A Note to the Ideological Purists

This was written as a post in the comments on Alternet.:

I often wonder how many of those who post here are paid operatives of the Corporate Right. All of the concern trolling… ‘oh, I fell for Obama and now I see the light’; ‘both parties are the same’; Obama let us down and proved that he is beholden to corporations, just like dubya and Romney’; ‘I’ll use my vote to send a message to the Democratic Party’ [what message? That you are better than the rest of us? more ideologically pure? more reality based? All of these messages are good – but they are not morally superior, because any kind of morally superior judgment would know that no message will be sent and that every one of your friends, neighbors, family and fellow countrymen & women will be irretrievably fucked when Republicans are installed in office due to your morally superior message sending.]

I have been reading back through publications from early 2009. By April of 2009 many on the Progressive Left had already written off Obama and convinced themselves and others that he was a traitor because he did not live up to every single one of their ideals. I have felt the same way often, and have expressed the same concerns to the WH, my congressional rep, my Senators, my local government, friends, family and anyone else that would listen.

Now, however, during this election, I do not have the luxury of ideological purity. Neither does our country.

Obama said one thing during his acceptance speech that I have seen get no play in the analysis. “As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government.”

Catch that? Self-government. Hard and frustrating work of self-government. Not, I’ll send twenty five bucks to Obama, give him my vote and expect him to fix everything that has been fucked in this country for the last 35 years. And, I will give him, alone, 3.5 years to do it.

That is not how it works in self-governance. Not how it works. We must be involved every step of the way. We are the government. We send representatives to DC to represent us. However, we need to do the very hard work of staying on top of them every step of the way and ensuring that they are doing the work that we want done. This requires direct involvement.

I talk to a lot of Progressives and most of them are filled with the same dour frustration of the comments here. Most are rightfully and righteously frustrated with the BS that has not been fixed and the BS that has been continued. I get it. [Many of them also seem to have been only paying attention for the last 4 years and do not get the institutional structure or broken-ness of our congress, elections and campaign finance structure.]

However, to a person, most of them have not been involved. They do not attend party meetings. They are not involved in Progressive groups. They do not attend protests (or start them.) They do not sign petitions or write letters or make phone calls to their reps. They do not do, and have not done, anything to move the course of decision making in the right direction or the direction they want it moved. If we are not actively involved and do not continually use our voices and our power, then we lose our power and the moneyed interests are the ones who are heard. We need to be loud and louder. Our elected representatives need us involved. They need to be pushed by us.

I do not understand those, who have not pushed over the last four years, thinking that withholding their vote or voting third party will all of a sudden be the needed push. In self-governance you have a lot more responsibility than voting once every four years – yet many do not even do that. Your vote is powerful, but it is not your only responsibility.

The corporate masters are counting on you getting discouraged. They are counting on you thinking that ‘both parties are the same.’ They are counting on you sitting this one out or voting third party. They want this and need this. Michael Moore is right, they know that they cannot win if more people vote and so they are taking away the vote from whoever they can get away with taking it away from. We need to vote just to make up for the millions disenfranchised.

It is high past time for those of us who feel powerless to exercise our power where ever we can. Sitting out the election is not exercising power. Voting Green is not exercising this power. Not now. There is way too much at stake.

I am not a Democratic apologist. I am just as pissed about many, many things that have been done or not done. When I look at the Party Platforms, though, it is the Democratic Party that is closest to my beliefs. When I look at the demographics, it is the Democratic Party that most resembles true representation. When I look at the last 80 years of law making in this country it is the Democrats who have supported Women, Unions, Civil Rights, Peace and the Social Safety Net. It is the Democratic Party that says that We are All in This Together [The Right would have us jumping from windows of a burning factory because we are all just means to an end for the factory owner – not actual people, actual people all created equally.]

We are at a major fucking turning point. We do not have the luxury of waiting for the candidate who believes in everything that we believe in. We need to ensure that Obama is reelected and do everything that we can to get him a congress that will not block his every move. Then we need to be involved to push our representatives to enact laws for the people, undo the damage done over the last 35 years, enact laws that remove the power of the financial elite, restore our Rights and Civil Liberties and prosecute those who have screwed us. We need to elect them, then we need to push them.

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One Question

How many men die each year due to pregnancy related risks?

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Personhood Amendment

Goddammit.

Perhaps it is time that we introduce a new Personhood Amendment? Something to the effect that “Women are full human beings, with full rights over their bodies and complete freedom to make decisions respecting their bodies, health and futures.”

All of this new controversy over requiring that health insurance plans, regardless of where they are offered, cover birth control without copay, is absolutely absurd.

I have heard enough from Newt & Rick & Mitt & Ron Paul about ‘religious freedom’ and what an attack on the Catholic Church that this has been. Well, for thousands of years the Catholic Church, and other male dominated power structures, have been attacking women and our autonomy and it is about fucking time for a little push back.

This is not about abortion. This is not about birth control. This is not about the group of cells that may or may not be duplicating in someone’s uterus.

This is about Women.



This whole bullshit argument is about whether or not women can be trusted to think and decide for themselves what is best for themselves and their body and their future - or whether they need the state, or a man, telling them what they can or cannot do.

Women understand how our bodies work. We understand, and can comprehend, the multitude of issues that arise from our reproductive health and, thankfully, there are [still] organizations that can assist us in getting the care that we need.

Despite all of the arguments to the contrary, women are capable of making these decisions ourselves.

It is very simple: either I have control over my body or someone else does.

These arguments have always been about controlling women and limiting their abilities to control their own lives. Take away a woman’s choice about her own fertility and you limit every choice that that woman will ever be able to make for the rest of her life.

When, in this country, will we finally decide that women are full persons with all of the rights of a full person? Oh, that’s right, we have been trying to get a women’s ‘personhood amendment’ passed for 89 years and counting.

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More Uncovered Protests

In addition to the uncovered protests on Saturday to protect worker’s rights, corporate media also blacked-out coverage of nationwide protests against the banks.

Interesting the crap that the corporate media wants us to know vs what they don’t want us to know about.

The Right Wing strategy is clear.

Thom Hartmann
told a joke this morning (see, it’s funny ‘cause it’s true…)

A Big Business man, a Tea Partier and a Laborer are sitting around a table with a plate of 12 cookies on it. The Big Business guy takes 11 of the cookies and gobbles them up. There is one cookie left. Big business looks at the Tea Partier and says, “Watch out, that Union guy wants part of your cookie.”

I wonder when the Dems will figure out that ‘bipartisanship’ is not the solution?

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Apparently THIS Revolution Will NOT Be Televised

As I watched the National protests in support of Unions and the people of Wisconsin, on-line, yesterday, I kept searching the teevee for evidence of coverage. The local news networks were not covering it, the national news networks were not covering it, the cable news networks were not covering it and – extremely disappointingly – CSPAN was not covering it. I even flipped periodically to Fox “News” to see if they were covering the national response to the attack on the used-to-be-middle-class. Fox had more coverage than any other network, however it was spun towards the myth of the Unions being greedy thugs and the protests as something to be feared. (CNN, sadly, were instead talking about the Tea Party and its two year anniversary.)

When it comes to the used-to-be-middle-class, we are left out of the national dialogue, despite the millions in the streets.

More on the flip side about why these protests matter,why America needs to be informed of them and about them, and why they are occurring.

This morning, watching the Sunday shows, the same black-out of the nationwide protests continued. MTP at least included Rich Trumka; a rare representative of actual people, on the Sunday chat fests. Though he was not given enough opportunity to really talk about what is occurring across the country. Emanuel Cleaver did OK but there is really crappy, if existent at all (though I find no evidence for it) Democratic messaging on the real fight here.

There are numerous reasons for these protests and numerous reasons that we all – left, right, center, independent, Democratic, Republican, Tea Party and Socialist – should be celebrating and supporting the protests and the protestors: they are fighting for the survival of our country which is contingent on the survival of its people.

First of all, this is not a budget fight. Public sector employees are not responsible for our budget deficits.
Bush tax cuts and the second Republican Great Depression are what is driving our deficits (PDF) and what created our massive National Debt. There is only one reason to even be discussing deficits now; the Right wants to blur the line and pretend that cash-strapped governments (state and local and federal) are the reason that the American people are broke. They are interrelated but the cause and effect formula is backwards.

The Right pretends that jobs are some gift from business owners and, now, governments. They have repeated the meme for so long now that business “creates jobs,” that our entire national debate centers around how best to blow the cocks of big business rather than the incredible shrinking wealth of what was once the middle class. Never mind wage stagnation “business needs certainty.” The used-to-be-middle-class would like some certainty too.

No business creates jobs just to create jobs – as evidenced by the shitload of money that the corporations are hoarding. The corporations do not “create jobs”; employees provide services to employers for a fee (payrolls); DEMAND creates jobs. There is no demand because the people are freakin’ broke. Or, I should say, the majority of the people are freakin’ broke.

In addition, lowering the deficit does not lead to jobs – unemployment leads to budget deficits. Somehow the Republicans believe that the more that they fire people, cut their benefits (which are part of a payroll package not some give-away) and lower their payrolls, the lower the unemployment rate will be. How many people do they have to fire before the unemployment rate reaches zero?

There were coast-to-coast protests yesterday. Protests of the American people standing up for the American people. Coast-to-fucking coast. My guess is that very few Americans know this and even fewer understand why the protests affect them and matter to them: Apparently THIS revolution will NOT be televised.


Update: John Nichols breaks down why this all matters much better than I did.

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YES, It Has Come to This

Will Marry for Health Insurance dot com.

Not a joke. The real deal. Desperate woman with a story that I can very much relate to.

Fuck.

H/T to Thom Hartmann for interviewing her today.

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Hey Dumbasses – The Healthcare Bill Will Create Jobs Too!

The ‘conventional’ (by ‘conventional’ I mean the Beltway) wisdom seems to be that the healthcare bill is dead. The media seems to think that the election of Scott Brown and the SOTU indicates that healthcare reform is taking a back burner or being restructured or some such shit.

Then there is the NY Times article that has the ominous headline that HC is “stalled” – and an even worse headline on the link to it at HuffPo that reads “Rahm: Health Care on Back Burner.” However, when I read the article there is no quote from Rahm stating that health care reform is dead.

Here is where the article 'quotes' Rahm:

With Mr. Obama’s health care overhaul stalled on Capitol Hill, Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said in an interview that Democrats would try to act first on job creation, reducing the deficit and imposing tighter regulation on banks before returning to the health measure, the president’s top priority from last year.

How I read that paraphrase is simply that he will sign a jobs & financial reform bill before he signs a health care bill.

Obama has repeatedly said that he can do more than one thing at a time. Obama has repeatedly said that “everyday he focuses on the economy and on job creation” – even during the healthcare debate. Imagine that, a President who can multi-task.

Not only is health reform still very much alive, the bill might get a whole hell of a lot better. Especially after Obama took on the GOP at their retreat this morning.

Obama called the GOP out on their crap – even going so far as to remind them that the more that they demonize him and the Democrats, the harder that it will be for the GOP to support policies that the Dems put forth. They cannot even support policies that they might agree with. The stupid Pukes in the Senate even voted “no” on the pay-go rule yesterday. How they can say that they are “fiscally responsible” and vote “no” on pay-go is beyond me.

Health reform is an enormous jobs bill. Look at all of the potential jobs that will be created when 40 million more people have health insurance: doctors, nurses, health care billers, health care transcriptionists, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, office staff, health care IT, construction workers (to build more clinics and hospitals), etc, etc, etc. Millions of fucking jobs.

Health care reform is not dead. It is now time for the Progressives to be louder than we have ever been. We need to “scream bloody murder.” We need to call our Reps and ask them to support the public option. We need to call our Senators. We need to call the Whitehouse. We need to tell them to use reconciliation or do whatever is necessary to get it done.

We need to call and write and send letters to the editor and we need to be loud. It is time to march in the streets and raise holy hell.

Health care reform is a jobs bill. Health care reform is necessary for deficit reduction. Health care reform is a moral issue – the civil rights of our time. Health care reform must be passed now.

Cross posted at PAS.

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The Obama Presidency is Officially Over

At least that is what one would have to believe if they had listened to any of the media reporting over the last 24 hours.

OK, Coakley ran a shitty campaign. Democrats took the seat for granted. The DSCC dropped the ball. And, the votes have not even yet been counted!

There are major problems with the MA election, and I am waiting for it to be certified before I cry defeat. (I get it that certification will probably come without the full investigation of the funny machines or the BS ballots, but I can always dream.) I do not understand why Coakley jumped so quickly to concede…I do not get it, unless she planned to lose. Her concession will make it a lot more difficult to actually count the ballots.

Enough said about Massachusetts. It does not mean shit. With Bayh, Landrieu, Lieberman, Nelson, Nelson and the others, we really never had 60 votes anyway.

I spend a lot of time listening to a lot of media. I have Left Wing radio on and MSNBC almost all the time. I never miss the Sunday shows. I read endlessly. I pay attention to what is being said and how it is being said. They are working overtime right now to spin this MA election as the end of the Obama Presidency and they are wrong.

We need to call and write and make clear why it is that the Dems lost the MA seat. We need to tell our representatives the truth. They will not be hearing the truth inside the beltway because the beltway common fucking wisdom is that the problem with Obama and his presidency is the DFH.

Maybe they are correct, but not in the way that they think.

The beltway press wants to spin this that the liberals were getting too much of their way, that Obama was too far to the left, that the Dirty Fucking Hippies ruined the Obama Presidency.

They’ll say that we have to move to the ‘center.’ That we have to act like the principle-less right wing. They are blaming MA on us; it is the DFH’s fault.

The only way that it is our fault is because we have not insisted loudly enough that the Congress follow the Progressive Principles that got them elected. We worked in 2006 & 2008 to send people to congress to get it done.

We want real healthcare reform (and we want it now.) We want a real jobs package, a New New Deal (and we want it now.) We want the Employee Free Choice Act (and we want it now.) We want the banksters thrown out of the corporate world and we want their seats removed from the table at the Whitehouse (and we want it now.) We want control over our own bodies (and we want it now.) We want the ERA (and we want it now.) We want an end to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (and we want it now.) We want marriage available to any committed couple who wants it, gay or straight, (and we want it now.) We want the banking industry reformed (and we want it now.) We want the wars to come to an end (and we want it now.) We want Gitmo closed (and we want it now.) We want fairness for our people and accountability in our government (and we want it now.) We want the bankruptcy laws fixed (and we want it now.) We want the Bush Admin held accountable for their crimes (and we want it now.)

These are the messages that we need to impart to our congress critters. This is what we need to tell them. This is why we lost (if we really lost) Massachusetts. This is what we need to say to our friends and colleagues and representatives and President. This is what we need to tell them; the Obama Presidency is not over, we are just getting started. We want a Progressive congress and President (and we want it now.)

Cross posted at PAS.

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You Can Do Better Obama

I thought Obama was making a major error or was trying to appease republi-cons when he... "announced his intent to nominate" Ignacia S. Moreno to be Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division in the Department of Justice.

However, after this current report of apparent republi-con obstruction... GOP plans 450 climate bill changes, it confirms Obama is making a huge mistake. He needs to appoint a battler on the environment in the Dept. of Justice, not one who fights for corporate environmental rights. If Obama goes through with this appointment, it would appear to me that Obama is in bed with corporations and could really care less about serious issues involving a Progressive stance on the environment.

His latest turns towards the center, military tribunals, stopping the release of torture photos don't have me as near upset as this chance view on the environment.

Let me clarify... I'm off his mailing list for now. Don't get me wrong, Obama is still 100 times better than bu$h/cheney, but it does appear he is channeling his inner Bill Clinton.

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Sorry Arlen, You Can't Have It Both Ways

Ok, Arlen we get it... Specter Won't Back Public Health Care Or Employee Free Choice Act. Claims he won't be a loyal Democrat. Then I say no support! Obama do not campaign for him... no funding from the DNC... what good will he do if we throw money his way without him voting for issues important to Democrats. It's imperative that we come up with a solid Progressive challenger in the Democratic Primary. Force him to play ball... we do not need another "Blue Dog 'Dino' Dem!"

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Take a Long Walk on a Short Pier

The fucking nerve! On the House's $3.6 trillion budget blueprint...

Republicans have warned that the prospects for bipartisanship will all but vanish if majority Democrats attempt to muzzle them.

Am I missing something here? Could the republi-cons first demonstrate some bipartisanship! I'm sorry, 3 lousy votes on the stimulus package doesn't cut it.

UPDATE: h/t Think Progress

President Obama’s budget passed the House and Senate yesterday, by votes of 233-196 and 55-43, respectively. No Republicans voted for the budget in either chamber. Twenty House Democrats voted against the budget.

Please, continue being republi-con obstructionists... the American people are making you the most ignored political party in our history.

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Small News Story Today

THE IRAQ WAR ENTERED ITS 7th YEAR TODAY!!!

Now wake the fuck up people!

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The Pope's Hypocrisy

The speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, went to visit the Pope... he proceded to lecture her on the morals of abortion and assisted suicide.

The Vatican says the pope lectured Pelosi about abortion and assisted suicide. Pelosi says they talked about poverty and global warming -- and she showed him pictures of her grandchildren.

"His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church's consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death," the Holy See said in a statement.

Benedict emphasized that "all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society" should work to create "a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development."

Before he preaches about "natural moral law" he should have thought twice about reinstating neo-Nazi Bishop Richard Williamson. I know of no higher "natural moral law" than the lesson we learned from the Holocaust.

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66 Pages

Is there nothing sacred? Why is it, that I cannot send my kid to school with a peanut butter sandwich without worrying that it will kill him? What's worse, is that I have had to implore him to not purchase anything at school to eat because it might be tainted with salmonella. (What about the poor kids who depend on school lunches as their main meal?!)

The news last night warned that they are not sure that the salmonella was contained to only the institutional brand; I finally checked the FDA website this morning to see what brands actually contain (or might contain) the tainted peanut butter and was horrified to find that the warning applies to 66 pages (PDF) of products. Everything from granola bars, to candy, to pet food, to frozen dinners - including Trader Joe's brand, which is supposed to be a higher class product.

Sign here to demand that our food is safe. Sorry to say that there is a petition begging our government to ensure that children can safely eat peanut butter sandwiches.

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Fuck Bi-Partisanship

I am done. It is only one week into this new flowery world of getting along with the rabid Right and I.Am.Done.

(Rest of the rant on the flip side.)

These bastards are spreading their lies and their fairy tales all across the TeeVees all weekend and the gawd-damned Democrats – who we elected to stand up against these dickwads – are clueless as to how to play this game of political theatre. Do we not have one single friggin’ Democratic spokesperson who can speak in sound bites? Is there no one on that Hill who can get our message across? What is wrong with these people? Jeebus.

Then, I hear on the MSNBC this morning, and also find it here, that the Democrats might drop the Medicare change provision from the stimulus that waives the waiver waiting period for contraception to be included in state programs. Are you kidding me?! Just because gawd damned John Boehner released a sound bite about birth control that freaked the Dems out they are going to cave rather than explain to the sheeple what this provision really does? That pisses me off to no end. (What you are reading now is an only slightly expanded upon version of what the staffers at my Senator’s and Representative’s office heard this morning…)

I realize that that the pundits spun this provision to sound like we were becoming China in advocating birth control…but, it was not a mandate for Christ sake – it was offering people choices! When people have to cut costs what is the first to go? Usually it is medications that we justify that we can “skimp” on. After you have cut every other friggin’ thing out of your life that you can, then we start to look for things that are “luxury.” And, unfortunately, birth control can end up on that list because people play the denial head games like “I’ll be careful.” Well, gawd damn it you stupid Right Wing pricks, it only takes one!

Then, your cut of the $25 dollars - that we might pay for birth control pills - turns into thousands and thousands of dollars to pay for a child that was not wanted to begin with. Then you have a kid growing up in poverty who has to deal with all of the crap that poverty brings and will, quite often, end up in the “system” where we are paying for them in one way or another – either through institutions or because they end up having babies while they are still babies and the friggin’ cycle continues just because you tight assed “conservative” freaks cannot abide by paying for a low income families birth control. Gawd you are stupid!

I realize that Obama’s goal of “one Country” and “we are all in this together” is a noble one. I get it. I also get that it makes sense when we are dealing with reasonable people. I can do that in my personal life with some Right-Wing people who are human and who understand compromise. Yes, it can work.

However, the Republican Hacks on Capitol Hill are not reasonable. They still cannot even take responsibility for the disaster that they caused. They cannot admit that they were the ones who screwed everything up. These assholes do not understand that it is their philosophy that wrecked everything.

President Obama: You cannot work with these people to restore good government because the core of their philosophy is that “government does not work.” Sorry, Dude, but this is what they believe. When you go to them, to work out this legislation and “compromise” you will never, truly, find any common ground.

You are standing on different fucking planets…Ours is the planet of a government that can work for the people, theirs is a planet where government’s only role is to give “tax cuts” to the wealthy and the corporations. They do not give a shit about the majority of us – we are only here to make their beds and serve their meals and cut their lawns and fill their privately run (but federally funded) prisons. These people are criminal hacks and they are Anti-American. Sorry, but you cannot “work with them.” There are only a handful of reasonable, moderate Republicans left and they have no voice inside their caucus; the rest of them are Fascist Pigs. To hell with them.

The American people get it. The American people took the 8 years of Bill Clinton and compared them to the 8 years of George Bush and said “hey, I rather liked the peace and prosperity of the Clinton years…let’s do that again.” And this – Democratic Party – is why you were elected. This is why we worked our asses off and dug deep into our pockets to elect you assholes. Now, our request is friggin’ simple: Act Like the Democrats That We Elected You to Be!

/Rant Over

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Irreconcilable Headlines

I find it absolutely incomprehensible that these headlines can coexist:

Flood of Foreclosures: It’s Worse than You Think

Record Number of Families Seek Refuge in Shelters (Note: Link is to the NYT section dedicated to homelessness. YES, there is an entire section.)

The picture at the top of the Truthout article has a caption which reads:

Ezekiel Pierre Sejour stands in front of an empty, foreclosed home that he and his mother Marie Nadine Pierre, were moved into by the Miami group Take Back the Land after she lost her jobs and could no longer pay her loans. Take Back the Land moves homeless families into empty foreclosed homes in Miami and provides legal protection from eviction. (Photo: Getty Images)

This is exactly what should be happening all across the country.

The article says that banks are holding inventory for a number of reasons and this inventory is not being listed on the MLS. The problem with not listing these homes is that not only does it offer us horrible and incomplete data, but it keeps the homes empty, longer. The longer that the homes remain empty, the worse shape that they are in and the more money that it costs to get them to the point where they are saleable.

The banks are holding them because flooding the market with the true numbers will lower home prices substantially, everywhere. Who among us would want to continue to pay our mortgages if the value of our homes were to suddenly drop below the amount that we owe? How many of us would just walk away? That is a problem.

Another reason that the banks are not listing the homes is because they want to sell them in bulk to investors. This will be just grand; we can return to the days of slum-lords and serfdom, where just a few wealthy people own all of the homes and the rest of us lose our power of negotiation.

This is George W. Bush's "Ownership Society." This is exactly what he had in mind.

The rich will really have all of the power, owning all of the properties; the people who have to rent from them will just have to be happy with what they get. AND, we will all be renters. Brown water coming out of kitchen sinks, holes in the walls that rodents use as entry points, bugs and other nasties…get used to it…this will be the country that they are trying to create for us. Still.

Despite the election of Barack Obama and the very loud, unified, cry of “No More” heard across this country – the moneyed interests, the banks and the investments houses still are trying to enact Dickens’s England where the cry heard is “please sir, may I have some more.”

Dammit. Enough.

I believe that the many organizations dedicated to ending homelessness are already on it, that they are already moving towards the solutions necessary.

I hope that the Congress is listening and reconciles these two headlines so that people no longer lose their homes and that the millions already sitting empty become housing for those living in cars and on the streets. A country with this much wealth has no excuse for Tent Cities or too full shelters.

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What do These Senate Republi-con Fools Have in Common?

Alexander (R-TN) Barrasso (R-WY) Bennett (R-UT) Bond (R-MO) Brownback (R-KS) Bunning (R-KY) Burr (R-NC) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Ensign (R-NV) Enzi (R-WY) Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA) Gregg (R-NH) Hatch (R-UT) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Johanns (R-NE) Kyl (R-AZ) Lugar (R-IN) Martinez (R-FL) McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-KS) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Voinovich (R-OH) Wicker (R-MS)

Besides being male, Christian, white (sorry Martinez, you're about as Hispanic as Alberto Gonzales), right wing tools... they all voted against the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009.

A bill to amend title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, and to modify the operation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, to clarify that a discriminatory compensation decision or other practice that is unlawful under such Acts occurs each time compensation is paid pursuant to the discriminatory compensation decision or other practice, and for other purposes.

May your re-election loss come down to the women you refused to give equal pay too!

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How it Happens

The other day, while reading online (you know what they say…) I saw a perfect example of how it happens. We all know what it is; it is the Internet’s version of the game of telephone and it is far worse.

Someone reads something, they interpret it, then they post their interpretation, someone reads their interpretation, links to it as gospel and the original piece of news is lost forever. The comments in the blog post that follow reflect the anger and disgust – or joy, happy, joy, joy – at the grand “news” that is conveyed. Unfortunately, we cannot always believe everything that we read on the Internet.

The other day I read this headline to my husband:

Land of the Free? As of February 10, 2009 it will be illegal to re-sell children's toys and clothing

My reaction, as was my husband’s, was WTF? How would we survive if it weren’t for thrift stores? And, there are millions more people like us. Not to mention that kids outgrow their clothing so quickly that in thrift stores/second hand stores/consignment shops the children’s clothing is quite often brand new or nearly new.

I investigated further. The blog post linked to this article:

New law restricts re-sale of kid's products

OK, “restricts” is better than “makes it illegal.” The article goes on to clarify,

A new law which takes effect next month requires testing for lead and other chemicals on any kid products made before February 10th.
…
Members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission tentatively agreed that clothing and toys made from natural materials like cotton and wood will be exempt.

Now I am starting to see a more clear picture of what is going on…testing for lead levels and other illegal chemicals…cotton and wood products exempt. This seems a little more reasonable. It still seems a tad excessive and I am still a little outraged at the restrictions, but it is sounding far more reasonable than the original headline. I investigate further – going directly to the source.

CPSC Clarifies Requirements of New Children’s Product Safety Laws Taking Effect in February
Guidance Intended for Resellers of Children’s Products, Thrift and Consignment Store

The new law requires that domestic manufacturers and importers certify that children’s products made after February 10 meet all the new safety standards and the lead ban. Sellers of used children’s products, such as thrift stores and consignment stores, are not required to certify that those products meet the new lead limits, phthalates standard or new toy standards.
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When the CPSIA was signed into law on August 14, 2008, it became unlawful to sell recalled products.

While this might be slightly inconvenient for consignment shops and thrift stores, that they have to confirm that the toys that they are reselling have not been recalled and they have to confirm that their products do not have excessive amounts of lead in them, it seems perfectly reasonable and it is a far cry from the original headline.

This was such a clear example to me of how it happens on the ‘Nets. How the rumors get started and how easy that it is for misunderstandings to occur and tempers to flare. While reading some of the comments following the two posts, the first, inflammatory one at Newsvine and the second, less severe one at KVUE (an “actual” news source) I was struck at how easy it is to cement in someone’s mind a misconception.

The commentors were furious, one going so far as to put out a call for massive civil disobedience. I was heartened to read some more tempered comments, including someone telling the original poster that he should research his information a little more before posting such an inflammatory headline – but the damage had already been done.

Now there is a counter movement against this regulation. The law, as I understand it, was fairly well thought out and supported by environmental organizations and consumer safety advocates. It makes sense to me – don’t sell shit that has been recalled or has enough lead in it to poison our children. Straight forward and reasonable - especially when we remember the outrage when the toys with lead in them were discovered; the law was an outgrowth of this lack of oversight. However, the inflammatory headlines and BS flowing around the Intertubes has created public outrage and ignorance.

And this is how it happens.

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Disaster Governing

Though it happened last week, the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history is not getting much ink. Just another feather in the bu$h cap of disaster governing.

On Monday, toxic coal sludge burst through a retention wall in eastern Tennessee, causing massive property and environmental damage. Federal studies have shown that coal ash contains “significant quantities of heavy metals like arsenic, lead and selenium, which can cause cancer and neurological problems.” The incident — already being called the “largest environmental disaster of its kind in the United States” — may now be even worse than originally anticipated. Tennessee Valley Authority officials “initially said that about 1.7 million cubic yards of wet coal ash had spilled” in the disaster. Yesterday, however, they “released the results of an aerial survey that showed the actual amount was 5.4 million cubic yards, or enough to flood more than 3,000 acres one foot deep.”

Open Thread.

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Holiday Open Thread

OMG, Toyota's posting it's first operating loss since 1950! It's all the Unions fault... damn Unions, causing Toyota to go broke... oh yeah, Toyota doesn't have Union workers.
UPDATE: Just when I get flippant about Toyota and Unions, emptywheel puts out a great article on Toyota being a model for success.

I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Solstice, Wonderful Kwanzaa and Happy New Year.

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