Bad Deeds for 6-16-2012

Republicans Pass House Bill to Allow Mass Propaganda Campaigns on American Citizens – An amendment legalizing the use of mass propaganda campaigns on American audiences has been inserted into the latest defense authorization bill — and that bill just passed the Republican-controlled House.

The NDAA amendment lifts bans on propaganda that have been around since the 1940s, neutralizing laws put in place to protect the American people from its government’s own “misinformation” campaigns.

“It removes the protection for Americans,” a Pentagon official told Buzzfeed, who broke the story. “There are no checks and balances. No one knows if the information is accurate, partially accurate, or entirely false.”

The amendment would remove all distinction between a hostile foreign audience and American one, turning the massive information operation apparatus within the federal government against its own people. Republican lawmakers like spying on you.

Please click link above to demand that the Senate oppose ending the propaganda ban — it’ll be up for a vote as soon as next week.

Republicans in Florida Pushing Mass Voter Purge – Do you remember the Florida debacle in the 2000 presidential race? At the time, news focused on the recount and the spectacle of the infamous “hanging chad.” But when the dust settled, America learned that the real affront to democracy was the flawed purge of eligible voters from the voting rolls in advance of the election.

The state that ultimately decided the election for George W. Bush by a mere 537 votes, hired a firm to purge ex-felons — who had lost their right to vote according to state law — from the voter file. But the data match was so sloppy that countless eligible voters, mostly African American, were scrubbed from the file and turned away from the polls on Election Day.

Now, under Florida’s Tea Party governor, Rick Scott, it’s happening all over again! Florida has begun a purge of “non-citizens” from the voting rolls and reports are saying that hundreds of eligible voters have already been struck from the rolls.

Florida has already put out an initial list of more than 2,600 people identified as non-U.S. citizens and has indicated it could aim to purge up to 180,000 supposed non-citizens from the rolls … but from all the inaccuracies we’ve seen so far, that could mean a staggering number of eligible voters being wrongfully purged and denied their right to vote.

This process is going forward with no oversight, and is all too reminiscent of the scrub orchestrated in 2000 by

Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris under then-Gov. Jeb Bush.

Click the link above to sign our petition right now to Gov. Rick Scott telling him to stop the purge and stop disenfranchising eligible voters.

Wisconsin Republican Governor Supporters Attack Teachers – An anonymous group of Wisconsin Republican Gov. Walker supporters has stuffed newspaper delivery chutes at the homes of Janesville residents with a flier that lists the names and salaries of more than 300 teachers in the rural town, directs readers to a website to check if their teacher signed a recall petition and has a tear-off card urging parents to contact their school superintendent and board members to request that their child be assigned to a classroom taught by a “non-radical teacher.”

North Carolina Legislators Introduce Bill Making It Illegal to Use Good Science to Predict Sea-Level Rise From Global Warming – North Carolina’s General Assembly has proposed a bill that would prevent scientists from using modern, scientific models to accurately predict what might happen to sea levels if climate change continues unabated.

Rather than use science to accurately predict what might happen to its valuable coast areas, and thereby educate its citizens about what can be done to prepare for this change, North Carolina’s political leaders would rather just make the truth illegal.

Typically, scientists use an exponential model to predict how much sea levels will rise if global temperatures continue to do the same. They have to use a non-linear model because each time the climate warms even a fraction of a degree, it has a major impact on the ocean’s current volume as well as ice cap melt rates.

Taking these variables into account, most climate experts say that sea levels will rise at least three feet by the end of the century. But this doesn’t sit well with a group of legislators from 20 coastal NC counties whose economies will be most impacted by the swelling seas. So, they’ve introduced Replacement House Bill 819, which makes it illegal for state scientists to use exponential models to predict changes in sea level.

The key language is in section 2, paragraph e, talking about rates of sea level rise: “These rates shall only be determined using historical data, and these data shall be limited to the time period following the year 1900. Rates of seas-level rise may be extrapolated linearly. …”

“It goes on,” writes Scott Huler for Scientific American, “but there’s the core: North Carolina legislators have decided that the way to make exponential increases in sea level rise – caused by those inconvenient feedback loops we keep hearing about from scientists – go away is to make it against the law to extrapolate exponential; we can only extrapolate along a line predicted by previous sea level rises.”

Romney’s Actions on Space Do Not Match His Words – At the CNN Republican Debate on 1/26/2012, Mitt Romney said, “I spent 25 years in business. If I had a business executive come to me and say they wanted to spend a few hundred billion dollars to put a colony on the moon, I’d say, ‘You’re fired,'”

On 1/27/2012, Former NASA Administration Michael Griffin was named to the Romney Space Policy Advisory Group.

On 5/12/2012, Griffin said, “In order to extend human exploration, fly beyond the earth and have a presence in the solar system, the next step in doing that would be to have a permanent base on the moon.”

Question: Will Romney keep his promise by firing Michael Griffin?

Rescuer Arrested For Helping Victim of Police-Horse Trampling in Houston – On Thursday more than 450 people—representing a broad cross-section of Houston—gathered in the city’s Skyline District at a peaceful demonstration calling for the end of poverty-wage jobs in Houston.

The protestors—many of whom clean downtown buildings and make just $9000 annually as janitors—were gathered outside of JP Morgan Chase when police horses trampled multiple protestors. One of the protestors was arrested after she ran out into the street to help a janitor who had been knocked down by one of the horses.

This violent reaction by the police to a group of workers peacefully protesting is an outrage. This is not the way our city—or democracy—is supposed to work. Join us in calling on Houston’s mayor and business community to put an end to economic injustice by intervening on behalf of janitors and working together to create good jobs for Houston.

Regards,

Jim