Bad Deeds for 1-18-2011

 

Tea Party Tries to Segregate North Carolina Schools – The new majority-Republican Wake County School District school board in North Carolina, backed by the national tea party groups want to concentrate poor children into just a few schools by allowing children to only attend their neighborhood school.

The effort is seen as the first organized tea party push-back to government-sponsored integration in public schools and one that has put the district squarely in the center of a debate many thought ended with Brown v. Board of Education–that is the idea that diversity and equality in education are essential to one another.

Prior to the meddling from national tea party interests, the school board and its integration policies was the beneficiary of strong bi-partisan support. Both Republican and Democratic leaders recognized the value in making sure all children in their district, regardless of income or geographic location, benefited from a diverse education experience. Both poor and wealthy students did well in the schools, and parents were happy with the system. But the Tea Party is willing to sacrifice all that so they can step back to 1950. (JLV)

 

The Legacy of Bush/Cheney: Drinking Water Being Made Unsafe Today – In 2005, the Bush/Cheney Energy Bill exempted natural gas drilling from the Safe Drinking Water Act, even though the EPA has agreed that it is associated with drinking water pollution in many states. During a process called “fracking”, millions of gallons of water, sand and proprietary chemicals are injected, under high pressure, into a well. The pressure fractures the shale and props open fissures that enable natural gas to flow more freely out of the well. Just days ago, 46 members of Congress wrote a letter in support of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s request that natural gas companies be required to disclose what chemicals they use in “fracking.”

Take Action: Support a repeal of the natural gas industry exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act.

 

Republicans Complaining About Their Own Health Care Idea – High-risk pools are, in fact, a terrible solution to the health-care crisis. But they happen to be the terrible solution Republicans most favor (along with tax breaks) whenever they’re forced to state their preferred alternative to last year’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. They were the central idea in the health plan proposed by Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., during the 2008 election. They were the central idea in the House leadership’s proposed substitute for the Democratic plan in 2009, and they played a major role in the alternative plan set forth that year by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a medical doctor who became the GOP’s lead opponent to Obamacare. They were the central idea in a 2010 repeal bill introduced in May by Rep. Wally Herger, R-Calif., that would have replaced the health reform bill that became law with the 2009 House leadership bill.

But in May, the House Republican Conference complained that these high-risk pools would be unfair to people currently enrolled in existing state-run risk pools because the latter group was paying higher premiums. In July, the House Republican Conference complained that implementation of this unfair federal program was being delayed. By January, the House Republican leadership was grousing (in a report titled Obamacare: A Budget-Busting, Job-Killing Health Care Law) that costs for this unfair-but-wrongly-delayed program were higher than expected even as participation in this unfair-but-wrongly-delayed-but-too-costly program was lower than it should be.

Republican health care policies, (“Pool Party”), typically segregate the healthy majority from the unhealthy minority in order to lower insurance premiums for the healthy. Never mind that that raises insurance premiums sky-high for the unhealthy. High-risk pools are the most efficient way to achieve such segregation and about the least efficient way to pay medical bills here on planet Earth.

 

Republicans Don’t Want You to Know They Have Federal Health Insurance – Despite their pledge for transparency, one of the first measures promulgated by the new Republican leadership was to block a proposal by Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-NY) that would have required all members to disclose whether they are taking advantage of their federal health insurance plan within 15 days of taking the oath of office. The measure failed on a strict party-line vote with Democrats supporting the measure and Republicans opposing it.

While the measure was largely symbolic by its own right, it illustrates the fundamental hypocrisy fueling the current crop of Republicans. They’ve had no issue campaigning on distortions and flat out lies concerning the new health care law and relentlessly push the these of shrinking the size of federal subsidies. Yet almost ever single one of them takes every federal benefit available to them.

 

“Rising Tide” Sinking a Lot of Boats – In 1962 the wealthiest 1 percent of American households had 125 times the wealth of the median household. Now it’s 190 times as much. Is that a case of a rising tide lifting all boats, just a few of them a little bit higher? No.

From 1950 to 1965, median family income rose from $24,000 a year to $38,000 a year. That’s close to 4 percent a year, close to 60 percent over 15 years. That’s a rising tide.

In 1964 there was a big tax cut. That’s when things started to slow down for average people. By the mid-’70s the rise of the middle class stalled. From 1975 to 2010 median family income rose $42,936 to $49,777. That’s not quite 16 percent over 25 years, less than six-tenths of 1 percent per year.

Briefly, when taxes went up under Clinton, median income rose, peaked at $52,587 in 1999, and then, after Bush cut taxes, declined. Keep in mind that this is median family income. In the ’50s and ’60s, family income was usually earned by a single person. Today, family income normally comes from at least two people.

At the same time, income for the richest soared. In 1979 the richest 1 percent of Americans earned 9 percent of all U.S. income. Now they earn 24 percent of all U.S. income. One percent of Americans earn nearly one-fourth of all the income in the country.

 

Moderate Republicans Resign Over Fear of Violence From Tea Party – A nasty battle between factions of Arizona Legislative District 20 Republicans and fears that it could turn violent in the wake of what happened in Tucson on Saturday prompted District Chairman Anthony Miller and several others to resign.

Miller, a 43-year-old Ahwatukee Foothills resident and former campaign worker for U.S. Sen. John McCain, was re-elected to a second one-year term last month. He said constant verbal attacks after that election and Internet blog posts by some local members with Tea Party ties made him worry about his family’s safety.

In an e-mail sent a few hours after Saturday’s massacre in Tucson that killed six and injured 13, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Miller told state Republican Party Chairman Randy Pullen he was quitting: “Today my wife of 20 yrs ask (sic) me do I think that my PCs (Precinct Committee members) will shoot at our home? So with this being said I am stepping down from LD20GOP Chairman…I will make a full statement on Monday.”

Miller said when he was a member of McCain’s campaign staff last year has been criticized by the more conservative party members who supported Republican opponent J.D. Hayworth. The first and only African-American to hold the party’s precinct chairmanship, Miller said he has been called “McCain’s boy,” and during the campaign saw a critic form his hand in the shape of a gun and point it at him.

Regards,

Jim