Five Questions: Chris Pearson, VT state legislator and Progressive Party member

Another interview in our series, Five Questions, about American history, progressives, Democrats and the future.

Today's interviewee is Christopher Pearson, state legislator from Vermont and member of that state's Progressive Party — yes, Virginia, some states have a Progressive Party.

Chris's fifth question has to do with the future of Vermont's state-specific health care law, a version of single-payer. Interesting answer.

Note that Pearson is concerned, as I am, about global warming (climate catastrophe). Very thoughtful responses.

Five questions, Christopher Pearson with Gaius Publius, recorded at Netroots Nation 2012. Enjoy:



The full list of "Five Questions" interviews includes the following. Links to names will take you to previously-published interviews.

• Alan Grayson, former (and perhaps future) U.S. Congressman
• Marcy Wheeler, of emptywheel.net
• Cliff Schecter, who comments regularly with Sam Seder at Majority.fm among many other places
• Tom Tomorrow, cartoonist with DailyKos and This Modern World
• Alex Lawson of StrengthenSocialSecurity.org
• Josh Orton, with Russ Feingold's Progressives United
• Frances Causey, producer–director of Heist, the documentary
• Chris Pearson, a Progressive Party Vermont state legislator (this interview)
  
  
• Susan Smith, Progressive Caucus chair of the Florida Democratic Party
• Sarah Burris, labor activist and progressive youth organizer

These interviews will be concluded this week. Thanks for listening to them.

(If you have trouble with this audio, please let me know in the comments and I'll address it as quickly as I can. Thanks.)

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
 
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$50 million spent by GOP efforts to repeal Obamacare

They're fiscally conservative, you know. They know that they won't win a vote yet they've tried 33 times for show while sending the bill to the US taxpayer. Nice to see they're so serious about government spending, isn't it? More from Huffington Post:

While Republicans lambast the cost of implementing health care reform, a new report shows that their efforts to repeal the law have come at a major cost to taxpayers -- to the tune of nearly $50 million.

The House of Representatives again voted to repeal President Obama's signature health care law on Wednesday, marking the 33rd time Republicans have attempted to take down the legislation. The 32 previous repeal efforts faltered at the hands of the Democrat-controlled Senate; the latest attempt is unlikely to break that pattern.

According to a report by CBS News, these efforts, widely viewed as symbolic political maneuvers, come with a high price tag.

As I tweeted yesterday, if the GOP is so against government run healthcare, they all ought to give up their own government healthcare as a show of solidarity. Clearly they wouldn't want to be tainted with socialism, would they? Read the rest of this post...

CNBC at its worse with Paul Krugman

If anyone wants to see just how offensive CNBC can be, you need to check out this episode from earlier in the week. If a sleazebag like Jamie Dimon was on the show, they'd all be getting in line to kiss his feet, much the way they do with the insufferable Jack Welch who padded his retirement from GE quite comfortably. (Welch is now in the business of giving his name to a for-profit school. The for-profit school industry has been under attack recently for leaving students in debt without any real skills, but that's another story.)

Maybe it's because Krugman has been right about the economy so much more than CNBC has been in recent years. In their defense, it's hard to see what's going on when you're is under the table giving head to the goons of Wall Street who ruined the economy.

Krugman holds his own and gets in a lot of great points including the costs of the French healthcare system compared to the US, but the CNBC crew is ugly. It's highly offensive but the Wall Street crowd gets off on abusive behavior. Especially when they're wrong and the other person has been right all along. Read the rest of this post...

Video: Piranha jaws in action

Creepy video, on multiple levels.  I mean it is an animal, seems to kind of mean to be testing its teeth.  But at least they didn't add any goofy music to the video (God kills a kitten when that happens).

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Geithner asked British regulators to investigate Libor in 2008

It's great that he raised questions about the suspicious numbers, but at the same time, that was four years ago and nothing ever materialized until this year. What happened and why wasn't this pursued more aggressively by either side? Both sides knew just how important Libor was for everyone from countries, states, cities, homeowners, etc. yet nobody bothered to investigate criminal activity?

The problem that keeps coming back with this industry is the cozy relationship between bankers and regulators. Any reform needs to include something that stops this revolving door between the groups. For too many in the financial industry (and politics) working on the government side is a stepping stone or holding place while waiting for a big payout job on Wall Street. Too many are afraid to be firm with Wall Street because it will kill job opportunities for them.

The right wing media and Big Finance types also like to portray regulators as know-nothing government types who don't understand business. There may be some like that but there is no shortage of former Wall Street people who are regulators, so they know the game. The much bigger problem is the revolving door.

Suggestions are fine, but the people who funded the bailout want and need a lot more.

Geithner suggested to the Bank of England that authorities "strengthen governance and establish a credible reporting procedure" and "eliminate incentive to misreport," the Times reported, citing documents.

"We would welcome a chance to discuss these and would be grateful if you would give us some sense of what changes are possible," Geithner wrote in an e-mail, according to the Post.

Geithner recommended that the British Bankers Association collect quotes from a number of different banks but randomly select a subset of them when determining the Libor, the Journal reported.

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Pro-life Rick Perry's horrifying anti-life record

In a macho act not seen since my chihuahua humped that lab at the dog park, GOP Texas Governor Rick Perry announced that he will turn down millions in federal dollars meant to expand Medicaid and to create a state insurance exchange as outlined by the Affordable Care Act.

Not only is Texas ranked as worst in the country for health care delivery by the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, but one in four Texans are currently uninsured. In plain numbers, over 6.2 million Texans go without health insurance every single day.

Yes, Rick is willing to let six million people stay uninsured and without medical care, all because he wants to publicly humiliate the president. Though in all fairness, it is what Jesus would do. Remember those Bible stories where Jesus asks lepers for a co-pay and turns away the blind because of their pre-existing conditions?

This hypocrisy doesn't seem to matter much to the self-proclaimed pro-life Perry, and for several reasons. And like him, I can't remember what they are.

More disturbing is Rick's actual, horrifying record on life. While he tells one group that he's "working in [his] heart" in order to save the unborn, Perry has also executed 243 post-born Texas prisoners as of June 22, 2012, more than any other governor in modern American history. It's even more than the next top two states during the past three decades combined.

As for Texas, Salon.com estimates that the number of executed prisoners will reach 250 by the end of 2012.

At least one of the men Perry executed was later found to be innocent. At least ten were thought to have been severely mentally unfit. And at least three were juveniles at the time they committed their crimes.

Take Napoleon Beazley, who was sentenced to death for committing murder as a 17-year-old. Before his execution, 18 state legislators and the judge who oversaw his trial all wrote to Perry, asking for clemency. His response? “To delay his punishment is to delay justice.”

So much for protecting the life of the young. Read the rest of this post...

Who needs Fast and Furious? Put together an AK-47 in an hour, legally.

Stratfor has an eye opening piece on the Fast and Furious operation (the US supply of guns to the Mexican drug cartels that the GOP has been trying to turn into one of their fact-free scandals).

Whatever your position on gun control, you probably want to consider the implication of this particular statement in the report:

One significant emerging source of AR-15/M16 variants is something called an 80 percent lower receiver. (The lower receiver is the part of the AR-15/M16/M4 that carries a manufacturer's serial number. These 80 percent lower receivers do not have any serial numbers.) Under U.S. federal firearms law, the unfinished lower receiver is not considered a firearm and thus can be shipped anywhere and sold to anyone without a license. Once the remaining machining on the lower receiver is completed, one can build an AR-15, M16 or M4 carbine by purchasing the additional required parts -- such as the bolt assembly, trigger assembly and barrel -- which also are not considered firearms. Once the weapon is fully assembled, it is then considered a firearm and subject to federal firearms law.

I took a look at some of the 80% receivers on sale on the Web. It would take me an hour or less to turn one into a fully finished part using my drill press and rather less on the mill. It didn't take me very long to find all the other parts I would need to build an AK-47 or M16 clone.

The 80% receiver means that anyone with a $200 drill press can make unlicensed guns without serial numbers. But even if the 80% receivers are banned, a competent machinist can make one from scratch the old fashioned way in a day, and an amateur like myself armed with a $2500 computer controlled mill can churn them out at the rate of one an hour or so ,along with pretty much every other part that might be needed.

And small arms are just the start of the possibilities. Kits to build model airplanes with a wingspan of 6 foot or more are already readily available. Expect to see similar kits of military drones being offered in the future. Read the rest of this post...

Krugman: "Romney is in very serious trouble"

I've been arguing for a while that this is a Done Deal Election — partly because I agree and partly to avoid the Left-on-Left foodfight that seems to pop up during elections. To me, that seems a total waste of a coalition-building opportunity.

Now Paul Krugman weighs in, and offers evidence. His bottom line is in my headline — "Romney is in very serious trouble."

The Professor (my emphasis and paragraphing:

Plutocrats on Parade

Robin Wells has a very good essay on the Romney phenomenon in the Guardian. After all the whining over “class warfare”, the GOP has more or less forced an election that really is about the very rich versus everyone else — and the Romney supporters are so insulated by their wealth that they can’t even see the problem.

I would just chime in that I agree with Robin that Romney is in very serious trouble.

Think of the pattern that’s accumulating: the obfuscation over the Bain record on jobs, outsourcing, and all that, the mysterious offshore accounts (and the magical $100 million IRA), the stonewalling on past tax records, and now his insistence that he was no longer working at a company that continued to list him as CEO and pay him lots of money. ...

This could be famous last words, but it looks to me as if Romney is in the process of getting defined — and his party won’t like the results.

And for good measure, wait till this gets out. Remember the "nail ladies"?

So I was curious: what do “nails ladies” earn? The answer, according to the BLS Occupational Employment Statistics, is that in 2010 the mean annual wage of Manicurists and Pedicurists(395092) was $21,760.

Among other things, this means that nails ladies probably face a higher marginal effective tax rate than Romney donors.

After evidence that Romney is risking felony charges, throwing the "nail ladies" back in his face seems almost symbolic. He didn't even make the comment.

But then, what's an election anyway, but a heavily-financed wealth transfer to the big media companies, in exchange for broadcasting symbols that are almost never accurate?

So who knows — maybe it's the nail ladies who will finally sink him. He's close to sunk, it seems, if Krugman is right.

Why do I write this? Partly because I think he's right, The Professor, and partly to get progressives focused on the other important business at hand — what to do when Obama, Bane of Bain reverts to Obama, Friend of the Corporate Coup.

If Krugman is right, that's coming, and soon.

Did I mention, "Hope is not a plan"? Hope so.

We need a plan, I think, for December 2012 and beyond, and we need it fast. There's going to be a lot of work to do to head off the assault I greatly fear is coming.

Mes centimes,

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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As CEO and President of Bain, Romney was responsible for aborted-fetus-disposal investment

During his tenure as CEO & President of Bain, Romney's company invested in a business that disposes of aborted fetuses.

BusinessInsider:

As "Chairman, CEO, and President" of Bain, he damn well would have remained responsible for these decisions. In which case, saying he had "left" and implying that he had no involvement or responsibility whatsoever is highly misleading.

The CEO of a car company may not have input into the decision of what specific cars the company makes or where it makes them (though he or she obviously could if s/he wanted), but this CEO is unequivocally responsible for these decisions.

Similarly, if Romney was CEO of Bain at the time it made the Stericycle decision, as well as the company layoffs and other unpleasant facts that Candidate Romney would like to disown, he certainly was responsible for these decisions.

So, enough with walking a fine line rhetorically.

Interestingly, Romney claims to have "left" Bain in February of 1999, and the aborted-fetus deal happened in November of 1999, so Romney et. al. are claiming that he had nothing to do with the deal, even though Romney remained President, CEO and stole shareholder. Interesting timing on Romney's claim to have left.

We're to believe that no one told Romney that they were going into the aborted fetus business. Uh huh. That's like me taking a leave of absence from AMERICAblog, but retaining total ownership and leadership, and Chris deciding to take the blog into the porn business without telling me. Or, perhaps a more apt comparison for a company run by a man who ran for the US Senate as a Republican: Chris decided to make the blog a GOP political blog while I was gone but still running and owning the thing.

Yeah, right.

Chris also raises the point of how you run a huge business like Bain when the President and CEO is missing in action for three years, but retaining his posts in the company. So Bain was rudderless for three years, rather than Romney temporarily stepping down as President and CEO. Really? Read the rest of this post...

Taibbi and Spitzer on LIBOR: The business model of the banks "is corrupt and rotten to its core"

A nice three-way discussion between Eliot Spitzer (who's met corruption face to face), Matt Taibbi (who writes about it almost daily), and Dennis Kelleher (who has represented banks for a living).

As Kelleher says at 2:10 in the clip below:

Their business model ... is based on making as much money, as quickly as possible, in any way that they can not get caught (emphasis his).

Remember, Kelleher knows these guys inside-out — as Spitzer notes, he has a history as a banking industry lawyer.

This is a guy who knows these guys. He later (8:10) calls them "not banks" but "finance and trading companies."

Great discussion. Watch:



Taibbi notes (4:30), because the BBA throws out the eight outliers in the 16 daily quotes, for LIBOR to be constantly wrong, it has to be "all of them" doing it:

It's not just five banks ... really it's going to come out that it's going to be all of them. It's "cartel-style" corruption; it's not just Barklays.

Be sure to watch Kelleher's close — it touches the political system.

(If you want a backgrounder with a little more depth, here's ours.)

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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