TODAY'S TOPICS: Fukushima, Vermont, Hochul, Medicare/Medicaid, Climate Change, Extortion, Israel, Afghanistan
I realize that due to time constraints I’m really going to have to start posting shorter blogs, but more often. It’s hard because I have so much I want to communicate it results in me holding off on posting because I don’t think it’s ready. The problem now is I don’t have the time to post them like I used to. So, after this one, I’m going to try and start doing this…maybe even post just on a topic or two at a time if possible.
So, again, I’m going to give quick thoughts on a number of subjects that I just couldn’t quite get to here this past week. I would also highly suggest you check out the articles I've included on what's happening at Fukishima, and climate change's connection to the INSANE weather around the globe.
One quick note on climate change and weather. One of the semantic tricks used by both deniers and corporate media dedicated to giving "both sides" (regardless how wrong one is), is to constantly point out that "climate change can't be shown to have CAUSED any particular storm or event." While this is technically true in the sense that tornadoes in Oklahoma can't be PROVEN to have been CAUSED by climate change, what we do know is that climate change, as has been predicted to perfection for decades, does result in more intense weather patterns, be they floods, droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes, heat waves, and so forth (as well as more often). So in a much more important and accurate sense, all these weather events ARE directly CONNECTED to climate change. Sadly, the way this fact is communicated, is incredibly distorted in our mainstream media and politics (though not in other countries).
With that, let me begin with a quote from my friend and ally Norman Solomon…who is running for Congress! His writing, as always, is poetic, sharp and of course, deeply insightful:
Nearly everywhere we turn, the problems of corporate power and scant democracy are at the core of ecological disasters, extreme social inequities and perpetual war.
While corporate profits are at record highs, working people and want-to-be-working people struggle to pay bills and put food on the table. Many are jobless or under-employed. Schools have fewer teachers and larger classes. The public sector and its employees are under attack.
Playing it safe, without fighting much against corporate power, is the conventional wisdom for how to climb the political career ladder. But the conventional wisdom got us into this mess -- and can't get us out, because so many of our concentric crises have undue corporate power at their core.
Vermont PASSES AND SIGNS Single Payer Health Care
I think its fascinating, and very telling in terms of the increasing separation between red states and blue, that at the same time the GOP is trying to end Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, both in Congress and in state after state (mostly southern), Vermont (and we’re trying in California too) has just passed, and their Governor signed, a single payer health care bill!! (outside of public financing, there’s probably no single issue that would have a greater positive impact on our society than this).
Here’s what Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin had to say at the signing: “Here’s our challenge. Our premiums go up 10, 15, 20 percent a year. This is true in the rest of the country as well. They are killing small business. They’re killing middle-class Americans, who have been kicked in the teeth over the last several years. What our plan will do is create a single pool, get the insurance company profits, the pharmaceutical company profits, the other folks that are mining the system to make a lot of money on the backs of our illnesses, and ensure that we’re using those dollars to make Vermonters healthy.”
Hochul Wins in New York!
As I predicted last post, a Democrat, running on protecting Medicare against the Ryan plan, won the most conservative district in New York, garnering nearly DOUBLE the votes that the last Democrat got there. We’re talking about a district so safely Republican that it backed John McCain for president in the 2008 election that saw the rest of the state back Barack Obama. In recent congressional elections, Republicans have gained as much as 70 percent of the vote there! In fact, Hochul becomes only the fourth Democrat to represent the district since 1857.
This victory was also despite the $2.36 million spent by groups like Karl Rove’s American Crossroads and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. More impressively, she won despite being outspent nearly 3 to 1 – an important signal being we’ve entered the age of Citizens United and the corporate super citizen. One way or another, the left is going to HAVE TO win on the issues…more so than in the past even (Obama aside…who will raise tons).
The Budget Deficit: Causes and Solutions
The GOP, our own little domestic terrorist network, has almost, to a person, tied themselves to the Ryan plan. Remember, this is a plan that would eviscerate Medicare by privatizing it with vouchers that would fall further and further behind the rising cost of health insurance. And Ryan and the Republicans offer no means of slowing rising health-care costs. To the contrary, they want to repeal every cost-containment measure enacted in last year’s health-reform legislation. The inevitable result: More and more seniors would be priced out of the market for health care.
Hochul recognized this as the opportunity of a lifetime – particularly when her opponent VOTED FOR THE PLAN. AT that point, the campaign became all about the need to preserve Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and the rest of the safety net. As I have been pointing out over and over here, that’s a WINNING MESSAGE if the Democrats would ever seize it, completely, and unapologetically, as she did.
Her clarity is in sharp contrast to what has been the mixed message coming from the White House and too many Democrats. The “everything is on the table” (except tax increases???) mealy mouthed crap simply clouds the issue in voters minds and doesn’t sufficiently distinguish party positions. Let’s hope that this race serves as the educational tool it should: EVERYTHING IS NOT on the table!!!
That phrase is code for “all public programs that help the middle class and poor are on the table”. How can Democrats say everything is on the table when the GOP has said ANY tax increase is off the table, and, they just filibustered ending a few, small tax subsidies to the most profitable corporations in the history of the world: Big Oil?
Sadly, though not totally unexpectedly, another corporate Democrat in love with triangulation, Bill Clinton (Obama is the same), was caught, on tape, chatting up Paul Ryan behind the scenes of a Pete Peterson (a billionaire who’s life goal is to destroy social security and medicare)-funded fiscal summit. It gets worse; Clinton is seen telling Ryan that he hopes the Democrats victory in New York doesn’t stop Congress from addressing the need to CUT Medicare!!! He even told Ryan to call him if he needs help.
With friends like these, who needs enemies???
Best Strategy May Be To Do Nothing
Remember last year when I said that the Obama and the Dems should simply let the Bush tax cuts expire…and NOT succumb to GOP extortion? Well, they of course did extend those tax cuts, adding a huge amount to the deficit to the tune of a $150,000 tax cut per millionaire. Worse, the GOP is back, now threatening to not raise the Debt Ceiling unless Medicare is destroyed. Again, could any terrorist network in the world ever DREAM of doing so much damage, or demanding so much? The threat of bringing our economy to its knees unless we ensure millions more seniors will die and suffer is not just extortion, but a form of terrorism, pure and simple.
As David Dayen notes, “Except doing nothing is the best hope of actually keeping safety net benefits at current levels. If you “do nothing,” the Bush tax cuts expire, tax rates go back to what they were under Bill Clinton when we created 23 million new jobs, and the medium-term deficit goes away completely. Doing nothing is a pretty darn good idea, at least compared to the alternatives. And lest we forget, there’s a jobs crisis and a demand shortfall happening in the country at the moment.”
I continue to think we’ll have to rely on Republican intransigence and gridlock to get through this period. As Digby says:
"This is actually good news because it indicates that the Republicans are so delusional that they will never agree to even the kind of fake tax hikes the corporate Dems are more than willing to give them in exchange for the cuts in “entitlements” so they think they need to sell themselves as “fiscally responsible.” As I’ve been harping for months — with the Republicans having gone completely over the cliff and the Democrats ready to compromise on anything in order that the Villagers finally acknowledge them as “grown-ups” the best thing that could happen is gridlock. Since it’s unlikely that the Democrats will ever draw a real line in the sand we have to depend upon Grover Norquist and Paul Ryan to stay crazy. Looks like that’s not going to be a problem.”
And let us also not forget what CAUSED THE DEFICIT (something strangely NEVER discussed in the media). See this graph:
It thus becomes more than clear that to fix the deficit we must address the causes of the deficit: invest in jobs through maintaining and modernizing our infrastructure, restore top tax rates to where they were before we had huge deficits and, cut military spending back to maybe only twice our nearest potential competitor.
We must not forget, all economic indicators suggest we are STILL in a recession…at least, in the sense of what the lower and middle classes are facing. As I keep saying, the WORST thing we can do for a depressed economy is to cut funding for core programs, be it the safety net, or be it investment in things that spur growth, like infrastructure and energy.
According to research conducted by the National Employment Law Project (NELP), the recovery “has been disproportionately driven by industries that pay median wages below $15.00 an hour.” Three out of four jobs the economy added last year were in the bottom 40 percent of the wage scale, while only one in 20 were in the top 40 percent.
In March, House Republicans laid out a perverse plan to lower working Americans' wages, supposedly in a bid to get employers to hire more of them (PDF). They called for “decreasing the number and compensation of government workers,” which they said would spur job creation because “a smaller government workforce increases the available supply of educated, skilled workers for private firms, thus lowering labor costs.” “Labor costs,” of course mean “wages and benefits” – Americans' paychecks and health care. We're in a deep hole, and our elites appear quite happy to blithely keep digging.
In fact, if you look at job creation by President's over the past 100 years...ALL the best ones were Democrats. See here:
In fact, if you look at job creation by President's over the past 100 years...ALL the best ones were Democrats. See here:
Israel…and Afghanistan
I have to say, it was one of our nation’s low lights to see a war criminal and mass murderer – Benjamin Netanyahu – get 29 standing ovations from our congress, while the Code Pink woman that unfolded a banner to bring attention to the plight of the Palestinians (like illegal settlements), was actually beaten so badly by Israel sympathizers that she had to go to the hospital AFTER being arrested. If that doesn’t indicate we are living in an age of both unreason and injustice, I don’t know what does.
Perhaps even more disturbing, Senate Democrats are not just considering giving a vote to Orrin Hatch’s ludicrous rebuke of Barack Obama for saying something he didn’t say about Israel and the pre-1967 borders, they’re considering supporting the resolution!!!
Once again, I will NEVER fully understand what seeming unquestioned power Israel has over so many in our government. Don’t get me wrong, I know all about AIPAC and what we think we’re gaining from having such an ally in the Middle East…and yes, I get the whole "end of times" christian fundamentalist connection too (which is TRULY insane), but there’s got to be something more, because our blind support for this rogue nation, no matter the crimes they commit, borders on the insane…while hurting OUR national security AND Israel's.
As for Afghanistan, Congress ALMOST passed the McGovern-Jones amendment. As Dayen noted, “This has been debated several times in the House; in its current incarnation it would accelerate the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. This was the first vote on the Afghan war since the killing of Osama bin Laden. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi gave it a huge boost by announcing she would vote for it this morning, in defiance of the Obama Administration’s strategy.
The amendment failed 215-204. Out of 186 Democrats voting, 178 voted to accelerate the withdrawal. And 26 Republicans joined them. This is the closest that any vote has come to repudiating the President’s war strategy in Afghanistan in ten years. A similar measure got just 162 votes previously. It’s poignant that this vote, the closest thing to a rebuke of this war we’ve yet seen, happened on a day that eight NATO troops, at least seven of them Americans, gave their lives in Afghanistan. I don’t know that anyone in the country can credibly say why.”
The amendment failed 215-204. Out of 186 Democrats voting, 178 voted to accelerate the withdrawal. And 26 Republicans joined them. This is the closest that any vote has come to repudiating the President’s war strategy in Afghanistan in ten years. A similar measure got just 162 votes previously. It’s poignant that this vote, the closest thing to a rebuke of this war we’ve yet seen, happened on a day that eight NATO troops, at least seven of them Americans, gave their lives in Afghanistan. I don’t know that anyone in the country can credibly say why.”
Let us hope that Obama will end this abomination as promised (should be before that) – already the longest war in American history.
VIDEO SECTION
Tom Tomorrow’s latest cartoon…sharp as always…
FROM C&L: Lawrence O'Donnell was spot on with his prediction that Donald Trump would pretend he was running for president up until the date that NBC had to announce that his show would be continued in their upcoming lineup and he's spot on here with Sarah Palin's game pretending that she's going to actually throw her hat in the ring for 2012 as well.
ARTICLE SECTION
Is Fukushima Now Ten Chernobyls into the Sea?, by Harvey Wasserman
A FEW CLIPS:
New readings show levels of radioisotopes found up to 30 kilometers offshore from the on-going crisis at Fukushima are ten times higher than those measured in the Baltic and Black Seas during Chernobyl. "When it comes to the oceans, says Ken Buesseler, a chemical oceonographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, "the impact of Fukushima exceeds Chernobyl."
SNIP
TEPCO has confirmed that at least three of the Fukushima reactors---Units One, Two and Three---have suffered at least partial fuel melts. In at least one case, the fuel has melted through part of the inner containment system, with molten radioactive metal melting through to the reactor floor. A wide range of sources confirm the likelihood that fission may still be proceeding in at least one Fukushima core. The danger level is disputed. But it clearly requires still more commitment to some kind of cooling regime that will send vast quantities of water into ocean. At least one spent fuel pool---in Unit Four---may have been entirely exposed to air and caught fire.
SNIP
Japan is standing by its decision to build no more reactors, while China has put some 28 proposed projects on hold. China's reaction to Fukushima will be crucial to the future of nuclear power, as it is by far the largest potential market for new reactors. Though prevailing winds head the other way, Fukushima is relatively close to China, and some fallout has been detected there.
The Obama Administration has still produced no comprehensive monitoring of radioactive fallout coming to the United States and has provided no guidance as to how American citizens can protect themselves, except to say not to worry. Polls now show more Americans opposing new reactors than favoring them, and grassroots opposition is fierce.
But the industry is pushing ahead with demands for $36 billion in loan guarantees for new reactors, with a preliminary vote expected soon in a House Appropriations Subcommittee. Nuclear opponents are asked to call the White House and Congress steadily through the 2012 budget process…The US has ceased measuring contamination in Pacific seafood. But for centuries to come, at least some radioactive materials dumped into the sea at Fukushima will find their way into the creatures of the sea and the humans that depend on them.
Privatization: The Road to Hell, by Jim Hightower
A FEW CLIPS:
For only $1.5 million, Koch bought a big chunk of the economics department of Florida State University a couple of years ago. His donation gives him control of a new "academic" program at this public institution to indoctrinate students in his self-serving political theories.
The billionaire gets to screen all applicants, veto any he deems insufficiently ideological, and sign off on all new hires. Also, the department head must submit yearly reports to Koch about the faculty's speeches, publications and classes, and he evaluates the faculty based on "objectives" that he sets.
Charles has made similar purchases of academic freedom at two other state universities, Clemson and West Virginia. Also, in a May 20 piece at Alternet.org, investigative researcher Lee Fang reveals that Koch has paid $419,000 to buy into Brown University's "political theory project," $3.6 million to establish Troy University's "center for political economy" and $700,000 for a piece of Utah State's Huntsman School of Business, which now has the "Charles G. Koch Professor of Political Economy."
The billionaire gets to screen all applicants, veto any he deems insufficiently ideological, and sign off on all new hires. Also, the department head must submit yearly reports to Koch about the faculty's speeches, publications and classes, and he evaluates the faculty based on "objectives" that he sets.
Charles has made similar purchases of academic freedom at two other state universities, Clemson and West Virginia. Also, in a May 20 piece at Alternet.org, investigative researcher Lee Fang reveals that Koch has paid $419,000 to buy into Brown University's "political theory project," $3.6 million to establish Troy University's "center for political economy" and $700,000 for a piece of Utah State's Huntsman School of Business, which now has the "Charles G. Koch Professor of Political Economy."
SNIP
Yet these ivory tower ideologues are using the current brouhaha over the budget deficit as an opening to push their loopiest fantasies of selling off all of America's public properties, facilities, systems and treasures to create a no-government, plutocratic paradise. Just spread our public goods out on tables, like a flea market from hell, and invite the global rich to buy it all.
For example, a fellow from another Koch-funded front, the American Enterprise Institute, observes that the government could raise billions of dollars to retire that pesky deficit simply by selling our interstate highway system. Americans would then have to pay tolls forever to the corporate owners, but hey, he exclaims, remember that tolls "work for the River Styx, why not the Beltway?" What a perfect metaphor for privatization! In ancient mythology, dead souls must pay a toll to be ferried across the River Styx and enter the depths of hell.
For example, a fellow from another Koch-funded front, the American Enterprise Institute, observes that the government could raise billions of dollars to retire that pesky deficit simply by selling our interstate highway system. Americans would then have to pay tolls forever to the corporate owners, but hey, he exclaims, remember that tolls "work for the River Styx, why not the Beltway?" What a perfect metaphor for privatization! In ancient mythology, dead souls must pay a toll to be ferried across the River Styx and enter the depths of hell.
A Link Between Climate Change and Joplin Tornadoes? Never!, by Bill McKibben
A FEW CLIPS:
Caution: It is vitally important not to make connections. When you see pictures of rubble like this week’s shots from Joplin, Mo., you should not wonder: Is this somehow related to the tornado outbreak three weeks ago in Tuscaloosa, Ala., or the enormous outbreak a couple of weeks before that (which, together, comprised the most active April for tornadoes in U.S. history). No, that doesn’t mean a thing.
It is far better to think of these as isolated, unpredictable, discrete events. It is not advisable to try to connect them in your mind with, say, the fires burning across Texas — fires that have burned more of America at this point this year than any wildfires have in previous years. Texas, and adjoining parts of Oklahoma and New Mexico, are drier than they’ve ever been — the drought is worse than that of the Dust Bowl. But do not wonder if they’re somehow connected.
It is far better to think of these as isolated, unpredictable, discrete events. It is not advisable to try to connect them in your mind with, say, the fires burning across Texas — fires that have burned more of America at this point this year than any wildfires have in previous years. Texas, and adjoining parts of Oklahoma and New Mexico, are drier than they’ve ever been — the drought is worse than that of the Dust Bowl. But do not wonder if they’re somehow connected.
SNIP
Because if you asked yourself what it meant that the Amazon has just come through its second hundred-year drought in the past five years, or that the pine forests across the western part of this continent have been obliterated by a beetle in the past decade — well, you might have to ask other questions. Such as: Should President Obama really just have opened a huge swath of Wyoming to new coal mining? Should Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sign a permit this summer allowing a huge new pipeline to carry oil from the tar sands of Alberta? You might also have to ask yourself: Do we have a bigger problem than $4-a-gallon gasoline?
Better to join with the U.S. House of Representatives, which voted 240 to 184 this spring to defeat a resolution saying simply that “climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for public health and welfare.” Propose your own physics; ignore physics altogether. Just don’t start asking yourself whether there might be some relation among last year’s failed grain harvest from the Russian heat wave, and Queensland’s failed grain harvest from its record flood, and France’s and Germany’s current drought-related crop failures, and the death of the winter wheat crop in Texas, and the inability of Midwestern farmers to get corn planted in their sodden fields. Surely the record food prices are just freak outliers, not signs of anything systemic.
Better to join with the U.S. House of Representatives, which voted 240 to 184 this spring to defeat a resolution saying simply that “climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for public health and welfare.” Propose your own physics; ignore physics altogether. Just don’t start asking yourself whether there might be some relation among last year’s failed grain harvest from the Russian heat wave, and Queensland’s failed grain harvest from its record flood, and France’s and Germany’s current drought-related crop failures, and the death of the winter wheat crop in Texas, and the inability of Midwestern farmers to get corn planted in their sodden fields. Surely the record food prices are just freak outliers, not signs of anything systemic.
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