This past year was an historic one for New York City's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. By working together, our families stood strong and proud, and through our collective strength and passion, we helped changed the landscape of our city for generations to come.
In June, New York State passed gay marriage legislation. With the extraordinary leadership and commitment of Governor Andrew Cuomo, the bill passed the Senate with four Republican votes. Now that New York has passed this important piece of legislation, we look forward to other states soon following suit. Together, we can show that marriage equality is the | swtor credits right thing for our nation - one that will strengthen our families and communities even more.
In September, the 18-year-old Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) policy officially ended. Not only does this lift the burden of shame and fear from an entire generation of dedicated Americans who have served our country in the most noble way possible, but it also brings the U.S. military in line with those of other industrialized nations who allow gays and lesbians to serve openly.
On December 6th, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered an historic speech at the United Nations Human Rights Commission | buy swtor credits calling for international LGBT rights - the first time in history that LGBT rights have been exclusively linked to human rights. It was a signal to all countries that discriminating against gays and lesbians will not be tolerated.
While effective leadership has been vital to accomplishing these victories, we also owe them to the relentless efforts of fearless advocates who didn't stop fighting until their voices were heard. New Yorkers have shown the world we are dedicated and committed to achieving full equality. Knowing that residents and advocates are out there every day on the streets in every borough defending | cheap swtor credits equality should give us all renewed hope and optimism for the future of human rights.
After DADT was repealed, a soldier came up to me and shared the pride she felt when she received a standing ovation after re-enlisting in the Army.
On Marriage Equality's inaugural day, I witnessed the marriage of the first same-sex couples in New York City, including Phyllis Siegal, 76, and Connie Kopelov, 84, who have been together for 23 years. Before that first ceremony began, I met with couples from around the City eagerly waiting for their turn. We were all there in the most amazing of moments when New York finally said that our family matters, | swtor gold that our family is just as good as anybody else's.
We have a great deal to be thankful for this year, and we must keep the momentum going.
While New York can take pride in the passage of marriage equality, we need to ensure that every American is afforded the same rights. We cannot rest until the Defense of Marriage Act is repealed and the military recognizes same-sex marriages of service members who risk their lives to protect this country.
We also need to continue the fight for equal rights for the transgender community and to make sure that no one is discriminated against for who they are or whom they love.
Part of this fight means an ongoing awareness of bullying. We cannot and should not tolerate violence on the basis of gender and sexual identity. Together, let's fight ignorance while also creating safe havens for those who feel like they don't have anywhere else to turn. We have seen far too many young LGBT people taking their own lives because of the mean-spirited behavior of others.
In 2012 let's resolve that we will not be deterred in any way from ensuring civil rights for all people. We must pledge to continue to advocate, to write to our legislators, and to do all that we can to demand equal rights.
Until every LGBT individual is ensured the promise of full and equal existence, we will not stop fighting.
2011年12月30日星期五
In New Haven, an Occupy Encampment Stays Alive and Keeps Inequality on the Agenda
Even as most of the Occupy movement's tent cities have been flattened and ravaged across the country, in New Haven, Conn., where poverty and unemployment rates far exceed the national average, occupiers are standing firm in a sizable and tenacious encampment. Occupy New Haven (ONH) began in solidarity with the nationwide movement initiated by Wall Street protesters, and to this day continues to maintain a flourishing village on the city green, with 50 to 60 permanent residents, in spite of the progressively lower and lower temperatures inflicted on the camp by a New England December.
At the camp, activity proceeds as if the nationwide evictions of other occupations had never happened. Hundreds of signs planted all across the grounds lay out criticisms of the national economic situation and propose improvements (some catchy but vague, others surprisingly specific and taking up multiple small-fonted posterboards). Teach-ins and working groups meet frequently, and twice-weekly general assemblies gather both campers and supporters for discussion and planning. | swtor credits Actions, too, persist. A recent march conducted in concert with local unions drew over 1,000 people, and many more are being plotted.
Of course, maintaining an outdoor social movement in the dead of winter is a task Sisyphean in arduousness and seeming futility. But ONH has improvised. To deal with the cold, solar heaters have been built, and tents fitted with sophisticated insulating materials. An Occupy knitting circle in Florida regularly sends up packages of hats and scarves for the campers, and food donations are provided by a local church. In spite of these measures, life on the green is relentlessly punishing. Strict prohibitions on open flames by the local fire marshal mean that hot food is rare, and the risk of hypothermia looms perpetually. The unrelieved harshness of the conditions has caused some "summer soldier" occupiers to depart for more comfortable climes, but a decently-sized band still lingers.
That New Haven should be the site of this final tent city is strikingly appropriate. | buy swtor credits The wealth gap is as visible there as anywhere else in the country. Just two or three blocks from the Gothic spires of Yale University, incubator of the American power elite, lie whole neighborhoods of blight and despair. While Connecticut is the wealthiest state in the union, over a quarter of New Haven residents are in poverty and many more are on the cusp of it. New Haven's staggeringly high murder rate (34 thus far this year in a relatively small city) and major local epidemic of joblessness show American society at its most fragmented and distressed, and the city puts starkly on display locally the causes of the Occupy movement's grievances nationwide.
New Haven was therefore primed for an occupation from the beginning, and ONH is able to persevere partially because of favorable local attitudes. It helps a great deal that ONH has thus far maintained the favor of the three major powers in the city that could have brought a similar havoc to that afforded America's other occupations. The mayor, police department, and owners | cheap swtor credits of the Green have all blessed ONH with either sympathy or indifference. Lacking a callous billionaire plutocrat mayor like New York, or a militarized, gas-canister-and-baton wielding riot police like Oakland, New Haven's encampment has been able to focus on what matters: building a movement and keeping the issues alive in the minds of the public.
The support has therefore been liberating. As they continued, and cities' patience with them dwindled, most other occupations were forced to prioritize survival over protest. In New Haven's frigid wintertime, survival is also foremost among the occupiers' goals, but the city's toleration has given ONH a great deal of freedom to plan and to act.
For ONH the difficulty now is to establish direction. Some have proposed working on mortgage foreclosure, conducting civil disobedience by occupying and maintaining foreclosed homes. The cold irony of the housing crisis that so many empty homes now coexist with so many desperate homeless suggests housing policy as a compelling target for protest. Others ONHers | swtor gold have proposed keeping the focus national, trying to work on potential laws and constitutional amendments that might rein in corporate power and ensure a dash more accountability and fairness in American economic relations.
Of course, there is no need for ONH to obey the supposed imperative to come together around a single issue or mode of action (a sadly near-universal media expectation partially caused by the original Occupy Wall Street organizers' foolish decision to orient the protests around a still-undecided "one demand"). Because a diversity of problems animate participants' passions, from joblessness to the machinations of the Federal Reserve to Citizens United, there was never destined to be a rigid central issue, and at its best the occupation operates as a springboard from which groups interested in attacking economic problems from a variety of standpoints can mobilize.
Still, diversity of tactics cannot mean a mess of tactics, and thankfully for ONH, New Haven's favorable political climate has a second advantage: there is a pre-existing jobs-and-justice movement in the community with which the occupation might unite. Spearheaded by local workers, a tremendous push for fairer citywide economic policies has been growing for some time, and this past November resulted in the election of a new slate of social justice-minded candidates to the Board of Aldermen. Now, vibrant debates over potential city jobs programs are occurring throughout New Haven, and there is serious possibility for enacting radical, creative new ideas through the city government.
The New Haven Occupiers therefore have good reason not to despair, even as the snows come down and the wisdom of wintertime tent-life begins to appear moderately questionable. The city is not only one of the most Occupier-permissive in the country, but is one of the places where an occupation might do the most good. Those dejected over the demise of America's brief, beautiful tent-cities can look to New Haven for a dose of restorative hope, and the Occupiers' enemies should grind their teeth knowing that the movement lives on as more than a mere idea, at least among the chilly New Haven bunch.
At the camp, activity proceeds as if the nationwide evictions of other occupations had never happened. Hundreds of signs planted all across the grounds lay out criticisms of the national economic situation and propose improvements (some catchy but vague, others surprisingly specific and taking up multiple small-fonted posterboards). Teach-ins and working groups meet frequently, and twice-weekly general assemblies gather both campers and supporters for discussion and planning. | swtor credits Actions, too, persist. A recent march conducted in concert with local unions drew over 1,000 people, and many more are being plotted.
Of course, maintaining an outdoor social movement in the dead of winter is a task Sisyphean in arduousness and seeming futility. But ONH has improvised. To deal with the cold, solar heaters have been built, and tents fitted with sophisticated insulating materials. An Occupy knitting circle in Florida regularly sends up packages of hats and scarves for the campers, and food donations are provided by a local church. In spite of these measures, life on the green is relentlessly punishing. Strict prohibitions on open flames by the local fire marshal mean that hot food is rare, and the risk of hypothermia looms perpetually. The unrelieved harshness of the conditions has caused some "summer soldier" occupiers to depart for more comfortable climes, but a decently-sized band still lingers.
That New Haven should be the site of this final tent city is strikingly appropriate. | buy swtor credits The wealth gap is as visible there as anywhere else in the country. Just two or three blocks from the Gothic spires of Yale University, incubator of the American power elite, lie whole neighborhoods of blight and despair. While Connecticut is the wealthiest state in the union, over a quarter of New Haven residents are in poverty and many more are on the cusp of it. New Haven's staggeringly high murder rate (34 thus far this year in a relatively small city) and major local epidemic of joblessness show American society at its most fragmented and distressed, and the city puts starkly on display locally the causes of the Occupy movement's grievances nationwide.
New Haven was therefore primed for an occupation from the beginning, and ONH is able to persevere partially because of favorable local attitudes. It helps a great deal that ONH has thus far maintained the favor of the three major powers in the city that could have brought a similar havoc to that afforded America's other occupations. The mayor, police department, and owners | cheap swtor credits of the Green have all blessed ONH with either sympathy or indifference. Lacking a callous billionaire plutocrat mayor like New York, or a militarized, gas-canister-and-baton wielding riot police like Oakland, New Haven's encampment has been able to focus on what matters: building a movement and keeping the issues alive in the minds of the public.
The support has therefore been liberating. As they continued, and cities' patience with them dwindled, most other occupations were forced to prioritize survival over protest. In New Haven's frigid wintertime, survival is also foremost among the occupiers' goals, but the city's toleration has given ONH a great deal of freedom to plan and to act.
For ONH the difficulty now is to establish direction. Some have proposed working on mortgage foreclosure, conducting civil disobedience by occupying and maintaining foreclosed homes. The cold irony of the housing crisis that so many empty homes now coexist with so many desperate homeless suggests housing policy as a compelling target for protest. Others ONHers | swtor gold have proposed keeping the focus national, trying to work on potential laws and constitutional amendments that might rein in corporate power and ensure a dash more accountability and fairness in American economic relations.
Of course, there is no need for ONH to obey the supposed imperative to come together around a single issue or mode of action (a sadly near-universal media expectation partially caused by the original Occupy Wall Street organizers' foolish decision to orient the protests around a still-undecided "one demand"). Because a diversity of problems animate participants' passions, from joblessness to the machinations of the Federal Reserve to Citizens United, there was never destined to be a rigid central issue, and at its best the occupation operates as a springboard from which groups interested in attacking economic problems from a variety of standpoints can mobilize.
Still, diversity of tactics cannot mean a mess of tactics, and thankfully for ONH, New Haven's favorable political climate has a second advantage: there is a pre-existing jobs-and-justice movement in the community with which the occupation might unite. Spearheaded by local workers, a tremendous push for fairer citywide economic policies has been growing for some time, and this past November resulted in the election of a new slate of social justice-minded candidates to the Board of Aldermen. Now, vibrant debates over potential city jobs programs are occurring throughout New Haven, and there is serious possibility for enacting radical, creative new ideas through the city government.
The New Haven Occupiers therefore have good reason not to despair, even as the snows come down and the wisdom of wintertime tent-life begins to appear moderately questionable. The city is not only one of the most Occupier-permissive in the country, but is one of the places where an occupation might do the most good. Those dejected over the demise of America's brief, beautiful tent-cities can look to New Haven for a dose of restorative hope, and the Occupiers' enemies should grind their teeth knowing that the movement lives on as more than a mere idea, at least among the chilly New Haven bunch.
Forgiving Ron Paul (and All Other White People)
American Negroes have acquired, of necessity, some important skills. We who survived the 60's did so by mastering the art of not frightening white people. We can affect a disarmingly nervous laugh. We know about carrying a bouquet of flowers or tossing a Frisbee as ways of relaxing our melanin-deficient siblings. And we all know how to pretend we care about hockey. But of the skills we've acquired, none is handier than our expertise at forgiving white people for saying knuckleheaded, racially-insensitive | swtor credits stuff. Quiet as it's kept, however, if you want, you can take white people saying outrageous racial stuff as a thrilling sign of progress.
Without question ours is a kinder, gentler world than when I was born in the 1950's. For women, Negros, disabled people, children and small furry animals 2012 compared to 1950 ain't mere progress but is just barely the same planet. In 1950 Negroes were still being lynched in the United States but today we | buy swtor credits look back on not a single racist lynching since 1981. We are now so anti-lynching no one even suggest doing it to the president.
Back in 1950 a newsletter full of Negro insults would not have gotten you free Coke at the Ku Klux Klan church social; heck, in 1950 ten percent of Negroes wouldn't even have been able to read your screed. But in the amazing 2012, say Ron Paul's critics, it's a sin to have known, decades ago, that someone else had written something racially | cheap swtor credits offensive and done nothing about it back then! Tolerance of racism at sub-zero levels bespeaks a culture doing something right.
It is increasingly easy to forgive racism and racist speech since we know it is breathing its last, monochromatic breath. Malcolm X, the late senator Robert Byrd, even über-segregationist governor George Wallace, are among millions Americans, many of whom are black, who for a time held racist views and then recovered.
Senator Trent Lott waxed longing for a segregationist | swtor gold in the White House, late vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro said Obama was "lucky" to be a black politician. Bill Clinton said Obama only won the South Carolina primary because of his skin color. OK, maybe Clinton doesn't count since he was the first black president. But I don't hold against those folks stuff they really did say on TV so I'm certainly not bothered by what Ron Paul did not write in a newsletter.
Even if Ron Paul had written racist stuff in the 80's, it'd be easy to forgive it now because we can see that when it come to racism, everything is getting better. Why be mad at somebody today when you know that in a few years they'll probably be your comrade in celebrating the next leap forward for civil rights?
All things considered, I don't give two hoots and a holler what Ron Paul did not write thirty years ago. Now, it will peak my interest if you tell me thirty years ago he had a Jefferson-like affair with a black woman. And I'll really get excited if I hear that Ron Paul was sexually harassed by Herman Cain.
Without question ours is a kinder, gentler world than when I was born in the 1950's. For women, Negros, disabled people, children and small furry animals 2012 compared to 1950 ain't mere progress but is just barely the same planet. In 1950 Negroes were still being lynched in the United States but today we | buy swtor credits look back on not a single racist lynching since 1981. We are now so anti-lynching no one even suggest doing it to the president.
Back in 1950 a newsletter full of Negro insults would not have gotten you free Coke at the Ku Klux Klan church social; heck, in 1950 ten percent of Negroes wouldn't even have been able to read your screed. But in the amazing 2012, say Ron Paul's critics, it's a sin to have known, decades ago, that someone else had written something racially | cheap swtor credits offensive and done nothing about it back then! Tolerance of racism at sub-zero levels bespeaks a culture doing something right.
It is increasingly easy to forgive racism and racist speech since we know it is breathing its last, monochromatic breath. Malcolm X, the late senator Robert Byrd, even über-segregationist governor George Wallace, are among millions Americans, many of whom are black, who for a time held racist views and then recovered.
Senator Trent Lott waxed longing for a segregationist | swtor gold in the White House, late vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro said Obama was "lucky" to be a black politician. Bill Clinton said Obama only won the South Carolina primary because of his skin color. OK, maybe Clinton doesn't count since he was the first black president. But I don't hold against those folks stuff they really did say on TV so I'm certainly not bothered by what Ron Paul did not write in a newsletter.
Even if Ron Paul had written racist stuff in the 80's, it'd be easy to forgive it now because we can see that when it come to racism, everything is getting better. Why be mad at somebody today when you know that in a few years they'll probably be your comrade in celebrating the next leap forward for civil rights?
All things considered, I don't give two hoots and a holler what Ron Paul did not write thirty years ago. Now, it will peak my interest if you tell me thirty years ago he had a Jefferson-like affair with a black woman. And I'll really get excited if I hear that Ron Paul was sexually harassed by Herman Cain.
2011年12月29日星期四
Washington Can Work: Celebrating Twenty Years With Zero Nuclear Terrorism
As Washington antics undermine our confidence in government, it is instructive to think back 20 years to challenges a President and Congress faced in December, 1991. President George H. W. Bush was finishing the 3rd year of his first term, exhausted by the international avalanche that began shortly after he took office. First the Berlin Wall came down, the Warsaw Pact disintegrated, Saddam invaded Kuwait, and the President mobilized 500,000 American troops to lead a coalition to victory in Desert Storm. A year before he would stand for reelection, the U.S. economy was in recession and the Soviet Union was on the brink of collapse. President Bush and his key advisors wanted nothing more than to get | swtor credits out of town for a well-deserved vacation break.
On December 15, "Meet the Press" hosted the Secretary of Defense to ask what would happen to the nuclear weapons if the Soviet Union fell apart. He answered: "If the Soviets do an excellent job at retaining control over their stockpile of nuclear weapons and they are 99% successful, that would mean you could still have as many as 250 that they were not able to control."
That Secretary of Defense was Dick Cheney. The moderator followed up with a question about what the U.S. could do to affect these developments, Cheney responded: prepare for the consequences since he was unable to think of anything | buy swtor credits else. As he said, "Given the disintegration of their society, given the sad state of their economy, the only realistic thing for me to do as Secretary of Defense is to anticipate that one of the byproducts of the breakup of the Soviet Union will be the proliferation of nuclear weapons."
Faced with inaction by the Administration, two Senators -- a Democrat, Sam Nunn, and a Republican, Dick Lugar -- refused to stand by and let stuff happen. Instead, they invented the most significant national security initiative in the post-Cold War era. Nunn-Lugar legislation established and funded a program that gave U.S. Defense Department officials a direct role in shaping the post-Soviet | cheap swtor credits nuclear future. Over the past two decades, with strong bipartisan support, $20 billion American taxpayers' dollars have been invested in the most cost-effective expenditure in the defense budget.
Two decades after Cheney's forecast, how many nuclear weapons from the former Soviet superpower arsenal have proliferated to rogue states like Iran or terrorists like al Qaeda? Not the 250 Cheney predicted. Not 25. Miracle of miracles, not a single nuclear weapon has been discovered outside control of Russia's nuclear custodians.
On Christmas Day, 1991, the Soviet Union formally dissolved. The hammer and sickle that flew over the Kremlin came down for the last time. On the territory | swtor gold of the eleven-time zone expanse of the "Evil Empire," there emerged Russia and fourteen newly-independent states. In addition to Russia, three of these states had major strategic nuclear arsenals: Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus. Among them, they hosted 3,200 strategic nuclear warheads, most atop ICBMs aimed at targets in the United States. In the greatest nonproliferation success in history, each of these new nuclear states' arsenals were zeroed out. Today there are no nuclear weapons in any of these three countries.
In addition, the Soviet Union had deployed 14,000 tactical nuclear weapons across these 15 states, many of a size well-suited for terrorists. Over the years that followed, thanks primarily to the work of Russian nuclear custodians, but with significant help from the U.S. through Nunn-Lugar programs, all of these weapons were also zeroed out. Today none of these states have any nuclear weapons.
In a related program, "Megatons to Megawatts," most of these warheads have now been dismantled, their nuclear cores extracted, and the highly enriched uranium blended down to make fuel rods for civilian nuclear power plants. In the U.S. today, half of all the electricity generated by nuclear energy plants to light our homes is fueled by rods imported from the former Soviet nuclear weapons program. When this program is concluded in 2013, the equivalent of 20,000 nuclear warheads will have been burned up in American nuclear reactors.
On December 15, "Meet the Press" hosted the Secretary of Defense to ask what would happen to the nuclear weapons if the Soviet Union fell apart. He answered: "If the Soviets do an excellent job at retaining control over their stockpile of nuclear weapons and they are 99% successful, that would mean you could still have as many as 250 that they were not able to control."
That Secretary of Defense was Dick Cheney. The moderator followed up with a question about what the U.S. could do to affect these developments, Cheney responded: prepare for the consequences since he was unable to think of anything | buy swtor credits else. As he said, "Given the disintegration of their society, given the sad state of their economy, the only realistic thing for me to do as Secretary of Defense is to anticipate that one of the byproducts of the breakup of the Soviet Union will be the proliferation of nuclear weapons."
Faced with inaction by the Administration, two Senators -- a Democrat, Sam Nunn, and a Republican, Dick Lugar -- refused to stand by and let stuff happen. Instead, they invented the most significant national security initiative in the post-Cold War era. Nunn-Lugar legislation established and funded a program that gave U.S. Defense Department officials a direct role in shaping the post-Soviet | cheap swtor credits nuclear future. Over the past two decades, with strong bipartisan support, $20 billion American taxpayers' dollars have been invested in the most cost-effective expenditure in the defense budget.
Two decades after Cheney's forecast, how many nuclear weapons from the former Soviet superpower arsenal have proliferated to rogue states like Iran or terrorists like al Qaeda? Not the 250 Cheney predicted. Not 25. Miracle of miracles, not a single nuclear weapon has been discovered outside control of Russia's nuclear custodians.
On Christmas Day, 1991, the Soviet Union formally dissolved. The hammer and sickle that flew over the Kremlin came down for the last time. On the territory | swtor gold of the eleven-time zone expanse of the "Evil Empire," there emerged Russia and fourteen newly-independent states. In addition to Russia, three of these states had major strategic nuclear arsenals: Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus. Among them, they hosted 3,200 strategic nuclear warheads, most atop ICBMs aimed at targets in the United States. In the greatest nonproliferation success in history, each of these new nuclear states' arsenals were zeroed out. Today there are no nuclear weapons in any of these three countries.
In addition, the Soviet Union had deployed 14,000 tactical nuclear weapons across these 15 states, many of a size well-suited for terrorists. Over the years that followed, thanks primarily to the work of Russian nuclear custodians, but with significant help from the U.S. through Nunn-Lugar programs, all of these weapons were also zeroed out. Today none of these states have any nuclear weapons.
In a related program, "Megatons to Megawatts," most of these warheads have now been dismantled, their nuclear cores extracted, and the highly enriched uranium blended down to make fuel rods for civilian nuclear power plants. In the U.S. today, half of all the electricity generated by nuclear energy plants to light our homes is fueled by rods imported from the former Soviet nuclear weapons program. When this program is concluded in 2013, the equivalent of 20,000 nuclear warheads will have been burned up in American nuclear reactors.
San Diego Police Cite Marine Corps Vet for Carrying American Flag
SAN DIEGO -- The San Diego Police have cited Iraq war veteran Marine Lance Cpl. John Canter for carrying an American flag at Civic Center Plaza, home to the Occupy San Diego movement.
At approximately 9:40 p.m. on Dec. 22, Canter was cited under an obscure municipal code, section 53.30, which prohibits certain items at protests and other such events.
San Diego municipal code section 53.30 states: "No person shall carry or possess while participating in any demonstration, rally, picket line or public assembly any metal stake, club, or pipe, or any length of lumber, wood, or lath, unless that wooden | swtor credits object is 1/4'' or less in thickness. and 2" or less in width. If not generally rectangular in shape, such wooden object shall not exceed 1/2" in its thickest dimension."
In an interview with signonsandiego.com, San Diego Police Department assistant chief Boyd Long said officers could tell the flag pole was larger than regulations allowed.
"I don't know that it takes an expert to make a determination on what is or isn't thicker than one-half of an inch," Long said. "They got back to the station. They did measure it. It was three-quarters of an inch | buy swtor credits thick. So it is in violation."
Canter said he was in shock when they told him he couldn't carry the flag. "I have never in my life been told I couldn't carry an American flag. It's clear they were just looking for a reason to cite me specifically, as a veteran," Canter said.
Canter elaborated that many members of the Occupy San Diego movement appreciate the presence of veterans at the occupation of Civic Center Plaza and look to veterans of the community as a source of strength and pride. Canter, who served in the Al Anbar province of Iraq from April 2007 to November 2007, | cheap swtor credits is a regular at the plaza in his Marine Corps desert combat uniform.
"The cops saw this as a chance to say 'we're not afraid to go after a veteran,'" the young Marine said. "It was a chance for them to say 'we're in charge.'"
Following the incident, calls went out on the Occupy San Diego Facebook page for an impromptu rally to, as described by rally organizers, take the American flag back from SDPD.
At 4 p.m., Dec. 23, protestors from Occupy San Diego, Veterans for Peace and MoveOn.org rallied at the corners of 4th Avenue and B Street in downtown San Diego. Nearly all of the protestors, numbering | swtor gold more than 70, carried American flags on illegal sized poles while others draped the flag around their necks.
"I was really surprised by the number of people that came out for this," said Canter, who led the march. "We had already planned a rally in support of Occupy Egypt for later that evening but to see this many people come out for the flag was really inspiring."
Reflecting back on his time in Iraq, Canter said he and his fellow Marines often looked to the flag as a source of pride and something they could rally around.
"It's really important to me," he said of the American flag, "especially when you're away in a foreign country, to see the flag and be reminded of what America -- at least used to -- stand for."
Canter clarified that while the flag is being held under his name by the San Diego Police, it actually belongs to Occupy San Diego, having been given to the group as a gift.
After nearly an hour protesting at Civic Center plaza, protestors marched nearly five blocks to the San Diego Federal Courthouse for a solidarity rally in support of the Occupy Egypt movement.
Since the Occupy San Diego movement began in early October, nearly 139 protestors have been arrested. Charges have been brought against only 29 of those arrested.
At approximately 9:40 p.m. on Dec. 22, Canter was cited under an obscure municipal code, section 53.30, which prohibits certain items at protests and other such events.
San Diego municipal code section 53.30 states: "No person shall carry or possess while participating in any demonstration, rally, picket line or public assembly any metal stake, club, or pipe, or any length of lumber, wood, or lath, unless that wooden | swtor credits object is 1/4'' or less in thickness. and 2" or less in width. If not generally rectangular in shape, such wooden object shall not exceed 1/2" in its thickest dimension."
In an interview with signonsandiego.com, San Diego Police Department assistant chief Boyd Long said officers could tell the flag pole was larger than regulations allowed.
"I don't know that it takes an expert to make a determination on what is or isn't thicker than one-half of an inch," Long said. "They got back to the station. They did measure it. It was three-quarters of an inch | buy swtor credits thick. So it is in violation."
Canter said he was in shock when they told him he couldn't carry the flag. "I have never in my life been told I couldn't carry an American flag. It's clear they were just looking for a reason to cite me specifically, as a veteran," Canter said.
Canter elaborated that many members of the Occupy San Diego movement appreciate the presence of veterans at the occupation of Civic Center Plaza and look to veterans of the community as a source of strength and pride. Canter, who served in the Al Anbar province of Iraq from April 2007 to November 2007, | cheap swtor credits is a regular at the plaza in his Marine Corps desert combat uniform.
"The cops saw this as a chance to say 'we're not afraid to go after a veteran,'" the young Marine said. "It was a chance for them to say 'we're in charge.'"
Following the incident, calls went out on the Occupy San Diego Facebook page for an impromptu rally to, as described by rally organizers, take the American flag back from SDPD.
At 4 p.m., Dec. 23, protestors from Occupy San Diego, Veterans for Peace and MoveOn.org rallied at the corners of 4th Avenue and B Street in downtown San Diego. Nearly all of the protestors, numbering | swtor gold more than 70, carried American flags on illegal sized poles while others draped the flag around their necks.
"I was really surprised by the number of people that came out for this," said Canter, who led the march. "We had already planned a rally in support of Occupy Egypt for later that evening but to see this many people come out for the flag was really inspiring."
Reflecting back on his time in Iraq, Canter said he and his fellow Marines often looked to the flag as a source of pride and something they could rally around.
"It's really important to me," he said of the American flag, "especially when you're away in a foreign country, to see the flag and be reminded of what America -- at least used to -- stand for."
Canter clarified that while the flag is being held under his name by the San Diego Police, it actually belongs to Occupy San Diego, having been given to the group as a gift.
After nearly an hour protesting at Civic Center plaza, protestors marched nearly five blocks to the San Diego Federal Courthouse for a solidarity rally in support of the Occupy Egypt movement.
Since the Occupy San Diego movement began in early October, nearly 139 protestors have been arrested. Charges have been brought against only 29 of those arrested.
Dewey Defeats Truman: CNN Excludes Democrats and Independents From Iowa Caucus Poll
A recent CNN poll appears to run counter to recent polling showing Ron Paul leading the Iowa caucus. The CNN poll shows Mitt Romney in the lead, and neoconservative champion Rick Santorum rising. But the CNN poll excluded from its sample Democrats and independents: precisely the group of people whom previous polling showed giving Ron Paul the lead. Thus, in suggesting a Romney victory, CNN is repeating the same polling mistake that many believe helped cause the Chicago | swtor credits Tribune to falsely claim that Thomas Dewey had defeated Harry Truman: they are polling a skewed sample of the electorate.
Here are the numbers for the four top candidates from the CNN poll:
Romney 25%
Paul 22%
Santorum 16%
Gingrich 14%
CNN reports these results with the headlines, "Poll: Romney on top in Iowa," and "Stunning turnaround for Santorum in Iowa."
But, as Nate Silver notes at FiveThirtyEight, CNN | buy swtor credits only polled "using a list of registered Republican voters and registered Republicans only."
To present a poll of people limited to those currently registered as Republicans as predictive implies a belief that on caucus day, there will not be a significant group of people there who are not now registered as Republicans. (According to the rules, voters can register as Republicans at the caucus.)
But no one outside of CNN believes this. As | cheap swtor credits Silver noted, Public Policy Polling put the Democratic and independent share of the caucus electorate at 24%. The Washington Post put it at 18%. Public Policy Polling showed Paul beating Romney 39-12 among Democrats and independents. Of course, the key reason that these Democrats and independents are backing Paul is Paul's opposition to the wars. So, by excluding them from its sample, CNN is silencing antiwar voices -- nothing new there.
Suppose that Public Policy Polling | swtor gold was right about the composition of the electorate, and about the preferences of Democrats and independents. Let's see what happens to the CNN poll if you add the Democrats and independents back in.
Here are the numbers for the "adjusted" CNN poll:
Paul 26%
Romney 22%
Santorum 14%
Gingrich 14%
So, both of CNN's headlines in reporting its poll were substantially driven by CNN's decision to exclude Democrats and independents from their polling.
It's certainly true that in any event, the gap between Paul and Romney is not large relative to sampling error, regardless of the composition of the electorate; and it's certainly true that Santorum has risen and Gingrich has fallen relative to previous CNN polling.
Nonetheless, it remains true that the stories CNN told by their headlines were substantially driven by their decision to exclude Democrats and independents from their polling, and therefore, it remains true that the CNN headlines were substantially misleading.
Here are the numbers for the four top candidates from the CNN poll:
Romney 25%
Paul 22%
Santorum 16%
Gingrich 14%
CNN reports these results with the headlines, "Poll: Romney on top in Iowa," and "Stunning turnaround for Santorum in Iowa."
But, as Nate Silver notes at FiveThirtyEight, CNN | buy swtor credits only polled "using a list of registered Republican voters and registered Republicans only."
To present a poll of people limited to those currently registered as Republicans as predictive implies a belief that on caucus day, there will not be a significant group of people there who are not now registered as Republicans. (According to the rules, voters can register as Republicans at the caucus.)
But no one outside of CNN believes this. As | cheap swtor credits Silver noted, Public Policy Polling put the Democratic and independent share of the caucus electorate at 24%. The Washington Post put it at 18%. Public Policy Polling showed Paul beating Romney 39-12 among Democrats and independents. Of course, the key reason that these Democrats and independents are backing Paul is Paul's opposition to the wars. So, by excluding them from its sample, CNN is silencing antiwar voices -- nothing new there.
Suppose that Public Policy Polling | swtor gold was right about the composition of the electorate, and about the preferences of Democrats and independents. Let's see what happens to the CNN poll if you add the Democrats and independents back in.
Here are the numbers for the "adjusted" CNN poll:
Paul 26%
Romney 22%
Santorum 14%
Gingrich 14%
So, both of CNN's headlines in reporting its poll were substantially driven by CNN's decision to exclude Democrats and independents from their polling.
It's certainly true that in any event, the gap between Paul and Romney is not large relative to sampling error, regardless of the composition of the electorate; and it's certainly true that Santorum has risen and Gingrich has fallen relative to previous CNN polling.
Nonetheless, it remains true that the stories CNN told by their headlines were substantially driven by their decision to exclude Democrats and independents from their polling, and therefore, it remains true that the CNN headlines were substantially misleading.
2011年12月28日星期三
Cardinal George and the KKK: Religious Extremists Live in the Midwest, Too
Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago, is not the only person hiding prejudice in the heavy robes of religion, but he is a powerful leader in the Catholic Church, and therefore his words have more meaning and power than your average street preacher or member of the church choir.
In comparing the LGBT community to the Ku Klux Klan -- in his remarks about the potential disruption and inconvenience of the new Pride Parade route and start time -- Cardinal George has gone too far, and he should graciously | swtor credits apologize and step down from his post.
Dozens of local and national leaders and groups have spoken out against George, and some, too, are calling for him to step down. At the very least, they are asking for an apology.
Other religious facilities have long endured the Pride Parade passing their doors on Pride Sunday, with no "anti-religious" problems reported in four decades. In fact, religious groups, including gay Catholics, have been a part of Pride | buy swtor credits almost since it began. Ironically, the KKK did march against the Pride Parade in its early years, and many spiritual people helped counter their presence.
But Cardinal George could not let the parade pass by his Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church on Belmont Avenue. He fought back, and did so using a vile comparison to the KKK. The Parade will still pass by the church, just at a later time. The change in time really is not what upset most LGBT people; rather, it was what George | cheap swtor credits said about the KKK. He told FOX News Chicago: "You don't want the gay liberation movement to morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan, demonstrating in the streets against Catholicism."
At this point, an apology is not enough. George has proven that he is out of touch with the progress of the LGBT movement in this city and country, and he should pass the torch to a new generation of Catholic leadership. Like Joseph Cardinal Bernardin before him, George has tried to use the church's power to keep back | swtor gold civil rights; Bernardin lobbied against Chicago's gay-rights bill in the 1980s, and George has spoken out against gay civil unions and women's rights.
The fact is that while many people seek out religion as a safe haven, where they can do good work to help their neighbors, often church leadership seeks to divide rather than bring people together. Given that this was Christmas season, George's remarks stung particularly hard. Enough is enough, and George should not be allowed to take this hateful approach and still be a leader in his church.
What is most upsetting when religious leaders speak out, and even lobby, against laws that protect LGBT people is that they do so on an uneven playing field. Most are wealthy beyond our imagination, own properties on valuable land, and yet they pay few, if any, taxes. This not only makes it more difficult to fund our schools, police and fire departments, and other public services, but it also places a heavier burden on every other citizen, religious or not. They get to have their free speech cake and not pay taxes, too.
In comparing the LGBT community to the Ku Klux Klan -- in his remarks about the potential disruption and inconvenience of the new Pride Parade route and start time -- Cardinal George has gone too far, and he should graciously | swtor credits apologize and step down from his post.
Dozens of local and national leaders and groups have spoken out against George, and some, too, are calling for him to step down. At the very least, they are asking for an apology.
Other religious facilities have long endured the Pride Parade passing their doors on Pride Sunday, with no "anti-religious" problems reported in four decades. In fact, religious groups, including gay Catholics, have been a part of Pride | buy swtor credits almost since it began. Ironically, the KKK did march against the Pride Parade in its early years, and many spiritual people helped counter their presence.
But Cardinal George could not let the parade pass by his Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church on Belmont Avenue. He fought back, and did so using a vile comparison to the KKK. The Parade will still pass by the church, just at a later time. The change in time really is not what upset most LGBT people; rather, it was what George | cheap swtor credits said about the KKK. He told FOX News Chicago: "You don't want the gay liberation movement to morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan, demonstrating in the streets against Catholicism."
At this point, an apology is not enough. George has proven that he is out of touch with the progress of the LGBT movement in this city and country, and he should pass the torch to a new generation of Catholic leadership. Like Joseph Cardinal Bernardin before him, George has tried to use the church's power to keep back | swtor gold civil rights; Bernardin lobbied against Chicago's gay-rights bill in the 1980s, and George has spoken out against gay civil unions and women's rights.
The fact is that while many people seek out religion as a safe haven, where they can do good work to help their neighbors, often church leadership seeks to divide rather than bring people together. Given that this was Christmas season, George's remarks stung particularly hard. Enough is enough, and George should not be allowed to take this hateful approach and still be a leader in his church.
What is most upsetting when religious leaders speak out, and even lobby, against laws that protect LGBT people is that they do so on an uneven playing field. Most are wealthy beyond our imagination, own properties on valuable land, and yet they pay few, if any, taxes. This not only makes it more difficult to fund our schools, police and fire departments, and other public services, but it also places a heavier burden on every other citizen, religious or not. They get to have their free speech cake and not pay taxes, too.
One American's Pretentious Resolutions for a Decisive New Year
The New Year of 2012, a general election year, will be a year when the fortunes of political parties and politicians will rise and fall; it will be a year of unprecedented social and ideological confrontation; most important, it will be a year when "we the people" once again have the opportunity -- the obligation -- to make necessary adjustments or corrections to the course of our society, our nation, even the world.
Call me pretentious, presumptuous or both, but I hope to influence such course corrections -- even if it is in a minuscule way -- through my actions, | swtor credits my writings and my vote. To that end I make the following New Year's resolutions:
• I will do my best to live by our traditional "American Values," but I will not allow those Values to be used as a tool to deny others their inalienable rights.
• I will help make our nation safe from terrorist or foreign threats or attacks, but I will not tolerate the use of national security as a justification for denying our own citizens their Constitutional rights or for depriving others of their basic human rights and dignity.
• | buy swtor credits I will not accuse those who legitimately feel that military force must be used of being warmongers, but neither will I condone the use of "un-American," "unpatriotic" or similar labels to vilify those who in good conscience oppose military action.
• I will dismiss out of hand accusations that not supporting a military action implies not "supporting the troops." On the other hand, I will insist that when we must send our troops into harm's way, we truly support them by providing them with the best protection and equipment | cheap swtor credits on the battlefield and the best care, honor and gratitude when they return home.
• I will support strengthening our borders and enforcing our immigration laws, while opposing any efforts to massively uproot millions of law-abiding families and the persecution of undocumented aliens based solely on racial profiling.
• I will continue to hope for a quick economic recovery, but I will spurn those who would obstruct or forestall such a recovery for political opportunism.
• I will acknowledge that people can express disapproval of or feel uncomfortable | swtor gold around those of a different sexual orientation, but I will not condone demonizing, ostracizing and legislating against gays and lesbians.
• Similarly, I understand that many Americans oppose abortion on religious or moral grounds, but I will also recognize that some women resort to such a procedure under certain circumstances.
• I will continue to proudly proclaim that America is the greatest country in the world, but I will not approve the use of our good fortunes to deride or denigrate other countries, societies, religions or customs.
• I agree with those who say that discrimination in America has decreased, but I maintain that we still have work to do and I will certainly call out bigotry when and where I see it.
• I am also grateful that poverty in America has diminished, but I will not turn a blind eye to the poverty and misery that still exist in the greatest country in the world, nor will I permit political, racial or work ethics labels to be attached to or associated with such conditions.
• I will expect that those politicians who tout family values truly live up to those values and not merely use them as conveniently timed political epiphanies.
Call me pretentious, presumptuous or both, but I hope to influence such course corrections -- even if it is in a minuscule way -- through my actions, | swtor credits my writings and my vote. To that end I make the following New Year's resolutions:
• I will do my best to live by our traditional "American Values," but I will not allow those Values to be used as a tool to deny others their inalienable rights.
• I will help make our nation safe from terrorist or foreign threats or attacks, but I will not tolerate the use of national security as a justification for denying our own citizens their Constitutional rights or for depriving others of their basic human rights and dignity.
• | buy swtor credits I will not accuse those who legitimately feel that military force must be used of being warmongers, but neither will I condone the use of "un-American," "unpatriotic" or similar labels to vilify those who in good conscience oppose military action.
• I will dismiss out of hand accusations that not supporting a military action implies not "supporting the troops." On the other hand, I will insist that when we must send our troops into harm's way, we truly support them by providing them with the best protection and equipment | cheap swtor credits on the battlefield and the best care, honor and gratitude when they return home.
• I will support strengthening our borders and enforcing our immigration laws, while opposing any efforts to massively uproot millions of law-abiding families and the persecution of undocumented aliens based solely on racial profiling.
• I will continue to hope for a quick economic recovery, but I will spurn those who would obstruct or forestall such a recovery for political opportunism.
• I will acknowledge that people can express disapproval of or feel uncomfortable | swtor gold around those of a different sexual orientation, but I will not condone demonizing, ostracizing and legislating against gays and lesbians.
• Similarly, I understand that many Americans oppose abortion on religious or moral grounds, but I will also recognize that some women resort to such a procedure under certain circumstances.
• I will continue to proudly proclaim that America is the greatest country in the world, but I will not approve the use of our good fortunes to deride or denigrate other countries, societies, religions or customs.
• I agree with those who say that discrimination in America has decreased, but I maintain that we still have work to do and I will certainly call out bigotry when and where I see it.
• I am also grateful that poverty in America has diminished, but I will not turn a blind eye to the poverty and misery that still exist in the greatest country in the world, nor will I permit political, racial or work ethics labels to be attached to or associated with such conditions.
• I will expect that those politicians who tout family values truly live up to those values and not merely use them as conveniently timed political epiphanies.
America Gets "D" on 2011 Report Card
As the year ends, students at Harvard University release a 2011 "report card" on America. The result -- you can probably guess -- is just short of harrowing.
Published by the Harvard Political | swtor credits Review, the premier undergraduate political rag on campus, and the American Education Foundation, "The Annual Report of the USA 2011" is a 70-plus-page | buy swtor credits tome, which analyzes the real state of the U.S. economy over the course of the past year. Written by Democrats and Republicans alike, the report seeks to be nonpartisan, | cheap swtor credits clear, and most of all, understandable to an average citizen.
So how does America score this year? The U.S. gets a "D." Yikes. Now that's a report card I'd flush down the toilet before | swtor gold my mother saw. The reason for the low score includes the downgrade of American credit in August, a sluggish economy, the intractable U.S. debt problem and -- most of all -- the incessant political bickering which ensured that none of these problems were adequately addressed. While the grade "may seem harsh" -- especially given the economic crisis many European countries face -- they didn't "grade on a curve." A first for Harvard students.
Published by the Harvard Political | swtor credits Review, the premier undergraduate political rag on campus, and the American Education Foundation, "The Annual Report of the USA 2011" is a 70-plus-page | buy swtor credits tome, which analyzes the real state of the U.S. economy over the course of the past year. Written by Democrats and Republicans alike, the report seeks to be nonpartisan, | cheap swtor credits clear, and most of all, understandable to an average citizen.
So how does America score this year? The U.S. gets a "D." Yikes. Now that's a report card I'd flush down the toilet before | swtor gold my mother saw. The reason for the low score includes the downgrade of American credit in August, a sluggish economy, the intractable U.S. debt problem and -- most of all -- the incessant political bickering which ensured that none of these problems were adequately addressed. While the grade "may seem harsh" -- especially given the economic crisis many European countries face -- they didn't "grade on a curve." A first for Harvard students.
2011年12月27日星期二
The Coming Accidental War with Iran
Our attention has been rightfully turned to the stomach-churning photos of women being dragged by the hair through the streets of Egypt and Bahrain, and reports of yet more deaths in Syria. As this year ends however, it is worth noting with a bit of apprehension that Iran has been relatively | swtor credits quiet compared to its neighbors. In fact, when John Dudin of the New York Council on Foreign Relations reviewed the ten most significant developments in the Middle East in 2011 Iran did not make the list at all--even after the downing of the US | buy swtor credits drone earlier this month. Either things are improving and we are learning to better deal with Iran, or this is merely a pause in a decades-long estrangement which could turn violent, providing a shock to the global economy it might not be able to withstand.
War | cheap swtor credits with Iran would mean the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, where the Iranian Navy began ten days of war games to practice doing just that on December 24th. At least 30% of all seaborne oil shipments pass through this chokepoint. Oil prices have been rising on the strength of the maneuvers | swtor gold alone: an actual blockade would double the price of oil overnight.
Now that America's withdrawal from Iraq has been formalized, and Osama bin Laden, Hosni Mubarak, Muammar Gaddafi, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and Zine el Abidine Ben Ali have all been vanquished, after a year of unbelievable changes throughout the Middle East, my prediction is that Iran is about to regain center stage in the region. As a result of the US withdrawal, Iraq could be prone to more violence, and the Iranian leadership must certainly have taken note that none of the toppled leaders, including Sadam Hussein, possessed formal nuclear capabilities.
War | cheap swtor credits with Iran would mean the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, where the Iranian Navy began ten days of war games to practice doing just that on December 24th. At least 30% of all seaborne oil shipments pass through this chokepoint. Oil prices have been rising on the strength of the maneuvers | swtor gold alone: an actual blockade would double the price of oil overnight.
Now that America's withdrawal from Iraq has been formalized, and Osama bin Laden, Hosni Mubarak, Muammar Gaddafi, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and Zine el Abidine Ben Ali have all been vanquished, after a year of unbelievable changes throughout the Middle East, my prediction is that Iran is about to regain center stage in the region. As a result of the US withdrawal, Iraq could be prone to more violence, and the Iranian leadership must certainly have taken note that none of the toppled leaders, including Sadam Hussein, possessed formal nuclear capabilities.
Republicans Try to Convert America Into Pottersville
In the iconic Christmas film, It's a Wonderful Life, an angel offers the beleaguered main character, George Bailey, the stark choice between a hometown named for a cruel banker or one created by and for the middle class.
The banker's town, Pottersville, is filled with bars, gambling dens and despair. The people's town of Bedford Falls is made of hope, hard working middle class families, and their homes financed by the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan.
The film's happy ending is the people of Bedford Falls banding together to rescue George Bailey and the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan that had given so many of them a leg up over the years. Republicans seek a different conclusion. They find middle class cooperation and community intolerable. They want the banker, Henry Potter, with his "every man for himself" philosophy to triumph. In the | swtor credits spirit of their self-centered mentor Ayn Rand, Republicans are trying to disfigure America so she resembles Pottersville.
A building and loan association, like the Bailey Brothers', uses the savings of its members to provide mortgages to the depositors. Members essentially pool their money to give each other the opportunity to buy cars and homes. At one point in the film, George Bailey explains this concept to frightened depositors who are trying to withdraw their savings during the panic that led to bank runs in 1929.
Bailey urges the townspeople who had crowded into the building and loan office to withdraw only what they need, not empty their accounts. "We have got to stick together," he tells them, "We have to do this together." A building and loan doesn't function without trust and cooperation.
It | buy swtor credits works well for Bedford Falls. The mortgages it provides help working people move out of the Potters Field slums and into Bailey Park, where homes well kept by their owners increase in value. Despite the success, Potter condemned this practice, saying it was based on "high ideals without common sense." He criticized the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan for granting a taxi driver a mortgage after Potter's bank had rejected his application. Potter scoffed at such practices, asking if the building and loan was a "business or a charity ward."
This is exactly what Republicans do. They describe beloved American programs like Medicare and Social Security as charities -- using the euphemism "entitlements." Like mortgages from the Bailey Building & Loan, Medicare and Social Security are not charities. They're | cheap swtor credits the American people depositing and pooling their money for the benefit of the American community.
The GOP tries to destroy programs like these that aid the middle class, the vast majority of Americans -- the 99 percent -- while Republicans protect tax breaks and special perks for the rich -- the one percent, the Henry Potters.
This time last year, Republicans demanded extension of tax breaks for the 1 percent, contending tax breaks stimulate the economy.
For the past three months, however, Republicans have fought extension of payroll tax cuts, contending a break benefiting 160 million middle class Americans did not stimulate the economy.
All year, Republicans have demanded an end to programs the middle class created to aid the majority, the 99 percent. The GOP wants to reverse the new banking regulations that were passed in | swtor gold an attempt to prevent another economic collapse caused by risky Wall Street practices. The GOP tried to to rescind the healthcare reform law that prevents insurance companies from terminating coverage when beneficiaries get sick and prohibits the practice of refusing coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.
Influential Republicans this year have called for repealing laws forbidding child labor, laws guaranteeing minimum wage and laws protecting the environment. They've demanded elimination of federal funding for organizations like the Public Broadcasting System that educates preschoolers, Head Start, which provides opportunity to poor children, and Planned Parenthood, which uses 97 percent of its funds to provide general, obstetrical and gynecological medical care to women, many of whom are rural and poor.
Republicans have decided to be the party of Henry Potter, the "meanest man in the county," a man about whom George Bailey's father said: "he's a sick man, frustrated. Sick in his mind, sick in his soul, if he has one."
Like Potter, Republicans deride compassion and community as character defects.
In the Republican world, where greed is good, it was appropriate for Henry Potter to keep the $8,000 in Bailey Building & Loan money that George Bailey's uncle, Billy Bailey, accidentally handed him.
Republicans are attempting to impose that selfish belief system on the selfless American people, people like the citizens of Bedford Falls who rush to the rescue of neighbors.
It won't work, just like it didn't in It's a Wonderful Life. Republicans will fail in their attempt to make America Pottersville because the 99 percent believe avarice is a sin, not a value. The GOP will fail because greed is not the American way.
The banker's town, Pottersville, is filled with bars, gambling dens and despair. The people's town of Bedford Falls is made of hope, hard working middle class families, and their homes financed by the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan.
The film's happy ending is the people of Bedford Falls banding together to rescue George Bailey and the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan that had given so many of them a leg up over the years. Republicans seek a different conclusion. They find middle class cooperation and community intolerable. They want the banker, Henry Potter, with his "every man for himself" philosophy to triumph. In the | swtor credits spirit of their self-centered mentor Ayn Rand, Republicans are trying to disfigure America so she resembles Pottersville.
A building and loan association, like the Bailey Brothers', uses the savings of its members to provide mortgages to the depositors. Members essentially pool their money to give each other the opportunity to buy cars and homes. At one point in the film, George Bailey explains this concept to frightened depositors who are trying to withdraw their savings during the panic that led to bank runs in 1929.
Bailey urges the townspeople who had crowded into the building and loan office to withdraw only what they need, not empty their accounts. "We have got to stick together," he tells them, "We have to do this together." A building and loan doesn't function without trust and cooperation.
It | buy swtor credits works well for Bedford Falls. The mortgages it provides help working people move out of the Potters Field slums and into Bailey Park, where homes well kept by their owners increase in value. Despite the success, Potter condemned this practice, saying it was based on "high ideals without common sense." He criticized the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan for granting a taxi driver a mortgage after Potter's bank had rejected his application. Potter scoffed at such practices, asking if the building and loan was a "business or a charity ward."
This is exactly what Republicans do. They describe beloved American programs like Medicare and Social Security as charities -- using the euphemism "entitlements." Like mortgages from the Bailey Building & Loan, Medicare and Social Security are not charities. They're | cheap swtor credits the American people depositing and pooling their money for the benefit of the American community.
The GOP tries to destroy programs like these that aid the middle class, the vast majority of Americans -- the 99 percent -- while Republicans protect tax breaks and special perks for the rich -- the one percent, the Henry Potters.
This time last year, Republicans demanded extension of tax breaks for the 1 percent, contending tax breaks stimulate the economy.
For the past three months, however, Republicans have fought extension of payroll tax cuts, contending a break benefiting 160 million middle class Americans did not stimulate the economy.
All year, Republicans have demanded an end to programs the middle class created to aid the majority, the 99 percent. The GOP wants to reverse the new banking regulations that were passed in | swtor gold an attempt to prevent another economic collapse caused by risky Wall Street practices. The GOP tried to to rescind the healthcare reform law that prevents insurance companies from terminating coverage when beneficiaries get sick and prohibits the practice of refusing coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.
Influential Republicans this year have called for repealing laws forbidding child labor, laws guaranteeing minimum wage and laws protecting the environment. They've demanded elimination of federal funding for organizations like the Public Broadcasting System that educates preschoolers, Head Start, which provides opportunity to poor children, and Planned Parenthood, which uses 97 percent of its funds to provide general, obstetrical and gynecological medical care to women, many of whom are rural and poor.
Republicans have decided to be the party of Henry Potter, the "meanest man in the county," a man about whom George Bailey's father said: "he's a sick man, frustrated. Sick in his mind, sick in his soul, if he has one."
Like Potter, Republicans deride compassion and community as character defects.
In the Republican world, where greed is good, it was appropriate for Henry Potter to keep the $8,000 in Bailey Building & Loan money that George Bailey's uncle, Billy Bailey, accidentally handed him.
Republicans are attempting to impose that selfish belief system on the selfless American people, people like the citizens of Bedford Falls who rush to the rescue of neighbors.
It won't work, just like it didn't in It's a Wonderful Life. Republicans will fail in their attempt to make America Pottersville because the 99 percent believe avarice is a sin, not a value. The GOP will fail because greed is not the American way.
Wisconsin Recall Opponents: Barking Up the Wrong Fruit
You've been hearing that a lot lately here in the Badger State. A half-million petition signatures in a matter of weeks can do that -- make certain folks just a little tetchy, I mean. Hypersensitive.
Call it Recall Reaction Syndrome.
You get a recall campaign up and running against some prominent state official -- a recently elected governor, say (in Wisconsin, say) -- and his defenders start complaining that you're nothing but a "sore loser." You want a "do-over."
It's "sour grapes!" | swtor credits they cry.
No it's not. In fact, they're barking up the wrong fruit!
Don't think grapes -- think lemons. Think: the Lemon Law!
You know the Lemon Law, don't you? Lots of states have them, to protect consumers from getting ripped off when they make a big purchase that goes really bad.
You buy a new car, say, and you sign on the dotted line and you drive it off the dealer's lot all bright and shiny, and before long everything's going | buy swtor credits wrong with it. We're not talking little pings here; we're talking major problems. You try to get it fixed -- you take it into the shop two, three, four times -- but it keeps breaking down on you. Whatever goes wrong stays wrong.
Are you stuck with that rotten new car? Of course not! Under those Lemon Laws, you're protected. This new car of yours wasn't anything like what it was supposed to be. It didn't work anything like it was supposed to work. So you can | cheap swtor credits drag it back to the dealer and get yourself a different one.
Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? Nobody deserves to get ripped off like that. They've put you through all sorts of grief -- but there's a way to make it come out OK.
Now, let's say you bought a shiny new governor -- a Scott Walker, say, the 2011 model Scott Walker -- and you barely drive it off the lot before it starts going haywire.
The steering isn't stable -- it keeps lurching to the right! It's belching smoke -- | swtor gold it's belching such thick smoke that half the time, you can't even see what it's doing!
That's not all, though. The gas pedal on the 2011 Scott Walker sticks to the floor, and the brakes are shot. It runs right over people! Teachers! State workers! All sorts of people -- just knocks 'em flat and keeps right on rolling! It's as if speed limits and "Stop" signs aren't even there!
Well, nobody expects you to keep driving a disaster like that, do they? That would be ridiculous. And worse than ridiculous -- that would be really dangerous! Of course you take it back to the dealership. Of course you get yourself a new one. Something reliable. Something that isn't always trying to crash right through the guard rails and run right off the road.
When the car dealership sells you a clunker, you're allowed to send it back -- that's the Lemon Law.
And here in Wisconsin, when your governor turns out to be a clunker, you're allowed to send him back, too -- that's a recall.
Just think of it as a Consumer Protection Plan for voters.
Call it Recall Reaction Syndrome.
You get a recall campaign up and running against some prominent state official -- a recently elected governor, say (in Wisconsin, say) -- and his defenders start complaining that you're nothing but a "sore loser." You want a "do-over."
It's "sour grapes!" | swtor credits they cry.
No it's not. In fact, they're barking up the wrong fruit!
Don't think grapes -- think lemons. Think: the Lemon Law!
You know the Lemon Law, don't you? Lots of states have them, to protect consumers from getting ripped off when they make a big purchase that goes really bad.
You buy a new car, say, and you sign on the dotted line and you drive it off the dealer's lot all bright and shiny, and before long everything's going | buy swtor credits wrong with it. We're not talking little pings here; we're talking major problems. You try to get it fixed -- you take it into the shop two, three, four times -- but it keeps breaking down on you. Whatever goes wrong stays wrong.
Are you stuck with that rotten new car? Of course not! Under those Lemon Laws, you're protected. This new car of yours wasn't anything like what it was supposed to be. It didn't work anything like it was supposed to work. So you can | cheap swtor credits drag it back to the dealer and get yourself a different one.
Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? Nobody deserves to get ripped off like that. They've put you through all sorts of grief -- but there's a way to make it come out OK.
Now, let's say you bought a shiny new governor -- a Scott Walker, say, the 2011 model Scott Walker -- and you barely drive it off the lot before it starts going haywire.
The steering isn't stable -- it keeps lurching to the right! It's belching smoke -- | swtor gold it's belching such thick smoke that half the time, you can't even see what it's doing!
That's not all, though. The gas pedal on the 2011 Scott Walker sticks to the floor, and the brakes are shot. It runs right over people! Teachers! State workers! All sorts of people -- just knocks 'em flat and keeps right on rolling! It's as if speed limits and "Stop" signs aren't even there!
Well, nobody expects you to keep driving a disaster like that, do they? That would be ridiculous. And worse than ridiculous -- that would be really dangerous! Of course you take it back to the dealership. Of course you get yourself a new one. Something reliable. Something that isn't always trying to crash right through the guard rails and run right off the road.
When the car dealership sells you a clunker, you're allowed to send it back -- that's the Lemon Law.
And here in Wisconsin, when your governor turns out to be a clunker, you're allowed to send him back, too -- that's a recall.
Just think of it as a Consumer Protection Plan for voters.
2011年12月19日星期一
Pro-Israel Republicans and Ron Paul: Lip Service Only
What if you knew that your community would be rocked by an earthquake in two weeks -- would you try to do something to warn people to take precautions? What if The New York Times and others were reporting that the earthquake was coming -- but the only people who could really do something were only paying lip service?
The earthquake is political, and it will rock the Republican Party on January 3rd when Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) comes in first or places highly in the Iowa caucus. Public Policy Polling now places Paul clearly in the lead. Don't like that poll's methodology? The Times' Iowa forecast places him first too. Catching a trend?
So what's my beef with Paul winning in Iowa? Well wow gold there's the fact that the newsletters bearing his name have been filled with racism and bigotry for years and years -- along with his continuous engagement in almost comedic conspiracy theories and horrific 9/11 "Truthers" (who blame the U.S. for the 9/11 attack). But I'd like to focus on just one disturbing area among many: his wrongheaded views about Israel and the Middle East. Pro-Israel Republicans -- the ones who can actually do something about Paul -- like to talk about how wrong he is, but they are loath to actually put their money where their mouths are.
What has Paul done, exactly? Paul willingly appeared on Iranian government television to runescape gold slam U.S. support for Israel. His newsletter has been obsessed with Israel for years in its ridiculous conspiracy theories (among other conspiracy theories, bigotry and racism). His debate appearances have allowed him to consistently rail against the U.S.-Israel relationship. Whether he's answering questions nobody quite asked with responses like, "Why do we have this automatic commitment that we're going to send our kids and send our money endlessly to Israel?" or repeating his call to end foreign aid to Israel, or even trying to empathize with Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, Paul has clearly brought his dangerous views into the national limelight.
As we've buy wow gold said for years, his congressional record is miserable, but I think I can stop here; after all, my contention that Paul is toxic for the U.S.-Israel relationship is stipulated broadly by the pro-Israel community, from left to right. He's not progressive or misunderstood, he's wrong. The GOP and Jewish Republicans agree; that's what they themselves said when they didn't invite him to their presidential soiree recently, citing his "misguided and extreme views."
So what are Jewish Republicans to do now that he's on the verge of a major primary victory? So far, they've paid lip service aplenty! They've tweeted, they've issued a release, and they even said he couldn't come to their party. cheap wow gold But there's still plenty left for them to do.
Beyond the broad bipartisan pro-Israel consensus, each party has its outliers; so here's a case study of what NJDC did in 2010 that may give my Republican friends some ideas.
In Los Angeles, staunchly pro-Israel Democratic Representative Jane Harman faced a primary challenge this past election cycle by a candidate whom we felt was not pro-Israel because she had repeatedly supported a one-state solution -- meaning the end of the State of Israel. Making matters worse, she threw a dual-loyalty charge at Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) -- the dean of the Jewish congressional delegation. In this Democratic race, which received plenty of national world of warcraft gold attention, we felt that every person who cared about Israel in the district needed to know where the candidates stood. We directly contacted everyone we could in the Los Angeles area -- all Democrats -- to help educate them with information about who was running, inform them about what was at stake, and ask them to take action by contacting Winograd with their concerns. We engaged in an issue advocacy campaign. We did this all within our own party. And this was just for one congressional primary -- one where we honestly did not expect Winograd to perform well.
Paul is anything but pro-Israel and he's a presidential frontrunner. In two weeks, he'll either come in first or place highly in Iowa. The time has come for those in the GOP who really care about the U.S.-Israel relationship to stop just paying lip service and start doing a bit of work in their own party. The Republican National Committee and Jewish Republicans need to pivot quickly from rhetoric to an education campaign in Iowa to ensure that Republican voters who care about the U.S.-Israel relationship understand where Paul stands on Israel. In the case of Jewish Republicans, perhaps they could spend just a small fraction of the reported $5 million they're slated to spend next year to ensure that Iowans know the truth about this essential issue, where Paul stands on the U.S.-Israel relationship -- an issue that the RNC and Jewish Republicans alike say is essential to them too.
The earthquake is political, and it will rock the Republican Party on January 3rd when Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) comes in first or places highly in the Iowa caucus. Public Policy Polling now places Paul clearly in the lead. Don't like that poll's methodology? The Times' Iowa forecast places him first too. Catching a trend?
So what's my beef with Paul winning in Iowa? Well wow gold there's the fact that the newsletters bearing his name have been filled with racism and bigotry for years and years -- along with his continuous engagement in almost comedic conspiracy theories and horrific 9/11 "Truthers" (who blame the U.S. for the 9/11 attack). But I'd like to focus on just one disturbing area among many: his wrongheaded views about Israel and the Middle East. Pro-Israel Republicans -- the ones who can actually do something about Paul -- like to talk about how wrong he is, but they are loath to actually put their money where their mouths are.
What has Paul done, exactly? Paul willingly appeared on Iranian government television to runescape gold slam U.S. support for Israel. His newsletter has been obsessed with Israel for years in its ridiculous conspiracy theories (among other conspiracy theories, bigotry and racism). His debate appearances have allowed him to consistently rail against the U.S.-Israel relationship. Whether he's answering questions nobody quite asked with responses like, "Why do we have this automatic commitment that we're going to send our kids and send our money endlessly to Israel?" or repeating his call to end foreign aid to Israel, or even trying to empathize with Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, Paul has clearly brought his dangerous views into the national limelight.
As we've buy wow gold said for years, his congressional record is miserable, but I think I can stop here; after all, my contention that Paul is toxic for the U.S.-Israel relationship is stipulated broadly by the pro-Israel community, from left to right. He's not progressive or misunderstood, he's wrong. The GOP and Jewish Republicans agree; that's what they themselves said when they didn't invite him to their presidential soiree recently, citing his "misguided and extreme views."
So what are Jewish Republicans to do now that he's on the verge of a major primary victory? So far, they've paid lip service aplenty! They've tweeted, they've issued a release, and they even said he couldn't come to their party. cheap wow gold But there's still plenty left for them to do.
Beyond the broad bipartisan pro-Israel consensus, each party has its outliers; so here's a case study of what NJDC did in 2010 that may give my Republican friends some ideas.
In Los Angeles, staunchly pro-Israel Democratic Representative Jane Harman faced a primary challenge this past election cycle by a candidate whom we felt was not pro-Israel because she had repeatedly supported a one-state solution -- meaning the end of the State of Israel. Making matters worse, she threw a dual-loyalty charge at Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) -- the dean of the Jewish congressional delegation. In this Democratic race, which received plenty of national world of warcraft gold attention, we felt that every person who cared about Israel in the district needed to know where the candidates stood. We directly contacted everyone we could in the Los Angeles area -- all Democrats -- to help educate them with information about who was running, inform them about what was at stake, and ask them to take action by contacting Winograd with their concerns. We engaged in an issue advocacy campaign. We did this all within our own party. And this was just for one congressional primary -- one where we honestly did not expect Winograd to perform well.
Paul is anything but pro-Israel and he's a presidential frontrunner. In two weeks, he'll either come in first or place highly in Iowa. The time has come for those in the GOP who really care about the U.S.-Israel relationship to stop just paying lip service and start doing a bit of work in their own party. The Republican National Committee and Jewish Republicans need to pivot quickly from rhetoric to an education campaign in Iowa to ensure that Republican voters who care about the U.S.-Israel relationship understand where Paul stands on Israel. In the case of Jewish Republicans, perhaps they could spend just a small fraction of the reported $5 million they're slated to spend next year to ensure that Iowans know the truth about this essential issue, where Paul stands on the U.S.-Israel relationship -- an issue that the RNC and Jewish Republicans alike say is essential to them too.
Franken, Whitehouse Expose Climate Deniers on Senate Floor
The United States was founded by scientists, based in large part on the principles of science, and science is why we have become the world's leading economy. So it is shocking to see mainstream politicians denying the validity of science for political reasons -- a practice long associated with authoritarian regimes, not the United States.
Two U.S. senators rebuffed that troubling trend on the floor of the United States senate, in a move that may signal the beginning of a new thaw in the paralysis the United States is facing on climate change and a host of other issues.
Al Franken (D-MN) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) argued that science is the best basis for public policy, a view we haven't heard a lot of in Congress lately, and they blasted fossil fuel industry-funded propaganda on climate change wow gold as a major cause. The two senators emphasized the ridiculousness of climate denialism, and the patriotism of science-based policymaking.
Franken on why this is important
"I asked Sheldon to do the colloquy because I saw that too many of my colleagues were either ignoring the science on climate change or flat out dismissing it," Franken told me.
"As a society, we have to understand that science is a way of understanding the truth about the way things actually are in the physical world independent of how we wish they would be, and if we want public policy that actually solves problems we've got to start by basing it on what we know from science."
Scientists are our best allies
Franken began by reminding colleagues that scientists are their best allies. runescape gold "Scientists are the people who gave us antibiotics, for example," he said. "Do you like being able to use antibiotics? Well, then, thank scientists."
If we are to progress as a country, he told senators, "we better put science right at the center of our decision-making. Yet, right now, foundations and think tanks funded by the fossil fuel industry are spreading misinformation about the integrity of climate science." Franken said that "Ignoring or flat out contradicting what climate scientists are telling us about the warming climate and the warming planet can lead to really bad decisions on national energy and environmental policies here in Congress."
Climate change is real, despite the Twinkie Doctor
Franken and Whitehouse both scoffed at the idea that there buy wow gold was any real doubt about man-made climate change, which at least 97% of climate scientists say is occurring. Imagine, Franken said, that you went to a doctor who said you're horribly overweight, you have to start exercising and lose 300 pounds or you're going to die. You say thanks, but I want a second opinion. The next doctor tells you the same thing, and the next and the next. Finally you have, ridiculously, gone to 24 doctors who all say the same thing. "The 25th doctor says 'It is a good thing you came to me, because all this diet and exercise would have been a complete waste. You are doing fine. Those other doctors are in the pockets of the fresh fruit and vegetable people.' He says 'Enjoy life, eat whatever you want, keep smoking, and watch a lot of TV. That is my advice.' Then you learn cheap wow gold the doctor was paid a salary by the makers of Twinkies, which, don't get me wrong, are a delicious snack food and should be eaten in moderation. Am I making sense here?"
Whitehouse listed corporations and phony-science front groups that have been spending billions of dollars to influence congress and public opinion with phony science and propaganda.
"As Senator Franken has pointed out," Whitehouse said, "despite the efforts to mislead and create doubt, the jury is not out on whether climate change is happening and being caused by man-made carbon pollution; the verdict is, in fact, in, and the verdict is clear."
Climategate-gate
The senators attacked what they called "climategate-gate," the illegal hacking of thousands of private emails of climate scientists. Climate deniers posted them on the world of warcraft gold internet in an attempt to confuse the press and draw attention away from the peer-reviewed science of fifty years that shows the climate is warming and human greenhouse gas emissions are the principle cause.
One famous email from climate scientist Phil Jones referred to his using climate scientist Michael Mann's "Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years to hide the decline.'' Deniers claimed that showed scientists were trying to "trick" the public and "hide the decline" in world temperatures, a claim many media outlets parroted uncritically.
"That sounds very bad," said Franken. "Trick' and 'hide the decline.' That went viral in the conservative media -- evidence that the scientific consensus on climate change was a giant hoax. We had a member of this body who said the science behind this consensus 'is the same science that, through climategate, has been totally rebuffed and is no longer legitimate, either in reality or in the eyes of the American people and the people around the world.'"
But Franken pointed out that by using Mann's "trick" Jones meant he was going to use the most accurate data available. Scientists correlated tree ring density with global annual temperatures, and then used very old trees as a record of temperatures going back 1,000 years. This was the basis for the "Hockey stick" graph Mann and colleagues published in Nature magazine -- "Mike's Nature trick." But after about 1960, because of changes in the atmosphere, the tree ring density was less reliable, so Mann did what any reasonable person would do: he substituted in actual thermometer measurements instead, indicated below in red.
Two U.S. senators rebuffed that troubling trend on the floor of the United States senate, in a move that may signal the beginning of a new thaw in the paralysis the United States is facing on climate change and a host of other issues.
Al Franken (D-MN) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) argued that science is the best basis for public policy, a view we haven't heard a lot of in Congress lately, and they blasted fossil fuel industry-funded propaganda on climate change wow gold as a major cause. The two senators emphasized the ridiculousness of climate denialism, and the patriotism of science-based policymaking.
Franken on why this is important
"I asked Sheldon to do the colloquy because I saw that too many of my colleagues were either ignoring the science on climate change or flat out dismissing it," Franken told me.
"As a society, we have to understand that science is a way of understanding the truth about the way things actually are in the physical world independent of how we wish they would be, and if we want public policy that actually solves problems we've got to start by basing it on what we know from science."
Scientists are our best allies
Franken began by reminding colleagues that scientists are their best allies. runescape gold "Scientists are the people who gave us antibiotics, for example," he said. "Do you like being able to use antibiotics? Well, then, thank scientists."
If we are to progress as a country, he told senators, "we better put science right at the center of our decision-making. Yet, right now, foundations and think tanks funded by the fossil fuel industry are spreading misinformation about the integrity of climate science." Franken said that "Ignoring or flat out contradicting what climate scientists are telling us about the warming climate and the warming planet can lead to really bad decisions on national energy and environmental policies here in Congress."
Climate change is real, despite the Twinkie Doctor
Franken and Whitehouse both scoffed at the idea that there buy wow gold was any real doubt about man-made climate change, which at least 97% of climate scientists say is occurring. Imagine, Franken said, that you went to a doctor who said you're horribly overweight, you have to start exercising and lose 300 pounds or you're going to die. You say thanks, but I want a second opinion. The next doctor tells you the same thing, and the next and the next. Finally you have, ridiculously, gone to 24 doctors who all say the same thing. "The 25th doctor says 'It is a good thing you came to me, because all this diet and exercise would have been a complete waste. You are doing fine. Those other doctors are in the pockets of the fresh fruit and vegetable people.' He says 'Enjoy life, eat whatever you want, keep smoking, and watch a lot of TV. That is my advice.' Then you learn cheap wow gold the doctor was paid a salary by the makers of Twinkies, which, don't get me wrong, are a delicious snack food and should be eaten in moderation. Am I making sense here?"
Whitehouse listed corporations and phony-science front groups that have been spending billions of dollars to influence congress and public opinion with phony science and propaganda.
"As Senator Franken has pointed out," Whitehouse said, "despite the efforts to mislead and create doubt, the jury is not out on whether climate change is happening and being caused by man-made carbon pollution; the verdict is, in fact, in, and the verdict is clear."
Climategate-gate
The senators attacked what they called "climategate-gate," the illegal hacking of thousands of private emails of climate scientists. Climate deniers posted them on the world of warcraft gold internet in an attempt to confuse the press and draw attention away from the peer-reviewed science of fifty years that shows the climate is warming and human greenhouse gas emissions are the principle cause.
One famous email from climate scientist Phil Jones referred to his using climate scientist Michael Mann's "Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years to hide the decline.'' Deniers claimed that showed scientists were trying to "trick" the public and "hide the decline" in world temperatures, a claim many media outlets parroted uncritically.
"That sounds very bad," said Franken. "Trick' and 'hide the decline.' That went viral in the conservative media -- evidence that the scientific consensus on climate change was a giant hoax. We had a member of this body who said the science behind this consensus 'is the same science that, through climategate, has been totally rebuffed and is no longer legitimate, either in reality or in the eyes of the American people and the people around the world.'"
But Franken pointed out that by using Mann's "trick" Jones meant he was going to use the most accurate data available. Scientists correlated tree ring density with global annual temperatures, and then used very old trees as a record of temperatures going back 1,000 years. This was the basis for the "Hockey stick" graph Mann and colleagues published in Nature magazine -- "Mike's Nature trick." But after about 1960, because of changes in the atmosphere, the tree ring density was less reliable, so Mann did what any reasonable person would do: he substituted in actual thermometer measurements instead, indicated below in red.
Don't Blink. The DC Machine Is Killing Medicare Right Before Our Eyes
This last week we've seen how Washington's elites are able to suppress popular opinion, work against the public interest, and wrap it all up with a bow so that it looks like 'democracy in action.' It's not. What we're seeing isn't democracy, and it isn't a free press either. It's merely another cynical ploy to rob Americans of government programs they both need and want.
The latest assault is on Medicare. The "Ryan/Widen plan" is a perfect case study in the cynical workings of an antidemocratic machine - a machine whose cogs are lazy journalists, whose gears are selfish politicians, and whose levers are pulled by the wealthy and powerful.
I held my fire on this for a few days, to see if more details would emerge on the proposal from Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Paul Ryan, who were initially (and deliberately vague) on its specifics. That wow gold turned it into Rorschach test for observers, and where the Washington Post sees a butterfly I usually see a vampire bat.
But Malcolm Gladwell would be pleased: It turns out that the first 'blink' impression of Ryan/Wyden is the right one. It's a Medicare-killing publicity stunt that undermines the financial security of the 99%. And if you happen to be reading this in the Nation's Capital, please note: The 'lefty' position on Medicare is supported by most Republicans.
Let's not kid ourselves. Unless we act quickly and aggressively, the Machine will succeed in killing Medicare.
The Program
We've seen this software before. It's been run against Social Security, jobs, and other government services that are both popular and effective. Here's how it works:
1.Concept: An intellectually thin but runescape gold highly-funded network of corporate-funded and billionaire-backed "think" tanks draft a proposal that would eviscerate a popular government program.
2.Rollout: Congressional Republicans act in lockstep to implement the think tank's policy by gutting something that's typically supported in overwhelming numbers by Democrats and independents - and which is often backed most registered Republican voters, too.
3.Blowback: The backlash from aggrieved citizens comes from all across the political spectrum, but is spun by compliant media figures as a reflexive hostility to "new ideas" from "ideologues" and "extremists" on the left.
4.Sellout: A cynical, self-serving Democrat sees an opportunity to curry favor with billionaires, corporations, and media outlets by endorsing the radical moves the Republicans have proposed.
5.Spin: buy wow gold The media uses that Democrat's endorsement as proof that the corporate position is actually that of "responsible" and "moderate" politicians in both parties.
The software has a political side effect, too: The distinction between Republicans and Democrats is blurred a little more, depriving Democrats of a winnable election issue.
Think of these five steps as a computer program you can run in almost any situation. The only variables are the program that is to be killed, the Democrat that'll do the dirty work, and which media outlet will deliver the machine's message this time. Plug in those three items and the program pretty much runs itself - or, as they used to say in the tech world, it "executes."
The Execution
This time around the government program is Medicare, the Democratic hack who's willing to undermine cheap wow gold it for selfish reasons is Ron Wyden, and the media outlet is (who else?) the Washington Post. Here's how the five steps played out this time around:
1.Concept: Rightists in think tanks like the Heritage Foundation designed a system that dismantles Medicare, replacing it with vouchers that would provide less and less medical coverage with each passing year. The dovetails nicely with the rightwing Peterson Foundation's twenty-year jihad against so-called "entitlements," Social Security and Medicare, which have very little fiscal relationship to one another.
2.Rollout: Congressional Republicans dutifully encoded this radical scheme into a proposal called the "Ryan Plan," after Rep. Paul Ryan, who was chosen to present this idea as if it were his own. Their voted nearly unanimously for Ryan's plan, placing their party in an extremely vulnerable world of warcraft gold position with voters (while ingratiating it to many high-dollar corporate and individual campaign donors).
3.Blowback: The Machine media tried to claim it was not a plan to end Medicare, a radical reality inversion which had an hallucinatory effect on your correspondent. But no Orwellian inversion could conceal this plan's true nature or protect Republicans in Congress from a public backlash. That's why so many Republican representatives ran into a hailstorm during the next recess.
4.Sellout: Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon dutifully stepped up to play the 'Democratic hack' role that's been played by so many of his colleagues, co-authoring a modified 'Ryan/Wyden plan' that was nothing more than a diluted version of Ryan's radicalism.
5.Spin: And now - with a predictability that should be astonishing, but isn't - the Washington Post is celebrating Ryan as a shining example of true bipartisanship in action.
Make no mistake about it: This program would have a devastating effect on Medicare. (See here,, here, and for a more general overview of "premium support" programs, here.)
How would we recognize real bipartisanship? It's what you'd see if some Republicans heeded their base by crossing the aisle to oppose the Ryan plan, since polls show that 56% of registered Republicans are against a voucher system. But that ain't gonna happen. And if a single Republican on the Hill strays from corporatist/Republican orthodoxy, you can be they won't be the subject of a laudatory editorial in the Washington Post.
What's more, if voters are told that plans like Ryan/Wyden won't cover all the costs currently covered by Medicare, overall opposition to the idea rises to 84%. But who's going to tell them that -- the Post?
Don't hold your breath.
The latest assault is on Medicare. The "Ryan/Widen plan" is a perfect case study in the cynical workings of an antidemocratic machine - a machine whose cogs are lazy journalists, whose gears are selfish politicians, and whose levers are pulled by the wealthy and powerful.
I held my fire on this for a few days, to see if more details would emerge on the proposal from Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Paul Ryan, who were initially (and deliberately vague) on its specifics. That wow gold turned it into Rorschach test for observers, and where the Washington Post sees a butterfly I usually see a vampire bat.
But Malcolm Gladwell would be pleased: It turns out that the first 'blink' impression of Ryan/Wyden is the right one. It's a Medicare-killing publicity stunt that undermines the financial security of the 99%. And if you happen to be reading this in the Nation's Capital, please note: The 'lefty' position on Medicare is supported by most Republicans.
Let's not kid ourselves. Unless we act quickly and aggressively, the Machine will succeed in killing Medicare.
The Program
We've seen this software before. It's been run against Social Security, jobs, and other government services that are both popular and effective. Here's how it works:
1.Concept: An intellectually thin but runescape gold highly-funded network of corporate-funded and billionaire-backed "think" tanks draft a proposal that would eviscerate a popular government program.
2.Rollout: Congressional Republicans act in lockstep to implement the think tank's policy by gutting something that's typically supported in overwhelming numbers by Democrats and independents - and which is often backed most registered Republican voters, too.
3.Blowback: The backlash from aggrieved citizens comes from all across the political spectrum, but is spun by compliant media figures as a reflexive hostility to "new ideas" from "ideologues" and "extremists" on the left.
4.Sellout: A cynical, self-serving Democrat sees an opportunity to curry favor with billionaires, corporations, and media outlets by endorsing the radical moves the Republicans have proposed.
5.Spin: buy wow gold The media uses that Democrat's endorsement as proof that the corporate position is actually that of "responsible" and "moderate" politicians in both parties.
The software has a political side effect, too: The distinction between Republicans and Democrats is blurred a little more, depriving Democrats of a winnable election issue.
Think of these five steps as a computer program you can run in almost any situation. The only variables are the program that is to be killed, the Democrat that'll do the dirty work, and which media outlet will deliver the machine's message this time. Plug in those three items and the program pretty much runs itself - or, as they used to say in the tech world, it "executes."
The Execution
This time around the government program is Medicare, the Democratic hack who's willing to undermine cheap wow gold it for selfish reasons is Ron Wyden, and the media outlet is (who else?) the Washington Post. Here's how the five steps played out this time around:
1.Concept: Rightists in think tanks like the Heritage Foundation designed a system that dismantles Medicare, replacing it with vouchers that would provide less and less medical coverage with each passing year. The dovetails nicely with the rightwing Peterson Foundation's twenty-year jihad against so-called "entitlements," Social Security and Medicare, which have very little fiscal relationship to one another.
2.Rollout: Congressional Republicans dutifully encoded this radical scheme into a proposal called the "Ryan Plan," after Rep. Paul Ryan, who was chosen to present this idea as if it were his own. Their voted nearly unanimously for Ryan's plan, placing their party in an extremely vulnerable world of warcraft gold position with voters (while ingratiating it to many high-dollar corporate and individual campaign donors).
3.Blowback: The Machine media tried to claim it was not a plan to end Medicare, a radical reality inversion which had an hallucinatory effect on your correspondent. But no Orwellian inversion could conceal this plan's true nature or protect Republicans in Congress from a public backlash. That's why so many Republican representatives ran into a hailstorm during the next recess.
4.Sellout: Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon dutifully stepped up to play the 'Democratic hack' role that's been played by so many of his colleagues, co-authoring a modified 'Ryan/Wyden plan' that was nothing more than a diluted version of Ryan's radicalism.
5.Spin: And now - with a predictability that should be astonishing, but isn't - the Washington Post is celebrating Ryan as a shining example of true bipartisanship in action.
Make no mistake about it: This program would have a devastating effect on Medicare. (See here,, here, and for a more general overview of "premium support" programs, here.)
How would we recognize real bipartisanship? It's what you'd see if some Republicans heeded their base by crossing the aisle to oppose the Ryan plan, since polls show that 56% of registered Republicans are against a voucher system. But that ain't gonna happen. And if a single Republican on the Hill strays from corporatist/Republican orthodoxy, you can be they won't be the subject of a laudatory editorial in the Washington Post.
What's more, if voters are told that plans like Ryan/Wyden won't cover all the costs currently covered by Medicare, overall opposition to the idea rises to 84%. But who's going to tell them that -- the Post?
Don't hold your breath.
2011年12月14日星期三
The Indispensable Choice: Eliminating Nuclear Weapons
Today, I will have the honor of receiving from United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon the UN Correspondents Association Advocacy of the Year Award for my work in the Global Zero movement to eliminate all nuclear weapons. Since I and one hundred international leaders from around the world launched the movement three years ago this month, we have made tremendous progress, but if we are to avert nuclear catastrophe, our leaders must act with much greater urgency to set our course to the elimination of all nuclear weapons.
When the lights went out on the Soviet Union on Mikhail Gorbachev's watch twenty years ago this month, the fate of its thirty-five thousand nuclear weapons became a source of deep concern to the world. Russia had to round up its nuclear inheritance from most of the fourteen other republics that emerged from wow gold the Soviet break-up, in many cases prying them loose from countries like Ukraine that claimed ownership. Miraculously, Russia retrieved them without losing its grip on a single weapon, thanks in large part to the herculean effort of the Russian general in charge, Evgeny Maslin.
But the list of nuclear dangers has only expanded over the past two decades, and frankly there is little relief in sight. The world is beset with problems and preoccupied with economic challenges that have distracted attention from the even greater danger of nuclear catastrophe. We are pretending as though this peril will go away if we ignore it.
New threats are knocking on the door - the spreading of the bomb to additional countries, and potentially to terrorists. Since Gorbachev stepped down, Pakistan, India, runescape gold and North Korea have acquired and tested the bomb. Iran is moving ever closer to that day. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and others are waiting in the wings. As Iran goes, so go them. The world faces the specter of cascading proliferation that may not be stoppable if it gains further momentum. Terrorists will stand a better chance of getting their hands on them. The use of nuclear weapons would become inevitable.
And there remain serious risks stemming from the continuing Cold War habits of the United States and Russia to keep many hundreds of their nuclear-armed intercontinental rockets poised for launch within a few minutes. In the documentary film Countdown to Zero, which I produced, Gorbachev recalls how hair-trigger nuclear missiles allowed him only minutes to decide whether to unleash Soviet buy wow gold nuclear forces on apparent warning of an incoming strike. His counterpart in nuclear negotiations, former President Ronald Reagan, also was astonished at how little time for reflection was allowed by the standing nuclear war plans: In his memoirs, Reagan wrote: [pp. 36-7] "Russian submarines off our East Coast with nuclear missiles could turn the White House into a pile of radioactive rubble within six or eight minutes. Six minutes to decide how to respond to a blip on radar scope and decide whether to release Armageddon! How could anyone apply reason at a time like that?"
What is more astonishing is that virtually nothing has changed. Both Russia and the United States continue to prepare to fight a large-scale nuclear war with each other on a moment's notice. If their launch-ready stances are adopted by the world's cheap wow gold other nuclear weapons countries, then the risks of the accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons would grow exponentially. As Enrico Fermi said about the laws of physics, if an event is not prohibited absolutely, then it will happen eventually. If nuclear weapons are not stood down and eliminated, one day they will be used.
Rather than retreating from the precipice of an avoidable disaster, almost all of the nine nuclear weapons countries are upgrading their nuclear arms, at an estimated total cost of one trillion dollars over the next decade. The United States is constructing new uranium and plutonium factories to build bombs, and planning to build new nuclear-armed submarines and bombers. Russia is embarked on a 70-billion dollar binge to replace its aging nuclear forces. China is building its first fleet of nuclear world of warcraft gold missile submarines and truck-based nuclear forces. Great Britain is preparing to build four new Trident-class submarines. France just christened a new nuclear missile submarine. Pakistan is surging its production of nuclear materials and may take third place in nuclear-arsenal size within a few years, ahead of everyone but Russia and the U.S. India is playing catch-up deploying new land-based missiles and submarines. Even Israel is buying submarines (from Germany), equipping them with nuclear cruise missiles and deploying them in the Persian Gulf to pose a nuclear threat to Iran. The bête noire of nuclear countries, North Korea, is spending extravagantly on its nuclear factories and missiles while its people starve.
Hundreds of international figures in the Global Zero movement, like Gorbachev and Maslin, have joined forces in a last-ditch effort to pull the world back from the brink. It may not be too late if we can convince world leaders and the public of the urgent need to take immediate steps to reduce the nuclear threat - like taking all nuclear weapons off of hair-trigger alert -- and to begin multilateral negotiations to eliminate all nuclear arms in verifiable stages over a period of years. The Global Zero movement includes leaders who have served as national security advisors and in other positions with high-level responsibility for foreign policy, defense, and counter-terrorism that allows them to testify credibly about the growing dangers of nuclear war by intention or accident, by states or terrorists. Our agenda is to bring all the nuclear weapons countries into dialogue and negotiation to ensure that the use of nuclear weapons does not become inevitable. This is a catastrophe can be prevented.
When the lights went out on the Soviet Union on Mikhail Gorbachev's watch twenty years ago this month, the fate of its thirty-five thousand nuclear weapons became a source of deep concern to the world. Russia had to round up its nuclear inheritance from most of the fourteen other republics that emerged from wow gold the Soviet break-up, in many cases prying them loose from countries like Ukraine that claimed ownership. Miraculously, Russia retrieved them without losing its grip on a single weapon, thanks in large part to the herculean effort of the Russian general in charge, Evgeny Maslin.
But the list of nuclear dangers has only expanded over the past two decades, and frankly there is little relief in sight. The world is beset with problems and preoccupied with economic challenges that have distracted attention from the even greater danger of nuclear catastrophe. We are pretending as though this peril will go away if we ignore it.
New threats are knocking on the door - the spreading of the bomb to additional countries, and potentially to terrorists. Since Gorbachev stepped down, Pakistan, India, runescape gold and North Korea have acquired and tested the bomb. Iran is moving ever closer to that day. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and others are waiting in the wings. As Iran goes, so go them. The world faces the specter of cascading proliferation that may not be stoppable if it gains further momentum. Terrorists will stand a better chance of getting their hands on them. The use of nuclear weapons would become inevitable.
And there remain serious risks stemming from the continuing Cold War habits of the United States and Russia to keep many hundreds of their nuclear-armed intercontinental rockets poised for launch within a few minutes. In the documentary film Countdown to Zero, which I produced, Gorbachev recalls how hair-trigger nuclear missiles allowed him only minutes to decide whether to unleash Soviet buy wow gold nuclear forces on apparent warning of an incoming strike. His counterpart in nuclear negotiations, former President Ronald Reagan, also was astonished at how little time for reflection was allowed by the standing nuclear war plans: In his memoirs, Reagan wrote: [pp. 36-7] "Russian submarines off our East Coast with nuclear missiles could turn the White House into a pile of radioactive rubble within six or eight minutes. Six minutes to decide how to respond to a blip on radar scope and decide whether to release Armageddon! How could anyone apply reason at a time like that?"
What is more astonishing is that virtually nothing has changed. Both Russia and the United States continue to prepare to fight a large-scale nuclear war with each other on a moment's notice. If their launch-ready stances are adopted by the world's cheap wow gold other nuclear weapons countries, then the risks of the accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons would grow exponentially. As Enrico Fermi said about the laws of physics, if an event is not prohibited absolutely, then it will happen eventually. If nuclear weapons are not stood down and eliminated, one day they will be used.
Rather than retreating from the precipice of an avoidable disaster, almost all of the nine nuclear weapons countries are upgrading their nuclear arms, at an estimated total cost of one trillion dollars over the next decade. The United States is constructing new uranium and plutonium factories to build bombs, and planning to build new nuclear-armed submarines and bombers. Russia is embarked on a 70-billion dollar binge to replace its aging nuclear forces. China is building its first fleet of nuclear world of warcraft gold missile submarines and truck-based nuclear forces. Great Britain is preparing to build four new Trident-class submarines. France just christened a new nuclear missile submarine. Pakistan is surging its production of nuclear materials and may take third place in nuclear-arsenal size within a few years, ahead of everyone but Russia and the U.S. India is playing catch-up deploying new land-based missiles and submarines. Even Israel is buying submarines (from Germany), equipping them with nuclear cruise missiles and deploying them in the Persian Gulf to pose a nuclear threat to Iran. The bête noire of nuclear countries, North Korea, is spending extravagantly on its nuclear factories and missiles while its people starve.
Hundreds of international figures in the Global Zero movement, like Gorbachev and Maslin, have joined forces in a last-ditch effort to pull the world back from the brink. It may not be too late if we can convince world leaders and the public of the urgent need to take immediate steps to reduce the nuclear threat - like taking all nuclear weapons off of hair-trigger alert -- and to begin multilateral negotiations to eliminate all nuclear arms in verifiable stages over a period of years. The Global Zero movement includes leaders who have served as national security advisors and in other positions with high-level responsibility for foreign policy, defense, and counter-terrorism that allows them to testify credibly about the growing dangers of nuclear war by intention or accident, by states or terrorists. Our agenda is to bring all the nuclear weapons countries into dialogue and negotiation to ensure that the use of nuclear weapons does not become inevitable. This is a catastrophe can be prevented.
Can Occupy Overturn Citizens United? "Dear 99%ers..."
Nothing could enhance American democracy more than if Occupy Wall Street helped enact the 28th Constitutional Amendment to end the pretense that corporations are people who speak with money. The 99% can stop the privatization of government.
There's an important conversation going on about the goals of Occupy Wall Street after the evictions. Both conservative attack dogs and confused liberals have chided the movement for not having a to-do list ready on September 17 or November 17. A recent New Yorker cartoon showed a prophet holding up a sign "The End is Near," as a bystander asks, "Yeah, but what's your goal?"
The initial goal was to shift the national conversation away from an obsession with Washington and deficits to the ignored truth that income inequality is devastating the middle class. Done that. Now that OWS and its supporters are obviously wow gold puzzling through next steps, I have a suggestion, a plea really.
OWS should plug into the nascent effort to enact the 28th Amendment to the Constitution to overturn Citizens United and Buckley v. Valeo, two of the worst decisions in our judicial history, right up there with Dred Scott. They weave together two crazy concepts -- corporations-are-people and money-is-speech -- into the loony conclusion that corporations can buy democracy. Only a satirist/activist like Antonin Scalia could both argue that we have to follow the Founders original intent and then make believe that the Founders intended to include corporations -- never mentioned in the Constitution, creatures of states given perpetual life to raise private capital for commercial purposes, not regarded as people by anyone in 1789 -- in the First Amendment.
Dylan runescape gold Ratigan at the New York Common Cause dinner earlier this month observed that "campaign finance reform is everyone's #2 issue." But government cannot produce a cleaner environment, more stimulus and growth, stronger bank regulations, universal health care and a jobs bill until the machinery of democracy is repaired. So long as the Roberts Five allow Rove/Koch to raise and spend hundreds of millions of dollars secretly in local and national elections, we will have a government, as Joseph Stiglitz says, "of the 1%, by the 1% and for the 1%."
It's a fluke really that a few thousand Jews in Palm Beach County accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan and allowed George W. Bush to replace Sandra Day O'Connor with Samuel Alito which created the 5-4 Citizens United majority.
Here we are. With the odd-duck combination buy wow gold of George Will, Floyd Abrams and a national GOP defeating the DISCLOSE Act by filibuster, paralyzing the FEC, dominating the Supreme Court -- and an IRS so timid that it won't rule that political spending by corporations is not charitable giving -- we're left with two options in the ongoing war over campaign finance rules. One is that President Obama wins reelection and the lottery of life allows him to name and confirm a non-corporate apologist as one of the five majority justices. A lot of ifs there.
Or Article Five lays out how to pass a Constitutional Amendment that stops unlimited corporate (Koch) and individual (Bloomberg) money from privatizing democracy. I'm sure that the Brennan Center at NYU would help draft the precise language.
Nearly everyone at first thinks the prospect is just too remote and uphill. But. There have been cheap wow gold 17 amendments since the Bill of Rights, usually when a popular movement sweeps aside objections; there's now a near 80% majority against corporations as people using money as speech; and there is one popular movement that can organize in Washington and every state Capitol almost overnight.
OWS, I'm talking to you. As your general assemblies and policy committees seek consensus on specific goals, please consider including a "Stop Corporatism" Amendment on your very short list. True, it's easy to compile a list of 20 issues/goals/demands... but hard to get it to three so the public can get behind a few big things. Lenin said "bread and land." Reagan said "cut taxes, end communism." A movement that came up with "we are the 99%" can now evolve from concept to content by "occupying," say, foreclosures, student debt... and certainly democracy.
While there world of warcraft gold are wonderful groups already engaged in this effort -- from Public Citizen to Free Speech for People -- only your energy, guts and brand can create voters-not-corporations groups in every state either to enact the 28th or at least mobilize opinion around the issue for future elections. Other than Labor, only you can get the numbers of people on the streets as we saw in Wisconsin and Ohio in their collective bargaining fights.
Sisyphean? Sure. But if roles were reversed, wouldn't a Grover Norquist be starting a long-planned drive to convince voters that, to quote Mitt Romney, "corporations are just people"? (My favorite sign at Zuccotti Park was, "Corporations will be people when Texas executes one.") If OWS is against a rigged economy and government, how can you leave the Constitution to a Tea Party with no understanding of how the Revolution and Constitution sought to replace a states-based Articles of Confederation with a federal government?
I've lived this issue over the decades as someone who's raised millions of dollars as a candidate, written books about the "evil of access," enacted laws advancing public financing, and then, with a shrewd sense of irony, ran against the richest man ever to purchase office. That sequence leads me to two conclusions. First, with democracy in the balance, OWS could mobilize popular opinion into either a 28th Amendment or a political movement.
Second, it would be tragic if Dr. King's second most famous speech in Washington, when he said at the Washington Monument in 1957 "give us the ballot, give us the ballot," did in fact enfranchise millions of Americans though the Voting Rights Act,,,only to posthumously fail when his spiritual descendants didn't try to stop corporate money from erasing those ballots.
There's an important conversation going on about the goals of Occupy Wall Street after the evictions. Both conservative attack dogs and confused liberals have chided the movement for not having a to-do list ready on September 17 or November 17. A recent New Yorker cartoon showed a prophet holding up a sign "The End is Near," as a bystander asks, "Yeah, but what's your goal?"
The initial goal was to shift the national conversation away from an obsession with Washington and deficits to the ignored truth that income inequality is devastating the middle class. Done that. Now that OWS and its supporters are obviously wow gold puzzling through next steps, I have a suggestion, a plea really.
OWS should plug into the nascent effort to enact the 28th Amendment to the Constitution to overturn Citizens United and Buckley v. Valeo, two of the worst decisions in our judicial history, right up there with Dred Scott. They weave together two crazy concepts -- corporations-are-people and money-is-speech -- into the loony conclusion that corporations can buy democracy. Only a satirist/activist like Antonin Scalia could both argue that we have to follow the Founders original intent and then make believe that the Founders intended to include corporations -- never mentioned in the Constitution, creatures of states given perpetual life to raise private capital for commercial purposes, not regarded as people by anyone in 1789 -- in the First Amendment.
Dylan runescape gold Ratigan at the New York Common Cause dinner earlier this month observed that "campaign finance reform is everyone's #2 issue." But government cannot produce a cleaner environment, more stimulus and growth, stronger bank regulations, universal health care and a jobs bill until the machinery of democracy is repaired. So long as the Roberts Five allow Rove/Koch to raise and spend hundreds of millions of dollars secretly in local and national elections, we will have a government, as Joseph Stiglitz says, "of the 1%, by the 1% and for the 1%."
It's a fluke really that a few thousand Jews in Palm Beach County accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan and allowed George W. Bush to replace Sandra Day O'Connor with Samuel Alito which created the 5-4 Citizens United majority.
Here we are. With the odd-duck combination buy wow gold of George Will, Floyd Abrams and a national GOP defeating the DISCLOSE Act by filibuster, paralyzing the FEC, dominating the Supreme Court -- and an IRS so timid that it won't rule that political spending by corporations is not charitable giving -- we're left with two options in the ongoing war over campaign finance rules. One is that President Obama wins reelection and the lottery of life allows him to name and confirm a non-corporate apologist as one of the five majority justices. A lot of ifs there.
Or Article Five lays out how to pass a Constitutional Amendment that stops unlimited corporate (Koch) and individual (Bloomberg) money from privatizing democracy. I'm sure that the Brennan Center at NYU would help draft the precise language.
Nearly everyone at first thinks the prospect is just too remote and uphill. But. There have been cheap wow gold 17 amendments since the Bill of Rights, usually when a popular movement sweeps aside objections; there's now a near 80% majority against corporations as people using money as speech; and there is one popular movement that can organize in Washington and every state Capitol almost overnight.
OWS, I'm talking to you. As your general assemblies and policy committees seek consensus on specific goals, please consider including a "Stop Corporatism" Amendment on your very short list. True, it's easy to compile a list of 20 issues/goals/demands... but hard to get it to three so the public can get behind a few big things. Lenin said "bread and land." Reagan said "cut taxes, end communism." A movement that came up with "we are the 99%" can now evolve from concept to content by "occupying," say, foreclosures, student debt... and certainly democracy.
While there world of warcraft gold are wonderful groups already engaged in this effort -- from Public Citizen to Free Speech for People -- only your energy, guts and brand can create voters-not-corporations groups in every state either to enact the 28th or at least mobilize opinion around the issue for future elections. Other than Labor, only you can get the numbers of people on the streets as we saw in Wisconsin and Ohio in their collective bargaining fights.
Sisyphean? Sure. But if roles were reversed, wouldn't a Grover Norquist be starting a long-planned drive to convince voters that, to quote Mitt Romney, "corporations are just people"? (My favorite sign at Zuccotti Park was, "Corporations will be people when Texas executes one.") If OWS is against a rigged economy and government, how can you leave the Constitution to a Tea Party with no understanding of how the Revolution and Constitution sought to replace a states-based Articles of Confederation with a federal government?
I've lived this issue over the decades as someone who's raised millions of dollars as a candidate, written books about the "evil of access," enacted laws advancing public financing, and then, with a shrewd sense of irony, ran against the richest man ever to purchase office. That sequence leads me to two conclusions. First, with democracy in the balance, OWS could mobilize popular opinion into either a 28th Amendment or a political movement.
Second, it would be tragic if Dr. King's second most famous speech in Washington, when he said at the Washington Monument in 1957 "give us the ballot, give us the ballot," did in fact enfranchise millions of Americans though the Voting Rights Act,,,only to posthumously fail when his spiritual descendants didn't try to stop corporate money from erasing those ballots.
To Gain Workers' Votes, Gingrich Slanders Poor
Republican front-runner Newt Gingrich appeals to working Americans by slandering the poor. Gingrich recently denounced child labor laws as "truly stupid," suggesting that schools should fire janitors and hire students under the age of 16 to clean the place.
When critics said he would send America back to the age depicted by Dickens, Gingrich defended himself by sustaining the slander of the poor:
"Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them wow gold who works. So, they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of 'I do this and you give me cash' unless it's illegal."
This is ugly and stupid stuff. In fact, most poor people work every day that they can. And 83 percent of all poor children live in households with at least one adult who works. Their parents often work two or three jobs to support the family. Poor working parents work longer hours on average runescape gold than their wealthier counterparts, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
When you visit a fast-food restaurant, those are poor youth working the trays, without health benefits. The vendors at the ball games are mainly poor and without benefits. When LSU and Alabama play the big bowl game, we'll be watching players from mainly poor backgrounds, "working/playing" without wages.
Our military consists mainly of youth from poor backgrounds -- like Shoshanna Johnson buy wow gold and Jessica Lynch, our all-volunteer armed services that are the pride of the nation.
Newt Gingrich has it all wrong.
The not-so-hidden assumption in Gingrich's slur is that he's talking about urban poverty and black and Hispanic kids. Actually, poverty is worse in rural areas than in cities or suburbs. Worse in Appalachia than in Chicago. More poor children are white than black.
Young Americans ages 16-19 experience unemployment rates as bad as those in Egypt before Tahrir Square. For cheap wow gold the first time in 50 years, most young people ages 16-24 are not working. This isn't because of child-labor laws. It's because there are no jobs.
This is a national catastrophe. Young people without work lose ground that they may never make up. Worse, their dreams are dashed; their hopes crushed.
Rather than repealing child-labor laws and putting children under 16 to work, wouldn't it make more sense to create jobs for those of legal age? Today, the Congressional Progressive Caucus will introduce its "American world of warcraft gold Dream" legislation, designed to help fulfill the pledge to make government the employer of last resort for young Americans and veterans. It calls for direct public service employment -- 2.2 million jobs to start -- in a jobs corps, an urban corps, a green corps, in subsidies to nonprofits and to small businesses to hire the young and our veterans. It pays for these programs with a range of tax and spending reforms -- hiking taxes on millionaires, taxing Wall Street hyper-speculation, cutting subsidies to Big Oil, reducing wasteful spending on wars abroad and Cold War weapons at home.
Newt says he will put forth "extraordinarily radical proposals to fundamentally change the culture of poverty in America."
But putting young children to work dates back to the satanic mills of the Victorian Age.
What the young need are jobs.
What America needs is someone who will challenge the entrenched interests and big money that now so distorts our politics. Gingrich offers, instead, a man who profits from those interests, while preying on, not praying for, the weak.
When critics said he would send America back to the age depicted by Dickens, Gingrich defended himself by sustaining the slander of the poor:
"Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them wow gold who works. So, they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of 'I do this and you give me cash' unless it's illegal."
This is ugly and stupid stuff. In fact, most poor people work every day that they can. And 83 percent of all poor children live in households with at least one adult who works. Their parents often work two or three jobs to support the family. Poor working parents work longer hours on average runescape gold than their wealthier counterparts, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
When you visit a fast-food restaurant, those are poor youth working the trays, without health benefits. The vendors at the ball games are mainly poor and without benefits. When LSU and Alabama play the big bowl game, we'll be watching players from mainly poor backgrounds, "working/playing" without wages.
Our military consists mainly of youth from poor backgrounds -- like Shoshanna Johnson buy wow gold and Jessica Lynch, our all-volunteer armed services that are the pride of the nation.
Newt Gingrich has it all wrong.
The not-so-hidden assumption in Gingrich's slur is that he's talking about urban poverty and black and Hispanic kids. Actually, poverty is worse in rural areas than in cities or suburbs. Worse in Appalachia than in Chicago. More poor children are white than black.
Young Americans ages 16-19 experience unemployment rates as bad as those in Egypt before Tahrir Square. For cheap wow gold the first time in 50 years, most young people ages 16-24 are not working. This isn't because of child-labor laws. It's because there are no jobs.
This is a national catastrophe. Young people without work lose ground that they may never make up. Worse, their dreams are dashed; their hopes crushed.
Rather than repealing child-labor laws and putting children under 16 to work, wouldn't it make more sense to create jobs for those of legal age? Today, the Congressional Progressive Caucus will introduce its "American world of warcraft gold Dream" legislation, designed to help fulfill the pledge to make government the employer of last resort for young Americans and veterans. It calls for direct public service employment -- 2.2 million jobs to start -- in a jobs corps, an urban corps, a green corps, in subsidies to nonprofits and to small businesses to hire the young and our veterans. It pays for these programs with a range of tax and spending reforms -- hiking taxes on millionaires, taxing Wall Street hyper-speculation, cutting subsidies to Big Oil, reducing wasteful spending on wars abroad and Cold War weapons at home.
Newt says he will put forth "extraordinarily radical proposals to fundamentally change the culture of poverty in America."
But putting young children to work dates back to the satanic mills of the Victorian Age.
What the young need are jobs.
What America needs is someone who will challenge the entrenched interests and big money that now so distorts our politics. Gingrich offers, instead, a man who profits from those interests, while preying on, not praying for, the weak.
2011年12月12日星期一
Think Newt Can't Win the White House? Think Again
Newt Gingrich has not won the Republican nomination for president yet. Given his history and temperament, he has a long way to go. He certainly has a record of torching himself just when things are riding high, but with three weeks to go before the Iowa caucuses he can neither be counted in nor counted out for the Big Prize in November.
As things now stand, President Barack Obama has a job approval rating in the mid-forties -- borderline acceptable for re-electing an incumbent. But barely 40% of likely voters feel he deserves re-election and that is clearly a rough number for any incumbent. At the same time, as he works to consolidate support among the key groups that helped in win in 2008, he is thus wow gold far achieving modest success. African Americans are nearly where they were in supporting him (90% in my latest poll). His numbers are growing among Hispanics and could likely be helped even further as Republicans continue down their hard line road on illegal immigration.
Moderates are moving solidly behind Mr. Obama, but young people -- so filled with anxiety and despair compared with the hope they sensed three years ago -- remain a problem. Twelve states he won in 2008 have voted solidly Republican in 2010 -- New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Virginia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Florida, Indiana, New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado. While the President was runescape gold behind in head-to-head matchups against leading Republican candidates much of the year, he now is either in a slight lead or tied in most of these states.
Democrats are salivating at the thought of running against Gingrich. But new polling suggests that the general election could be more competitive that we thought if the former Speaker is the GOP nominee. I tested seven issues for their importance and found no surprises. Below are the issues ranked by the percentages of voters who said they were the "most important" and "very important" issue:
Economy/Job Creation: 89
Deficit Reduction: 86
Middle Class Taxes: 79
Health Care: 78
National Security/Terrorism: buy wow gold 77
War/Foreign Policy: 70
The Environment: 54
The president is judged better equipped than Gingrich to handle three of the issues: middle class taxes, the environment, and health care. Gingrich leads on two issues -- deficit reduction and war/foreign policy. But the two candidates are really tied on two issues that have dominated the past two presidential elections: the economy/jobs (Obama, 38%, Gingrich 36%) and national security/terrorism (Gingrich 38%, Obama 36%). On jobs, Obama leads among young voters, Hispanics, African Americans, Catholics, women, moderates, low income and eastern and western voters. Gingrich holds a lead on this issue among independents, southern, high income, cheap wow gold and typically conservative leaning voters. But significantly, the two are tied among voters in the Central/Great Lakes region and suburban voters.
On national security and terrorism, Obama leads among women, younger voters, moderates, Hispanics, African Americans, and low income voters. Gingrich leads among the same groups as on the economy but he adds a lead among college graduates, voters over 50, and voters in the Central/Great Lakes and suburbanites. The deal is not yet closed.
As I have in every presidential year since 1996, I also tested key characteristics that voters are looking for in a new president. Below are the results ranked by the combined percentages of "most important" and "very important":
A world of warcraft gold Problem Solver: 95
A Good Manager: 90
Understands the Needs of Middle Class: 85
Experienced in Business: 78
Will Maintain American Values: 75
Experienced in Government: 75
A Good Family Person: 67
Seeks Consensus from Opposing Sides: 66
Sticks to Beliefs and Won't Compromise: 58
An Eloquent Speaker: 38
The president led the former Speaker in four categories by substantial margins -- Eloquence (59% to 21%), Understanding the Needs of the Middles Class (42% to 34%), Good Family Person (56% to 19%), and Seeks Consensus (41% to 26%). Gingrich led in two categories (Experienced in Business (39% to 27%) and Experienced in Government (47% to 33%). But on the two main characteristics -- Problem Solver and Good Manager -- the two candidates are tied. Not surprisingly, given the hyper-polarization that exists in the nation, they are also tied on Maintaining American Values. On all three, Gingrich led the president among independents -- but with substantial numbers of undecideds.
So where are we? Advantage no one. There is a whole lot of campaigning ahead of us. The president has made some real gains in his polling but he is also at the mercy of the economic indicators and how people feel. As of now, only one in five feel the nation is heading in the right direction. For his part, Gingrich is at the mercy of himself -- as unpredictable as the weather and the economy.
But to those who think Gingrich cannot win, stop thinking.
As things now stand, President Barack Obama has a job approval rating in the mid-forties -- borderline acceptable for re-electing an incumbent. But barely 40% of likely voters feel he deserves re-election and that is clearly a rough number for any incumbent. At the same time, as he works to consolidate support among the key groups that helped in win in 2008, he is thus wow gold far achieving modest success. African Americans are nearly where they were in supporting him (90% in my latest poll). His numbers are growing among Hispanics and could likely be helped even further as Republicans continue down their hard line road on illegal immigration.
Moderates are moving solidly behind Mr. Obama, but young people -- so filled with anxiety and despair compared with the hope they sensed three years ago -- remain a problem. Twelve states he won in 2008 have voted solidly Republican in 2010 -- New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Virginia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Florida, Indiana, New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado. While the President was runescape gold behind in head-to-head matchups against leading Republican candidates much of the year, he now is either in a slight lead or tied in most of these states.
Democrats are salivating at the thought of running against Gingrich. But new polling suggests that the general election could be more competitive that we thought if the former Speaker is the GOP nominee. I tested seven issues for their importance and found no surprises. Below are the issues ranked by the percentages of voters who said they were the "most important" and "very important" issue:
Economy/Job Creation: 89
Deficit Reduction: 86
Middle Class Taxes: 79
Health Care: 78
National Security/Terrorism: buy wow gold 77
War/Foreign Policy: 70
The Environment: 54
The president is judged better equipped than Gingrich to handle three of the issues: middle class taxes, the environment, and health care. Gingrich leads on two issues -- deficit reduction and war/foreign policy. But the two candidates are really tied on two issues that have dominated the past two presidential elections: the economy/jobs (Obama, 38%, Gingrich 36%) and national security/terrorism (Gingrich 38%, Obama 36%). On jobs, Obama leads among young voters, Hispanics, African Americans, Catholics, women, moderates, low income and eastern and western voters. Gingrich holds a lead on this issue among independents, southern, high income, cheap wow gold and typically conservative leaning voters. But significantly, the two are tied among voters in the Central/Great Lakes region and suburban voters.
On national security and terrorism, Obama leads among women, younger voters, moderates, Hispanics, African Americans, and low income voters. Gingrich leads among the same groups as on the economy but he adds a lead among college graduates, voters over 50, and voters in the Central/Great Lakes and suburbanites. The deal is not yet closed.
As I have in every presidential year since 1996, I also tested key characteristics that voters are looking for in a new president. Below are the results ranked by the combined percentages of "most important" and "very important":
A world of warcraft gold Problem Solver: 95
A Good Manager: 90
Understands the Needs of Middle Class: 85
Experienced in Business: 78
Will Maintain American Values: 75
Experienced in Government: 75
A Good Family Person: 67
Seeks Consensus from Opposing Sides: 66
Sticks to Beliefs and Won't Compromise: 58
An Eloquent Speaker: 38
The president led the former Speaker in four categories by substantial margins -- Eloquence (59% to 21%), Understanding the Needs of the Middles Class (42% to 34%), Good Family Person (56% to 19%), and Seeks Consensus (41% to 26%). Gingrich led in two categories (Experienced in Business (39% to 27%) and Experienced in Government (47% to 33%). But on the two main characteristics -- Problem Solver and Good Manager -- the two candidates are tied. Not surprisingly, given the hyper-polarization that exists in the nation, they are also tied on Maintaining American Values. On all three, Gingrich led the president among independents -- but with substantial numbers of undecideds.
So where are we? Advantage no one. There is a whole lot of campaigning ahead of us. The president has made some real gains in his polling but he is also at the mercy of the economic indicators and how people feel. As of now, only one in five feel the nation is heading in the right direction. For his part, Gingrich is at the mercy of himself -- as unpredictable as the weather and the economy.
But to those who think Gingrich cannot win, stop thinking.
Rediscovering Religious Values in the Market Economy
As the political leaders of Europe meet to save the Euro and European Union, so should religious leaders. That is why I have come to Rome, to discuss our shared concerns at the Gregorian University and with His Holiness the Pope.
The idea sounds absurd. What has religion to do with economics, or spirituality with financial institutions? The answer is that the market economy has religious roots. It emerged in a Europe saturated with Judeo-Christian values.
As Harvard economist David Landes has pointed out, until the 15th century China was far in advance of the West in a whole range of technologies. Yet China did not give rise wow gold to the market economy, the rise of science or the industrial revolution. It lacked, says Landes, the cluster of values that Judaism and Christianity gave to Europe.
The market economy is deeply congruent with the values set out in the Hebrew Bible. Material prosperity is a Divine blessing. Poverty crushes the spirit as well as the body, and its alleviation is a sacred task. Work is a noble calling. "When you eat from the labour of your hands," says the Psalm, "you will be happy and it will be well for you."
Competition fuels the fires of invention: "Rivalry between scribes increases runescape gold wisdom." God invites us, said the rabbis, to be His partners in the work of creation. Private property rights are fundamental to freedom. Moses says, when his leadership is challenged, "I have not taken one donkey from them." Elijah challenges King Ahab for his seizure of Naboth's vineyard. Besides this, says Landes, the Bible introduces the idea of linear time, rejecting the idea that time is a cycle in which nothing ultimately changes.
The first financial instruments of modern capitalism were developed by 14th century banks in Christian Florence, Pisa, Genoa and Venice. Max Weber traced the buy wow gold connections between the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. Michael Novak has done likewise for Catholicism. Jews, numbering one-fifth of a percent of the population of the world, have won more than 30 percent of Nobel Prizes in economics. When I asked the developmental economist Jeffrey Sachs what drove him in his work, he replied without hesitation: tikkun olam, the Jewish imperative of "healing a fractured world." The birth of the modern economy is inseparable from its Judeo-Christian roots.
But this is not a stable equilibrium. The market undermines the very values that gave rise to it in the cheap wow gold first place. The consumer culture is profoundly antithetical to human dignity. It inflames desire, undermines happiness, weakens the capacity to defer instinctual gratification, and blinds us to the vital distinction between the price of things and their value.
The financial instruments at the heart of the current crisis -- subprime mortgages and the securitization of risk -- were so complex that governments, regulatory authorities and sometimes even bankers themselves failed to understand them and their extreme vulnerability. Those who encouraged people to take out mortgages they could not repay were guilty of what the Bible calls "putting world of warcraft gold a stumbling block before the blind."
The build-up of personal and collective debt in America and Europe should have sent warning signals to anyone familiar with the biblical institutions of the Sabbatical and Jubilee years, created specifically because of the danger of people being trapped by debt.
These are symptoms of a wider failure: to see the market as an end not a means. The Bible paints a graphic picture of what happens when people cease to see gold as a medium of exchange and start seeing it as an object of worship. It calls it the Golden Calf. Its antidote is the Sabbath: one day in seven in which we neither work nor employ, shop or spend. It is time dedicated to things that have a value not a price: family, community and thanksgiving to God for what we have, instead of worrying about what we lack. It is no coincidence that in Britain, Sunday and financial markets were deregulated at about the same time.
Stabilising the Euro is one thing, healing the culture that surrounds it is another. A world in which material values are everything and spiritual values nothing is neither a stable state nor a good society. The time has come for us to recover the Judeo-Christian ethic of human dignity in the image of God. Humanity was not created to serve markets. Markets were created to serve humankind.
The idea sounds absurd. What has religion to do with economics, or spirituality with financial institutions? The answer is that the market economy has religious roots. It emerged in a Europe saturated with Judeo-Christian values.
As Harvard economist David Landes has pointed out, until the 15th century China was far in advance of the West in a whole range of technologies. Yet China did not give rise wow gold to the market economy, the rise of science or the industrial revolution. It lacked, says Landes, the cluster of values that Judaism and Christianity gave to Europe.
The market economy is deeply congruent with the values set out in the Hebrew Bible. Material prosperity is a Divine blessing. Poverty crushes the spirit as well as the body, and its alleviation is a sacred task. Work is a noble calling. "When you eat from the labour of your hands," says the Psalm, "you will be happy and it will be well for you."
Competition fuels the fires of invention: "Rivalry between scribes increases runescape gold wisdom." God invites us, said the rabbis, to be His partners in the work of creation. Private property rights are fundamental to freedom. Moses says, when his leadership is challenged, "I have not taken one donkey from them." Elijah challenges King Ahab for his seizure of Naboth's vineyard. Besides this, says Landes, the Bible introduces the idea of linear time, rejecting the idea that time is a cycle in which nothing ultimately changes.
The first financial instruments of modern capitalism were developed by 14th century banks in Christian Florence, Pisa, Genoa and Venice. Max Weber traced the buy wow gold connections between the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. Michael Novak has done likewise for Catholicism. Jews, numbering one-fifth of a percent of the population of the world, have won more than 30 percent of Nobel Prizes in economics. When I asked the developmental economist Jeffrey Sachs what drove him in his work, he replied without hesitation: tikkun olam, the Jewish imperative of "healing a fractured world." The birth of the modern economy is inseparable from its Judeo-Christian roots.
But this is not a stable equilibrium. The market undermines the very values that gave rise to it in the cheap wow gold first place. The consumer culture is profoundly antithetical to human dignity. It inflames desire, undermines happiness, weakens the capacity to defer instinctual gratification, and blinds us to the vital distinction between the price of things and their value.
The financial instruments at the heart of the current crisis -- subprime mortgages and the securitization of risk -- were so complex that governments, regulatory authorities and sometimes even bankers themselves failed to understand them and their extreme vulnerability. Those who encouraged people to take out mortgages they could not repay were guilty of what the Bible calls "putting world of warcraft gold a stumbling block before the blind."
The build-up of personal and collective debt in America and Europe should have sent warning signals to anyone familiar with the biblical institutions of the Sabbatical and Jubilee years, created specifically because of the danger of people being trapped by debt.
These are symptoms of a wider failure: to see the market as an end not a means. The Bible paints a graphic picture of what happens when people cease to see gold as a medium of exchange and start seeing it as an object of worship. It calls it the Golden Calf. Its antidote is the Sabbath: one day in seven in which we neither work nor employ, shop or spend. It is time dedicated to things that have a value not a price: family, community and thanksgiving to God for what we have, instead of worrying about what we lack. It is no coincidence that in Britain, Sunday and financial markets were deregulated at about the same time.
Stabilising the Euro is one thing, healing the culture that surrounds it is another. A world in which material values are everything and spiritual values nothing is neither a stable state nor a good society. The time has come for us to recover the Judeo-Christian ethic of human dignity in the image of God. Humanity was not created to serve markets. Markets were created to serve humankind.
Who Is More Essential? You or Health Insurers?
The money that patients' rights advocates have to spend trying to convince the Obama administration that Americans should have decent health care benefits pales in comparison to the boatloads of cash insurers and their corporate allies have on hand to do largely the opposite. But at least the advocates are now in the game.
Last week a broad coalition of patient-focused groups launched its "I Am Essential" campaign in an effort to make sure that when all of us have to buy health insurance in 2014, we will be getting good value.
When Congress passed the Affordable Care Act last year, it included a provision requiring that all health insurance plans sold a little more than two years from now must contain "essential health benefits." It established 10 categories of required coverage: ambulatory patient services; emergency services; hospitalization; maternity wow gold and newborn care; mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment; prescription drugs; rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices; laboratory services; preventive and wellness services and chronic disease management and pediatric services, including oral and vision care.
The Department of Health and Human Services has the responsibility of determining, with input from the respected nonprofit Institute of Medicine, just how comprehensive the coverage will have to be in each of those categories.
Insurers and employers who offer coverage to workers have been lobbying both the IOM and HHS to make the coverage requirements as narrow as possible. They want to continue marketing plans with skimpy benefits because they are less costly to employers and potentially more profitable runescape gold to insurers. The problem with that approach, of course, is that millions of Americans will be forced to the join the ranks of the underinsured -- already estimated at 30 million -- if coverage they must buy is inadequate to meet their needs.
That would not only be a nightmare for many American citizens but, I'm betting, for any politician who is on the record supporting "Obamacare." If people find out that the coverage they have to buy is of limited value to them when they get sick, they're not going to be very inclined to vote for Democrats come 2016, especially if insurance firms continue their long-running streak of record-setting profits.
I wrote last month that an insurance industry-backed group called the Essential Health Benefits Coalition had been formed to persuade Obama administration officials to consider buy wow gold "affordability" first and foremost -- not comprehensiveness -- as they flesh out the benefit requirements. As is typical of such industry groups, this one was set up and is being run out of a big PR firm, Ogilvy Washington. The budget for it is ample enough to pay the salary of its executive director and spokesman, Brendan Daly, a former aide to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
In contrast, the "I Am Essential" coalition doesn't have a budget.
"Oh, no, no, we don't have any money at all," I was told by Carl Schmid, deputy executive director of The Aids Institute, one of the coalition members. "This is all pro bono."
Other members of the group, which last week sent a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, include the Lupus Foundation of America, the Men's Health Network, Mental Health America, the National Association of Nutrition cheap wow gold and Aging Services Programs and the National Minority Quality Forum. The only other action the coalition has taken so far is to send out a news release announcing the group and its letter to Sebelius.
The letter pointed out that the organizations comprising "I Am Essential" serve many of the nation's most vulnerable patient groups. "There are tens of millions of Americans who, like the people we advocate for, live with chronic disease and disability," they told Sebelius. "We are writing to urge you to make certain that the Essential Health Benefits package fully meets the needs of American health care consumers, particularly those who have chronic health conditions... A benefit package too narrowly drawn runs the risk of not adequately covering patient needs."
The group's letter came a few days after another group of patient advocates -- doctors and nurses -- world of warcraft gold sent a letter to Sebelius making the same plea. Sent by Physicians for a National Health Program, a group that supports a single-payer health care system for the U.S., the letter also blasted the IOM panel for siding with the insurers suggesting that HHS consider affordability first.
"We protest the Institute of Medicine's recommendation that cost rather than medical need be the basis for defining the 'essential benefits' that insurance policies must cover," the doctors and nurses wrote. "The IOM proposal would base the required coverage on the benefits typical of plans currently offered by small businesses -- enshrining these skimpy plans as the new standard. These bare-bones policies come with a long list of uncovered services and saddle enrollees with unaffordable co-payments and deductibles... If adopted by the Department of Health and Human Services, this recommendation will sacrifice many lives and cause much suffering. We call on Secretary Sebelius and President Obama to reject them."
The group went on to suggest that IOM recommendations would shift costs from corporate and government payers onto families already burdened by illness, a strategy it contends will not lower costs because it would result in patients delaying or foregoing needed care. "Delaying care often creates even higher costs," they wrote.
When HHS will make a decision is not clear, although there is speculation that the department might already have sent at least preliminary rules to the Office of Management and Budget to review. If that proves to be true, we probably will find out before the end of the year which coalitions -- those representing insurers and corporate America or those representing patients and consumers -- will have had the greatest influence on the administration.
Last week a broad coalition of patient-focused groups launched its "I Am Essential" campaign in an effort to make sure that when all of us have to buy health insurance in 2014, we will be getting good value.
When Congress passed the Affordable Care Act last year, it included a provision requiring that all health insurance plans sold a little more than two years from now must contain "essential health benefits." It established 10 categories of required coverage: ambulatory patient services; emergency services; hospitalization; maternity wow gold and newborn care; mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment; prescription drugs; rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices; laboratory services; preventive and wellness services and chronic disease management and pediatric services, including oral and vision care.
The Department of Health and Human Services has the responsibility of determining, with input from the respected nonprofit Institute of Medicine, just how comprehensive the coverage will have to be in each of those categories.
Insurers and employers who offer coverage to workers have been lobbying both the IOM and HHS to make the coverage requirements as narrow as possible. They want to continue marketing plans with skimpy benefits because they are less costly to employers and potentially more profitable runescape gold to insurers. The problem with that approach, of course, is that millions of Americans will be forced to the join the ranks of the underinsured -- already estimated at 30 million -- if coverage they must buy is inadequate to meet their needs.
That would not only be a nightmare for many American citizens but, I'm betting, for any politician who is on the record supporting "Obamacare." If people find out that the coverage they have to buy is of limited value to them when they get sick, they're not going to be very inclined to vote for Democrats come 2016, especially if insurance firms continue their long-running streak of record-setting profits.
I wrote last month that an insurance industry-backed group called the Essential Health Benefits Coalition had been formed to persuade Obama administration officials to consider buy wow gold "affordability" first and foremost -- not comprehensiveness -- as they flesh out the benefit requirements. As is typical of such industry groups, this one was set up and is being run out of a big PR firm, Ogilvy Washington. The budget for it is ample enough to pay the salary of its executive director and spokesman, Brendan Daly, a former aide to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
In contrast, the "I Am Essential" coalition doesn't have a budget.
"Oh, no, no, we don't have any money at all," I was told by Carl Schmid, deputy executive director of The Aids Institute, one of the coalition members. "This is all pro bono."
Other members of the group, which last week sent a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, include the Lupus Foundation of America, the Men's Health Network, Mental Health America, the National Association of Nutrition cheap wow gold and Aging Services Programs and the National Minority Quality Forum. The only other action the coalition has taken so far is to send out a news release announcing the group and its letter to Sebelius.
The letter pointed out that the organizations comprising "I Am Essential" serve many of the nation's most vulnerable patient groups. "There are tens of millions of Americans who, like the people we advocate for, live with chronic disease and disability," they told Sebelius. "We are writing to urge you to make certain that the Essential Health Benefits package fully meets the needs of American health care consumers, particularly those who have chronic health conditions... A benefit package too narrowly drawn runs the risk of not adequately covering patient needs."
The group's letter came a few days after another group of patient advocates -- doctors and nurses -- world of warcraft gold sent a letter to Sebelius making the same plea. Sent by Physicians for a National Health Program, a group that supports a single-payer health care system for the U.S., the letter also blasted the IOM panel for siding with the insurers suggesting that HHS consider affordability first.
"We protest the Institute of Medicine's recommendation that cost rather than medical need be the basis for defining the 'essential benefits' that insurance policies must cover," the doctors and nurses wrote. "The IOM proposal would base the required coverage on the benefits typical of plans currently offered by small businesses -- enshrining these skimpy plans as the new standard. These bare-bones policies come with a long list of uncovered services and saddle enrollees with unaffordable co-payments and deductibles... If adopted by the Department of Health and Human Services, this recommendation will sacrifice many lives and cause much suffering. We call on Secretary Sebelius and President Obama to reject them."
The group went on to suggest that IOM recommendations would shift costs from corporate and government payers onto families already burdened by illness, a strategy it contends will not lower costs because it would result in patients delaying or foregoing needed care. "Delaying care often creates even higher costs," they wrote.
When HHS will make a decision is not clear, although there is speculation that the department might already have sent at least preliminary rules to the Office of Management and Budget to review. If that proves to be true, we probably will find out before the end of the year which coalitions -- those representing insurers and corporate America or those representing patients and consumers -- will have had the greatest influence on the administration.
2011年12月7日星期三
The Muppets Are Communist, Fox Business Network Says
It ain't easy being green, but according to Fox Business, Kermit the Frog and his Muppet friends are reds.
Last week, on the network's "Follow the Money" program, host Eric Bolling went McCarthy on the new, Disney-released film, "The Muppets," insisting that its storyline featuring an evil oil baron made it the latest example of Hollywood's so-called liberal agenda.
Bolling, who took issue with the baron's name, Tex Richman, was joined by Dan Gainor of the conservative Media Research Center, who was uninhibited with his criticism.
"It's amazing how far the left will go just to manipulate your kids, to convince them, give the anti-corporate message," he said.
"They've been doing it for decades. Hollywood, the left, the media, they hate the oil industry," Gainor continued. "They hate corporate America. And so you'll see all these movies attacking it, whether it was 'Cars 2,' which was another kids' movie, the George Clooney movie 'Syriana,' 'There Will Be Blood,' all these movies attacking the oil industry, none of them reminding people what oil means for most people: fuel to light a hospital, heat your home, fuel an ambulance to get you to the hospital if you need that. And they don't want to tell that story."
Indeed, there was no mention of the benefits of oil drilling in the Muppets, but there was also no discussion of any other aspect of the industry. Richman, played by Chris Cooper, was out to destroy the Muppets theater. Kermit and his friends, then, were not committed environmentalists (though one must imagine the frog is concerned with his swampy homeland) but simply puppets looking to save a place they once loved.
Still, Gainor blamed the film, and its predecessors, for Occupy Wall Street and the environmental movement.
"This is what they're teaching our kids. You wonder why we've got a bunch of Occupy Wall Street people walking around all around the country, they've been indoctrinated, literally, for years by this kind of stuff," Gainor said. "Whether it was 'Captain Planet' or Nickelodeon's 'Big Green Help,' or 'The Day After Tomorrow,' the Al Gore-influenced movie, all of that is what they're teaching, is that corporations is bad, the oil industry is bad, and ultimately what they're telling kids is what they told you in the movie 'The Matrix': that mankind is a virus on poor old mother Earth."
Last week, on the network's "Follow the Money" program, host Eric Bolling went McCarthy on the new, Disney-released film, "The Muppets," insisting that its storyline featuring an evil oil baron made it the latest example of Hollywood's so-called liberal agenda.
Bolling, who took issue with the baron's name, Tex Richman, was joined by Dan Gainor of the conservative Media Research Center, who was uninhibited with his criticism.
"It's amazing how far the left will go just to manipulate your kids, to convince them, give the anti-corporate message," he said.
"They've been doing it for decades. Hollywood, the left, the media, they hate the oil industry," Gainor continued. "They hate corporate America. And so you'll see all these movies attacking it, whether it was 'Cars 2,' which was another kids' movie, the George Clooney movie 'Syriana,' 'There Will Be Blood,' all these movies attacking the oil industry, none of them reminding people what oil means for most people: fuel to light a hospital, heat your home, fuel an ambulance to get you to the hospital if you need that. And they don't want to tell that story."
Indeed, there was no mention of the benefits of oil drilling in the Muppets, but there was also no discussion of any other aspect of the industry. Richman, played by Chris Cooper, was out to destroy the Muppets theater. Kermit and his friends, then, were not committed environmentalists (though one must imagine the frog is concerned with his swampy homeland) but simply puppets looking to save a place they once loved.
Still, Gainor blamed the film, and its predecessors, for Occupy Wall Street and the environmental movement.
"This is what they're teaching our kids. You wonder why we've got a bunch of Occupy Wall Street people walking around all around the country, they've been indoctrinated, literally, for years by this kind of stuff," Gainor said. "Whether it was 'Captain Planet' or Nickelodeon's 'Big Green Help,' or 'The Day After Tomorrow,' the Al Gore-influenced movie, all of that is what they're teaching, is that corporations is bad, the oil industry is bad, and ultimately what they're telling kids is what they told you in the movie 'The Matrix': that mankind is a virus on poor old mother Earth."
Congress Grills Muppets Over 'Leftist' Leanings, Personal Relationships
A contentious hearing broke out yesterday on Capitol Hill when the House Select Committee To Protect American Culture followed up on the Fox News story asserting the new Muppets movie, and the Muppets in general, had a leftist, anti-corporate agenda.
Committee members leveled a variety of pointed questions at the witnesses, questioning their coloring, religious beliefs, speech habits and views on public issues.
In addition, committee members suggested that federal stimulus funds had been wasted to repave Sesame Street and called for an accounting of all the funds. "We need a full accounting of every federal stimulus dime spent on the repaving of Sesame Street," one committee member said, while another called any stimulus money spent on Sesame Street "a boondoggle" and another asked whether "Sesame Street played host to Illegal aliens?"
Kermit the Frog, the unofficial leader of the group, was the target of many of the questions. He was asked to elaborate on his time as a community organizer on Sesame Street, and at one point a committee member asked, "Is it not true, Mr. The Frog, that thanks to affirmative action, it is, in fact, easier being green?" The congressman added, "Well I believe that being green is a choice, Mr. The Frog."
He was also asked to tell the Committee "more about this rainbow connection you're promoting among our children," and to describe for the Committee "this 'Great Muppet Caper' allegedly perpetrated by you and your associates." Frog's personal life also came under criticism, as one Committee member asked, "Mr. Frog is it true that you are in a relationship with a member of another species. Have you no shame, sir?"
Miss Piggy, another leading member of the Muppet conspiracy, also came in for direct questioning. At one point she was asked, "By refusing to marry or take your longterm partner's name, are you promoting a radical feminist agenda?" Another Committee member zeroed in on her personal habits: "Miss Piggy, isn't your extravagant wardrobe a repudiation of your leftist leanings," to which she could only reply: " Moi?" Romantically linked to Kermit, Miss Piggy was challenged: "Miss Piggy, are you saying that a relationship between a frog and a pig does not undermine American values?" Another committee member said, "By refusing to marry or take your long term partner's name, are you promoting a radical feminist agenda?" When it was suggested she was in "contempt of Congress," Miss Piggy replied, "Of course. Who isn't?"
Sam the Eagle also came in for criticism, with one member of the panel saying, "I want to say that I'm a huge fan, but we need to confirm the authenticity of your birth certificate." Another told the eagle, "No, Mr. Eagle, I do not believe you can simultaneously hold left-wing and right-wing views. That's a flight of fancy."
Committee members leveled a variety of pointed questions at the witnesses, questioning their coloring, religious beliefs, speech habits and views on public issues.
In addition, committee members suggested that federal stimulus funds had been wasted to repave Sesame Street and called for an accounting of all the funds. "We need a full accounting of every federal stimulus dime spent on the repaving of Sesame Street," one committee member said, while another called any stimulus money spent on Sesame Street "a boondoggle" and another asked whether "Sesame Street played host to Illegal aliens?"
Kermit the Frog, the unofficial leader of the group, was the target of many of the questions. He was asked to elaborate on his time as a community organizer on Sesame Street, and at one point a committee member asked, "Is it not true, Mr. The Frog, that thanks to affirmative action, it is, in fact, easier being green?" The congressman added, "Well I believe that being green is a choice, Mr. The Frog."
He was also asked to tell the Committee "more about this rainbow connection you're promoting among our children," and to describe for the Committee "this 'Great Muppet Caper' allegedly perpetrated by you and your associates." Frog's personal life also came under criticism, as one Committee member asked, "Mr. Frog is it true that you are in a relationship with a member of another species. Have you no shame, sir?"
Miss Piggy, another leading member of the Muppet conspiracy, also came in for direct questioning. At one point she was asked, "By refusing to marry or take your longterm partner's name, are you promoting a radical feminist agenda?" Another Committee member zeroed in on her personal habits: "Miss Piggy, isn't your extravagant wardrobe a repudiation of your leftist leanings," to which she could only reply: " Moi?" Romantically linked to Kermit, Miss Piggy was challenged: "Miss Piggy, are you saying that a relationship between a frog and a pig does not undermine American values?" Another committee member said, "By refusing to marry or take your long term partner's name, are you promoting a radical feminist agenda?" When it was suggested she was in "contempt of Congress," Miss Piggy replied, "Of course. Who isn't?"
Sam the Eagle also came in for criticism, with one member of the panel saying, "I want to say that I'm a huge fan, but we need to confirm the authenticity of your birth certificate." Another told the eagle, "No, Mr. Eagle, I do not believe you can simultaneously hold left-wing and right-wing views. That's a flight of fancy."
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