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Happy Saturday night, folks! It's Blue Gal from The Professional Left Podcast, bringing you this week's podcast round up. Be aware that these podcasts are also available on i-Tunes, and may not be safe for work.

Liberal Oasis: Brokered Convention Edition

The Bob and Chez Show: Zuzu's Petals

The Majority Report with Sam Seder: Cliff Schecter, Aasif Mandvi join Casual Friday.

Ring of Fire: Mike Papantonio and Ed Schultz discuss "Iowa Doesn't Matter." [YouTube]

Open Thread below....

Genius, pure and simple.

Our sister site Newstalgia is featuring Christmas music from Tirez Tirez.

What are you listening to this Saturday night?

What'd I Say
	Artist: Ray Charles Price: $10.70 (As of 12/17/11 12:14 pm details)

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Here's a classic example of the way far-right hate groups have been moving into our mainstream discourse, being legitimized by a clueless and culpable mainstream media.

Tucson's NBC News affiliate -- KVOA-TV, Channel 4 -- ran this interesting segment the other day on a new/old technology to catch border crossers. The most interesting thing about it, though, was their chief source for the story: American Border Patrol's Glenn Spencer:

HEREFORD - Most people agree we need to secure the border, right? The issue is, how do we know when the border is secure? How do we measure that? The American Border Patrol, a non-governmental organization that monitors the border, thinks an old technology may hold the new answer.

They're called geophones, basically, a magnet inside of a coil. But they can sense the smallest vibrations, like someone walking across the border. American Border Patrol installed the system on their ranch to test its effectiveness.

"And it works. It's been here for 11 months underground, working. And it counts everybody who crosses," said Glenn Spencer, American Border Patrol.

The sensors pick people up at 600 feet, but can start to analyze it better and tell if it's human from 300 feet.

"Showing in Google Earth where on the border the detection and the alert happened," said Spencer.

Notice anything missing from this story? Well, how about even the slightest mention of the fact that Spencer runs one of the most notorious anti-immigrant hate groups in the country?

Continue reading »

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Congress reached a deal Thursday to avert a shutdown that would have begun at midnight tonight, and in doing so, Republicans found another low-income program to target, cutting funding for subsidies that help the poor stay warm during the winter by nearly 25 percent. At the same time, however, the Pentagon’s budget is getting a 1 percent boost, as the Associated Press noted:

Highlights of the $1 trillion-plus 2012 spending legislation in Congress:

—$518 billion for the Pentagon’s core budget, a 1 percent boost, excluding military operations overseas. [...]

—$3.5 billion for low-income heating and utility subsidies, a cut of about 25 percent.

The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) has become increasingly vital for American families affected by the recession, and it is utilized more and more by military families. One of every five families using LIHEAP is a military family, a 156 percent increasefrom 2008. Congress, however, decided to cut that program to give a boost to a budget that already makes up 20 percent of the country’s total budget and has been spared in multiple spending agreements this year (the super committee trigger a notable exception).

Plenty of evidence exists that Congress should be focused on investing into programs that boost economic growth and job creation, rather than chasing fiscal austerity toward another recession. If it insists on cutting spending to deal with the deficit now, however, the least it could do is not take the knife to each and every program that helps the poor.

Over 100 dancers converged at Occupy San Francisco and Occupy Oakland to dance the world awake.

Flashmob produced and directed by Magalie Bonneau-Marcil of DancingwithoutBorders.org, video directed and edited by Ben Flanigan, Thanks to our team of choreographers: Giuliana Blasi, Samantha Sweetwater and Mika Lemoine.

Co-sponsors: CODEPINK.org and SFNOW.org.

Want to bring the flash mob to your community? Click here for choreography video tutorial.

Music: Thanks to the Black Eyed Peas.

[Hat tip Greg Mitchell]

Republicans, led by Rep.John Mica (FL), who have been attempting to undercut workers rights in the reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration received a stern rebuke from a federal court Friday. In 2010, the National Mediation Board set a new rule that discounted employees that don't vote in elections to create a union, rather than counting them as no votes. Republicans charged that the Board overstepped its bounds in creating the new rule. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a lower court ruling that the new rules were legitimate.

“This court ruling demolishes the argument that the NMB overstepped its bounds in ensuring that NMB elections count only the ballots of those who actually vote,” said Candice Johnson, CWA Communications Director. “Just as importantly, today’s ruling means that the rationale used by many Republican leaders to continue to block the long-term FAA agreement is null and void. This ruling settles this issue once and for all: Republicans cannot continue to block the upgrades and job benefits of the FAA over a provision that has the force of law, fairness, and common sense behind it.”

As the D.C. Circuit’s majority opinion reads, “For seventy-five years, the National Mediation Board counted non-voters as voting against union representation, thereby requiring a majority of eligible voters to affirmatively vote for representation before a union could be certified. In 2010, the Board issued a new rule: elections will henceforth be decided by a majority of votes cast, and those not voting will be understood as acquiescing to the outcome of the election. Appellants challenge the new rule, claiming that it violates the statute and is arbitrary and capricious. Rejecting these arguments, the district court granted summary judgment to the Board.”

The judicial challenge was led by the Air Transport Association, primarily Delta Air Lines. With a district court already ruling in the NMB’s favor, today’s appellate court ruling severely damages the claim that the NMB did anything except bring its elections in line with basic democratic principles and the standard followed in every U.S. election.

“Republican leaders and others obsessed with union-busting are blocking the FAA Reauthorization needlessly over a provision that a series of courts have now declared as fair and valid. House Republican leaders should admit that their true motive is to deny workers’ their right to a union voice, rather than reach a sensible agreement over the FAA Reauthorization bill,” Johnson said.

Talk to me people.

There is a fascinating round of politics being played in California right now on the taxation issue, and how it plays out will have a major impact on national politics over the next few years. A number of different political players are proposing tax-increase ballot initiatives, and it will take a while to sort things out, but there are some important things going on here that will have a spillover effect even on those of us living a long ways from California.

There are currently at least four different initiatives being pushed that would raise significant amounts of tax revenue. The most conservative and clearly regressive of these is backed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Condoleezza Rice, and a collection of billionaires and multimillionaires. It would extend the state sales tax to services and increase taxes on some out-of-state firms, but would also lower personal and corporate income tax rates (most notably on the plan's sponsors). The $10 billion it raises would go for paying down state debt at first, and mostly education over the longer term. A second plan, which is hard to take too seriously because, as far as I can tell, it doesn’t have very much political or financial support behind it, would also raise about $10B, basically by raising income taxes on everyone but the lowest-income Californians, and put the money into K-12 and early childhood programs. It’s certainly a good proposal, but hard to imagine right now how it gains the support it needs to either get on the ballot or get passed if it did.

The final two initiatives are the most politically intriguing. Gov. Jerry Brown is pushing an initiative that raises money both from a half-cent sales tax increase and a modest increase on tax rates for people over $250,000 in income. It also constitutionally protects the shift in some expenses, including prisons, from state to local governments. The $7 billion raised goes into just about everything state government pays for: education, public safety, corrections, social services, but it primarily sends money to the counties. This measure expires in five years, meaning the whole thing will have to start all over again, which seems utterly insane to me. Meanwhile the Courage Campaign, the California Federation of Teachers, and a variety of other progressive California groups have launched an effort that is more clearly about the 99 percent vs. the 1 percent. It raises taxes on millionaires to restore cuts to education, specifically including higher education and local government services, such as the devastating cuts in health care for children and seniors.

From both a political and policy point of view, I don’t understand why Gov. Brown is structuring his initiative the way he is. It is murky and muddled and complicated to explain. It raises some taxes from wealthier folks, but the sales tax increase is a more regressive hit on the poor and middle class as any other kind of tax increase. Pushing expenses from the state onto very hard-pressed local governments is an accounting trick that helps the Governor balance his budget but does nothing to promote good public policy. Because of the complicated nature of this initiative, and the fact that it taxes everybody rather than just the 1 percent, this will be a lot harder to pass.

The Courage Campaign and CFT have written a clean, easy to sell initiative that is a straight up 1 percent vs. 99 percent play. It is written in a way to unambiguously promote progressive policies, and the politics of it make complete sense in this 99er movement moment. The progressive movement should come together and close ranks in support of this plan. Gov. Brown should drop his muddled mess of a proposal, and join forces with Courage Campaign and CFT. And progressives nationwide should look west to check out this model of how to do effective politics on behalf of the 99 percent.

These drill-loving, lobbyist-friendly politicians love to promise jobs when they're pushing projects like the Keystone XL pipeline, but it never quite turns out like that. From Think Progress:

However, studies conducted independently of TransCanada find much smaller jobs numbers, far from “tens of thousands.” An oil contractor hired by the State Department reported it would create between 5,000 and 6,000 temporary jobs, while an independent study by Cornell University found it would create only 500 to 1,400 temporary jobs. Once the costs of the increased pollution and risk of oil spills is factored in, Cornell found, the jobs impact is likely to be negative.

The “118,000 spin-off jobs” number used by TransCanada received two Pinocchios from the Washington Post Fact Checker:

As opponents have documented, if the capital costs are lower than predicted, and if the multiplier is smaller, then the number of “spin-off jobs” can shrink dramatically. The same goes for the estimates of “permanent jobs,” which depend also on the price of oil.
….
Among the list of jobs that would be created: 51 dancers and choreographers, 138 dentists, 176 dental hygienists, 100 librarians, 510 bread bakers, 448 clergy, 154 stenographers, 865 hairdressers, 136 manicurists, 110 shampooers, 65 farmers, and (our favorite) 1,714 bartenders.

I have a friend who lives upstate where they're drilling into the Marcellus Shale, and she said the same thing - no local jobs, all the drillers are from out of state. The only local people making money, she said, are the bars, restaurants and hotels.

Gov. Scott Walker (WI) used an interview with Ron Meyer from the conservative Young America's Foundation to blame unions and government for preventing job creation for young people. Walker spoke as if he was having a casual conversation about ideas that he has developed on his own, but he went down a long list of conservative talking points that have been repeated over and over again by conservatives funding by the Koch Brothers and other right-wing financiers. Among Walker's comments: