The WAWG Blog

Hostage Situation: John Boehner Threatens to Severely Harm America Unless We Go on an Unhealthy Extended Starvation Diet – In a speech speech Monday night to the New York Economic Club, House Speaker John Boehner said that any legislation to raise the so-called debt limit beyond its current $14.3 trillion cap should be accompanied by spending cuts larger than the amount of the permitted increase in the debt.

Boehner’s comments come as investors and business groups have been seeking assurances that the GOP-controlled House will join with President Barack Obama and the Democratic-led Senate to enact the must-pass debt limit measure, which is needed to prevent a market-roiling, first-ever U.S. default on its obligations.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says a failure to increase the federal government’s ability to borrow would have disastrous effects on the economy.

Boehner’s remarks are notable since it’s virtually impossible to produce spending cuts of that size without addressing major benefit programs like Medicare, food stamps and Medicaid.

“Tax hikes should be off the table,” Boehner said to the wild applause of billionaires.

Texas Senate Passes Bad Budget Bill – A partisan majority of the Texas Senate took advantage of a seldom-used procedural device to pass the Senate’s budget plan today. The 19-member Republican majority, opposed by a solid bloc of all 12 Senate Democrats, first dumped a part of the bill that would have tapped the Rainy Day Fund for $3 billion to reduce budget cuts. Then the majority rammed through the budget and sent it on to the Texas House, which has already passed an even worse budget for 2012-2013. The two versions now must be reconciled.

The budget bill did not pass without first coming under fire from a number of senators who eloquently described the damage this budget proposal would do by “putting the next election ahead of the next generation,” as Sen. Eddie Lucio, Democrat of Brownsville, put it.

Texas AFT President Linda Bridges also had something to say about the proceedings in the Senate today. Here’s her statement:

“Today a majority of our Texas senators joined their House counterparts in helping make history–of the worst kind–while sowing the seeds for a bleaker future for our state. This is the first budget bill in more than 60 years that has not funded new enrollment for Texas public schools. That’s 80,000 to 90,000 more students each year streaming into underfunded schools and facing the damage done by the $5 billion plus in public education cuts in this budget.

“The Senate budget means our students will have fewer teachers, larger classes, and fewer support services for those most in need. And with this awful budget proposal as its starting point, the Senate majority moves the budget debate toward the even more extreme level of cuts in the horrendous House budget plan–all while leaving $6 billion dollars in the Rainy Day Fund. The consequences of this failure of leadership will be felt for decades unless lawmakers from both houses have the courage to do better.”

Republican Leaders Want Routine Bills To Have Social Issues Attached – Should every piece of legislation in the House and Senate be subject to a rider to pass restrictive conservative social agenda items like restricting abortion and blocking equal rights? Some members of the Republican Party say yes, and they want to start with the debt ceiling vote.

“What we use the debt limit to leverage is really up to the leaders, [but] I would think this would be one of the bills that we could be asking for,” said Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), an ardent anti-abortion supporter.

Although conservative organizations have not yet begun pushing for this as part of the debt limit debate, activists said they would support the effort and argued that Republicans should make it a matter of routine that deals include requirements that the Senate vote on social issues. “Republicans making such demands shouldn’t be out of the ordinary,” Family Research Council’s Tom McClusky said.

So there you go. The Republican party would like to hold legislation passing through congress hostage to pushing through their conservative social agenda. So much for wanting to grow the economy, or promises that bills shouldn’t have riders.

Monsanto’s Genetically-Modified Soybeans and Other Crops Pose a Dire Emergency to Agriculture – On January 17, 2011, Dr. Don Huber, an internationally-recognized plant pathologist and Professor Emeritus at Purdue University, sent a private letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack warning him of a serious problem facing U.S. agriculture. This letter, marked “CONFIDENTIAL and URGENT”, warned Secretary Vilsack of a previously unknown pathogen, “new to science” that “should be treated as an emergency”. 1

Huber’s letter discussed the new pathogen in the most dire terms, saying that the findings of this team of top scientists had already discovered a link between the new pathogen and the steady rise of plant diseases in Roundup Ready corn and soybean crops and in association with high rates of infertility and spontaneous abortion rates of 45% of cattle and dairy herds consuming feed that had been treated with the number one selling weed killer Roundup.2

Huber warned Secretary Vilsack that the discovery of the new pathogen was “highly sensitive information that could result in a collapse of U.S. soy and corn export markets and significant disruption of domestic food and feed supplies.”

Watch Dr. Huber explain the science and find out why he was so concerned about the approval of Genetically-Modified Organisim (GMO) alfalfa at the link above.

Regards,

Jim

It will take winning back the swing/independent/biconceptual/dual voters. They were influenced by the empathetic progressive messages in 2008 and by the fearful conservatives-without-conscience messages in 2010.

For 2012, the progressive message should be, “The Country We Believe In.” It should be about “how the progressive moral system defines the democratic ideals America was founded on, and how those ideals apply to specific issues. The real issue is existential: what is America at heart and what is America to be.”

“The basic [progressive] idea is this: Democracy is based on empathy, that is, on citizens caring about each other and acting on that care, taking responsibility not just for themselves but for their families, communities, and their nation. The role of [our] government is to carry out this principle in two ways: protection and empowerment.”

The Preamble to our Constitution supports the above quote: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

American is about we (progressive), not just me (conservatives without conscience).

Here is a quote from Lincoln which Obama recently restated which emphasizes the ‘we’ in American democracy: “to do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves.”

President Obama also said this about protecting citizens, “the American belief… that each one of us deserves some basic measure of security… that no matter how responsibly we live our lives[,as individuals], hard time or bad luck, crippling illness or a layoff, may strike any one of us.” This statement also shows his understanding of systemic causation – there are many factors which affect an individuals success or failure.

In addition to having empathy for our fellow citizens, understanding systemic causation is a key progressive quality needed for framing progressive messages. Biconceptuals/duals have some understanding of systemic causation and do show empathy in some situations. They can, and have been, persuaded by proper progressive framing.

The rich in this country have become so because of systemic causation within our protective and empowering form of government which creates a common wealth to promote equal opportunity for prosperity. The elements of this common wealth include, but are not limited to, “- direct corporate subsidies, access to publicly-owned resources [libraries, courts, water, air, land, etc.], access to government research, favorable trade agreements, roads and other means of transportation, education that provides educated workers, tax loopholes, and innumerable government resources taken advantage of by the rich, but paid for by all of us. What is called a “tax break” for the rich is actually a redistribution of wealth from the poor and middle class whose incomes have gone down to those who have considerably more money than they need, money they have made because of tax investments by the rest of America.”

President Obama, hypothetically used himself as an example of systemic causation. He “would get a $200,000 a year tax break, which would be paid for by cutting programs for seniors, with the result that 33 seniors would be paying $6,000 more a year for health care to pay for his tax break. To see this, you have to look outside of the federal budget to the economic system at large, in which you can see what budget cuts will be balanced by increases in costs to others. A cut here in the budget is balanced by an increase outside the federal budget for real human beings.”

However, systemic causation is a foreign concept for conservatives without conscience because of their strict father upbringing. “Linguists have discovered that every language studied has direct causation in its grammar, but no language has systemic causation in its grammar. Systemic causation is a harder concept and has to be learned either through socialization or education.” Conservatives blame individuals or “bad apples” when things go wrong. Progressives blame “bad barrels.”

“Differences in systemic thinking between progressives and conservatives can be seen in issues like global warming and financial reform. Conservatives have not recognized human causes of global warming, partly because they are systemic, not direct. When a huge snowstorm occurred in Washington, DC recently, many conservatives saw it as disproving the existence of global warming — ‘How could warming cause snow?’ Similarly, conservatives, thinking in terms of individual responsibility and direct causation, blamed homeowners for foreclosures on their homes, while progressives looked to systemic explanations, seeking reform in the financial system.”

“[P]rogressives [need] to start talking publicly about that moral vision [empathy and caring for others] and about the importance of systems in our lives and in our politics. … In 2008, the Obama campaign activated and strengthened the network for the progressive moral system — and won over the duals. In 2010, the Democrats stopped talking morality and kept on talking policy, ceding morality to the conservatives, especially the Tea Party radical conservatives. In doing this, they ceded the election. Policy without an understandable moral basis loses.”

There is one key thing that should never be used for communicating progressive ideas – DO NOT use “conservative language tied to conservative ideas.”

Most quotes above from article by George Lakoff

Texas Schools Shortchanged in Proposed State Budget – The Texas Senate is heading toward a showdown on the state’s budget for 2012-2013. This budget proposal would impose harsh cuts on public education, health care, and other essential state services such as nursing-home care for the elderly. Under the Senate committee’s version of the budget, as much as $6 billion in the state’s Rainy Day Fund would be left untapped even as state budget cuts totaling more than $5 billion eliminate critical programs like full-day pre-kindergarten and force layoffs of thousands and thousands of teachers and other school personnel. The bill doesn’t even begin to address the structural shortfall of $5 billion a year in state aid to school districts that the legislature created with an ill-conceived tax swap in 2006. Under this budget, the state would fail to fund the costs of enrollment growth in our public schools for the first time in more than 60 years. And this already grossly inadequate Senate version would be a cinch to get worse in negotiations with the House leadership on a final budget bill.

Please send an e-mail letter urging your senator (a) to vote NO on bringing this budget plan up for debate and (b) to hold out for a better deal. A letter is ready for you to send immediately from the Texas AFT Web site.

Please also call on Monday, May 2, and leave the same message for your senator—vote NO on bringing up the Senate committee substitute for HB 1, and hold out for a better budget–with the staffer who takes your call or on the senator’s voicemail. Be sure to mention you live in the senator’s district. The Texas AFT toll-free line to the state capitol switchboard is 1-888-836-8368. Just give the operator your senator’s name and ask to be connected.

Republican Officials Send Racist E-Mails – Orange County Republican Central Committee member Marilyn Davenport sent an email out to colleagues and friends that showed the President of the United State photoshopped onto the body of a chimp.

In Virginia Beach, Republican Party Chair Dave Bartholomew forwarded an extremely racist joke comparing African-Americans to dogs while telling a story about trying to apply for welfare benefits. The email was forwarded from the same account he used for official party business.

Texas House Votes To Suffocate You and Your Family – Although the process was already stacked in favor of polluters, the Texas House voted to strip away the last remaining fig leaf of protection for Texans fighting to keep their air and water clean. Rep. Warren Chisum (R-Pampa) authored an amendment to the TCEQ sunset bill (HB 2694) that would shift the burden of proof to the individual challenging the issuance of a permit for polluting facilities like coal-fired power plants.

This means that should a company want to build a coal or chemical plant near your home and you and your neighbors become concerned about a plant pumping harmful, cancer-causing chemicals into the air, you will be required to prove the extent of the problem rather than the permit applicant being required to prove the permit meets state and federal health and safety law as is required for every other permit.

Shifting that requirement will make it incredibly difficult and expensive for Texans to challenge encroachments by big polluters on the health and safety of their families. It will mean any individual hoping to protect their family will need to hire a lawyer and a number of experts to develop very expensive modeling.

Rep. Chisum and those who voted with him voted to open Texans’ doors and choke off the voice of every Texan as polluters pump chemicals into their air and water. They have voted to suffocate the rights of individuals in Texas to have a process that follows the rule of law.

Contact your State Senator today and tell them vote NO to the Chisum Amendment.

Louisiana Republican: Sterilize Poor Women but Pay the Wealthy to Have More Children – Louisiana state Rep. John LaBruzzo, R-Metairie, said Tuesday he is studying a plan to pay poor women $1,000 to have their Fallopian tubes tied.

It also could include tax incentives for college-educated, higher-income people to have more children, he said.

Republican Bill Gives Blank Check for Endless War – If you like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan then you’ll love the new legislation from Senator John McCain (S. 551) and Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Buck McKeon (H.R. 968). Their Proposal: Congress should give the President and the Secretary of Defense a blank check to wage war against anyone he or she declares “associated” with al-Qaeda or the Taliban – anytime, anywhere, anyhow.

Tell your Representative to oppose Chairman McKeon’s blank check for endless war.

U.S. Supreme Court Takes Away Your Right to Join Class-Action Lawsuits – In a new ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed Big Business to deprive you of your best weapon to fight back if you are cheated or harmed by corporate wrongdoing. The court’s 5-4 decision Wednesday in AT&T v. Concepcion permits corporations to use consumer and employment contracts to take away your right to join class-action lawsuits.

You’ve likely entered into “agreements” with many corporations — maybe without even realizing it. When you bought a cell phone or rented a car. When you opened a bank account, got a credit card or refinanced your mortgage. When you saw a doctor or arranged medical care for a loved one. When you got hired at your job.
You didn’t get to negotiate the terms of these contracts. If you needed that phone or that job, you signed on the dotted line. And unless you’re a contracts attorney, you probably couldn’t make sense of all the legalese.

More and more, these contracts include what are known as binding mandatory arbitration clauses. The word “arbitration” may sound like a good thing: “Hey, let’s sit down and talk this out — nobody wants to go through a lawsuit.”

But in actuality, forced arbitration does not provide the protections of traditional trials, including the ability to gather information from corporate defendants. And the largest arbitration firms are heavily biased in favor of Big Business and against consumers.

The Supreme Court has ruled not only that corporations can force people into arbitration, but also that they can use arbitration clauses to deny those they harm the right join together to seek justice in a court of law.

Regards,

Jim

U.S. Income Inequality at Record Levels – Income inequality in the United States during the past decade has spiked to levels not seen since the Roaring ’20s that led to the Great Depression. The increase of income inequality leading up to the 2008 financial crisis and “Great Recession” is striking. Between 1993 and 2008, the top 1 percent of Americans captured 52 percent of all income growth in the United States.

Republicans to Foster Children: You Only Deserve Used Clothes – Under a new Republican budget proposal, children in the Michigan’s foster care system would be allowed to purchase clothing only in used clothing stores. Under the plan, foster children would receive gift cards that could only be used at places like the Salvation Army, Goodwill and other second hand clothing stores. It is unreasonable to give away huge tax breaks to multi-billion dollar companies and the top 2 percent of the population, but expect to balance budgets on the backs of the poorest of the poor.

Oil Company Appears to Instruct Salesmen on How to Mislead Landowners – An oil company distributed what appears to be “talking points” to its salesmen, instructing them to mislead landowners about the dangers of oil and gas drilling. Entitled “Talking Points for Selling Oil and Gas Lease Rights”, the document implores its ‘Field Agents’ to mislead people about the risks of drilling, to omit important facts, and even, on occasion, to outright lie.

Here’s a sample from the purported talking points:

Tell the landowner that all their neighbors have signed. Even if the neighbors have not, this often will push an undecided landowner in favor of signing. Remember, the first visit is the most crucial. They will not know if their neighbors have signed, and even if they do they will want to sign so they do not lose out on the potential profits. Once they have signed, then you can show those leases to undecided neighbors for added pressure.

Republican Beliefs Do Not Agree with Facts, Regardless of Educational Level – Scientists have become increasingly certain that climate change is real and human caused. They’re now saying “very likely,” a degree of certainty equivalent to greater than 90 percent. However, Republican/conservative beliefs are in stark contrast with the scientific consensus according to a new study of 10 years of Gallup polling on the issue. But, in addition, the study shows that if you’re a Republican or conservative, having a higher level of education does not help you understand the facts. In contrast, the effects of educational attainment and self-reported understanding on beliefs about climate science and personal concern about global warming are positive for liberals and Democrats.

BP Gets Nearly $10 Billion Tax Credit, by Writing off its “Losses” for Damaging the Gulf of Mexico – One year ago, BP’s oil began to pour into the Gulf of Mexico. It did not stop for 87 days. Today, economic and environmental devastation remain. Thousands of Gulf Coast residents cope with massive health problems from oil and toxic dispersants.

BP, on the other hand, just scored a nearly $10 billion tax credit, by writing off its “losses” incurred from the tragedy.

$10 billion is the entire annual budget of the EPA, whose funding was just slashed in the continuing resolution. It is almost one third of all the cuts in the continuing resolution.

Americans shouldn’t have to endure massive budget cuts because BP took a $10 billion tax deduction for destroying our gulf. Tell BP: Amend your tax return and pay your fair share. Click here to sign the petition.

Fox News Portrays Tea Party Media Specialist as an Everyday Upset Mom – How many times have you studied the Republican Ministry of Propaganda, aka Fox, seen an interview of someone purported to be just an everyday taxpayer, homeowner, worker, parent, or whatever to later find out that the person was a ringer, a paid professional activist there with the sole purpose of brainwashing sheeple with the Republican party line? I have all too often. This time Fox & Friends presented a Tea Party Media Specialist as an upset mom who was upset about her first-grader’s participation in an Earth Day program.

Republican Plan to Cut Medicare but Give Breaks to Millionaires and Companies –

Proposed Texas Schools Science Instructional Materials Are Full of Factual Errors and Creationist Claims – International Databases, Inc., a previously unknown publisher apparently based in New Mexico, is one of several companies that have submitted proposed instructional materials for science that could be used in Texas schools as early as the 2011-12 school year.

A review by the Texas Freedom Network and the National Center for Science Education has found that International Databases’ web-based materials are full of factual errors and creationist claims that clearly do not belong in a science classroom.

Two years ago creationists on the State Board of Education approved new science curriculum standards that call into question the established, mainstream science supporting evolution. And here, with International Databases’ submission, we have the result of that outrageous decision.

Examples of International Databases’ attacks on science can be found at www.tfn.org/IDexamples. Submissions by other publishers can be reviewed at the Texas Education Agency website.

The SBOE will consider submissions by International Databases and other publishers at a single meeting in July. You have until then to voice your concerns and insist that the board promote 21st-century science, not creationist junk science, in our schoolchildren’s classrooms.

Take Action
Now is the time to submit comments about the International Databases materials to the SBOE by email at review.adoption@tea.state.tx.us.

Tell the board to reject any materials — like the materials from International Databases — that would not promote mainstream science in Texas public schools. Insist that board members put facts, sound scholarship and the education of Texas schoolchildren ahead of their own personal and political beliefs.

Regards,

Jim

Republican “Medicare” Plan Will Cost an Additional $100,000 for Every Man, Woman, and Child in the Country – The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that under the Republican Budget plan authored by Rep. Paul Ryan, the increase in the cost of buying Medicare equivalent policies would be $30 trillion more than the cost of Medicare. This additional waste comes to almost $100,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country. This waste is a direct transfer from retirees to the insurance industry and the health care industry.

Families of the Workers That Were Killed on the Deep Water Horizon Rig in the Gulf of Mexico are Being Sued by TransOcean – The workers that were killed on the Deep Water Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico are now being sued by TransOcean. You didn’t read that wrong, the families and children of the men killed that day are being sued by the contractor to BP. Shelly Anderson is the widow of a rig worker and she appeared on CNN’s Piers Morgan and revealed that TransOcean had brought a lawsuit against her and her children and the rest of the families that lost their loved one to limit their liability in the completely preventable explosion that killed her husband. Her lawyer who also appeared on the program explained that TransOcean was filing a suit in the court of their choosing and limits their liability to the value of the rig at the time that it sunk. That means after it exploded, and before it sunk.

Koch Industries Tells Employees How to Vote – On the eve of the November midterm elections, Koch Industries sent an urgent letter to most of its 50,000 employees advising them on whom to vote for and warning them about the dire consequences to their families, their jobs and their country should they choose to vote otherwise. The Nation obtained the Koch Industries election packet for Washington State—which included a cover letter from its president and COO, David Robertson; a list of Koch-endorsed state and federal candidates; and an issue of the company newsletter, Discovery, full of alarmist right-wing propaganda.

Legal experts interviewed for this story called the blatant corporate politicking highly unusual, although no longer skirting the edge of legality, thanks to last year’s Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which granted free speech rights to corporations.

The Kochs were major supporters of the Citizens United case; they were also chief sponsors of the Tea Party and major backers of the anti-“Obamacare” campaign. Through their network of libertarian think tanks and policy institutes, they have been major drivers of unionbusting campaigns in Wisconsin, Michigan and elsewhere.

Average Corporate CEOs Now Get $11.4 Million in Total Compensation; How are You Doing? – 2010 was a good year to make lots of money—if you were a CEO. CEOs of the largest companies received, on average, $11.4 million in total compensation last year, according to an analysis of 299 companies in the S&P 500 Index. Overall, CEOs of just 299 companies received a combined total of $3.4 billion in pay in 2010, enough to support 102,325 jobs paying the median wages for all workers. Are these CEOs being paid to expand their companies, grow the real economy and create good-paying jobs? Apparently not. According to the Federal Reserve, U.S. corporations held a record $1.93 trillion in cash on their balance sheets. A lack of business investment is one reason that more than 14 million Americans remain unemployed. During the past decade, CEOs of the largest American companies received more in compensation than ever before in U.S. history.

Republican Lies About the Deficit – Meet Big Mike. He’s gonna break down the Republican lies about deficit for you. Watch the video at the link.

Republicans Using Average Citizens as Bait
In the Superman movies, the villian realizes that Superman actually cares about humans and takes advantage of this weakness by harming innocent citizens.

In real life, the Republicans realize that Democrats actually care about humans and take advantage of this weakness by harming innocent citizens. To prevent further harm, Democrats give in to Republican leaders, allowing them to proceed with their real agenda of gathering up more power and riches for themselves and their meg-rich supporters.

Doesn’t the guy in the photos below look like he could play the role of Otis, Lex Luthor’s henchman?

Regards,

Jim

There are two parts to the Ryan budget plan:

1.) eliminate the costs of our safety net for those citizens not like Ryan and his fellow conservatives without conscience (CWC) and then 2.) take those savings in spending and transfer them to individuals like him – the mega and ultra rich.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) summarizes the cuts for those not like Ryan:

… The Ryan plan contains $4.3 trillion in spending cuts over ten years. Using conservative estimates, the budget cuts in programs for people of modest means would total roughly $2.9 trillion and probably more, or at least two-thirds of the total. (For a more detailed explanation of these figures, see this brief CBPP analysis.)

The plan contains $1.4 trillion in Medicaid cuts over ten years (which includes repeal of the health reform law’s Medicaid expansion); large cuts in food stamps, low-income housing, Pell Grants, and other programs for people with limited incomes; and repeal of the health reform law’s subsidies to help low- and moderate-income people purchase health insurance. …

The CBPP also describes the savings transferred to the mega and ultra rich:

On the tax side, the Ryan plan would make permanent all of the Bush tax cuts for high-income Americans, as well as the striking estate-tax giveaway included in the December 2010 tax package that benefits the estates of only the wealthiest one-quarter of 1 percent of Americans who die, at a cost of tens of billions of dollars. The Ryan plan loses $700 billion over ten years from making the high-end tax cuts permanent. People with incomes over $1 million would receive average tax cuts of $125,000 a year — or more than $1 million over the coming decade — if these tax cuts are made permanent, according to the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. The $125,000 figure does not include the additional tax cuts that high-income households would receive from the evisceration of the estate tax (or from additional cuts that people earning at least $1million a year would receive from Ryan’s call to cut the top tax rate to 25 percent as part of revenue neutral tax reform).

With that, a few rhetorical questions.

Why does Ryan’s wealth transfer plan have an age limit for his changes to Medicare? If his plan is so great, why not apply it to all, now?

Why does Ryan’s wealth transfer plan assume that the recent growth in food stamp costs, which are caused by the Great Recession, will continue unabated into the future of his budget? Does he understand that his plan won’t produce jobs and unemployment will continue at double it’s normal rate or worse?

Why does the Ryan wealth transfer plan cut Pell grants and thus “reduce the opportunity for many individuals to lift themselves out of poverty?” Are Ryan and his super rich friends afraid of the competition or do they just want to minimize the number of slices in the wealth pie?

Why does Ryan’s wealth transfer plan not reduce the deficit by reducing corporate welfare and other “tax expenditures?” Instead it protects corporate loop holes and massive tax write-offs for the mega and ultra rich.

Why does Ryan’s wealth transfer plan privatize Medicare by forcing the elderly to not only pay more for healhcare services, but to also pay higher administrative fees and a privatization fee called profit?

It appears to me, that even though the conservatives without conscience (CWCs) cannot support unions, especially public ones, they do support taking union type action – acting in unison as a group, like voting to strike. One difference between Congressional CWCs and unions, though, is that unions have a legal mechanism for striking but CWCs have no standing to ‘call a strike’ or prevent other government workers from working.

CWCs have been screaming “cut or shut” over finalizing the rest of the 2011 federal budget. They have been telling other Republicans and Democrats that all must accept their minority position on the budget and their social issue riders. If those in the majority don’t agree, the Congressional CWCs planned to, in unison, shut down the entire federal government.

Well they almost did it. But they wouldn’t have just ‘left the state’ after refusing to negotiate, they would have forced most of the federal government to leave their jobs. By doing so, they would have taken united action to an excessive and abusive level. This potential abuse of power by Congressional CWCs, far, far, far exceeds anything ever sanctioned by our labor laws.

If they had shut down the entire government, these Congressional CWCs deserve to be terminated from their jobs as would be done with any group of employees who would have taken such abusive, united action against their employer as well as their coworkers.

Republican Cuts to Community Health Centers Will Increase Federal Deficit by $15 Billion – The federal government could save $15 billion by reducing unnecessary emergency room visits through investment in community health centers.

This week, new research, from the Geiger Gibson/RCHN Community Health Foundation Research Collaborative, pinpoints just how much we stand to lose in health care efficiency savings if the funding is cut as proposed; $15 billion. Put another way, for every $1 invested in CHC expansion, there is a potential savings in health care costs of $11.50.

Money to expand the CHC program may be cut from the budget. The report explains that if the funding is lost, then CHCs will not be able to serve the 10-12 million additional patients who were supposed to get care through expanded CHCs under the Affordable Care Act. If Congress refuses to allot $1.3 billion for cost-effective primary care, $15 billion in projected savings will evaporate.

If Republicans are serious about balancing the budget, they should happily expand the Community Health Center network.

Proposed Republicans Cuts Will Hurt Americans – If the proposed Republicans cuts are enacted into law:

• 218,000 young children would not be able to receive Head Start services.
• 11 million patients would lose health care they would have received at Community Health Centers over the next year, with 3.2 million losing care in the next few months; 127 health center sites would have to close, and 7,434 jobs would be lost.
• 20 million low-income people, including 5 million children, 2.3 million seniors and 1.7 million people with disabilities, would have access to anti-poverty services disrupted.
• 9.4 million low-income college students would lose some or all of their Pell grants.
• More than 8 million adults and youth would lose access to job training and other employment services. Job training under the Workforce Investment Act would essentially be shut down until July 2012.
• 81,000 low-income people, mostly seniors and some children, would no longer receive food packages and six states would not be able to join the program after being approved to do so.
• 1.2 million poor households in public housing (two-thirds of whose members are elderly or have a disability) would see maintenance and repairs on their apartments deteriorate due to cuts in the Public Housing Capital Fund.
• 10,000 people with significant long-term disabilities would lose their rental assistance; most of these would lose their homes.

Republican Governor of Wisconsin Gives High-Paying State Job to Son of Big Contributor – Republican Governor Scott Walker has given the son of a major political donor a very well-heeled post in the state’s Department of Commerce.

His qualifications: dropping out of college, working for a few Republicans, working for a lobbyist shop and getting busted a couple times for DUI.

Brian Deschane, the son of a lobbyist for the Wisconsin Builders Association and a major Walker donor, is now earning $81,500 a year on their dime. And lucky him: In Brian’s first two months on the job, he even landed a 26 percent pay raise. Deschane’s lobbying shop’s group and individual members donated a combined total of over $121,000 to the Walker’s campaign.

Wisconsin’s Governor Could Have Raised Each Taxpayer’s Tax by Just 13 Cents per Week Instead of Cutting Teachers’ Compensation by $3,000 – “If you wished to trim $30 million off of the budget, that works out to about $6.91 per Wisconsin taxpayer. So I must ask: Is it fair that you ask $3000 of me, but you fail to ask $6.91 of everyone? I know that times are tough, but would it not be more equitable to ask that each taxpayer in the state contribute an extra 13 cents a week?”

The above is from an open letter from high school social studies teacher, Eric Brehm of Endeavor, Wisconsin, to Gov. Scott Walker, asking about the impacts of his “budget repair bill.” It’s lengthy and worth reading—and passing on—in its entirety. You can also read up on Brehm at his blog, Bang the Bucket.

Republicans Handing Complete Control of the Internet to Big Telecom Companies – Republicans are pushing a “Resolution of Disapproval” that would strip the FCC of its authority to protect our right to free speech online. Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and John Ensign (R-Nevada) introduced the “resolution of disapproval” on Wednesday. It already has 39 Republican cosponsors. In the House, Reps. Fred Upton (R-Michigan) and Greg Walden (R-Oregon) are pushing a similar measure. If it passes, the FCC would not just be barred from enforcing its already weak Net Neutrality rule, but also from acting in any way to protect Internet users against corporate abuses. If passed, the resolution would give phone and cable companies absolute power over the Internet. Imagine a world where these companies are allowed to do anything they want, ban any speech they don’t like, charge anything they can get away with, and hold innovation hostage to their profit margins. If this resolution passes, there’s nothing anyone could do about it.

Kansas Republican Representative Virgil Peck Proposes Controlling the Immigration Population by Shooting Them From Helicopters Like Feral Pigs – Enough said.

Republican National Committee to Presidential Candidates: Give Us Money, Get Easy Debates – The Republican National Committee is facing a serious money problem. With over $20 million in debt, another vicious (and long) election cycle already starting and a national convention only a year away, the group is looking for any way to raise cash beyond the basic general outreach of new party chairman Reince Priebus.

So the RNC is coming up with a new and unusual way to find funds — begging cash off of presidential contenders. In exchange for donating, candidates will get a leg up on the debates by getting to pick how they would like them done, from locations and frequency to who would host and what questions would be asked. The process would give the candidates an excuse to skip any potentially hostile debates.

It’s the Republican way: sweet deals for big bucks.

Regards,

Jim

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “CBO data for 2007 (the most recent year available) suggest that 80 percent of U.S. households pay federal tax at a lower rate than the Tax Foundation’s estimated “average” federal tax obligation.”

Here is the first sentence from the mission statement of the Tax Foundation:

The mission of the Tax Foundation is to educate taxpayers about sound tax policy and the size of the tax burden borne by Americans at all levels of government.

Elsewhere on the Tax Foundation’s web site About Us web page, they claim to be “nonpartisan.”

Give me a break! Just look at the key words in their mission statement above. They have a bias against taxes – taxes are a “burden.” Trying to claim Americans, especially the mega and ultra rich, are overtaxed is misleading and partisan.

Taxes are needed and they have been cut too many times and cut excessively for the really rich since WWII. It’s wrong that 10 percent of Americans own 83 percent of the nation’s wealth. Cutting taxes over recent decades has depleted the coffers that built the middle class.

Taxes are about funding those things that protect citizens against abuse of power and empower all citizens to make sure we each have an equal chance to become prosperous. Taxes are about preventing a plutocracy like the one we rebelled against in the late 18th century. Taxes are about controlling the transfer of 83 percent of America’s wealth to the top 10 percent of America’s citizens and stopping the destruction of the middle class. Taxes are about preventing the mega and ultra rich, like the Koch brothers, from buying and owning our democracy through lobbyists and minority groups, like the Tea Party and Republican Senators in our Congress. Taxes are necessary for our democracy. Taxes are the dues we all owe for what we have gained from our way of life where others shared part of their wealth to give each of us a chance to prosper. The more we gain and prosper from the common wealth, the more we owe back to the common wealth.

This is the second time I have pointed out the bias of the Tax Foundation. They don’t believe that taxes can be used for the good of all. They believe tax breaks should favor the rich. Unfortunately, the mega and ultra rich can become too powerful and abuse the middle class.

Top 25 Hedge Fund Managers Make Almost $1 Billion Each – And Pay Less Taxes Than You Do – Ten years ago, when the hedge fund industry was much smaller than it is today, it took 25 hedge fund managers to earn a combined annual payday of $5 billion.

Last year, it took only one. …
Last year was very lucrative for some of the biggest and best-performing hedge funds’ chiefs. Wealth was so concentrated that a mere 25 people pocketed a total of $22.07 billion, according to this year’s annual ranking by AR Magazine, which tracks the hedge fund industry. At $50,000 a year, it would take the salaries of 441,400 Americans to match that sum.

But just because these executive are cashing big checks doesn’t mean that they have big tax bills. Sure, they are likely giving Uncle Sam more money than you are, but as a percentage of their income they pay nowhere near close to what you pay. Wonkroom writes:

[H]edge fund managers benefit from preferential tax treatment that middle-income Americans don’t. Due to what’s known as the carried-interest loophole, the income that hedge fund managers receive if their funds make money is treated as capital gains — rather than ordinary income — and gets taxed at the capital gains rate of 15 percent. Even though the pay is performance-based compensation (just like any other performance-based bonus made by any other worker), hedge fund managers receive a tax break on that income. This results in hedge fund managers paying less in taxes on this income than middle-class workers, who are subject to a 25 percent top marginal tax rate.

So a hedge fund manager that is making $1 billion a year is probably only bringing home $850,000,000. That makes you feel better, right?

When the Republicans say that rich people need to have their money because they pay most of the taxes, remember that this is what they are talking about — someone who makes one billion dollars only gets to keep $850,000,000 of it, and the GOP thinks that they should be able to keep many millions more. Whereas someone who makes $50,000 should be forced to lose collective bargaining rights to ask for a 2 percent raise for the following year.

[Forbes list of United States “investment” billionaires ]

Texas House Republicans Force Through Destructive Budget Cuts – On Sunday night, Texas House Republicans forced through some of the most destructive budget cuts in Texas history. On a party line vote, 101 House Republicans trampled on the priorities of regular, middle-class Texas families.

Republicans voted to:

• Eliminate 335,000 Texas jobs in both the public and private sectors, threatening our fragile economic recovery [2]
• Lay off up to 100,000 teachers and school support workers, crowding dozens of kids into unruly classrooms [3]
• Kick 100,000 kids out of full day Pre-Kindergarten [4]
• Close half of the state’s nursing homes, leaving thousands of seniors with no place to go [5]
• Create a ripple effect that will force local governments like cities, counties and local school districts to raise taxes [6]
• Cut off access to financial aid for thousands of graduating high school seniors [7], while forcing up college tuition through cuts. [8]

They didn’t have to cut this deeply into the priorities set by most Texas families. They chose to make the deepest cuts public education since the creation of our school finance system in 1949. [9]

Republican Rand Paul Has No Problem With Deaths of Coal Miners Doubling, But is Worried About the Burden of Prevention on Coal-Mining Companies – Since the Coal Mine Health and Safety Act was repealed in 1995, the number of cases of Black lung disease have doubled, and now kills approximately 1000 miners per year. But Republican Senator Rand Paul from the coal-mining state of Kentucky doesn’t see any problem. Paul said during a Senate hearing that black-lung rates had dropped dramatically since 1969, when a law to combat the illness took effect. (Yes, they decreased while the law was in effect, and have incresed since it was repealed. – JLV) Paul also said, “There is a point or a balancing act between when a regulation becomes burdensome and our energy production is stifled. We have to assess the cost.” (How about the human cost? – JLV)

Minty, Pink and Deadly: Big Tobacco Targets Girls – In 2006, a court determined tobacco companies intentionally targeted youth. But less than a year later, R.J. Reynolds was at it again, by debuting Camel No. 9, a cigarette packaged in a chic black box with hot pink foil.

Designing and marketing cancer-causing cigarettes to girls is wrong. We’ve got to fight back against the deceptive marketing tactics of Big Tobacco. This starts with you taking a stand against the tobacco industry by adding your name to the petition at the link.

Regards,

Jim