HISTORICAL FLASHBACK: The Hundred Year War Against the American Worker

The author of this Democratic Underground journal collects compelling historical evidence that violence blamed on labor unions is initiated by employers and the government.

By McCamy Taylor

Wed Apr 08th 2009, 07:13 PM

If asked What was (or is) the longest running U.S. war? most people would say the conflict in Southeast Asia. However, in this journal I will make a case that our federal government’s longest war has been the one waged against workers, both here and abroad, who attempt to obtain a decent wage and safe work conditions. Since this battle began during the very first national strike back in 1877, it is a Hundred Year War .

Many other so called “wars” like the War Against Black Folks (aka the War on Drugs) are actually part of this largest conflict, since racial minorities are oppressed in this country in order to depress all wages. The current right wing War Against Immigrants is also a skirmish in the Hundred Year War, designed to keep Mexican immigrants living in fear, so that they will accept low pay and poor work conditions. Women are denied a fair wage for the same reason. Divide and Conquer has become a favorite strategy of the business class, because the one thing that workers have going for them is strength in numbers. If they can be pitted against each other, then they will lose--- and the bosses will win.

Do not be fooled by the seemingly milder, more law abiding behavior of the nation’s business owners in recent years. Employers in the United States have been at war with their workers for a very, long time, and their allies in the battle have been (except for a few years during the FDR administration) our own elected officials.

I. “A Diet of Lead for the Hungry Strikers”: The Railroad Strike of 1877

Sometimes it just amazes me how (bad) history keeps repeating itself in the United States. You would think that we would learn from our mistakes.

Bush v. Gore was not the nation’s only fixed election. Way back in 1876, the president of the largest company in the United States, Thomas Scott, of the Pennsylvania Railroad, crafted a deal in which the man who got fewer votes----Rutherford Hayes---was elected president. In exchange, Scott got federal bailouts for bad investments in the Texas and Pacific Railroad. The cost of this bailout was high---Hayes supporters courted Southern Democrats in Congress by promising to end Reconstruction, effectively abandoning Southern Blacks to a century of Jim Crow and the KKK. In that election and its aftermath, the foundations for United States policy towards American workers were laid. That policy was, in a word, war.

The nation’s economy was in a shambles. Investors had been up to their usual dirty tricks. In 1869, Black Friday was precipitated by two investors, Gould and Fisk who conspired with family members of then President Grant to corner the gold market and drive up prices. When gold prices returned to normal, many investors were ruined. A few years later, gold was in the news again, as the feds stopped buying silver thanks to the Coinage Act of 1873, also called the Crime of 1873. Domestic money supplies were reduced. Also in 1873, the major investment firm Jay Cooke & Company went under due to its bad investments in the nation’s railroad industry. The New York Stock Exchange closed for 10 days. Railroads failed----and it was the American worker who suffered the most as the nation entered the Long Depression. Read the rest of the journal at Democratic Underground

Private Health Insurance Companies Increase Healthcare Costs and Reduce Care: End Them

STAND WITH DR. DEAN

From the New York Times (4/1/09):
"Lobbyists and Congressional aides have discussed a possible compromise: Congress would authorize a new government-run insurance program, but it would come into existence only if certain conditions were met - if, for example, private insurers failed to rein in health costs by a certain amount after several years."

"We need to fight back before the opposition's message becomes the policy. "
Arshad Hasaan, Democracy for America

Write a letter to the EDITOR NOW! at this link


04/07/2009

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Meg White

In the coming months, we will see the development of a new healthcare system in Washington. Concessions will be made on all sides and everyone is nervous about what those concessions might be.

While many of us hope for single-payer, universal healthcare, the fact is that the political will might not exist for it. However, no matter what the Obama Administration decides to call the final product, private health insurance companies need to disappear from the equation.

It seems the Obama Administration, and most congressional Democrats, are afraid of single-payer's association with socialized medicine. But doctors don't have to work for the government for this healthcare reform initiative to be successful. According to Washington Post correspondent T.R. Reid, private health insurance companies -- not private doctors -- need to go.

Reid's book, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper and Fairer Health Care, will be published this summer. Reid has been traveling the world learning about other countries' healthcare systems, while keeping in mind the idiosyncrasies of American patients and doctors, to try and figure out what will work best here.

Reid found that, while advances in healthcare are driving up costs all over the world, the astronomically high prices in this country originate with insurance companies.

Not only do insurance companies allow the pharmaceutical industry to charge Americans many times the prices others pay for the same medicine, but also internal costs take a big chunk of change as well. Administrative costs for public insurance systems hover around 3 percent, while private insurance companies spent 25-31 percent on such costs. Overhead among private insurers in the U.S. is nine times that of Canada's single-payer system.

U.S. health insurance companies have also institutionalized a reduction in quality of care. A lot of those extra administrative costs are spent on hiring people to try and deny coverage and claims.

But even these relatively moderate views on healthcare reform are being pushed aside by the health insurance industry and the media. Reid, who has done one documentary for PBS' "Frontline" accompanying his international reporting on five foreign healthcare regimes called Sick Around the World, was again commissioned by PBS to do a similar documentary called Sick Around America. But Frontline so skewed Reid's reporting that he refused to appear in the final product and says he won't work with Frontline in the future.

The Sick Around America producers invited the president of the leading health insurance lobbyist group onto the program and essentially agreed with her statements on the need to keep the insurance companies in charge and force every American to sign up with them as a reform measure. (An interesting look at how this proposal works for and is being pushed by the health insurance lobby, check out this recent L.A. Times business column.)

Reid spoke with Corporate Crime Reporter about the disagreement:

"I said to them -- mandating for-profit insurance is not the lesson from other countries in the world," Reid said. "I said I'm not going to be in a film that contradicts my previous film and my book. They said I had to be in the film because I was under contract. I insisted that I couldn't be. And we parted ways."

"Doctors, hospitals, nurses, labs can all be for-profit," Reid said. "But the payment system has to be non-profit. All the other countries have agreed on that. We are the only one that allows health insurance companies to make a profit. You can't allow a profit to be made on the basic package of health insurance."

As insurance companies do everything they can to stay top dog in the healthcare profit pile, you'll hear plenty from their surrogates in Congress. Republicans have already begun trotting out the same fear tactics that worked to defeat healthcare reform back in the 90s: the loss of patient choice and privacy.

Hopefully the American people will be able to see this red herring. The only thing they need consider is whether they actually have that supposed "choice" being trumpeted as the American way. Does Blue Cross Blue Shield allow you to see any doctor in the country, such as patients can do in, say, France?

The problem is that single-payer is inextricably tied to socialism in the minds of Americans. If the administration is going to give up the single-payer idea anyway, perhaps we should throw it to the wolves: Tell Republicans screaming about socialized medicine that our doctors and clinics will stay private. Then the GOP might have to actually admit that it's the health insurance companies they want to protect, not doctors and patients.

Internet Camera Streams Completely Useless as AZ's Criminal Investigation Ballot Hand-Count Begins

Coverage from the BradBlog

We wrote late last week, in some detail, about Arizona AG Terry Goddard's long overdue hand-count of paper ballots from the dubious 2006 Rapid Transit Authority (RTA) bond special election in Pima County (Tucson). The count of all 120,821 paper ballots from the election begins today in Phoenix as part of a criminal investigation, following years of allegations and court cases, in which a trans-partisan group of Election Integrity advocates in Tucson have sought transparency and public oversight following indications that Diebold tabulator databases may have been manipulated by election insiders.

Goddard's restrictions on political party observers --- just one per party, selected by the AG, not by the parties themselves --- was the cause of criticism by all of the involved parties (Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, etc.). But a letter late last week from the AG's office indicated, at least, that a live, eight-camera video feed would be available on the Internet.

As the count began this morning, that feed is now up and running here.

Unfortunately, unlike Minnesota's recent, very transparent hand-count of 2.9 million ballots from the state's still-contested U.S. Senate race, the video from the Maricopa County Ballot Tabulation Center (BTC) is all but worthless, as critics had previously worried, in determining if counts are being carried out accurately. And here is the rest of it.

Here are recent screen shots from all eight camera-views of the counting, which is underway right now (click a photo to see the live streaming shot)...

As you can tell, the Internet streams are completely worthless as far as observing the accuracy of the ballot count in any way. (The Bradblog link has 8 camera views, but only two show activity).

Goddard had previous specified that there would be strict rules for AG-selected party observers, ensuring that it would be impossible for them to take any notes or document the counting in any way shape or form. "[N]o cameras, no cell telephones, no writing instruments, and no audio or video recorders of any kind will be permitted within the examination room," Deputy AG Donald E. Conrade wrote to all four party chairs in his March 23, 2009 letter [PDF]. Along with additional restrictions, the AG noted: "No representative will be permitted to communicate with anyone outside of the examination room while present in the examination room by signal, voice or other sign."

A limited number of observers would be allowed outside the counting room, supposedly able to view the tabulation through glass windows. However, based on the photos from the live streaming cams, as seen above, it's difficult to figure out where an observer outside of the room would be able to determine if counting was, in any way, being done accurately.

"It's a joke," one of Pima County's tireless election integrity advocates John Brakey, of Americans United for Democracy, Integrity, and Transparency in Elections AuditAZ, told us this morning as the counting began.

Though he traveled 120 miles from Tucson to Phoenix for the counting, Brakey, one of the most vociferous of the local leaders in trying to bring transparency to Pima's 2006 election, was barred by the state AG from the counting room.

While Goddard's office had earlier explained that "this is a criminal investigation, not an elections process controlled by applicable Arizona election laws," it's difficult to fathom what the point is in even streaming Internet video feeds at all, if the AG-selected "observers" are unable to document anything in any way, observers outside the glass are blind to the actual counting, and what's seen above is all that will be made available to the rest of the world.

So much for transparency or public oversight in AG Goddard's ballot count, brought about due to the years-long demand for transparency and public oversight of the disputed 2006 special election.

As more breaks...if it breaks...and as we're able to learn it from our sources at the counting facility in Phoenix...we'll do our best to keep you abreast with what's going on...

Are Republicans Blackmailing Obama?

by Scott Horton

Professor Scott Horton writes about legal and national security affairs in Harper's magazine and the American Lawyer.


If the president releases the Bush torture memos, Republicans are promising to “go nuclear” and filibuster his legal appointments. Scott Horton reports on a serious threat to Obama’s transparency.


Senate Republicans are now privately threatening to derail the confirmation of key Obama administration nominees for top legal positions by linking the votes to suppressing critical torture memos from the Bush era. A reliable Justice Department source advises me that Senate Republicans are planning to “go nuclear” over the nominations of Dawn Johnsen as chief of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice and Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as State Department legal counsel if the torture documents are made public.

The source says these threats are the principal reason for the Obama administration’s abrupt pullback last week from a commitment to release some of the documents. A Republican Senate source confirms the strategy. It now appears that Republicans are seeking an Obama commitment to safeguard the Bush administration’s darkest secrets in exchange for letting these nominations go forward.

Not a single Republican indicated an intention to vote for Dawn Johnsen, while Senator John Cornyn of Texas was described as “gunning for her,” specifically noting publication of the torture memos.

Barack Obama entered Washington with a promise of transparency. One of his first acts was a presidential directive requiring that the Freedom of Information Act, a near dead letter during the Bush years, was to be enforced according to its terms. He specifically criticized the Bush administration’s practice of preparing secret memos that determined legal policy and promised to review and publish them after taking office.

But in the past week, questions about Obama’s commitment to transparency have mounted. On April 2, the Justice Department was expected to make public a set of four memoranda prepared by the Office of Legal Counsel, long sought by the American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy organizations in a pending FOIA litigation. The memos, authored by then-administration officials and now University of California law professor John Yoo, federal appellate judge Jay Bybee and former Justice Department lawyer Stephen Bradbury, apparently grant authority for the brutal treatment of prisoners, including waterboarding, isolated confinement in coffin-like containers, and “head smacking.”

The stakes over release of the papers are increasingly high. Yoo and Bybee are both targets of a criminal investigation in a Spanish court probing the torture of five Spanish citizens formerly held in Guantánamo; also named in the Spanish case are former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and three other Bush lawyers. Legal observers in Spain consider the Bush administration lawyers at serious risk of indictment, and the memos, once released, could be entered as evidence in connection with their prosecution. Unlike the torture memos that are already public, these memos directly approve specific torture techniques and therefore present a far graver problem for their authors.

The release of the memos that the Senate Republicans want to suppress was cleared by Attorney General Eric Holder and White House counsel Greg Craig, and then was stopped when “all hell broke loose” inside the Obama administration, according to an article by Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff. Newsweek attributes internal opposition to disclosure of the Bush-era torture memos to White House counterterrorism adviser and former CIA official John O. Brennan, who has raised arguments that exposure of the memoranda would run afoul of policies protecting the secrecy of agency techniques and has also argued that the memos would embarrass nations like Morocco, Jordan, Pakistan, Tunisia and Egypt, which have cooperated closely with the CIA in its extraordinary renditions program.

Few informed independent observers, however, find much to credit in the Brennan objections because the techniques are now well-known, as is the role of the cooperating foreign intelligence services—any references to which would in any event likely be redacted before the memoranda are released. Moreover, the argument that the confidence of those engaged in torture—serious criminal conduct under international and domestic law—should be kept because they would be “embarrassed” if it were to come out borders on comic.

The Justice Department source confirms to me that Brennan has consistently opposed making public the torture memos—and any other details about the operations of the extraordinary renditions program—but this source suggests that concern about the G.O.P.’s roadblock in the confirmation process is the principle reason that the memos were not released. Republican senators have expressed strong reservations about their promised exposure, expressing alarm that a critique of the memos by Justice’s ethics office (Office of Professional Responsibility) will also be released. “There was no ‘direct’ threat,” said the source, “but the message was communicated clearly—if the OLC and OPR memoranda are released to the public, there will be war.”

This is understood as a threat to filibuster the nominations of Johnsen and Koh. Not only are they among the most prominent academic critics of the torture memoranda, but are also viewed as the strongest advocates for release of the torture memos on Obama’s legal policy team.A Republican Senate staffer further has confirmed to me that the Johnsen nomination was discussed at the last G.O.P. caucus meeting. Not a single Republican indicated an intention to vote for Dawn Johnsen, while Senator John Cornyn of Texas was described as “gunning for her,” specifically noting publication of the torture memos.

No decision was taken at that Republican caucus meeting whether to filibuster or not, though Cornyn was generally believed to support filibustering Johnsen and potentially other nominees. Johnsen has met recently with moderate Republican Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, both of whom are being lobbied heavily by colleagues and religious right groups to oppose her nomination.

Both Koh and Johnsen are targets of sustained attacks coming from right-wing lobbying groups. The Daily Beast previously reviewed the attacks on Johnsen, while Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick has catalogued the recent attacks on Koh. Former Bush administration Solicitor General Ted Olson recently endorsed the Koh nomination, calling the Yale dean “a man of great integrity.” But connecting the Obama nominations to the Bush torture memos escalates the conflict toward a thermonuclear level. From The Daily Beast:

Tucson Citizen: Hand count of the 2006 RTA election ballots begins Monday

TO VIEW

The public can view the hand count proceedings online at http://recorder.maricopa.gov/elections/Live_Feeds/south_view.aspx


April 5, 2009

GARRY DUFFY
Tucson Citizen
A hand count of the 2006 Regional Transportation Authority election ballots that begins Monday won't necessarily impact the official election results, regardless of what it reveals.

The Arizona attorney general is investigating complaints by critics of electronic vote systems that the election results might have been criminally tampered with to ensure its success.

The hand count by the Maricopa County Elections Division will be observed by a single representative from each of the Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian parties in Pima County.

"The intent of the count is not to change or confirm the election results," Anne Titus Hilby, the department of law press secretary at the Attorney General's Office, said Friday.

"The information learned from this will determine what the next steps will be," Hilby said.

Arizona election laws do not address what should follow if vote or ballot tampering is uncovered. The allowable timeline for challenging the official results has long since passed.

The investigation is a criminal probe, "not an elections process controlled by applicable Arizona election laws," Donald E. Conrad, criminal division chief counsel, wrote to leaders of Pima County political parties last month.

Conrad outlined the procedures that will be followed during the ballot examination process, which can be observed in person by one representative of local political parties.

Party officials were told to submit three names each as potential observers. The Attorney General's Office is to select the actual observers from the parties.

The observers will be subject to searches. They will not be allowed to bring cameras, cell phones, writing instruments, or audio or video recorders into the areas where the ballots will be examined.

Party officials said the requirement to submit three names to the office as potential observers was hard to meet because the selected observer would have to commit to five work days next week at the Maricopa County Elections Division.

"It was difficult. It is up there in Phoenix," Jeff Rogers, chairman of the Pima County Democratic Party, said.


The Pima County Republican Party also submitted three names as potential observers, Paula Maxwell, executive director, said.

Pima County Libertarians submitted a single name. That person was rejected by the Attorney General's Office after a background check showed that elections integrity activist Jim March pleaded guilty in California in 1993 to misdemeanor traffic charges. He did so "to make it go away," March said Friday.

"The real goal here is to prevent anyone from keeping an independent tally of the vote," March said.

Attorney General Terry Goddard's office did not immediately release the names of selected observers.

The issue over electronic vote and ballot tabulating by the Pima County Elections Division arose in 2007 when the local Democratic Party filed a lawsuit in Superior Court seeking access to the vote and ballot tallying databases for all elections conducted using the computerized Diebold-GEMS electronic system dating to the late 1990s.

Democrats said they wanted experts to look at the databases to see if the system was vulnerable to manipulation that could alter vote totals.

County officials refused and the case was tried last year.

Superior Court Judge Michael Miller in December 2007 ordered the county to turn over some of the electronic vote records, but solely from the May 2006 special election.

It was the first court ruling in the nation where a jurisdiction was ordered to release such records to a political party.

The Pima County Board of Supervisors later directed that the RTA and all other electronic vote records be released to the Democrats.

Tucson Citizen EDITORIAL Our Opinion: Hand count of RTA ballots will finally end election doubt

BREAKING...AG's office chooses Ben Love from LD 26 as Dem RTA Recount Observer; rejects Libertarian Jim March. Details at the Bradblog.

March 31, 2009, 4:13 p.m.
Tucson Citizen
letters@tucsoncitizen.com

OPINION:

There has been no proof of any wrongdoing. But questions have cast a pall over the Pima County Division of Elections.

Almost three years after voters cast their ballots in the Regional Transportation Authority election, any doubts about the outcome of that election are about to be erased.

The Arizona Attorney General's Office next week will hand count all 120,821 ballots cast in the May 2006 special election.

The count won't be an official recount of the ballots. And regardless of the results, it won't directly affect the outcome.

But this new hand count will accomplish something far more significant: It will either put to rest allegations of ballot tampering - or it will breathe new life into those allegations, casting an irrefutable pall over operations of the Pima County Division of Elections.

The recount will begin Monday and is expected to take most of the week. It is being conducted as part of a criminal investigation into complaints of election tampering.

It is frustrating that the hand count - the one way that tampering claims could be dismissed or verified - has taken so long to happen. Because such a count was not permitted under election law, it could be conducted only as part of a criminal investigation.

It also is unfortunate the hand count is being done in Phoenix. Because the voting took place and the allegations were raised in Pima County, it would have made it easier for involved participants to have the count here.

But the key point is this: Pima County voters soon will have the satisfaction of knowing - without a doubt - whether their votes were accurately counted.

County returns after the election showed about 60 percent of those who voted supported the transportation plan and 57.6 percent supported a 20-year, half-cent sales tax increase to pay for it.

It is unrealistic to expect that the hand count will produce numbers identical to those from the machine scan conducted the night of the election and several days following. Feeding the same ballots though scanners several times often produces slightly different results as ballots become worn or dirt, smudges and other factors affect how marks are read.

But the hand count should produce final numbers very close to those coming from the machine scanning. That would finally dismiss allegations that the result was flipped and voters actually rejected the RTA measures.

There has been no proof that happened. But computer trails of the pre-Election Day counting of early ballots have shown anomalies that have not been adequately explained.

Few things are more important to American citizens than the right to vote - and having confidence that their votes will be fairly counted. Lingering questions about the RTA election would only undermine that.

Conduct the hand count in an open and transparent way and disseminate the results fully and quickly. That will end those doubts.

BRAD BLOG VIDEO: Huckabee Jokes About Keeping Voters Away from the Polls in VA Gubernatorial Election

April 2, 2009
Because nothing is more hilarious than American voter suppression!

"No joking matter" says former DNC Chair Terry McCauliffe, Democratic candidate for Virginia Governor. Here is his protest letter to his opponent. Click Here to Tell Bob McDonnell to Stand up for Voting Rights and Support Reforms to Stop Voter Suppression.

While out on the stump for VA's Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell, former Gov. Mike Huckabee made an hysterical joke to the laughing assembled crowd of Republicans, instructing them to "Do the lord's work" by not letting voters to the polls if they don't plan to vote for McDonnell.

HUCKABEE: You have two jobs. One - get all those people who are gonna vote for Bob out to the polls and vote. If they're not gonna vote for Bob, you have another job. Let the air out of their tires and do not let them out of their driveway on Election Day. Keep 'em home. Do the lord's work, my friend. I'm giving you an opportunity...yes, do the right thing.

Of course, it was just a joke. Who in the Republican Party would ever do such a thing in this country?!





Well, other than the guy in the video on the right, Paul Weyrich, one of the founding fathers of the modern Republican vote suppression movement, who, until he recently died, was a regular, legendary consultant to the nation's top Republicans, and also another hysterically funny Republican Baptist just like Huckabee.

WEYRICH: Now many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome - good government. They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."
McDonnell's Democratic opponent in the VA race, former DNC chair Terry McAuliffe, wasn't laughing. He sent a letter to supporters describing Huckabee's comment as "no joking matter," noting: "People died for the right to vote in this country, and we have to protect it." Rachel Weiner has the full letter tonight at HuffPo.

Beyond that, we'll spare you the photographs of the who-knows-how-many African-Americans who not only were kept from voting in this nation by others just "doing the right thing" and "the lord's work," but who were strung up in trees by their necks in order to keep them from voting and to send the hilarious message to others that they'd best not be let out of their "driveways" come Election Day. We'd go on, but it's all just so funny, we can't even keep typing.

Blogged by Brad Friedman on 4/2/2009 10:06PM PT

Is Another Economic Order Possible?

GritTV Reporting on the G-20

This video features an indepth discussion with Dean Baker co-director of the Center for Economic Policy and Research and the author of Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy, Ann Lee professor of economics at New York University and visiting professor at Peking University in Beijing, and Greg Denier Communications Director of Change to Win discuss the Summit, the labor movement, and the possibility of a new economic order. Dean Baker also blogs at Beat the Press.

True or False? Cap-and-Trade Will Cost You $3,000

Truth-o-Meter: GOP Claim of "Light-Switch Tax" Rates "Pants on Fire!"

When the GOP repeats an outright lie even after they have been caught, PolitiFact.com gives them a blazing "Pants on Fire" rating. Because GOP leaders don't seem to care how hot it gets, we need to become the media to fight back to make sure the voters know the real facts. One way is by sharing the articles in this blog with voters in the precincts.

4.2.2009 8:50 AM

From the Daily Green

Widely reported estimates for how much a so-called "light switch tax" would cost the average American household are grossly inflated. Here's why.

It sure ain't the "death tax," but you have to give Rep. John Boehner points for using the phrase "light switch tax" in attacking cap-and-trade legislation.

Of course, it would be nice if Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell weren't insisting on the existence of a non-existent MIT study showing that cap-and-trade legislation will increase your energy taxes by more than $3,000.

It all started with this bullet in a fact sheet from notorious global warming denier Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe:

"An MIT study of a similar cap-and-trade proposal as the President's indicated revenues of $366 billion in a single year. That amounts to about $3,000 in new energy taxes per household. (This does not include the economic damage that cap-and-trade would cause. ..."
Turns out that when you go to the MIT study (pdf) in question the $3,000 figure in question is a disbursement - not a tax:

Uh, talk about getting it 100 percent wrong!

As our friends at Think Progress explain it:

"Think Progress previously reported the outright lie being told by Republicans that the green economy legislation before Congress would 'cost every American family up to $3,100 per year in higher energy prices.' GOP leaders apparently arrived at this number by intentionally misinterpreting a 2007 study conducted by MIT.

PolitiFact interviewed John Reilly, an MIT professor and one of the authors of the study, who explained he had spoken with a representative from the House Republicans on March 20, and that he had clearly told them, 'why the estimate they had was probably incorrect and what they should do to correct it.' Nonetheless, Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) decided to use the $3,100 figure to attack cap-and-trade, while the National Republican Campaign Committee blasted dozens of press releases like the following on March 31:

"As Congress takes the President's federal budget under consideration, North Carolina families deserve to know if Rep. Larry Kissell (D-NC) would support such a devastating energy tax proposal. [...] MIT researchers released an 'Assessment of U.S. Cap-and-Trade Proposals,' which shows that the increase would be an increase of more than $3,000 a year for each household."

Today, Professor Reilly sent a forceful letter (pdf) to Boehner and the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming to denounce this blatant distortion being told by Congressional Republicans. Reilly noted that $3,100 was actually '10 times the correct estimate which is approximately $340' and that the costs on lower and middle income households can be "completely offset by returning allowance revenue to these households":

"It has come to my attention that an analysis we conducted examining proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Report No., 146, Assessment of U.S. Cap-and-Trade Proposals, has been misrepresented in recent press releases distributed by the National Republican Congressional Committee. The press release claims our report estimates an average cost per family of a carbon cap and trade program that would meet targets now being discussed in Congress to be over $3,000, but that is nearly 10 times the correct estimate which is approximately $340. [...] Our Report 160 shows that the costs on lower and middle income households can be completely offset by returning allowance revenue to these households."

Professor Reilly then reaffirmed the urgency of enacting green economy legislation, declaring, "It will take efforts in the US and abroad to reduce emissions substantially to avoid the most serious risks of climate change. [...] it is simplistic and misleading to only look at the impact on energy prices of these proposals as a measure of their impact on the average household."

These distortions on cap-and-trade taxes are so bad that the the St. Petersburg Times gave them the "Pants on Fire" rating on the PolitiFacts Truth-o-Meter saying:

"If Boehner and McConnell had simply misstated the results of the MIT study, the Truth-O-Meter would have been content giving this one a False. But for them to keep repeating the claim after the author of the study told them it was wrong means we have to set the meter ablaze. Pants on Fire."

Well, we'll see what happens. Some folks just don't care how hot it gets.

- Frances Beinecke
NRDC President
Originally published in NRDC's Switchboard blog.

Find this article at The Daily Green.

Cheryl Cage announces for State Senate 2010

Cheryl Cage plans to seek
LD-26 State Senate seat in 2010

“It is with a great deal of optimism, and a profound sense of urgency, that I announce my candidacy for the State Senate in 2010” said Cheryl Cage.

“Optimism because of the powerful community interest in saving public education and services to our most vulnerable; urgency because Arizona cannot thrive with the type of ‘my-way-or-the-highway’ approach to governing radiating from the current majority in Phoenix.”

Ms. Cage said, “An elected official should advocate for - not dictate to – the citizens he or she represents. The voters of LD-26 deserve a State Senator that listens, respectfully, to all ideas and whose only agenda is doing what is best for Southern Arizona. We must return to the inclusive, moderate leadership provided by Lena Saradnik, Pete Hershberger and Toni Hellon."

Former representative Lena Saradnik will serve as Campaign Chair and local business leader Don Jorgensen has signed on as Campaign Manager.

“I am honored that such all-star community leaders are supporting me in such a visible manner” Ms. Cage said.

CONTACTS for Cage for AZ Senate 2010
Cheryl Cage, Candidate: 520-360-9016
Don Jorgensen, Campaign Manager: 520-906-9148
Lena Saradnik, Campaign Chair

MUST VIEW! 2008 Debate: Cage vs Melvin on Arizona Illustrated!
And here is the rest of it.

The Tucson Weekly: RTA: OUR WAY OR NO WAY

The Skinny

by Mari Herreras, and Jim Nintzel

RTA: OUR WAY OR NO WAY

About a week after the Attorney General's Office took procession of the 2006 Regional Transportation Authority ballots, election-integrity activists made it clear that they were unhappy about the lack of security and oversight during the move.

They were also peeved about the fact that the ballots were going to land at the Maricopa County Elections Department—since the activists are even more suspicious of ballot security issues in Maricopa County.

Reaction from the AG's office was kind of like: "Hey everyone, it's going to be OK. Once we catch our breath after trucking those ballots to Phoenix, we're going to sit down and make a plan everyone will know about and be happy with."

Last week, that plan went public when representatives of Pima County's four political parties received a letter from Donald E. Conrad, chief counsel of the AG's Criminal Division. And to no great surprise, not everyone was happy with what was outlined in the letter in preparation of ballot-counting kickoff day, which will be Monday, April 6.

According to the letter (which you can read yourself at The Range, the Weekly's newly named blog), the hand-count will take place over the course of five days, and the Maricopa County Elections Department will indeed handle the process. It also asked that each party nominate three people, one of which the AG's Office will select from each party to witness the ballot examination.

However, the parties didn't just have to hand over the name of each person nominated; the parties were required to include birth dates and Social Security numbers for a background check. The deadline was Tuesday, March 30, giving party chairs less than two weeks to find people who have experience observing elections, can pass a background check and can spend five days in Phoenix.

Election-integrity folks and Jeff Rogers, the Pima County Democratic Party chair, raised concerns about the time commitment and complained that the three-nominee requirement could be a way for the AG's Office to keep outspoken election peeps out of the way. You know, people like John Brakey and Jim March.

Rogers contacted the AG's Office regarding his concerns and eventually talked to the man himself: Attorney General Terry Goddard. Rogers says Goddard gave him the OK to allow each party to instead provide one or two names, rather than the requested three. Rogers also asked Goddard if observers could bring in magnifying glasses to look at ballots more closely, which was also given the OK. (The letter said observers would not be allowed to bring in paper, pencils or even guns.).


Rogers told The Skinny that the Dems were nominating attorney Roger White, who is between jobs at the moment, and Ben Love, a U.S. Air Force retiree. (Both have participated as observers in the past.)

Bob Westerman, the Pima County Republican Party chair, says he'd rather not reveal the names of his nominees. However, Westerman—like Rogers—says he thought it was peculiar that each party had to submit three names.

"As far as the process, I find it a little odd that we have to submit three names," Westerman says. "... I don't see how it would matter who it is. It is an extra step I don't understand. And for me, as a chairman, it makes it tough to find three people qualified, but who can also spend five days in Phoenix."

If you didn't get a chance to be nominated, but want a seat for the count (which is not a "recount" in the sense that it could change the election results, but a count as part of the AG's criminal investigation), the AG will have an area set up to accommodate a limited number of people interested in watching through a glass partition. And Maricopa Elections has made arrangements to put the process on the Internet via live streaming video.

Those Internet addresses, and details on how to get access to the viewing area, are forthcoming from the AG's office, according to the letter

Op-Ed News: Supreme Court's plan to gut the Voting Rights Act

In Texas Case, Challenge to Rights Act founded on Obama's Election; Gutting Section 5 would remove Arizona from Justice Department Pre-Clearance.

Article by Mark Crispin Miller

This is but of the part of the Republicans' not-so-stealthy drive in preparation for the next election. There are also the voter ID laws winning passage in state after state.Through such measures they will do much better than expected (and, in fact,much better than they really did).

The hideous irony of all this is that the champions of both maneuvers--stripping Section 5 out of the Voting Rights Act, and passing voter ID laws--are using the election of Barack Obama to justify their actions. After all, since America has elected a black president, why do we need a Voting Rights Act, anyway? And the advocates of voter ID legislations are contending, incredibly, that such laws actually increased the turnout on Election Day. (Hans von Spakovsky actually made this case, in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Jan. 30.)

The Democrats had better get their act together; and that means way more than the Holt Bill, even if the latter could be much improved (about which more in a moment).

MCM

Read this March 28 Wall Street Journal article: A Showdown on Voting Rights
In Texas Case, a Divide Over How Far Minorities Have Come
And here is the rest of it.