Kentucky Broadband Survey is Here - Participate Now

The new Kentucky Broadband Survey starts tomorrow, Wednesday, February 8 and runs until Wednesday, March 7.

Since Governor Beshear and his Finance and Administration Cabinet appear to still be unaware that the vast majority of Kentuckians living outside Lexington and Louisville have no access to broadband internet, we have another chance to tell them.

From the press release:

The Commonwealth Office of Broadband Outreach and Development (OBOD) and the Kentucky Council of Area Development Districts (KCADD) are asking businesses and citizens to participate in a survey that will collect information on broadband use as part of the Broadband KY initiative to help increase internet utilization in the daily lives of Kentuckians.

“Broadband services are critical to the advancement of our state in education, economic development and job creation,” said Lori H. Flanery, secretary of the Finance and Administration Cabinet. “The Broadband KY initiative is working to help businesses and citizens take full advantage of existing broadband capabilities and identify areas of greatest need for broadband expansion in homes, schools and commerce.”

The public survey will be available online Feb. 7 to March 8, 2012, at http://broadband.ky.gov. More than 100,000 businesses, non-profit and health organizations, local governments and households in Kentucky will receive email messages this week requesting their participation.

The survey is designed to identify where internet access is not being fully utilized as an educational or business tool, and to target areas with limited or no broadband availability in the state. The results will help build a strategic plan to promote the internet as an economic development asset in all aspects of daily life.

In 2010, Kentucky joined a nationwide effort to identify and map broadband coverage and access. Gov. Steve Beshear created OBOD in the Finance and Administration Cabinet to facilitate this critical step toward expanding broadband internet access, promoting a better understanding of the many uses and benefits of the Internet and spurring economic growth. OBOD conducted a similar online survey in 2010 to collect data on home broadband accessibility.

“This is a unique opportunity for public to tell us about the obstacles they face in using Broadband internet,” said Brian Kiser, executive director of OBOD. “This program has been developed to help get all Kentuckians online and globally engaged.”

The Commonwealth has received more than $5.3 million in grants for broadband mapping and outreach programs, including Broadband KY, from the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), State Broadband Data and Development (SBDD) grant program.

OBOD launched a similar online survey in 2010 to learn more about where broadband is available in Kentucky. This second survey will focus on who is using broadband and how they are using it in their daily activities. It is designed to identify opportunities across the state where broadband is underused or not valued as an educational and economical tool.

“We need Kentucky to provide a voice so that we can begin deconstructing barriers and working to promote a healthy, vibrant, advanced Kentucky,” said Abby Piper, director of communications and special projects for KCADD. “This progressive program will reach all corners of the state, and we are sincere about making changes for a better Kentucky.”

Click here to take the survey.

Songs to Fight the Plutocracy By: "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum"

Uploaded by solutioncow:

Soaking the Poor in Kentucky

The General Assembly is definitely going to monkey with the tax system before adjourning in April; the only question is how much the resulting unfairness will strip off the hides of the poor in order to further fatten our obscenely rich.

Linda Blackford at the Herald:

A new report from the University of Kentucky says Kentucky's tax code should broaden its base to get a more stable system.

It's the latest in a long line of research that says Kentucky should align its tax code more with areas of economic growth.

The authors say the current structure lacks "buoyancy," a description of how well state revenue keeps pace with the economy. During the past 40 years, there's been a gradual decline in that rate.

Co-author William Hoyt, an economics professor and director of UK's Martin School, said the reason for the long-term gradual decline is that a smaller share of income is spent on tangible goods, which are taxed, and a larger share is spent on services, which are not.

The measure of buoyancy would be helped by matching the tax code to a more modern economy that taxes services, which encompass anything from dry cleaning and limousine rentals to legal services.

Meanwhile, Kentucky's working poor continue to subsidize the wealthy.

Kevin Drum:

And then there are state taxes. Those include state income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, and fees of various kinds. How progressive are state taxes?

Answer: They aren't. The Corporation for Enterprise Development recently released a scorecard for all 50 states, and it has boatloads of useful information. That includes overall tax rates, where CFED's number crunchers conclude that in the median state (Mississippi, as it turns out) the poorest 20 percent pay twice the tax rate of the top 1 percent. In the worst states, the poorest 20 percent pay five to six times the rate of the richest 1 percent. Lucky duckies indeed. There's not one single state with a tax system that's progressive. Click the link to see how your state scores.

Kentucky's poorest citizens pay 9.4 percent of their tiny incomes in taxes. Kentucky's rich motherfuckers - oops, sorry to be redundant - on their obscenely huge incomes pay an insultingly tiny 6.1 percent.

Hey, worthless members of Beshear's fake "tax reform committee:" a good place to start would be reversing that ratio.

How to Destroy Public Education

Spend decades slashing social programs and sabotaging civil rights programs such as integrated housing and education to ensure that poor people in poor neighborhoods never have a chance to climb out of poverty, thus ensuring that their poverty-entrenching schools stay overcrowded and starved of resources.

Then point - with a finger quivering with righteous indignation - at the schools that fail because they are trying to teach poor children in poor neighborhoods without a fraction of the state and federal money that flows to rich children in rich neighborhoods - and demand such horrible schools be closed down forthwith.

Not given even the bare minimum of money necessary to function. Not supported with economic justice programs that reduce the neighborhood poverty that so harms the schools. Not rejuvenated with forced integration that brings wealthy students to the neighborhood and sends impoverished students to successful schools.

No, just closed down. Teachers and staff fired. Buildings left to rot. Students shuffled off to phony "charter" schools that will serve them no better - and probably worse - than their old school, but at least some corporate whore will be getting rich off tax dollars.

Linda Darling-Hammond at The Nation:

Now comes the federal government to announce that such schools — where students score lower on tests than in more advantaged communities — should be labeled as failing and threatened with closure or staff firings. This makes educational redlining official. The federal share of less than 10 percent of school budgets is a tiny drop in the bucket, and far from enough to tip the scales that are so dramatically out of balance. Not only is there no plan in federal law to tackle poverty, segregation or the massive state and local underfunding of these schools; the plans embodied in Senate ESEA proposals are likely to undermine these communities even further.

Today, NCLB—and plans to replace it—deliver primarily on the promise of more tests and sanctions. New proposals would focus the law’s punishments even more pointedly on schools in high-need communities and on educators who are willing to serve in these schools, where they earn lower salaries, teach larger classes, deal with more stress and spend longer hours than those who work in more affluent schools. This passes for accountability in America. It is also a recipe for educational redlining.

The test-and-punish approach to school reform has already made it more difficult for schools labeled as failing to attract and retain well-qualified educators—thus, ironically, reducing the quality of education for students still further. Rather than increasing the incentives and supports for teaching in high-need schools, recent federal policy has encouraged states to lower standards for prospective teachers, despite evidence that doing so increases teacher attrition and reduces student achievement. Blaming teachers for the ills of high-need schools lets policy-makers off the hook and keeps the more fundamental problems of severe poverty, a tattered safety net and inequitable funding under the rug.

Instead of making long-term investments in these communities, the strategies promoted in Race to the Top and the current proposals for ESEA will cordon off “failing” public schools and seek to close, replace or reconstitute them, or use them to experiment with high-risk reforms like for-profit educational management firms.

SNIP

Excluding low-scoring students from public schools gets scores up, but it expands the school-to-prison pipeline, which has quadrupled over the past thirty years, along with corrections costs, which now threaten to devour funds that should be spent on education. Most inmates are functionally illiterate and high school dropouts. In a devil’s bargain, the public spends as much as $50,000 a year to incarcerate young men on whom it would not spend $10,000 a year for a decent education.

The truth is that the competitive market approach leaves the most vulnerable children behind. It is impossible to punish schools that are struggling without punishing the children they serve. When schools are closed, it is the students and families who suffer the chaos and confusion. And if teaching and leadership positions in high-need communities become even more unappealing as a result of such policies, educators with options will be even less willing to come to or stay in these schools, leaving students and their schools with an even more inexperienced and transient teaching force. This is not a strategy that promises great wins for these students or for the nation.

There are alternatives that work. Find them here.

Romney's Job Was to Kill Jobs, Not Create Them

Once upon a time, capital investment was just that - you put your own money into a new small business with a good idea and a hard-working owner to help it grow, make a profit and pay you back with interest.

Not today. And certainly not in the "private equity" pirate ship that Mitt Romney ran at Bain Capital.

Pema Levy at Talking Points Memo explains:

Reporting from the New Hampshire primary, Fox News’s Carl Cameron observed that Bain Capital was “the venture capital company in which [Romney] both bought and grew companies and occasionally shut a few down.”

But Bain Capital is not, as Cameron said, a venture capital firm. He wasn’t the only reporter to mislabel Bain, either. When Newt Gingrich first ramped up attacks on Romney as a “corporate raider” at Bain, the news media covered the attacks by referring to the company alternately as a venture capital firm and a private equity firm. After a few days, private equity began to be used more often. However, looking over transcripts from Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC, TPM found that all three often continue to use the term “venture capital” to refer to Bain and Romney’s private sector experience.

For better or worse, a key feature of this campaign will be Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital. As a result, the understanding the difference between private equity and venture capital will help voters understand the man they may vote for in the primary, and possibly the general election. Because venture capital tends to be regarded as a job-creation industry, confusing the two terms will likely work to Romney’s advantage.

SNIP

Historically, venture capital is about investing in the early stages of a company in order to help it succeed. With a minority stake in the company, after several years, the venture capital firm will make money by merging the new company or taking it public. If the company doesn’t succeed, they lose their investment.

“Venture capital is all about feeding a toddler of a company; getting it from toddler to early adulthood,” says Kleinbard. Continuing this metaphor, private equity is about improving mature companies.

“Private equity is sort of the successor term to what 20 years ago we called leveraged buyouts,” says Kleinbard.

SNIP

The fact that private equity takes out loans to purchase companies and then puts that debt on the companies’ balance sheets is what earns them criticism. In order to increase profitability, leveraged buyouts — what most private equity firms practice — strip assets from firms, sometimes jobs, in order to make more money. “When you have a ton of debt, particularly high-cost debt, you’re going to try to strip out assets as quickly as possible and extract that value,” says David Min, Associate Director of Financial Markets Policy at the liberal Center for American Progress.

Part of the outrage that Newt Gingrich, and Rick Perry until he dropped out, tried to stir up over Bain was the depiction of a “corporate raider” or “vulture capitalist.” And that is exactly how private equity’s critics see things.

SNIP

“I don’t think private equity firms typically help businesses at all,” says Joshua Kosman, a finance reporter and author of The Buyout of America: How Private Equity Is Destroying Jobs and Killing the American Economy. Kosman says private equity firms like Bain Capital go for companies with “moderate growth” whose profitability can be increased. If you look at the press releases of the companies Bain bought that eventually went bankrupt, they don’t say these companies are in dire straights, Kosman points out, they say they are profitable companies.

SNIP

Even though venture capital is a small piece of what Bain does, Mitt Romney is largely selling his Bain Capital experience to voters as venture capital. That’s because the main success stories Romney touts on the trail — and the source of his claim to have created 100,000 jobs at Staples and Sports Authority — were early venture capital investments. “I’m sure there are examples of people using leveraged buyouts to create jobs,” says Min, “but every finance major in America gets taught about leveraged buyouts as an important way to make money.”

“My personal view is that private equity plays a helpful role to some degree, but the explosion in private equity reflects a real shift in the economy that is fortunate for the very wealthy,” says Min. That’s the last thing Romney wants voters to think.

Ever see the movie "Other People's Money?" Danny DeVito plays a corporate raider who uses private equity - other people's money - to buy up good companies that are worth more broken up and sold off, then fire all the employees and strip the assets.

Unlike Romney, DeVito's character is truthful; he never claims to be creating jobs, or helping the economy, or doing anything other than destroying companies and the towns that depend on them in order to enrich himself.

He has a change of heart at the end, but DeVito's character at his worst has more heart and humanity than Mitt Romney will ever have.

Grassroots Democracy in Venezuela

Yes, there are alternatives to the embarrassing farce that passes for American elections and the resulting corporate-owned legislatures, and those alternatives are not even European.

In South America, towns and states are experimenting with groups of local citizens developing municipal and regional budgets.

Gabriel Hetland in The Nation:

Though far from perfect, Torres’s PB is an impressive example of popular power, with decision-making authority resting with community delegates rather than bureaucrats or party leaders. Following an assembly in the mountainous parish of Manuel Murillo, I asked a teacher whether he thought PB really made sense. “Why not just leave the budget to the mayor?” I asked. Attentive to my nationality, he responded, “Why not? I’m equal to the president of the United States. If he can make decisions, why can’t I?” A man standing nearby chimed in, “In the past, government officials would stay in their air-conditioned offices all day and make decisions there. They never even set foot in our communities. So who do you think can make a better decision about what we need, an official in his office who has never come to our community, or someone who is from the community?” I heard similar sentiments in community after community, showing that in addition to producing roads, health centers and schools, PB has generated an impressive level of support for the simple yet subversive idea that ordinary people should have decision-making authority over issues affecting their lives.

SNIP

Participants in PB made it clear that the process is open to all. As one delegate told me, “It doesn’t matter what party or color you have.” And the degree of openness in Torres is a far cry from the past, when the traditional parties, Acción Democrática (AD) and COPEI, thoroughly controlled the neighborhood associations (precursors to the communal councils). Myriam Gimenez, a neighborhood association cum communal council activist, recounts, “When AD ruled, everything went to the Adeccos. When COPEI ruled, everything went to the Copeyanos.”

Participatory budgeting has produced many concrete gains over the years. The pages of Poder Popular and Comuna, a newspaper and magazine produced by the municipality’s Office of the Press, are filled with reports of the hundreds of houses, thousands of square feet of asphalt and many more projects that have resulted from PB, sometimes in conjunction with other sources of funding. During my months of traveling throughout Torres, I was told many stories of communities stretching resources beyond what they had been given. This is a testament to the dedication of citizens and local government officials rather than a reflection of the municipality’s resources. Torres is, in fact, quite poor and highly dependent upon the central government for transfers. Julio Chávez’s government did, however, municipalize the local tax collection service, which had been privatized by a previous administration. This allowed his government to take in four times the taxes collected before.

SNIP

Many lessons can be taken from Torres, but two stand out. It is first and foremost a reminder of what democracy—real democracy, that is, not the dysfunctional democracy that exists in the United States—is truly about: giving ordinary people control over the decisions that affect their lives. And second, it helps challenge simplistic assumptions about Venezuela, from starry-eyed leftist activists as well as from State Department officials and mainstream journalists.

SNIP

Torres’s PB shows that democratic deepening — in which ordinary citizens of all political persuasions are able to participate in decision-making in ways that go far beyond voting in elections — is happening in Venezuela today. It appears, however, that a bit of Brechtian crookedness may be needed to get there.

Imagine if you and your neighbors had direct control over how tax dollars were spent in your neighborhood: would the result be more or less corrupt/efficient/fair than it is now?

Song to Fight the Plutocracy By: "I Will Not Obey"

Uploaded by DiceyRileyProduction

"The Party is Yours for the Taking"

Far more important than the Presidential race in Kentucky this year is that in March we have our once-every-four-years chance to take over the Democratic Party.

David M. F. Schankula at Barefoot and Progressive explains:

A lot of people are frustrated with the Democratic Party. Here in Lexington, Fayette Dems are treated to a largely proactive and excellent set of Party leaders, which makes sense because most everything in Fayette County is excellent. What we don’t always have are responsive elected leaders — like a Congressman who votes to slash food and medicine aid to HIV-infected women and poor children around the world, and State Reps who pointlessly vote to disenfranchise our State Senator. But, good Dems, you do have a choice and you do have power. The Party is yours, so you can always work to change it, reshape it, reorganize it and take it over.

One of the simplest and most direct ways to do this is not by giving money to the Party but rather giving time… and not even that much.

On March 31st, 2012, the Democratic Party will gather at in its most local form… at voting precincts around the State. If you are a registered Dem, then at 10AM on March 31st, you just go to your local polling place.

There, you and other Dems will vote to elect the Party’s Precinct Delegates. Three people will be selected from each precinct — a man, a woman, and a youth (which is generously defined as someone under 35!). If 8 people show up, three of them are selected. If three people show up, then you’ve got a really good chance of being elected.

Once you are elected, you get fairly minimal but very important responsibilities. These are:

• Recruit volunteers to help with the Committee and campaigns

• Participate in the functions of the Executive Committee

• Electing the Democratic County Executive Committee at the County Convention

• Electing Delegates to the State Convention

• Keeping current records of Democrats in the precinct

• Distributing communications from the party

• Elect nominees for the ballot when there is a vacancy in county officials

• Perform duties as requested by the County Democratic Executive Committee

In other words, you are not only on the front lines of the Party, you are shaping the Party. You are taking control of it.

It also means you have the chance to move up the ladder. If you are elected to your Precinct Committee, you not only then vote at the County Convention (April 14th), you could become a delegate to the State Convention (June 2nd) and you could, further, become a delegate to the National Convention… one of those very excited political nerds and other assorted weirdos who wear funny hats, hold vertical state signs, and clap on queue when they are told to in the midst of a massive political carnival.

I’m oversimplifying all of this, of course, but… if you want to be a delegate, if you want more control over the Party, or if you just want to be more involved, March 31st @ 10AM is the time to start.

We’re pretty lucky in Fayette County and so are those fools over in Jefferson. Many others… not so much. But wherever you are, wherever you vote, the party is yours for the taking.

All you have to do is gather up some friends, head to your polling place, and take it.

The state Party has a very helpful handbook, give it a read (PDF).

In counties where the Democratic Party is not strong and active (most counties outside Lexington and Louisville), the precinct offices are wide open. Very few people show up to most polling places, and if you bring three friends along, you can be precinct chair just like that.

It's a once-in-four-years opportunity; don't miss it.

Black History Month in Kentucky

It's the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, and no better year to observe Black History Month.

Several agencies within the Kentucky Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet will be holding events during February to honor Black History Month.

Below is a listing of these events:

John James Audubon State Park, Henderson
Kentucky Chautauqua Performance: Reverend Newton Bush,
“Freedom at a Terrible Price”
Saturday, Feb. 11, 2 p.m., Audubon Museum

In 1864 Kentucky became the last state to allow slaves to enlist in the Union Army. The Rev. Newton Bush, like many other slaves, risked his life to escape. He traveled to Camp Nelson and enlisted in the Army to fight for his freedom, the freedom of loved ones, and to preserve the union. Those like Bush soon found that even though they were risking their lives to fight for freedom, this alone did not ensure they would be treated with any more respect and dignity than they received as slaves. This Kentucky Chautauqua performance (by actor Robert Bell) is presented in conjunction with the Kentucky Humanities Council and the John James Audubon Museum. Free. Call 270-827-1893.

My Old Kentucky Home State Park, Bardstown
Lecture, Luncheon and Kentucky Chautauqua Performance
Friday, Feb. 24, 11 a.m.

Pen Bogert, a preservation administrator in Bardstown, will share his research on slaves at the Federal Hill Plantation. Robert Bell will portray the Rev. Newton Bush, an African-American Union soldier, in “Freedom at a Terrible Price.” This Kentucky Chautauqua performance is sponsored in part by the Kentucky Humanities Council. Lunch will also be served. The cost is $15 a person and reservations are required. Call 1-800-323-7803 for reservations and information.


Kentucky Historical Society, Frankfort
Family History Workshop
Feb. 11 at 10:30 a.m.

The Kentucky Historical Society will present “Entangled Lives,” a dialogue between descendants of a master and a slave with Ann Neel and Pam Smith. This is a free program, but advance registration is required. To reserve a space, email KHSRefDesk@ky.gov before Feb. 10. Smith will also discuss her Kentucky family lines that connect with President Thomas Jefferson's sister, Lucy Jefferson Lewis, of Livingston County, Ky., and intersect with the noted conservationist, Thomas Wallace, editor of the Louisville Times during the 1930s and ’40s. Smith will instruct the group on how to trace slavery and slaveholding in their own families through pictures, oral histories, census and probate records, information from research trips, and results from DNA testing. It will take place at the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History, 100 W. Broadway, Frankfort.

Kentucky Humanities Council, various locations
Kentucky Chautauqua Programs

Several Kentucky Chautauqua programs related to African-American history in Kentucky will be presented during February. These programs, sponsored by the Kentucky Humanities Council, feature actors who portray characters from Kentucky history. They include Anna Mac Clarke, portrayed by Haley McCoy, and her experience as an African-American woman in the Army during World War II; the Rev. Newton Bush, an African-American Union soldier, portrayed by Robert Bell; and “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing!,” By Daryl Harris, a musical history of African-Americans in Kentucky. Here are the programs:

Feb. 2, Anna Mac Clarke, military pioneer, Martin County Historical and Genealogical Society, Inez

Feb. 9, Anna Mac Clarke, military pioneer, Bluegrass Heritage Museum, Winchester

Feb. 9, The Rev. Newton Bush, “Freedom at a Terrible Price,” Big Sandy Community and Technical College, Prestonsburg

Feb. 9, “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” Daryl Harris, McCracken County Public Library, Paducah

Feb. 21, The Rev. Newton Bush, “Freedom at a Terrible Price,” Paul Sawyier Public Library, Frankfort

Feb. 28, The Rev. Newton Bush, “Freedom at a Terrible Price,” Woodford County Public Library, Versailles

An Anniversary Repugs Pissed On

An economy creating private-sector jobs held down because states and cities keep cutting public jobs, repug governors competing to slash wages, the sacred Super Bowl itself sullied by a new law to kill unions - all as un-American as it gets.

Zachary Bernstein at Think Progress:

Last year was a tough one for public sector workers. Lawmakers in Wisconsin passed a controversial bill stripping collective bargaining rights from most state employees. Ohio approved similar legislation (although Ohio voters soundly rejected it in a referendum). Other officeholders, like Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, claimed that government workers are better paid than private-sector employees, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Meanwhile, 600,000 government workers have lost their jobs since the beginning of the recession.

But things have not always been this way. In fact, 50 years ago (last month), President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10988, which allowed most federal workers to bargain collectively for the first time. As Prof. Joseph McCartin writes in the Los Angeles Times, the effects of Kennedy’s order were much more extensive than that, and, at the time, more popular:

At the time Kennedy acted, very few workers at any level of government had won the right to bargain collectively with their employers. Federal action helped inspire many states and localities to follow suit, allowing their own workers to organize. This triggered a huge wave of unionization in the public sector that saw firefighters, teachers, sanitation workers, social workers and many others form unions in the 1960s and ’70s.

For 20 years after Kennedy’s order, public sector union rights were not controversial. To the contrary, they enjoyed bipartisan support — even from conservatism’s leading light, Ronald Reagan. Reagan, as governor of California, presided over the extension of collective bargaining rights to state and local workers in 1968.

So how have we ended up here, with unions a favorite target of conservatives? McCartin argues that much of the decline in public support for bargaining came from Reagan breaking the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization strike in 1981. This event was cited by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) when he went on his union-busting rampage.

Blaming public sector workers for government’s fiscal woes may be popular, but the facts don’t support that thesis. As McCartin notes, North Carolina (a state without collective bargaining) is projected to have a 10 percent budget deficit for the 2013 fiscal year, compared to 3.5 percent for New York (more densely unionized than any other). In the case of the federal deficit, studies show that the lion’s share of the increase has come from Bush-era policies like the wars and tax cuts, as well as the effects of the recession. Pay for federal workers does not come close to registering.

One topic that rarely gets discussed is how much unions have actually done to benefit everyone — such as giving us the weekend and ending child labor. Nor do we hear much about the correlation between union membership rates and middle-class incomes, nor how a drop in union membership has exacerbated income inequality in the U.S.

Next time a repug claims to support workers, ask for an example - just one - of repug legislation or policy that actually supports workers - union workers. Because like all things repug, "Right to Work" legislation does exactly the opposite of its name.

Economic Stimulus That Kept People in Housing Now Running Out

One of the ways the entirely inadequate (serious, not snark) stimulus managed to prevent the economic crises from plunging into recessions was helping people avoid becoming homeless.

Tanya Somander at Think Progress:

The Great Recession has steadily eaten away at the economic security of many Americans. Facing stagnant wages, growing unemployment, and rising health care costs, nearly 50 percent of Americans are slipping from the shrinking middle-class into low-income status or even poverty. In 2009, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in order to bolster job creation and fend off an even more severe downturn. The ARRA passed without a single House Republican vote, with House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) calling it a “woefully inadequate” response.

However, a new report from the National Alliance to End Homelessness reveals that the Recovery Act was vital in keeping Americans off the street. An estimated $1.5 billion of Recovery Act funds were directed towards “rental assistance and programs steering recently evicted people toward new housing.” According to Alliance President Nan Roman, those funds were instrumental in keeping the number of homeless down “even as the U.S. economy saw its worst downturn since the 1930s”:

The Homelessness Research Institute, the educational arm of Roman’s organization, put the number of Americans living on the streets or in shelters at just over 636,000 in 2011. That’s down about 6,000 from the group’s 2009 estimate. The figure is based on reports and street counts from state and local agencies that receive federal housing funds.

Roman said the stimulus money, coupled with pre-recession federal programs aimed at veterans and the chronically ill, have kept that figure down even as the U.S. economy saw its worst downturn since the 1930s. But that money is drying up now that the Obama administration, Congress and the states are grappling with budget issues fueled by the recession.

In fact, the Homelessness Prevention Rapid Re-housing Program (HPRP) program alone, which was directly funded by the Recovery Act, helped 94 percent of the program’s participants who were homeless or a step away from homelessness find permanent housing. The Recovery Act also kept 6 million Americans out of poverty and created at least 3.3 million jobs.

But ARRA funds are running out and, as the report notes, the number of Americans facing the prospect of homelessness is continuing to rise. More than 4 million homes were foreclosed upon since 2007 and the New York Federal Reserve estimates that 3.6 million more will be lost to foreclosure in the next two years. If Republicans continue to slash these housing programs, thousands of vulnerable Americans will face the exact situation the Recovery Act helped successfully prevent.

Prevention is always way cheaper than cure, so a good way to judge the effectiveness of proposed spending of tax dollars is to ask if it prevents something bad from happening.

Because that's the only way to really save money.

Songs to Fight the Plutocracy By: "This Land is Your Land"

There are some verses to this song that are rarely if ever sung. They are subversive, socialist and as anti-plutocracy as they come.

Here are two they don't teach at summer camp:

As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And that sign said - no tress passin'
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!

In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.

Full lyrics here.

But the whole song was written as pushback against American jingoism:

Its lyrics were written by Woody Guthrie in 1940 based on an existing melody, in response to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America", which Guthrie considered unrealistic and complacent. Tired of hearing Kate Smith sing it on the radio, he wrote a response originally called "God Blessed America for Me".[1] Guthrie varied the lyrics over time, sometimes including more overtly political verses in line with his sympathetic views of communism,[2] than appear in recordings or publications.

Uploaded by rutaloot:

Privatized Health Insurance Killing Kentucky's Small Pharmacies

Privatizing public services always - ALWAYS - costs more for worse service. And in Kentucky it's destroying jobs by killing small businesses.

From the Courier:

Kentucky legislators are threatening to subpoena three managed care companies after the state’s 550 small pharmacies complained that they’re being pushed out of business by the companies’ low Medicaid reimbursements.

Sen. Jimmy Higdon, a Lebanon Republican and co-chairman of the House-Senate Program Review Committee, said the panel has sent letters inviting officials from three managed care companies to appear at a meeting Feb. 13 to answer questions. If the committee doesn’t get the information it wants, it is prepared to subpoena the companies to get it, he said.

“This is a drastic measure (issuing subpoenas), but they are putting our independent pharmacists out of business,” Higdon said. “You can’t sell things for less than they cost and stay in business.”

SNIP

The situation is bad enough that the Kentucky Medical Association says some doctors have discussed taking out short-term loans to offset delays in claims reimbursement from the companies.

Independent pharmacists have been among the most vocal critics because of the complicated pricing formula the managed care industry uses to pay for prescription drugs.

“This has hurt a lot of Main Street pharmacies,” said Rosemary Smith, who operates eight Eastern Kentucky pharmacies with her husband, Luther. “We are the fabric of the economy in these small communities, and they are killing us.”

The managed care system was implemented Nov. 1 by Gov. Steve Beshear‘s administration as a cost-saving measure.

Three months later it's a massive failure on all counts, as was completely predictable at the time.

Death Penalty for Lack of Papers

When anti-immigrant hatred and hysteria trump the Hippocratic Oath, we are doomed.

Amanda Peterson Beadle at Think Progress:

Jesus Navarro, a dialysis patient who will die without a kidney transplant, has private insurance. He has a donor to provide the needed kidney. But because he is an undocumented immigrant, hospital administrators at UC San Francisco Medical Center are refusing to allow the procedure, saying that there is no guarantee Navarro will receive the necessary follow-up care because of his immigration status. Now, Navarro is stuck in an “ethical gray area” for the hospital. “It puts the doctors in a very awkward and torn position,” said Arthur Caplan, a bioethics professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “You come into this trying to do good and find yourself stuck in the middle of a fight about immigration.”

For eight years, Navarro has used a home dialysis machine to cleanse his blood after his kidneys began to fail. He reached the top of the waitlist for a kidney in the spring, but doctors called off his transplant when they discovered his immigration status. Even after his wife offered her kidney for the transplant, administrators still refused to allow the surgery. Reece Fawley, executive director of transplantation at UC San Francisco, said in a statement that the hospital considers socioeconomic stability for all patients, including immigration status.

Navarro’s situation highlights a dilemma for hospitals when it comes to organ transplants for immigrants, especially if their undocumented status threatens their continued access to insurance:

Though no data are available, anecdotal evidence suggests clinics sometimes perform organ transplants on illegal immigrants, especially when the patients are young. In one high-profile case, UCLA Medical Center gave an undocumented woman three liver transplants before she turned 21.

But health administrators also reject patients because of their immigration status, though that usually happens when the patients lack insurance. Bellevue Hospital in New York attracted attention last year when it refused to transplant a kidney between brothers because they could not pay for the operation. [...]

Some bioethicists say the hospital should have performed the surgery because Navarro would not be taking resources away from other patients or putting his wife at serious risk.

After all, many legal residents fail to follow their post-surgical plan.

Some lawmakers would even want hospitals to check the immigration status for all patients. The Arizona legislature considered a bill that would require that, and Rep. Steve King (R-IA) said in November that it would not be going “too far” to have hospitals ask patients about their immigration status.

But in the meantime, Navarro’s private insurance from his job would cover the transplant and follow-up care, but he lost job last month after an immigration audit and his insurance could run out. If he is unable to extend his insurance and ends up in California’s Medi-Cal program, his problem would worsen because Medi-Cal would not cover the immunosuppressive drugs that prevent organ rejection after a transplant. “We don’t know what to do,” his wife said. “It’s like we’re on a ledge — we can’t go here or there.”

It's officially War on Immigrants here in the Land of the Free. Somebody call in Doctors Without Borders.

Don't Like the Rules, Don't Take the Money

This is, of course, just the flip side of giving tax exemptions to freakazoids who preach political hate. No tax exemptions, no tax breaks, no subsidies, no tax dollars of any amount to anyone who claims fealty to any kind of religion. Period.

Kevin Drum:

E.J. Dionne makes the liberal case (last month) that the Obama administration screwed up when it issued rules requiring insurance companies to cover contraceptives:

Speaking as a Catholic, I wish the Church would be more open on the contraception question. But speaking as an American liberal who believes that religious pluralism imposes certain obligations on government, I think the Church’s leaders had a right to ask for broader relief from a contraception mandate that would require it to act against its own teachings. The administration should have done more to balance the competing liberty interests here.

I'm just a big ol' secular lefty, so I guess it's natural that I'd disagree. And I do. I guess I'm tired of religious groups operating secular enterprises (hospitals, schools), hiring people of multiple faiths, serving the general public, taking taxpayer dollars — and then claiming that deeply held religious beliefs should exempt them from public policy. Contra Dionne, it's precisely religious pluralism that makes this impractical. There are simply too many religions with too many religious beliefs to make this a reasonable approach. If we'd been talking about, say, an Islamic hospital insisting that its employees bind themselves to sharia law, I imagine the "religious community" in the United States would be a wee bit more understanding if the Obama administration refused to condone the practice.

I can understand compromising over a very limited number of hot button issues. Abortion is the obvious one. But in general, if Catholic hospitals don't want to follow reasonable, 21st century secular rules, they need to make themselves into truly religious enterprises. In particular, they need to stop taking secular taxpayer money. As long as they do, though, they should follow the same rules as anyone else.

Digby gets to the core of the hypocrisy:

First, they did it so that women will have their birth control covered even though they happen to work as a file clerk in a Catholic University or an x-ray technician at a Catholic Hospital. I can understand why they didn't think about that. After all, in the entire discussion "women" didn't even come up. Why should they? This isn't about them. It's about the important men who make decisions for them.

Secondly, Mark Shields and everyone else who is shrieking about conscience clauses fail to see a very important distinction. A Quaker individual is not required to join in combat. A Seventh Day Adventist individual is not forced to work on the sabbath. An Orthodox Jewish individual is provided kosher food. A Catholic individual is allowed to exercise her conscience and not use birth control. These are what is known in common parlance as "people" as opposed to institutions.

After all, as Katha Pollit points out in this piece:

Are [individual] Quakers, Jehovah’s Witnesses and other pacifists exempt from taxes that pay for war and weapons? Can Scientologists, who abhor psychiatry, deduct the costs of the National Institute of Mental Health? As an atheist, a feminist, a progressive, I ante up for so much stuff that violates my conscience, the government should probably pay me damages. Why should the bishops be exempt from the costs of living in a pluralistic society?

Indeed. After all, the religious institutions have one very special privilege: they pay no taxes, unlike their followers, who are required to pay for many things they disagree with. Apparently, that isn't enough, however. The Church wants to pay no taxes and be exempt from the costs of living in a pluralistic society. Sweet deal.

People are getting very confused on this issue. We ostensibly believe in rights and liberties in America and have a set of rules in our constitution guaranteeing them. But lately, we've decided that these phony constructs of institutional rights and liberties --- "corporate personhood","conscience of the church" --- actually supercede individual rights and liberties. I don't mean to evoke the sacred founders here, but I'm afraid they would say that idea is, in their words, total bullshit. They knew very well that the government wasn't the only possible oppressor. 500 years of bloody European religious history had taught them that.

If the Catholic bishops don't want people to use birth control it needs to convince people not to use birth control. That's how we exercise "conscience" in a free society. No Catholic employees anywhere, including a Catholic bishop, will be forced to use birth control, I guarantee it. Their individual consciences will be respected.

Beyond that, this is a matter between the Church and the congregant to work out for themselves. There is no reason for the government to discriminate against citizens who happen to work for Catholic institutions simply because the hierarchy of that institution doesn't want them to behave a certain way in their private lives. We don't do that here. At least, we didn't used to.

Occupy the Neighborhood

While President Obama's special committee of investigators plus state Attorneys General from around the country move closer to prosecuting the banks and mortgage dealers who defrauded Americans of hundreds of billions of dollars in home value, there are things state and local governments can do now to alleviate foreclosures and restore property values.

Ellen Brown at Truthout:

The legal tide is turning against MERS and the banks, giving rise to some interesting possibilities for relief at the county level. Local governments have the power of eminent domain: they can seize real or personal property if (a) they can show that doing so is in the public interest, and (b) the owner is compensated at fair market value.

The public interest part is easy to show. In a 20-page booklet titled "Revitalizing Foreclosed Properties with Land Banks," the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) observes:

The volume of foreclosures has become a significant problem, not only to local economies, but also to the aesthetics of neighborhoods and property values therein. At the same time, middle- to low-income families continue to be priced out of the housing market while suitable housing units remain vacant.

The booklet goes on to describe an alternative being pursued by some communities:

To ameliorate the negative effects of foreclosures, some communities are creating public entities - known as land banks - to return these properties to productive reuse while simultaneously addressing the need for affordable housing.

States named as adopting land bank legislation include Michigan, Ohio, Missouri, Georgia, Indiana, Texas, Kentucky and Maryland. HUD notes that the federal government encourages and supports these efforts. But states can still face obstacles to acquiring and restoring the properties, including a lack of funds and difficulties clearing title.

Both of these obstacles might be overcome by focusing on abandoned and foreclosed properties for which the chain of title has been broken, either by MERS or by failure to transfer the promissory note according to the terms of the trust indenture. These homes could be acquired by eminent domain both free of cost and free of adverse claims to title. The county would simply need to give notice in the local newspaper of an intent to exercise its right of eminent domain. The burden of proof would then transfer to the bank or trust claiming title. If the claimant could not prove title, the county would take the property, clear title and either work out a fair settlement with the occupants or restore the home for rent or sale.

Even if the properties were acquired without charge, counties might lack the funds to restore them. Additional funds could be had by establishing a public bank that serves more functions than just those of a land bank. In a series titled "A Solution to the Foreclosure Crisis," Michael Sauvante of the National Commonwealth Group suggests that properties obtained by eminent domain can be used as part of the capital base for a chartered, publicly owned bank, on the model of the state-owned Bank of North Dakota. The county could deposit its revenues into this bank and use its capital and deposits to generate credit, as all chartered banks are empowered to do. This credit could then be used not just to finance property redevelopment, but for other county needs, again on the model of the Bank of North Dakota. For a fuller discussion of publicly owned banks, see http://PublicBankingInstitute.org.

Sauvante adds that the use of eminent domain is often viewed negatively by homeowners. To overcome this prejudice, the county could exercise eminent domain on the mortgage contract rather than on title to the property. (The power of eminent domain applies both to real and to personal property rights.) Title would then remain with the homeowner. The county would just have a secured interest in the property, putting it in the shoes of the bank. It could renegotiate reasonable terms with the homeowner, something banks have been either unwilling or unable to do, since they have to get all the investor-owners to agree, a difficult task; and they have little incentive to negotiate when they can make more money on fees and credit-default-swaps on contracts that go into default.

Read the whole thing.

White Male Property Owners Only Need Apply

Also must be freakazoid, conservatard closet cases. Never doubt the repugs' ability to invent yet another way to steal elections.

Think Progress:

Gary Mitchell of New Castle, Pennsylvania is a rare example of a public servant. In 2002, Mitchell was found guilty of two drug-related felonies. But after serving a reduced sentence and turning his life around, Mitchell decided to run for city council. After being open with New Castle voters about his record, Mitchell and two others were elected to serve. But because the Pennsylvania Constitution bars any person convicted of an “infamous crime” from holding office, the state wants to prevent Mitchell from taking his seat:

The state Constitution says, “No person hereafter convicted of [an] infamous crime, shall be eligible or capable of holding any office of trust or profit in this Commonwealth.”

“I can run, I can win, and citizens can elect me, but the state will not allow me to take oath. Who runs the law? I thought the Constitution was for the people and by the people, and the people have spoken,” Mitchell said.

The state Supreme Court has ruled that any felony is an “infamous crime.”

Mitchell appealed to Lawrence County Judge John W. Hodge last Friday, noting that he had applied for clemency with the state Board of Pardons. He asked the judge to dismiss or stay the state’s attempt at his removal until the board rules on his request. Hodge rejected his request within less than an hour of hearing his argument.

Voters who elected Mitchell are incensed by the decision. “They took his money and then when he wins, which I don’t think they expected him to, they won’t let him serve. That’s not right,” said the Rev. Linda Martinez. Indeed, such an denial of office flies in the face of rehabilitation and pushes an overly targeted group of people further away from participation in the democratic process. After all, 13 percent of adult African-American men like Mitchell are currently prevented from voting — let alone from holding office — because of a previous conviction.

Mitchell promised to pursue his right to serve: “It doesn’t make me bitter, but it does rile me up for a fight.”

Good. Because the motherfuckers aren't even trying to hide it any more, and we're going to have to bring bazookas to this gun fight.

Because the Wall Street Bastards Are Everywhere

We must Occupy everywhere.

Leo W. Gerard at Firedoglake:

On Dec. 18, a dozen retirees, men and women in their 60s, 70s, even 80s, began occupying a median strip along Route 33 in front of the closed Century Aluminum smelter in Ravenswood, W.Va. In tents and under tarps, a small group stays overnight, despite hypertension, arthritis and other old age ailments. One has suffered a stroke.

These vulnerable people expose themselves to weather extremes although some have no health insurance at all. Century cancelled it. That’s why they’re occupying Century.

The retirees labored their entire lives for wages and pensions comparably lower than those of other aluminum workers. They did it believing they made those sacrifices in exchange for good, lifelong health coverage. Over the past two years, however, Century evicted them, about 540 retirees altogether, from the insurance plan.

The betrayal burns. Executives at Century, corporate 1 percenters, committed the same sort of treachery that is being condemned by Occupy Wall Street demonstrators representing the victimized 99 percent across the country. Thus the retirees adopted the grandchildren’s protest tactic of encampment.

Century shuttered the 50-year-old Ravenswood smelter in February of 2009, throwing 651 workers out of jobs. Century, headquartered in Monterey, Calif., didn’t go bankrupt though. It still operates aluminum plants in Kentucky, South Carolina and Iceland. And it didn’t immediately cancel promised insurance for retirees.

Nine months after the shutdown, it announced it would terminate as of June 1, 2010 health benefits for retirees eligible for Medicare. Then on Nov. 1, 2010, Century told its retirees who weren’t yet eligible for Medicare that it would stop paying for their coverage as of Jan. 1, 2011.

This revoking of earned benefits isn’t an isolated incident or a fluke. It is part of a pattern documented by Wall Street Journal investigative reporter Ellen E. Schultz in her new book “Retirement Heist.” The subtitle is, “How companies plunder and profit from the nest eggs of American workers."

It's happening in your backyard, even if no one is Occupying over it. Yet.

"Liberalism is About Intervention"

This is the best definition of liberalism I've ever read. More than that, it provides the perfect standard for measuring any policy, proposal or action as genuinely liberal.

David Atkins "thereisnospoon" at Hullabaloo:

Liberalism is and has always been about intervention. It is the opposite of libertarianism, and always has been. Liberals understand that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Left to their own devices, people with weapons and money will always try to exploit and dominate people without weapons and money unless they are stopped from doing so. It is not because we are taught to do so. It's just innate human nature. If this were not the case, libertarianism would work as an ideology. It does not, and never has at any point in history.

When the government steps in to stop a corporation from dumping noxious chemicals into a stream, that is intervention at the point of a gun, by a superior force against a lesser force attempting to exploit the weak and powerless. When the government steps in to enforce desegretation in schools, that is intervention at the point of a gun, by a superior force against a lesser force attempting to exploit the weak and powerless.

When Abraham Lincoln and the North decided not to allow the nation of the Confederacy--and make no mistake, it was a separate nation with separate laws and an entirely separate culture--to secede from the Union, in large part because the North had an interest in ending slavery in the South and in striking down a competing agrarian economic system, that too was intervention by a superior force against a lesser force attempting to exploit the weak and powerless. To this day, many Southerners feel that their land is being occupied by an illegitimate and invading power, and theirs a Lost Cause that will rise again.

This is what liberalism is. It is unavoidably, inescapably paternalistic in nature. It is so because it understands the inevitable tendency of human beings to be truly awful to one another unless social and legal rules are put in place--yes, by force--to prevent them from doing otherwise.

Conservatives use force of government as well, of course, but not in defense of the weak and oppressed, but rather to maintain the power of money, of patriarchy and of the established social pecking order. Where the oppressive hand of government helps them achieve that, they utilize it. Where libertarian ideology helps them keep power in the hands of the local good old boys, they use that instead.

But a liberal--a progressive, if you will--is always an interventionist, because a liberal understands that society is constantly on a path of self-perfection, in an effort to use reason and good moral judgment to prevent insofar as possible the exploitation of one person by another.

The division between liberals lies in how far to intervene, especially in foreign wars. Almost all would agree that intervention in World War II against the Nazis and Imperial Japanese was the right thing to do. Most would agree that intervention in Kosovo was the right thing to do to stop the ongoing genocide there. Certainly, conservatives at the time opposed involvement in either conflict. Some liberals believe that America should use its power of intervention to help the oppressed around the world by use of force if necessary. Most others understand that such moves, even if well-intentioned, cause more problems and harm than they solve. But there will always be disagreements between liberals about whether, how much and where to intervene in the world in order to stop bad people from doing bad things that either threaten America, or simply threaten to oppress the poor and the weak. Not, of course, that America's war machine is always or even usually used with such good intentions; quite the contrary. It is usually used for the conservative purpose of exploiting and destroying people and resources for the benefit of the wealthy. But here we speak only of liberal ideology and its relationship to the use of military force.

Similarly, liberals have a conflict when it comes to economic intervention. A few on the left choose to pursue a very hard line of intervention toward economic egalitarianism, leading to a vision in line with Communism. More of us tend to see the need for substantial economic intervention on a capitalist substrate, and lean more toward Democratic Socialism. Others see the need for some intervention, but are wary to stepping too far into the middle of the "free market," which makes them more Neoliberal. But in all these cases, the question is only a matter of degree.

It is no accident that the most fervent economic interventionists on the left have also turned out to be the most imperial and bellicose (e.g., the Soviets and the Chinese.) They believe most in the necessity of force to prevent exploitation by the holders of capital, and see no reason why that necessity should stop at their own borders.

Contra Stoller, there is indeed a conflict within liberalism, but it is precisely this: a matter of how much intervention is necessary. It is not a fundamental conflict of ideals.

Read the whole thing for Atkins' detailed explanation of why Ron Paul in particular presents no conflict for liberals.

Songs to Fight the Plutocracy By: "Vigilante Man"

Uploaded by DVanDeusen:

From the 1975 documentary: "Brother Can You Spare a Dime." Footage from Bonus Riots of 1932, San Francisko General Strike 1934, Republic Steel Strike 1937, General Motors Labor Strike 1937, etc.

Lyrics here.

Helping Responsible Homeowners

In the context of massive, widespread fraud on the part of banks and mortgage companies, the phrase "responsible homeowners" is as false and stigmatizing as "deserving poor" or even "good coloreds." But desperation swallows a lot of insults.



Full transcript here.

Details of President Obama's plan here.

Congress Letting Corporations Steal Public Science from the People

There are just too many ways for corporations to steal the public commons.

PZ Myers:

Along with SOPA and PIPA, our government is contemplating another acronym with deplorable consequences for the free dissemination of information: RWA, the Research Works Act. This is a bill to, it says, “ensure the continued publication and integrity of peer-reviewed research works by the private sector”, where the important phrase is “private sector” — it’s purpose is to guarantee that for-profit corporations retain control over the publication of scientific information.

SNIP

This is a blatant attempt to invalidate the NIH’s requirement that taxpayer-funded research be made publicly available. The internet was initially developed to allow researchers to easily share information…and that’s precisely the function this bill is intended to cripple.

Who could possibly support such a bill? Not the scientists, that’s for sure; and definitely not the public, unless we keep them as ignorant as possible. The corporations who love this bill are the commercial publishers who profit mightily from scientists’ work. And first among these is Elsevier, the gouging publisher scientists love to hate.

If passed, the Research Works Act (RWA) would prohibit the NIH’s public access policy and anything similar enacted by other federal agencies, locking publicly funded research behind paywalls. The result would be an ethical disaster: preventable deaths in developing countries, and an incalculable loss for science in the USA and worldwide. The only winners would be publishing corporations such as Elsevier (£724m profits on revenues of £2b in 2010 – an astounding 36% of revenue taken as profit).

Since Elsevier’s obscene additional profits would be drained from America to the company’s base in the Netherlands if this bill were enacted, what kind of American politician would support it? The RWA is co-sponsored by Darrell Issa (Republican, California) and Carolyn B. Maloney (Democrat, New York). In the 2012 election cycle, Elsevier and its senior executives made 31 donations to representatives: of these, two went to Issa and 12 to Maloney, including the largest individual contribution.

So Elsevier bought a couple of politicians to get their way. It’s typical unscrupulous behavior from this company; at least they stopped organizing arms trade fairs a few years ago, so we know their evil can be checked by sufficiently loud public opinion.

Tell your representatives to kill RWA. It’s another bill to benefit corporations that will harm science.

When we give corporations exclusive profit from public investment, we the people always lose.

These People Always Vote

Do you?

David Atkins "thereisnospoon" at Hullabaloo:

Dave Weigel reports from Nevada, speaking to a local Republican caucus partcipant:

"This is going to sound rough," he said. "But if you're a Democrat, you are my enemy. Democrats piss me off. They've gotten extremely socialistic." What did that mean? "Every time they get in, they raise taxes. They screw things up. I've got a jeep I've had for ten years; I pay $100 a year on the license plate. We just got a new Dodge; $600 to license it. You pay your money, they pass it on to the Mexicans, the colored people. Free education, handouts, all of that." Kent was 67, and dated his disdain for socialism back to Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society. "We've got maybe two Democrats in Virginia City. One of them owns the second-biggest bar. I won't set a foot in the door.

I'm sure that if Democrats drop the nasty tribalism and capitulate on our values enough by allowing cuts to Medicare and outlawing of abortion, we can come to reasonable bipartisan compromise with these folks.

Surely there's something we can do to win this man's vote or at least soften his ire. And I'm sure that whatever it is, it will totally be worth it in the spirit of post-partisan unity.

Atkins in December:

For forty percent of the country or so, there is no amount of evidence that will ever convince them that they're getting screwed by the top 1%. Even when the middle class is basically gone and all that's left is the very wealthy and the impoverished underclass, these fools will still be blaming taxes, environmental regulations and minorities for everything. And yet, those of us who know better are supposed to feel other than contempt for them.

Contempt they richly deserve. But respect for the power they wield at the polls.

Turnout wins. Every time. It's the only thing that ever has.


.
thereisnospoon 12/09/2011 07:30:00 AM

Komen Still Lying; Won't Stop Betraying Women

C'mon, Planned Parenthood: tell Komen to fuck off and die. You know they're going to fuck you again as soon as the furor dies down. You've proven that your support network is bigger, louder, richer and more powerful than theirs. You don't need them any more, and continuing to associate with them is just going to piss off all your newly energized friends.

Tell Komen thanks but no thanks. You know you want to.

David Dayen at Firedoglake:

There’s actually a little more confusion than initially reported about Susan G. Komen’s actual commitment to restoring Planned Parenthood funds. They certainly wanted everyone to think that they were changing their policy. Upon closer inspection of their statement, however, they may be trying to take credit for a change in policy without actually doing so.

The statement says that they would “amend the criteria” used in determining their grants, “to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political.” And they added that existing grants to Planned Parenthood would go forward, and that they could apply for future grants. But the existing grants were already going forward. That really hasn’t changed. And this doesn’t fully commit Planned Parenthood to receiving those grants in the future.

Greg Sargent tracked down a Komen board member for comment.

I asked Komen board member John Raffaelli to respond to those who are now saying that the announcement doesn’t necessarily constitute a reversal until Planned Parenthood actually sees more funding. He insisted it would be unfair to expect the group to commit to future grants.

“It would be highly unfair to ask us to commit to any organization that doesn’t go through a grant process that shows that the money we raise is used to carry out our mission,” Raffaelli told me. “We’re a humaniatrian [sic] organization. We have a mission. Tell me you can help carry out our mission and we will sit down at the table.”

Pushed on whether this means the new announcement wasn’t really a reversal, Raffaelli pushed back, arguing that Komen, in response to all the criticism, had removed politics from the grant-making process. “Is it really unclear that we’re changing the policy to address criticism?” he said.

The proof that the policy has actually changed, then, will not be revealed until the acceptance of the grant request next year. Planned Parenthood could actually take this a step further. They could refuse to participate in the grant process. If I’m seeing things correctly, the Komen Foundation is breaking down. This has damaged their credibility significantly. They may not be around a whole lot longer. So Planned Parenthood can stand on the side against politicization of women’s health and say they won’t lend any credibility to Komen’s tarnished brand.

I don’t think they’ll do that, but when you see all this game-playing, it’s really hard to go back and take the Komen money. Ultimately, women’s health is more important. But I don’t think we’ve heard the last of this fight.

I've heard all I need to hear. Give to your local Planned Parenthood affiliate, and stop buying pink shit.

Songs to Fight the Plutocracy By: "Talking Dustbowl Blues"

Uploaded by banjostead

Lyrics here.

Haiti Two Years Later: Progress and Hope

Carl Hiaasen is no naif or pollyanna. If he says things are getting better in Haiti, you can believe it.

The news of the day is burning with big questions:

Who’ll be the next head coach of the Dolphins? Why is Rosie O’Donnell killing hammerhead sharks? Is Khloe Kardashian really a Kardashian?

And each of those stories is being devoured and debated by many thousands of readers, far more than are looking at the sober bylined reports from Haiti, which last week marked the two-year anniversary of its catastrophic earthquake.

Even before that disaster, Haiti was a place of such hellish poverty and corruption that people on the outside often turned away because it was all too much, too sad, too hopeless.

And too close to home.

The 7.0 earthquake was freakishly fierce for that part of the Caribbean, and it seemed to be almost a preternatural act of cruelty. No country in the hemisphere was more vulnerable and ill-prepared. Still the devastation was shocking.

Eventually the number of fatalities surpassed 300,000, a mind-blowing figure, almost 20 times higher than the death toll from last year’s Japanese earthquake and tsunami. For a few weeks the world took notice — volunteers arrived by the planeload in Port-au-Prince, and supplies poured in along with money.

Two years later, the question is: How is Haiti?

Of course it’s still poor, still in desperate need of jobs, competent political leadership and decent housing. More than half a million Haitians left homeless by the quake still live in tent cities, and a cholera outbreak a year ago killed more than 4,000, including many children.

Last week brought peaceful street demonstrations by those exasperated with the slow pace of rebuilding and the lack of work. Sadly, Haiti has no history of efficient governance and no template to work from.

SNIP

Throughout the long recovery, celebrities (including one of the genetically verified Kardashians) have popped in and out of the country. If nothing else, such fleeting though well-publicized appearances serve to remind distracted segments of the world public that Haiti is still there, still hanging on.

Others are in it for the long haul.

A musician who is a friend of mine has quietly funded a new grade school in the countryside. The actor, Sean Penn, arrived in Port-au-Prince shortly after the earthquake and was so overwhelmed that he’s been a fixture ever since. He manages a tent camp for 55,000 persons who lost their homes in the disaster.

Dr. Paul Farmer, whose intrepid Partners in Health organization has been operating medical clinics for years in Haiti, last week described plans for a 320-bed teaching hospital — the country’s largest.

It is being built with private funds in the city of Mirebalais. When finished, the earthquake-proof facility will treat about 500 patients a day. Given the scarcity of good healthcare in Haiti, this is nothing short of a godsend.

Then there’s former President Bill Clinton, whose interest in Haiti also predates the earthquake, and who has surely spent more street time there than any American political figure past or present. He returned again last week to mark the anniversary of the tragedy by visiting a Timberland shoe factory in an industrial park where about 7,000 Haitians are employed.

Clinton has been relentlessly pushing for more foreign investment in Haiti’s private sector, which is its only true hope for moving forward. While the earthquake brought a gusher of humanitarian funds from the United States, Canada, Brazil and other nations, the long-term prospects depend on firms like the Korean garment company that’s sinking serious money into a Haiti-based manufacturing operation.

Two years is hardly enough time to erase a century of ruinous policies, violent politics and graft, but there is something happening that resembles progress. For example, more people in Port-au-Prince can now get clean water than before the quake.

A new hospital here, a new factory there — these are small miracles but must be multiplied for Haiti to lift itself from the rubble of 2010. It won’t happen without the likes of Farmer, Clinton and others who are keeping this important story alive.

I have been a supporter of Farmer's Partners in Health for several years, ever since reading Mountains Beyond Mountains. No one - not Penn, not Clinton, not the UN - is doing anywhere near as much for Haiti, not to mention for as long or as efficiently, as Partners in Health.

Stand with Planned Parenthood

Annoy a woman-hating anti-choicer. Make the Komen Foundation pay for being corporate-cock-sucking freakazoid-lovers.

Katha Pollit at The Nation tells how:

How you can take action:

Donate to Planned Parenthood for breast care and cancer screenings. Even a small gift at this moment makes a powerful statement of solidarity and resistance.

Check out Nona Willis Aronowitz in GOOD magazine for ways to support women’s health that don’t involve buying pink items you don’t need.

Sign these petitions:
Susan G. Komen for the Cure: Put Women’s Lives Before Politics
Tell the board of Susan G. Komen for a Cure: Don’t throw Planned Parenthood under the bus!

Sign the “I stand with Planned Parenthood” open letter.

Let Komen know how you feel online or call them at 972-701-2168.

Your reward? Barbara Ehrenreich’s classic essay, “Cancerland,” on Komen, pinkwashing and the “breast cancer is the best thing that ever happened to me” industry.

Want to punish the corporations that pay Komen big bucks to deny women the right to decent health care?

From Alternet:

Of course, relying so heavily on corporate partnerships can cut both ways. Many brands that want to cultivate a pro-woman image partner with Komen for that purpose. This year’s national sponsors of Race for the Cure could double as a list of brands that very much want female customers to like them: Yoplait, Ford, Bank of America, Caltrate, New Balance, and Self magazine, among others. The massive media hit demonstrating how little Komen actually prioritizes women’s health could really ding the impact of these partnerships.

Boycott every one. And let them know why.

Songs to Fight the Plutocracy By: "Sinking of the Reuben James"

Because unlike in World War II, today Plutocrats aren't the ones fighting and dying in the wars that make them rich.

Uploaded by tasedlak

Before the U.S. even entered World War II, the Reuben James was escorting supply ships across the Atlantic to Britian. On October 23, 1941, off Newfoundland:

Reuben James had positioned herself between an ammunition ship in the convoy and the known position of a "wolfpack", a group of (German) submarines that preyed on Allied shipping. Reuben James was hit forward by a torpedo and her entire bow was blown off when a magazine exploded. The bow sank immediately. The aft section floated for five minutes before going down. Of the 159-man crew, only 44 survived.

Richie Farmer: Even Dumber Than He Is Corrupt

Corrupt or stupid? With former Kentucky Commissioner of Agriculture Ritchie Farmer, it's hard to tell. Filling your agency with idiot friends holding no-show jobs is more corrupt than stupid, but giving some of those jobs to extramarital girlfriends who can't keep their mouths shut is more stupid than corrupt.

This, however, is not just stupid, but a level of stupid that overwhelms even the monster levels of corruption.

From the Courier:

Former Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer applied for unemployment benefits after his term of office ended Jan. 1, The Courier-Journal has learned.

SNIP

As agriculture commissioner, a position he held eight years, Farmer earned $110,346 when his term ended. But Kentucky unemployment compensation law lists “a public elected official” among the types of employment not eligible for benefits.

And state officials said they could not remember a previous instance when an elected state official had applied for unemployment benefits.

Farmer did not return numerous phone messages seeking comment on this story.

Crit Luallen, whose two terms as state auditor also ended Jan. 1, said it never occurred to her to apply for unemployment.

“That law is meant to serve people who are terminated from their employment by their employer …” Luallen said.

And elected official, Luallen said, “takes the job for a limited and expected amount of time. You couldn’t possibly claim that it was circumstances beyond your control that caused you to end up in that situation.”

After the election, we all thought Ritchie would "retire" into some nice cushy seven-figure no-work "job" with some of his Big Coal or Big Ag pals. Neither of those corporate criminals are squeamish about corruption.

But this level of stupid may make Ritchie toxic even with them.

Murder by Fracking

And when are the fucking frackers going to be charged with murder?

Susie Madrak at Crooks and Liars:

The gas companies insist fracking has nothing to do with the wave of illnesses in the Marcellus Shale communities, yet people with strange symptoms continue to die. We don't know how many more, because when the people whose water was contaminated by the drilling get a clean water supply, they sign a legal agreement not to talk about it anymore:

Fracktivist Carl Stiles, of Bradford County, PA, died last night, after living with illnesses caused by shale gas drilling. Mr. Stiles was forced to move away from his Bradford County home as an environmental refugee.

Carl Stiles had intestinal cancer which he blamed on Chesapeake’s gas drilling. He and his wife abandoned their home last November at the urging of a toxicologist who found barium, arsenic, and VOCs (volatile organic chemicals) in Carl’s blood. Strontium, uranium and radium were found in their water. They’ve been told to expect to get leukemia within two years.

The radioactivity level in their home was almost 7 times the EPA standard limit. The Stiles were forced to abandon their home and all the possessions in it. Carl died of intestinal cancer on January 26, 2012.

Meanwhile, under the heading of "locking the barn door after the horse is out":

Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. has offered to meet with US Environmental Protection Agency representatives to discuss the EPA’s plans to test the water wells of some homes in Dimock, Pa., a township within the Marcellus shale play where Cabot has done hydraulic fracturing.

EPA has said it will test water in the area to determine whether residents are being exposed to hazardous substances that cause health concerns.

In a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, Cabot Chairman, Pres., and Chief Executive Officer Dan Dinges said Cabot has worked closely with the Dimock community in northern Pennsylvania and with state and local regulators.

“We are concerned that EPA’s actions can be easily misinterpreted and can undermine regulatory certainty necessary for development of oil and gas,” Dinges said.

This marks the second recent case in which EPA has tested water wells in the area of gas exploration and production.

And it'll be the last, if congressional repugs get their way.

Brad Johnson at Think Progress:

Josh Fox, the documentarian whose Oscar-nominated film “Gasland” exposed the risks of unregulated natural gas fracking, was arrested in handcuffs by U.S. Capitol Police at the behest of Republican lawmakers after refusing to stop filming today’s GOP hearing attacking EPA oversight of fracking’s air and water pollution. “I’m within my First Amendment rights, and I’m being taken out,” Fox shouted as he was led away, Politico reports. Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) called a motion to suspend the committee rules and allow for Fox and an ABC crew also present to film the hearing, but Republicans rejected the motion.

Let the Sluts Die of Breast Cancer

Let's just be perfectly clear: People who oppose abortion want women to die.

Or as TBogg put it:

I have to say that killing women with breast cancer before they might consider abortion sometime in their lives is one way to eliminate a woman’s right to choose.

I can't say this surprised me; I've always thought the Komen foundation was mostly interested in collecting big bucks and bigger publicity from the very companies that manufacture the toxic chemicals that cause breast cancer. But even so, it's egregious. Kevin Drum:

Planned Parenthood has been thrown under the bus by an unexpected group:

The nation's leading breast-cancer charity, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, is halting its partnerships with Planned Parenthood affiliates — creating a bitter rift, linked to the abortion debate, between two iconic organizations that have assisted millions of women. The change will mean a cutoff of hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants, mainly for breast exams.

....Komen spokeswoman Leslie Aun said the cutoff results from the charity's newly adopted criteria barring grants to organizations that are under investigation by local, state or federal authorities. According to Komen, this applies to Planned Parenthood because it's the focus of an inquiry launched by Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., seeking to determine whether public money was improperly spent on abortions.

Seriously? That's their story? They're planning to respond to every politically-motivated witch hunt led by some two-bit state legislator or grandstanding county commissioner by cutting off funding to the target of the investigation? If you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you.

This was a craven political decision, pure and simple. Joan Walsh said this: "The Komen Foundation just destroyed its brand, and it's going to be very, very sorry." Yep. What a loathsome move.

Loathsome doesn't begin to describe. From Digby, it's not just Komen - there's way more to this.

And I'd better not see any casual shrugging this off as no big deal.

Digby, last month:

One more time, from my friend DebCoop:

For women ALL Roads to freedom and equality - economic equality and most particularly the ability to avoid poverty START with control of their bodies. If they can't control how they get pregnant and when they will have a child then poverty is the result.

There is theory about something called the Prime Mover - the first action or the first cause. Well for women it IS reproductive rights. It precedes everything. It really is simple. Without the abilty to control your own body then you are a slave to everything else.

Frankly sexism, the need to control women's lives by controlling their bodies and the things that arise from it, are endemic to any social structure. It is ever enduring and even when it seems to be quashed it returns in another form. That is the story in the modern era of women's rights. One step forward after a long struggle - suffrage and then a step back. (And no way do I say that women are not complicit in their own subjugation. We are.)

I am reading The Reactionary Mind by Corey Robin. In the epilogue he makes a point of saying that the loss of power and control is what the elite and the reactionary fear the most. More than a specific loss itself the fear the rising volcano of submerged anger and power. And for them it is most acutely felt compulsion for control in the "intimate" arena. That is the most vexing and disturbing of all.

It is why they want to control women. And controlling their reproductive lives is the surefire way to control them.

It is why abortion rights are absolutely central to every other kind of freedom.

Equal pay, discrimination, sexual harassment - none of it means shit if men control women's bodies.

Abortion rights are fundamental rights. Anyone who says anything different Wants. Women. To. Die.

Songs to Fight the Plutocracy By: "Biggest Thing Man Has Ever Done (The Historical Bum)"

Uploaded by thedarkpoets.

Lyrics here.

Kentucky's Thriving Free Market in Slaves

Vulture capitalists have always enriched themselves at the expense of society; the only thing that separates Wall Street today from Lexington's antebellum entrepreneurs is the color of their commodity.

Tom Eblen at the Herald:

As Black History Month begins, it is worth noting that from the 1820s until the Civil War, Lexington was one of America's largest slave markets. Geography, demography and economics "put Lexington right in the center of this activity," said Gerald Smith, a University of Kentucky history professor.

By the 1820s, Virginia, Maryland and Central Kentucky had a surplus of slaves just as the Deep South's expanding cotton, rice and sugar plantations needed more labor. Much of that surplus ended up in Lexington to literally be "sold down the river." Listen to the words of the state song, My Old Kentucky Home; that is their story.

When the Civil War began, Lexington had more than 10,000 slaves — almost half the total population — and about 1,700 slave owners. Still, many slave owners looked down on slave traders as cruel beasts — perhaps not wanting to acknowledge the full picture of their own "peculiar institution."

SNIP

Smith said that, more than any slave-trading city except New Orleans, Lexington was known for its "fancy girls" — light-skinned, mixed-race young women who were sold into sexual slavery. The best-known dealer was Lewis Robards, who kept his "choice stock" in parlors above his Short Street office.

Not all of these deals were conducted behind closed doors. The most infamous case involved a beautiful young woman named Eliza — said to be just 1⁄64 black — who was sold at Cheapside in May 1843 to satisfy the debts of her deceased master and father.

Abolitionist accounts of the sale tell of a hard-hearted auctioneer who exposed Eliza's breasts and thighs to encourage bidders, much to the horror of the assembled crowd. The bidding came down to a Frenchman and the Rev. Calvin Fairbanks, who had come to Lexington for the purpose of buying Eliza and setting her free. Fairbanks won with a bid of $1,485.

Read the whole thing.

Occupy Louisville Permit Extended - With Restrictions

Mayor Greg Fischer is no fan of Occupy, and probably envies the police thuggery Oakland Mayor Quan has at her disposal, so this amounts to a victory, albeit temporary and constricted.

Chris Quay at the Courier:

The city has extended an event permit that allows Occupy Louisville protesters to camp overnight in Founder’s Square Park through the end of March.

The permit includes added requirements for the protesters, including payment for electricity used in the park and adding at least two portable restrooms.

SNIP

Curtis Morrison, an Occupy movement member, said he and other movement supporters saw the action as a “refreshing attitude of compassion as opposed to being against us and intolerant.” But he said Occupy supporters see the added requirements as a way for the city to impose unwarranted restrictions to deter protesters from staying in the park.

Read the whole thing, which includes the video "Voice of Occupy Louisville."