Why Republicans Lose Elections

The following guest article was contributed today by my good friend and "Great" American, Fernando Nieves. There will be more on Nieves in the coming weeks, as I am planning a feature story on his incredible journey from being born and raised in Venezuela through his quest to become an American Citizen (legally) and achieving the American Dream!

I agree with my friend Jimmy Lewis, regarding his previous article on Sarah Palin ( http://rougerevival.blogspot.com/2008/11/sarah-palin-go-ahead-make-her-day.html ). Governor Palin does not deserve this at all, ("They used this woman … and then when they were finished, they threw her under the bus".) and that’s part of what has been wrong with the Republican Party, which has control the US government for the last 8 years in the white house and 10 out of the last 10 years in the congress.

It occurs to me that republicans ought to perform a serious soul search, analyze their own performance with objectivity, before blaming the “liberal media”, the democrats, and yes Sarah Palin. Here is what I have noticed: These people are not protecting the interest this great nation; on the contrary, they only protect their own interest and the interest of the good ol' boy network and big business.

Quite frankly the Republican Party needed a kick in the ass like this so they can get back to true conservative values (small government and FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY), something that they left behind during GWB administration. An example of this behavior is GWB tax cuts. The Tax Policy Center of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution has analyzed these two tax-cut measures and they found the following:

· Some 54 percent of the tax cuts from these two measures will go to households with incomes of more than $1 million a year, the top 0.2 percent of households, Another 43 percent of the tax-cut benefits will go to the 3.5 percent of households with incomes between $200,000 and $1 million. Thus, 97 percent of the tax cuts from these two provisions will go to the 3.7 percent of households with incomes over $200,000.
· That leaves only 3 percent of the tax-cut benefits for the 96 percent of U.S. households with incomes below $200,000. That 3 percent of the tax cuts will go almost entirely to households in the $100,000-$200,000 range. Essentially none of the benefits will flow to families with incomes under $100,000 (see table below).
· High-income households already are receiving extremely large tax cuts without these two new tax-cut measures. According to the Tax Policy Center, households with incomes of more than $1 million are receiving tax cuts that average $103,000 this year, and will receive tax cuts averaging $108,000 in 2010, from the other income-tax cuts included in the 2001 and 2003 tax-cut laws. (The Tax Policy Center estimates that when the effects of repeal of the estate tax are taken into account, those in this very high income group will receive tax cuts averaging $133,000 in 2010 from tax cuts other than the two measures discussed here.) The Tax Policy Center’s analysis shows that adding in the two tax-cut provisions slated to start taking effect in 2006 will bring the total tax cut for people with incomes over $1 million to $152,000, on average, in 2010. (These figures are in 2010 dollars.)

Note: Republicans in congress are calling to make the tax cut permanent.

Now, I do know that nobody wants to pay taxes, but to cut taxes and increased size of government and expending like the GWB administration have done was immoral and irresponsible, and it makes the argument of “liberals are going to tax you to death” hard to defend, because at the end of the day, it does not take a rocket scientist to understand basic economics.

The next government(s), it will take years, will need to pay the debt, which the Bush Administration incurred in order to fund the same tax cuts I just illustrated above, which benefited only 3.7% of the American households. You all know who they are, and unfortunately I am not one of them, as I have seeing my income, savings and retirement funds diminishing like most Americans since the Bush Administration took office. At least I feel lucky, I am healthy, have a wonderful wife and both of us have jobs, and I know that there are far too many Americans unemployed that have lost everything and the worst is yet to come. I pray for them.

Back to fixing the mess GWB policies have helped create, the new government will also need to pay for national security (the military, security at the border, etc), and to pay for other services such as rebuilding the nation infrastructure and yes bail out all these corporations which in my book constitute as corporate socialism. Also, repair the reputations of America in the international community, let us not forget the rest of the scandals, the justice department (Alberto Gonzalez), the you “doing a heck of Job Brownie” (FEMA during Katrina), throwing under the bus a CIA secret agent, only because her husband uncovered the truth that Sadam really did not have a nuclear program, nor was trying to hide WMDs, “water boarding is not torture”, etc. These cumulative abuses of power have created the monster we now called President elect Barak Obama.

As an independent conservative, that’s what I consider myself now, I found myself at odds, trying to defend the un-defendable, thus I consider myself as a former republican, and for that reason I decided not to vote. By the way, I can also say proudly that I can never force myself to vote for a democrat, thus my reason to be upset with the current republicans; as they almost made me do the unthinkable, vote for a liberal.

Finally, all politics aside, I also happen to disagree with the selection of Gov Sarah Palin as a VP candidate, even tough I believe that she has accomplished a lot, and done well for herself. However, having said all of that I believe the Republican Party selected the wrong candidates period. Both candidates! I believe that both McCain not Palin were president material by any stretch of the imagination, and once again that demonstrated to me that the Republican Party was out of touch with the American people, and the reason they have to use a crazy dude from Toledo Ohio, a mythical character no less (Joe the Plumber) as it turned out, that wasn’t his name nor his true profession, as it was a way to prove to the American people that they really were the party for the middle class … that’s how much out of touch there are.

Once again putting politics first before the well being of the country, and by doing so they deserved what they got; a huge defeat in the election.

But as my friend Jimmy Lewis, always says:

“Keep The Faith,”

Fernando

Mickey Mouse - Forever Young

Anyone of us Baby Boomers, whose childhood spanned between the mid 1950’s through the mid 60’s, can not help but hold dear, fond memories of the Mickey Mouse Club.

It was eighty years ago today that Mickey Mouse starred in Steamboat Willie, known as the first animated talking cartoon (created by Walt Disney who provided the squeaky voice himself) and considered a technological marvel. The iconic mouse had actually gone from its initial concept of a hard-drinking, tobacco-chewing and womanizing character to the squeaky-voiced, squeaky-clean mascot of his entire company and, some say, America.

"Never forget that it all started with a mouse," Walt Disney used to tell his employees, to illustrate the fact that the empire he had built was created in the image of the American dream. It was created out of nowhere and started small. After all, what is smaller than a mouse? But thanks to the creativity, the initiative and primarily the ambition and determination of a young architect … as Disney was 27 years old when he created the character of Mickey Mouse … it grew and developed into one of the largest and strongest empires in the history of the entertainment business, and of contemporary capitalism in general.

That said, he also became the most famous cultural export of the United States, so much so, that he unfortunately became associated with its values and global dominance, which prompted a Saudi Arabian official to call upon the extermination of all mice as they are "agents of Satan, including that famous cartoon mouse". His charisma is thought to have such a sway on young people that the Palestinian group Hamas devised its own mouse, “Farfour”, who advised children to take up armed struggle. Unlike his immortal American cousin, Farfour was eventually beaten to death by "the killers of children".

Nichola Dobson, an Edinburgh, Scotland based scholar, who is currently completing a book on animation history and is the editor of the online journal, Animation Studies, highlighted the bizarre nature of Mickey's progress from cute character to universal emblem of American capitalism:

"Because he's become so commercialized, people use him as a target to say, ‘This is what's wrong with corporate America.' But in actual fact he's just this wee mouse guy that was quite funny, and a sorcerer's apprentice."

Considered to be the leader of all the Disney characters (“the leader of the pack that’s made for you and me”), he was actually semi-retired in the early 1940s. He did however make his incredible return through the creation of the Mickey Mouse Club in the 50’s and A Mickey Mouse Christmas Carol in the 80’s.

In the recent Presidential election, if you would have tallied up all the write-in votes from any and all elections across America over these past 80 years, Mickey Mouse would have given Barack Obama a run for his money. In fact, this past November 4th, both Mickey and Jesus received the highest amount of write-in votes nationwide. If there were a runoff (who knows how Florida would have gone were the election held there), based on the folks utilizing the write-in vote in Columbus, Ohio, Mickey would have won handedly.

Take the office of tax commissioner, for example, for which incumbent Lula Huff ran unopposed. Along with Gandhi … Scooby Doo, John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Judge Wapner, Pee Wee Herman, South Park’s ‘Man-Bear-Pig’, Joe The Plumber, Stephen Colbert, and Jesus … all got one write-in vote each. Mickey Mouse got seven.

“Never give up and everything is possible, especially if you are young … or young at heart!”

These are some of the All American values that Disney wanted to emphasize, to not only his employees, but to the world. He also bequeathed these values to his most famous cinematic hero, the little rodent who never gave up, always proving that anything is possible.

And even now, as we celebrate his 80th birthday, Mickey Mouse remains in our hearts and forever young.