The Stealth Attack on America's Best-Loved Program

By Robert Kuttner,Co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect
Huffington Post
Posted: June 18, 2010 10:14 AM


As Obama's Fiscal Commission prepares for its June 30 hearing, the Roosevelt Institute's New Deal 2.0 blog invited me to participate in its Social Security's Fiscal Fitness series, which examines the soundness of the program, its relationship to the federal deficit, and the vital role it plays in America's economic future.

Washington bipartisan elites have been working to weaken Social Security since the mid-Clinton Administration. Clinton, prodded by his Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, was on the verge of cutting a deal with Newt Gingrich to partially privatize America's most successful retirement program.

The intermediary was Clinton's White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles. The same Bowles is now the co-chair of Obama's fiscal commission -- which also has designs on Social Security. Corporate Democrats keep turning up, like bad pennies.

As I reported in my 2007 book, The Squandering of America, liberals can thank Monica Lewinsky for saving Social Security from that earlier bipartisan deal. Why? Because when the frisky Clinton was being impeached, and Congressional liberals were holding their noses and reluctantly saving him from ouster, they were in no mood to have him trash Social Security. New details have been reported in the recent book, The Pact, by Steven Gillon, about Clinton's dealings with Gingrich.

But what is it with Democrats like Bowles, Rubin, and Rubin's protégé Peter Orszag, now director of the Office of Management and Budget and another of the deficit hawks who would weaken Social Security in order to cut the deficit? Don't they get that Social Security, along with Medicare, is one of the Democrats' crown jewels? Don't they appreciate that two-thirds of elderly Americans depend on Social Security for at least half their income?

As Nancy Altman pointed out earlier in this series, the argument that Social Security is adding to the federal deficit is a bum rap. Ever since Congress in 1983 acted to anticipate the retirement of the baby boom generation by raising Social Security taxes and pushing back the retirement age from 65 to 67, Social Security has contributed trillions of dollars to a government surplus. The intent was to pre-fund the additional cost of the boomers. George W. Bush pilfered that surplus for his wars and his tax cuts for the rich, but even so, Social Security is still in great shape for at least 30 more years.

Social security taxes wages. Get wage growth back to historic postwar norms, and Social Security is in surplus forever. Restore the traditional fraction of wages that are taxed, so that affluent people do not get a free ride on part of their income, and the proclaimed crisis disappears. There is no need to further cut benefits, or further raise the retirement age, or raise taxes on working Americans. If only Citigroup's balance sheet were as healthy as Social Security's!

Continue reading here.

From the Tucson Weekly: Hot As A Pistol: Terri Proud Celebrates Gals and Guns

POSTED BY JIM NINTZEL
MON, APR 12, 2010 AT 3:05 PM
The Tucson Weekly 

 26Dems Editorial Comment:  Who is Terri Proud?  She's in the hunt for a seat as a Republican from  LD 26? She wants to play follow the dysfunctional leaders right right off the cliff.  Really? Yes, really.  Introducing one of Sarah Palin's Mama Grizzlies.  Incidentally Jan Brewer is one Mama Grizzly that Republican women identify as one of their top women to watch.  These women are part of a Republican national "grassroots" effort.  They even have a website touting Smart Girls Politics. They may be women, but they follow marching orders from the same fiscally irresponsible Republican leaders who have messed up Arizona. They don't represent the women who have been hit hard during the Great Recession and struggle hard just to keep even while trying to provide food and health care for their families. This Youtube video speaks for itself.

Mama Grizzlies to Working Moms: Drop Dead

 By Betsy Reed
June 16, 2010   |    This article appeared in the July 5, 2010 edition of The Nation.
The Nation Online

First, let's swallow hard and be fair. There is something to cheer in the so-called Year of the Woman. You don't have to credit the Republican Party, which did next to nothing to bring on the wave that swept Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman, Sharron Angle and Nikki Haley to victory in June's primary elections. Indeed, before the RNC began heralding its Mama Grizzlies, in Sarah Palin's typically catchy but grating phrase, it was brushing off complaints about how its roster of 104 rising "Young Guns," lavished with party attention and resources, included only seven women. Fiorina and Whitman bought their gleaming California wins with their own money, while Angle charged to victory in Nevada on sheer Tea Party adrenaline. There's certainly nothing progressive about these women, but their brash, unapologetic and largely unsolicited emergence in Republican politics—in American politics—does represent progress, of a sort.

That being said, it's maddening that a party that has resisted every advance of feminism and undermined women's economic strength at every turn now claims to embody "the overall triumph of the women's movement," as New York Times columnist Ross Douthat put it. To appreciate the breadth of the chasm between the party's symbolism and its substance, consider the subject of working mothers. Some of today's GOP women, like many more Democratic women before them, have indeed broken barriers by campaigning around the clock with young children at home.

But what does it mean to be "comfortable" with the spectacle of a working mother, as Douthat claims Republicans now are, when you oppose the very supports that would make the lives of working mothers comfortable?

Fresh new faces aside, the Republican Party's stance on the issues that matter to working mothers is as regressive as it has ever been. 

 Recall how Republicans in Congress, at the behest of their corporate backers, tried mightily to block President Clinton's Family and Medical Leave Act, which granted women the right to take unpaid time off to have a baby and still keep their jobs.

The passage of the FMLA in 1993 was a real advance, but it is hardly sufficient. Because so many more men have lost their jobs in the Great Recession, an increasing number of families depend on a female wage-earner's paycheck to survive, and many women simply cannot take unpaid time off to care for a baby without imperiling their families. President Obama slipped $50 million into his budget proposal to aid states interested in addressing this problem by guaranteeing paid leave. But this item, along with nearly all the other expenditures to blunt the pain of the downturn and restore economic health, has no support from Republicans, who have signed countless pledges to freeze spending, cut taxes and reduce the deficit, regardless of the human consequences.

Continue Reading here.

Terry Goddard Honored with Highest Award from Nation’s Attorneys General

Attorney General Press Release

(Phoenix, Ariz. – June 17, 2010) Attorney General Terry Goddard received the prestigious Kelley-Wyman award last night from the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) at the organization’s annual summer meeting in Seattle, Washington.

The Kelley-Wyman Award is the association’s highest honor and is presented to the Attorney General who has done the most to advance the objectives of the association. It is sometimes referred to as the “Attorney General of the Year” award. Goddard was selected to receive this honor in recognition of his work on the $94 million Western Union recovery, as well as his leadership on a number of law enforcement initiatives, including mortgage fraud and the multi-state tobacco settlement. 

“Attorney General Terry Goddard demonstrates the collegial and collaborative efforts that NAAG strives to facilitate among its membership,” stated NAAG President Jon Bruning, the Republican Attorney General of Nebraska.

“His guidance and perseverance led to the groundbreaking agreement among the four Southwest border states and Western Union that will provide substantial resources for law enforcement to combat money laundering,” Bruning added.  “General Goddard has been instrumental in combating Mexican drug cartels that threaten the security of the U.S.-Mexican border.  He has worked with Mexico’s top law enforcement officials to increase cross-border cooperation.” 

"AG Goddard very much deserves this prestigious award," said Paul Charlton, former U.S. Attorney for Arizona. "Terry has taken on the drug cartels, human smugglers, and border crime in effective and creative ways.  He is a thoughtful prosecutor whose good work has now been recognized nationally by his peers."

"As a border Sheriff, I know how hard the Attorney General has worked to provide resources to local law enforcement in the battle against the drug cartels,” stated Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik.  “He understands that only through close partnerships with local law enforcement, the federal government, and Mexican law enforcement officials can we truly win the battle against these criminals. I congratulate the Attorney General and his team for winning this prestigious award."

"Attorney General Goddard has led the way in working with local law enforcement and prosecutors in fighting drug cartels and border crime," said Sheila Polk, Yavapai County Attorney. "I applaud NAAG for selecting him for this prestigious award."

“I would like to thank my fellow Attorneys General for this recognition of the great work we have done fighting border crime and mortgage fraud,” Goddard said. “This award is a welcome pat on the back to the hard-working men and women of the Arizona Attorney General’s Office and our law enforcement partners.  For almost eight years, I’ve had the privilege to work with my fellow Attorneys General across political and regional divides to find common ground to benefit our citizens.  We have a proud tradition among the AGs of independence from outside pressure and dedication to the law.”

The National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) was founded in 1907 to help Attorneys General fulfill the responsibilities of their office and to assist in the delivery of high-quality legal services to the states and territories. The Association fosters interstate cooperation on legal and law enforcement issues, conducts policy research and analysis of issues, and facilitates communication among the states’ chief legal officers. . The Association’s members are the Attorneys General of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, the Commonwealths of Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands, and the territories of American Samoa, Guam and the Virgin Islands.

Goddard is the third Arizona Attorney General to win the Kelley-Wyman Award. Prior winners were Grant Woods in 1994 and Gary Nelson in 1970. 

For additional information, contact Press Secretary Molly Edwards at 602.542.8019.

Melvin pushes for nukes, alone

By Cheryl Cage, Special to The Explorer
Published:
June-16-2010

Our current state senator, Al Melvin, has once again demonstrated how out of touch he is with the values of LD-26 voters.


His actions over the past two legislative sessions provide clear proof that he is determined to push his political agenda instead of looking out for Southern Arizona. A few examples:



Payday loans: Although 63 percent of LD-26 voters said "no" to allowing payday loan operators to continue doing business in Arizona, Melvin voted to allow them to stay in business.



Public education: By 2-to-1, voters in LD-26 voted to protect public education by passing Prop 100. In contrast Melvin voted 100 percent of the time against public education.


Now, he's promoting building numerous nuclear power plants in Arizona and – most alarmingly – turning Arizona into the world's nuclear waste dump.

In his op-ed (Arizona should consider atomic energy, The Explorer, June 9), Mr. Melvin manipulates the facts to support his push for Arizona to become a nuclear waste destination so we can become "very rich."

Cost?
He states that nuclear energy costs 2.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared to solar and wind (he lumps solar and wind together) at around 14 to 17 cents per kilowatt-hour.

What he doesn't tell you is that the stated 2.5 cents per kilowatt-hour does not include capital costs (which make up 80 percent of the nuclear energy production cost) or costs of transmission.

The true cost of nuclear is about 25 cents per kilowatt-hour and is rising (due to materials and water costs). The price of solar is about 24 cents per kilowatt-hour and will continue to drop as research continues.

Jobs?

Studies have shown for every $1 million dollars invested solar will provide 13.5 jobs to the nuclear industry's 4.5 jobs.

Environmental impact?

Where to place this dangerous waste is not mentioned. (Perhaps Oracle State Park? He did vote to close it.) There is no discussion about the fact that all that this nuclear waste will be delivered by truck or rail. This fact raises critical public safety concerns.

His comparison about the "footprints" of solar versus nuclear is equally disingenuous. He refuses to acknowledge solar panels would not just be sitting in one large field; they would be placed throughout a community (top of homes and businesses, parking lots and infill areas). He states that Palo Verde's footprint is only 6.3 miles because he chooses to ignore the impact of mining uranium.

Like most Southern Arizonans I believe solar energy is a safer, cleaner, smarter alternative. The tremendous water requirements to manufacture nuclear energy convinces me that Arizona is not the place to build new nuclear power plants.

My opponent says Arizona has the "political will" to pursue nuclear power and waste. I have yet to meet one voter in LD-26 who is clamoring to bring nuclear waste to our beautiful state.

Once again, Mr. Melvin correlates "political will" with having enough votes in the legislature to push his agenda through — no matter what constituents value.


Cheryl Cage is a candidate for the Arizona State Senate from LD-26.

http://www.cageforazsenate.com/

Re-Think Nuclear

Presented as a one-page primer for the Sustainable Tucson Newsletter

By Russell Lowes,
SafeEnergyAnalyst.org
February 27, 2010

The real choice is not nuclear versus coal, but nukes & coal versus the reasonable alternatives. 
There is massive opposition to coal now, which comprises about 45% of U.S. electricity. You can see smoke from the stacks or read about its CO2 emissions.

Opposition to nuclear energy is also amassing. Nuclear also produces CO2 emissions, which are growing ever-greater. It emits invisible radioactivity, uses even more water, and is much pricier. Here are some of the problems with nuclear energy.

Safety Issues Persist: The world has 436 reactors. In order to have a significant contribution to world energy, 1000 reactors are projected. Even if future reactor accidents improve by a factor of 10, the chance of a reactor meltdown would be roughly one more Chernobyl-like “sacrifice zone” by 2050.

Terrorist Issues: Shortly after the 9/11 New York jetliner crashes, the NRC corrected itself saying that airliners could destroy U.S. reactors. There is an even greater threat at the adjacent spent fuel cooling pools, housed in non-hardened buildings which, if breached, could create a meltdown.  

Poor Economics/Subsidies Required: Nuclear electricity would run about 25 cents per kilowatt-hour to your meter. Current Tucson electricity is about 11 cents. New coal would be about 16 cents, wind at 12, solar photovoltaic at 24, gas at 13. The best option, however, is reducing energy with better lighting, architecture, insulation, A/C efficiency, etc.  Energy efficiency averages about 3 cents. Numerous nuclear industry officials have said they will build no new reactors without taxpayer loan guarantees.

Two Ways to Worsen Global Warming: Investing 1 dollar in nuclear rather than energy efficiency, you forgo saving 8 times the electricity. In other words, you can invest 1 dollar in nuclear and get 4 kilowatt-hours – or you can invest in energy savings and get 33 KWH. Investing in nuclear energy will dominate energy dollars, setting back the real options.

Second, nukes produce about 110 grams of CO2 per kilowatt-hour. This is 11 times the CO2 of wind, double that of solar, and many times that of energy savings/efficiency. It gets worse if you include 1 million years of waste storage.

Water Consumption Is Highest: Water lost to the environment at Palo Verde is about 0.8 gallons per kilowatt-hour. Coal consumes 0.5 gallons. With solar PV, wind and energy savings, water use is negligible.

National Security Is Diminished: We import 80-92% of our U.S. nuclear fuel. Energy independence is set back with nuclear.

Waste Legacy: The U.S. courts have ruled that nuclear waste much be safeguarded for 1 million years, 25,000 times the 40-year operating life of a reactor.

Russell Lowes is Research Director for www.SafeEnergyAnalyst.org. He was the primary author of a book on the Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant, the largest U.S. nuclear plant upwind of Tucson about 125 miles. This book was used in a campaign to successfully stop two reactors at this now three-reactor complex. You can contact Russell Lowes for presentations or for questions at russlowes@gmail.com  Documentation to this article can be found at www.SafeEnergyAnalyst.org

Also read 26dems.blogspot.com

Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Friends of the Earth: Caution on Nuclear Energy; Health Peril, Unsustainable Costs
The Truth About Nuclear Energy: Health Risks and Economic Hazards

Debating Federalism: Conservative False History and Hypocrisy vs. Progressive Collaborative Federalism

From Progressive States Network

Conservative state leaders have promoted legislation in states across the country claiming that the health care reform law is an unconstitutional overreach of federal power.  While just a handful of the bills were enacted (and most were roundly rejected in states where they were introduced), these attacks on the federal health law are the most prominent example of increasing right-wing legislative agitation declaring various federal laws and actions a violation of the constitution.

Right-Wing "States Rights" Bills:  Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wyoming have declared that federal firearm regulations don't apply to weapons manufactured in those states.  Utah has rejected not only the federal health care reform bill, but declared federal lands subject to state eminent domain and asserted the "inviolable sovereignty of the State of Utah under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution."  Alabama, Alaska and Wyoming have joined Utah in passing resolutions generally denouncing the supposed violations of their state sovereignty.  And right-wing legislators have introduced bills to institute a "constitutional tender" requiring a gold standard for money in their states, declaring federal cap-and-trade proposals unconstitutional, making it a state crime for federal agents to arrest anyone in a state without permission from a county sheriff, and more generally nullifying claims by the federal government to regulate most interstate commerce.

Challenging the Right-Wing Constitutional Narrative: The challenge for progressives from this "states rights" movement is not that any of these laws are likely to survive in court, but that conservatives too often get away with claiming to stand for constitutional values without significant challenge from progressives.  The reality is that the right wing has no credibility in promoting their states' rights arguments and should be challenged more directly.  As this Dispatch will outline, their arguments fail on multiple grounds.

• First, conservative constitutional history is dead wrong.  The progressive vision of collaborative federalism between federal and state governments clearly reflects the "original intent" of the Constitution's creators  - including those who promoted the Constitutional Amendments enacted throughout our history.

• Second, conservative leaders are constitutional hypocrites, talking about "states rights" even as they support federal laws that restrict state authority in order to protect corporate special interests.

• Finally, unlike conservatives, progressives practice real respect for state authority by promoting and supporting state innovation and flexibility, a far more compelling practice of federalism than the rigid and false constitutional doctrine promoted by the right wing.

Progressive legislative leaders need to clearly engage the public and promote our story of a Constitution that was meant to promote a vigorous federal power in promoting equal rights and the general welfare, even as federal leaders should respect and strengthen the capacity of states to take action beyond minimum standards set by the federal government.

Continue reading here.

Cheney's Push for Deregulation Led to BP Disaster

 

If it was supervised, if it was overseen, if it was regulated by the federal government, Cheney with his marvellous bureaucratic talent moved in and essentially replaced the people who were in the positions that were central to this regulation, this oversight, with people who were either lobbyists for the industry being regulated or executives from that industry.
Bio

Lawrence Wilkerson is a retired United States Army soldier and former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell. Wilkerson is an adjunct professor at the College of William & Mary where he teaches courses on US national security. He also instructs a senior seminar in the Honors Department at the George Washington University entitled "National Security Decision Making."

Efforts to Limit the Flow of Spill News

By JEREMY W. PETERS
New York Times
Published: June 9, 2010

When the operators of Southern Seaplane in Belle Chasse, La., called the local Coast Guard-Federal Aviation Administration command center for permission to fly over restricted airspace in Gulf of Mexico, they made what they thought was a simple and routine request.

A pilot wanted to take a photographer from The Times-Picayune of New Orleans to snap photographs of the oil slicks blackening the water. The response from a BP contractor who answered the phone late last month at the command center was swift and absolute: Permission denied.

“We were questioned extensively. Who was on the aircraft? Who did they work for?” recalled Rhonda Panepinto, who owns Southern Seaplane with her husband, Lyle. “The minute we mentioned media, the answer was: ‘Not allowed.’ ”

Journalists struggling to document the impact of the oil rig explosion have repeatedly found themselves turned away from public areas affected by the spill, and not only by BP and its contractors, but by local law enforcement, the Coast Guard and government officials.

To some critics of the response effort by BP and the government, instances of news media being kept at bay are just another example of a broader problem of officials’ filtering what images of the spill the public sees.

Scientists, too, have complained about the trickle of information that has emerged from BP and government sources. Three weeks passed, for instance, from the time the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on April 20 and the first images of oil gushing from an underwater pipe were released by BP.

“I think they’ve been trying to limit access,” said Representative Edward J. Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts who fought BP to release more video from the underwater rovers that have been filming the oil-spewing pipe. “It is a company that was not used to transparency. It was not used to having public scrutiny of what it did.”

Continue reading here.

Boehner: Government--i.e. Taxpayers--Should Help Pay For Oil Spill

By Brian Beutler
Talking Points Memo |
June 10, 2010, 11:19AM

Congressional Democrats and the White House are toying with different ways to force BP to cover the costs of damages from the Gulf oil spill. But they face stiff opposition from industry...and it seems leading Republicans. In response to a question from TPMDC, House Minority Leader John Boehner said he believes taxpayers should help pick up the tab for the clean up.

"I think the people responsible in the oil spill--BP and the federal government--should take full responsibility for what's happening there," Boehner said at his weekly press conference this morning.

Boehner's statement followed comments last Friday by US Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue who said he opposes efforts to stick BP, a member of the Chamber, with the bill. "It is generally not the practice of this country to change the laws after the game," he said. "Everybody is going to contribute to this clean up. We are all going to have to do it. We are going to have to get the money from the government and from the companies and we will figure out a way to do that."

So today I asked Boehner, "Do you agree with Tom Donohue of the Chamber that the government and taxpayers should pitch in to clean up the oil spill?" The shorter answer is yes.

The Chamber is extremely influential in Republican politics, so on that level it's not particularly surprising that Boehner has Donohue's back on this one. But the politics of asking the federal government (i.e. taxpayers) to help cover the multi-billion dollar cleanup and rescue efforts are deadly. Look for Democrats to jump all over this one.

Late update: Boehner spokesman Michael Steel emails to say "Boehner made a general statement about who is responsible for the spill, and the federal government oversight was clearly lacking, but he has said repeatedly that BP is responsible for the cost of the cleanup."

Robbed of jobs by the deficit cultists

By Dean Baker
guardian.co.uk   
 Monday 7 June 2010 18.00 BST

The latest US jobs report shows how feeble this recovery is. Yet those managing the economy are set on a low-employment path

Friday's US jobs report caught most economic analysts by surprise. After touting the strength of the recovery for months, they had to come to grips with the fact that the economy just is not creating very many jobs.

If the temporary jobs generated by the census are pulled out of the count, the economy created just 20,000 jobs in May. The average rate of growth of non-census jobs over the last three months has been just 130,000 a month, only slightly faster than the growth of the workforce. At this rate of job growth, it will take decades, not years, to get back to normal levels of unemployment. It's time that we stop the happy talk about recovery and get serious about the country's economic problems.

Once again, the reason for this downturn is very simple, even if most of the country's top economists were (and are) unable to see it. We saw an $8tn housing bubble and a somewhat smaller bubble in non-residential real estate collapse. This bubble had been driving the economy prior to the recession.

The bubbles directly generated close to $500bn in annual demand by stimulating construction. The housing wealth created by the bubble indirectly spurred another $500bn in demand by lifting consumption. With the destruction of this wealth consumption has now been drastically curtailed. The question is not one of consumer sentiments. Consumers are not spending for the same reason that homeless people don't spend: they lack the money.

Continue reading here.

Dean Baker is co-director of the Center for Economic Policy and Research. Follow his blog Beat the Press.

The Supreme Court: Keeping Politics Safe for the Rich

EDITORIAL
New York Times
Keeping Politics Safe for the Rich
Published: June 8, 2010

In a burst of judicial activism, the Supreme Court on Tuesday upended the gubernatorial race in Arizona, cutting off matching funds to candidates participating in the state’s public campaign finance system.

Suddenly, three candidates, including Gov. Jan Brewer, can no longer receive public funds they had counted on to run against a free-spending wealthy opponent.

The court’s reckless order muscling into the race was terse and did not say whether there were any dissents, though it is hard to imagine there were not. An opinion explaining its reasoning will have to wait until the next term, assuming it takes the case, but by that time the state’s general election will be over and its model campaign finance system substantially demolished.

It seems likely that the Roberts court will use this case to continue its destruction of the laws and systems set up in recent decades to reduce the influence of big money in politics. By the time it is finished, millionaires and corporations will have regained an enormous voice in American politics, at the expense of candidates who have to raise money the old-fashioned way and, ultimately, at the expense of voters.

Arizona’s clean elections program was established by the state’s voters in 1998 after a series of scandals provided clear illustrations of money’s corrupting influence. In particular, the program was prompted by the AzScam scandal of 1991, in which many state legislators were recorded accepting contributions and bribes in exchange for approval of gambling legislation.

Continue reading here.