Here’s an archive of my politics notes from March 2010 to October 2010. Once a month I’ll try and update this to reflect new things I’ve learned.

• Defense - US has 4.5% population, 20% of budget goes to defense, US spends more in defense than next 15 countries combined, 47% of world’s total military spending, US outspends Iran & North Korea 72 x 1
• Reagan - raised taxes 6 times, for no nuclear weapons
• How come the Catholic Church’s crimes not fall under Rico laws of organized crime?
• Eisenhower - signed civil rights bill, massive government highway system, blew whistle on MIC, 92% tax rate on the rich, expanded the New Deal
• 20 years ago the top 6 banks had 17%, now they have 63%
• Top 10% own 70% of wealth, top 1%’s taxes didn’t increase proportionally with income tripling, wall street made more than combined budget gaps of all 50 states, top 25 hedge fund managers made more than all NYC police & fire & teachers & NFL & MLB & NBA, paid only 15% vs 40% tax
• Even if we don’t believe in climate change the rest of the world does and they make money off of it
• OECD - 30 countries - US child poverty over 20% (double the average), widest gap between rich & poor, tax share 4th from bottom (4th lowest), used to be #1 in college, now #14, no child care & retirement & job retraining & college & sick & senior care like all the other countries
• Republican party sued for vote caging in 1981
• Reagan Racism - opposed 1964 civil rights act, opposed 1965 voting rights act, spoke of states rights (pro segregationist), opposed MLK day, sided with South African government
• The 25 states with the highest lynching rates per capita also supported Bush in 2000 & 2004
• No AA Republicans in congress since 2003
• US unemployment at 9.3%, Germany at 8.2%
• Europeans work 1,500 hours/year (US 2,300 hours/year)
• Mosque near Ground Zero - treat Muslims different than everyone else, two blocks away, should government stop it, private property, private church, Muslims murdered during 9/11 (70 of them), to cave would be handing victory to terrorists, separation of church and state
• Since 1990 - median income went up 20%, college costs rose 43-60%, housing rose 56%, health care rose 155%
• 40% of stimulus was a tax cut
• US #10 in upward mobility behind France & Germany
• Who are we taking America back from? Pretty sure we as Americans still have it
• Each senator from CA represents 18.5 million people, from DE 200,000 people
• No one accused Eisenhower of being socialist with 91% tax rate
• During Bush tax cuts - median wage kept dropping
• Clinton created 21 million jobs vs Bush 8 million
• Where would demand come from if it wasn’t for the stimulus?
• Friendly fire during wars - 21% WWII, 39% Vietnam, 59% Gulf War
• Cost of wars - $3.7 trillion over next decade
• All other countries who went into Iraq had openly gay military (except Iran)
• Ten commandments - no mention of rape, incest, genocide
• Good things Obama did - best month for the stock market since 1939, prevented depression, stopped banks on student loans, got out of Iraq (for most part), nuclear treaty with Russia
• Bible - wrote by traveling herdsmen, how do they have knowledge of history of the world
• Tarp & stimulus - saved more jobs than lost
• Stimulus - 40% tax cuts, CBO says saved 1 million jobs, without stimulus unemployment would be at 13% instead of 9%, bailouts worked & we got our money back
• Stimulus break down - $787 B, $288 B tax cuts, $275 stimulus, $233 food stamps & unemployment
• $20 B Bush loaned to GM we’re not getting back
• Reagan bailed out Chrysler
• We’re spending twice per student than we did 20 years ago
• Rich & Poor divide - top 20% received 49.4% all income, bottom 20% earned 3.4% of all income (ratio of 14.5 to 1 up from 13.8 to 1 in 2008, double 7.68 to 1 in 1968), 18 - 34 year olds largest jump in poverty, home ownership declined to 65.9% (67.3% in 2006)