$1.2 trillion for national security? ANS

This is about the cost of all that security theater we see. 
Find it here:  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/01/opinion/main20038078.shtml  
--Kim


March 1, 2011

$1.2 trillion for national security?

The figure in the new budget proposal nobody in power wants you to notice

By Christopher Hellman

•  
  
• Defense Secretary Robert Gates, left, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen take part in a news conference at the Pentagon, Tuesday, March 1, 2011. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

(CBS News) 

What if you went to a restaurant and found it rather pricey? Still, you ordered your meal and, when done, picked up the check only to discover that it was almost twice the menu price.

Welcome to the world of the real U.S. national security budget.  Normally, in media accounts, you hear about the Pentagon budget and the war-fighting supplementary funds passed by Congress for our conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.  That already gets you into a startling price range -- close to $700 billion for 2012 -- but that's barely more than half of it.  If Americans were ever presented with the real bill for the total U.S. national security budget, it would actually add up to more than $1.2 trillion a year.

Take that in for a moment.  It's true; you won't find that figure in your daily newspaper or on your nightly newscast, but it's no misprint.  It may even be an underestimate.  In any case, it's the real thing when it comes to your tax dollars.  The simplest way to grasp just how Americans could pay such a staggering amount annually for "security" is to go through what we know about the U.S. national security budget, step by step, and add it all up.

So, here we go.  Buckle your seat belt: it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Fortunately for us, on February 14th the Obama administration officially released its Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 budget request.  Of course, it hasn't been passed by Congress -- even the 2011 budget hasn't made it through that august body yet -- but at least we have the most recent figures available for our calculations.

For 2012, the White House has requested $558 billion for the Pentagon's annual "base" budget, plus an additional $118 billion to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.  At $676 billion, that's already nothing to sneeze at, but it's just the barest of beginnings when it comes to what American taxpayers will actually spend on national security.  Think of it as the gigantic tip of a humongous iceberg.

To get closer to a real figure, it's necessary to start peeking at other parts of the federal budget where so many other pots of security spending are squirreled away.

Missing from the Pentagon's budget request, for example, is an additional $19.3 billion for nuclear-weapons-related activities like making sure our current stockpile of warheads will work as expected and cleaning up the waste created by seven decades of developing and producing them.  That money, however, officially falls in the province of the Department of Energy.  And then, don't forget an additional $7.8 billion that the Pentagon lumps into a "miscellaneous" category -- a kind of department of chump change -- that is included in neither its base budget nor those war-fighting funds.

So, even though we're barely started, we've already hit a total official FY 2012 Pentagon budget request of:

$703.1 billion dollars.

Not usually included in national security spending are hundreds of billions of dollars that American taxpayers are asked to spend to pay for past wars, and to support our current and future national security strategy.

For starters, that $117.8 billion war-funding request for the Department of Defense doesn't include certain actual "war-related fighting" costs.  Take, for instance, the counterterrorism activities of the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. For the first time, just as with the Pentagon budget, the FY 2012 request divides what's called "International Affairs" in two: that is, into an annual "base" budget as well as funding for "Overseas Contingency Operations" related to Iraq and Afghanistan.  (In the Bush years, these used to be called the Global War on Terror.)  The State Department's contribution? $8.7 billion.  That brings the grand but very partial total so far to:

$711.8 billion.

The White House has also requested $71.6 billion for a post-2001 category called "homeland security" -- of which $18.1 billion is funded through the Department of Defense. The remaining $53.5 billion goes through various other federal accounts, including the Department of Homeland Security ($37 billion), the Department of Health and Human Services ($4.6 billion), and the Department of Justice ($4.6 billion). All of it is, however, national security funding which brings our total to:

$765.3 billion

The U.S. intelligence budget was technically classified prior to 2007, although at roughly $40 billion annually, it was considered one of the worst-kept secrets in Washington. Since then, as a result of recommendations by the 9/11 Commission, Congress has required that the government reveal the total amount spent on intelligence work related to the National Intelligence Program (NIP).

This work done by federal agencies like the CIA and the National Security Agency consists of keeping an eye on and trying to understand what other nations are doing and thinking, as well as a broad range of "covert operations" such as those being conducted in Pakistan. In this area, we won't have figures until FY 2012 ends. The latest NIP funding figure we do have is $53.1 billion for FY 2010.  There's little question that the FY 2012 figure will be higher, but let's be safe and stick with what we know.  (Keep in mind that the government spends plenty more on "intelligence."  Additional funds for the Military Intelligence Program (MIP), however, are already included in the Pentagon's 2012 base budget and war-fighting supplemental, though we don't know what they are. The FY 2010 funding for MIP, again the latest figure available, was $27 billion.)  In any case, add that $53.1 billion and we're at:

$818.4 billion.

Veterans programs are an important part of the national security budget with the projected funding figure for 2012 being $129.3 billion. Of this, $59 billion is for veterans' hospital and medical care, $70.3 billion for disability pensions and education programs. This category of national security funding has been growing rapidly in recent years because of the soaring medical-care needs of veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars. According to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, by 2020 total funding for health-care services for veterans will have risen another 45%-75%.  In the meantime, for 2012 we've reached:

$947.7 billion.

If you include the part of the foreign affairs budget not directly related to U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as other counterterrorism operations, you have an additional $18 billion in direct security spending.  Of this, $6.6 billion is for military aid to foreign countries, while almost $2 billion goes for "international peacekeeping" operations. A further $709 million has been designated for countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, combating terrorism, and clearing landmines planted in regional conflicts around the globe.  This leaves us at:

$965.7 billion

As with all federal retirees, U.S. military retirees and former civilian Department of Defense employees receive pension benefits from the government. The 2012 figure is $48.5 billion for military personnel, $20 billion for those civilian employees, which means we've now hit:

$1,034.2 billion. (Yes, that's $1.03 trillion!)

When the federal government lacks sufficient funds to pay all of its obligations, it borrows. Each year, it must pay the interest on this debt which, for FY 2012, is projected at $474.1 billion.  The National Priorities Project calculates that 39% of that, or $185 billion, comes from borrowing related to past Pentagon spending.

Add it all together and the grand total for the known national security budget of the United States is:

$1,219.2 billion  (That's more than $1.2 trillion.)

A country with a gross domestic product of $1.2 trillion would have the 15th largest economy in the world, ranking between Canada and Indonesia, and ahead of Australia, Taiwan, the Netherlands, and Saudi Arabia.  Still, don't for a second think that $1.2 trillion is the actual grand total for what the U.S. government spends on national security. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once famously spoke of the world's "known unknowns."  Explaining the phrase this way: "That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know." It's a concept that couldn't apply better to the budget he once oversaw.  When it comes to U.S. national security spending, there are some relevant numbers we know are out there, even if we simply can't calculate them.

To take one example, how much of NASA's proposed $18.7 billion budget falls under national security spending? We know that the agency works closely with the Pentagon. NASA satellite launches often occur from the Air Force's facilities at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The Air Force has its own satellite launch capability, but how much of that comes as a result of NASA technology and support?  In dollars terms, we just don't know.

Other "known unknowns" would include portions of the State Department budget. One assumes that at least some of its diplomatic initiatives promote our security interests. Similarly, we have no figure for the pensions of non-Pentagon federal retirees who worked on security issues for the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, or the Departments of Justice and Treasury. Nor do we have figures for the interest on moneys borrowed to fund veterans' benefits, among other national security-related matters. The bill for such known unknowns could easily run into the tens of billions of dollars annually, putting the full national security budget over the $1.3 trillion mark or even higher.

There's a simple principle here.  American taxpayers should know just what they are paying for.  In a restaurant, a customer would be outraged to receive a check almost twice as high as the menu promised.  We have no idea whether the same would be true in the world of national security spending, because Americans are never told what national security actually means at the cash register.

Christopher Hellman is communications liaison at the National Priorities Project in Northampton, Massachusetts. He was previously a military policy analyst for the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a Senior Research Analyst at the Center for Defense Information, and spent 10 years on Capitol Hill as a congressional staffer working on national security and foreign policy issues. This piece originally appeared on TomDispatch.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
© 2011 CBS Interactive Inc.. All Rights Reserved.

Crucial Information Gets Ignored: From the Book *Streetlights and Shadows* ANS

I thought this article about how groups affect the thinking of individuals was interesting.  There are several more in this series.  They are from "None So Blind" by Andy Schmookler.  Read the comments too, at least the first two. 
Find it here:   http://www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=9729 
--Kim

Crucial Information Gets Ignored: From the Book *Streetlights and Shadows*

I'm reading the book STREETLIGHTS AND SHADOWS: SEARCHING FOR THE KEYS TO ADAPTIVE DECISION-MAKING by Gary Klein (M.I.T. Press, 2009). Here is something from that book.

*******************

In Chapter 9, Klein has described how the possession of information in the system generally was not sufficient to alert the system to impending disaster. The three cases he describes are 1) the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 2) the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and 3) the collapse of the house of cards known as Enron.

He then goes on to describe this study:

"In 2006, Dave Snowden and I, working with Chew Lock Pin, Holly Baxter, and Cheryl Ann Teh, performed a study for the Singapore Armed Forces on the dynamics of weak signals [weak signals being, apparently, minor-seeming information that doesn't fit the previous overall pattern or the general expectation]…We set up 'garden path' scenarios in which the initial, obvious account of events was wrong and the weak signals started to dribble in. We ran seven groups of military and intelligence specialists in teams of four. Not a single team talked about the weak signals when there was still time to take early and preventive action.

"However, we had asked the participants to keep private diaries, and in every team at least one member noted the weak signals in his or her diary. Sometimes half the members of a team noted the weak signals in their diaries. In other words, each team had the potential to surface the weak signals. But not a single team talked about them. Somehow the climate of teamwork suppressed these cues. We need to find ways to encourage team members to voice suspicions and hunches without inviting ridicule or losing credibility."

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6 Responses to "Crucial Information Gets Ignored: From the Book *Streetlights and Shadows*"

1. mczilla Says:
2. February 13th, 2011 at 12:49 pm
   
   
3. Don't mean to be facetious at all here, but doesn't the conclusion seem somehow inverted? I mean, these folks are supposed to be on the lookout for clues to approaching trouble, not dancing around each other's preconceptions. Groupthink is an old, self-reinforcing problem, and ridicule is seldom "invited". The final sentence might make more sense if it said "We need to find ways to encourage team members not to react with ridicule or hostile disbelief to those voicing suspicions".
4. [Duane] Says:
5. February 13th, 2011 at 9:10 pm
   
   
6. The Social Psychology of Hatred:
   In a now classic study, Sherif (1937) placed subjects in a darkened room and asked them to estimate how far a dot of light moved across a screen. In fact the pinpoint of light was stationary. Under conditions such as these, an optical illusion known as the autokinetic effect makes it seem as if the light travels. Subjects were thus placed in a situation in which reality was ambiguous and in which they were asked to provide information about something that was indeterminate. Results showed that when subjects completed the task in groups, they frequently demonstrated the emergence of a social norm in terms of their belief about the movement of the light: After several trials the subjects would tend to conform and each subject in the group would provide a similar estimate. In other words, in this situation in which reality was ambiguous, subjects looked to each other for information about what was happening and developed a socially constructed reality regarding their belief about how far the dot of light was moving. Sherif believed that slogans and propaganda produce a similar mental process on a national or cultural level through the creation of cultural assumptions or interpretations of reality regarding international politics and relations with nations considered to be enemies.
   
   
   When empire works, what need we learn how to be humane?
7. Pat Says:
8. February 13th, 2011 at 10:13 pm
   
9. Are we experiencing the same phenomenon now with the situation in Egypt? Mubarak is gone, and the people and the media are telling us "the Egyptian People are now free." Who has been in charge in Egypt for the last 40 or so years: The military. Who is in charge now in Egypt? The military.
10. According to Fareed Zakaria on GPS, the United States spends $1.5 Million
11. A DAY on the Egyptian Military. What information are we not paying attention to? Who is buying the propaganda?
12. Marti Says:
13. February 14th, 2011 at 10:51 am
    
14. After reading this blog for over a year from Albuquerque, this made me finally decide to jump in. This is exactly what happened with the Deepwater Horizon. A whole chain of bad "little" decisions were made, with each decision-maker thinking his/her "little" decision wouldn't be that significant. As the results of all the bad "little" decisions began to create "signals" of increasing trouble, the "groupthink," complete with people being afraid to create trouble, i.e. stop the process, made it impossible to intervene before it was, alas, too late.
    And we have many complex systems in the Gulf of Mexico (actually globally) that are just as vulnerable, and some are way bigger than the Deepwater Horizon/Macondo Well.
15. Katrin Says:
16. February 14th, 2011 at 12:03 pm
    
17. Oh, Andy, would you mind adding on some more text from the book? This is really interesting. i.e. would you give one or preferably more than one more example for 'weak link' ?
    a) as it was perhaps 'picked up' (if not in these groups)…or should have been noticed
    
    b) missed, and why,
    
    c) an example of a diary entry, and how this should/could have been used.
    When I was reading this entry, I was reminded of how the FBI is most often portrayed, especially in movies, as missing all the 'weak links', and only focusing on the obvious,immediate, and learned, or taught during training.
    
    Consequestly, the well dressed, tall, and 'arrogant losers' always lacked the creativity, (if maybe not team work) to solve the case?
18. Andrew Bard Schmookler Says:
19. February 14th, 2011 at 12:22 pm
    
20. There will be more entries from this book, but I don't think they'll be about precisely the same kind of issue (failing to attend to critical information).

Fwd: Judge blocks contentious Wisconsin union law ANS

Just in case you hadn't heard about this:  the illegal way the law was passed in Wisconsin actually came to the notice of someone with some concern about legality. 
One of our readers sent this to me, so I pass it on to you....
--Kim

Judge blocks contentious Wisconsin union law

 

Judge Maryann Sumi listens to arguments during a hearing Friday, March 18, 2011 in Dane Co...

By SCOTT BAUER and JASON SMATHERS, AP
Fri Mar 18, 2:22 PM EDT

A Wisconsin judge issued a temporary restraining order Friday blocking the state's new and contentious collective bargaining law from taking effect, raising the possibility that the Legislature may have to vote again to pass the bill.

Lawmakers had passed Gov. Scott Walker's measure last week, breaking a three-week stalemate caused by 14 Senate Democrats fleeing to Illinois. Demonstrations against the measure, which would strip most public workers of nearly all their collective bargaining rights, grew as large as 85,000 people.

Dane County District Judge Maryann Sumi granted the order in response to a lawsuit filed by the local Democratic district attorney alleging that Republican lawmakers violated the state's open meetings law by hastily convening a special committee before the Senate passed the bill.

Sumi said her ruling would not prevent the Legislature from reconvening the committee with proper notice and passing the bill again.

Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie would not comment on whether the governor would push to call the Legislature back to pass the bill again, either in its current form or with any changes.

In addition to restricting the bargaining rights, the law would require most public workers in the state to contribute more to their pension and health care costs, changes that will amount on average to an 8 percent pay cut. Werwie said Walker was confident the bill would become law in the near future.

"This legislation is still working through the legal process," Werwie said.

A spokesman for Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald declined to comment, citing the ongoing legal fight. A spokesman for Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Even if the Legislature is forced to come back and take up the bill again, at least one Senate Democrat will be there. Sen. Tim Cullen said he would not leave the state again.

"I think that does great damage to the institution," Cullen said. "I have no regrets about doing it once, but that was in extraordinary times to try to slow the bill down."

The Senate couldn't pass the bill in its original form without at least one Democrat to meet a 20-member quorum requirement for measures that spend money. With the Democrats in Illinois and refusing to return after three weeks away, Republicans convened a special committee last Wednesday to remove the spending items. The bill then passed with no Democrats present.

That move is being challenged in another lawsuit brought by Democratic Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, who argues the bill as passed still should have required the 20-member quorum. The same judge that issued the temporary restraining order was taking testimony Friday in that case, but has said she would not issue a ruling on Friday.

Opponents of the law were hopeful the judge's ruling temporarily blocking enactment of the law would lead to concessions.

"I would hope the Republicans would take this as an opportunity to sit down with Democrats and negotiate a proposal we could all get behind," said Democratic Sen. Jon Erpenbach.

The head of the state's largest teachers union said the Legislature should use this as a chance to listen to opponents of the measure, not vote to pass the same bill again.

"Wisconsin's educators call upon the Legislature to take this as a clear signal that Wisconsinites will not tolerate backroom deals and political power plays when it comes to our public schools and other valued services," said Mary Bell, president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council.

Marty Beil, director of the state's largest public employee union, said in a statement, "We are gratified to see some of our so-called `leaders' finally held accountable for their illegal actions."

Assistant Attorney General Steve Means said the Justice Department planned to appeal the ruling. Since Sumi's order isn't final, the agency must secure permission from the state court of appeals before it can bring a case, Means said. Agency attorneys planned to make the request later Friday or perhaps early next week, Means said.

If the agency wins permission, it can pursue an appeal with the state appeals court or try to get the state Supreme Court to hear the case.

Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne filed the lawsuit this week alleging the open meetings law was violated because 24 hours' notice wasn't given for a meeting of the special legislative committee convened to amend the bill.

Justice Department attorneys argued that notice on a bulletin board posted about two hours before the committee meeting was to start last Wednesday was sufficient under rules of the Senate.

The judge said DOJ couldn't show the committee was exempt from the 24-hour notice requirement. She said Ozanne could ultimately win the case and ordered Secretary of State Doug La Follette to hold off on publishing the law — the last step before it can take effect. La Follette had plannedd to publish the law on March 25.

Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca of Kenosha said the ruling was a move in the right direction.

"I'm very pleased," Barca said. "As you know, I felt from the moment they called this that this would be a violation of open meetings law. This is an important first step in this regard."

The bill was part of Walker's solution for plugging a $137 million state budget shortfall. A part of the measure would require state workers to increase their health insurance and pension contributions to save the state $30 million by July 1. Other parts of Walker's original proposal to address the budget shortfall were removed before the bill passed last week. The Legislature planned to take those up later.

___(equals)

Associated Press writer Todd Richmond contributed to this report.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Fwd: electric cars ANS

this is from Baltimore, so the article is slanted toward local stuff, but it's also a really good overview of the state of what's going on with the practical side of getting an electric car. 
We hope our solar electric generator that we are inventing will be useful for charging electric cars.
Find it here:  http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2011/03/18/1922700/jumpstarting-the-electric-car.html  
--Kim

Jumpstarting the electric car

By GUS G. SENTEMENTES - The Baltimore Sun

BALTIMORE Electric wagons powered by heavy batteries quietly zipped through the streets of Baltimore, carrying beer, milk, fruit and other goods from wholesalers to shops and homes. Some delivery companies installed their own charging stations or used a downtown garage maintained by the local utility to charge their wagons overnight.

This experimental period in transportation wasn't during the gasoline price shocks of the early 1970s. Try 1911.

Electric vehicles would grow to account for about one-quarter of the automobiles in the United States by the 1920s, historians estimate. But the internal-combustion engine would soon outrun electric motors, steam and even horses. As gasoline-fueled cars improved, electric vehicles would be all but forgotten.


Now the nation may again stand at the beginning of a new era in electric vehicles.

A new generation of electric cars is hitting the streets, including the Chevrolet Volt, the Nissan Leaf and the Ford Focus Electric, which debuts later this year. And over the next few years, 25 vehicle models that can be charged by plugging into a regular electrical outlet are expected to be on the market, according to the Electric Drive Transportation Association, a trade group.

The federal government is pumping more than $4 billion into supporting the electric vehicle industry, from the construction of factories for batteries and high-tech motors, to the rollout of charging stations across the country.

"We haven't seen anything like this in 100 years," said Bradley Berman, founder and editor of PlugInCars.com and HybridCars.com, which track developments in the electric vehicle industry. "There's a real challenge to the internal-combustion gasoline engine."

Despite great technological strides and research dollars spent on electric as well as hydrogen fuel cell, hybrid and natural gas vehicles, none of them has come close to toppling the hegemony of the gasoline-powered engine. Some critics question the feasibility of the alternative-fuel vehicles, citing their high costs and dependence on energy sources that have their own negative environmental tradeoffs.

And auto manufacturers have modest goals for the electric cars going on the market, with sales targets in the tens of thousands of cars per year. Even with the success of the Toyota Prius, hybrids - whose electric motors and batteries are recharged and complemented by gasoline motors - represent less than 3 percent of the market.

Said Berman: "We're at the beginning of all this."

In the early 1900s, electric vehicles were on the streets of New York, Chicago, Boston and Baltimore, and they were, for a time, favored because they were cleaner and easier to operate than the gasoline engines of the time.

The Baltimore region's electricity grid was still in its infancy.

The first electric wagon debuted in Baltimore in 1900 and was built by the Schaum Automobile and Manufacturing Co. at its works in the city on Park Avenue. The wagon came with a 4.5-horsepower electric motor and an 80-volt battery, and could carry 1,200 pounds.

"The new wagon has been tested on cobblestones, Belgian blocks and asphalt and, it is stated, can move up any hill in the city faster than a horse-drawn vehicle. The speed on a level is 12 miles an hour," according to a Baltimore Sun article at the time.

The demise of those early electric vehicles began when Cadillac introduced the electric starter for gasoline-powered cars in 1912, automotive history experts say.

In subsequent years, the electric starter would eliminate the need for drivers to hand-crank their gasoline engines to life - a tedious and strenuous process. And gasoline motors soon outperformed electric motors in speed and distance.

It wasn't until the 1960s and 1970s - with the rise of the environmental movement and the first significant gasoline price hikes - that researchers began experimenting with electric vehicle technology again in any meaningful way. But the batteries were still heavy, large and unreliable, and the cars were still too expensive for automakers to produce.

That has changed in recent years, with heavy investment from the federal and state governments as well as auto companies. At the same time, battery life has vastly improved and can be more efficiently managed using onboard computer systems. And consumers can charge their electric vehicles at home.

In the mid-1990s, General Motors produced an electric car, the EV1, whose lead acid battery weighed 1,000 pounds. (The Chevrolet Volt uses a lithium ion battery weighing 400 pounds.) But the EV1 was pulled off the market because it was too costly to produce - to the dismay of passionate users who had leased the vehicle.

Now GM, which for decades produced gasoline-powered vehicles at its Broening Highway plant, plans to make electric motors at a White Marsh plant to be built with federal backing. And Maryland is one of the first retail launch markets for the Chevy Volt.

With current lithium ion battery technology, the Volt can travel about 40 miles before gasoline is needed to power the electric motor. The vehicle can be charged for about $1.50 a day or less. By comparison, the Nissan Leaf won't use any gasoline, and the Japanese automaker says it can go 100 miles on a single charge.

But for many consumers, electric vehicles are still too pricey. The Volt is selling for $41,000, the Nissan Leaf retails for about $33,000 before tax credits.

And some have questioned the extent of the environmental benefits of electric vehicles. In its annual rankings of "green" vehicles, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy rated the Volt 13th in environmental impact because it is heavy and incorporates a gasoline motor. A natural gas-powered Honda Civic and the all-electric Nissan Leaf came in first and second, respectively. Hybrids and highly efficient gasoline-powered cars rounded out the list.

In the future, auto manufacturers are likely to offer different electric vehicle options and combinations. Consumers can expect a broader range of cars and trucks that feature plug-in electricity options, fuel cells and hybrids that use variations of combustion engine, battery and electric technology.

And prices are expected to drop as manufacturing supply increases to meet consumer demand. Battery costs alone are expected to plummet 70 percent in two to three years. There had been only two manufacturers that produced electric vehicle batteries in the United States, but now the federal government is subsidizing up to 30 companies to make batteries.

"There has been robust investment in a whole range of technologies that are now converging," said Brian Wynne, president of the Electric Drive Transportation Association. "The question is: How rapidly can we stand up a supply chain and put electric vehicles on the market?"

The next big step involves outfitting cities, suburbs and even parking garages with convenient electricity stations for vehicle battery charging.

"The backbone is a solid, stable grid," said Larry Nitz, executive director of hybrid and electric power-train engineering at General Motors. "Getting electricity into people's garages is relatively easy."

The U.S. Department of Energy has made millions of dollars in subsidies available to electric-charger manufacturers and companies that want to install charging stations and distribute high-speed chargers across the country for consumers to use with electric vehicles.

So far only a handful exist in Maryland, and the District of Columbia has about a dozen public charging stations. As the infrastructure is built out, industry experts say, energy costs for powering the vehicles will drop.

BGE is starting to roll out "smart meter" technology, which will enable homeowners and BGE to better use technology to track and calibrate electricity usage at people's homes - and company officials say those meters could help customers track electric-vehicle energy needs as well. Officials also are considering special rates for charging cars.

The company has its own electric and hybrid vehicles that it is testing for fleet use and to better understand how the cars use electricity. BGE officials also say they have been coordinating with electric-charger manufacturers.

John Murach, BGE's director of electric vehicle planning, said the company expects consumers to adopt electric vehicles quickly in the coming years, and company officials believe the utility has the capacity in its electric grid to support the increased demand.

"There is significant capacity in the off-peak hours that would support full deployment of electric vehicles," Murach said.

Maryland ranks 10th among states with the highest deployment of gasoline-electric hybrids among consumers, according to the Center for Automotive Research. More than 20,000 hybrid vehicles were on the road in Maryland at the end of 2009, according to the center's most recent data.

By next year, the center estimates, nearly 2,000 electric vehicles will be on the road in Maryland. And by 2015, that number could grow to 12,000 - out of millions of vehicles on the road nationwide. Like a century ago, however, some industry observers believe the first widespread adoption of electric vehicles will take root among commercial - not consumer - markets.

Bryan Hansel, chief executive of Smith Electric Vehicles in Kansas City, Mo., said he opened a U.S. branch of the United Kingdom-based company two years ago and this year acquired its European assets. Hundreds of its zero-emission electric trucks are on the road. One of its biggest customers is Frito-Lay, which uses the Smith trucks to deliver chips and other food products.

Hansel figures that the medium-duty electric trucks his company makes in the United States could grow to account for half of that truck market in 10 years. His company won a $32 million grant last year from the Department of Energy to build a 510-vehicle demonstration fleet for commercial customers.

"We really feel that the market is at a tipping point," Hansel said.

GM's new plant to be built in White Marsh, next to its Allison Transmission plant, will produce electric motors for models that have yet to be unveiled, Nitz said. The plant will add about 100 jobs, a modest turnaround for GM's presence in the Baltimore area after years of contractions.

Thanks to significant advances in computing technology for automobiles over just the past decade, the automaker is able to use electric and gasoline motors together - and more efficiently. That feature is expected to appeal to consumers long accustomed to putting gas in the tank.

"Each one has its pros and cons," Nitz said. "But together, it's really a winning combination."

Baltimore Sun researcher Paul McCardell contributed to this article.

Read more: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2011/03/18/1922700/jumpstarting-the-electric-car.html#ixzz1GyuhJmjC

Ronald Reagan on Unions ANS

I got this from Paul Dodenhoff:
These are the values inspiring those brave workers in Poland. The values that have inspired other dissidents under communist domination. They remind us that where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost." ~~~Ronald Reagan

Dog Walker ANS

This is an opinion piece, but it contains some more information about the bill passed in Wisconsin that everyone is up in arms about.  This one is about dogs.  If you're a dog-lover, read it.  Warning: the article uses profanity, especially at the end. 
Find it here: http://welcomebacktopottersville.blogspot.com/
--Kim

Dog Walker

...and keep dogging that cross-eyed cunt before he does any more damage. If California can recall a guy like Gray Davis and replace him with a flabby, egotistical, gap-toothed baboon like Arnold Schwarzenegger, then Wisconsin can 86 this clown.

What seems to be elided over by the always reliable mainstream media < /snark > is this little-known provision of the union-busting bill that was rammed through the state assembly with all the industry and gusto of a 12" dildo at a lesbian orgy:

SECTION 2704. 174.13 (2) of the statutes is amended to read:

174.13 (2) Any officer or pound which has custody of an unclaimed dog may release the dog to the University of Wisconsin System, the University of Wisconsin–­Madison, the Medical College of Wisconsin, Inc., or to any other educationa­l institutio­n of higher learning chartered under the laws of the state and accredited to the University of Wisconsin System or University of Wisconsin–­Madison, upon requisitio­n by the institutio­n. The requisitio­n shall be in writing, shall bear the signature of an authorized agent, and shall state that the dog is requisitio­ned for scientific or educationa­l purposes. If a requisitio­n is made for a greater number of dogs than is available at a given time, the officer or pound may supply those immediatel­y available and may withhold from other dispositio­n all unclaimed dogs coming into the officer's or pound's custody until the requisitio­n is fully discharged­, excluding impounded dogs as to which ownership is establishe­d within a reasonable period. A dog left by its owner for dispositio­n is not considered an unclaimed dog under this section. If operated by a county, city, village or town, the officer or pound is entitled to the payment of $1 for each dog requisitio­ned. An institutio­n making a requisitio­n shall provide for the transporta­tion of the dog."

No, this is not from The Onion or Andy Borowitz. This is how evil the Republican Party truly is. They want to use your puppies for scientific experimentation to benefit corporate R&D. The "scientific or educationa­l purposes"? That's vivisection, or performing surgery on a live subject. So if you let little Spot get loose in Appleton or Madison and the Animal Control Officer gets his hands on him, he could easily be sold to scientific research for a $1.

There must be a shitload of stray dogs in Wisconsin if this is seen as a source of much-needed revenue.

So, all the jokes we've been making about Republicans torturing puppies and kittens? They're literally coming true. And I don't know if it's some zombie virus in the air that affects only Republicans but we've seen more screaming assholes from that party coming out of the woodwork in the last year than at any time in human history. This is the Rumsfeldian worst of the worst, the bigots, the homophobes, the Islamophobes, the antiUnionists, the pro-corporate tools. Only they're now calling the shots. These lunatics are in the mainstream. Way to go, poor and middle class Republican voters. Be careful what you wish for because...

And speaking of pro-corporate tools, if you didn't catch Maddow the other night, she mentioned that Republicans, just seconds after their blitzkrieg tactic of dividing the bill and conquering those evil, bloated public unions (without even grazing any of the state budget issues), literally ran to a Republican fundraiser in Washington, DC that was held by a scumbag corporate lobbying firm named BGR that also buys votes for other scumbag consortiums made up of home lenders and companies seeking health care "reform." (Fun factoid: BGR was cofounded exactly 20 years ago by racist shitbag Haley Barbour, another Republican Governor and one who's still to this day drawing a steady income from BGR through a blind trust valued at almost $3.5 million.)

That's not to be confused with the $2500-a-plate fundraiser they had back in January the night before they took the House. God only knows why they're seeking bribes graft, kickbacks, payola campaign contributions since there's already a massive Act Blue campaign to recall these Kochsuckers like so many defective Toyotas.

As Maddow says, this power play that's greased by corporate and lobbyist payola has nothing to do with balancing Wisconsin's or any state's budget. If Walker was really sincere about that, he wouldn't have split the bill in half and passed the half that doesn't even address the budgetary shortfall. The state GOP gave massive amounts of cash to the wealthy in the form of tax rebates and cuts and now they have to put the money back.

It's redistribution of wealth, plain and simple.

Redistribution of wealth?

Remember when Republicans, Libertarians and their indentured online porch monkeys were screaming about redistribution of wealth when the black Socialist was running for president?

Apparently, wealth redistribution is Socialist only when it goes from rich to poor. It's only a good idea that's immune to criticism when it flows from poor to rich, which is what we're seeing in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey and every other state that's being run into the ground by a right wing corporate dildo governor.

Jesus Christ, you have to give the Republican Party credit for one thing: Just when you think these demented, vicious pricks have hit the bottom of the barrel in terms of human moral turpitude, they then grab a pickaxe, bust through the bottom and tunnel all the way to China. With the latter-day, post-Democracy Republican Party, there's always room to sink lower.

They're now literally, literally running away from the people they supposedly represent to GOP campaign fundraisers held by corporate lobbyists just moments after putting the shaft to working class people.

Now they're after our fucking puppies and are selling them to be torn apart alive for a buck.

And they're not even trying to hide it, anymore, because they found a way to shit on the people with impunity. Public opinion, in theory, no longer matters.

They have finally completed the transition from mere scum to actual, living, breathing caricatures.

posted by jurassicpork @ Friday, March 11, 2011   3 comments links to this post

Union history ANS

This is a good reminder of the history of Unions.  It's very brief.  It came in an announcement that Alan Grayson is running for congress again.  Fighting for the right to organize and bargain collectively is absolutely essential to our freedom.
--Kim



Dear Kim:

On May 4, 1886, in Haymarket Square in Chicago, the public rallied peacefully in support of 40,000 workers in Chicago who had gone on strike, to win the right to organize. The police attacked, and eight died.

On July 6, 1892, in Homestead, Pennsylvania, 3800 workers went on strike, to win the right to organize. Three hundred hired and armed goons attacked them. Five people died.

On April 20, 1914, in Ludlow, Colorado, 1200 coal miners went on strike, to win the right to organize. The Colorado National Guard attacked their shantytown, and burned it to the ground. Nineteen people died. Two women and 11 children were asphyxiated, and they burned to death.

Here and around the world, many people have fought and died, so that you and I would have the right to organize.

And so that 250,000 public workers in Wisconsin would have that right, too.

This is not exactly a new idea. Six months after the Ludlow Massacre, President Wilson signed the Clayton Act, prohibiting the prosecution of union members under Antitrust Law. That was almost a century ago.

Two decades later, during the Franklin Roosevelt's first term as President, he signed the National Labor Relations Act into law. It protects the right to organize. That was over 75 years ago.

The right to organize also is a fundamental principle of international law. Over 150 countries have ratified the "Right to Organize" Convention, an international treaty. It was adopted in 1949, over 60 years ago.

So why are we even talking about this, 11 years into the 21st Century?

Because the teabaggers want to "take back America." They want to take it back, all right – take it all the way back to the 19th century. When there was no right to organize. When people worked for a dollar a day. When grown men competed against children for jobs. When women were barred from most jobs entirely. When you worked until you died.

Not to mention slavery.

I want to see an America that is healthy and wealthy.

They want an America that provides cheap labor to our corporate overlords. An America where the middle class is chained by debt.

We didn't ask for this fight. But we have no choice except to fight back. For the survival of the middle class in America. For us, for our children, and for our grandchildren. And so that the victims in Haymarket, in Homestead and in Ludlow did not die in vain.

As Cardinal Spellman said 45 years ago, "it is a war thrust upon us, and we cannot yield to tyranny."

I'm ready to fight for what's right. What about you?

Courage,

Alan Grayson

Awesome: Wisconsin Firefighters Shut Down Bank That Funded Walker ANS

This is great!  At least there is some way to fight back....   Isn't this what we have been saying for a while: withdraw your money from the mega-thieves. 
Find it here:  http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/515607/awesome:_wisconsin_firefighters_shut_down_bank_that_funded_walker/
--Kim


  169 COMMENTS

Awesome: Wisconsin Firefighters Shut Down Bank That Funded Walker

 
 

Everybody knows the GOP's biggest weakness is money, so why not hit 'em in the sweet spot? That's what many amazing Wisconsin firefighters did yesterday when they collectively began withdrawing their funds from Madison's M&I Bank -- whose executives and board members were among the highest donors to Governor Scott Walker's campaign.

Heeding a call by Firefighters Local 311 President Joe Conway to 'Move your money,' union members withdrew over $100,000 from the bank, with some reports stating that number is as high as $192,000. Either way, it was a hefty enough chunk of change that M&I shut its doors and closed for the day at 3PM.

This is a very simple, very peaceful way to inflict some serious damage on the money-grubbers; super kudos to the Firefighters Union.

Anecdoctally -- 'M&I Bank received $1.7 billion in bailout money via President George W. Bush's Troubled Assets Relief Program. The bank was acquired by the Bank of Montreal in December of 2010 for $4.1 billion in stock,' reports Dane101.

UPDATE: Stranded Wind over at DailyKos has photos of the protest outside M&I, and says the ante has been upped to $600,000! 'What these pictures show are six hundred ordinary citizens descending on the M&I branch near the Wisconsin Capitol after learning of their purchase of the gubernatorial election last November. Two firefighters with old school ideas about saving had over $600,000 between the two of them and they demanded cashier's checks on the spot.'
By Julianne Escobedo Shepherd | Sourced from 358

Posted at March 11, 2011, 7:23 am

Demands and Concessions ANS

this is from The Weekly Sift (by Doug Muder).  It's a summary of what's going on.  A good one too.... 
Find it here:   http://weeklysift.blogspot.com/
--Kim

Monday, February 28, 2011

Demands and Concessions

If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts.

-- Molly Ivins

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has and it never will.

-- Frederick Douglass (1857)

In this week's Sift:

• What Unions Mean to the Rest of Us. If you think that because you don't belong to a union, they don't affect you -- think again. Maybe you don't really understand how our democracy works.
• Who Wins the Wisconsin Stalemate? At first the Democrats' walkout in the state senate only seemed to delay the inevitable Republican victory. But as the national politics of the issue play out, you have to wonder how long Republicans can let this situation continue.
• Section 3 of DOMA is Indefensible. President Obama did something both reasonable for the country and courteous to his opposition. In response, they yelled "Dictator!"
• Short Notes. Impeachment? What teaching is really like now. Why government shouldn't resemble business. Huckabee sounds like a candidate. Spain investigates Guantanamo. Now Planned Parenthood is in the crosshairs. Sunday TV is for Republicans only. The last doughboy dies. And Anonymous starts hacking the Kochs.
• This Week's Challenge. Can any other kind of organization replace unions as the institutional center for progressive economic policy?

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What Unions Mean to the Rest of Us

Back in the 1950s, about a third of all American workers were unionized, and just about everybody had friends or relatives in a union. Workers in non-union factories (like my Dad) knew that they were treated better because management feared the threat of unionization. Just like today, some people thought unions were wonderful while others thought they came from the Devil. But everyone knew why they should care.

That's not true today. Unions represented only 11.9% of workers in 2010 and only 6.9% of private-sector workers. Both numbers are still dropping, for two reasons: The types of jobs most likely to be unionized are being shipped overseas, and the rules for organizing unions have gotten so badly out of whack that it's almost impossible to organize a company if the management decides to resist.

So unions appear to be dinosaurs, and most Americans don't know why they should care.

Coincidentally -- or maybe not so coincidentally -- the American middle class is also shrinking, and our country's wealth is getting increasingly concentrated. We still have economic growth, but only for the wealthy.

It's easy to play tricks with numbers, but this statistic seems both fair and important to me: Over the entire Bush economic cycle, from the beginning of the recession of 2000-2001 to the beginning of the recession of 2008-2009, inflation-adjusted median household income dropped. So the household at the 50th percentile (the actual middle of America), had less real income at the end of the economic cycle than at the beginning.

In all the economic cycles since World War II, that had never happened. If median household income dropped during a recession, it would grow even more during the expansion that followed. But not this time.

Now, I'd be over-stating things quite a bit if I attributed that all to the lack of collective bargaining power. But as books like Robert Reich's Aftershock and Hacker-and-Pierson's Winner-Take-All Politics make clear, changes in government policy have played a central role in ability of the rich to capture all of the economic growth. (That was clearly evident in the crisis of late 2008: A Republican administration and a Democratic Congress ponied up vast sums to keep the bankers afloat, while ordinary homeowners have been allowed to sink.)

Kevin Drum has written an important article in the current Mother Jones, explaining the significance of unions in American democracy. It's a primer on democracy as it actually works, which is not precisely what we were taught in civics class.

The gist of Drum's case is that public opinion changes nothing by itself. (Otherwise the health-care law would have included a public option.) Public opinion only has power when it is channeled by organizations that have the wherewithal to affect elections: the ability to put money and manpower into political campaigns. On the Right, billionaires and corporations provide the money and fundamentalist churches provide the manpower. On the Left, unions used to do both, but they are increasingly unable.

During their heyday, the unions pushed politically for workers in general, not just for their members. So, for example, unions supported minimum wage laws, even though their members already earned more than minimum wage. They supported worker-safety laws that covered all workers, not just their own. They supported Social Security and Medicare, not just their own pension and health-care plans.

With the decline of unions, there has been no organizational voice for progressive economic policy. A few meaningful (if less powerful) groups lobby for the environment and for the rights of various minorities and occasionally for peace, but no powerful organization defends the middle class in general or the rights of workers. And so we have seen decades of corporate deregulation and upper-class tax cuts.

Think about the effort to re-regulate the financial industry and prevent another 2008-style debacle. The vague idea of putting more restrictions on Wall Street is very popular, but who speaks for it? Who is going to draw a line in the sand about some particular provision and get people knocking on doors if it's not passed? Nobody. And so, in spite of all the proven abuses that led to the crash, and in spite of having a Democratic president and (for two years) large Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, nothing much has changed.

The same is true of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. Taxing the rich is popular, but who speaks for it? Organizationally, who is going to stand their ground and not crumble when billionaire front-groups like Americans for Prosperity or corporate lobbies like the Chamber of Commerce launch attack ads?

Decades ago, the unions would have. Union presidents like George Meany and Walter Reuther would have been all over the TV talk shows, putting politicians on the spot and saying the things that today go unsaid.

That's why billionaires and corporations want the unions gone completely. And why you should hope they bounce back instead.

---

The standard Republican talking point is that states are in trouble because they're being bled dry by unions. Mike Konczai looks at the numbers and finds no correlation between the percentage of a state's employees that are unionized and its budget deficit.

What does correlate? Mortgages with negative equity. In other words, if your state got hit hard by the housing bubble, it's probably in fiscal trouble.

So if you wanted to change the rules in such a way as to make states more fiscally sound in the long run, stricter regulation of the financial industry makes a whole lot more sense than ending collective bargaining for the unions.

---

Matt Yglesias thinks getting rid of teachers' unions won't even save the taxpayers money in the long run:

When conservatopia arrives and kids all go to for-profit schools where they're taught by non-unionized teachers, the school operators' trade association will have all the same sometimes problematic incentives that the National Education Association has today. Heck, it'll probably even be called the National Education Association. But instead of being a "union" that promotes high levels of education spending in sometimes inefficient ways plus egalitarian social policies, it'll be a "business association" that promotes high levels of education spending in sometimes inefficient ways plus regressive social policies.

---

One of Daily Kos' most popular posters is Kenneth Bernstein, better known among Kossacks as teacherken. Well, this week the teacher graduated to the major media with a piece CNN titled No Unions: Government by the Rich, For the Rich. His actual phrase is better: "Government of the corporations, by the already powerful, for the wealthy."

Kiefer Sutherland's grandfather (Canadian politician Tommy Douglas) warned about such a government back in the 1940s in his Mouseland speech, recently animated.

---

Who Wins the Wisconsin Stalemate?

At this writing, neither Governor Walker nor the Democrats in the state senate are backing down. Walker is refusing to make any changes in his "budget repair" bill, and the Democratic senators are staying out of state to deny the state senate the quorum it needs to hold a vote on the bill.

Obviously this can't go on forever, but how does it end? Initially, speculation was that the Democrats would fold, because only one of the 14 senators needs to give in to create a quorum. Eventually, some combination of bribery, intimidation, family emergency, or simple boredom would bring one senator back home.

As the stalemate has dragged on, though, it becomes clear that the status quo works in favor of the Democrats. Walker's hardline, no-compromise position is polling badly, and Democrats have done a good job of framing the issue in terms of workers' rights rather than greedy bureaucrats. Usually, politicians have to decide between exciting their base and appealing to the center. For Democrats, this issue does both. It also unites economic progressives with social-issue Democrats; the lunch-pail brigade has not been so shoulder-to-shoulder with students and other DFHs since their falling-out at the Chicago Democratic Convention of 1968.

Other Republican governors have been tepid in their support of Walker, a clear sign that their political instincts say this issue is a loser around the country. Democratic fund-raising is strong. The solidarity demonstrations across the country look enough like Cairo and Tripoli to associate Walker with Mubarak or Qadaffi. The rallies are the political equivalent of evangelical revivals,  and many liberals are feeling born again.

That all creates a second possibility. At some point the people who run the GOP, the Kochs and their fellow billionaires, are going to say "We need to get this off the front page." Their first instinct will be to create a bigger distraction somewhere else. But if that doesn't work, Walker may have to fold.

---

Yesterday the first Republican state senator defected from Governor Walker.

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The "budget repair" bill in Wisconsin was originally supposed to be about making up a budget shortfall. But then people started blowing away the fog of propaganda and seeing that it was really about union busting. The budget was a pretext, and after the unions gave in on the financial issues,  it was a lame pretext. Even some people on Fox News see through it.

Well, it turns out that even that insight does not get you all the way to the bottom of this abysmal legislation. The bill also allows the governor to sell state-owned power plants (there are some, like the one that supplies the University of Wisconsin campus) without soliciting bids or going through the legislature. Why would Governor Walker want a provision like that? Well, it would be very handy if he were planning to sell state assets for pennies on the dollar to the companies that financed his campaign. Naked Capitalism and Paul Krugman explain how the scam works.

In the Third World and the former Soviet Union countries, this was called "asset stripping". (For details, see Naomi Wolf's The Shock Doctrine.) Under the pretext of some emergency, valuable assets bought or developed by the people wound up in private hands, with great profit to cronies of the ruling power. Now it seems that asset stripping is coming the the states. If we elect a Republican president in 2012, we may see it on the federal level.

The first people who noticed this gem in the Wisconsin bill figured that the Koch brothers, owners of Koch Energy and major financial backers of Governor Walker, would be the beneficiaries of the scheme. But then another Walker contributor, Alliant Energy, started posting jobs for power plant managers in Wisconsin.

So far, no specific sales have been publicly proposed. (In a serious asset-stripping scheme, you wouldn't expect specifics until the law is safely in force and the public is looking in another direction.) So at the moment this is all speculation. But if the speculation were false, Walker could quickly end it by explaining where the sale-of-assets provision comes from and what it's for. So far he hasn't.

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Section 3 of DOMA is Indefensible

To hear people like Newt Gingrich and Glenn Beck tell the story, you'd think President Obama had unilaterally decided to reverse one of the laws of the land, just because he doesn't like it. What a dictator! Who does he think he is, George W. Bush?

Would it surprise you to find out that none of that is true? That it's totally egregiously pants-on-fire not true?

Here's what's really going on: Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) says that for federal purposes, same-sex couples are not married even if a state says they are. So some couples legally married in, say, Massachusetts can't file joint tax returns. Or if one of them works for the federal government, he/she can't extend his/her health insurance to his/her spouse.

Last summer, a federal judge said that was unconstitutional, and more suits are on the way. Up until now, at considerable political cost, Obama's Justice Department has defended DOMA in court, in line with what Attorney General Eric Holder calls "a longstanding practice of defending the constitutionality of duly-enacted statutes if reasonable arguments can be made in their defense."

But now Obama/Holder have determined that they can't find "reasonable arguments" that work in the federal districts where the new cases are being filed. So they're not going to defend Section 3 any more, and AG Holder wrote a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner to explain why -- giving House Republicans the chance to raise their own defense if they so choose.

The legal issue is interesting, if you're into that kind of thing. Each federal court district has its own precedents, established by its own appellate court, and sometimes legal interpretations can differ from one district to the next unless and until the Supreme Court steps in to make a precedent that is binding across the country. Currently, one such issue is whether gays and lesbians are a protected class like blacks and women. If they are not such a class, then laws discriminating against them are subject to the fairly loose rational-basis test. But if they are, then the court has to apply a higher standard, and consider the possibility that apparently reasonable arguments made for the law are actually rationalizations for bigotry. In particular, judges have to consider the arguments actually put forward by the law's supporters in Congress rather than more legally defensible after-the-fact justifications.

Up until now, cases have only appeared in districts where precedent said that gays/lesbians are not a protected class, so the Justice Department was able to make arguments that it thought met the rational-basis test. (The judge disagreed, holding that Section 3 couldn't even meet this low standard.) But the new cases are arising in districts where the protected-class question is still open. So to defend DOMA there, the administration would have to argue that gays and lesbians shouldn't be considered a protected class.

Holder's letter recalls the Supreme Court's established standards for protecting a class: (1) a history of discrimination, (2) immutable characteristics that define the group, (3) minority status that prevents the group protecting itself through the political process, and (4) the group's defining characteristics are unrelated to any legitimate government purpose.

Looking at those criteria, Holder says … well, duh. We can't make the case that gays don't qualify. And then he looks at what it would take to defend Section 3 under the heightened standards and says … we can't do that either. If you look at the actual Congressional debate on DOMA, it was full of bigotry. So the administration is going to have to punt and let somebody else make the crazy-ass arguments that are necessary to defend Section 3's constitutionality.

In the meantime, the Justice Department will continue to enforce whatever the courts' interpretation of DOMA turns out to be, and it will continue to defend the parts of DOMA it can find reasonable arguments for.

That's "dictatorship" for you.

---

BTW: Somebody needs to pin the Tea Partiers down on why this isn't a states-rights issue. Massachusetts says these people are married. Where in the Constitution does the federal government get the power to overrule a state's judgment on such matters?

---

Short Notes

There's a Democrat in the White House and a Republican majority in the House. Must be impeachment time.

---

The demonization of teachers during the Wisconsin stand-off has produced a lot of responses explaining what it's really like to be a teacher these days. Here's the best one I've found, from an Oregon elementary school teacher with 34 years of experience.

---

Matt Yglesias explains why it's a bad idea to run the government like a business:

A state is fundamentally an ethical enterprise aimed at promoting human welfare. A business isn't like that. If you're trying to look at America from a balance-sheet perspective the problem is very clear. … The optimal economic growth policy isn't to slash Social Security or Medicare benefits, it's to euthanize 70 year-olds and harvest their organs for auction. With that in place, you could cut taxes and massively ramp-up investments in physical infrastructure, early childhood education, and be on easy street. The problem with this isn't that it wouldn't work, it's that it would be wrong, morally speaking.

If you worry about corporately irrelevant things like morality, that is.

---

Mike Huckabee is sounding a lot like a presidential candidate. His new book trashes RomneyCare in Massachusetts.

Huckabee is the most likeable of the Republican candidates and I think he would be the toughest for President Obama to beat. But in the Republican Party there are three major interest groups: neocons like Dick Cheney, corporatists like Mitt Romney, and theocrats like Rick Santorum. Huckabee is popular among the theocrats and gets neocon street cred for being more pro-Israel than most Israelis. But the corporatists are still suspicious of him. The Club for Growth declared him a "liberal" in 2006. That's where the anti-Huckabee attack ads will come from.

---

Every country that has signed the Convention Against Torture has an obligation to investigate credible accusations of torture, particularly those that are being ignored by the country where the torture happened. That's why Spain is going to start investigating Guantanamo.

---

ACORN ... public employee unions ... clearly the next thing to destroy is Planned Parenthood.

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Liberal media. A funny thing happens when you watch Candy Crowley's "Sound of Sunday" summary of yesterday's Sunday talk shows -- you only see Republicans: Scott Walker, Mitch Daniels, Halley Barbour, Mike Huckabee, and Chris Christie.

That's only a slight misrepresentation of the shows themselves. Fox News Sunday, CBS' Face the Nation, and NBC's Meet the Press had only Republican guests: the ones listed above, plus John McCain. ABC's This Week had a balanced line-up, but that seems to be the best you can hope for. When do we get an all-Democrat week?

In a week where labor issues were front and center, union leaders were nowhere to be found, at least on network TV on Sunday morning. After protest from liberals online, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka was added to a five-person panel discussion on Meet the Press. But MtP allowed union-busting Governor Scott Walker to make his case without being part of any "balanced" panel. And so more falsehoods about unions got propagated without rebuttal.

Meanwhile, pro-union demonstrations were held all over the country Saturday, including a giant 70,000-person rally in Madison. It went virtually uncovered on TV. Recall how much coverage much smaller Tea Party rallies got during the health-care debate.

---

The last American World War I vet just died. He was 110.

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The WikiLeaks-related hacker group Anonymous declared war on the Koch brothers and their astroturf organizing groups. Yesterday, the Americans For Prosperity web site went down. That's amusing, but what I really want to see are internal emails where the Kochs laugh at the suckers who think they're part of a grass-roots movement. Find and leak those, hackers, and you'll have done something.

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This Week's Challenge

This week's challenge comes from Kevin Drum's article, discussed in more detail above:

If the left ever wants to regain the vigor that powered earlier eras of liberal reform, it needs to rebuild the infrastructure of economic populism that we've ignored for too long. Figuring out how to do that is the central task of the new decade.

Are there any 21st-century alternatives to re-envigorating the union movement? What would they be?

 

The Weekly Sift appears every Monday afternoon. If you would like to receive it by email, write to WeeklySift at gmail.com.   Or keep track of the Sift by following the Sift's Facebook page.
Posted by Doug Muder at 1:09 PM 2 comments

FW: Check out YouTube - A Day Made of Glass... Made possible by Corning. ANS

Yes, this is sortof an ad, but it is really cool to watch.  Five or six minutes.  I vision of what the future might contain.
--Kim

A piece of the future, that is the question… enjoy!

 

 

Check out YouTube - A Day Made of Glass... Made possible by Corning.

 

 

 

YouTube - A Day Made of Glass... Made possible by Corning.

=

 

Fw: Talking about public employees ANS

I got this from one of our readers, but I also heard it on the radio.  It's a very good analogy. 
--Kim

From: Eugene Coyle <eugenecoyle@igc.org> >

Subject: Talking about public employees >

The resentment against the retirement pensions some public employees get is ridiculous.  People should see that THEY deserve a pension too, rather than taking the pension away from others.  But they don't see it.  Here's the best way I've seen to illustrate the issue:  Three people are sitting at a cafeteria table.  A corporate CEO, a tea partier, and a union person.  The waiter puts a plate of twelve cookies down.  The CEO takes 11 of them and then says to the tea party person  "Watch that union guy, he's trying to take your cookie." 

Fox News' Lies Keep Them Out of Canada ANS

This one is great!  I've been saying for some time that we need a law that forbids lying in public media.  Turns out that Canada has such a law, and that Fox is banned from Canada because of it.  the right wing PM tried to change it, but they aren't letting him.  As the article says, it's really an admission that the right can't win without lying. 
This is a short article.
Find it here:  http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/276-74/5123-fox-news-lies-keep-them-out-of-canada  
--Kim



Kennedy Jr. writes: "Fox News will not be moving into Canada after all! The reason: Canadian regulators today announced they would reject efforts by Canada's right-wing Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, to repeal a law that forbids lying on broadcast news."

 
Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper takes part in an event at the Library of Parliament on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, 02/28/11. (photo: Chris Wattie/Reuters)

Fox News' Lies Keep Them Out of Canada

By Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Reader Supported News

01 March 11

 

s America's middle class battles for its survival on the Wisconsin barricades - against various Koch Oil surrogates and the corporate toadies at Fox News - fans of enlightenment, democracy and justice can take comfort from a significant victory north of the Wisconsin border. Fox News will not be moving into Canada after all! The reason: Canadian regulators announced last week they would reject efforts by Canada's right-wing Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, to repeal a law that forbids lying on broadcast news.

Canada's Radio Act requires that "a licenser may not broadcast ... any false or misleading news." The provision has kept Fox News and right-wing talk radio out of Canada and helped make Canada a model for liberal democracy and freedom. As a result of that law, Canadians enjoy high quality news coverage, including the kind of foreign affairs and investigative journalism that flourished in this country before Ronald Reagan abolished the "Fairness Doctrine" in 1987. Political dialogue in Canada is marked by civility, modesty, honesty, collegiality, and idealism that have pretty much disappeared on the US airwaves. When Stephen Harper moved to abolish the anti-lying provision of the Radio Act, Canadians rose up to oppose him fearing that their tradition of honest non-partisan news would be replaced by the toxic, overtly partisan, biased and dishonest news coverage familiar to American citizens who listen to Fox News and talk radio. Harper's proposal was timed to facilitate the launch of a new right-wing network, "Sun TV News" which Canadians call "Fox News North."

Harper, often referred to as "George W. Bush's Mini Me," is known for having mounted a Bush-like war on government scientists, data collectors, transparency, and enlightenment in general. He is a wizard of all the familiar tools of demagoguery; false patriotism, bigotry, fear, selfishness and belligerent religiosity.

Harper's attempts to make lying legal on Canadian television are a stark admission that right-wing political ideology can only dominate national debate through dishonest propaganda. Since corporate profit-taking is not an attractive vessel for populism, a political party or broadcast network that makes itself the tool of corporate and financial elites must lie to make its agenda popular with the public. In the Unites States, Fox News and talk radio, the sock puppets of billionaires and corporate robber barons, have become the masters of propaganda and distortion on the public airwaves. Fox News' notoriously biased and dishonest coverage of the Wisconsin's protests is a prime example of the brand of news coverage Canada has smartly avoided.
 

How You Can Boycott the Kochs ANS

Here is an interesting idea.  It's about trying to make a point with our dollars, since that seems to be all that people like the Koch brothers understand. 
Find it here:   http://www.alternet.org/story/150078/how_you_can_boycott_the_kochs?page=entire  
--Kim

AlterNet / By Lauren Kelley
  81 COMMENTS

How You Can Boycott the Kochs

The backlash against the Kochs' influence in Wisconsin is gaining steam, with labor supporters starting to boycott Koch Industries' many products (listed here).
February 28, 2011  |  
 
 
Photo Credit: Fibonacci Blue on Flickr
 
 

 

Over the past few weeks, the billionaire Koch brothers and their front groups have steadily increased their involvement in Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's efforts to strip state workers of their collective bargaining rights. The Kochs' outsized wealth and influence are forces to be reckoned with; that's why we should all be grateful that a Koch backlash, including a boycott of Koch Industries' products, has started picking up steam.

AlterNet has been keeping a close eye on the Koch-financed support for Walker's anti-union campaign. As we reported last week, Walker is deep in the pocket of the Kochs, having received some $43,000 from Koch Industries while running for governor in 2010. Once Walker was elected, he made sure to take care of his friends/financiers, giving out massive tax breaks to Koch Industries, and more recently, launching the ongoing effort to quash Wisconsin union workers' rights.

As AlterNet's Washington bureau chief Adele Stan puts it, Walker is "carrying out the wishes of his corporate master." But why are the brothers Koch so interested in stifling labor rights in Wisconsin? For one thing, they have significant business interests in the region, with at least 17 facilities and offices in the state and some 4,000 miles of pipeline through Koch Pipeline Company, L.P. Also, the Kochs recognize that the outcome of the battle in Wisconsin could have national implications: if Walker wins, workers elsewhere might be less inclined to put up a fight. And that would be good for the Kochs' bottom line.

With the almighty dollar at stake, the Koch-funded astroturf group Americans for Prosperity has launched a pro-Walker campaign, comprised of a propaganda-filled Web site and petition, at least $342,000 worth of ad time on network and cable TV, and anti-union rallies at the Wisconsin state capitol building, for which AFP paid to bus in Tea Partiers.

AlterNet also reported late last week that two of Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal columnists are fronting for AFP and ginning up support for the union-busting cause as well.

Did the Kochs think no one would notice or care about the influence of AFP and Koch Industries in Wisconsin? If so, they were wrong. Word of a Koch Industries boycott is starting to spread around the progressive blogosphere. Daily Kos community site blogger geebeegee has a rather giant roundup of Koch products and notes, "Their major holdings are very difficult to boycott -- other than the promotion of clean energy and environmental laws, you may be stuck buying their energy products, directly or indirectly. However, they do produce some consumer products that you should put to memory to NEVER purchase again." There's also a Boycott and Defeat Koch Industries Facebook page that offers the same information and more. As of Monday afternoon, more than 10,000 people had "liked" the page.

Here's the colossal list of products being boycotted:

Angel Soft toilet paper
Brawny paper towels
Dixie plates, bowls, napkins and cups
Mardi Gras napkins and towels
Quilted Northern toilet paper
Soft 'n Gentle toilet paper
Sparkle napkins
Vanity fair napkins
Zee napkins
Georgia-Pacific paper products and envelopes
All Georgia-Pacific lumber and building products, including:
Dense Armor Drywall and Decking
ToughArmor Gypsum board
Georgia pacific Plytanium Plywood
Flexrock
Densglass sheathing
G/P Industrial plasters (some products used by a lot of crafters)
FibreStrong Rim board
G/P Lam board
Blue Ribbon OSB Rated Sheathing
Blue Ribbon Sub-floor
DryGuard Enhanced OSB
Nautilus Wall Sheathing
Thermostat OSB Radiant Barrier Sheathing
Broadspan Engineered Wood Products
XJ 85 I-Joists
FireDefender Banded Cores
FireDefender FS
FireDefender Mineral Core
Hardboard and Thin MDF including Auto Hardboard,
Perforated Hardboard and Thin MDF
Wood Fiberboard
Commercial Roof Fiberboard
Hushboard Sound Deadening Board
Regular Fiberboard Sheathing
Structural Fiberboard Sheathing

(INVISTA Products):
COMFOREL® fiberfill
COOLMAX® fabric
CORDURA® fabric
DACRON® fiber
POLYSHIELD® resin
SOLARMAX® fabric
SOMERELLE® bedding products
STAINMASTER® carpet
SUPPLEX® fabric
TACTEL® fiber
TACTESSE® carpet fiber
TERATE® polyols
TERATHANE® polyether glycol
THERMOLITE® fabric
PHENREZ® resin
POLARGUARD® fiber and
LYCRA® fiber

The boycott is in addition to several other creative backlashes against the Kochs. For instance, there was the prank call from progressive blog editor Ian Murphy, posing as David Koch, to Scott Walker. Some punny protest signs have been making an appearance at pro-union rallies in Madison and elsewhere: "Don't be a Koch sucker: Wall Street broke America, not the unions," "Walker sucks Koch," etc.

And then there's "Anonymous," the infamous hacktivist group that in recent months has launched coordinated DNS attacks on companies that refuse to do business with WikiLeaks. The latest news is that Anonymous has targeted the Kochs for their efforts "to usurp American Democracy." The group managed to take down the AFP Web site for a time over the weekend. (In response, AFP released a statement saying that "Americans for Prosperity will not be intimidated and will not be deterred from our effort to support responsible economic policies, including the efforts of Governor Walker and other democratically elected leaders in that state to balance the budget through common-sense reforms.")

So the anti-Koch movement has begun, and it is gathering steam. Labor supporters may not have the money the Kochs have, but we have something better -- a conscience. Combined with creativity and determination, it could get us somewhere.
Lauren Kelley is an associate editor at AlterNet and a freelance writer and editor who has contributed to Change.org, The L Magazine and Time Out New York. She lives in Brooklyn. Follow her on Twitter here.

Fwd: What Palin (and Other GOP Leaders) Doesn't Get About Ronald Reagan ANS

Hi -- I just got this from one of our readers, and thought I would pass it on to you all.  I suggest you pass it on to your right-wing friends, if you can do so without losing them.  Personally, I still think Ronald Reagan was the anti-Christ, if such a thing exists.  (Because he is the one who made it acceptable to have contempt for the poor.)
--Kim

What Palin (and Other GOP Leaders) Doesn't Get About Ronald Reagan

By Brian Goldsmith

 Earlier this month, the media world suspended its cynicism to celebrate -- and not just to recognize -- the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan's birth. Republican leaders went further: Newt Gingrich said the former president was "a beacon of light whose faith in the American people will continue to inspire." Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said that Reagan's "memory reminds us of the promise America carries for each of its citizens." And Sarah Palin said that "President Reagan held up a mirror to the American soul to remind us of our exceptionalism." Reagan is venerated for good reason -- as President Obama put it, he "changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not." More than any other figure, Reagan set a tone that continues to shape national politics. "Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem" -- the defining line of Reagan's first inaugural -- remains the rallying cry for two generations of conservative voters and politicians. But here's what the hagiographies ignore: Reagan's record -- his real record -- would repel most of the social and economic conservatives who now deify him. Palin said that "President Reagan would be so proud of the conservative movement today." But it is awfully hard to imagine today's conservative movement even including someone like Reagan. Today's conservative movement, reanimated by the tea party, has fought to defeat prominent Republicans for being insufficiently conservative. Endorsed by Palin, many of this year's GOP nominees -- in California, Delaware, Nevada, Colorado, Minnesota, and elsewhere -- fell short in statewide general elections more moderate Republicans might have won. As one conservative House committee chairman complained, "Sarah Palin cost us control of the Senate." The former Alaska governor stood by her picks, saying she supports "pro-life, pro-Second Amendment ... conservatives who have never voted for a tax increase." But those criteria would mean rejecting Reagan. As governor of California, Reagan spoke out against "welfare bums" and big government, attacked the Democratic legislature, and sent National Guard troops to crack down on Berkeley protesters -- just as Republicans remember. But he also signed the law that legalized abortion in California, signed the law that allowed no-fault divorce for the first time, and championed and approved the largest tax increase in state history (an increase that represented 30 percent of the state general fund). He raised sales taxes, corporate taxes, inheritance taxes, liquor taxes, cigarette taxes, and the top income tax rate. Under Governor Reagan, the California Air Resources Board (so-called "command and control" environmental regulation) was founded, and real spending increased almost 13 percent -- more than under his Democratic successor, Jerry Brown. Reagan even signed the Mulford Act, "prohibiting the carrying of firearms on one's person or in a vehicle, in any public place or on any public street." As president, Reagan spoke out against "the Evil Empire" and the air traffic controllers, attacked the Democratic Congress, and cut taxes dramatically in 1981 -- just as Republicans remember. But Reagan also raised taxes at least seven times. In 1982 alone, he raised taxes twice, including the largest peacetime tax increase in American history. He raised payroll taxes, gas taxes, and corporate taxes. In fact, Reagan raised taxes every year he was president but the first and the last. He also raised spending by nearly a quarter in real terms -- more than double the increase under President Clinton. He added a new Cabinet department (Veterans' Affairs). In all, Reagan grew the federal civilian workforce by about 200,000; Clinton cut it by about 200,000. The national debt skyrocketed from $700 billion to nearly $3 trillion. And, as Michael Kinsley has written, "[the Democratic] Congress did not force Reagan to spend all this money. His total budget requests exceeded the amounts Congress appropriated." On defense, yes, Reagan grew the Pentagon's budget, but he also negotiated sweeping arms control deals with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. He even signed the United Nations Convention Against Torture that banned harsh interrogation techniques even under "exceptional circumstances." (Today's GOP leaders attack the UN and oppose relatively modest arms control treaties like New START.) On social issues, Reagan's record was even less conservative. Reagan spoke about prayer in schools and ending abortion rights -- but did little about either. He appointed the pro-choice Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court. He even granted amnesty -- yes, amnesty -- to nearly three million illegal immigrants. In a 1984 campaign debate, Reagan said, "I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here, even though sometime back they may have entered illegally." Here's a thought: some reporter should tell Palin a Democrat had just spoken those words. Somehow it seems doubtful her response would be, "How Reaganesque." Image credit: Ronald Reagan speaking in 1979. (AP Photo)

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/02/what-palin-and-other-gop-leaders-doesnt-get-about-ronald-reagan/71178/
Copyright © 2011 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved.


--
Chip Shirley
STRAIGHT OUTTA DIXIE!
http://chipshirley.com/
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