Mary Landrieu, Oil Industry Puppet, Hurting Louisiana Citizens

10:41 am EST September 15th, 2011 | News | 11 Comments

Hey look, it’s “Democrat” Mary Landrieu, once again doing her best to fulfill the “how high” requirement when the oil industry commands her to jump. This time around it’s opposition to the jobs bill.

Some are unhappy about the specific types of companies, particularly the oil industry, that would lose tax benefits. “I have said for months that I am not supporting a repeal of tax cuts for the oil industry unless there are other industries that contribute,” said Senator Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana.

For Louisiana, the difference between this “Democrat” and a Republican in that seat is that a Republican doesn’t pretend to be on the side of the worker while doing the corporation’s dirty work.

Attack Watch: Latest Made Up Thing For Conservatives To Whine About

2:50 pm EST September 14th, 2011 | Conservative | 59 Comments

Conservatives seem pathologically incapable of attacking President Obama on real issues, even when they have legitimate gripes about him or his policies. Today’s example is the GOP bitchfest over the AttackWatch website.

The site is designed for Obama supporters to send in various pieces of misinformation, lies, etc. and then have them debunked. Obama ran a similar site in the 2008 campaign called Fight The Smears.

Simple, right?

Nooooo. Conservatives are now pretending as if this is an example of Big Brother. They now claim that a web form is on par with egregious violations of civil liberties. I mean, how dare Obama solicit links via e-mail????

Obama has been president for over 2.5 years now, and conservatives/Republicans have yet to attack him with anything that is actually real. Instead we’ve got one made-up thing after another, from “apology tour” to “death panel” to a supposed lack of exceptionalism from a President who regularly extols the exceptional values of America.

It’s all very childish and nonsensical of the right, but it is just what they do.

Judge Can’t Figure Out Why Deadbeat Dad Rep. Joe Walsh Won’t Appear In Court

2:28 pm EST September 14th, 2011 | Conservative | 6 Comments

Family values.

A judge in Chicago issued a preliminary ruling Wednesday against U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh in the Tea Party favorite’s child-support dispute with his ex-wife, ordering him to explain why he appears to be $100,000 behind on child-support payments, the Sun-Times is reporting.

Cook County Circuit Judge Raul Vega also wanted to know why Walsh wasn’t in court for the hearing — the McHenry Republican’s ex-wife, Laura Walsh was — and said he expects him to show up at the next hearing, in November.

Walsh’s new attorney, Janet Boyle, asked Vega “for what purpose” he wanted the congressman in court.

Vega gave her a puzzled look.

To which Boyle responded: “Mr. Walsh is a U.S. congressman.”

“Well, he’s no different than anyone else,” the judge said.

21st Century Progressive: How Do We Get There?

1:03 pm EST September 14th, 2011 | Liberals | 8 Comments

One of the things I admire about the modern conservative movement is that they have an internally coherent value system they use to gauge conservative politicians by. It doesn’t make sense outside of conservatism, but they have what they believe is a value system that conservatives should abide by. On the left, any such system is – at best – a haphazard hodgepodge. We need to change that.

But first, let’s go back and look at what worked and what hasn’t worked.

There are, for my purposes here, three distinct progressive movements in the last century worth looking at that had long-term effects.

The Original Progressive Movement. This movement, at the turn of the century and extending into the 1920s has a huge legacy – including but not limited to worker’s rights, environmental conservation, and most importantly women’s suffrage.

The Civil Rights Movement. The most successful progressive movement of the last century, this changed the face of America and the world.

The Vietnam War Protest Movement. In my view, this is the most problematic movement. It was undoubtedly a mass movement, but I believe its legacy is one of more failure than success. The popular conception is that people massed against the war and it ended. In fact, the war raged on for years while the protesters continually upped the ante. It didn’t work. The war didn’t end until casualties began to mount.

The perceived success of the Vietnam War protest movement has, I believe, hobbled a lot of progressive movement in the 20th and 21st century. People believe the idea that you a mass of people will simply convince those in power to concede. This doesn’t work in America.
While mass protest movements are unusual in the Middle East and had success, they are – as currently constructed – practically useless in America where corporate clients can just as easily assemble a “protest” as Code Pink. To the average American, they are “priced in.” Someone is always protesting about something and no matter the inherent value, the impact is negligible.

The protest movement faced a test in the war on Iraq and it failed, miserably so. The protests against the war did not change public opinion; they did not create a threat for elected officials to be afraid of. The protests against the Iraq war were a failure.

I don’t believe all mass protests are a lost cause; they just have to work differently. The protests in Wisconsin got national attention because they were not rote and they involved organized labor. It isn’t an everyday occurrence for people to occupy a state capital. That said, they didn’t break the back of Gov. Scott Walker’s assault on labor. Conservatives got the laws they wanted on the books.

We have to throw away the idea that simply protesting – the simple act of “getting out into the streets” without a real message or plan of action — will effect change or should be the central organizing activity in a progressive outreach effort. It doesn’t work, it probably never really work, and it won’t work.

We need to go back to what worked, the early progressive movement and the civil rights movement, and refine what did work and combine it with 21st century persuasion and engagement techniques.

There has to be a core idea, most important of all. I think the left has failed at this, partly because liberalism has often gone with what I deride as the “cumbaya” approach: the idea that if everyone has input, ideas can be rolled up together into something that can be sold.

That doesn’t work. There is a reason why past progressive movements solidified around leaders with defined ideas and goals. You had Mother Jones organizing labor and against child labor. You had Martin Luther King arguing for passage of the civil rights act. You even had the President, Theodore Roosevelt, agitating against the trusts and in favor of federalizing massive tracts of land in order to protect them.

There are some current progressive campaigns that have their hearts in the right places, but insist on asking everyone for input and produce a laundry list without a core.

We need goals, and we need targeted measures of success. It isn’t about what “feels right” or “feels good” but rather “what is accomplished?”

There is also the idea about what it is to be a progressive. I think it means we believe in forward thinking solutions that make life better for the most possible people. I don’t think it means being opposed to profit or personal enrichment, nor do I believe it is solely about one’s pet causes.

For myself, a Progressive America means one in which everyone has a decent shot at the American dream, that we can enrich ourselves and our communities without engaging in practices that suppress others or harm the world around us.

This seems to me an idea – with possible modifications — that a political movement could coalesce around and enact as a litmus test for leaders on multiple levels. I believe the way to get there is to integrate what has worked in the past, and bury what didn’t work – despite a collective belief otherwise – while constantly adding on new technologies and techniques as their success is proven.

Michele Bachmann Helps Those Who Kill Children

6:28 pm EST September 13th, 2011 | News | 10 Comments

Bachmann’s words are irresponsible. Even moreso when you consider that she isn’t just some Jill Schmoe, but an elected official.

Last night, carrying the mantle of fear and ignorance that are hallmarks of anti-vaccine activists, Bachmann denounced Texas Governor Rick Perry for mandating vaccines for schoolgirls, starting in the sixth grade, against the human papillomavirus.

“I’m offended for all the little girls and parents that didn’t have a choice,” she said. (Actually, any parent can opt out on a child’s behalf.) She said that girls who were harmed by the vaccine don’t get “a mulligan.” Later, the offended Bachmann ventured deeper into scientific illiteracy, telling Fox News that a woman had approached her after the debate and told her that she had a daughter who had “suffered mental retardation as a result of that vaccine.”

This is a particularly irresponsible way to speak, in part because it raises the memory of the deadly fiasco caused by the British physician Andrew Wakefield when he asserted that vaccines caused autism. That assertion has been withdrawn, Wakefield has been disgraced, and, after scores of studies, no correlation between vaccinations and autism has ever been found. But vaccine rates plummeted and diseases like measles and whooping cough, once nearly vanquished, came roaring back. The fear Wakefield caused has killed many children.

Hours later, Bachmann doubles down on her harmful statements.

This is a byproduct of the right’s systematic elevation of ignorance.

Regulation Can Spur Innovation? Yes.

6:08 pm EST September 13th, 2011 | News | 2 Comments

Public Citizen has an interesting list of regulation that caused product innovation. Check the whole link for the complete story:

1. The Incandescent Light Bulb
For the sake of energy efficiency, Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act in 2007. The measure requires light bulb manufacturers to meet a 25 to 30 percent increase in incandescent light bulb efficiency by 2012.

The law, drafted in consultation with industry, began a new era in innovation.
…

2. Reducing Sulfur Dioxide Emissions
Sulfur Dioxide, SO2, is a major air pollutant that causes acid rain and smog, and contributes to thousands of premature deaths annually in the United States.

During the 1970s, Congress passed the Clean Air Act to curb SO2 emissions at their largest source—coal-fired power plants. Coal power plants were then required to implement and install “scrubbing” technologies in their tall smoke stacks.

Although scrubbers had serious technical problems, the law led to major improvements. By the mid-1990s scrubbers’ efficiency had improved 25 percent, their costs were cut in half and the number of vendors offering the technology greatly increased.

Between 1980 and 2008, the country experienced a 71 percent decrease in SO2 concentrations while the amount of coal-generated electricity in the U.S. was still increasing.

3. Protecting Workers from Poisonous Vinyl Chloride
In 1974, vinyl chloride, a substance used to produce a popular type of plastic called polyvinyl chloride (PVC), was found to cause a rare and fatal cancer among manufacturing workers.

Four months later, after substantial investigation into the health risk, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued a rule banning any “detectable level” of vinyl chloride in workplaces.

Ten months after final rule was issued, the largest PVC manufacturer, B.F. Goodrich, announced that it had developed a containment system that prevented vinyl chloride from coming into contact with PVC workers. The company then announced that it had signed licensing agreements for its containment technology with six corporations and planned to expand to several other plants.

…

4. Preventing Ozone-Layer-Destroying CFC Emissions from Aerosols
First developed in the 1920s, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are chemical propellants that dispense anything from perfumes and spray deodorants to insecticides from aerosol cans.

In 1974, CFCs were found to break down the ozone layer, adversely affecting the earth’s vegetation and exposing people to increased risk of skin cancer. In 1977, the EPA and two other agencies banned all use of CFCs as aerosol propellants—the largest source of CFC emissions in the U.S.

In response to the federal ban, industry raced to develop a preferred alternative to CFCs. Just one day after the final implementation of the ban, the inventor of the original aerosol valve announced that he had the solved the problem. Robert H. Abplanalp said he had developed an aerosol system with a non-CFC propellant that worked better than existing systems.

…

5. Improving the Energy Efficiency of Home Appliances
Several laws, starting in the 1970s, have mandated improved efficiency standards for appliances.

These regulations resulted in dramatic improvements. Many appliances use less than half the energy they did in the 1970s.

Conservatives are pretty good at getting “alternative” storylines out there, while liberals tend not to be. Hopefully this is a sign of the future.

The Party Of Death

2:37 pm EST September 13th, 2011 | News | 1 Comment

The advantage of having the Tea Party movement host a Republican debate is that unvarnished conservative beliefs can come into the light instead of hiding. Beliefs like those who have money deserve medical care while others can just go and die reveals conservativism for what it is.

Brits Under Assault By Right Wing Think Tanks

2:18 pm EST September 13th, 2011 | News | 5 Comments

Becoming America?

Nadine Dorries won’t answer it. Lord Lawson won’t answer it. Michael Gove won’t answer it. But it’s a simple question, and if they don’t know it’s because they don’t want to. Where does the money come from? All are connected to groups whose purpose is to change the direction of public life. None will reveal who funds them.

When she attempted to restrict abortion counselling, Nadine Dorries MP was supported by a group called Right to Know. When other MPs asked her who funds it, she claimed she didn’t know. Lord Lawson is chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which casts doubt on climate science. It demands “openness and transparency” from scientists. Yet he refuses to say who pays, on the grounds that the donors “do not wish to be publicly engaged in controversy”. Michael Gove was chairman of Policy Exchange, an influential conservative thinktank. When I asked who funded Policy Exchange when he ran it, his office told me “he doesn’t have that information and he won’t be able to help you”.

We know that to understand politics and the peddling of influence we must follow the money. So it’s remarkable that the question of who funds the thinktanks has so seldom been asked.

There are dozens of groups in the UK which call themselves free-market or conservative thinktanks, but they have a remarkably consistent agenda. They tend to oppose the laws which protect us from banks and corporations; to demand the privatisation of state assets; to argue that the rich should pay less tax; and to pour scorn on global warming. What the thinktanks call free-market economics looks more like a programme for corporate power.

9/11/01 To 9/11/11

10:18 am EST September 11th, 2011 | History | 3 Comments

It’s hard to believe that its been a whole ten years since the world flipped upside down.

It seems like it was just yesterday, and often when I see images or sounds of 9/11 all the feelings come back and I get a lump in my throat. All of those people, right here in the heart of America.

I don’t personally know anyone who died on 9/11, but they were our friends and neighbors. Struck down at random, the only “reason” they died because they were Americans.

Even though we have avenged them in a very concrete way – killing Bin Laden and disrupting the Al Qaeda network – they are all gone forever. Their families never saw them come home the way they left, smiling faces and love in their hearts. No military action can change that.

Time and politics have made us less unified than we were on that day and the subsequent weeks as we collectively mourned. But we have a spirit that still lies right below the surface. When push comes to shove, Americans can and will stand together.

We must honor those who died, remembering how it happened and never let the memory fade. Two giant towers were collapsed, the heart of our military was pierced, and a field in Pennsylvania was shaken to its core.

But America prevails, lives on, fights, and remembers.

September 11, 2011.

Topic: 9/11, Al Qaeda, Terrorism