Saturday, April 30, 2011

Making the Case From a Different Place | Truthout

Making the Case From a Different Place | Truthout

All I have to say is, Prince William is a foreigner... Republicans care so much about the real catastrophe of unemployment they are going to.... oh no, ban abortion funding again, and Mr. Obama is..... oh no a foreigner too?  sigh....

Amusing....


After the amusement, there is actually a very good progressive point to be made.  Some important things to think about...  Read on

More work to do....

GOP Ponders Holding 'Debt Limit' Hostage Every Sixty Days,

GOP Ponders Holding 'Debt Limit' Hostage Every Sixty Days, Not Just Once | Common Dreams

Holding the American people hostage, just because they can. Extortion? Political terrorism? Refusal to enter into debate? Refusal to compromise? Radicalism?

Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, and Yes.

“It is the only leverage that we have over a Senate and a president that is seemingly unconcerned about the over-spending,” said freshman Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.), who said he would not support any bill that allows borrowing past Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. “I would support a much shorter time-frame.”
This view is gaining ground in the Republican caucus. It is profoundly ignorant. It is profoundly lazy in a political sense. It implies a complete refusal to engage with any compromise out of the question. If this truly is the last resort of a repressed minority, as these folks are telling us it is, what is the true role of the Republican Party after all? More importantly, what is the role of the majority? Call their bluff? Does anyone here understand the risk involved? If Republicans are hell-bent on blowing up the financial integrity of the government of the United States for whatever reason, isn't that treason? For this to work, they have to convince us that they really would pull the trigger. Will their wealthy constituents let them do it?

It's profound ignorance of how the economy works, or it's a very, very, high stakes poker game with our life as a nation at stake, or it's simple extortion. If they truly are serious, they must be absolutely sure that someone has their back. It is the government, after all, and the largess provided by the very taxes they vilify that is the major source of their vast wealth. The treasury of the US government is the insurance policy for the wealthy bankers of Wall Street. Would these guys give THAT up to these anti-tax radicals?

Radicalism never works. It can only crash and burn. The radicals in Congress are hell bent, and determined to take us all with them.

More work to do.

Friday, April 29, 2011

When did we see Thee hungry?


Today's post is a reprint of the Forward from the 2010 report from the Children's Defense fund by Marian Wright Edelman.  The entire report can be read HERE.  The moral depravity of the current political debate over spending vs austerity is glaringly clear in this report.  The twisted priorities of the beltway political class, the faux outrage of the wealthy and their supportive peasant class, the impotence of the supposed supporters of progressive priorities, the misplaced religious fervor of the evangelical christian right, and the insane policies of the NRA fighting for the divine right of gun violence, all conspire against children in America. 

I encourage you to read this entire report, then find something you can do to try and help ALL the children. Thanks.

He who opens a school door, closes a prison.
— Victor Hugo
The clock has been turned back on racial progress in America, though scarcely anyone seems to notice. All eyes are fixed on people like Barack Obama and OprahWinfrey, who have defied the odds and risen to power, fame and fortune. 
There are more African Americans under correctional control today — in prison or jail, on probation or parole — than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the CivilWar began.
— Michelle Alexander, Author The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Children Need Emergency Help in This Deep Recession Now!

Children have only one childhood and it is right now. Millions of children in our nation require emergency attention in our recession ravaged economy as poverty, including extreme child poverty, hunger, and homelessness have increased, if irreparable harm is not to be inflicted on them and on our nation’s future.

The greatest threat to America’s national security comes from no enemy without but from our failure to protect, invest in, and educate all of our children who make up all of our futures. Every 11 seconds of every school day a high school student drops out of school; every 32 seconds a baby is born into poverty; every 41 seconds a child is confirmed abused or neglected; every 42 seconds a baby is born without health insurance; every minute a baby is born to a teen mother; every minute a baby is born at low birthweight; every three hours a child or teen is killed by a firearm. A majority of children in all racial and income groups cannot read or do math at grade level in 4th, 8th or 12th grade and over 80 percent of Black and Hispanic children, who with other minority children will constitute a majority of our population in 2023, are behind in these grade levels – if they have not already dropped out of school.

If the foundation of your house is crumbling, you don’t say you cannot afford to fix it. Children are the foundation of America’s future. We need to invest now in their health, early childhood development and education. Today is tomorrow.

God has blessed America with great material wealth but we have not shared it fairly  with our children and our poor. Although we lead the nations of the world in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), in billionaires, and in military technology, defense expenditures, and military exports, our money and our military might have not translated into moral might, adequate child safety and well-being, and a concept of enough for those at the top and at the bottom.

Children are the poorest age group and the younger children are, the poorer they are. We rank highest among industrialized nations in relative child poverty and in the gap between rich and poor, and last in protecting children against gun violence.

The gap between the rich and the poor is the highest ever recorded in America. In the 1960’s, when the economy was expanding, about two-thirds of the nation’s income gains went to the bottom 90 percent of U.S. households. In the first half of this decade, it was just the opposite: the wealthiest one percent reaped two-thirds of the income gains. Between 2002-2007, the income of the wealthiest one percent of U.S. households grew more than ten times as fast as the income of the bottom 90 percent. In 2007, the income share for the wealthiest 10 percent of households, 49.74 percent, was the highest ever recorded.

In 2008, the highest-paid American CEO took home over $100 million, an amount equal to the salaries of 2,028 elementary school teachers, or 3, 827 Head Start teachers, or 5, 275 child care workers. The average CEO of a Fortune 500 company earned 319 times as much as the average worker. The combined net worth of the United States’ 408 billionaires is $1.3493 trillion – greater than the combined GDP of 134 countries where more than a billion people live.

This fiscal year, the Department of Defense is scheduled to spend a total of $683.7 billion. This is $13.1 billion a week; $1.9 billion a day; $78 million an hour; $1.3 million a minute; and $29,679.13 a second. Just one second of defense spending is more than a Head Start teacher earns in a year. Yet our children are three times more likely to die from firearms at home than American soldiers who are fighting in the Afghanistan war. Headlines blazed across America in June 2010 when America’s military death toll in Afghanistan reached 1,000 after nine years of that war. No headline blazes when CDF releases the disgraceful annual numbers showing more than 3,000 children – 3,042 children in 2007 – dying in the gun war at home. Six times as many child gun injuries occur.

The terrible Taliban terrorist threat to American child and citizen safety is rivaled by the terrible NRA threat which terrorizes our political leaders from protecting our children from the over 280 million guns in circulation which have taken over 110,000 child lives since 1979, when gun data collection by age began. More American preschool children died from guns in 2007 than police officers in the line of duty and more Black male youths die in one year from guns than all the lynching of Black people in American history. But where is our anti-war movement at home?

And where is our anti-poverty movement at a time when one in 50 Americans, a New York Times front page story tells us, has no cash income? “Almost six million Americans receiving Food Stamps report they have no income. They described themselves as unemployed and receiving no cash and no welfare, no unemployment insurance, and no pensions, child support or disability pay. About one in 50 Americans now lives in a household with a recorded income that consists of nothing but a Food Stamp card,” the New York Times’ Jason DeParle reported.

This shocking New York Times article provoked no public outcry, action or shame. It did not stop some political leaders from trying to block extension of unemployment insurance benefits, more federal dollars to protect or create jobs or to expand tax credits for working families desperately trying to feed, house and clothe their children, or to invest more in stimulating an economy struggling to recover with 14.6 million workers still unemployed and massive state deficits which will cause more job loss. How morally obscene it is that a nation with a GDP exceeding $14 trillion cannot find the will, common sense and decency to provide a safety net to protect its over 14 million poor children – the number before the recession which is expected to push millions more children into poverty and extreme poverty, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Brookings Institution. The Connecticut legislature recently enacted a bill to cushion its children from the harmful impact of recession by decreasing bureaucratic barriers to accessing a range of benefits and tax refunds as occurred in New York during 9-11. State leaders recognized that the impact of even short periods of poverty can have a long term – even permanent – effect on children pulled from
the stable security of their home, school, and friends when families lose their homes and jobs and are forced to move in with others or into homeless shelters. The loss of a sense of safety amidst the turmoil of economic insecurity fuels stress for parents and children and breeds a sense of hopelessness about the future. Our leaders and citizens need to respond.

This is a time when America can and must turn economic downturn into an opportunity to step forward to correct the gross imbalance of government subsidization of the wealthiest and most powerful among us and provide a safety net for all children from growing hunger, homelessness and stress. A college student working three jobs in Connecticut, causing her to make lower grades, feels she will never be able to get into medical school and fulfill her dream of becoming a doctor. Teenagers are leaving home to ease the burdens on their unemployed parents. Now is the time to correct the laissez-faire federal policies that enabled the few to run roughshod over the life savings of many hard working Americans and wreck the lives and dreams of millions of children. And now is the time to replace the costly, ineffective, unjust and abusive child and youth policies which favor punishment and incarceration and cost tens of billions of tax payer dollars with more cost effective prevention and early intervention strategies, based on best practices that put children on the path to healthy adulthood rather than into the adult criminal system.

We are the world’s leading jailer and are criminalizing our poor and minority children at younger and younger ages – both shameful badges of misguided and negative leadership. A cradle to prison pipeline, driven by poverty and racial disparities, is becoming the new American apartheid threatening to undermine the hard earned racial and social progress of the last half century. The prison pipeline sucks hundreds of thousands of children every year into a trajectory that leads to marginalized lives, illiteracy, imprisonment and often premature death. Nationally, one in three Black and one in six Latino boys born in 2001 are at risk of imprisonment during their lifetime. There are more Black citizens under the purview of the corrections system today than there were Black people in slavery ten years before the Civil War according to legal scholar Michelle Alexander in her important book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.

The federal government is spending $6.2 billion and states are spending $50 billion a year to incarcerate 2.4 million people. States are spending on average three times more per prisoner than per public school pupil. New York state spends $210,000 a year on youths in abusive and ineffective upstate New York youth prisons. Black children are 32 times more likely than White children to be sent to these upstate youth prisons far from home. Seventy-five percent of them have committed nonviolent offenses and pose no threat to public safety – until they come out. This unjustifiable profligate state youth prison spending of $210,000 per youth – the equivalent of four years at Harvard or Yale—is simply underwriting abusive prep schools for the adult criminal system. Their recidivism rate is 75 percent. Their results threaten rather than increase public safety and derail so many youthful lives. There are far cheaper and more effective community based alternatives that help rather than hurt children.

It is time to replace the costly, ineffective and destructive prison pipeline with a pipeline to college, career and productive work for all our young. We cannot afford not to provide a healthy, fair and safe start for every child and a continuum of support with the help of caring families and communities to enable them to reach productive adulthood. Table after table in this report shows how dumb and costly our failure to invest early in children is. Building on best practices and accelerating help children and their families need, especially during this deep recession, is the right and economically
wise thing to do in a decent society. Saving child lives early and saving money go hand in hand.

I hope the facts in this report will wake us up and provoke us to speak out and stand up and demand our leaders act now to alleviate the massive child suffering around the nation. The catastrophic BP oil spill’s assault on our environment is an urgent national emergency. But so is the catastrophic impact of this recession and the chronic plight and suffering of millions of children left adrift in a sea of poverty, hunger and homelessness and political neglect. The selfish and reckless profiteering of Wall Street bankers who are still living high need to be adequately regulated—to prevent a repeat economic catastrophe. And wounded children losing teachers and days of schooling and safe spaces after school and in the summer, and enough food and safe housing need equal priority attention by their government.

If we could bail out bankers to steady the economy, we can bail out babies who without our help will see their hopes and dreams for a better life wiped out. Denying children their basic human rights to adequate nutrition, health care, education, and safety from adult neglect, abuse, and violence should be a no brainer.

I grew up in a small rural county in South Carolina which I still call home. Marlboro County has a population of about 30,000: 52 percent African American; 42.5 percent White; and 3.7 percent American Indian and Alaska Native. Our unemployment rate at last look was 20 percent. A federal and state prison are among the county’s largest employers. I was deeply saddened by a recent story of three young teen boys in my county who were asked what they wanted to be when they grew up. The first boy said he wanted to work at McDonalds; the second boy said he wanted to be Spiderman
and when pushed for a real person, he could not think of one; and the third boy drew a boy lying on the ground and said he was going to be dead before he grew up. This is not Dr. King’s dream. This is not America’s dream. This is not my dream for them.We can and must do better.

What the Report Provides

This State of America’s Children 2010 describes: (1) the status of children in a range of  areas – what has improved, worsened or stagnated; (2) the continuing racial and income disparities faced by children of color who will make up a majority of our workforce to support our increasingly aging population; and (3) the higher costs of poverty and neglect and the savings from preventive investment.

State by state data with the best and worst states on key child indicators also are included.

Marian Wright Edelman

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Ben Bernanke renounces Middle Class

Ben Bernanke Makes History, Not News

The war on the middle class continues. The unmitigated disaster that is 8.8% unemployment continues unabated. That's millions and millions of Americans who will suffer poor health, stress, depression, unhealthy diets, poor performance in school, and a huge decrease in quality of life.

Unemployment buys us mediocrity, not exeptionalism. Unemployment is our road to the bottom. The Fed has just declared that it is more important to preserve a low inflation rate benefiting the employed and the employers rather than stimulating job growth by helping the middle class. Once again the choice has been made... the middle class is toast.

 More work to do....

Palin’s Incoherence or "What's a Know-Nothing?)

ThinkProgress » Palin’s Incoherence: U.S. Has No Interest In Libya, But U.S. Must ‘Help Freedom Fighters’ In Libya

So here you go. A Know-Nothing hears the president's rationale for an policy decisions and responds, "The President has never given a rationale for ...."

A Know-Nothing says first we should be supporting "freedom fighters" around the world then accuses the President of "fighting expensive wars."

A Know-Nothing says only what they know how to say. The only thing Ms Palin knows how to say is "The President is profoundly mistaken."

Amusing....

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Governor to Citizens: "You Don't Matter..."

Governor to EPA: Water guidelines aren’t necessary here - Florida - MiamiHerald.com

Citizens need clean water. Think about it... drinking, boating, swimming, fishing. The environment needs clean water. Again, think about it. The human animal is dependent at last, upon a healthy, clean environment. Plutocrats need dirty water. They need cheap dumping grounds for the poison bi-products of their entrepreneurial expertise. They aren't particularly evil nor are they trying to help extinguish the human race on purpose, they simply need to dump poison cheaply to preserve the profit margin for their stock holders. The earth to them is a ball of raw materials to be used and discarded. The citizens of the earth are simply products and consumers of their goods. As long as we're buyin' they're sellin'. If anyone is harmed by this free market activity, "so be it."

Check Ayn Rand.

More work to do.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

A Political Movement Gone Mad

GOP Wave Reshapes Nation's Agenda State By State

The most effective means of gaining control when you are in the minority is to win as many local, county, and state offices as possible. Folks in these positions are often not rabid partisans or even professional politicians and are in the positions as legitimate community service. If a "movement" wants to gain control of the political landscape, scooping up all the small offices is pretty easy for a rabid partisan. Here we have example after example of state governments being taken over by the (I'm a little)Tea(Pot) Party. They might be doing us a favor though, because as their agenda now comes into the open, it suffers the fate of all radical ideas. Let the light shine....

Republican governors and state legislators are bringing abortion restrictions into effect from Virginia to Arizona, expanding gun rights north and south, pushing polling-station photo ID laws that are anathema to Democrats and taking on public sector unions anywhere they can.
Union crushing, abortion obsession, voter suppression, and Guns4Us is just for starters..

The realignment in Florida has produced a law imposing more accountability on teachers, along with 18 proposed abortion restrictions, some bound to become law. Immigration controls are motivating lawmakers far from borders, constitutional amendments against gay marriage are picking up steam, Michigan and Missouri shortened the period people can get jobless benefits and Indiana may soon have the broadest school voucher program in the U.S.
Then we move on to blaming teachers, more abortion obsession, xenophobia, homophobia, screwing the unemployed, and undermining public education.

In bellwether Ohio, new Republican Gov. John Kasich burst out of the gate with a plan, now law, to hand over job creation functions from the government to a nonprofit corporation whose board he chairs. Bills that would have met quick death under Democratic control have advanced under Republican majorities – none more apparent than the law to curtail the collective bargaining rights of more than 350,000 public workers.
And of course, we're running states now like corporations. The CEO gets to pick all the appointees and squash the competition. Public servants? Boo! Unproductive feather bedders... It's happening in Ohio as well as Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida. The Governors of these states are setting up little "caliphates" of their own, ignoring their own citizens and imposing Republican rule. Are they a little power mad? ANN SANNER and CALVIN WOODWARD think so. Remember this is the end game for the right wing. There isn't much farther right they can go. There are only so many times they can go to the well with "death panels" before folks catch on. How long will the "Guns4Us" crowd be able to cry, weep, and knash their teeth about being victimized by "do gooders"? Encouraging stupidity and ignorance, squashing other minorities (Republican-Americans aren't even a large minority these days...) bashing gays, white pride, rule by and for the rich.... a political movement gone mad....

More work to do...


Saturday, April 16, 2011

Tranforming the Debate, Liberals Win

Robert Creamer: How Obama Seized the Political High Ground in Budget War

Mr. Creamer is the most optimistic progressive I know. If you are ever in need of a pick-me-up, if you're down and troubled, read some of his writings. It's a shot in the arm to the progressive soul.

"...the moment we transform the debate into a contest between progressive and radical conservative values -- between the progressive and conservative visions of the future -- we completely change the political equation.

Yesterday, President Obama argued that the debate about the federal budget is actually about two very different visions of American society:

  • Are we all in this together -- or do we believe in a society where everyone is out for himself and himself alone?
  • Should we simultaneously take responsibility for ourselves and look out for each other -- or should the strongest and most clever among us simply be allowed to dominate and exploit the rest?
  • Do we aspire to hope and possibility -- to the belief that we can shape a better future for our kids? Or are we ready to concede that we can no longer afford to assure that every child has the education she needs to fulfill her potential =- or that seniors should be denied a dignified life in their retirement -- or that if you're sick and poor, you're just out of luck?

Our religious traditions make it clear which side of this value debate embodies the true aspirations of most Americans -- as does our choice of heroes and heroines."

I like it. The part about the transformation of the debate. Liberals win when we talk values, about being in this together and about being personally responsible while we are in this together. Huge majorities of the country support the liberal social safety net as well as the policies that help all of us do better.

Thank you Mr. Obama.

More work to do...

Friday, April 15, 2011

ThinkProgress » BREAKING: House Republicans Overwhelmingly Vote To Phase Out Medicare

ThinkProgress » BREAKING: House Republicans Overwhelmingly Vote To Phase Out Medicare

There you have it ladies and gentlemen. The Republican-Americans are reaching as far as they can. They must be very sure that some very deep pockets will have their backs. Get ready for a media blitzkrieg like you've never seen before. The plutocrats will now try to convince us that dying early, being sicker and poorer is in our best interest. They'll also try and convince us that it's the patriotic thing to do to hand over all our worldly possessions to the "successful ones" in our society, as if they'd spend an ounce of energy on our behalf. Who are the real sickos here?

Republicans voted to kill Medicare today. Republicans voted today to kill my kids and my grandkids when they get to be seniors. They must have great faith in the ability of their money to buy our support... great faith....

More work to do.

"The Rich" - Suckling Pigs?

The Daily News Record: Editorial Opinion

First of all.. it was Wednesday.

Walter Williams is a political economist. We know how economics works politically. The folks that pull the strings get what they want. Simple. His Free Market religion gives him the answers for everything from Racial Equality, Economic Justice, to National Security and Gun Control. (he's against it.) He considers the maelstrom of laissez-faire economics the greatest force for good, solving economic crises by hoovering up all the cash and giving it to "the rich." This policy of Public Theft improves the quality of life in America for the Republican Americans, not so much for the non-Republican Americans. (There are LOTS of us...)

Government is NOT the problem any more. The effectiveness of policies, the quality of public service, the control of the economy, the protection of the environment, and now even the social safety net are becoming dinosaurs of a bygone era. The New Gilded class of government-haters has effectively dismantled the government to the point that it is simply a cash cow for the wealthy.

There is a lot of talk about suckling at various teats. Americans suck at "300,000,000 government teats." The poor and homeless depend on the government for food and shelter, sucking at the government teat. Any and all social programs are viewed as handouts to the poor, invitations to sloth and laziness... Those who view America as a huge suckling pig, are missing something. THEY all want to be the pig! They want all the cash and political power to dole out as they see fit.

The plutocratic class enjoys using the taxpayers money to enrich themselves. Check the military industrial complex. Take note of how often the words personalize, or privatize enter the jargon of legislation. Most of all, check the use of the words "Tax Cut." Tax Cuts are Public Theft. Stealing the money from those without enough political power to prevent it is simple, evil theft.

Mr. Editor, your beloved "rich" advocate the greatest evil, money. Money is the root not the cure of all evil. You have it sadly backwards. Your oft stated gratitude for the wealthiest of us has the power of misplaced religious fervor, advocating what is wrong with America rather than what is best for America.

The most prosperity America has ever achieved was during an era of the greatest social justice in the 30 years after World War II. The tax burden was spread more widely and the disparity between the wealthiest and the poorest was not as great. The last 30 years has been an exercise in dismantling that prosperity and redistributing the wealth upwards. This is the end game for Reaganomics. It’s not very pretty. It will not succeed.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

ThinkProgress » As Taxpayers Pad Big Oil’s Soaring Profits, Landry Praises Excessive CEO Compensation As ‘The American Dream’

ThinkProgress » As Taxpayers Pad Big Oil’s Soaring Profits, Landry Praises Excessive CEO Compensation As ‘The American Dream’

So here you go. This is the American Dream, according to Rep. Landry. His view, of course, is supported by his Tea Party colleagues. If they get away with it, the rest of us can get our serf outfits ready. They'll be coming for the rest of our "wealth" pretty soon. It'll be in the form of more expensive health care, more forclosures, laid off workers, denied benefits, stolen pensions, more expensive...everything. They want it all....

More work to do.

Economists: Gridlocked Congress 'Playing With Fire' As Failure To Legislate Could Devastate Economy

Economists: Gridlocked Congress 'Playing With Fire' As Failure To Legislate Could Devastate Economy

Only radical extremists would play the "cure it or kill it" game. Reminds me of the Armageddonists' wish for the end times. The GOP has been leading us in this direction for 30 years. This is the endgame. Reaganomics fullfilled. It's nothing less than a new aristocratic regime, we just don't know who is King. The American Dream? It's there for the taking. Will we let Mr. Ryan and his overlords, the Koch Brothers kill it for us?

More work to do....

Monday, April 4, 2011

House GOP's 'Radical' Plan To Overhaul Medicare, Medicaid | TPMDC

House GOP's 'Radical' Plan To Overhaul Medicare, Medicaid | TPMDC

Here it is. Right out in the open where we can all see. Who will look?

Low-income Medicaid beneficiaries will lose their guaranteed benefits altogether.
There you go. In a nut-shell. Think about that for a little. The American Dream is now officially out of reach for the Low-income, the poor, the lower class. But wait, it gets worse.

Recently Princeton economist Uwe Reinhardt -- a respected health care expert -- described the plan this way: "Under the defined contribution approach envisaged by the Rivlin-Ryan plan, most of the risk of future health-care cost increases would be shifted onto the shoulders of Medicare beneficiaries. This feature makes the proposal radical."
Shifting the costs of health care onto the folks who can afford it the least. What part of the American Dream does this belong to? The part where the heel of the boot is on your neck? Where is that in the annals of American History? Oh wait! Wasn't that what the original Tea Party was all about? The Oligarchs of the East India Tea Company ruling the colonies with an iron hand? Now we're handing the oligarchs of the Health Care industry the power of quality of life? Is the dream over? Will anyone look?

More work to do...Mr. Obama has just declared for 2012.