26 Dems

Real News Covers Student Ethnic Studies Protest at TUSD Board Meeting

2011-05-03T13:40:00.000-07:00

WATCH VIDEO

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Tyranny Trumps Democracy: Michigan Governor Seizes Unilateral Control of Selected Towns & School Districts, Appoints Corporate Style Emergency Managers

2011-04-29T18:54:00.000-07:00

Overseer Brags About "Sheer Scope of his Unilateral Authority"

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Insurers Getting Rich By Not Paying for Care

2011-04-29T18:23:00.000-07:00

by Wendell Potter
Center for Media and Democracy
April 25, 2011 - 10:18am

If I had stayed in the insurance industry, my net worth would have spiked between 4 p.m. Wednesday and 4 p.m. Thursday last week -- and I wouldn't even have had to show up for work.

I'm betting that just about every executive of a for-profit health insurance company, whose total compensation ultimately depends on the value of their stock options, woke up on Good Friday considerably wealthier than they were 24 hours earlier. Why? Because of the spectacular profits that one of those companies reported Thursday morning.

Among those suddenly wealthier executives, by the way, are the corporate medical directors who decide whether or not patients will get coverage for treatments their doctors believe might save their lives.

UnitedHealth Group, the biggest health insurer in terms of revenue and market value, earned so much more during the first three months of this year than Wall Street expected that investors rushed to buy shares of every one of the seven health insurers that comprise the managed care sector. In my view, it would be more accurate to call it the managed care cartel.

UnitedHealth is always the first of the big seven to announce earnings every quarter, so investors consider it a bellwether. If UnitedHealth exceeds Wall Street's expectations, as it has been doing consistently, investors assume that the other six will do likewise. Sure enough, all seven -- Aetna, CIGNA, Coventry, Health Net, Humana, UnitedHealth and WellPoint -- saw their stock prices close Thursday afternoon at or near 52-week highs.

UnitedHealth's shares shot up more than 8 percent during the day. Increases of that magnitude are so rare that I could almost hear the champagne corks popping in the Minnetonka, Minnesota office of UnitedHealth's CEO, Stephen J. Hemsley.

Wall Street analysts had worried that health insurers would have such a hard time complying with the provisions of the year-old health care reform law that their profit margins would decline. Those concerns were put to rest when UnitedHealth reported that its operating margins were "stable" at 8.7 percent in the quarter. The company's stellar performance should also put to rest -- forever -- the myth that "ObamaCare" is "bleeding insurers dry," as industry apologist Sally Pipes contended in a Feb. 24 commentary in Forbes.

Noting that UnitedHealth's 13 percent increase in profits prompted the company to raise its full-year earnings forecast, the Minneapolis Star Tribune opined, "Life under new health care reform laws may not be so rough after all."

Indeed. Consider these numbers: UnitedHealth's profit during the first three months of this year increased to $1.35 billion from $1.19 billion a year ago. When you do the math to determine the company's earnings per share, the result is nothing short of jaw-dropping. On that basis, UnitedHealth's profit jumped from $1.03 to $1.22 per share. Wall Street analysts had been expecting the company to earn just 89 cents a share. When you beat Wall Street's expectations by 33 cents a share, you have accomplished something that most CEOs can only dream about.
Continue reading here.

Massachusetts Dems Pass Bill to 'Eliminate Collective Bargaining as We Know It'

2011-04-28T10:23:00.000-07:00

By Mike Elk, a third-generation union organizer and labor journalist based in Washington, D.C.
MichaelMoore.com
April 28th, 2011 6:24 AM

Last night, the Massachusetts House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill (111-42) to strip public-sector workers of their ability to bargain collectively for healthcare. The rhetoric surrounding the bill, proposed by Democratic State House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, is in many ways similar to what Wisconsinites recently heard as Gov. Walker pushed his infamous unionbusting bill.

But how could a state in which Democrats control both the State House and the Governor’s mansion be pushing a bill that attacks workers’ rights to collectively bargain?

The State of Massachusetts currently faces a budget deficit of $1.9 billion. House Democrats say that by limiting the collective bargaining rights of public employees over healthcare they can save the state $100 million a year. Democrats in Massachusetts, much like Democrats in New York, have focused on cutting basic government services and workers’ wages instead of raising taxes on the richest. Thus, House Speaker DeLeo proposed the plan that would limit the rights of employees to collective bargain over healthcare. And many Democrats, who have been supported by labor unions in the state, passed it.

“We are going to fight this thing to the bitter end,’’ Robert J. Haynes, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, told the Boston Globe last night. “Massachusetts is not the place that takes collective bargaining away from public employees.’’

Continue reading here.

Connect the Dots: "Civics and Policy Basics for the Busy Majority"

2011-04-26T16:59:00.000-07:00

Connect the Dots

www.connectthedotsusa.com

Budgets and Deficits and Debt, Oh My!

Click here for slides, and to print booklet

Andrea Witte's new website urges you to

HELP SPREAD THE WORD:

"Share these presentations (or even just a single slide) with your friends, family members and co-workers. Let’s keep asking for more dots and keep connecting the dots to good policies so we can get our country back on track. And let’s ensure our democracy lives up to our children’s expectations."

Congressional People's Caucus 'People's Budget' Earns High Marks For Fiscal Responsibility

2011-04-26T16:47:00.000-07:00

Congressional Progressive Caucus

Eliminates National Deficit by 2021
Read the People's Budget

Read The Technical Analysis and Working Paper
Presupuesto del Pueblo (Español)

The CPC proposal:

• Eliminates the deficits and creates a surplus by 2021
• Puts America back to work with a “Make it in America” jobs program
• Protects the social safety net
• Ends the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
• Is FAIR (Fixing America’s Inequality Responsibly)

What the proposal accomplishes:
• Primary budget balance by 2014.
• Budget surplus by 2021.
• Reduces public debt as a share of GDP to 64.1% by 2021, down 16.5 percentage points from
a baseline fully adjusted for both the doc fix and the AMT patch.
• Reduces deficits by $5.6 trillion over 2012-21, relative to this adjusted baseline.
• Outlays equal to 22.2% of GDP and revenue equal 22.3% of GDP by 2021.

Support for the People's Budget
Paul Krugman

“genuinely courageous”

“achieves this without dismantling the legacy of the New Deal”

Dean Baker "
if you want a serious effort to balance the budget, here it is."

Jeffrey Sachs

“A bolt of hope…humane, responsible, and most of all sensible”

The Economist

“Courageous”

“Mr Ryan's plan adds (by its own claims) $6 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, but promises to balance the budget by sometime in the 2030s by cutting programmes for the poor and the elderly. The Progressive Caucus's plan would (by its own claims) balance the budget by 2021 by cutting defence spending and raising taxes, mainly on rich people.”

The New Republic

“In passing, Miller also draws attention something that's gotten far too little attention in this debate. The most fiscally responsible plan seems to be neither the Republicans' nor the president's. It's the Congressional Progressive Caucus plan…”

The Washington Post

"It’s much more courageous to propose taxes on the rich and powerful than spending cuts on the poor and disabled."

Rachel Maddow

“Balances the budget 20 years earlier than Paul Ryan even tries to”

The Guardian

“the most fiscally responsible in town… would balance the books by 2021“

The Nation

"the strongest rebuke...to the unconscionable 'Ryan Budget' for FY 2012."

Center for American Progress

"once again put[s] requiring more sacrifice from the luckiest among us back on the table"

Economic Policy Institute

Ryan's Medicare Plan Would Be a Windfall for Insurance Companies

2011-04-22T23:15:00.000-07:00

By Wendell Potter
opednews.com
4/22/11

Rep. Paul Ryan's plan to privatize Medicare would accelerate a trend started several years ago by corporate CEOs and their political allies to shift ever-increasing amounts of risk from Big Business and the government to workers and retirees.

If enacted, the Ryan plan would represent a windfall of unprecedented proportions for insurance corporations and other businesses.

For millions of average Americans, many of whom already are finding it impossible to save for retirement, it would represent financial calamity. The nation's middle class would pay dearly for Ryan's proposed shredding of the social safety net that Medicare currently provides.

Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, wants to dismantle the Medicare program and replace it with a system of vouchers. Starting in 2022, the government would give the average 65-year-old Medicare beneficiary $8,000 a year to buy coverage from a private insurer. That's the amount health care analysts estimate will be what the Medicare program will spend on every 65-year-old in 2022 if the government doesn't turn it over to private insurance companies.

While that might sound fair on the surface, it would actually be a very bad deal for people who turn 65 that year, compared to those who turn 65 in 2021. That's because commercial insurance plans are much more expensive, and operate far less efficiently, than the current Medicare program.

The amount of money commercial plans actually spend to pay medical claims has been declining rapidly over the past several years while the amount they spend on administrative activities such as marketing and underwriting -- and to pay executives and reward shareholders -- has been increasing. That's why Congress included a provision in last year's health care reform law to require insurance firms to spend no more than 20 percent of their policyholders' premiums on overhead. By contrast, the current Medicare program spends just 3 percent of its budget on administration.

Continue reading here.

For 20 years, Wendell Potter worked as a senior executive at health insurance companies, and saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors.

Wendell Potter is the Senior Fellow on Health Care for the Center for Media and Democracy in Madison, Wisconsin. Read his blog http://wendellpotter.com/blog

The Real News: Draconian Michigan Bill Promoted by Major Corporations

2011-04-21T13:27:00.000-07:00

American Legislative Exchange Council organizes national campaign to pass "model" legislation in states

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My Medicare Deficit Solution

2011-04-21T08:49:00.000-07:00

By James Kwak
Baseline Scenario

David Brooks, perhaps realizing that it was a bad idea to swallow a politician’s PR bullet points whole, is now backpedaling. The Ryan Plan, which he originally hailed as “the most comprehensive and most courageous budget reform proposal any of us have seen in our lifetimes,” now has the principal virtue of existing: “Because he had the courage to take the initiative, Paul Ryan’s budget plan will be the starting point for future discussions.”

As I’ve discussed before, the Ryan Plan is just one bad idea dressed up with the false precision of lots of numbers: changing Medicare from a health insurance program to a cash redistribution program that gives up on managing health care costs. Here’s the key chart from the CBO repor

Here’s how to read that chart. In 2030, under current law, a 65-year-old Medicare beneficiary’s health care will cost $60. (Obviously, this is using an index, not real dollars.) Medicare will pay $35 and the beneficiary will pay $25 in Part B premiums and cost sharing. Under the CBO’s more likely “alternative fiscal scenario,” her health care will cost $71, of which Medicare will pay $41. Under the Ryan plan, the same health care purchased in the private market will cost $100; “Medicare” will give her a $32 voucher, and she’ll pay the last $68 on her own.

The bottom line is that the Ryan Plan increases beneficiary costs more than it reduces government costs. In a weird sense, it’s a bizarrely pro-government plan: it helps the government’s bottom line at the expense of ordinary people.

So what should we do? Most importantly, we have to recognize that there are two separate problems, and they are not equal. The primary problem is health care inflation. The secondary problem is the long-term Medicare deficit. That’s a secondary problem because it’s largely a result of the primary problem.

Continue reading here.

And here is the rest of it.

How Ayn Rand Became an American Icon

2011-04-19T15:58:00.000-07:00

By Johann Hari
Slate
Posted Monday, Nov. 2, 2009, at 7:01 AM ET

The perverse allure of a damaged woman.

Ayn Rand is one of America's great mysteries. She was an amphetamine-addicted author of sub-Dan Brown potboilers, who in her spare time wrote lavish torrents of praise for serial killers and the Bernie Madoff-style embezzlers of her day. She opposed democracy on the grounds that "the masses"—her readers—were "lice" and "parasites" who scarcely deserved to live. Yet she remains one of the most popular writers in the United States, still selling 800,000 books a year from beyond the grave. She regularly tops any list of books that Americans say have most influenced them. Since the great crash of 2008, her writing has had another Benzedrine rush, as Rush Limbaugh hails her as a prophetess. With her assertions that government is "evil" and selfishness is "the only virtue," she is the patron saint of the tea-partiers and the death panel doomsters. So how did this little Russian bomb of pure immorality in a black wig become an American icon?

Two new biographies of Rand—Goddess of the Market by Jennifer Burns and Ayn Rand and the World She Made by Anne Heller—try to puzzle out this question, showing how her arguments found an echo in the darkest corners of American political life.* But the books work best, for me, on a level I didn't expect. They are thrilling psychological portraits of a horribly damaged woman who deserves the one thing she spent her life raging against: compassion.

Continue reading here.
For an edgier take on Ayn Rand and her admiration for a serial killer click here.

VIDEO: The Truth About GOP Hero Ayn Rand

2011-04-19T15:29:00.000-07:00

By Jeff Sprouss
ThinkProgress
April 18, 2011

A film adaptation of the 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, opened this past Friday. The release of the film has coincided with a resurgence of popularity for Rand on the American Right. The trailer for Atlas Shrugged had its world premier at this year’s CPAC conference, the Tea Party group FreedomWorks has rolled out a massive campaign to promote the film, and the story’s opening line — “Who is John Galt?” — has appeared on numerous signs at Tea Party rallies.

At the same time, some of the right’s leading political and media lights have heaped praise upon Rand. The author of the Republicans’ new budget plan to gut Medicare and Medicaid, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), has said Rand is the reason he entered politics, and requires his staff to read her work. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) have both declared themselves devotees of her writing. Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has his law clerks watch the film adaptation of Rand’s book The Fountainhead. She’s also received accolades from right-wing pundits Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, John Stossel, and Andrew Napolitano

During her lifetime, Rand advocated “the virtue of selfishness,” declared altruism to be “evil,” opposed Medicare and all forms of government support for the middle-class and the poor, and condemned Christianity for advocating love and compassion for the less fortunate:

Continue reading here.

Democracy Now Interview with author of 'Treasure Islands' Says Tax Havens Tied to Wall Street Power

2011-04-16T10:54:00.000-07:00

April 15 2011
Democracy Now

Democracy Now features an eyepopping interview with British journalist Nicholas Shaxson, author of a new book Treasure Islands: Uncovering the Damage of Offshore Banking and Tax Havens. who exposes how corporations and the wealthy avoid taxes and governmental regulations by sending money to offshore banks and tax havens. Shaxon says that there is anywhere from $10 to $20 trillion sitting offshore. He says it is "bigger and badder" than we ever imagined.

Democracy Now: Rep. Grijalva Unveils Progressive Caucus' "People's Budget" That Puts "Realistic Alternative" On the Table

2011-04-15T18:35:00.000-07:00

Democracy Now April 14, 2011

TAX DAY 2011: Where Do Your Tax Dollars Go?

2011-04-15T18:10:00.000-07:00

Click On Picture to Enlarge

Check out the National Priorities Project

Thom Hartmann: Secrets the Rich Don't Want You to Know

2011-04-15T17:59:00.001-07:00

NPR: Planned Parenthood: A Thorn In Abortion Foes' Sides

2011-04-14T18:01:00.000-07:00

by JULIE ROVNER

NPR

A lot of people were surprised when House Republicans' desire to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood very nearly caused the shutdown of the federal government last week.

But those who have watched the abortion debate over a long period of time were not surprised.

Despite the successes members of the anti-abortion movement have had over the years in restricting the procedure, "Planned Parenthood remains the thorn in their side," says Deana Rohlinger, associate professor of sociology at Florida State University.

Planned Parenthood is the nation's largest single provider of abortions, yet it gets millions of dollars in federal funding with which to provide other services. Efforts to change that have been unsuccessful not only with this last go-round, but also stretching back nearly three decades.

That makes abortion opponents see red.

Continue reading here.

Thom Hartmann: Conservative Info Wars Training Seminars

2011-04-13T10:22:00.000-07:00

Why the United States Is Destroying Its Education System

2011-04-11T11:04:00.000-07:00

By Chris Hedges
Truthdig
Posted on Apr 10, 2011

A nation that destroys its systems of education, degrades its public information, guts its public libraries and turns its airwaves into vehicles for cheap, mindless amusement becomes deaf, dumb and blind. It prizes test scores above critical thinking and literacy. It celebrates rote vocational training and the singular, amoral skill of making money. It churns out stunted human products, lacking the capacity and vocabulary to challenge the assumptions and structures of the corporate state. It funnels them into a caste system of drones and systems managers. It transforms a democratic state into a feudal system of corporate masters and serfs.

Teachers, their unions under attack, are becoming as replaceable as minimum-wage employees at Burger King. We spurn real teachers—those with the capacity to inspire children to think, those who help the young discover their gifts and potential—and replace them with instructors who teach to narrow, standardized tests. These instructors obey. They teach children to obey. And that is the point. The No Child Left Behind program, modeled on the “Texas Miracle,” is a fraud. It worked no better than our deregulated financial system. But when you shut out debate these dead ideas are self-perpetuating.

Continue reading here.

War on the Weak

2011-04-11T10:47:00.000-07:00

By Jonathan Chait, Editor of the New Republic
Newsweek
April 10, 2011

26Dems Editorial Note: This author traces the philosophical origins of the Tea Party that sprang from the cult of Ayn Rand, whose thinking turned Marxism upside down through advocacy for rewarding wealthy producers and punishing "parasite" workers. This stark philosophy demands that the weak suffer, a concept that would upend American society, and abandon the role of government in preserving equality of opportunity and supplying necessities for survival of "the least of these." Rep. Paul Ryan is devoted to replacing American democracy with Ayn Randism. Read this important article that explains the frightening reality behind the uncompromising GOP budget demands that put Medicare and Social Security on the chopping block this week.

How the GOP came to view the poor as parasites—and the rich as our rightful rulers.

Last week the Republican Party sounded two distinct voices. First we heard the angry demands of the Tea Party, speaking through its hardline conservative allies in the House, pushing the government to the brink of a shutdown. But then emerged the soothing tones of Paul Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman, who fashions himself the intellectual leader of the party, unveiling a budget manifesto he calls the “Path to Prosperity.”

Ryan portrays his goals in reassuringly pecuniary terms—he’s just the friendly neighborhood accountant here to help balance your checkbook. “I have a knack for numbers,” he chirps. ABC News compared him to a character in Dave, the corny 1993 movie about an average Joe who mistakenly assumes the presidency and calls in his CPA buddy—that would be Ryan—to scour the federal budget and bring it into balance. If he has any flaw, he just cares too much about rescuing the country from debt, gosh darn it!

Continue reading here.

Are We a Society?

2011-04-11T10:01:00.000-07:00

By Gary Hart, Scholar in Residence at the University of Colorado
Huffington Post
April 4, 2011

When asked about the impact of her draconian policies on British society, then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is reported to have said, "There is no such thing as society."

The current U.S. budget confrontation raises the same issue: Is there such a thing as an American society? The Oxford dictionary defines society as: "the sum of human conditions and activity regarded as a whole functioning interdependently" and as "the customs and organization of an ordered community."

The current confrontation between parties and ideologies is over the role of government. But even more deeply it is a foundational disagreement over whether we are a society, a community, or whether we are a collection of individuals inhabiting the same geographical space.

If we are all "in this together," then we share more than just an interest in collective security. And if we have collective interests, the instrument by which we pursue and promote those interests is the national government, not Wall Street or the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

As we learned in 1929 and 2008, markets can fail, usually through greed and lack of regulation. Although a rising tide lifts all boats, a falling tide lowers all boats, except for the gilded yachts.

The Goldwater-Reagan-Gingrich-Tea Party revolutions all called into question whether we are a society and therefore whether we act through our national government to pursue our common interests. Though virtually all mature democracies have basically resolved this question decades ago, the people of the United States seem unable to do so. Many Americans continue to believe we can have the public services a very large majority wants without paying very much for them. Thus the "waste, fraud, and abuse" of the Reagan years. Or a recurring vocal minority continues to argue that we should do away with those services altogether and devil-take-the-hindmost.

Continue reading here.

The Religious Right's Anti-Union Crusade

2011-04-10T00:06:00.000-07:00

By Josh Harkinson
Mother Jones
Mon Apr. 4, 2011 3:17 AM PDT

Wisconsin's ongoing labor battle has officially become a holy war. The Family Research Council, the evangelical advocacy organization founded by James Dobson, has been dipping into its war chest to defend Republican Governor Scott Walker's efforts to curtail collective bargaining for public-sector unions. FRC president Tony Perkins interviewed backers of Walker's anti-union bill on his weekly radio program and has tweeted his support for the bill, directly linking social conservatism with an anti-union, pro-business agenda: "Pro-family voters should celebrate WI victory b/c public & private sector union bosses have marched lock-step w/liberal social agenda."

Continue reading here

Ryan’s Plan Neither Serious nor Courageous; Assumes 2.8% Unemployment Over Next Decade

2011-04-08T23:17:00.000-07:00

By Joe Conason
Posted on Apr 8, 2011
Truthdig
© 2011 CREATORS.COM

What the meteoric career of Paul Ryan demonstrates is how easily impressed we are whenever a politician purports to restore solvency by punishing the poor and the elderly (while coddling the rich). The Wisconsin Republican congressman’s fiscal plan has won rave reviews from both the usual right-wing suspects and some self-styled centrists, who have praised him and his proposals as “serious,” “courageous” and even “uplifting.”

By now, however, those who have actually examined the Ryan plan with care and competence know that those acclamations are highly exaggerated, which is probably a far too polite description.

Continue reading here.

CBO: Seniors Would Pay Much More For Medicare Under Ryan Plan

2011-04-08T22:47:00.000-07:00

By Julie Appleby, Mary Agnes Carey and Laurie McGinley
KHN Staff Writers
Kaiser Health News
APR 05, 2011

Seniors and the disabled would pay sharply more for their Medicare coverage under a new plan by House Republicans aimed at curbing the nation’s growing deficit, a Congressional Budget Office analysis shows.

For example, by 2030, under the plan, typical 65 year olds would be required to pay 68 percent of the total cost of their coverage, which includes premiums, deductibles, and other out-of-pocket costs, according to CBO. That compares with the 25 percent they would pay under current law, CBO said.

The GOP budget proposal also would raise the eligibility age for the politically popular program – and repeal big chunks of the health care overhaul law approved by Congress last year.And here is the rest of it.

Continue reading here

Democracy Now: Joseph Stiglitz Addresses Class Divide "Of the 1%, by the 1% and For the 1%"

2011-04-07T20:42:00.000-07:00

Democracy Now
April 7, 2011

Click here

This week Republicans unveiled a budget proposal for 2012 that cuts more than $5.8 trillion in government spending over the next decade. The plan calls for sweeping changes to Medicaid and Medicare, while reducing the top corporate and individual tax rates to 25 percent. We speak to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who addresses the growing class divide taking place in the United States and inequality in a new Vanity Fair article titled "Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%." Stiglitz is a professor at Columbia University and author of numerous books, most recently Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy.

"It’s not just that the people at the top are getting richer," Stiglitz says. "Actually, they’re gaining, and everybody else is decreasing... And right now, we are worse than old Europe."

Pay Much Attention to the Insurers Behind Paul Ryan's Curtain

2011-04-07T15:04:00.000-07:00

By Wendell Potter, Former insurance company executive; author
Huffington Post
April 7, 2011

Democrats who think Paul Ryan and his Republican colleagues have foolishly wrapped their arms around the third rail of American politics by proposing to hand the Medicare program to private insurers will themselves look foolish if they take for granted that the public will always be on their side.

Rep. Ryan's budget proposal would radically reshape both the Medicare and Medicaid programs. It would turn Medicaid into a block grant, which would give states more discretion over benefits and eligibility. And it would radically redesign Medicare, changing it from what is essentially a government-run, single-payer health plan to one in which people would choose coverage from competing private insurance firms, many of them for-profit.

Click here

Poll numbers would seem to give the Democrats the edge in what will undoubtedly be a ferocious debate over the coming months and during the 2012 campaigns. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll conducted February 27-28 showed that 76 percent of Americans considered cuts to Medicare unacceptable. The public is almost as resistant to cutting Medicaid, at least for now: 67 percent of Americans said they found cutting that program unacceptable as well.

According to a story in Politico this week, Democrats "with close ties to the White House" think Ryan has handed them a gift that will keep on giving. They believe the Ryan blueprint will enable them to portray Republicans as both irresponsible and heartless, hellbent on unraveling the social safety net that has protected millions of Americans for decades. That message will be the centerpiece of the Democrats' advertising and fundraising efforts, unnamed party strategists told Politico.

Perhaps. But know this: Ryan et al would never propose such a fundamental reshaping of those programs unless they were confident that corporate America stands ready to help them sell their ideas to the public. Like big business CEOs, Congressional Republicans wouldn't think of rolling out Ryan's budget plan without a carefully crafted political and communications strategy and the assurance that adequate funding would be available to carry it out.

Follow Wendell Potter on Twitter

Continue reading here.

Sharp Drop in American Enthusiasm for Free Market, Poll Shows

2011-04-06T22:32:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, April 6, 2011 by World Public Opinion.org
American public support for the free market economy has dropped sharply in the past year, and is now lower than in China, according to a GlobeScan poll released today.

The findings, drawn from 12,884 interviews across 25 countries, show that there has been a sharp fall in the number of Americans who think that the free market economy is the best economic system for the future.

When GlobeScan began tracking views in 2002, four in five Americans (80%) saw the free market as the best economic system for the future--the highest level of support among tracking countries. Support started to fall away in the following years and recovered slightly after the financial crisis in 2007/8, but has plummeted since 2009, falling 15 points in a year so that fewer than three in five (59%) now see free market capitalism as the best system for the future.

Continue reading here.

Thom Hartmann: Must see! The TRUE story of the Tea Party

2011-04-06T16:16:00.000-07:00

Submitted by Thom Hartmann A... on 1. April 2011 - 6:48

Renewables Are More Than Ready

2011-04-04T16:37:00.000-07:00

By Karl Grossman
opednews.com
April 4, 2011

"Wind and solar are great but strictly supplemental," declared Al Velshi on CNN on Sunday, March 27 in a report on the nuclear power disaster in Japan.

"You're wrong," environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a guest, shot back.

Indeed, Velshi was wrong--as have so many in media been -in declaring that the choice in energy in the wake of the nuclear disaster in Japan is between nuclear on one side and coal, oil and gas on the other.

In fact, there's no need for nuclear power because there are safe, clean, renewable energy technologies, not coal, oil and gas, here to substitute for nuclear power.

Scientific American, a most conservative scientific publication, in a cover story on October 26, 2009--unveiled its "A Plan for a Sustainable Future" It declared in its "Plan to Power 100 Percent of the Planet with Renewables" that, "wind, water and solar technologies can provide 100 percent of the world's energy, eliminating all fossil fuels."

The British magazine, New Scientist, in a special October 11-17, 2009 issue on safe, clean, renewable energy technologies--titled "Our Brighter Future"--presented a United Nations report declaring that "renewable energy that can already be harnessed economically would supply the world's electricity needs"

From solar to wind (now the fastest-growing and cheapest new energy technology) to wave-power to tidal-power to bio-fuels to small hydropower to co-generation (combining the generation of heat and electricity) and on and on, a renewable energy windfall is at hand.

Continue reading here.

60 Minutes: The Next Housing Shock

2011-04-04T08:44:00.000-07:00

A Wave of Wackiness Sweeps America

2011-04-02T16:06:00.000-07:00

By Don Monkerud
Consortium News
April 1, 2011

Consortium News Editor’s Note: The Tea Party’s electoral earthquake last November has set off a tsunami of political wackiness that is crashing across the United States, with Republican officeholders racing to stay ahead of the surge, as Don Monkerud notes in this guest essay:

Guns in churches, schools and bars. Immigrants expelled to solve financial problems. Morality praised as the key national issue.

American politics are getting more bizarre and in some cases, border on the nutty. Current politics include Republican legislatures in Texas, Arizona, Georgia and Minnesota fighting for their "rights" to reject energy efficiency light bulbs, while South Carolina will manufacture their own state's rights incandescent bulbs.

Alaska wants to eliminate federal protection of salmon, polar bears, seals and wolves in favor of "state sovereignty." Dozens of states pledge to roll back "Obamacare," and protect their citizens' right to high-priced monopoly healthcare.

A GOP legislator in New Hampshire recommends sending the disabled and homeless to Siberia where it's cheaper to live.

Continue reading here.

All of humanity could shift to solar, wind energy in less than 25 years, policy study group claims

2011-03-31T12:07:00.000-07:00

By Stephen C. Webster
Rawstory
Thursday, March 31st, 2011 -- 10:37 am

Humankind has the technology, resources and capabilities to adapt to and help avert serious climate change and the crunch of a dwindling energy economy, if only the political will can be mustered -- and it's not just idealistic progressives who are saying so anymore.

In a recent report, the British non-profit Institute for Policy Research & Development (IPRD) claimed that, with targeted investments by world governments, solar power could become humanity's main source of portable energy in 25 years or less.

The catch: "Spending priorities" must change -- something that seems remarkably difficult even in the U.S., ostensibly one of the world's most advanced democracies.

Starting with the assumption that hydrocarbon energy markets are dying and renewable energy tech is the inevitable future, the group calculated how much electricity humans consume today and how much growing populations are projected to consume by 2030.

What they found is that in 19 years from now, humanity will be consuming 724 exajoules (EJ) of energy annually. Today, that figure is about 39 percent less.

Figuring in the efficiency of today's solar and wind power tech, they were able to model what it would take to rapidly replace the current petroleum power infrastructure with renewables.And here is the rest of it.

Continue reading here.

Former Intel CEO blasts education in Arizona

2011-03-30T14:13:00.000-07:00

By Ginger Rough and Betty Beard -
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 30, 2011 12:00 AM

Gov. Jan Brewer and the state's top lawmakers got a reality check Tuesday from former Intel Chief Executive and Board Chairman Craig Barrett, who told them Arizona's education system is hindering economic-development efforts.

Koch Money Tied to Michigan Think Tank, "Financial Martial Law", Right-Wing Billionaire Attack on Unions

2011-03-25T10:24:00.000-07:00

By Andy Kroll
Behind Michigan's "Financial Martial Law": Corporations and Right-Wing Billionaires
Mother Jones
Wed Mar. 23, 2011 12:01 AM PDT

The think tank that inspired Gov. Rick Snyder's controversial bill is bankrolled by some of the same donors that funded Wisconsin's attack on unions.

Last week, Michigan's Republican Governor Rick Snyder signed into law a fiercely contested bill giving unelected "emergency financial managers" unprecedented power to shred union contracts, privatize city services, and consolidate or dissolve local governments, all in the name of saving struggling cities and school districts. Dubbed "financial martial law" by one approving state GOP lawmaker and "disaster capitalism" by critics, Snyder and his bill have become a target for Wisconsin-like protests. Several thousand demonstrators marched on the Michigan Capitol in the days before Snyder signed the bill. But gone unmentioned is a little-known Michigan think tank that for years has been pushing for the most controversial provisions in Snyder's bill—and that's bankrolled by some of the same right-wing millionaires and billionaires that backed Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and his anti-union legislation.

Since 2005, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy has urged reforms to Michigan law giving more power and protection to emergency financial managers, state-appointed officials who parachute into ailing cities or school districts and employ drastic measures to fix budgets on the brink of collapse. In January, the free-market-loving center published four recommendations, including granting emergency managers the power to override elected officials (such as a mayor or school board member) and toss out union contracts. All four ended up in Snyder's legislation.

"The Mackinac Center has been tied at the hip with the Republican Party establishment for years," says Doug Pratt, public affairs director at the Michigan Education Association. "It goes to their funding sources; it goes to their ideology."

Mackinac is part of a network of state-based groups associated with the Heritage Foundation, the influential right-wing think tank in Washington. Its past and present board members include Robert Teeter, a GOP strategist and '92 campaign manager for George H.W. Bush; Margaret Rieker, a former vice chairwoman of the Republican National Committee; and Joseph Lehman, a former vice president at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington.

The Mackinac Center does not disclose its donors. But a review of tax records shows that the group's funders include the charitable foundations of the nation's largest corporations and a host of wealthy conservative and libertarian benefactors. Between 2002 and 2009, the Mackinac Center's donors included the Charles G. Koch Foundation ($69,151), founded by the chairman and CEO of Koch Industries, who, with his brother, David, is a major backer of conservative causes; the Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation ($80,000), the charity tied to the son of the co-founder of Amway, the multibillion-dollar direct marketing company; the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation, established by the parents of Blackwater founder Erik Prince, who serves as the foundation's vice president ($195,000); and the Walton Family Foundation ($100,000), established by Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton and his wife, Helen.

Continue reading here.

Wall Street Analyst: "New Civil War erupts, led by super rich, GOP"

2011-03-25T10:11:00.000-07:00

By PAUL B. FARRELL
MarketWatch
March 22, 2011, 6:55 a.m. EDT
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) —

Commentary: ‘Shock Doctrine,’ Reaganomics trigger explosive class war

Yes, “there’s class warfare, all right,” warns Warren Buffett. “But it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” Yes, the rich are making war against us. And yes, they are winning. Why? Because so many are fighting this new American Civil War between the rich and the rest.

Not just the 16 new GOP governors in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Florida, and across America fighting for new powers. Others include: Chamber of Commerce billionaires, Koch brothers, Forbes 400, Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform — which now has 97% of House Republicans and 85% of the GOP Senators signed on his “no new taxes” pledge — the Tea Party and Reaganomics ideologues.

Wake up America. You are under attack. Stop kidding yourself. We are at war. In fact, we have been fighting this Civil War for a generation, since Ronald Reagan was elected in 1981. Recently Buffett renewed the battle cry: The “rich class” is winning this war. Except most Americans still don’t realize they’re losing, don’t see the prize at stake.

All this was predicted back in September 2008 by Naomi Klein, author of “Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.” Yes, we were warned that the GOP’s Reaganomics ideology would stage a rapid comeback … warned before the market collapsed … before Wall Street was virtually bankrupt. … before Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson conned Congress into $787 billion in bailouts … warned before Obama’s 2008 election.

Continue reading here.

Koch "Tea Party" Oligarchy: "An Unholy Alliance Between Business and State" That Was Built On Russia's Oligarch Model

2011-03-25T09:43:00.000-07:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Michigan Set To Enact Sweeping 'Financial Martial Law' Bill

2011-03-14T17:50:00.000-07:00

By Jason Linkins
Huffington Post
First Posted: 03/14/11 05:49 PM Updated: 03/14/11 05:49 PM

As readers know, I was favorably inclined toward the overall positive tenor of the successful gubernatorial campaign run by Rick Snyder (R-Mich.) and his subsequent efforts to move past partisan political rivalries. I'd hoped that it portended some coming creative thinking and innovation in the realm of state management.

As it turns out, I was terrifically wrong, and Snyder's just lost me completely with his apparent desire to enact a law that would impose "financial martial law" upon struggling communities in the form of "financial managers" that would have the power to abrogate contracts at will and supersede the democratic process. There's been a lot of recent media attention focused on a similar disregard for the public will in Wisconsin, but what's happening in Michigan really makes Scott Walker look like an amateur.

Continue reading here.

Eight Civics Lessons from Governor Walker

2011-03-14T12:00:00.000-07:00

By Diane Ravitch, Historian, NYU Professor
Huffington Post
March 14, 2011

Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin has taught the nation some very important civics lessons. The price is high, but we should pay careful attention to what he teaches by example.

The first lesson: Citizens should not be hoodwinked by rhetoric. Governor Walker said that the state was broke. He said that public sector workers had to make larger contributions to the cost of their pensions and health care, even as he handed out generous corporate tax breaks for the same amount. Doing a reverse Robin Hood, he took from the middle class to enrich the powerful. The unions promptly agreed to pay what the governor proposed, effectively cutting their compensation, but the governor would not take yes for an answer. He insisted on breaking the unions, even though no financial issues were involved.

Lesson two: It is really important to vote. Only 51.7% of eligible voters in Wisconsin cast a ballot last November, and they ended up with a governor and a legislature who are wreaking havoc on state government and decimating vital public services.

Continue reading here.

NCLB: Howard Dean Predicted in 2003 that 100% of Schools Would Fail by 2013

2011-03-11T09:34:00.000-08:00

26Dems Editorial Comment: Howard Dean was right. We are almost there. It's 2011 and already the Secretary of Education has announced that 82% of the nation's public schools are failing. Diane Ravitch a former Bush administration Dept. of Education official who spoke recently in Tucson has recognized the flaws in No Child Left Behind and has written a highly recommended book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. Ravitch warns that the curriculum is being gutted as teachers have become technicians teaching to the test. No humanities, social studies, music, art or physical education. NCLB has been divisive. Harsh measures aimed at arresting school failure has led to panic among administrators as schools compete for standing. Now parents and politicians seeking an easy fix find it easy to blame the teachers. Firing all the teachers in a city's public schools won't fix what's wrong and lead to better public school performance. Corporations see easy profit in the privatization of public schools. Here is one retired teacher's journal from Democratic Underground looks back to Howard Dean's prescient warning back in 2003 was right on target. NCLB legislation has transformed our public schools into a politically divisive battleground with our children and grandchildren as pawns.

Click here for NPR Review

Arne having to change tune since NCLB is causing 82% of schools to fail....
Posted by madfloridian in General Discussion
Democratic Underground
Fri Mar 11th 2011, 12:39 AM

Instead of causing them to be successful, as the students meet a testing goal, the next year they raise the goal. The parents are not clued in that the standards are being raised, so they blame the schools and the teachers, especially the teachers.

I remember in 2003 when Howard Dean made an offhand comment after a rally, and remembered I was even questioning the accuracy of the statement myself until I thought it out. While the Bush administration was claiming it was a way for the schools to succeed, Dean said the opposite.

2003 Howard Dean on NCLB... "every school in America by 2013 will be a failing school."

"The president's ultimate goal," said former Gov. Howard Dean (D-Vt.), one of the Democrats who now harshly attacks NCLB, "is to make the public schools so awful, and starve them of money, just as he's starving all the other social programs, so that people give up on the public schools."

He also said:

Dean criticized President Bush, saying his administration will lower the standards for good schools in New Hampshire, making them more like poorly performing schools in Texas. The Bush administration believes ''the way to help New Hampshire is to make it more like Texas,'' Dean told supporters in Manchester, adding that ''every school in America by 2013 will be a failing school.''

"Every group, including special education kids, has to be at 100 percent to pass the tests,'' Dean said. ''No school system in America can do that. That ensures that every school will be a failing school."

Continue reading here

Outrage in Wisconsin: Thousands Flood Capitol After GOP Strips Public Workers of Bargaining Rights in Surprise Senate Vote

2011-03-10T14:52:00.001-08:00

Naomi Klein on Anti-Union Bills and Shock Doctrine American-Style: "This is a Frontal Assault on Democracy, a Corporate Coup D’Etat"

2011-03-10T14:34:00.000-08:00

Bradblog Green News Special Report: US Chamber's Disinformation War

2011-03-10T13:55:00.000-08:00

March 10, 2011
With Brad Friedman and Desi Doyen

IN TODAY'S SPECIAL RADIO REPORT: (Rebroadcast from 2/15/11) All-out Info War: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation's largest & most powerful corporate lobbying firm, caught plotting a $12 million disinformation campaign against progressive U.S. organizations, journalists and citizens, including yours truly...

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

'Green News Report' w/ Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen
March 10, 2011

Click to listen (or download)
More info on today's report here...

MSNBC: Wisconsin Vote A National GOP Political Strategy to Defund Unions, Goad Dems into Overreacting

2011-03-10T10:40:00.000-08:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

WI Senate GOP Leader Admits On-Air That His Goal Is To Defund Labor Unions, Hurt Obama’s Reelection Chances

2011-03-10T10:38:00.000-08:00

By Lee Fang
ThinkProgress
Mar. 9, 2011

A prank call from a man purporting to be petrochemical billionaire David Koch to Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) a few weeks ago revealed that Walker had crafted his “budget repair” bill in a bid to crush the labor unions. The revelation was at odds with the GOP’s public argument, that removing collective bargaining rights has something to do with the state’s budget deficit.

In an interview with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly moments ago, State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI), one of Walker’s closest allies in the legislature, confirmed the true political motive of Walker’s anti-union push. Fitzgerald explained that “this battle” is about eliminating unions so that “the money is not there” for the labor movement. Specifically, he said that the destruction of unions will make it “much more difficult” for President Obama to win reelection in Wisconsin:

FITZGERALD: Well if they flip the state senate, which is obviously their goal with eight recalls going on right now, they can take control of the labor unions. If we win this battle, and the money is not there under the auspices of the unions, certainly what you’re going to find is President Obama is going to have a much difficult, much more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of Wisconsin.

Watch it:

Rachel Maddow talks to Naomi Klein About Disaster Capitalism and Michigan Republican Guv's Plan to Wrest Power from Cities and Towns on "Emergency Pretext"

2011-03-08T22:26:00.000-08:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Waxman: 'All That Seems To Matter Is What Koch Industries Think'-- Expresses Dismay at High Level of Outright Science Denial Aimed at Protecting Polluter's Interests

2011-03-08T10:08:00.000-08:00

By Brad Johnson
ThinkProgress
Mar. 7, 2011

Speaking at the Center for American Progress Action Fund today, House energy committee ranking member Henry Waxman (D-CA) railed against the toxic influence of Koch Industries on efforts to fight global warming. Waxman, who fought polluters to pass the Clean Air Act of 1990, is dismayed by the level of outright science denial among the Republican Party today, exemplified by their votes to slash and burn environmental protection, and the Upton-Inhofe bill to reverse the scientific finding that carbon pollution threatens public health:
It apparently no longer matters in Congress what health experts and scientists think. All that seems to matter is what Koch Industries thinks.

Watch a compilation of Waxman’s remarks:

“The new Republican majority has a lot of leeway to rewrite laws,” Waxman also said, “but they don’t have the ability to rewrite the laws of nature.”

Watch Waxman in action as Chair of the Energy Committee in 2008: EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson May 20 2008 dodges Chairman Waxman's questions, threatens to kick Darrell Issa out of the hearing room when he tries to get Johnson to answer a simple question, did he meet with the President (Bush) on specific regulatory rules before the committee. This behavior demonstrates the power of the oil lobbyists to influence climate regulation.

These Arizona members of Congress have eagerly hopped on the climate science denier bandwagon.

ARIZONA
Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ-02): I have yet to see clear and convincing evidence that it exists beyond historical fluctuations. [source]

Rep.-elect Ben Quayle (R-AZ-03): Our planet has warmed and cooled since the beginning of time. [source]

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ-06): Told townhall participants that he was a skeptic on manmade global warming. [source]

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ): There are dramatic environmental changes happening in the arctic region – whether one believes they are man-made or natural. [source]

Labor's Last Stand

2011-03-07T23:00:00.000-08:00

By Jane McAlevey
February 16, 2011 | This article appeared in the March 7-14, 2011 edition of The Nation.

Emboldened by November’s election results, corporations and their right-wing allies have launched what they hope will be their final offensive against America’s unions. Their immediate target is government workers’ unions. While New Jersey’s Republican Governor Chris Christie has gained national fame by beating up on public school teachers, the threat to unionized workers is playing out in all fifty states, to the drumbeat in the media about states going broke because of government workers’ wages, pensions and benefits. By late January, with the swearing-in ceremonies complete in the twenty-one states where Republicans have a “trifecta,” controlling the governor’s office and both statehouses, hundreds of bills had been introduced seeking to hem in unions if not ban them altogether. On February 11, Wisconsin’s new Republican Governor Scott Walker made what amounts to a declaration of all-out war on public sector workers in his historically progressive state, moving to deprive them of the very right to bargain collectively on matters essential to their economic security.

Walker’s gambit has rightly elicited outrage, but considering the breadth of the attack unions are facing nationally, it is only the tip of the iceberg. Right-to-work legislation has been filed in twelve states; this is in addition to the twenty-two that already have such laws on the books. In technical terms, this legislation makes it illegal for employers to condition employment on union membership or the equivalent dues payments even when a majority of workers vote to form a union; practically speaking, it makes building and maintaining a strong union very difficult, which in turn makes it harder to organize new workplaces because there are few positive examples of unions to point to. In Virginia, the corporations and right-wing ideologues decided that the existing right-to-work law wasn’t sufficient, and introduced a measure to embed the right-to-work provisions in the state Constitution. Three more states—Montana, Ohio and Wisconsin—are expected to have bills introduced converting their legal status to right-to-work.

Continue reading here.

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The Real News: The Military-Industrial Complex from Eisenhower to Obama

2011-03-07T09:01:00.000-08:00

More at The Real News

How Koch Front Groups Influence Laws

2011-03-06T21:59:00.000-08:00

How Koch Front Groups Influence Laws

By Dave Johnson
Campaign For America's Future
March 2, 2011 - 10:15pm ET

Tuesday the House of Representatives voted to continue tax breaks and subsidies for oil companies. Every Republican voted to support the tax breaks and subsidies.

Thursday House Republicans are expected to introduce legislation to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating the CO2 put into the air by burning oil and coal.
Why does the oil industry have so much influence over our government?

Think Progress examines the influence just one oil company has over our government in a series:

REPORT: How Koch Industries Makes Billions By Demanding Bailouts And Taxpayer Subsidies (Part 1)
REPORT: How Koch Industries Makes Billions Corrupting Government And Polluting For Free (Part 2)

From the report series, Part 1:

As ThinkProgress has carefully documented over the last three years, Koch groups have spent tens of millions to influence government policy — from financing the Tea Parties, to funding junk academic studies, to undisclosed attack ads against Democrats, to groups promoting climate change denial, to a large network of state-based and national think tanks.
[. . .] Koch funds both socially conservative groups and socially liberal groups. However, Koch’s financing of front groups and political organizations all have one thing in common: every single Koch group attacks workers’ rights, promotes deregulation, and argues for radical supply side economics. Not only do the Koch’s front groups pad Koch Industries’ bottom line, they supply the Koch brother’s talking points.

From the series Part 2:

Koch Industries has cornered the market in monetizing some of the most dirty industrial businesses. Koch imports oil from the Middle East, refines high-carbon Canadian crude, maintains coal-burning plants, owns one of the largest oil pipeline networks in America, runs environmentally hazardous lumber mills, produces toxic chemicals, and manufacturers fertilizer. The University of Masschusetts Amherst has scored Koch as among the top ten worst air polluters for its carcinogenic chemicals.

Much of the entire Koch political machine is geared towards ensuring that Koch Industries never has to compensate the people and ecosystems damaged by Koch Industries pollution. Koch front groups — from Tea Party groups to think tanks — have diligently promoted Koch Industries’ bottom line by denying global warming, fighting regulations on Koch’s cancer-causing chemicals, and snuffing out investigations into Koch’s environmental crimes:

The report shows how a series of Koch-funded organizations -- some even tax-deductible supposed "charities" -- are presented to the public as "independent" and are used in a campaign to persuade the public that climate change is a "hoax" or that different ways that Koch Industries pollutes are actually not harmful and should not be regulated.

Continue reading here.

And here is the rest of it.

Michael Moore Tells Madison Crowd: 'America is not Broke'

2011-03-06T17:31:00.000-08:00

Leaving Children Behind

2011-02-28T22:05:00.000-08:00

OP-ED COLUMNIST
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times
February 27, 2011

Will 2011 be the year of fiscal austerity? At the federal level, it’s still not clear: Republicans are demanding draconian spending cuts, but we don’t yet know how far they’re willing to go in a showdown with President Obama. At the state and local level, however, there’s no doubt about it: big spending cuts are coming.

And who will bear the brunt of these cuts? America’s children.

Now, politicians — and especially, in my experience, conservative politicians — always claim to be deeply concerned about the nation’s children. Back during the 2000 campaign, then-candidate George W. Bush, touting the “Texas miracle” of dramatically lower dropout rates, declared that he wanted to be the “education president.” Today, advocates of big spending cuts often claim that their greatest concern is the burden of debt our children will face.

In practice, however, when advocates of lower spending get a chance to put their ideas into practice, the burden always seems to fall disproportionately on those very children they claim to hold so dear.

Continue reading here.

Maddow Show: Republicans Openly Push Higher Unemployment, Lower Wages, Slowdown in Economic Growth,

2011-02-28T20:49:00.000-08:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Wisconsin Lie Exposed – Taxpayers Actually Contribute Nothing To Public Employee Pensions

2011-02-28T17:04:00.000-08:00

By Rick Ungar
Forbes
Feb. 25, 2011

Pulitzer Prize winning tax reporter, David Cay Johnston, has written a brilliant piece for tax.com exposing the truth about who really pays for the pension and benefits for public employees in Wisconsin.

Gov. Scott Walker says he wants state workers covered by collective bargaining agreements to “contribute more” to their pension and health insurance plans. Accepting Gov. Walker’ s assertions as fact, and failing to check, creates the impression that somehow the workers are getting something extra, a gift from taxpayers. They are not. Out of every dollar that funds Wisconsin’ s pension and health insurance plans for state workers, 100 cents comes from the state workers.

Via tax.com

How can this be possible?

Simple. The pension plan is the direct result of deferred compensation- money that employees would have been paid as cash salary but choose, instead, to have placed in the state operated pension fund where the money can be professionally invested (at a lower cost of management) for the future.

Continue reading here.

The Nationwide Effort To Restrict Reproductive Rights

2011-02-25T16:09:00.000-08:00

By Jason Linkins, jason@huffingtonpost.com
& Kevin Bunkley, Kevin.Bunkley@huffingtonpost.com
Huffington Post
2-25-11 06:07 PM

As has been noted here and elsewhere, 2011 has seen a nationwide resurgence in the effort to curtail women's reproductive rights. I know! It's almost as if an entire political faction that preaches the importance of a small and unintrusive government doesn't actually mean it, right?

Here in Washington, D.C., we've seen the House of Representatives pass an amendment that would defund Planned Parenthood and attempt to create a whole new crazy definition of rape. And state governments have been doing much the same: South Dakota lawmakers briefly floated the idea of making protecting the unborn a justifiable reason to commit homicide -- with language that didn't make it clear that abortion providers who perform legal medical procedures wouldn't be, in some way, protected from the crazy people who believe they are morally allowed to murder them. That law's been shelved in South Dakota, but it's being emulated elsewhere.

And others are going further, including a Georgia lawmaker who's crafted a law that would make miscarriages a felony. Again, there's vague wording there, that seemingly exempts miscarriages that are not brought about by "human involvement." Unfortunately, medical professionals do not know, with precision, what causes miscarriages, and the law doesn't set sufficient parameters.

But that's all beside the point: why bring miscarriages into the matter at all? No one has ever suggested that miscarriages of any sort by subject to criminal penalty, so why start now? The answer is that this is all some "moving the Overton Window" nonsense -- by pushing boundaries further past the fringe, it makes the original fringe position more palatable. I've said this once before, but it bears repeating:

Just to review, the way this game is played is that a legislator will conceive of an absolutely insane anti-woman law, stoke outrage, then make a big show of relenting on the crazy part of the law in order to get what they want -- making abortion illegal -- enacted. They will then aver that this is the result of "negotiations" in which "all sides" have been "heard out" resulting in a "compromise."

Here, for your benefit, we've collected many examples of the ways in which reproductive rights are being encroached upon. Some are more reasonable sounding than others. There's a wide gulf between a radical redefinition of rape and a law that aims to shut down abortion providers in the name of enhanced patient comfort. But one thing that all of these laws have in common is that they suggest a deep and abiding belief that women are chattel.

Click Here for Slide Show.

The Republican Strategy

2011-02-21T21:38:00.000-08:00

By Robert Reich
Fmr. Secretary of Labor; Professor at Berkeley; Author, Aftershock: 'The Next Economy and America's Future'
Huffington Post
19 February 11

The Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working class - pitting unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against younger workers who don't believe these programs will be there for them, and the poor against the working middle class.

By splitting working America along these lines, Republicans want Americans to believe that we can no longer afford to do what we need to do as a nation. They hope to deflect attention from the increasing share of total income and wealth going to the richest 1 percent while the jobs and wages of everyone else languish.

Republicans would rather no one notice their campaign to shrink the pie even further with additional tax cuts for the rich - making the Bush tax cuts permanent, further reducing the estate tax, and allowing the wealthy to shift ever more of their income into capital gains taxed at 15 percent.

The strategy has three parts.

Continue Reading here.

12 News' Sunday Square Off: Jan Brewer's "Let them eat cake" moment

2011-02-20T15:51:00.000-08:00

By Craig McDermott, cross-posted from Random Musings and Blog for Arizona
Feb. 20, 2011

Resnik - "Is it fair that businesses should get these tax breaks while universities suffer and those patients suffer?"

Brewer - "Absolutely. Absolutely."

Earlier on Sunday, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer appeared on 12 News' (KPNX) Sunday Square Off program, hosted by Brahm Resnik, to defend the hundreds of million dollars worth of corporate tax cuts she signed into law a few days ago.

Her appearance was an exercise in regurgitation -

She regurgitated the long-refuted theories of trickle-down economics (which should be referred to as "tinkle down" economics).

I regurgitated the undigested remnants of breakfast while listening to her spout (that's just a metaphor - I hadn't eaten breakfast yet :) ).

My favorite quote is above, but there were other "profound" tidbits from the program (video clip embedded below) -

3:32

Brewer - ...I know that the free enterprise is what really stokes the fuel of the furnace, and the furnace is business in Arizona..

Resnik - So it *is* something of a gamble?

Brewer - Life is a gamble.

Or how about -

4:00 (talking about the impact of the corporate tax breaks on Arizona's unemployment crisis)

Resnik - People are asking "How soon will half a billion dollars in tax breaks create a job for me?"

Brewer - Because we know businesses, particularly high paying wage businesses, are the people who create those jobs and if you stymie them and you make it impossible for them to maintain here by charging them above their competitive states that we're competing with, they won't come here, they won't stay here, they will go someplace else and if we become competitive, they will bring new jobs, we will keep the jobs that we have, and that means that it's, [not] to use the phrase "the trickle down, the bottom line is that more people will have jobs, and therefore those people with the jobs are going to go out and it's going to trickle down to the lawnmower guy, to the dry cleaner, it's just the facts.

WATCH VIDEO:

Continue reading here.

What Conservatives Really Want

2011-02-19T22:37:00.000-08:00

By George Lakoff
Author, The Political Mind, Moral Politics, Don't Think of an Elephant!
The Huffington Post
Posted: February 19, 2011 10:37 AM

-Dedicated to the peaceful protestors in Wisconsin, February 19, 2011.

The central issue in our political life is not being discussed. At stake is the moral basis of American democracy.

The individual issues are all too real: assaults on unions, public employees, women's rights, immigrants, the environment, health care, voting rights, food safety, pensions, prenatal care, science, public broadcasting, and on and on.

Budget deficits are a ruse, as we've seen in Wisconsin, where the governor turned a surplus into a deficit by providing corporate tax breaks, and then used the deficit as a ploy to break the unions, not just in Wisconsin, but seeking to be the first domino in a nationwide conservative movement.

Continue reading here.

Student captures spirit of Wisconsin pro-union rallies in music video

2011-02-19T11:38:00.000-08:00

Posted on 02.18.11
Raw Replay
Categories: Activism

Matt Wisniewski, a 22-year-old college student at the University of Wisconsin, put together this inspiring video in support of unions in Wisconsin. The video consists of three days of footage of the 30,000 protesters at the state capitol in Madison against a bill that would drastically curb the bargaining power of public employees in unions. The accompanying song is Arcade Fire’s “Rebellion (Lies).”

This video was posted to Vimeo on Feb. 18, 2011, by Matt Wisniewski.

And here is the rest of it.

Dean Baker: Budget Cuts Are the Real Job-Killers

2011-02-18T22:21:00.000-08:00

Thursday 17 February 2011
by: Laura Flanders | GRITtv | Video Interview

And here is the rest of it.

Battling 'Neoliberalism' in Wisconsin

2011-02-18T17:59:00.000-08:00

By Daniel C. Maguire
Consortium News
February 18, 2011

Editor’s Note: For a third day, protesters rallied in Wisconsin’s capital to protest a plan by the state’s new Republican governor to reduce the budget, in part, by stripping public employee unions of many collective bargaining rights.

These Wisconsin demonstrations are the first major challenge to the newly empowered Republicans and their "neoliberal" goal to slash government and to protect tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, as Marquette Professor Daniel C. Maguire notes in this guest essay:

It has been well noted that the protest in Madison, Wisconsin, is not about the budget but about union-busting, but that is a symptom, not the root of the problem.

Gov. Scott Walker’s project is to impose the neoliberal (neoconservative) political economy on a state that pioneered many progressive traditions and reforms.

Neoliberalism (or neoconservatism) has been the operating system of the Right since the 1980s, though its roots go back further. It has these four characteristics:

---Neoliberalism has been called a philosophy of “possessive individualism.” Historian Richard Hofstadter called it “beneficent cupidity” or the notion that “greed is good,” in more modern parlance. It embodies Social Darwinism — survival of the fittest — which sees society, as C.B. MacPherson said, as a mass of competing “dissociated individuals.”

Margaret Thatcher, the British prime minister in the 1980s, even asserted there is no such thing as “society,” only individuals and families. If there is no “society,” we owe society nothing – and there is no such thing as social justice.

And thus Fox News’ Glenn Beck, the clown prince of neoliberalism, can urge his faithful to walk out of church if their pastor so much a mentions social justice.

Continue reading here.

Democratic Congresswoman Jackie Speier Talks About Her Abortion

2011-02-18T10:16:00.000-08:00

By Ryan Grim
Huffington Post
First Posted: 02/18/11 09:46 AM Updated: 02/18/11 12:33 PM

WASHINGTON -- Before Rep. Jackie Speier took the House floor late on Thursday night, New Jersey Republican Chris Smith used his time to graphically describe the process of an abortion. That's when the California Democrat decided to scrap her planned remarks.

"That procedure that you just talk about was a procedure that I endured," she told a hushed chamber. "I really planned to speak about something else, but the gentleman from New Jersey just put my stomach in knots, because I'm one of those women he spoke about just now. I had a procedure at 17 weeks pregnant with a child who moved from the vagina into the cervix."

After a weighty pause, Speier went on. "I lost a baby," she said, pausing again. "But for you to stand on this floor and suggest, as you have, that somehow this is a procedure that is either welcomed or done cavalierly or done without any thought is preposterous."

Continue reading here

Brewer's 'jobs bill' very irresponsible, Effort would cost burdened state $500 million

2011-02-18T09:47:00.000-08:00

By Robert Robb - Feb. 18, 2011 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

The "jobs bill" Gov. Jan Brewer and Republican legislators hustled through a hastily called special session this week is grossly irresponsible.

The only truly indispensible duty the Arizona Legislature has is to enact an honestly balanced budget each year. The last time the Legislature did that was 2007. Since then, the Legislature has employed constitutionally suspect borrowing and fundamentally dishonest accounting to get from year to year.

There is not any proposed or even plausible scenario in which it gets back to an honestly balanced budget at any time in the future. Not in one year, not in three years, not in five years, not in ten years.

The state currently has a structural deficit - the difference between ongoing revenues and spending - of $3 billion. Yet the "jobs bill" would cost the state more than $500 million annually when fully implemented.

Continue reading here.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/2011/02/17/20110217robb18.html#ixzz1EKkdRMMl

Breaking: Obama joins Wisconsin's budget battle, opposing Republican anti-union bill

2011-02-18T09:44:00.000-08:00

By Brady Dennis and Peter Wallsten
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, February 18, 2011; 11:07 AM

MADISON, WIS. - President Obama thrust himself and his political operation this week into Wisconsin's broiling budget battle, mobilizing opposition Thursday to a Republican bill that would curb public-worker benefits and planning similar protests in other state capitals.

Obama accused Scott Walker, the state's new Republican governor, of unleashing an "assault" on unions in pushing emergency legislation that would change future collective-bargaining agreements that affect most public employees, including teachers.

>Continue reading here.

People Are Fighting Back, Join With Russ

2011-02-18T09:26:00.000-08:00

It's been all over the national news this week: Progressives across Wisconsin are standing up and speaking out against the outrageous push by Governor Walker & Republican legislators – backed by big business -- to strip state workers of their collective bargaining rights.

I went on the Rachel Maddow Show Wednesday night to talk about what the protests this week in Wisconsin mean for our state and our country – and how our new grassroots organization, Progressives United, is joining the fight.

Watch the video of my appearance with Rachel Maddow now -- and pledge to stand with your fellow progressives and me in this fight:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Big business threw unlimited money at electing Governor Walker, who now is returning the favor by trying to advance a pro-corporate, anti-worker agenda. That flies against the hard-fought worker protections we've worked generations to achieve in Wisconsin, and we won't let our work be undone.

So right now, America needs progressives like you and me - and millions of others - to unite.

These rallies are getting huge TV coverage. This is our time to make our voices heard. Pledge now that you will stand with us and fight
Thank you for uniting with your fellow progressives,

Russ Feingold
Founder
Progressives United

P.S. Progressives are so eager to unite that our website was overwhelmed when we launched earlier this week. I can’t thank everyone enough for their support. We’re fully back online today, and I hope you’ll check out our website, if you haven’t already.

Class Struggle in Wisconsin

2011-02-18T07:52:00.000-08:00

26dems Editorial Note: MSNBC's Ed Schultz is broadcasting live from Madison, the only national network who has a reporter on the ground. He reported that Sen. Dick Durbin has decried the assault on labor and the middle class, the only Democrat outside of Wisconsin to squarely support the protesters right to bargain collectively. Yesterday 14 Democratic Senators fled Wisconsin to prevent a quorum in the Republican dominated legislature that was set to vote on the bill that would prohibit collective bargaining. As the Ed show points, going into 2011, Wisconsin had a SURPLUS. The new tea party governor, along with all Republican governors are pushing this agenda across the country. Although President Obama has sympathized with the workers, he has not yet pushed back against the false narrative that Wisconsin needs to do this, not because the state is broke, but because the Reublicans want to use money to give it to their corporate donors. Since January 1, the Wisconsin
Republican legislature has enacted into law special tax breaks for corporations. The protests have already spread to Ohio and other states.

More than 30,000 protesters were in the streets and in the Capitol building yesterday. The puppet governor, like Brewer, is doing the bidding of the billionaires who are instituting a coordinated attack on public employees and middle class workers. As Rachel Maddow pointed out this is a political struggle. The Republicans are boldly suggesting that we cannot afford a middle class in this country. She pointed out very starkly that the Republicans are attacking unions because three public employee unions, AFSCME, SEIU and the NEA are the primary funders of the Democratic party. If you bust the unions, and their ability to mobilize voters and contribute to the Democratic party, it will mean the end of the ability of Democrats to compete and win elections. Organized people need their own organized money in order to win. This is all about Republicans trying to win a permanent super majority and thus permanent control over our lives. As Rachel put it, it's the billionaires vs the bake sales. Without unions, the Democrats can't make it on bake sales.

Watch this REAL NEWS video that features the AFL-CIO Director of Policy Special Counsel Damon Silvers:

More at The Real News

Childrens Action Alliance: "GOP Tax Cut Plan is Education Destruction Act"

2011-02-16T15:21:00.000-08:00

POSTED BY JIM NINTZEL ON TUE, FEB 15, 2011 AT 4:24 PM
Tucson Weekly
The Range

The Children's Action Alliance responds to the tax-cut plan devised behind closed doors that's flying through the Legislature. Would that lawmakers could act as swiftly to find $5 million to restore transplant funding as they can to find $500 million for tax breaks.

Late yesterday, Governor Brewer called a special session so the Arizona legislature could quickly approve a package of corporate tax breaks that fails to balance cuts with revenues, and risks education in our state. SB 1001 and HB 2001 would cut corporate taxes and reduce revenue which will result in greater cuts to education. Governor Brewer and legislative leaders have already called for additional cuts to education, even though elementary and high schools have already sustained an 18% per student cut in funding under the Brewer Administration.


Click here for Report

Today, the House of Representatives rushed HB 2001 through committees and caucus; Senate leadership pushed SB 1001 (their version of the House bill) through their committees. CAA anticipates that legislative leaders will continue to push the corporate tax cuts package (under the misnomer "The Jobs Bill") through final votes tomorrow. The Governor is expected to sign the bill.

CAA President and CEO Dana Wolfe Naimark testified today against SB 1001 and HB 2001 before the House Ways and Means Committee, and Senate Commerce and Education Committee. “Economists disagree about many things but there are two things upon which they all agree,” said Naimark. “First, high quality education is necessary for economic success. And second, Arizona has not engaged in a balanced fiscal strategy of cuts and revenue, focusing only on severe budget cuts.

“SB 1001 and HB 2001 go in the wrong direction on both counts. These bills continue to focus only on cuts without balancing the other side with revenues. And every dollar of these corporate tax cuts will drain dollars from K-12 education, universities and community colleges.

“Governor Brewer recognizes the link between taxes and education. When the temporary sales tax was being considered last year, her own Office of Strategic

Planning and Budgeting calculated the cost to each school if that tax vote failed. Now, less than a year later, Governor Brewer is supporting a corporate tax cut that would have a similar effect.

“These bills are not a blue print for improving Arizona. There’s no plan to repay debt and no plan to improve math and science education, core curriculum for our future economic growth. This plan is unbalanced and unaccountable, and Children’s Action Alliance urges legislators to oppose these bills.”

CAA will continue to keep you informed as updates are available.

Click here for the CAA's analysis of the bill's provisions.

Ed Showcases Dems High Speed Rail Plan to Boost Jobs, Contrasts with GOP Anti-Govt Naysaying

2011-02-11T16:02:00.000-08:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

ANALYSIS — The Insurers’ Real Agenda for Change

2011-02-10T21:04:00.000-08:00

By Wendell Potter
Center for Public Integrity
February 08, 2011

The media had lots of health care news to obsess about last week. A federal judge ruled the health care reform law unconstitutional, and Senate Republicans tried in vain to repeal the law. But most of the press paid virtually no attention to a potentially much more important development — a multi-pronged effort by five major insurers to strip from the law key regulations and consumer protections that aren’t to their liking.

The insurers do not want the bill repealed or declared unconstitutional. Congress gave them exactly what they wanted by including in the legislation a requirement that all Americans not eligible for Medicare or Medicaid buy coverage from a private insurance company. That provision alone will result in hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue and profits the insurers otherwise would never see.

Officially, the insurers are maintaining neutrality on the court challenges to the law and the repeal efforts. They understand that Republican attorneys general who filed the lawsuits and the Congressional Republicans who voted to repeal the law — most of whom received campaign contributions from the insurers’ political action committees — must go through the motions to satisfy “the base.”

The court challenges and repeal efforts are, in reality, a useful smokescreen for the big insurers, whose real agenda is to gut the law while preserving the mandate. Expect a big lobbying and PR campaign — financed by our insurance premiums — to persuade us that the new regulations and consumer protections will make those premiums skyrocket.

Continue reading here.

Stealing the Constitution

2011-02-10T13:42:00.000-08:00

26Dems Editorial Comment: This law professor explains why it's past time for Americans to read the Constitution to combat the in-plain-sight hijacking of America's founding document by the far right. We should begin now to form constitution study groups.

By Garrett Epps
January 20, 2011
This article appeared in the February 7, 2011 edition of The Nation.

This essay is adapted from a work in progress, tentatively titled Unhinged: Reclaiming Our Constitution From the Lunatic Right.

In October I spent a crisp Saturday in the windowless basement of a suburban Virginia church attending a seminar on "The Substance and Meaning of the Constitution." I was told the secrets the "elite" have concealed from the people: the Constitution is based on the Law of Moses; Mosaic law was brought to the West by the ancient Anglo-Saxons, who were probably the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel; the Constitution restores the fifth-century kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons.

There's more: virtually all of modern American life and government is unconstitutional. Social Security, the Federal Reserve, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, hate crime laws—all flatly violate God's law. State governments are not required to observe the Bill of Rights; the First Amendment establishes "The Religion of America," which is "nondenominational" Christianity.

The instructor was Lester Pearce, an Arizona judge and the brother of state senator Russell Pearce, author of Arizona's anti-immigrant law, SB 1070. (Perhaps not surprising, Lester tended to digress about how he cracks down on Mexican immigrants in court.) Pearce got rapt attention from the fifty people in the audience, although one boy near me spent his time perfecting a detailed sketch of an assault rifle.

These were earnest citizens who had come to learn about America and its Constitution. What they were being taught was poisonous rubbish.

Americans today are frightened and disoriented. In the midst of uncertainty, they are turning to the Constitution for tools to deal with crisis. The far right—the toxic coalition of Fox News talking heads, radio hosts, angry "patriot" groups and power-hungry right-wing politicians—is responding to this demand by feeding their fellow citizens mythology and lies.

Continue reading here.

Garrett Epps, a law professor at the University of Baltimore and a former reporter for the Washington Post, is a legal correspondent for The Atlantic Wire. He is the author of Democracy Reborn: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Fight for Equal Rights in Post-Civil War America.

Recognizing the Language of Tyranny

2011-02-07T12:37:00.000-08:00

By Chris Hedges
Truthdig
Feb. 6, 2011

Empires communicate in two languages. One language is expressed in imperatives. It is the language of command and force. This militarized language disdains human life and celebrates hypermasculinity. It demands. It makes no attempt to justify the flagrant theft of natural resources and wealth or the use of indiscriminate violence. When families are gunned down at a checkpoint in Iraq they are referred to as having been “lit up.” So it goes. The other language of empire is softer. It employs the vocabulary of ideals and lofty goals and insists that the power of empire is noble and benevolent. The language of beneficence is used to speak to those outside the centers of death and pillage, those who have not yet been totally broken, those who still must be seduced to hand over power to predators. The road traveled to total disempowerment, however, ends at the same place. It is the language used to get there that is different.

This language of blind obedience and retribution is used by authority in our inner cities, from Detroit to Oakland, as well as our prison systems. It is a language Iraqis and Afghans know intimately. But to the members of our dwindling middle class—as well as those in the working class who have yet to confront our new political and economic configuration—the powerful use phrases like the consent of the governed and democracy that help lull us into complacency. The longer we believe in the fiction that we are included in the corporate power structure, the more easily corporations pillage the country without the threat of rebellion. Those who know the truth are crushed. Those who do not are lied to. Those who consume and perpetuate the lies—including the liberal institutions of the press, the church, education, culture, labor and the Democratic Party—abet our disempowerment. No system of total control, including corporate control, exhibits its extreme forms at the beginning. These forms expand as they fail to encounter resistance.

Continue reading here.

“Civility in Political Discourse” UA Roundtable, February 15

2011-02-07T12:14:00.000-08:00

“Civility in Political Discourse” roundtable on February 15, for upcoming Week of Civility at UA
TucsonCitizen
by Carolyn Classen on Feb. 07, 2011

KJLL (1330 AM) radio talk show host Bill Buckmaster will be moderating a roundtable/panel discussion at the UA Student Union North Ballroom on Tuesday Feb. 15, entitled “Civility in Political Discourse”, at 12 noon.

Panelists:

– former Arizona U.S. Senator Dennis DeConcini
–former Tucson City Mayor Tom Volgy (and Professor in Government & Public Policy at the U of A)
–UA Assistant Professor Kate Kenski, Dept. of Communication
–David Fitzsimmons, political cartoonist for Arizona Daily Star newspaper

The Student Union is at 1303 E. University Drive, and this ballroom is on the north side of the building, south of Mountain Avenue and E. 2nd Street. The event is open to the public, and students are encouraged to attend. Parking is available at the 2nd Street Garage just north of the Student Union, or on the street (metered), or take the Sun Tran Bus.

This roundtable is part of a Week of Civility starting on February 14 on the UA campus, organized by UA Attorney Bruce Skolnik. He joined The University of Arizona in 2008 where he “represents the University in matters pertaining to intercollegiate athletics and student affairs.”

For more information click here.

How to get to 100 percent renewables globally by 2050

2011-02-07T12:09:00.000-08:00

By Kees van der Leun
Grist
4 FEB 2011 4:00 AM

There are many reasons to move to a sustainable energy system: fossil fuel supplies getting tighter, easy oil increasingly having to be replaced by uneasy oil, accelerating climate change. And most indications are that we'll have to go there as soon as possible.

But is it possible? And when? At Ecofys, we've been working for 25 years on our mission: "a sustainable energy supply for everyone." Two years ago, we figured it was about time to bring all our experts together to find out whether that really makes sense. Excited by our first findings, we found WWF [World Wildlife Fund] willing to commission an in-depth study. And since today, the word is out! Or actually, 250 pages of it, in what's now called "The Energy Report." And the good news is: it's possible indeed, by 2050.

We started out by charting expected developments (population, economy) in 10 world regions. Global tempering of consumption is an easy way out for a scenario builder, but not very acceptable in the real world. And trying to keep up with the present growth in energy demand makes catching up with renewables practically impossible. So we went for maximum materials and energy efficiency, and looked for all available ways to provide the rising demand for services and goods with as little input of energy as possible. And there's a huge potential out there, given the fact that 95 percent of present energy consumption is waste, if one really looks at the end service provided (such as useful light).

Applying all those measures in industrial processes, buildings, and transport, and taking into account feasible implementation rates, leads to global energy demand stabilizing around 2020, and then slowly going down to just below 2000 levels, in spite of economic activity tripling by 2050.

Continue reading here.

Reaganomics Sucked Wealth Up, Did Not Trickle It Up

2011-02-06T09:51:00.000-08:00

More at The Real News

The Egyptian Uprising Is a Direct Response to Ruthless Global Capitalism

2011-02-05T11:15:00.000-08:00

By Nomi Prins
Alternet
February 4, 2011

Economic decline at the hands of 'hot' money has driven Egyptians' discontent.

The revolution in Egypt is as much a rebellion against the painful deterioration of economic conditions as it is about opposing a dictator, though they are linked. That's why President Hosni Mubarak's announcement that he intends to stick around until September was met with an outpouring of rage.

When people are facing a dim future, in a country hijacked by a corrupt regime that destabilized its economy through what the CIA termed, "aggressively pursuing economic reforms to attract foreign investment” (in other words, the privatization and sale of its country’s financial system to international sharks), waiting doesn’t cut it.

Mohamed Bouazizi, the 26-year-old Tunisian who catalyzed this revolution, didn’t set himself on fire in protest of his inability to vote, but because of anguish over his job status in a country with 15.7 percent unemployment. The six other men in Algeria, Egypt and Mauritania who followed suit were also unemployed.

Tunisia’s dismal economic environment was a direct result of its increasingly “liberal” policy toward foreign speculators. Of the five countries covered by the World Bank’s, Investment Across Sectors Indicator, Tunisia had the fewest limits on foreign investment. It had opened all areas of its economy to foreign equity ownership, except the electricity sector.

Egypt adopted a similar come-and-get-it policy, on steroids. From 2004 to 2008, as the world economic crisis was being stoked by the U.S. banking system and its rapacious toxic asset machine, Mubarak’s regime was participating in a different way. Mubarak wasn’t pushing subprime loans onto Egyptians; instead, he was embarking on an economic strategy that entailed selling large pieces of Egypt’s banks to the highest international bidder.

The result was a veritable grab-fest of foreign bank takeovers in the heart of Cairo. The raid began with Greek bank, Piraeus, taking a 70 percent stake in the Egyptian Commercial Bank in 2005, and included the sale of Bank of Alexandria, one of the four largest state-run banks, to the Italian bank, Gruppo Sanpaolo IMI in 2006. For the next two years, "hot" money poured into Egypt, as international banks muscled into Egypt and its financial system, before the intensity leveled off in 2008.

Continue reading here.

Reagan's Epoch Shatters in Egypt

2011-02-05T10:55:00.000-08:00

By Robert Parry
Consortium News
February 4, 2011

The political crisis sweeping the Middle East is another part of Ronald Reagan’s dark legacy that is shattering into chaos even as the United States prepares to lavishly celebrate his 100th birthday.

Upon taking office in 1981, Reagan turned the United States onto a new course, away from Jimmy Carter’s intensive Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations and toward tolerance of the Likud strategy of expanding settlements on the West Bank and lashing out at Israel's enemies in Lebanon and the Occupied Territories.

This Reagan-Likud cooperation also affected politics and media inside the United States. In the early 1980s, with Reagan's assistance and blessings, a group of articulate operatives known as neoconservatives emerged as a powerful political/media force. Their dual role was to buttress U.S. support for the security interests of Israel and to rebuild a consensus around the U.S. global agenda, which had been shattered by the Vietnam War.

The neocons – through their work inside the Reagan administration and in key parts of the U.S. news media, such as The New Republic and the Washington Post’s opinion section – became, in essence, the arbiters of Washington’s conventional wisdom, setting the parameters of acceptable debate.

Even before the days of Fox News, their voices were prominent on the TV talk shows, the likes of Charles Krauthammer, Fred Barnes and William Kristol, or as publishers of influential opinion journals, such as Martin Peretz, Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz.

As the Reagan era advanced in the 1980s, journalists and politicians who showed skepticism about U.S. foreign policy -- the sort of attitude that had been common in the 1970s -- were dismissed as “blame America firsters,” a phrase coined by Reagan’s UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick.

Skeptics who continued to insist on challenging the Reagan/neocon propaganda saw their careers damaged or destroyed.

More malleable journalists ensured their status in the well-paying world of Washington media by bending to the prevailing winds. Many politicians did the same, recognizing the trouble they could get into by crossing Reagan's team and its ideological heirs.

Continue reading here.

The Real News: Reaganomics Was Pro Business, Not Pro Free Market

2011-02-05T10:52:00.000-08:00

More at The Real News

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FCIC Report Exposes Reckless Wall Street As The Real Job Killers: U.S. Chamber Attacks Report as New "Wikileaks"

2011-02-02T19:11:00.000-08:00

By Mary Bottari
From Center on Media and Democracy
January 27, 2011

The Real Job Killers

The U.S. Chamber is in panic mode for two reasons. One, the FCIC report details in its 576-page report who the real job killers are: reckless Wall Street financial firms and negligent government officials who took a series of specific actions that resulted in 30 million unemployed and underemployed Americans who are still barely scraping by.

They are also panicked because the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law is kicking in to high gear. Federal banking agencies are issuing new rules under the act that will clamp down on some of the reckless behavior in the big banks, mortgage services and other financial firms. Unbelievably, the Chamber is fighting hard to protect the lucrative shadow banking industry from being dragged into the sunlight, rigorously protesting the new transparency, capital and margin requirements for all over the counter derivatives traders.

This week the Chamber released an amusing art work, placing the array of Dodd Frank rules into a graphic chart full of polka dots. Our friends at U.S. Chamber Watch noted: "Although the Chamber has unveiled this pointless pointillist masterpiece, (probably being secretly funded by the big banks that, left unregulated, led to the recession in the first place), it still has yet to release a substantive plan for jobs or avoiding future financial meltdowns."

Buy the FCIC report today on the web or at your local bookstore, and call the U.S. Chamber of Commerce toll-free and tell them what you think of their foray into modern art. U.S. Chamber of Commerce Customer Service: 1-800-638-6582.:"

Pew Immigration Study Undermines 'Anchor Baby' Argument

2011-02-02T18:56:00.000-08:00

By Eric Lach
TPMMuckraker
February 2, 2011

New estimates from the Pew Hispanic Center find that the "number of children born to at least one unauthorized-immigrant parent in 2009 was 350,000, essentially the same as it was a year earlier." These children accounted for 8% of newborns in the U.S. from March 2009 to March 2010. But interestingly, only a fraction of the babies were born to parents who have recently arrived in the country -- running counter to an argument made by conservatives who want to do away with birthright citizenship.

61% of new illegal immigrant parents arrived in the country before 2004 and 30% arrived from 2004 to 2007. Just 9% arrived from 2008 to 2010. Conservatives have raised the specter of "anchor babies" in their arguments against birthright citizenship. State Legislators for Legal Immigration, a group which advocates changing the interpretation of the 14th amendment, has claimed that "hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens are crossing U.S. borders to give birth and exploit their child as an 'anchor baby.'" Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) has even claimed that some women come to the U.S. to have children with citizenship, only to raise them abroad and train them as terrorists.

Continue reading here.

Exclusive: Republican Budget Chairman Paul Ryan Spoke At The Koch Strategy Meeting

2011-02-02T17:55:00.000-08:00

By Lee Fang
Think Progress
Feb. 02, 2011

26Dems Editorial Note: Rep. Paul Ryan is the architect of the GOP's Budget plan to pursue radical cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Congressman Ryan's office has confirmed his attendance at the Koch's secret meeting. Ryan did not mention the radical cuts the GOP has planned for Social Security and Medicare in the GOP response to the State of the Union. To understand Paul Ryan, check out Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky's take in A Frightening "Roadmap" for America in the Republican Rebuttal to the State of the Union and search this blog (upper left hand corner) for more references to Paul Ryan. The attendance of top elected Republican leaders like Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Rep. Ryan at corporate strategy meetings is further evidence that the GOP is coordinating electoral and fundraising strategy with billionaires who fund fake grassroots outrage through the Tea Party.

Last October, ThinkProgress helped break the story about secret political strategy meetings, convened by polluter billionaires Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries, to coordinate the funding and direction of the conservative movement. Previous meetings have included Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, top hedge fund managers like Cliff Asness, business executives, Republican strategists, and various other political operatives. Following the revelation of these meetings, a group of progressive organizations protested the most recent meeting in Rancho Mirage, California last weekend.

Continue reading here.

Criminal Charges Must Be Laid - Former Finance Regulator

2011-02-01T17:06:00.000-08:00

William Black: Regulations were deliberately weakened to create conditions for systemic fraud

More at The Real News

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The Birther Plan To Block Obama's Reelection

2011-02-01T16:22:00.000-08:00

By David Corn
Mother Jones
Mon Jan. 31, 2011

The birthers have a plan to end Barack Obama's presidency—and in Arizona, they're making progress.

Last week, Arizona state Rep. Judy Burges, a Republican, introduced a bill that would bar presidential candidates who do not prove they were born in the United States from appearing on the ballot in the Grand Canyon state. And state Rep. Chad Campbell, the top Democrat in the GOP-controlled Arizona House of Representatives, tells Mother Jones that the bill is likely to pass. It was introduced with 25 co-sponsors in the House and 16 co-sponsors in the state Senate; the measure needs 31 votes in the House and 16 in the Senate for approval. "Will it matter?" asks Campbell. "We've started a tradition here of passing legislation that is political grandstanding or that sets up litigation."

But the birthers—those ardent Obama foes who believe the president was not born in Hawaii and, thus, is not constitutionally qualified serve as president—see this measure as more than symbolic. For them, it's part of a well-orchestrated campaign to deny Obama reelection.

It's not that Obama necessarily requires Arizona's 10 electoral votes to win reelection in 2012. In 2008, he lost there to John McCain, Arizona's senior senator (though in 2012, Obama could make a play for the state). More important, Burges' bill—which would establish a strict standard for proving natural-born citizenship (which the birthers presume Obama could not meet)—is a model for other states, and similar efforts are under way in Pennsylvania, Missouri, Montana, Georgia, and Texas. (Obama won Pennsylvania in 2008 and lost Missouri by less than 4,000 votes.) Arizona may be where this birther ball gets rolling.

Continue reading here.

Rallying Against The Koch Agenda, Van Jones Warns Of ‘Excessive Concentrations Of Economic Power’

2011-02-01T13:24:00.000-08:00

By Brad Johnson
Jan 31st, 2011 at 9:55 am
ThinkProgress

ThinkProgress is reporting from the Koch summit in Palm Springs, CA. See our coverage here, here, and here.

This weekend, David and Charles Koch, the co-owners of the $100 billion Koch Industries pollution conglomerate, hosted their annual meeting in Palm Springs to coordinate strategy and raise funds for the conservative movement. For decades, the Kochs have quietly led a political agenda to concentrate America’s wealth and power among the richest few in the name of “liberty,” at the expense of the health and opportunity of the middle class.

At an event organized by Common Cause to “Uncloak the Kochs,” Center for American Progress senior fellow Van Jones described the threat that concentration of economic power poses to American liberty, democracy, and justice:

I hear a lot of talk now about liberty. There is a movement in our country that has grown up, the Tea Party movement, that has raised the question of liberty, and I say, “Thank goodness.” I’m glad that someone’s raised the question of liberty. There’s nothing more precious to an African American than liberty and justice for all. I’m glad to hear that somebody’s concerned about liberty.

But I think that what we have to be clear about is liberty always has two threats, there’s always two threats to liberty. One is the excessive concentration of political power — excessive concentration of political authority — the totalitarian threat to liberty. And that is a threat to watch out for. But there is another threat. And it is in our country a graver threat. And it is the threat that comes from excessive concentrations of economic power. Excessive concentrations of economic power in our country pose as big a threat, and frankly a greater threat than any concentration of political power. What we have to remember is that our republic is founded not just on the question of liberty, but also on democracy and justice.

And it is when the predatory, monopolistic dimension of the economic system starts to gain momentum, then the question of justice and democracy has to come forward too. Not just liberty and property rights, but justice and human rights, and democracy, and the people’s rights to be free from economic tyranny and economic domination. We will not live on a national plantation run by the Koch brothers. We’re not going to do that. We refuse to do that.

Watch it:

Continue Reading here.

Rep. Wasserman Schultz: Bill Redefining Rape To Prevent Abortions Is ‘A Violent Act Against Women’

2011-02-01T13:08:00.000-08:00

By Tanya Somanader at 11:50 am
Think Progress

House Republicans wasted no time in declaring their legislative priorities for the 112th Congress. The first: repeal health care for millions of Americans. The second: redefine rape. A day after repealing health care, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) introduced the No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act, a bill that would not only permanently prohibit some federally funded health-care programs from covering abortions, but would change the language exempting rape and incest from rape to “forcible rape.”

By narrowing the Hyde Amendment language, Republicans would exclude the following situations from coverage: women who say no but do not physically fight off the perpetrator, women who are drugged or verbally threatened and raped, and minors impregnated by adults. As the National Women’s Law Center’s Steph Sterling puts it, this new standard of force “takes us back to a time where just saying no was not enough.”

Continue reading here.

Clarence Dupnik's National Support: If Words Don’t Matter, Why Use Them?

2011-02-01T09:19:00.000-08:00

National Commentary
BY NICHOLAS F. BENTON
Falls Church News-Press (VA)
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 12 2011 06:51:19 PM

It is this writer's recommendation to the editors of Time magazine that they add the name of Clarence W. Dupnik to its short list for "Person of the Year" in 2011.

Less than two weeks into the new year, this outspoken and articulate sheriff of Pima County, Arizona, home of the horrific murders and assassination attempt against U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, spoke for an entire nation by indicting the rise in the politics of hate in the land.

Sheriff of Pima County since 1980, it didn't take proof of any specific connection of the murderer in this case to any political or hate group for Dupnik to condemn all the political peddlers of anger and hate in the entire nation.

This seasoned lawman could see the impact of words on actions in ways that the dissemblers of the political right and many in the cowardly national media have tried to obfuscate.

"People tend to pooh-pooh this business about all the vitriol that we hear inflaming the American public by people who make a living off of doing that," Dupnik said during a press conference the night after the shootings. "That may be free speech, but it's not without consequences."

Earlier in the day, he told a TV network,

"It's time that this country take a little introspective look at the crap that comes out on radio and TV."

Elected seven times to his post, the 73-year old Dupnik made national headlines last summer for his outspoken refusal to enforce what he called a "racist" new immigration law.

"This law, it's just irresponsible," he said. "It makes them (Arizona legislators) look like racists."

In the immediate aftermath of the shootings Saturday, Dupnik wasn't the only one to raise his voice in anger against the climate of hate that political demagogues have fomented. In a live interview within a couple hours of the shootings, an Arizona Daily Star columnist and cartoonist David Fitzsimmons, a life-long resident of Tucson, called Arizona a "gun-happy state" (some CNN coverage Saturday originated from a TV station with the call letters "KGUN" there). He added that the "rabid right" was "stoking hate and rage" in the state.

Continue reading here

SUPPORT
SHERIFF DUPNIK

Arizona Daily Star
AzStarNet.com
Letters@AzStarNet.com
4850 S. Park Ave. Tucson, AZ 85714

KVOA 4 - KVOA.com 792-2270
KGUN 9 - KGUN9.com 722-5486
KMSB 11 - Fox11Az.com 770-1123
KOLD 13 - KOLD.com 744-6397

Send Sheriff Dupnik a note at:
PimaSheriff.org

On the eve of the rally to kick off a "Dump Dupnik" event Pima County Democratic Chair issued this call for uniting the community by requesting the Sheriff's supporters donate to the Red Cross and the Community Food Bank.

Pima Dems ask Dupnik Supporters to Contribute to Blood and Food Banks, Rather than Counter-Protest

Pima County Democratic Party Chair Jeff Rogers issued the following statement today:

“The right to free speech and peaceful assembly are sacred and should be cherished. Butin this difficult time as our community heals, we would like to encourage a spirit of togetherness. We would like to celebrate that which unites us rather than highlight that which divides. This is an opportunity to come together to be the change that we want tosee in our community. We hope that the politics of personal destruction that have marred the public dialogue for far too long will give way to a renewed sense of charity, compassion and community pride.

It has been brought to our attention that a rally supporting the recall of Sheriff Dupnik is planned for Friday, January 28th. Today we ask that all of the Sheriff’s supporters who would like to “counter-protest” do so in a manner that helps those in need in our community.

The world is watching and we know that the people of southern Arizona will rise to the occasion.”

Southern Arizona Chapter of the American Red Cross is currently recruiting O Neg, A Neg and B Neg donors. We highly recommend contacting the local Red Cross office at (520) 230-7295 to schedule an appointment to donate.

Contributions for the Community Food Bank can be made online or may be dropped off at any of the locations listed online or at Pima County Democratic Party Headquarters, 4639 E. First St.,
Tucson, AZ 85711

Nearly One Thousand People Protest Republican Meeting in Rancho Mirage

2011-01-31T12:08:00.000-08:00

Reported by: KPSP Local 2 News Services
Email: news@kpsplocal2.com News Created: 1/30 2:00 pm
Last Update: 12:35 am

As wealthy, conservative business people met Sunday inside a Coachella Valley resort, members of a liberal political action and open access group rallied to complain that corporations were being given unfettered control of the nation.

Common Cause rented a hotel ballroom for about 350 activists to discuss the conservative political agenda being furthered by Charles Koch and David Koch, the billionaire brothers who own an oil conglomerate that is the largest privately-held corporation in the U.S. The brothers and their company, Koch Industries, are hosting an invitation-only strategy session in the Valley this weekend.
About 1,000 protesters then clustered on Bob Hope Drive's sidewalks near the Rancho Las Palmas resort, where the conservatives were meeting.

[Related: Check out more photos from the protest]

Signs read "Medicare for All,'' "Troops Home Now'' and "Tea Party Founded and Funded By The Kochs.'' Police wearing riot helmets and visors formed a cordon at the resort's gates, and the protestors responded by moving away, to the other side of Bob Hope Drive.

The protest was mostly peaceful, however, 25 people were taken into custody for trespassing.

"The arrested subjects were transported to a command post in close proximity to the protest site where two subjects with pre-existing medical conditions were released with a citation at the scene," said Lieutenant Jorge Pinon of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department. "The remaining twenty- three subjects were transported to the Indio Jail where they were booked and released with a citation."

Nancy Pfotenhauer, a spokesperson for Kochk sent KPSP Local 2 News this statement:

"We are happy to be back in Palm Desert, which has been such a gracious host community for these conferences for the last eight years. This meeting brings together some of America's greatest philanthropists and job creators and who share a common belief that the current level of government spending in our nation is simply unsustainable. In 2011, we will see yet another increase in the federal deficit and by 2021 debt held by the public will double. The discussion over the next couple of days will focus on solutions to this and other pressing issues in our nation and on strategies to promote policies that will help grow our economy, foster free enterprise and create American jobs. We support the right of all Americans assemble in a peaceful and respectful way and to express their own point of view, and we hope that any protesters will respect this community and not inconvenience local residents."

The Koch brothers have funded the effort behind Citizens United, the challenge to federal campaign laws that prompted a 5-4 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that corporations or other groups can secretly spend as much money on political efforts as they desire.

Continue reading here.

Also read Riot Police Guard Against Anti-Billionaire Protesters in Rancho Mirage. John Amato is on the scene

MSNBC: Rep. Kaptur - Let's Get Our Money Back from Goldman Sachs

2011-01-31T11:40:00.000-08:00

Conversations with Great Minds with Ed Asner Part 1 & 2

2011-01-31T11:35:00.000-08:00

And here is the rest of it.

MSNBC: GOP Haunted By Big Spending, Corporate Favors

2011-01-26T12:47:00.000-08:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Read The Predator State by James K. Galbraith.

The Ryan Response and the Politics of Austerity

2011-01-26T12:16:00.000-08:00

By Robert Creamer, Political organizer, strategist and author
Huffington Post
Posted: January 26, 2011 02:39 PM

The contrast between the values underlying President Obama's State of the Union Address and Representative Paul Ryan's Republican response could not have been more stark.

Ryan's response to the President's call that America win the future...was a demand that we return to the past.

His answer to Obama's appeal that we are "all in this together" was an unvarnished vision of "law of the jungle" social Darwinism.

He responded to the hope that we can succeed....with the fear that "America's best century will be considered the past century."

And from the political point of view - most telling - he responded to Obama's call that we invest in the future with what amounted to a call for austerity.

By framing the coming battle over national priorities as he did, President Obama set up a contrast with the Republicans that is a massive winner for Democrats and Progressives. By taking the bait, Representative Ryan sharpened the contrast.

The Republicans could not have chosen a better person to respond to the President - at least from the Democratic point of view.

Continue reading here.

Vision: Ready or Not, Our Cheap Oil Economy Is Collapsing and We Need to Embrace High-Speed Rail

2011-01-24T22:21:00.000-08:00

By Scott Thill
Alternet
January 24, 2010

A conversation about high-speed rail's promise, fossil fuel's forsaken future and transforming our current nightmare of American transportation.

Photo Credit: eisenbahner via Flickr

U.S. High Speed Rail Association president and CEO Andy Kunz is no stranger to American sprawl and consumption. He was raised in Florida in a household in which every family member had a car and drove miles to get anywhere. But after studying urban planning and witnessing the fearsome waste behind America's impoverished suburban principles, which have only degraded more as crippling economic depressions and environmental catastrophes have taken hold, Kunz decided to evangelize high-speed rail as an oil-free solution to America's disastrous transportation. We talked by phone about high-speed rail's limitless promise, fossil fuel's forsaken future and transforming our current nightmare of American hyperconsumption and transportation back to its productive pre-WWII dream state.

Continue reading here.

A Frightening "Roadmap" for America in the Republican Rebuttal to the State of the Union

2011-01-24T09:55:00.000-08:00

By Rep. Jan Schakowsky, Congresswoman from Illinois
Posted: January 24, 2011 10:48 AM

If part of you clings to that vision of an America where opportunity for all is possible or if you believe that it's time to take the somewhat tarnished American Dream out of cold storage, then be prepared to be deeply disappointed -- frightened even -- by Republican Representative Paul Ryan's response to President Obama's State of the Union Address. Ryan is the newly crowned Chairman of the House Budget Committee who was given control over how the House of Representatives allocates funding. His Republican colleagues voted in January to give him unilateral, unprecedented authority to set spending limits for everything from defense to education.

I served with Rep. Ryan on the 18 member Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, and learned firsthand from the personally congenial Ryan just how dark his vision of America's future is for all but the super-rich.

There is no disagreement over the fact that our economy is still a mess, and though the signs of recovery are hopeful, too many friends and family members are out of work, losing their homes to foreclosure, and feeling insecure about the future.

Many people are mad about finding themselves in such uncomfortable circumstances, and who can blame them? They didn't make the mess, after all. They didn't spend our country into record deficits. They didn't start two wars on borrowed money, and they didn't decide to give huge tax cuts to the already hugely rich. They aren't Wall Street tycoons who gambled billions of dollars on bets that caused the near collapse of our economy. And they aren't Wall Street tycoons who are still raking in the unimaginably massive paychecks and bonuses, after being bailed out by the taxpayers.

We don't know exactly what Ryan will say in his response to the president. But we do know plenty about what this self-proclaimed budget hawk has already said. He laid it all out in a document he calls "A Roadmap for America's Future." In it was his simple plan for health care reform: destroy Medicare as we know it by giving seniors a fixed dollar voucher and sending them off to find an insurance company that will cover them. That's after raising the age of Medicare eligibility. He also revives the discredited idea of privatizing Social Security and raising the retirement age. Good luck, Grandma!

Taking Mom And Pop To The Cleaners: How The Small Business Lobby Hurts Small Business

2011-01-24T09:35:00.000-08:00

By Zach Carter and Ryan Grim
Huffington Post
First Posted: 01/24/11 10:41 AM Updated: 01/24/11 11:44 AM

Throughout Wednesday's House floor debate over the repeal of President Barack Obama's signature health care overhaul, Republicans frequently claimed that the 2010 law will cost the U.S. economy 1.6 million jobs if it isn't rolled back. They were citing a statistic from an organization that -- on the surface -- is as unimpeachable a source in Washington as can be found: The National Federation of Independent Businesses, a lobbying heavyweight which dubs itself "The Voice of Small Business."

Yet for the past two years, the NFIB has been less an advocate for small businesses than an arm of the Republican Party. When the interests of the GOP and the needs of small firms have collided, the NFIB has repeatedly sided with Republicans, jeopardizing billions of dollars in credit, tax benefits and other federal subsidies that are critical to the small enterprises that form the backbone of the U.S. economy. Key legislative priorities for small businesses were delayed, diluted or abandoned -- including a major small-business bill -- while the NFIB spent its resources on legislative battles with only tangential connections to small firms, battling climate-change legislation, pushing to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy or opposing a stimulus offering tens of billions in giveaways for, yes, small business.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, NFIB's bigger brother of sorts, has received greater attention for its outright political warfare against Democrats. The NFIB has maintained a lower national profile, and is still routinely referred to in the media as "the small business lobby." But inside the Beltway, the NFIB's raw partisanship is increasingly isolating it from key policy circles, as lobby groups such as the National Small Business Association, the Main Street Alliance and others expand their influence among entrepreneurs and mom-and-pop enterprises.

By yoking itself to the GOP, the NFIB is employing a strategy routinely embraced by the Chamber on one side of the aisle and labor unions on the other. The strategy makes sense for labor and major corporations in that their competing interests neatly fit atop the platforms of their respective parties. It makes less sense for U.S. small businesses, whose interests are often served by either party.

Democrats who deal with the NFIB regularly, even those on the business-friendly end of the spectrum, find it extremely difficult to get any traction with the group. In an interview, Senate Small Business Committee Chair Mary Landrieu (D-La.) fully extended her arm to the right to demonstrate just where on the spectrum the NFIB positions itself. "The small-business lobby is a broad coalition that ranges, I guess, from the right, by the NFIB, the Chamber of Commerce coming -- still right, but closer to the center -- and then you have more of your progressive and left-leaning small business groups," she said.

For a thorough analysis of how the small business lobby became part of the Republican party
continue reading here.

The President, Christina-Taylor Green, and the Real State of the Union

2011-01-22T12:17:00.000-08:00

By Arianna Huffington
Huffington Post
Posted: January 18, 2011 08:57 PM

President Obama used his remarkable speech last week in Tucson not just as a vehicle for healing and catharsis, but also as a challenge to all of us. He made it clear there was no connection between the tragedy and the politics that preceded it, but made a point of drawing a direct connection between the shooting and the politics that should come after it. "Sudden loss causes us to look backward," the president said, "but it also forces us to look forward; to reflect on the present and the future, on the manner in which we live our lives and nurture our relationships with those who are still with us."
And in his State of the Union address next week, he has an opportunity to build on the foundation he laid down in Tucson.

There was a theme woven through the Tucson speech -- the theme, as the president defined it, of "what, beyond prayers and expressions of concern, is required of us going forward." It was at its most powerful when the president focused on the youngest victim, nine-year-old Christina-Taylor Green.

He painted a vivid picture of her: dancer, gymnast, swimmer, "A" student, member of her school's student council, volunteer for a charity that helps less-privileged kids, and the only girl on her Little League team.

Obama's challenge to the country was to "live up to her expectations," declaring that he wants an America "as good as she imagined it."

In that spirit, wouldn't the way to honor Christina and her "gentle, happy spirit" be to care enough for all the nine-year-old little girls -- for all the children -- that are still alive but trapped in lives of quiet desperation, homeless, hungry, enrolled in dysfunctional schools, living in inner cities where random violence is a daily occurrence?

The statistics tell a depressing tale:

Continue reading here.

American Competitiveness, and the President's New Relationship with American Business

2011-01-22T08:57:00.000-08:00

By Robert Reich Fmr. Secretary of Labor; Professor at Berkeley; Author, Aftershock: 'The Next Economy and America's Future'
Huffington Post
Posted: January 22, 2011 11:18 AM

Whenever you hear a business executive or politician use the term "American competitiveness," watch your wallet. Few terms in public discourse have gone so directly from obscurity to meaninglessness without any intervening period of coherence.

President Obama just appointed Jeffry Immelt, GE's CEO, to head his outside panel of economic advisors, replacing Paul Volcker. According to White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, Immelt has "agreed to work through what makes our country more competitive."

In an opinion piece for the Washington Post announcing his acceptance, Immelt wrote "there is nothing inevitable about America's declining manufacturing competitiveness if we work together to reverse it."

But what's American "competitiveness" and how do you measure it? Here are some different definitions:

It's American exports. Okay, but the easiest way for American companies to increase their exports from the US is for their American-made products to become cheaper internationally. And for them to reduce the price of their American-made stuff they have to cut their costs of production in here. Their biggest cost is their payrolls. So it follows that the simplest way for them to become more "competitive" is to cut their payrolls -- either by substituting software and automated machinery for their US workers, or getting (or forcing) their US workers to accept wage and benefit cuts.

It's net exports. Another way to think about American "competitiveness" is the balance of trade -- how much we import from abroad versus how much they import from us. The easiest and most direct way to improve the trade balance is to coax the value of the dollar down relative to foreign currencies (the Fed's current strategy for flooding the economy with money could have this effect). The result is everything we make becomes cheaper to the rest of the world. But even if other nations were willing to let this happen (doubtful; we'd probably have a currency war instead as they tried to coax down the value of their currencies in response), we'd pay a high price. Everything the rest of the world makes would become more expensive for us.

It's the profits of American-based companies. In case you haven't noticed, the profits of American corporations are soaring. That's largely because sales from their foreign-based operations are booming (especially in China, Brazil, and India). It's also because they've cut their costs of production in the US (see the first item above). American-based companies have become global -- making and selling all over the world -- so their profitability has little or nothing to do with the number and quality of jobs here in the US. In fact, it may be inversely related.

It's the number and quality of American jobs. This is my preferred definition, but on this measure we're doing terribly badly. Most Americans are imprisoned in a terrible trade-off -- they can get a job, but only one that pays considerably less than the one they used to have, or they can face unemployment or insecure contract work. The only sure way to improve the quality of jobs over the long term is to build the productivity of American workers and the US overall, which means major investments in education, infrastructure, and basic R&D. But it's far from clear American corporations and their executives will pay the taxes needed to make these investments. And the only sure way to improve the number of jobs is to give the vast middle and working classes of America sufficient purchasing power to get the economy going again. But here again, it's far from clear American corporations and their executives will be willing to push for a more progressive tax code, along with wage subsidies, that would put more money into average workers' pockets.

It's politically important for President Obama, as for any president, to be available to American business, and to avoid the moniker of being "anti-business." But the president must not be seduced into believing -- and must not allow the public to be similarly seduced into thinking -- that the well-being of American business is synonymous with the well-being of Americans.

Click here

Robert Reich is the author of Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, now in bookstores. This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org.

The Disappearance of Keith Olbermann

2011-01-22T08:33:00.000-08:00

By Robert Parry
Consortium News
January 22, 2011

Keith Olbermann’s abrupt departure from MSNBC should be another wake-up call to American progressives about the fragile foothold that liberal-oriented fare now has for only a few hours on one corporate cable network.

Though Olbermann hosted MSNBC’s top-rated news show, “Countdown with Keith Olbermann,” he disappeared from the network with only the briefest of good-byes. Certainly, the callous treatment of Olbermann by the MSNBC brass would never be replicated by Rupert Murdoch’s right-wing Fox News toward its media stars.

At Fox News, the likes of Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity have far greater leeway to pitch right-wing ideas and even to organize pro-Republican political events. Last November, Olbermann was suspended for two days for making donations to three Democratic candidates, including Arizona’s Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was wounded in the Jan. 8 shooting in Tucson.

Now, with Olbermann’s permanent departure on Friday, the remainder of MSNBC’s liberal evening line-up, which also includes Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz and Lawrence O’Donnell (who will fill Olbermann’s 8 p.m. slot), must face the reality that any sustained friction with management could mean the bum’s rush for them, too.

The liberal hosts also must remember that MSNBC experimented with liberal-oriented programming only after all other programming strategies, including trying to out-Fox Fox, had failed – and only after it became clear that President George W. Bush’s popularity was slipping.

In nearly eight years at “Countdown,” Olbermann was the brave soul who charted the course for other mainstream media types to be even mildly critical of Bush. Olbermann modeled his style after legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow, who stood up to excesses by communist-hunting Sen. Joe McCarthy in the 1950s, even borrowing Murrow’s close: “Good night, good luck.”

But MSNBC’s parent company, General Electric, never seemed comfortable with Olbermann’s role as critic of the Bush administration, nor with the sniping between Olbermann and his Fox News rival, O’Reilly, who retaliated by attacking corporate GE on his widely watched show.

Continue Reading here.

Evidence of an American Plutocracy: The Larry Summers Story

2011-01-20T12:25:00.000-08:00

By Matthew Skomarovsky | LittleSis | Op-Ed
Truthout

Larry Summers. (Photo: E.T. Studhalter / World Economic Forum)

Monday 10 January 2011

“So here is the evidence for an American plutocracy of a narrow and discrete but hardly harmless sort. Wall Street seduced the economics profession not through overt corruption, but by aligning the incentives of economists with its own. It was very easy for academic economists to move from universities to central banks to hedge funds — a tightly knit world in which everyone shared the same views about the self-regulating and beneficial effects of open capital markets. The alliance was enormously profitable for everyone: The academics got big consulting fees, and Wall Street got legitimacy. And it has kept the system going despite the enormous policy failures it has generated, not to exclude the recent crisis.”

—Francis Fukuyama, The American Interest, January 2011

Larry Summers’ path to the Obama administration, and his record within it, are symptomatic of a new American plutocracy, and his new job at Harvard will keep the gears of corruption greased.

Summers rose to power under the protective wing of Wall Street and Democratic Party mogul Robert Rubin. He aggressively advanced Rubin’s program of financial deregulation and faithfully rescued his cronies when deregulation went wrong. Despite the economic catastrophes these policies have contributed to, Summers and other Rubinites have continued their political ascendancy in recent years, filling top positions in the Obama administration.

To be released March 8; Preorder at Amazon.com

Continue Reading Here

For more information on the powerful documentary Inside Job click here.

Rep. Grijalva Speaks Against Health Care Repeal

2011-01-19T18:22:00.001-08:00

Debbie Wasserman Schultz Invokes Tucson Hero's Plea To Defend Health Care Reform

2011-01-19T12:15:00.000-08:00

By Nick Wing
The Huffington Post
First Posted: 01/19/11 12:29 PM Updated: 01/19/11 02:06 PM

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), a close friend of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and one of the most outspoken legislators regarding the tragedy in Arizona, said Wednesday that one of the heroes of the shooting in Tucson was opposed to the House GOP's effort to repeal health care reform, and that others should stand with her in resistance to the measure.

"Normally I would step to a microphone like this and tell a story about the impact that decision might have on a constituent in my district," Wasserman Schultz said at a press briefing, according to Talking Points Memo. "Instead what I'm going to do is share with you what Pat Maisch -- who was the hero who dropped the second magazine out of the gunman's hand during the tragedy in Tucson -- what she planned to say to Gabby Giffords when she was waiting on line to talk to her."

Wasserman Schultz explained that Maisch had told her she wanted to see the health care overhaul signed into law last year maintained, and asked the Democratic congresswoman to do everything she could to ensure that it was given a chance to be fully implemented. She also lamented what she saw as the aggressive tone that Republicans had adopted in combatting the legislation, TPM reports.

"Heed the words of Pat Maisch, heed the words of millions needing health care," Wasserman Schultz said in defense of health care reform on the floor of the House later Wednesday morning, according to The New York Times.

A House vote on the Republican repeal legislation is expected later Wednesday.

MSNBC The Last Word: MLK On Civility, the Means Toward Justice

2011-01-17T22:46:00.000-08:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

NYTimes: No one Listened to Gabrielle Giffords

2011-01-16T20:42:00.000-08:00

OP-ED COLUMNIST
By FRANK RICH
New York Times
Published: January 15, 2011

OF the many truths in President Obama’s powerful Tucson speech, none was more indisputable than his statement that no one can know what is in a killer’s mind. So why have we spent so much time debating exactly that?

The answer is classic American denial. It was easier to endlessly parse Jared Lee Loughner’s lunatic library — did he favor “The Communist Manifesto” or Ayn Rand? — than confront the larger and harsher snapshot of our current landscape that emerged after his massacre. A week on, that denial is becoming even more entrenched. As soon as the president left the podium Wednesday night, we started shifting into our familiar spin-dry post-tragedy cycle of the modern era — speedy “closure,” followed by a return to business as usual, followed by national amnesia.

If we learn nothing from this tragedy, we are back where we started. And where we started was with two years of accelerating political violence — actual violence, not to be confused with violent language — that struck fear into many, not the least of whom was Gabrielle Giffords.

Continue reading here.

Uncloaking the Kochs

2011-01-16T18:47:00.000-08:00

Progressives to ‘uncloak’ the secret financers behind

the Tea party

By Nathan Diebenow
Rawstory
Sunday, January 16th, 2011 -- 8:35 pm

Progressive and liberal activists are planning at the end of the month to confront the secretive billionaire family that finances the so-called Tea party movement and a host of other right-wing causes and institutions.

"Our government is supposed to be of, by and for the people. So are you ready to take it back?" an invitation for the "Uncloaking the Kochs" event asked.

The Sunday, Jan. 30 event thrown by Common Cause, a nonpartisan, grassroots organization, aims to educate attendees in California on the Koch brothers who will be strategizing nearby with their mega-wealthy allies to win the 2012 elections. Afterwards, activists will rally in Rancho Mirage.

"We can't sit back while a few billionaires destroy the fragile fabric of democracy and the protections that are so necessary for the health of our society," Jodie Evans of CodePink told Alternet."It is time for the progressive community to gather together and say no more, and what better place than where the Koch brothers are plotting their next moves."

Panel discussions will feature Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary; Van Jones, founder of Green for All; Erwin Chemerinsky, UC Irvine Law Dean; Lee Fang, Center for American Progress blogger and Koch Brothers expert; and DeAnn McEwen, co-president of the California Nurses Association.