, four times the number of injuries and deaths, and 300 times the property damage costs” as that state. If all this data was about a terrorist threat, the reaction would be swift - negligent federal agencies would be roundly criticized and the specific state’s lax attitude toward security would be lambasted. Yet, after the fertilizer plant explosion, there has been no proactive reaction at all, other than Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry boasting about his state’s “comfort with the amount of oversight” that already exists. So, again, why the discrepancy? Simply put, because this is what now passes for acceptable in a deregulated economy whose laws are written by corporate interests. Those interests are hostile to safety regulation and enforcement because they don’t want to spend even a tiny bit more on making worksites secure for employees. So they, and the politicians whose campaigns they fund, have made an epithet out of the word “regulation” in order to guarantee that almost nobody asks whether we have to tolerate 4,500 dead American workers each year.

If West, Texas Had Been a Terrorist Attack

(via prosveshcheniye)

[stfuconservatives]

Bloomberg Business has an exciting new promotion: Parents are invited to use a ripoff someecard to tell their recent college graduate to move the fuck out. Bonus: 12 free issues of Bloomberg Businessweek! Because reading about business will make you better at finding a job.

I wanted to see what kind of life-changing career advice they were offering, and here’s one of the most popular videos from their front page: Why can’t McDonald’s serve Egg McMuffins all day? When you move out and buy a house and car and pay back your student loans early on your McDonald’s salary, you’ll have Bloomberg Businessweek to thank!!!

So do get it, recent grads? It’s your fault the economy is in the tank. Because you’re a drain on the economy for taking out college loans and being unable to find a job that pays above minimum wage after your graduate. Because you caused the housing bubble and the bank meltdowns. Because your generation are the ones in Congress letting Wall Street CEOs slide and not increasing the minimum wage and rewarding mega-corporations with tax writeoffs. Oh, wait, that was your parents! Tee hee. Move out, slacker!

This actually reminded me of one of my favorite Onion articles: Study finds college education leaves most graduates unprepared to carry entire American economic recovery

(Bonus points for anyone else who snickered that they abbreviate themselves to BBW)

(ETA: if you scroll all the way to the bottom, you will see that they issued a micro-apology acknowledging that Millennials did not in fact ruin the economy)