"Tim Murphy" - Here are Six Stories You Must Read About Rick Perry

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/08/stories-about-rick-perry

—By Tim Murphy

Sat Aug. 20, 2011

 

Rick Perry's first week on the campaign trail was, it's pretty safe to say, an eventful one. Last Saturday, the Texas governor officially entered the GOP presidential race with a pledge to make "Washington, DC, as inconsequential in your life as I can." On Sunday, he alleged that the United States military does not respect President Obama. On Monday, he threatened to murder (or something) the Republican-appointed chairman of the Federal Reserve. On Wednesday, he blew the whistle on an international conspiracy by climatologists to secure more money for research grants. On Thursday, he disclosed that the earth was "pretty old" and that creationism should be taught in public schools.

Perry, Texas' governor since the last days of the Clinton administration, has taken the race by storm, soaring to the top of the polls in Iowa and throwing conservatives into a tizzy as to whether he's really cut out to lead the Republican party forward. So who is Rick Perry, anyway—and what has he done to Texas?

We combed the Internet to bring you our favorite deep dives on the GOP's new pony—and the people and events that made him. Enjoy:

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"Lee Fang" - Koch Responds To Buffet: "My Business And Non-Profit Investments Are Much More Beneficial To Society'

http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Koch-Responds-To-Buffet--in-General_News-110821-816.html

By Lee Fang on Aug 20, 2011 at 7:40 pm

America’s current tax system forces people making $50,000 a year to pay a higher rate than hedge fund managers making $2.4 million an hour. Warren Buffett penned an op-ed last week declaring that America’s super-rich have been “coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress.” Lamenting the numerous tax loopholes and special breaks afforded to billionaire investors, Buffett noted that in his entire career, even when capital gains rates were as high as 39.9 percent, he never saw anyone “shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain.”

Charles Koch, head of the massive petrochemical, manufacturing, and commodity speculating Koch Industries corporation, has responded to Warren’s call for shared sacrifice: “No Thanks.” In a statement to right-wing media, Koch states:

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"Olivier De Schutter and Gaëtan Vanloqueren" - The New Green Revolution: How Twenty-First-Century Science Can Feed the World

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/21-1

Published on Sunday, August 21, 2011 by Solutions

 

Countries can and must reorient their agricultural systems toward modes of production that are not only highly productive, but also highly sustainable.

by Olivier De Schutter and Gaëtan Vanloqueren

Some crises appear and disappear in global media while remaining acute in the lives of real people. Global food insecurity is this type of crisis. In January 2011 the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) warned that global food prices in December 2010 exceeded the 2008 peak during the so-called food price crisis that sparked “food riots” across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.¹ The UN also warned that the price increase would not stop overnight and that we were entering “danger territory.”² Although prices stabilized in the spring, global food prices in May 2011 remained higher than they were in June 2008. We will see more price spikes in the future, due to a growing discrepancy between supply and demand, the impacts of climate disruption on agricultural production, and the merger of the energy and food markets. The food crisis is here to stay.

Governments have pledged to reinvest massively in agriculture. After three decades of neglect, this is welcome news. However, as countries announce impressive figures on the scope of their reinvestment, we tend to forget that the most pressing issues today regarding agricultural reinvestment involve not only how much, but how.

The choice between agricultural development models has immediate and long-term consequences. Since 2008 some major reinvestment efforts have been channeled into a slightly modified version of the Green Revolution without fully considering our other great contemporary challenge of climate change. In contrast, scant attention has been paid to the most cutting-edge ecological farming methods—methods that improve food production and farmers’ incomes, while also protecting the soil, water, and climate.

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"Raul Rodriguez" - One in Four California Families Can't Afford Food for Their Kids

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/08/20

Published on Saturday, August 20, 2011 by New America Media

 

by Raul Rodriguez

SAN FRANCISCO -- One in four California households with children reported food hardship, according to a new analysis of Gallup data released last Thursday by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC).

“It’s disturbing, but not surprising,” said Kelly Hardy, director of health policy at Children Now.

The report analyzed data gathered as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index project’s responses to the question: “Have there been times in the past 12 months when you did not have enough money to buy food that you or your family needed?”

“It sends a clear signal of economic distress, particularly for families with children,” noted James Weill, president of FRAC. “The answers to the question reveal there are times that these families are going without eating a meal, or the parents are skipping a meal for their children, or children are skipping meals.”

California had the second highest number of metropolitan areas with rates of food hardship in households with children in 2009-2010, according to the report.

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"Kevin O’Connor" - Bill McKibben Jailed After White House Tar Sands Pipeline Protest

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/08/21-2

Published on Sunday, August 21, 2011 by the Rutland Herald (Vermont)

 

by Kevin O’Connor

Vermont environmental author and activist Bill McKibben went to Washington, D.C., in hopes of getting attention by getting arrested. This weekend he got that and more: a surprise two-night stay in jail.

McKibben and 64 other protesters kicked off a two-week sit-in at White House on Saturday to oppose a $7 billion, 1,700-mile oil pipeline planned to cross the nation’s Great Plains.

U.S. Park Police had warned demonstrators that each would be arrested and quickly released with a $100 fine for trespassing. But after authorities learned that more than 2,000 people from all 50 states plan to join the protest sometime between now until Sept. 3, they jailed McKibben and his peers until a court hearing Monday — all in hopes of deterring future participants.

The police action, however, didn’t appear to stop pipeline opponents. McKibben used his one phone call from jail to tell fellow protest organizers that despite heat in the nation’s capital, all arrested were in good spirits and urged their peers to continue on.

“This was a powerful day,” McKibben said in a written statement. “It’s not the easiest thing on earth for law-abiding folk to come risk arrest. It’s hot out here today, especially when you’re wearing a suit and tie. But it’s nowhere near as hot as it’s going to get if we lose this fight.”

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"Sarah Jaffe" - Is Bank of America Headed Toward Collapse?

By Sarah Jaffe, AlterNet
Posted on August 14, 2011, Printed on August 17, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152008/is_bank_of_america_headed_toward_collapse

Bank of America is no stranger to controversy. The largest bank in the United States has seen, in just the last six months, nationwide protests of its branches by groups like US Uncut, National People's Action and other progressive activists angered by the company's tax dodging, foreclosures, massive bonuses (paid after taxpayer bailouts) and other practices.

But could the too-big-to-fail behemoth actually be headed for failure?

On August 5, Yves Smith of the blog Naked Capitalism started a Bank of America Death Watch, writing:

“It is clear that the Charlotte bank has too much in the way of legal liability that it will not be able to shed and yet-to-be-taken writedowns on balance sheet items (for instance, roughly $125 billion of home equity loans and junior liens on residential real estate as of end of last year) for it not to be at risk of a death spiral.”

Back in 2008, Bank of America snapped up Countrywide, one of the subprime lenders that preyed on low-income home buyers, often with adjustable-rate mortgages that ballooned after a couple of years, leaving homeowners unable to make payments. Though it doesn't seem hard to figure out that many people would be driven into foreclosure by such loans, Countrywide was able to repackage these loans into mortgage-backed securities that were then resold as prime products to investors—investors that often were state pension funds, like CalPERS, the funds responsible for paying the benefits owed to public employees. These are the same public employees who are now being targeted around the country as greedy and unwilling to take cuts to their pensions. The unethical actions of big banks and mortgage lenders are at fault, yet working people are expected to take the hit.

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"Steven Hill" - Europe's Quiet Revolution

Published on Wednesday, August 17, 2011 by Roots Action

http://www.rootsaction.org/news-a-views/206-europes-quiet-revolution

by Steven Hill

The overarching challenge in the world today is: how do we advance the institutions and practices capable of enacting a desirable quality of life for a burgeoning global population of 6.5 billion people?  And how do we accomplish that in a way that does not burn up the planet in a Venus atmosphere of our own creation?  That is a tall order to fill, yet it is the defining task of the 21st century. 

More than anywhere else, Europe has fostered the types of innovations that point the way forward for the world to meet these challenges. Europe's brand of "social capitalism" is better suited for the 21^st century than  America's "Wall Street capitalism" because it has developed itself on several major fronts.

* Real family values:  healthcare and supports for families and workers.  European nations score at the top on social and health indicators, with Europeans today enjoying universal health care for all, generous retirement pensions, an average of five weeks paid vacation (compared to two in the U.S.), paid sick leave, paid parental leave, kiddy stipends (about $200 per month for children's needs), affordable childcare (Americans pay at least six times more for child care), low-cost higher education (in some countries it's free), and a shorter work week with comparable wages for their workers. Social spending in Europe runs 35 percent per capita above that in the United States; even in Greece, which has been beset by debt troubles recently, people still have more of these supports than most Americans.

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"Agence France-Presse" - Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon up 15 percent

By Agence France-Presse
Wednesday, August 17th, 2011 -- 10:53 pm

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/08/17/deforestation-in-brazils-amazon-up-15-percent/

BRASILIA — Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon increased by 15 percent during the past 12 months, the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) said.

From July 2010 to July 2011 the vast South American rainforest lost 2,654 square kilometers (1,649 square miles) of vegetation in the states of Mato Grosso and Para, according to a preliminary analysis of satellite photos.

The year before, 2,295 square kilometers (1,426 square miles) were destroyed over that time period.

This July, 225 square kilometers (139 square miles) were lost to deforestation, though this was significantly less than the 485 square kilometers (301 square miles) destroyed in July 2010.

In April 477 square kilometers (296 square miles) were destroyed, with more than 95 percent of the devastation taking place in Mato Grosso, which is a major agricultural frontier used for cattle ranches and soybean farming.

Wednesday's figures were calculated from a satellite system known as DETER, which detects in real time when an area larger than 61 acres is destroyed, though its results are not always exact due to cloud cover.

Brazil, the world's fifth largest country by area, has 5.3 million square kilometers of jungle and forests -- mostly in the Amazon river basin -- of which only 1.7 million are under state protection.

The rest is in private hands, or its ownership is undefined.

Deforestation has made Brazil one of the world's top greenhouse gas emitters, and the pace of deforestation peaked in 2004 at 27,000 square kilometers (10,000 square miles) a year.

The rate of deforestation has declined since then, in part because of DETER, and at the 2009 UN climate change summit in Copenhagen, Brazil committed itself to reducing Amazon deforestation by 80 percent by 2020.



"Adele M. Stan" - Why the Mainstream Media Are Clueless About the Religious Right

By Adele M. Stan, AlterNet
Posted on August 16, 2011, Printed on August 18, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152053/why_the_mainstream_media_are_clueless_about_the_religious_right

Every four years, just as a presidential campaign kicks up, legions of media types who make their living outside the right-wing echo chamber emerge as a militia of Margaret Meads, descending on flyover country, trying to make sense of that exotic phenomenon, the religious right. In the end, those who actually get it are few.

From the attitudes shown by media toward the religious right, you'd never know that more than one-quarter of the U.S. population identify as evangelicals, according to a 2007 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, and among white self-identified evangelicals, 62 percent told Pew in 2006 that they believe the Bible to be the literal word of God.

These, by and large, are the people who determine the outcome of the Republican presidential primary, thanks to the early stacking of states heavily populated by evangelicals, and the propensity of most evangelicals to align with the Republican Party. And yet, we who cover these races often know very little about the voters whose person-on-the-street interviews they're recording, except to know that these people are very different from us in their view of the world. So as everyday doctrines come to light in one or another campaign incident, the media either find themselves aghast at the implications, or simply choose to ignore them.

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"David DeGraw" - Debt, Debt, Debt: 90% of Americans Experience Income Decline As Wealth Gets Sucked Back Into Top .1% -- Debt Explodes As We Try to Make Ends Meet

By David DeGraw, Amped Status
Posted on August 14, 2011, Printed on August 18, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152016/debt%2C_debt%2C_debt%3A_90_of_americans_experience_income_decline_as_wealth_gets_sucked_back_into_top_.1_--_debt_explodes_as_we_try_to_make_ends_meet

The cuts in taxes for the mega-wealthy have led to record wealth inequality and resulted in a huge national deficit. Meanwhile, to make up for the deficit created in part by tax giveaways to one-tenth of one percent of the population, Democrats and Republicans are committed to making draconian budget cuts to vital social services, which target the poor, middle class, elderly and sick, while handing out billions more in corporate welfare annually. (Inequality = Debt = Austerity)

Just as the government has done, to make up for tax revenue lost to the mega-wealthy, Americans have made up for the decline in income by taking on large amounts of debt as well. (Inequality = Debt)

In a severely unequal society, massive debt will always be created, thus forming a vicious cycle of increasing inequality and increasing debt, until the fragmentation of society reaches a breaking point when those in debt cannot afford to pay back their debts without starving to death. (Inequality = Debt = Austerity = Civil Unrest)

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