January 23, 2012
The Very Well-to-Do Mitt Romney Wants to Give Himself a Tax Break – Mitt Romney pays a tax rate lower than most middle-class Americans. Even though Mitt is worth as much as $250 million, Republican candidate Mitt Romney believes his effective tax rate—the share of his income he pays in federal taxes—is as he put it, “probably closer to the 15 percent rate than anything…” But, under Mitt’s own tax plan, he’d pay only half of what he’d pay otherwise. Under his plan, Romney in 2013 would see his taxes cut by nearly half of what they would be if you use current law as a baseline.
Tennessee Tea Party Demands That the History of Slavery Be Removed From History Textbooks – The Tea Party of Tennessee wants to remove from history textbooks any incidents of slavery and genocide linked to the founders of the U.S. for fear those references would tarnish the image of the Founding Fathers. Regarding education, the material they distributed said, “Neglect and outright ill will have distorted the teaching of the history and character of the United States. We seek to compel the teaching of students in Tennessee the truth regarding the history of our nation and the nature of its government.” The material calls for lawmakers to amend state laws governing school curriculums, and for textbook selection criteria to say that “No portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding Fathers, or the majority of citizens, including those who reached positions of leadership.”
What Republicans Did in One Year of Being in Charge of the U.S. House of Representatives – [All the wrong things.]
Held 3 votes to roll back workers’ rights
Held 3 votes to end Medicare as we know it
Held 4 votes to restrict women’s access to health care
Held 7 votes to keep unnecessary subsidies for oil companies
Held 10 anti-Consumer votes
Held 14 votes to repeal patient health care protections
Held 191 anti-environment votes
And introduced zero comprehensive jobs bills
House Republicans Included Almost 40 Anti-Environment Riders on the Omnibus Spending Bill – In one of their sneakiest moves yet, House Republicans included almost 40 anti-environment riders on the omnibus spending bill and the payroll tax cut extension. The good news is that most of the riders were cut from the spending bill. However, three survived: a provision to block funding to enforce new light bulb efficiency standard, a provision to exempt an aspect of Arctic drilling from Clean Air Act standards, and a provision that exempts the logging industry from Clean Water Act pollution limits.
There is more bad news. The spending bill also includes reduced funding for the DOE, the Department of the Interior and the EPA. The DOE received $1.5 billion less than fiscal year 2011 levels, but $1 billion more than the original House version and $200 million more than the Senate version. The Section 1705 loan guarantee program for renewable energy projects lost its remaining $181 million, and research and development funds for developing fossil fuels decreases by $51 million. Funding for EPA’s clean air and climate research program is reduced by $14 million. The EPA’s regulatory development office is reduced by $12 million, and the EPA’s air regulatory programs are reduced by $14 million.
Businessman Uses His Money to Control the Content of Public Higher Education – North Carolina businessman Art Pope — a confidant of the Koch Brothers – is trying to control the content of public education. In Pope’s world, the MO appears to be… Step 1: Persuade your politician friends to gut university budgets. Step 2: Give generously to the institutions that your friends recently gutted, so they can establish new programs aligned with your business interests.
At the same time that Pope’s network has been fighting to get university budgets cut, Pope has offered to fund academic programs in subjects that he deems worthwhile, like Western civilization and free-market economics. Some faculty members have seen Pope’s offers as attempts to buy academic control. Bill Race, the former chairman of the classics department at U.N.C.-Chapel Hill, said, “The Pope machine is narrow-minded and mean-spirited and poisoned the university.”
“It’s sad and blatant,” Cat Warren, an English professor at North Carolina State University, in Raleigh, who has been critical of Pope, says. “This is an organization that succeeds in getting higher education defunded, and then uses those cutbacks as a way to increase its leverage and influence over course content.”
Regards,
Jim
January 22, 2012
Civil Rights Voting Score For Republicans in the First Session of the 112th Congress is Dismal – The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights has released their report on the voting record for the first session of the 112th Congress.
The average score for Republican senators was only 3%. 79% of Republican senators earned a score of 0%.
By contrast, the average score for Democratic senators was 97.5%. 76% of Democratic senators earned a perfect score of 100%.
The average score for Republican in the House was only 15%. 15 Republicans in the House earned a score of 0%.
By contrast, the average score for Democrats in the House was 93.4 %. 43% of Democrats in the House earned a perfect score of 100%.
Texas Senate Republican Map Was Pre-Cooked – Senate staffer admits conspiring to write Redistricting Committee report BEFORE a committee hearing.
Yesterday, under cross examination in federal court, Doug Davis, the map drawer for the Republican Senate leadership, was forced to admit under oath that he worked secretly to get the Senate Committee report on redistricting written and the bill prepared BEFORE a single committee hearing had been held. Also, the scheme was underway before the public had been given an opportunity to view and comment on the plan.
Davis’ efforts were exposed by an email written from Texas Legislative Council lawyer David Hanna responding to the scheme by writing “No Bueno” and warning that such an effort would create a “paper trail” exposing the bill’s violation of the Voting Rights Act. The email was written only hours after the Republican redistricting plan had been posted to the State’s redistricting website. It confirms that Texas Republican leaders had no intention of listening to or responding to any comments from the public or accepting any substantive amendments from Senate Members. It further acknowledges their worries that the plan does not comply with the Voting Rights Act and may not survive legal review.
Privately-Run Prison Bankrupts Texas Town – The GEO Group, along with CCA (Corrections Corporation of America) are the two largest private prison and immigrant detention operators in the country. At an average rate of $200 per night/per inmate, private prison operators profit over $5 billion a year. How do they do it? Like con-artists, they lure town councils and local government officials with promises of easy money and increased revenue. However, what they don’t tell them is at what cost!
Littlefield, Texas found out the hard way. The GEO Group promised increased “product” (aka detained immigrants) and alleged prosperity for a town that was struggling with an economic crisis. Instead, what Littlefield got was a mega-complex private facility, an additional $10 million contractual debt, and a fleeing population.
CCA and the GEO Group have spent more than $20 million lobbying local, state and federal officials and in campaign contributions to candidates running for these offices. They do so to have more facilities built and to increase their already bloated profits – even if these immigrant detention centers are not needed.
Rick Perry’s Presidential Run Wasted Nearly $2.7 Million Taxpayer Dollars on Airfare, Baggage Fees, Food and Parking – According to records from the Texas Department of Public Safety, we can project Perry’s security-related travel costs from the day he officially announced his candidacy to when he suspended his campaign on January 19. The $2,651,429.14 in Texas tax dollars he’s wasted on jet liners and fancy hotels is money we’ll never see again unless Perry pays us back.
Luckily, Rick Perry can pay taxpayers back today. According to Rick Perry’s latest ethics report, his state PAC has $2.47 million in the bank. He could repay 93% of what he owes us today by writing one simple check.
Texas Releases More Climate Pollution Than Any Other State in the Country – A major report released last week by the Environmental Protection Agency showed that Texas releases more climate pollution than any other state in the country. In fact, Texas’ annual emissions are more than the next two most polluting states combined.
The four biggest pollution sources in Texas are all coal-fired power plants, and they’re owned by the same two companies: Luminant and NRG Energy.
It’s clear that Governor Perry has no intention of addressing this problem2 — so we need to make sure Luminant and NRG know that Texans want major reductions in air pollution.
Click on the link above and tell Luminant and NRG Energy: Texans deserve clean air. Invest in clean energy and stop dumping climate pollution into the atmosphere.
Regards,
Jim
January 19, 2012
What changed many of the promises of candidate Obama into either inaction or the adverse actions of President Obama? Here’s how I put it to the President recently.
RE: The Obamas by Jodi Kantor
Mr. President,
While listening to an interview of the author of The Obamas on Jon Stewart, I was reminded of another book by Phil Zimbardo.
In his book, The Lucifer Effect, Dr. Zimbardo details his research into what makes good people do evil things. He discusses how the environment contributes to the actions of the individual. How a “bad barrel” creates bad apples. How systemic causation works for, or against, one’s success.
Based on comments during this interview, I see The White House, as well as the broader U.S. Capital, as bad barrels, which have diverted you from your campaign promises and moral values.
That’s why I was also glad to also hear that Mrs. Obama has tried to keep you focused on why you ran for and became president.
Please Mr. President, during the final year in your term, please recognize that you are working in a “bad barrel” that is intent on changing you for the worse and adversely affecting the future of America for decades.
The “bad barrel” inside “the beltway” has been created by, for, and of the ONE%.
President GWB strengthened this bad barrel and President Obama has had difficulty resisting its enhanced capabilities.
January 18, 2012
On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Romney Campaigning With Anti-Immigrant Official Tied to Hate – On a day set aside to honor civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., Mitt Romney plans to tout his extreme immigration positions during a campaign stop in South Carolina today — with Kris Kobach, the author of Arizona’s and Alabama’s immigration laws, at his side. He will attack his competitors Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry for their softer immigration stances, which could resonate with South Carolina voters who support that state’s harmful immigration law. Kobach told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto that Romney was much farther to the right on illegal immigration than his fellow presidential candidates.
Before he became Kansas’ secretary of state, Kobach worked for Immigration Reform Law Institute, the legal branch of Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled as a “nativist hate group.”
Romney’s views on immigration are radical even in a field of candidates who appear to be competing to take the most radical views on this subject. But as extreme as Romney’s immigration stances have been, campaigning with an anti-immigrant official with ties to a hate group on Martin Luther King Day is beyond the pale.
Update on the above: – Romney opposes education benefits for undocumented residents, such as in-state tuition rates, which he calls a magnet for illegal migration. And he has promised to veto the proposed DREAM Act, which would provide legal status to the children of illegal immigrants who attend college or serve in the armed forces.
“I’m so proud to earn Kris’ support,” Romney said when accepting Kobach’s endorsement. “With Kris on the team, I look forward to working with him to take forceful steps to curtail illegal immigration…”
Republicans Boo Mention of Romney’s Father Being Born in Mexico – There were boos from the South Carolina audience when Fox News analyst Juan Williams mentioned that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s father was born in Mexico. Williams went on to note that Romney has taken a hard-line on immigration with a threatened DREAM Act veto and asked whether that would alienate Latino voters “that Republicans will need to win the general election.”
Republicans Boo Mention of the Golden Rule – Republicans in the South Caorlina Fox/Twitter Presidential debate loudly booed the Golden Rule in the context of foreign policy January 16. Ron Paul said:
My point is that if another country does to us what we do to others, we are not going to like it very much. I would say that we maybe ought to consider the Golden Rule in foreign policy. Don’t do to other nations what we don’t want them to do to us. We endlessly bomb these countries, and then we wonder why they get upset with us?
Rep. Paul’s remarks set off some of the loudest “boos” of the evening from the Republican audience, as well as mockery from his Republican opponents.
The Golden Rule is a key part of Christianity and all other major world religions.
But the Same Republicans Crowd Loves a Bullet in the Head – Just in case you sometimes get Mormons and Quakers confused, Mitt Romney cleared things up Monday night.
“Bin Laden got what he deserved,” Romney, a Mormon, said at a Republican debate in South Carolina. “A bullet in the head.”
The crowd, as debate crowds sometimes do, went wild.
Republican Governor Scott Walker Has Violated Wisconsin’s Campaign Finance Laws 1,115 Times since 2009 – One Wisconsin Now is reporting that Walker has violated the state of Wisconsin’s campaign finance laws 1,115 times since 2009. The total contributions in violation of Wisconsin statute 11.60(1) total $518, 096. One Wisconsin Now previously filed a complaint with the Government Accountability Board in September when Walker’s improperly-reported contribution tally was $235, 000 half of what it has risen to in the last several days., “Scott Walker has improperly reported well over $500, 000 in contributions from inside and outside of Wisconsin, ” said Scot Ross, One Wisconsin Now Executive Director. “Scott Walker has absolutely no interest in following the campaign finance rules of the state of Wisconsin and we again call for state regulators to address his serial violation of our laws.”
Ban on Sharia Law Not Based on Indiscriminate Fear of Muslims – The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Oklahoma’s ban on Sharia law. The opinion could not be clearer. The fear of Oklahoma courts being overrun with Sharia law was not grounded in reality, but simply an indiscriminate fear of Muslims. Specifically the order states, “Appellants do not identify any actual problem the challenged amendment seeks to solve. Indeed, they admitted at the preliminary injunction hearing that they did not know of even a single instance where an Oklahoma court had applied Sharia law or used the legal precepts of other nations or cultures, let alone that such applications or uses had resulted in concrete problems in Oklahoma.”
And You Think This Recovery is Slow – November 23, 1954 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average rises 3.27 points, or 0.86%, closing at an all-time high of 382.74. More significantly, this is the first time the Dow surpassed its 1929 peak level reached just before that year’s crash. Yes, a 25-year dip.
Regards,
Jim
January 16, 2012
The Republican Party’s History With Martin Luther King, Jr. Day – Today, we celebrate the life of a truly great man, who — armed only with his bravery and powerful words — brought Jim Crow to its knees. It’s also important to remember that the political heirs of those who created and enforced Jim Crow for a century — Southern conservatives — who are now running the Republican Party. And that’s why it’s easy to understand why the fiercest opposition to making MLK Day a national holiday was the Republican Party and Conservatives.
The last Republican candidate for president opposed it.
“Mr. Conservative” (Barry Goldwater) voted against the holiday.
Ron Paul voted against the bill that created the holiday — twice.
77 of the 90 nay votes in final bill in the House were cast by Republicans.
18 of the 22 nay votes in the final bill in the Senate were cast by Republicans.
And the Greatest American in the History of America, Ronald “States’ Rights” Reagan, only reluctantly signed the bill into law because it arrived on his desk with veto-proof majorities. Before he signed it, he said, “Congress seemed bent on making it a national holiday.”
That doesn’t sound like an endorsement.
Bank Attempting to Foreclose on Church Hit By Tornado in Dr. Martin Luther King’s Old Neighborhood – BB&T bank is attempting to foreclose on one of the oldest churches in Dr. Martin Luther King’s old Atlanta neighborhood. The Higher Ground Empowerment Center church was forced to take out a loan when a tornado devastated the property in 2008. BB&T bank has repeatedly ignored and refused requests to modify the church’s loan. All this while the bank benefited from a $3.1 billion bailout from the American people. Sign the petition to help stop this foreclosure and demand a fair loan modification for the historic church.
Supreme Court Hands Down More Decisions Favoring Wealthy Businesses Over the Rights of Everyday Americans – The Supreme Court has handed down more rulings that continue the pro-corporate pattern long established by Chief Justice John Roberts and the conservative majority. From AT&T to Wal-Mart, the Court has consistently favored the interests of wealthy businesses over the rights of everyday Americans.
Alliance for Justice’s recent report, How the Corporate Court Bends the Law to Favor the 1% (.pdf download), shows how the Court has not only strained to reach its pro-corporate decisions, but has actively sought out cases that can expand corporate power:
Supreme Court Finds No Federal Remedy for Constitutional Violations by Private Prison Contractors – Already unable to sue the private companies that operate many prisons, prisoners under the Court’s new ruling cannot sue employees of those corporations in federal court for misconduct. The Supreme Court issued its decision on Jan 10th in Minneci v. Pollard (.pdf download), holding that employees of a private corporation operating a federal prison may not be held liable under federal law for committing constitutional violations. In so doing, the Court has left the 16% of the federal prison population that resides in privately-run facilities without a federal remedy when their jailers violate their constitutional rights.
Richard Lee Pollard was incarcerated in a federal prison in Taft, California. The prison was operated under contract by a private company, Wackenhut Corrections Corp. (now part of the Geo Group). In April 2007, Pollard tripped over a cart that had been left in the hallway, fell, and broke both of his elbows. Prison employees forced him to use his broken arms in painful ways, refused to provide the splints recommended by his doctors, and made him engage in prison tasks before his injuries had healed. The Supreme court says, tough luck, there’s nothing you can do about it.
Supreme Court Rules Once Again That Big Business May Force Arbitration – The Court decided that a “right to sue” doesn’t actually mean “a right to sue in court.” The Supreme Court issued its decision in CompuCredit v. Greenwood (.pdf download), ruling once again that corporations may force individual consumers to arbitrate their claims, thereby restricting consumers’ access to the courts.
Plaintiff consumers filed a class action lawsuit against CompuCredit and other credit providers after signing up for a credit card that was advertised to consumers with low or weak credit scores as helping to “rebuild your credit, “rebuild poor credit,” and “improve your credit rating.” Although the credit providers’ promotional materials stated that consumers would immediately receive $300 in available credit, consumers were charged $257 in fees in the first year, plus the interest that would accrue if the fees were not immediately paid. The consumers sued the companies for their deceitful tactics under the Credit Repair Organization Act (“CROA”) and California’s Unfair Competition Law. CompuCredit moved to dissolve the class action and force each plaintiff to settle his or her own complaint in binding arbitration.
Although Congress specifically required companies like CompuCredit to inform their customers: “You have a right to sue a credit repair organization that violates the Credit Repair Organization Act,” the Court held that the arbitration clause in CompuCredit’s take-it-or-leave-it contracts with consumers are enforceable, thereby preventing consumers from filing a class action lawsuit in court.
Regards,
Jim
January 12, 2012
Real wage growth, related to worker productivity gains, have been diverted to corporations, their boards of directors, and the rest of the ONE%, via stock dividends, for over three decades. Just look at what happened:
Not only did the income and wealth of the ONE% exceed any ethical valuation, the bank accounts of corporations snowballed with the remaining stolen wages, and savings from reduction in benefits, shipping jobs overseas, and automation in the workplace. These growing profits were invested by the banks to generate even more money by loaning them back to the workers. One investment was collateralized loans. Another was millions of unsolicited credit cards to the middle class and poor. The repackaged wages buried in these loans would help appease the workers, who lacked real wage growth and weren’t inclined unionize to get real wage growth.
– Household debt as a percent of GDP –
But repackaging stolen wages and other excessive profits as loans wasn’t enough for the ONE%. They decided to repackage all that loaned money as collateralized debt obligations (CDO) and sell them as a ‘safe’ investment. In addition, they created and sold Credit Default Swaps (CDS), or insurance for all these ‘safe’ asset backed securities, which included mortgage backed securities. They could even sell multiple CDSs for the same derivative. Some, who saw the end coming, even got richer with CDSs. (This was like everyone in your subdivision, buying house insurance for your home – everyone wins if your house burns down, especially if some saw the fire smoldering and bought a second or third policy before the alarm was sounded.)
AND THIS IS WHAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY STANDS UP FOR?
Then the believed value of all that greedy investing collapsed. The middle class and the poor were not only robbed of real wage growth, but left with high unemployment and an empty bag of all those ‘safe’ derivatives that the ONE% had been trading back and forth and insuring against failure.
The ONE% owes America, the middle class, and poor – BIG – for their unethical behavior and their grossly excessive greed. The tax rates and progressive tax schedule from 1975 should be reinstated, the Citizens United decision must be declared unlawful, and democracy must be extended from its place in politics to the workplace: abolish boards of directors – the “double high” ONE%ers who orchestrated this destruction of America’s once caring democracy.
Rick Santorum Used $100,000 of Pennsylvania Tax-Payer’s Money to Home School His Kids in Virginia – Santorum has campaigned on the fact that his seven kids have been home-schooled. Between 2001 and 2004, a Pennsylvania cyber charter school allowed the Santorum family to live in Virginia, while sticking Pennsylvania taxpayers with a $100,000 bill.
In 2004, Santorum spawned a minor scandal when news broke that he was no longer residing in the state that sent him to Congress and was living instead outside the Beltway in Leesburg, Virginia. Santorum owned, and still does, a house in Penn Hills, Pennsylvania, next door to his in-laws. The Santorums bought the three-bedroom house in 1997 for $87,800. But after Santorum got elected to the Senate in 1994, he bought a much larger home in Virginia that would accommodate his ever-growing family. Some relatives moved into the Penn Hills house, but Santorum continued to use it to claim residency in Pennsylvania, where he voted by absentee ballot.
Despite moving his family to Virginia, Santorum didn’t enroll his children in a local public school. Nor did the Santorums simply home-school the kids. Instead, in 2001, they enrolled five of their kids in the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School. When Santorum enrolled his kids there, the local school district in Penn Hills was forced to pick up the tab for the cyber school, which cost the district $38,000 a year for the Santorum children (around $100,000 total).
Republicans Attempting to Shortcut Approval Process for Dangerous Medical Devices – Two years ago, metal-on-metal artificial hips manufactured by the DePuy division of multinational pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson were recalled because they carried the risk of releasing metal toxins into the hip tissue, which caused inflammation and serious internal damage. Just a few years after receiving the hips, which were implanted in 40,000 patients in the United States (and tens of thousands more worldwide), many patients required costly, painful and risky operations to replace the devices. (1)
This is just one of many examples of medical devices that fell through the cracks of our nation’s system for regulating medical devices, injuring or killing thousands of patients. Shockingly, lobbyists representing the powerful medical device industry are trying to persuade lawmakers to make the already-insufficient approval process even weaker than it is.
Their aim is to ram their products through a weakened process and get their products to market as quickly as possible, even without undergoing adequate testing to assure that they are reasonably safe for patients. In other words, profits first.
We’re up against a powerful industry with tentacles of influence that reach deep into Capitol Hill. But with help from activists like you, we can fend of the attempts to weaken medical device regulation.
Please tell your members of Congress that the device approval process should be strengthened to protect the public, not abbreviated for industry profits.
Republican Speaker of the Kansas State House Praying for Death of President Obama – The Republican Speaker of the Kansas State House is praying for President Obama’s death.
And he’s exploiting the Bible to do so, circulating an email that quotes Psalm 109: “May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.” O’Neal said of the violent Psalm “At last — I can honestly voice a Biblical prayer for our president.”1
Sadly, it’s not unusual for Republican politicians to use hate-filled rhetoric when speaking about President Obama. But when they exploit religion to do so, people of faith have a moral responsibility to condemn it.
This isn’t the first time Speaker O’Neal has disgraced his office with his personal behavior. He already got in trouble for forwarding a racist email calling the First Lady “Mrs. YoMama” and making fun of her appearance, which he half-heartedly apologized for only after being confronted with public outrage.
Georgia School is Teaching Racism – In math class, third graders are supposed to learn addition and subtraction. In Georgia, they’re being taught blatant racism.
Does asking kids, “If 8 slaves pick oranges equally, then how much would each slave pick?” sound right to you?
Third grade students from Gwinnett County, GA were blind-sided with the promotion of racist ideas from their teachers. Students were given math problems that said things like “If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in one week?”
The teachers in question claim that they were attempting to merge social studies and math together. But casually introducing slavery and violence without proper lesson plans doesn’t teach kids social studies or math — it just confuses them.
Worst of all, the school district is refusing to take this issue seriously.
Teachers can use social studies in math problems without invoking slavery or racist violence. Demand the suspension and re-evaluation of teachers responsible.
Is Rick Perry the Most Socialist Public Official in America? – In January he gave himself a $92,000/year pay raise by “retiring” so that he could start collecting retirement benefits while continuing to collect his government paycheck.
He’s virtually always been on government healthcare.
He cut $4 billion for public education funding even though his own education and flight training came via institutions funded by the government.
He also lives in $10k/month taxpayer-funded rental mansion, tried to use eminent domain to seize hundreds of thousands of acres of land from its rightful owners.
He wanted to inject all Texas schoolgirls with a vaccine with or without their parent’s consent.
Oh, and he somehow managed to get rich while drawing a government check.
And, as if Rick Perry didn’t have enough problems, he was greeted at a restaurant in Anderson, S.C., by a young woman who posed for a photo with the Texas governor while saying it is “good to see someone as homophobic and racist as you.”
Regards,
Jim
January 4, 2012
WAR … WAR … WAR … WAR
I guess the authoritarian wars began in 1971 when President Nixon launched the war on drugs to combat the heroine addictions of our Vietnam veterans. This 40 year war has not been won and is only helping make the ONE% more powerful: our prison population has grown (faster than the nation’s population); prison systems have been privatized; and the profit they receive is based on having more prisoners.
Since then, right-wing authoritarians have created more wars against citizens, taken away civil rights, and both militarized our civilian ‘peace keepers’ and increased the ease for using our national military to conduct these wars.
All of these additional wars identify a sworn enemy of the right-wing authoritarians. Most result in the violation or elimination of civil rights of those enemies or moderates their power within American society. Some promote privateering. Some are against instutions and science, while others are pure imagination.
War on Terrorism
In conclusion, Baker and Stack have assembled a thoughtful collection of essays that deal with the difficulty of balancing constitutional rights and security during wartime. The selected essays provide historical background, theoretical insight, and contemporary issues. This volume would prove useful as a supplemental text in a special topics course or a course on civil rights and liberties. The collection also reminds us of the importance of an informed and vigilant citizenry.
War on Women’s Rights
The 80 abortion restrictions passed this year are more than double the previous record of 34 in 2005 — and more than triple the 23 enacted in 2010. Meanwhile, five states have defunded Planned Parenthood, which one in four American women have relied on for health care. To top it all off, fringe proposals are rapidly seeping into the political mainstream, with several states backing “fetal personhood” laws that effectively outlaw contraceptives like birth control pills and criminalize women who miscarry.
War on Consumers – the poor and middle class
It looks like it’s all a part of “screwflation”, which describes how falling wages and rising costs of basic goods are destroying the middle class. What’s happening is even consumer product companies are preparing for an eventual obliteration of the middle class.
War on voting rights
But since the 2010 election, thanks to a conservative advocacy group founded by Weyrich, the GOP’s effort to disrupt voting rights has been more widespread and effective than ever. In a systematic campaign orchestrated by the American Legislative Exchange Council – and funded in part by David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers who bankrolled the Tea Party – 38 states introduced legislation this year designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process.
Related Article:
War on the ill
The third option is that of the Tampa Tea Party mob: Let the young man go to the devil. You can sugar-coat this, as Ron Paul tried to, by suggesting that private charity will step in to help. But we no longer have an extensive system of charity hospitals. If emergency rooms treat the uninsured, whether because of a legal requirement or because they are good Samaritans, they will be passing the bulk of the cost along to the rest of us—and we’re back to our current system of socializing the costs of treatments for the uninsured.
War on homeownership
Implicit in all this – not stated plainly in polite company, but lurking just under the surface – is the idea that things were fine until the wrong people started buying houses. On right-wing blogs the accusation is often more explicit, blaming government programs for putting people of color into homes.
War on Occupy
In other words, for the DHS to be on a call with mayors, the logic of its chain of command and accountability implies that congressional overseers, with the blessing of the White House, told the DHS to authorise mayors to order their police forces – pumped up with millions of dollars of hardware and training from the DHS – to make war on peaceful citizens.
War on the young
There is a war is raging in the classrooms, on the street corners, and throughout communities across the United States. This war is particularly pointed at low-income young people and young people from communities of color. It is a War on Young People, … and the abandonment of a generation.
War on LGBT life styles
The Religious Right’s mean-spirited and frequently vicious attacks on LGBT Americans are well-known and well documented.
War on a Black President
Now, with the Republican presidential debates producing no clear favorite or obviously strong candidate, many on the extreme right may be hunkering down for another four years under a relatively liberal black president. And that may be simply too much for them to bear.
Conservatism’s ‘War of the Words’
Some people make the mistake of underestimating the importance of these wars, because they’re fought with words and not actions. But people’s actions are shaped by what they believe, and what they believe is shaped by words.
Nobody understands that better than the corporate interests and their minions. That’s why Newt Gingrich wrote a political memo in 1996 entitled, ”Language: A Key Mechanism of Control.”
Now there’s a word that should strike fear in the heart: “Control.”
Some of these wars have the common goal of privatizing public spaces so that governance becomes corporate and accountability is no longer to the citizen.
War on Worker Rights
This was a banner year in the right-wing media’s campaign to belittle working Americans. In the early part of the year, media conservatives promoted anti-union laws in Wisconsin and Ohio, transitioned to attacking the National Labor Relations Board, and spent the entirety of the year demonizing union workers, low-income Americans, and the unemployed.
War on education
Wisconsin is on the leading edge of a national assault on public education. Walker made a big name for himself with his explosive move to bust public employee unions and take away teachers’ bargaining rights. Now comes the next phase.
War on Drugs
A high-profile group of global leaders declared the “war on drugs” a failure on Thursday and urged governments to consider decriminalizing drugs in a bid to cut consumption and weaken the power of organized crime gangs.
When they aren’t starting wars against other Americans, they are declaring war on institutions they don’t like or science they don’t agree with.
War on The Muppets
How the hell do conservatives find time in their day to get outraged about all the things they insist they need to be outraged about? The War on Christmas, fine, whatever. Oh, and Spongebob might be gay. Also Teletubbies. And the Muppets are godless damn communists, and all of this is an elaborate Hollywood and/or gay and/or atheist and/or communist plot to “indoctrinate” your children.
War on NPR
While most Republicans steered clear of saying that the content of NPR’s programming was the reason they supported restrictions on funding, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) delivered a carefully crafted message along those lines to his base.
War on Global Warming
When scientific findings have big consequences for policy and politics, anti-science ideology and denial flourish. Religious ideology led the Church to deny Galileo’s scientific findings about the motion of the planets and stars and has fed the continuing denial of evolution in favor of fundamentalist claims of creationism. Stalinist ideology denied the science of genetics and led to a crippling of Soviet agriculture and biology for decades. And a mix of anti-government, pro-fossil fuel, and anti-environmental ideology underlies current denial of human-caused climate change.
War on Evolution
This project of teaching evolution in America, some variation of which I have been engaged in for more than two decades, looks increasingly impossible. Polls show no progress of any sort, with about half of the country continuing to reject evolution in favor of young earth creationism — the view on display in the country’s various “Creation museums,” based on a literal reading of the first chapter of the Bible. Only Turkey, with a strong Muslim commitment to creationism, lags behind the United States in accepting evolution.
The war mentality of the right-wing authoritarians is so strong, they even imagine wars against them by thier enemies. Authoritarians are such a persecuted lot.
War on Christmas – Jon Stewart
After receiving PolitiFact’s lowest grade for his report on the founding fathers’ attitudes toward Christmas, Jon goes straight to the source.
Not only were issues of child hunger, health care for the elderly and education mentioned, but also the quality of the environment, access to technology and the need for a world summit of the 99 percent. The message overall was that it was time to think big – this global crisis demands a global response, and the suffering of one population in one spot on the globe connects intimately with that of others.
THINK BIG – CHANGE THE MIND SET
January 1, 2012
Another Galveston County Republican Elected in 2010 Now in Hot Water (It’s Like a Bad Parade) – A League City lawyer elected as a county court judge lost a libel lawsuit against his then-estranged wife’s attorney, but the attorney’s counter lawsuit accuses the judge of “practically everything evil under the sun.”
The saga of Christopher Dupuy began before he was elected the Galveston County Court at Law No. 3 judge during a 2010 Republican sweep at the polls. Dupuy filed a Feb. 16, 2010, libel lawsuit against Danbury attorney Savannah Robinson, who was his estranged wife’s attorney in a divorce proceeding, according to court documents.
Robinson’s counter lawsuit levels vast criticism against Dupuy, accusing him of engaging in a “perverse, iron-fisted rule of domestic terror.”
“Christopher Dupuy’s reputation is such that he is simply incapable of being defamed,” Robinson states in the counterclaim. “Any possible damage which could result to such a poor reputation would be of minuscule quantity incapable of being measured.”
Robinson leveled many other accusations against Dupuy in her 22-page counterclaim filed April 10, 2010, in County Court No. 1, including one that accused him of having a long-standing sexual addiction.
It claims Dupuy’s wife, Adrienne Dupuy, fears for the safety of her children during Dupuy’s visitation. She made calls to police, state child protection services and crisis counseling. She also sought psychological counseling for her children, the counterclaim states.
“Christopher Dupuy’s reputation is such that he is simply incapable of being defamed,” Robinson states in the counterclaim. “Any possible damage which could result to such a poor reputation would be of minuscule quantity incapable of being measured.”
Robinson leveled many other accusations against Dupuy in her 22-page counterclaim filed April 10, 2010, in County Court No. 1, including one that accused him of having a long-standing sexual addiction.
It claims Dupuy’s wife, Adrienne Dupuy, fears for the safety of her children during Dupuy’s visitation. She made calls to police, state child protection services and crisis counseling. She also sought psychological counseling for her children, the counterclaim states.
As a defense to Dupuy’s libel lawsuit, the countersuit claims Dupuy is “universally despised within the legal community for his lack of professionalism, his lack of common civility and his unjustified legal posturings. …”
It accuses Dupuy of frequently taking positions contrary to law, says he is seldom prepared and hostile to being corrected.
Dupuy refuses reasonable attempts at communication or courtesy, delays matters, abuses the discovery process and has little grasp of his duties as an officer of the court, the counter claim states.
Dupuy has been frequently reported to the State Bar of Texas Grievance Committee and to the Texas Attorney General’s Office by his peers and clients, the lawsuit claims.
When Dupuy filed as a candidate for judge, he was under a six-month probated suspension from the state bar, which found he committed professional misconduct. Dupuy’s websites contained misleading statements, according to documents obtained from the bar’s Grievance Committee. (But Republicans, the uninformed and those who didn’t vote elected him anyway. -JLV)
Mitt Romney Promises to Kill More Jobs – Mitt Romney promised that, as president, he would cut federal workers’ pay and slash the number of federal government jobs saying, “Federal employees, we’ve got too many of them, and they’re paid too much.”
Romney’s argument that federal workers are paid more than private sector workers distorts the facts. At the top end of the pay scale, federal workers are often paid less than their private sector counterparts, so much so that the government has “found it increasingly more difficult to attract and retain high-skill workers.” If Romney wanted to bring federal pay in line with the private sector as he suggested, he’d have to provide many government workers a raise.
Romney’s claims that there are “too many” government jobs, meanwhile, ignores the state of the American jobs crisis. While the private sector continues to grow, federal, state, and local governments have shed more than 500,000 jobs in the last two years, negating the positive effects of private sector growth and dragging down the economic recovery. If public sector employment was at its 2009 level, the unemployment rate would have been down to 8.4 percent last August., and even lower now. Also, the sharply reduced incomes of former teachers and and other government workers lead them to spend less in their local communities, thus further slowing economic growth.
Under-Regulated Mining and Austerity Measures Causing Great Wall of China to Collapse – China‘s rapid push to develop the country’s resources is now threatening its most iconic landmark. According to recent reports, both legal and illegal mining near the Great Wall are causing parts of the ancient, 4,000-mile-long structure to crumble away.
“The Great Wall of China may have survived the Huns and Mongol hordes, but widespread neglect, underfunding, and mining means that it is now falling down,” The Telegraph reported earlier this month, citing photographs that show “huge holes…punched through the wall in some areas” and entire sections up to 100 miles long in ruins.
“We have no idea how many enterprises are engaged in mining along the Great Wall,” the British newspaper quoted Guo Jianyong, an engineer from the provincial architecture protection agency, as telling the People’s Daily.
The stability of the centuries-old wall is threatened by prospecting for copper, iron, molybdenum, and nickel, with some mining operations coming within 100 meters of the famous structure, Reuters reported. It said the country’s Land Resources Bureau is not required to consult with the Department of Cultural Heritage before issuing mining permits.
Villagers in Hebei Province told the Chinese state-run Xinhua News Agency that “about 700 meters of the wall, which was built during the reign of Emperor Wanli during the Ming Dynasty (1573-1620), had already collapsed, and more walls and even towers are likely to collapse if the mining continues unchecked.”
According to both The Telegraph and Reuters, maintenance of the wall has focused on the most-visited segments near Beijing, with other parts neglected and left to fall into disrepair. Xinhua quoted an engineer as saying that resources are so limited, many segments of the wall are only inspected once a year.
China Wants to Build More Dirty Coal Plants: Occupy China Stops Construction of Dirty Coal Plant – Tens of thousands of residents in China’s southern Guandong Province gathered in the streets last week, occupying a highway to demonstrate against the development of a new coal plant near Shantou city. The residents say existing coal plants in the area are fouling local air and water, and are making people sick.
Each year, protests spring up to counter the construction of dirty coal plants. But this appears to be the biggest yet. Officials now say they will abandon plans to build a new coal plant in the area.
Remember to Pay Your Lockheed-Martin Tax This Year – Last year, just one defense contractor, Lockheed-Martin, brought in $45.8 billion in revenue, mostly from taxpayer-funded contracts.1 That huge amount of money means that the average American family pays $260 of their income taxes to Lockheed Martin.2
1 Lockheed Martin’s 2010 Annual Report (.pdf).
2 Hartung, William. Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex, p. 29. New York: Nation Books, 2011.
A Thought About the New Year
Our government has traditionally been an essential actor in the nation’s economy, a guarantor of fair rules of competition, a countervailing force against excessive private power, a check on the inequalities that capitalism can produce, and an instrument that can open opportunity for those born without great advantages.
I would like to see dramatic change to assure a fair and just economy right now, this year, just like most of you. However, Republican roadblocks won’t let that happen. The way to make that kind of change happen is from the grass roots up, starting with electing good people in 2012.
The Republican Party is engaged in a wholesale effort to redefine our government to create a radical new society. Republicans have two real goals: redistributing your wealth upward, and establishing a permanent Republican Regime of one-party rule, and they are willing to work to make that happen. Are we ready to work to make sure it doesn’t happen? The clock is ticking; time is shorter than you think. Early voting for the general election is a little over nine months away. We need to ask ourselves everyday, “What did I do today to elect the right people? What will I do tomorrow?”
Regards,
Jim
December 30, 2011
93-Year-Old Tennessee Woman Who Cleaned State Capitol for 30 Years Denied Voter ID – A 93-year-old Tennessee woman who cleaned the state Capitol for 30 years, including the governor’s office, says she won’t be able to vote for the first time in decades after being told this week that her old state ID failed to meet new voter ID regulations. Thelma Mitchell was even accused of being an undocumented immigrant because she couldn’t produce a birth certificate.
ALEC-Linked Group Revealed as Major Secret Donor in Referendum on Maine Voting Rights – Earlier this year, Maine legislators passed a bill repealing the state’s 38 year-old law allowing citizens to register at the polls on election day. Tens of thousands of Mainers responded by petitioning for the matter come to a referendum. Issue 1 was one of the most-anticipated votes on election day this year, with pundits watching closely to see how citizens would react to the Republican-led war on voting, which ramped up in states across the country this year.
Recognizing the referendum’s importance, voting rights opponents poured money into the campaign to repeal election day registration. In fact, just two days after the state’s campaign finance reporting deadline, a secret conservative donor funneled $250,000 into the race, allowing the No On 1 campaign to make significant TV ad buys in an inexpensive media market.
Per state law, however, the identity of donors must be revealed within 45 days after the election. In fact, the entire $250,000 worth of late money came from a single source: the American Justice Partnership. Though the AJP doesn’t disclose where its funding comes from, the Bangor Daily News notes that it has partnered with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in the past, a group that has been instrumental in the proliferation of voter ID laws across the country. The AJP’s secret $250,000 contribution ultimately accounted for over 78 percent of all the money raised by the No On 1 campaign. In other words, over three-quarters of the funding for opponents of election day registration in Maine came from Michigan. (This money was then used to run ads decrying “outsiders from other states” who were influencing the Maine election.)
Though AJP’s website correctly warns that “Your right to vote is at stake”, it’s groups like AJB and ALEC that are threatening that right in the first place.
Wall Street Tells Boehner What to Do, and He Listens – In November President Obama said, “enough is enough” to China’s currency manipulations. China manipulates its currency to keep it “undervalued.” This means that things made there cost less in world markets than things made in other countries. The result is that manufacturing moves there, bringing them entire industries, supply chains, and the “industrial commons” of expertise, suppliers and culture that brings with it new businesses and industries. Many economists say that China’s currency is undervalued by 25 to 40% meaning products made there have a 25-40% pricing advantage before any other advantages, subsidies, manipulations, etc. are considered.
In October the Senate passed a bipartisan bill — on a vote of 65 to 35 — a bill requiring the administration to label China a currency manipulator and begin the necessary steps to remedy the problem. The House Republican leadership has refused to allow this to come up for a vote – because it will pass. House Speaker John Boehner has made it clear he wants nothing to do with the legislation that has already raised heckles in Beijing., And for now he seems to be in control despite loud protests including from within his own party.
Even though many Republican members of the House say they support the bill, none of them will sign a discharge petition to force Speaker Boehner to allow a vote. Wall Street opposes addressing the currency imbalances, and has made it clear through their front-group Club For Growth that Wall Street will oppose House members who help bring this up for a vote. And right now Wall Street has more influence in DC’s ongoing influence scheme than those who want to manufacture in the US, thereby bringing jobs, factories, industries, innovation and money back to the US.
Rick Perry Thinks Canada is Part of the U.S. – “Every barrel of oil that comes out of those sands in Canada is a barrel of oil that we don’t have to buy from a foreign source,” — Rick Perry (12/28/2011) [All Canadian oil will go on the world market to the hightest bidder - regardless of which seaport it is piped to. It will not necessarily help the U.S. market.]
Republican Presidential Candidates Year in Review on YouTube –
Merry Christmas …
and Happy New Year!
Regards,
Jim
