Do Corporations Have the Right to Inflict Religious Views on Employees?
Posted: July 28, 2012 Filed under: Affordable Care Act, Affordable Care Act (ACA), religious extremists, Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights 16 CommentsHere we go again with the christoban and their desire to force us all to conform with their narrow interpretations of human life. Will a court grant a nonreligious corporation the 
right to inflict its religious views on its employees based on the owner’s “freedom of religion”?
The U.S. District Court for Colorado on Friday blocked the Obama administration from requiring an air-conditioning company in Colorado to provide no co-pay contraceptives to its employees, as the Affordable Care Act directs.
It was, as Sam Baker points out, the first time a federal court has ruled against that provision of the health-care law.
It’s not yet, however, exactly a victory for the contraceptive mandate’s opponents: The injunction is specific to that one company, and it holds only until the judge can reach a verdict on the case’s merits. Still, it could mark the start of a long period of litigation involving one of the health-care law’s most polarizing provisions.
Hercules v. Sebelius is a case brought by Hercules Industries, a Colorado-based air-conditioning company. The four siblings who own the business say they oppose contraceptives — such medications are not included in their current health coverage plan — and “seek to run Hercules in a manner that reflects their sincerely-held religious beliefs.”
The health-care law’s required coverage of contraceptives without co-pay is slated to come into effect next week, on Aug. 1. Religious institutions that primarily serve individuals of their own faith got a one-year reprieve. Hercules, as an air-conditioning company, did not fall into that category.
Hercules is challenging the birth control mandate as a First Amendment violation, inhibiting its ability to practice religion freely. The company also argues that the mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA, a law from the 1990s that is meant to afford greater legal protection to religious institutions from federal requirements that “substantially burden” their ability to practice religion.
Obviously, an A/C company is not a church or church-affiliated corporation so it can’t get access to the run-around that the Obama administration set up for catholic-based colleges as an example. But what can of worms would this open? Does providing birth control for a few employees or their wives put a “substantial burden'”on the religious practice of the owners? Also, what other kinds of heinous practices would get protection should this argument pass muster with the courts? Firing an GLBT employee or a woman who doesn’t believe in submitting herself to a husband? How about a Jewish person that doesn’t want to go along with a christmas party?
The American Civil Liberties Union criticized the ruling.
“This is not religious freedom, this is discrimination,” said Sarah Lipton-Lubet, policy counsel for the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “Real religious liberty gives everyone the right to make their own decisions about their own health, including whether and when to use birth control. It doesn’t give anyone the right to impose their beliefs on others.”
I’m sure these people would be screaming bloody murder to the courts if they were forced to recognize the beliefs and practices of other religions. Suppose I decided I could fire an employee based on them say, eating animal flesh or using an exterminator because it goes against the Buddhist belief of non-harming? My guess is that they scream about being placed under some form of Buddhist Shari’a.
Friday Reads: Buffoon and Boycott addition
Posted: July 27, 2012 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: boycott Chick-fil-A, Boycott Country Kitchen, boycott Domino's, boycott Marriott, boycott Waffle House, Chik fil A, homophobia, oaf, upperclass twits, Willard Romney 28 Comments
Good Morning!
Today’s post is brought to you by the letter B. Here’s some great letter B words. There’s a BUFFOON lose in London and he has some friends we should be BOYCOTTING.
Well, I’m waking up thinking I should check the TV and make sure Romney hasn’t created such an international stir that the British have declared war on us! I’m sure Hillary will have to head there to patch things up a bit. I certainly hope that they look at his likeability ratings and realize that NO one likes him over here either. He’s considered an oaf on both sides of the pond.
Upon winning an Oscar for her performance in the 1984 film “Places in the Heart,” Field famously declared: “I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!”
Romney’s problem is that right now, some key voters don’t, as underscored in the polling co-sponsored by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal.
The NBC News blog “First Read” dug deep into recent results concerning “undecided” voters — the very ones who could tilt the election. Unimpressed with the president’s performance, “these should be people willing to fire Obama and vote for Romney — EXCEPT that they don’t like him very much at all,” First Read noted (complete with the capital letters).
Focusing on undecided voters unearthed in surveys over the last three months, the pollsters found Obama’s unfavorable/favorable rating stands at a poor 42 percent/29 percent. The figures for Romney, though, are worse — 44 percent turn thumbs down on him, with just 16 percent viewing him favorably.
And in a separate look at a voter segment much prized in such key states as Florida, Colorado and Virginia, the same pollsters found that twice as many Hispanics view Romney negatively as positively, 44 percent to 22 percent.
So, how bad is he in the eyes of the Brits? Why, he’s worse than Princess Dumbass of the North (with due credit to Charles Pierce for the name). They’ve declared him “in shambles”.
The British reaction to Mitt Romney has gone from openness, to skepticism, to mocking, to concluding that Mitt Romney is worse than Sarah Palin.
Daily Mail Political Editor James Chapman has been providing the world a play by play of Romney’s British implosion via his Twitter account. Romney started things off by criticizing London’s preparedness for the Olympics. He then forgot the name of British Labour Leader Ed Miliband, and then he admitted that he had been given a secret briefing by MI6. This led the British to ask aloud if they have another George W. Bush on their hands, “Romney blunders again by revealing he’s had (supposedly) top secret briefing by John Sawers, MI6 boss. Do we have a new Dubya on our hands?”
After his visit to Whitehall, Chapman offered two of the kinder reviews of Mitt Romney, “Serious dismay in Whitehall at Romney debut. ‘Worse than Sarah Palin.’ ‘Total car crash’. Two of the kinder verdicts.” Chapman also reported another verdict from British meet and greet with Mitt, “Another verdict from one Romney meeting: ‘Apparently devoid of charm, warmth, humour or sincerity’”
Getting compared to Sarah Palin is one thing, but being called worse than Palin is an indication of the epic display of fail that Romney is putting on in London.If you thought things couldn’t possibly get worse for Mitt Romney, you were wrong. How does one top being unfavorably compared to Sarah Palin? If you’re Mitt Romney, you get mocked in front of 60,000 people.
The Telegraph is reporting that London Mayor Boris Johnson mocked Romney’s readiness comment, “Quite a moment from the Mayor of London Boris Johnson. Shortly after Rix had lit the flame he really went for it in Hyde Park. He referenced Mitt Romney’s ‘London isn’t ready’ quip and shot back in style. “Are we ready?” he called and the crowd went wild. There may even have been a hint of the Obama-friendly “Yes we can!” in there – he may have jumped into a winning scenario but I’ve not heard a politician get that reaction before.”
This is a “charm offensive”? ROFLMAO!
The Guardian has a running and updated list of all of his gaffes to date. Go grab the popcorn my friends!!!
There are two things you should know before you “look out of the backside of 10 Downing Street”, as Mitt Romney did on Thursday.
Firstly, in Britain, “backside” means “ass”. As in the part of the body. Secondly, “10 Downing Street” is often used in political reporting as a synonym for a press spokesman for the prime minister, in the same way as “the White House” can say things or have opinions.
We haven’t looked quite this bad since Dubya was caught trying to massage Merkel. We know Obama was a lousy gift giver his first time over there and FLOTUS hugged Her Majesty. But, all of that looks mildly folksy compare to the Romney mishaps! I bet they’re glad they’re rid of us!
I’m not sure you’ve been watching the Chick-Fil-A dust up but it’s getting rather interesting. Chick-Fil-A has an over the top born again evangelical, bible thumping approach to business. They’re real fussy about who they sell franchises to and like other corporations that are either hyper Mormon-based or Opus-Dei Catholic-based, they’ve been sending tons of money to tank civil rights movements. The Mormon Church church and related Mormon businesses funded tons of anti-ERA propaganda and groups in the 1970s and 1980s along with plenty of anti-black civil rights in the 1960s. Many were aligned with the right wing hate group The John Birch Society. It’s one of the reasons I refuse to stay at a Marriott. A huge portion of that money funds basic hate group movements against the ERA and abortion rights but it’s been upped to include GLBT civil rights too. Same goes with Domino’s Pizza whose owner practices an extremist brand of Catholicism. We’ve know around here that Country Kitchen and Chick-Fil-A are associated with evangelicals and have been known to fire any openly gay employees. Believe me, I’ve had plenty of run ins with a lot of these religious extremists. They are hateful and they embrace the role of the martyr eagerly. So, don’t groan on this, but Chick-Fil-A has a “biblically based” mission statement.
Here’s some basic facts on Chick-Fil-A’s corporate citizenship profile. It’s pretty awful!
Here are the basic facts about Chick-fil-A in regards to LGBT issues:
- Chick-fil-A has given at least $5 million to anti-gay organizations, including known hate groups and proponents of ex-gay therapy, since 2003, including almost $2 million in both 2009 and 2010.
- Chick-fil-A has a 0 rating on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, which signifies that the company does not offer one protection, one benefit, or even one diversity training for its LGBT employees.
- Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathy openly admitted that he would probably fire any employee who “has been sinful or done something harmful to their family members.”
- It has recently come to light (thanks to Jeremy Hooper) that current Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy has used the following language to describe supporters of same-sex marriage:
- “We are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say ‘we know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage.”
- “I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about.”
- “We see all the twisted up kind of stuff that’s going on. Washington trying to redefine the definition of marriage and all the other kinds of things.”
- “We are suffering the consequences of a society and culture who has not acknowledged God or not thanked God—he’s left us to a deprived mind. It’s tragic and we live in a culture of that today.”
That is outright condemnation. That is open discrimination. Now, Chick-fil-A said last week that it will “treat every person with honor, dignity and respect – regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender,” which sounds nice, but as the HRC score indicates, there is nothing to substantiate such a claim. There is no policy on the company’s books that actually protects LGBT people from discrimination, and funding hate groups cannot be justified as “honor, dignity, and respect.”
With all of the facts at hand, there is no accurate way to portray Chick-fil-A as any kind of “victim.” There is also no accurate way to reduce Chick-fil-A’s words and actions to merely defending “biblical principles.” This is — in every way, shape, and form — a company proactively engaging against the interests of LGBT people, and that is the quite justified reason for outcry.
Many politicians are now working locally to ensure Chick-fil-A’s over the top hatred and discrimination does not show up in a neighborhood near them. Local politicians in places like Boston and Chicago are trying to block expansion of the company in their neighborhood. It’s not likely legal, but it’s calling attention to corporate donors that fund anti-civil rights movements. Protestors disrupted a grand opening of a storefront in San Diego. Quite a few businesses–including the Muppets–are refusing to partner with Chick-fil-A. Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel has been very vocal about the
company’s policy and statements.
“Chick-fil-A’s values are not Chicago values. They’re not respectful of our residents, our neighbors and our family members. And if you’re gonna be part of the Chicago community, you should reflect Chicago values,” Emanuel said Wednesday.
“What the CEO has said as it relates to gay marriage and gay couples is not what I believe, but more importantly, it’s not what the people of Chicago believe. We just passed legislation as it relates to civil union and my goal and my hope … is that we now move on recognizing gay marriage. I do not believe that the CEO’s comments … reflects who we are as a city.”
Ald. Joe Moreno (1st) is using the same argument to block Chick-fil-A from opening its first free-standing restaurant in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood.
Chick-fil-A already has one Chicago store — at 30 E. Chicago near Loyola University’s downtown campus.
“Same sex marriage, same-sex couples — that’s the civil rights fight of our time. To have those discriminatory policies from the top down is just not something that we’re open to. …We want responsible businesses,” Moreno said.
If you support marriage equality and basic civil rights, here are 10 companies to boycott. Domino’s Pizza is on their list too. I told my Department Chair at UNO that I wouldn’t come to staff meetings until he started buying pizza some place else.
Another case of CEOs and management using their prominent position and hefty salary to put down gays and lesbians, Domino’s founder Tom Monaghan is a co-founder of the Thomas More Law Center, which recently defended the San Diego Fire Fighters who won a lawsuit claiming they were sexually harassed by being forced to March in a gay pride parade. Monaghan also financed a 2001 ballot initiative to remove sexual orientation from Ypsilanti, Michigan’s, non-discrimination ordinance. David Brandon, the current CEO, opposes gay marriage and brushed off questions about Domino’s decision not to extend health benefits to spouses of gay employees when asked about in 2006 saying when he ran for Regent of the University of Michigan, explaining why he doesn’t support non-discrimination by saying,
“I don’t understand why we continually have to have discussions about who should and who shouldn’t be included, in terms of our nondiscrimination policy, because I think identifying specific, special-interest groups or specific entities within the institution almost implies that unless you’re on that list, then somehow we think you should be treated differently than people who are on that list. It should not be about lists.”
How They’re Faring: So so. Domino’s lost about half of its stock value in the crash, but has been steadily gaining traction since and now trades at $6.49/ share, down from a 52-week high of $15.33.
What You Can Do: Weirdly, just about everyone from all sides of the political spectrum have called for a boycott on Domino’s. Conservatives decry their decision to open a halal-only branch of the pizzeria in the UK and the National Organization of Women boycott the store for the company’s decision last year to donate $50,000 to a pro-life group.
The more daylight that gets shown on these horrible companies, the better. Alternet reports that more big companies have left ALEC which has been one of the biggest right wing groups that have actively worked against all civil rights movements. Turning up the heat is working.
Two more large American companies, headquartered in the Midwest, have responded to their customers and cut ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC): General Motors (GM) and Walgreens. This brings the total to 30 corporations and four non-profits — 34 total private sector members — that have cut ties to the right-wing corporate bill mill.
General Motors “In Motion” Away from ALEC
General Motors Headquarters (Source: AP)GM is the $149 billion-a-year maker of Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, and GMC brand name cars, among others. About 26 percent of the company is owned by the United States government, which backed its Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in 2009. It was founded in 1908 in Detroit and remains headquartered there. It employs 209,000 people, as of May 2012. Chevrolet alone sold more than 763,000 passenger cars in 2011.
Although the full extent of GM’s ALEC membership is not known, it was a member in 1992. In 2011, it paid for a seat on both ALEC’s Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force and its Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force. The commerce task force is the primary source of anti-worker and anti-consumer legislation such as the “Paycheck Protection” and “Right to Work” Acts and other “model” bills that limit workers’ rights and drain labor unions of resources for protecting employees, undermine consumer protections, favor the Wall Street financial agenda, and limit the ability to cap exorbitant interest rates on credit cards and big bank fees.
The breakfast joint has given $100,000 this election cycle to the Karl Rove super PAC American Crossroads. Mother Jones ’ Tim Murphy reported on the donation:
This is surprising because one doesn’t normally associate Big Waffle with big scary super-PACs, but also not that surprising: CEO Jim Rogers Jr. is a longtime supporter of Republican causes, and the company’s political action committee has given exclusively to Republicans (in considerably more modest quantities). His ties to Romney date back to 2006, when he joined the finance team of Romney’s political action committee, Commonwealth PAC.
Now a word from our sponsor … the Beetles sing all about the Letter B.
Ah, there’s just one more letter B word that I’d love to embrace!!! Yes, this post just brought out my inner BITCH. I’d shout the word vagina a few times but it’s not the letter V’s turn today. Join me in not wasting money or votes on the folks that pay to take away our civil rights and liberties.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Latest Stats on the Republican attempt to Disenfranchise Voters
Posted: July 26, 2012 Filed under: 2012 elections | Tags: poll taxes, voter id, voter supression, voting restrictions, Voting Rights Act 19 CommentsStudies of the impact of the new Voter ID Laws uncover the worse attempt at voter disenfranchisement since the Jim Crow Law Days. A Philadelphia Newspaper finds that 43 percent of Philly voters may 
not have the proper ID for voting. You know, of course, that this would be the part of Pennsylvania most likely to vote Democrat or Green.
The number of Pennsylvanians who might not have the photo identification necessary to vote this November has more than doubled: at least 1,636,168 registered voters, or 20 percent of Pennsylvania voters, may not have valid PennDOT-issued ID, according to new data obtained by City Paper. In Philadelphia, an enormous 437,237 people, or 43 percent of city voters, may not possess the valid PennDOT ID necessary to vote under the state’s controversial new law.
“Those are the numbers we sent,” says Nick Winkler, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of State, when asked to confirm the data. “If you want to add them together, I think it’s misleading.”
The new data, received and processed by the AFL-CIO, for the first time includes voters who had PennDOT licenses that have (as of Monday) been expired since Nov. 6, 2011 or an earlier date. If those people do not renew their licenses, the licenses will be expired by at least one year on election day and thus invalid under the new law. And because the AFL-CIO’s voter file (which shows the already-publicized large number of voters with no PennDOT record) is seven months old, it could actually represent an undercount since it does not address whether those who have registered as voters since January have valid ID.
Pennsylvania’s voter ID law is facing increasing scrutiny. Today, Commonwealth Court hearings begin on a lawsuit brought by civil rights groups, including the Pennsylvania ACLU, which allege that the law violates the state constitution’s guarantee of the right to vote.
And on Monday, the U.S. Attorney General announced that it was investigating whether the law violated the federal Voting Rights Act. In particular, the Department of Justice wants to know upon what basis Republican Gov. Tom Corbett‘s administration declared that just 1 percent of residents lacked valid identification during the legislative debate over the law.
The number of voters who will lack proper ID is indeed indeed impossible to determine: Some voters without PennDOT ID may be inactive, or have a valid form of federal or student identification, while others without proper ID may not have yet registered to vote.
“The database was never meant to say ‘this is how many people don’t have IDs,’” says Winkler, emphasizing that this office is focused on ensuring that all Pennsylvanians have the proper ID in November. “You guys want specific numbers that don’t exist, and those numbers change on a daily basis.”
While the right wing blog harp on about ‘vote integrity’, Republican politicians continue to let it slip that the law is to try to get Romney to the White House by whatever means possible.
Pennsylvania Republicans, including Gov. Tom Corbett, insist that the new laws are necessary to prevent voter fraud. However, recent developments would seem to contradict that assertion.
In June, Republican House Leader Mike Turzai told a group of voters the real reason Republicans are so anxious to pass the voter ID law is because the statute “is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania” because it disenfranchises two traditionally Democratic constituencies, the poor and ethnic minorities. Also, the state has admitted in court filings that it has not investigated or prosecuted a single vote fraud case.
In response to widespread outcry over the obviousness of the Republicans’ efforts to suppress Democratic voter turnout, the state government has created a backup ID program. Sadly, the individuals tasked with running the outreach and education effort are all Republican operatives with ties to Gov. Corbett and the Romney campaign.
The Pennsylvania law is similar in concept to laws passed by Republicans in other states like Texas, South Carolina, Georgia and Missouri, many of which are also tied up in court. Former President Clinton said the Republican efforts at vote suppression are unlike anything he has ever seen.
“There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today,” he said.
There are next to no problems with voter fraud, yet Republican interests continue to push the meme. If this strategy succeeds, it could establish a worsening situation. Republican policy increasingly appeal to a very narrow and extreme group of people in a very limited and shrinking demographic. This is a systematic way of suppressing the votes of the poor, the young, minorities, and disabled Americans.
Instances of voter fraud are almost nonexistent, but the right-wing media’s harping on the issue has given Republican politicians cover to push these laws through statehouse after statehouse. The laws’ intent, however, is entirely political: By creating restrictions that disproportionately impact minorities, they’re supposed to bolster Republican prospects. Ticking off Republican achievements in Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives, their legislative leader, Mike Turzai, extolled in a talk last month that “voter ID . . . is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.”
How could Turzai be so sure? The Pennsylvania Department of State acknowledges that as many as 759,000 residents lack the proper ID. That’s 9.2 percent of registered voters, but the figure rises to 18 percent in heavily black Philadelphia. The law also requires that the photo IDs have expiration dates, which many student IDs do not.
The pattern is similar in every state that has enacted these restrictions. Attorney General Eric Holder has said that 8 percent of whites in Texas lack the kind of identification required by that state’s law; the percentage among blacks is three times that. The Justice Department has filed suit against Southern states whose election procedures are covered by the 1965 Voting Rights Act. It is also investigating Pennsylvania’s law, though that state is not subject to some provisions of the Voting Rights Act.
If voter suppression goes forward and Romney narrowly prevails, consider the consequences. An overwhelmingly and increasingly white Republican Party, based in the South, will owe its power to discrimination against black and Latino voters, much like the old segregationist Dixiecrats. It’s not that Republicans haven’t run voter suppression operations before, but they’ve been under-the-table dirty tricks, such as calling minority voters with misinformation about polling-place locations and hours. By contrast, this year’s suppression would be the intended outcome of laws that Republicans publicly supported, just as the denial of the franchise to Southern blacks before 1965 was the intended result of laws such as poll taxes. More ominous still, by further estranging minority voters, even as minorities constitute a steadily larger share of the electorate, Republicans will be putting themselves in a position where they increasingly rely on only white voters and where their only path to victory will be the continued suppression of minority votes. A cycle more vicious is hard to imagine.
The only way to stop these kinds of assaults on American Civil rights and liberties is to send the Republican party to obscurity.
Falling from the Middle with You
Posted: July 24, 2012 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Economy, income inequality, Voter Ignorance, We are so F'd 20 Comments
I spend a lot of time writing on US income issues partly because it’s one of those economist things and a lot because I know that so many of us have been struggling since the turn of the century. Our country’s economic growth has been extremely paltry since 2001. Also, what US growth has occurred has benefited very large corporations and extremely wealthy individuals. Compounding the issue of low growth is the fact that these very large corporations and extremely wealthy individuals don’t keep their money, their jobs, and their investments in the USA any more. All of this has led to a very sad situation for the backbone of the historical US economy; the middle class.
Economix blog at the NYT is going to have a series of articles examining the recent fall from grace that we’ve experienced since our economy has morphed into something that focuses its policies on enabling these rich people and huge corporations to abandon our country and our citizens. This first article sums up the problem. We’ve been progressively giving up Keynesian economics and replacing it with “Supply Side” economics that continues to show opposite results of what’s promised. Yet, our policy makers scream for more of the same punishment! Our last Keynesian-policy embracing President was probably Richard Nixon. Since then, elements of Supply Side economics have provided terrible results like huge deficits, income inequality, and the return of financial panics.
First, economic growth in this country has been relatively slow in recent years, which means the total bounty that the American economy produces, to be shared by all of its citizens, has not been growing very rapidly. Even before the financial crisis began in 2008, economic growth in the decade that started in 2001 was on pace to be slower than growth in any decade since World War II.
Then of course came a deep recession that caused the economy to shrink.
In addition to the slow growth in overall size of the pie, the share that has been going to anyone but the richest Americans has been declining. The top-earning 1 percent of households now bring home about 20 percent of total income, up from less than 10 percent 40 years ago. The top-earning 1/10,000th of households — each earning at least $7.8 million a year, many of them working in finance — bring home almost 5 percent of income, up from 1 percent 40 years ago.
In the simplest terms, the relatively meager gains the American economy has produced in recent years have largely flowed to a small segment of the most affluent households, leaving middle-class and poor households with slow-growing living standards.
One of the major things that’s upsetting to me is the absolute denial by the current extremists that have taken over the Republican party is acknowledgement that their policies have caused disaster. I can’t imagine any one voting for Romney who is pushing these failed policies to the extreme. Republicans actually think just talking about this problem and the middle class in general is instigating class warfare. It’s like if we don’t coddle the extremely rich all the time they will throw a hissy fit and the economy will collapse. This is a proverbial crock of crap and at this point, who cares? Huge corporations and extremely rich folks like Equity Capital managers don’t create the majority of jobs. Those come from middle-to-large businesses that operate consistently within the boundaries of our nation.
Speaking on the Senate floor, Kyl claimed that the president’s usage of the phrase “middle class” is “misguided and wrong and even dangerous.” Calling for an end to rhetoric about classes, Kyl blasted Obama for “incessantly” talking about class, “particularly the middle class”:
KYL: Most prominently, we have a president who talks incessantly about class, particularly the middle class. Maybe you’ve noticed that. He defines class strictly by your income. In the president’s narrative, someone who makes $199,000 a year is a member of one class and someone who makes $200,000 belongs to another class. Does that make sense? Indeed, each day the president’s out on the campaign trail championing himself as the great protector of what he calls the middle class and pitting these Americans against their fellow citizens by arguing that the wealthiest class is victimizing them through the tax code.
Again, we can’t talk about our issues as ordinary Americans because no one wants to hear the servants complaining, I guess. We can’t complain when they take national wealth, jobs, and investments out of the country while being subsidized by our tax dollars. Again, I have to argue that Mitt Shady represents everything that’s created this horrible situation. He’s like the poster child for our modern, self-destructive policies.
Phillip Longman characterizes this as a “Hole in our Bucket”. We’ve blown up just about everything that helps the middle class build wealth recently. One of the first things that disappeared in the Carter years and Reagan years was our traditional approach to usary laws. You can read about the history at the link. However, here’s the impact of that alone.
This short history of usury laws puts into perspective just how bizarre the credit markets of the United States have become over the last forty years. Usury law is, in the words of one financial historian, “the oldest continuous form of commercial regulation,” dating back to the earliest recorded civilizations. Yet starting in the late 1970s, some powerful people decided we could live without it.
First to go were state usury laws governing credit cards. Before 1978, thirty-seven states had usury laws that capped fees and interest rates on credit cards, usually at less than 18 percent. But in 1978 the Supreme Court, in a fateful decision, ruled that usury caps applied only in the state where the banks had their corporate headquarters, instead of in the states where their customers actually lived. Banks quickly set up their corporate headquarters in states that had no usury laws, like South Dakota and Delaware, and thus were completely free to charge whatever interest rates and fees they wanted. Meanwhile, states eager to hold on to the banks headquartered within their borders promptly eliminated their usury laws as well.
Later, in 1996, the Supreme Court handed usurers another stunning victory. In Smiley v. Citibank it ruled that credit card fees, too, would be regulated by the banks’ home states. You might think that market forces would set some limits on how high credit card fees and interest can go—after all, there are only so many creditworthy borrowers, and much competition for their business. But with shrewd use of “securitized” debt instruments and hidden fees, banks and other lenders found they could make more money from those who could not afford credit cards than from those who could.
And this was only the beginning. By the early 2000s, thanks to the combination of deregulation and “financial engineering” on Wall Street, middle- and lower-class neighborhoods across America were being flooded with what could be called financial crack. In the years between 2000 and 2003 alone, the number of payday lenders more than doubled, to over 20,000. Nationwide, the number of payday lender franchisees rivaled that of Starbucks and McDonald’s combined.
If you read this article you will become very aware that the finance industry has created laws and removed laws that has created a situation that has transferred the benefits of traditional savings and borrowing vehicles of the middle class to themselves. This has happened in concert with the decrease in real incomes resulting from corporations moving away from US job sources and huge wealth portfolios disappearing to offshore havens. All this has been enabled by policies that started during the Carter years, went full blast during the Reagan years, continued through the Clinton years, went on steroids during the Bush years, and have basically stayed in place during the Obama years. Most of us have a sense that things have changed. It’s been a bit like boiling the frog by raising the temperature slowly. Forty years of policy that favors the global multinational companies and the finance industry coupled with favorable tax treatment for rich individuals has created the hole. We no longer are assured that good university degrees give us good paying jobs. We are no longer seeing our 401(k)s and other investment vehicles provide safe, reliable returns and we no longer are assured decent pension or retirement plans. We also are subject to gaming when we borrow money. Plus, we have no way to get out from under any of this that blows up on us because bankruptcy laws have also been changed to benefit our creditors. It’s the perfect storm of reckless policy. It’s been bought and paid for by lobbyists for the Finance Industries who have been on the leading edge of profiteering too. Top this off with the high cost of health insurance and the ever volatile commodity prices and you’ve got a recipe to kill off the livelihoods of the majority of your population.
Probably the main reason that Romney refuses to share his agenda, his taxes, and anything specific and only touts lies is that he really wants a continuation of this agenda. His accident of birth has put him in the best of places to be the modern day version of a Pirate of the Caribbean. Mitt Shady is a privateer. All he does is pound away at the President and try to use rhetorical flourishes that bring back the myth of Reagan.
At Mr. Romney’s pancake breakfast stop, more than a thousand people braved the stormy weather, lining up hours in advance with their umbrellas and waterproof trash bags for protection. Thunder clapped periodically, but when Mr. Romney finally took the stage, the rain slowed to a light spit and the sun crested, prompting him to reflect on the improving weather.
“But it looks like the sun is coming out, and I think that’s a metaphor for the country,” he said. “The sun is coming out, guys! Three and a half years of dark clouds are about to part. It’s about to get a little warmer around this country, a little brighter.”
Whatever this passage indicates about Romney’s rhetorical powers, it really is a pretty accurate reflection of his economic message: relentlessly unspecific, focused on framing the election as an up-or-down referendum on how people feel about Life Under Obama, and implicitly offering himself as a non-ideological Mr. Fix-It whose reassuring presence will make the clouds part. Romney does, of course, have a specific economic agenda, much of it encompassed by his endorsement of the Ryan Budget and his various pledges to reflect his party’s hostility to regulation, progressive taxation, workers’ rights and fiscal or monetary stimulus. But what he seems determined to convey is that there’s a great big confidence fairy in the sky who will make the economy boom at the very sight of his rugged visage and fine posture. And while his weather forecast at the pancake breakfast may not truly be a “metaphor for the country,” it’s definitely the metaphor for his campaign message.
We’re going to have a bottomless bucket if this man is elected and we continue sending Republicans and Democrats to Washington that promote policies that screw over the middle class. The only politician I know right now that really gets this is Elizabeth Warren. President Obama has been cribbing from her play book. We can only hope that he actually means it. We should know that Romney is the poison and not the antidote to what ails us. His vagueness, dodges, and overall shadiness should force every one to buy a clue.
Breaking News: Sally Ride Slips the Surly bonds of Earth
Posted: July 23, 2012 Filed under: just because | Tags: Sally Ride, Sheros 11 CommentsSally Ride, first U.S. woman in space, dies at 61
Sally Ride, the first U.S. woman to travel into space, died on Monday after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer, according to her organization, Sally Ride Science. She was 61.
Ride broke new ground for American women in 1983 when at the age of 32 she and four crewmates blasted off aboard space shuttle Challenger. She returned to space for a second mission a year later.
“Sally Ride broke barriers with grace and professionalism – and literally changed the face of America’s space program,” NASA administrator Charles Bolden, a former astronaut, said in a statement.
“She will be missed, but her star will always shine brightly,” Bolden said.
Ride grew up in Los Angeles and attended Stanford University, where she earned degrees in physics and English. She joined NASA’s astronaut corps in 1978.
She was assigned to a third shuttle flight, but training for the mission was cut off after the fatal 1986 Challenger accident that claimed the lives of six colleagues and a schoolteacher.
Ride served as a member of the presidential commission that investigated the accident, then assisted the agency as an administrator with long-range and strategic planning.
She left NASA in 1989 and joined Stanford as a professor. Ride’s interest in education extended to younger students, particularly women whom she targeted with her science education startup Sally Ride Science in San Diego.
The company creates science programs and publications for elementary and middle school students and educators.
Ride also authored five science books for children and served on dozens of NASA, space and technology advisory panels, including the board that investigated the second fatal space shuttle accident in 2003.
High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
— John Gillespie Magee, Jr
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