EditorBlog (939)
Maine Joins 12 Other States in Officially Supporting an End to Corporate Personhood
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
Twelve states are officially backing a constitutional amendment to eliminate corporate personhood, and Maine just became the thirteenth.
According to the Bangor Daily News:
Sen. Richard Woodbury, I-Yarmouth, plans to introduce a resolution Tuesday in the Maine Senate that directs the state’s congressional delegation to support a constitutional amendment that would overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 “Citizens United” opinion equating campaign spending with free speech....
In March, independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Democratic U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch of Florida introduced a constitutional amendment to overturn “Citizens United.” The proposed amendment would “expressly exclude for-profit corporations from the rights given to natural persons by the Constitution of the United States, prohibit corporate spending in all elections, and affirm the authority of Congress and the states to regulate corporations and to regulate and set limits on all election contributions and expenditures.”
Despite having a Tea Party governor, Maine is one of the leaders in transparent elections and reducing the impact of big money on the political process. However, in 2011, the US Supreme Court gutted a key element of the Maine Clean Election Act.
(Photo: occupyreno_media)
University Grad Student Debunks Major Austerity Theory by Exposing Flawed Stats
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
It's about time Paul Krugman took a victory lap – and he does in his Monday New York Times column:
But just look at the predictions the two sides in this debate have made. People like me predicted right from the start that large budget deficits would have little effect on interest rates, that large-scale “money printing” by the Fed (not a good description of actual Fed policy, but never mind) wouldn’t be inflationary, that austerity policies would lead to terrible economic downturns. The other side jeered, insisting that interest rates would skyrocket and that austerity would actually lead to economic expansion. Ask bond traders, or the suffering populations of Spain, Portugal and so on, how it actually turned out.
Is the story really that simple, and would it really be that easy to end the scourge of unemployment? Yes — but powerful people don’t want to believe it. Some of them have a visceral sense that suffering is good, that we must pay a price for past sins (even if the sinners then and the sufferers now are very different groups of people). Some of them see the crisis as an opportunity to dismantle the social safety net. And just about everyone in the policy elite takes cues from a wealthy minority that isn’t actually feeling much pain.
What has happened now, however, is that the drive for austerity has lost its intellectual fig leaf, and stands exposed as the expression of prejudice, opportunism and class interest it always was. And maybe, just maybe, that sudden exposure will give us a chance to start doing something about the depression we’re in.
Krugman's boasting is long over due, but in specific, this time comes from the most unlikely of sources: a Univeristy of Massachusetts graduate economic student who discovered major statistical errors in the primary research paper (authored by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff) used by advocates to justify austerity measures.
Thomas Herndon, the graduate student who received the excel spread sheet after much persistence that Reinhart and Rogoff used to justify their pro-austerity theory, does not accept the viewpoint that the errors were minor:
(Photo: Wikipedia)
George W. Bush's Presidential Library Is a Fraud: He Was Installed in a Right Wing Putsch
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
Of Thursday's dedication of the George W. Bush presidential library, NPR headlines an article that details how President "Obama's Bush Library Speech Leaves Iraq And More Unspoken."
Most Americans of both parties have, over the years, appeared to have adopted the attitude that the stolen election of 2000 is something the nation has gotten over. But it's hard not to underscore that the George W. Bush presidential library is really a fraud.
After all, Bush was never elected president. On the 10th anniversary of his anointment by the Supreme Court, and particularly by the stay of the Florida state-mandated recount by Antonin Scalia – a long-time buddy of Dick Cheney and rabid right wing partisan. In 2010, Eric Alterman recounted just some of the machinations that led to an election that was stolen even before the votes were cast (which was done with a number of voter suppression strategies, including the purging of tens of thousands of largely minority voters in Florida done by a firm called ChoicePoint) on the tenth anniversary of the legalized putsch.
The coup was openly revealed in Scalia's infamous stay of a state-mandated recount (Bush, by the way, as governor of Texas signed a bill that would have made a recount in Florida automatic if the vote were as close in Texas as it officially was in the Sunshine State) when he stated that a recount "threatens irreperable harm to [Bush] and to the country, by casting a cloud upon what he claims to be the legitimacy of his election." In short, Scalia is saying that if Bush lost after a recount it would hurt his reputation as president since the Supreme Court would install him in the White House no matter what the voters decided in Florida. (Remember that Al Gore won the national popular vote by more than 540,000 votes.)
(Photography: @ LaRsNoW @)
Toilet Paper Will Be More Credible Than the Chicago Tribune Newspapers if Kochs Buy Them
Yes, the rumors have been rampant for a few weeks that the infamous Koch brothers (top ranking billionaires) will buy what is left of the Chicago Tribune newspaper empire from a board appointed by the Tribune Company creditors.When It Comes to Killing in the Name of Religion and Nationhood, Christians Hold the Modern Record
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
There are few Americans -- if any but extremist Armageddon (of any religion) and anti-government militia supporters -- who feel anything but the deepest of sorrow for the victims of the Boston Marathon apparent religious act of terrorism – conducted by what appear to be a radicalized permanent resident and his younger brother, an American citizen. It was -- as was 9/11 -- a heinous, shocking act.But the insightful Juan Cole puts into perspective that most followers of Islam are peaceful people. The Jihadists and their networks compose a small percentage of believers in the Islamic faith.
Perhaps it is a little too early to start comparing the death tolls caused by different religious faiths in the last 100 years, but Cole takes a stab at it -- and this is what he finds. In the 20th Century, of the estimated (and this is hardly a firm figure, understated if anything) 120 million people who were killed in wars and war-like acts (terrorism is war, generally upon civilians, by a non nation-state) only a small fraction of that figure was the result of Muslim killings. Cole offers a chart that visually displays the dramatic lopsided accountability of Christian nations: mostly those located in Europe plus the US and Canada.
Many Americans will react with dismay that Cole is setting the record straight. But it is vital to point out that he condemns terrorism and war for empire of any sort. He is simply pointing out that to think that Christianity and Christian nations are more virtuous and less blood thirsty than followers of Islam is statistically incorrect. As Cole concludes in his commentary on relative blood lust in the name of a divine force or nationhood,
Terrorism is a tactic of extremists within each religion, and within secular religions of Marxism or nationalism. No religion, including Islam, preaches indiscriminate violence against innocents.
(Photo: Wikipedia)
Marie Antoinette Alert: Nearly Half of NYC's Residents are Poor or Near-Poor, While the One Percent Accumulate More Wealth
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
In its metro section, The New York Times (NYT) revealed the growing yawning gap between the wealthy barons of the Big Apple and nearly half of the city's citizens, who are barely surviving.
The rise in New York City’s poverty rate as a result of the recession has apparently eased, but not before pushing nearly half of the city’s population into the ranks of the poor or near-poor in 2011, according to an analysis by the Bloomberg administration.
That year, according to the city’s measure, about 46 percent of New Yorkers were making less than 150 percent of the poverty threshold, a benchmark used to describe people who are not officially poor but who still struggle to get by. That represents a rise of more than three percentage points since 2009, when the nation’s recession officially ended.
Now, as the US has slowly climbed out of an economic collapse caused by the financial manipulations of a large segment of the one percent, the wealthy are increasing their control of US assets. Meanwhile, the safety net for those in need is cut in the name of austerity. That is why the NYT reports:
“Coinciding with the end of the slump in the job market is the end of the recession-related expansion of the safety net,” Dr. Levitan [director of poverty research for the Center for Economic Opportunity and author of the study] wrote, which could reduce food stamp benefits on top of cutbacks in unemployment insurance, tax credits and the payroll tax rate.
And the future is not bright for the New Yorkers who are the modern version of the Dickensian poor who walked like shadows amidst the rich who controlled the assets of the Britain at that dark time of the dawn of the industrial revolution:
More New Yorkers were poor in 2011 — 19.3 percent by the federal rate and 21.3 percent by the city’s standard — compared with 16.8 and 19.8 percent in 2007, before the recession. Still, while the city’s measure is the highest since it was first calculated in 2005, the official rate is lower in New York than in many other major cities.
While the center’s annual report, to be released this week, suggested that a better job market may have reversed the rising poverty in 2012, its outlook for this year and beyond was more problematic.
Of course, this doesn't include the working class or middle class who are just making it in the costly city of New York.
(Photo: HowardLake)
Republican National Committee Won't Be Holding Gay Marriage Fundraisers Anytime Soon
Rocking and reeling from November’s election debacle, the Republican Party has been desperately trying to find its footing. A major goal – as stated in its post-election Growth and Opportunity Project report – has Party leadership looking to rebrand and re-market itself to younger people minorities and gays, an almost impossible task considering the power of its conservative Christian base. Dem Failure to Reform Filibuster Sinks Gun Control in Senate
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
Harry Reid: Let the Minority Rule
As Michael Collins writes about the failed legislative proposal to broaden background checks on gun buyers, you can put the blame at the feet of Harry Reid and other Dems who refused to break the back of frivolous filibusters at the beginning of this congressional session:
As majority leader, Reid set the rules of the Senate prior to this term, as he did prior to the last term. He deliberately allowed the super majority requirement prior to any meaningful vote to stand and, as a result, preserved the threat of a filibuster. Harry Reid bears the responsibility for the lack of a vote and passage of this legislation. The 46 senators who voted with Reid against allowing a vote are almost all Republicans. They were joined by the normal cast of atavistic Democrats including Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana who also chairs the Senate Finance Committee.
(Reid's office indicated that he voted no for procedural reasons that would allow him to bring the legislation up again later, but as long as the filibuster threat exists on any law the GOP wants to sink it will not matter.) As Collins adds, "Two other parts of the gun control passage fell after the background check fiasco. Bans on assault weapons and high capacity magazines are finished."
Although the reporting on the amendment was confusing due to the threat of a filibuster issue, the gun state Idaho Statesman got it right:
Gun control advocates suffered a huge setback Wednesday as the Senate defeated a delicately crafted compromise strengthening background checks for gun buyers.
The 54-46 vote was six short of the 60 needed. While the vote can be reconsidered, the tally was a bitter reminder that even the most gentle of gun control measures faces a nearly impossible path winning congressional approval.
So because the Democrats were too wimpy to require a simple majority vote on most legislation, 60 is once again the new 50. Given that small Republican states have equal senate representation to big Democratic states, this makes passage of many bills that the majority of the US population supports often impossible to achieve. It's minority rule, and the Dems keep backing down on changing the filibuster rules.
(Photo: DonkeyHotey)
Income Taxes Do Not Fully Reflect the Low Taxation on the Rich in the US
"Only Little People Pay Taxes: Why a janitor ends up with a higher tax rate than a millionaire" is an article in Mother Jones Magazine that dispels a key myth about the rich and taxes:The Pay Disparity Between CEO and US Worker is 354 to 1 and "Austerity" Will Make It Worse
According to a study of US labor statistics featured on the AFL-CIO's Paywatch.org, US worker productivity has grown by 88% since 1982. Yet wages, adjusted for cost of living, have pretty much stagnated – or in the case of displaced and threatened workers declined.More...
