"Don Smith" - Dennis Kucinich looking for a political home, needs our help?

July 10, 2011

By Don Smith

Dennis Kucinich's Ohio congressional district is being redistricted, so Kucinich has been visiting Washington State over the last several months, testing the waters to see whether he can run for a seat here. See this, this, this, this, and this. 

The problem is: Kucinich may be unable to run in Washington State. Unless progressive members of the Democratic Party in Washington State push hard for him, I fear that he will have to try his luck elsewhere.

The chair of the Democratic Party in Washington State, Dwight Pelz, has come out against Kucinich running here. And the mainstream press reports I've seen are generally hostile.  For example, this article repeatedly taunts Kucinich's positions.  Another major newspaper had an even more hostile article about Kucinich. (I won't even bother linking to it, because the newspaper should close shop.)   They say he's too left wing and New Age, or they complain that he's a carpetbagger who would be trying to steal seats from the homegrown candidates. 

Click to read more ...

“Erik Wasson” - Sanders: Obama Proposal Would Impoverish 250,000

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/07/10

Published on Sunday, July 10, 2011 by The Hill (Washington, DC)

by Erik Wasson

The Social Security Administration estimates that a proposal floated by the Obama administration would put 245,000 people into poverty, according to an analysis released by liberal senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Saturday.

Sen. Bernie Sanders has led the charge in the Senate to defend Social Security against benefit cuts. That level of impact would be felt by 2050 if a proposal to change the way inflation is measured is adopted, Sanders announced. The change to the way SSA would calculate the Consumer Price Index has been floated in debt ceiling talks between Congress and the White House. The White House has suggested revising CPI for both the tax code, in order to generate more revenue, and for benefits.

Social Security Administration’s Office of Retirement Policy estimated that by 2030, according to the report prepared for Sanders, there would be 173,400 more people living in poverty in the United States.

Benefits for those who are 80-89 would drop by $960 a year. Benefits for women would fall by 3.5 percent overall while men’s benefits would drop by 2.9 percent.

By 2050, seniors in the 80-89 age bracket would see benefits fall by $1,200 a year.

"I am especially disturbed that the president is considering cuts in Social Security after he campaigned against cuts in 2008," Sanders said. "The American people expect the president to keep his word."

This week Sanders demanded that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) join House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in flatly ruling out any benefit cuts to Social Security as part of the debt deal.

Reid in the past has said Social Security does not need to be reformed for decades. While Social Security is expected to be unable to pay full benefits by 2036, it is not a major driver of the budget deficit. Republicans want the program reformed now because they fear otherwise that as 2036 approaches massive tax hikes that could stall the economy would be demanded by senior citizens.

© 2011 The Hill

“John Nichols” - Guthrie’s ‘Land’ is Madison

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/10-2

Published on Sunday, July 10, 2011 by the Madison Capital Times (Wisconsin)

by John Nichols

A week into the struggle to defend the working families of Wisconsin from the assault on their rights by Gov. Scott Walker and his legislative allies, a group of rockers from around the country showed up to sing in solidarity with the tens of thousands of Wisconsinites who had gathered outside the Capitol. Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, Wayne Kramer from the MC5, Mike McColgan from the Dropkick Murphys and the Street Dogs, and a band of young musicians packed the stage at the State Street entrance on a February day when it was so cold that they joked about trying to play guitars with frozen fingers.

Woodie GuthrieYet they played their way through a rousing array of labor and protest music.

The rockers finished with a song that everyone knew: Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land.”

Guthrie, a union man who placed his voice in the service of many a strike during the rabble-rousing years of the 1930s and 1940s, wrote some of America’s finest labor songs. But “This Land Is Your Land” struck a deeper note. It was not just about the dignity of work. It was about the dignity of Americans and their right to expect more from their country than the same poverty, discrimination and neglect that he associated with the totalitarian states of Europe and the colonies of Africa and southern Asia.

“This Land Is Your Land” has become a sort of people’s national anthem. In Wisconsin this year, it has been restored to its radical roots, often with the “lost verses” that Guthrie used to sing resurrected.

The original manuscript was a call to action for economic and social justice:

Click to read more ...

“Jeff Forester” - Popular Painkillers That Can Cause Killer Pain

http://www.alternet.org/drugs/151571/popular_painkillers_that_can_cause_killer_pain/

By Jeff Forester

Opiate-induced hyperalgesia causes excruciating pain caused by the painkillers themselves.

July 9, 2011 Penny S. seemed to have it all. She was young, pretty and active. Her husband was successful; her children healthy and happy. Then, out of nowhere, the pain began. It started as an aching fatigue in the afternoons and evenings. At night, “she looked like she’d hit a brick wall’” says her husband, Kent. “I…hurt…all…over,” is all Penny says, pausing between each drawn-out word for effect.

A doctor eventually diagnosed fibromyalgia—a syndrome that triggers pain throughout the body—and prescribed Vicodin, the top-selling opioid painkiller. “I liked the feeling of it, and it worked great,” Penny recalls. The Vicodin was a godsend: It enabled her to keep up with her responsibilities—kids, housework, social life—while continuing to work. Some days were better than others, of course, but the painkiller kept her head above water and she even started down the road to recovery from alcoholism.

Shawn F. is an addict of a very different stripe. At five-nine and 120 pounds, he’s a little guy, but he’s survived more than his share of addiction-induced mayhem, including motorcycle and car wrecks, bar fights and gunshots. “I kept a .45 in a shoulder holster, a 9mm in my belt and a derringer in my boot,” Shawn recalls. “I was a danger to the public. My drug was more.” Finally, Shawn’s multiple narcotics addictions landed him in a ward for the chemically psychotic. “I got sober strapped to a table,” Shawn says.

Shawn’s case is the kind that makes doctors cringe. His physician, Dr. Jonathan Tallman, says, “His body is a mess—arthritis everywhere, multiple failed back and neck surgeries.” Pain management requires a daily choice between lifelong suffering and life-threatening addiction.

Click to read more ...

“Mark Howard” - Is Fox News Scared? Desperate Attacks on Watchdog Group Media Matters Suggest Yes

http://www.alternet.org/media/151558/is_fox_news_scared_desperate_attacks_on_watchdog_group_media_matters_suggest_yes/

AlterNet / By Mark Howard

The Fox News pack is on the warpath against media watchdog group Media Matters.

July 8, 2011

In the untamed jungle that is cable news, there is a ferocious and predatory beast stalking the terrain. Anyone who has encountered Fox News in the wild can attest to the spine-chilling threat imposed by the pseudo-news network. And now Fox News has the scent of new game.

The Fox News pack is on the warpath against the media watchdog group, Media Matters. In the past two weeks it has featured over 30 stories with the express purpose of challenging the group’s right to exist. Fox has assigned network stalwarts like Bill O’Reilly, Bret Baier, Charles Krauthammer, James Rosen, Dick Morris, and Bernie Goldberg to the mission. This is an unprecedented, broadly distributed attack by a major media enterprise against a non-profit group it regards as an adversary.

This latest batch of complaints stem from comments made last March by Media Matters founder, David Brock. He was quoted in Politico as saying that the organization was shifting its focus toward Fox News to one of “guerrilla warfare and sabotage.” Giving Fox the benefit of doubt, one might conclude it’s only fair that Fox defend itself from such an overt declaration of war. The only thing that might refute that perspective is – reality.

If this is war, Fox is the aggressor. Fox News initiated its attacks long ago with aggressive and false assertions that cast Media Matters as hacks, anti-American, violent, and communist. Fox alleged that George Soros was pulling their strings long before Soros ever made any contributions to the group. Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck engaged in rhetoric so hostile that it inspired actual physical attacks against Media Matters and its progressive allies. A video (posted at the end of this story and courtesy of Media Matters) was posted two years ago and illustrates the hostility harbored across the Fox platform long before Brock’s recent comments.

The new and highly coordinated offensive by Fox asserts that Media Matters has violated the terms of its tax-exempt status by setting its sights on Fox. Fox quotes from the IRS rules governing non-profits that state that…

Click to read more ...

“Les Leopold” - How Dracula Hedge Funds Are Sucking Us Dry

http://www.alternet.org/economy/151569/how_dracula_hedge_funds_are_sucking_us_dry_/

AlterNet / By Les Leopold

What notion of economics or ethics justifies the fact that it would take the average family more than 35,000 years to earn as much as the top hedge fund managers earn in one year?

July 9, 2011

The official June unemployment rate is 9.2 percent. The real rate is 18.5 percent (which includes involuntary part-time workers and the unemployed who haven’t looked for jobs in the past 4 weeks.) Nearly 30 million Americans are unemployed and we need more than 21 million jobs to get back to full-employment (defined as 5 percent).

Meanwhile, the top 10 hedge fund elites make on average nearly $1 million an HOUR. We’ll never find the resources to solve the unemployment crisis until we redistribute some of this obscene wealth.

It starts by putting to rest the notion that hedge fund elites are just like any other. They are not. They make more money than everyone else, including our top movie stars and athletes...and they pay lower taxes.

Click to read more ...

“Tom Philpott” - Wait, Did the USDA Just Deregulate All New Genetically Modified Crops?

http://motherjones.com/environment/2011/07/usda-deregulate-roundup-gmo-tom-philpott

In a surprise move, the agency green-lights Roundup Ready lawn grass—and perhaps much, much more.

By Tom Philpott

Fri Jul. 8, 2011

It's a hoary bureaucratic trick, making a controversial announcement on the Friday afternoon before a long weekend, when most people are daydreaming about what beer to buy on the way home from work, or are checking movie times online. But that's precisely what the US Department of Agriculture pulled last Friday.

In an innocuous-sounding press release titled "USDA Responds to Regulation Requests Regarding Kentucky Bluegrass," agency officials announced their decision not to regulate a "Roundup Ready" strain of Kentucky bluegrass—that is, a strain genetically engineered to withstand glyphosate, Monsanto's widely used herbicide, which we know as Roundup. The maker of the novel grass seed, Scotts Miracle Gro, is now free to sell it far and wide. So you'll no doubt be seeing Roundup Ready bluegrass blanketing lawns and golf courses near you—and watching anal neighbors and groundskeepers literally dousing the grass in weed killer without fear of harming a single precious blade.

Which is worrisome enough. But even more worrisome is the way this particular product was approved. According to Doug Gurian-Sherman, senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists' Food and Environment Program, the documents released by the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) along with the announcement portend a major change in how the feds will deal with genetically modified crops.

Notably, given the already-lax regulatory regime governing GMOs (genetically modified organisms, click here for a primer), APHIS seems to be ramping down oversight to the point where it is essentially meaningless. The new regime corresponding with the bluegrass announcement would "drastically weaken USDA’s regulation," Gurian-Sherman told me. "This is perhaps the most serious change in US regs for [genetically modified] crops for many years."

Understanding why requires a brief history of the US government's twisted attempts to regulate GMOs. Since the Reagan days, federal regulatory efforts have been governed by what's known as the Coordinated Framework for Regulation of Biotechnology. Despite its name, the Coordinated Framework amounts to a porous hodgepodge of regulations based on the idea that overseeing GMOs required no new laws—that the novel technology could be effectively regulated under already-existing code.

Click to read more ...

“Andy Kroll” - June Jobs Report: Recovery? What Recovery?

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/07/june-jobs-report-obama-economy

By Andy Kroll

 Fri Jul. 8, 2011

The Labor Department's June jobs report is ugly. Really ugly. In just about every meaningful category there was bad news about the workforce. Two years after the recession officially ended, the US labor market continues to struggle mightily.

The headline jobless rate crept up to 9.2 percent. Overall the economy created 18,000 jobs (economists had predicted nearly ten times that number). The real unemployment rate jumped up to 16.2 percent, from 15.8 percent. Workers who left the workforce: 272,000. Hours worked and hourly earnings declined. The percentage of Americans participating in the labor force—64.1 percent—is the lowest it's been since 1983. Teen unemployment is a staggering 24.5 percent, and the jobless rate for blacks and Hispanics is 16.2 percent and 11.6 percent, respectively.

Taking into account the June jobs report, the economy has created an average of 126,000 jobs a month in 2011. That's barely enough to keep pace with normal population growth.

Put simply, there's no silver lining in today's report. Tweeted economist Nouriel Roubini this morning, "Labor market in a slump dashing the hopes that this is a temporary soft patch. It is rather a deep ugly swamp."

The jobs report casts a dark cloud over the ongoing deficit-reduction talks between top Democrats and Republicans. The White House announced that President Obama will discuss the jobs report at 10:35 a.m. from the Rose Garden.

Here's more from the Associated Press:

Economists have said that temporary factors have, in part, forced some employers to pull back. High gas prices have cut into consumer spending. And supply-chain disruptions stemming from the Japan crisis slowed U.S. manufacturing production.

In June, hiring was weak in most sectors: Manufacturers added only 6,000 jobs; Education and health care, which added jobs through the recession, was flat; and professional and business services, which include accounting, legal and engineering jobs, grew by only 12,000.

Construction and financial services cut jobs.

In a brief statement this morning, House Speaker John Boehner pointed to June's dismal jobs report as proof that reducing the federal deficit with tax increases will only make things worse for the US economy. "The stimulus spending dinge, execessive government regulations, and our overwhelming debt continue to hold back job creators around our country," Boehner said. "Tax hikes on families and job creators would only make things worse."

Austan Goolsbee, a top economic aide to the president, fired back: "This reiterates what we know, which is that the growth rate slowed down in the first part of this year. And we've got to get that growth rate back up. This number is a call for us to take bipartisan action to help get the private sector to stand up and start hiring."

“Jess Zimmerman” - Michigan woman could face jail time for growing a garden

http://www.grist.org/list/2011-07-08-michigan-woman-could-face-jail-time-for-growing-a-garden

by Jess Zimmerman

8 Jul 2011

The green movement doesn't have much use for lawns. Yeah, they make suburban enclaves look tidy and uniform, but really, would it be so effing bad if your house had something useful -- say, a vegetable garden -- instead of a high-maintenance water-hog outdoor carpet? What's the worst that could happen? Well, as Michigan woman Julie Bass discovered, if your city planner is certifiably power-crazy, you could be looking at 93 days in jail.

After her front yard got dug up for sewer line maintenance, Julie Bass decided to put in raised vegetable beds instead of reseeding the lawn. It was awesome -- the neighborhood kids helped out, everyone got to see where their food came from, the Bass family got fresh cheap produce. Your basic home gardening idyll. But then some disgruntled neighbor, maybe someone who didn't get enough free tomatoes, ratted Bass out to the city of Oak Park, which has rules about what kind of vegetation is allowed in front yards. When Bass wouldn't move the beds, the city slapped her with a ticket and a misdemeanor charge. Bass is demanding her right to a trial -- and if the city wins, she could legally get up to 93 days in jail.

What's so bad about front-yard gardens? Well, as city planner Kevin Rulkowski points out, city regulations stipulate that front yards must comprise "suitable live plant material." "If you look at the definition of what suitable is in Webster's dictionary," says Rulkowski, "it will say common." So since everyone else doesn't have vegetable gardens, the Basses can't either.

Leaving aside that this argument sounds like the beginning of a high school student's writing assignment ("Webster's dictionary defines 'success' as..."), it appears Rulkowski has never actually cracked his beloved Webster's. You wanna play semantics, Rulkowski? Let's play: The first definition for "suitable" is "adapted to a use or purpose." We'd be hard-pressed to come up with a better illustration than a vegetable garden that benefits people all over the neighborhood.

“Stephen Lacey” - In dimwitted move, GOP set to repeal lightbulb standard that saves billions

http://www.grist.org/energy-efficiency/2011-07-08-in-dimwitted-move-gop-set-to-repeal-lightbulb-standard-that-save

by Stephen Lacey

8 Jul 2011

Cross-posted from Climate Progress.

In a move that could be called anything but conservative, Republican lawmakers are set to bring a bill to the House floor next week that will repeal state and municipal rights to set efficiency standards for lightbulbs. The bill would unravel a piece of federal legislation that was strongly supported by lightbulb manufacturers and has spurred innovation in the lighting industry.

The bill, sponsored by Texas Republican Joe Barton, would strip away any "federal, state or local requirement or standard regarding energy efficient lighting" that uses lightbulbs containing mercury. In other words, all compact fluorescent bulbs.

Remember, in May, Barton denied there was any "medical negative" from mercury emitted from coal power plants. Now he fancies himself a protector of the public from a vastly smaller source of potential mercury poisoning. The reality: There is an extremely small amount of mercury in CFL bulbs. Even after more than eight hours of exposure, mercury levels are equal [PDF] to eating a six ounce can of tuna,

But that's not what this is really about.

Click to read more ...