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March 13, 2014
The US should not resist progressive wave in Latin America (The Progressive)
http://www.progressive.org/us-should-not-resist-progressive-wave-in-latin-americaA progressive wave has been sweeping Latin America for over a decade, but right-wing forces in some countries have been refusing to accept the results at the voting booth. All over the region, the left has come to power through elections, as voters have repudiated neoliberal policies and free trade ideology. In Brazil, now one of the world’s top 10 economies, the leftist Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) has won the last three presidential elections and will likely win the next. In Uruguay, the progressive Frente Amplio has won the last two presidential elections. The country’s current president, the former guerrilla Pepe Mujica, is one of the world’s most popular heads of state. In Bolivia, the people elected Evo Morales, of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), to the presidency in 2006, where he has served two terms. Morales, a campesino organizer, is the first indigenous head of state in modern Latin American history.
...
But some right-wingers in Latin America have not been accepting the will of the people. There have been coups against democratically elected progressive Latin American governments in recent years. Some were foiled — in Venezuela and Ecuador. And some succeeded — in Honduras and Paraguay. Today, in Venezuela, the right-wing opposition is fomenting protests to destabilize the democratically elected government of Nicolas Maduro of the United Socialist Party. Opposition leaders are even refusing to meet with Maduro to try to end the civil strife there. Meanwhile, Washington has been funding some Venezuelan opposition groups.
...
To many people in Latin America, what’s happening in Venezuela is all too reminiscent of what happened in Chile four decades ago. Back then, the CIA was plotting the overthrow of the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende. The agency had funded the opposition and the violent street protests in Chile and had a hand in the 1973 coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet. We seem to be seeing the same script being played over again in Venezuela.
And in El Salvador, the far-right ARENA party, long associated with murderous death squads, has threatened violence rather than accept defeat in the recent tight presidential election there. If left-wing groups were opposing these democratic victories, Washington would be up in arms. But when right-wing groups destabilize democracy, too often Washington turns a blind eye — or, even worse, assists them. This pattern has got to change, or the United States will continue to lose favor throughout Latin America.
...
But some right-wingers in Latin America have not been accepting the will of the people. There have been coups against democratically elected progressive Latin American governments in recent years. Some were foiled — in Venezuela and Ecuador. And some succeeded — in Honduras and Paraguay. Today, in Venezuela, the right-wing opposition is fomenting protests to destabilize the democratically elected government of Nicolas Maduro of the United Socialist Party. Opposition leaders are even refusing to meet with Maduro to try to end the civil strife there. Meanwhile, Washington has been funding some Venezuelan opposition groups.
...
To many people in Latin America, what’s happening in Venezuela is all too reminiscent of what happened in Chile four decades ago. Back then, the CIA was plotting the overthrow of the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende. The agency had funded the opposition and the violent street protests in Chile and had a hand in the 1973 coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet. We seem to be seeing the same script being played over again in Venezuela.
And in El Salvador, the far-right ARENA party, long associated with murderous death squads, has threatened violence rather than accept defeat in the recent tight presidential election there. If left-wing groups were opposing these democratic victories, Washington would be up in arms. But when right-wing groups destabilize democracy, too often Washington turns a blind eye — or, even worse, assists them. This pattern has got to change, or the United States will continue to lose favor throughout Latin America.
March 13, 2014
Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Increases Minimum Wage to $10.25
If they can do it, why can't we?
http://www.nativetimes.com/index.php/news/tribal/9671-leech-lake-band-of-ojibwe-increases-minimum-wage-to-10-25
As the economy recovers from what is being called the worst recession since the great depression, rural economies are still feeling the effects. The greater economy is rebounding, but a large amount of the jobs that were lost due to the housing bubble and subsequent global financial debacle are just not returning.
Budgets were tightened across the country in the public sector as a result of the recession, and one of the results was that wages have been stagnating as well. In an effort to alleviate some of the pains and penalties that come with lower wages, the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe has stepped up and offered its employees one of the greatest wage increases in the country.
Effective March 9, 2014, the Leech Lake Reservation Business Committee has approved and adopted an increase in the minimum wage for all employees of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe and its entities and businesses. The new minimum wage will be $10.25 per hour.
“This issue has been being debated at the federal level for a very long time. We raised our minimum wage to $9.00 per hour a few years ago, With this new increase, I think it’s safe to say that we are out in front of this issue, taking the lead,” said Chairwoman Carri Jones.
Budgets were tightened across the country in the public sector as a result of the recession, and one of the results was that wages have been stagnating as well. In an effort to alleviate some of the pains and penalties that come with lower wages, the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe has stepped up and offered its employees one of the greatest wage increases in the country.
Effective March 9, 2014, the Leech Lake Reservation Business Committee has approved and adopted an increase in the minimum wage for all employees of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe and its entities and businesses. The new minimum wage will be $10.25 per hour.
“This issue has been being debated at the federal level for a very long time. We raised our minimum wage to $9.00 per hour a few years ago, With this new increase, I think it’s safe to say that we are out in front of this issue, taking the lead,” said Chairwoman Carri Jones.
March 13, 2014
A few questions as follow-up to Dianne Feinstein's Statment on the CIA
Yesterday, MannyGoldstein posted regarding Dianne Feinstein's "Statement on Intel Committee's CIA Detention, Interrogation Report". That post is here.
Here's DiFi's statement.
After reading DiFi's statement, I posted some questions on Manny's thread and got multiple requests to post them as an OP, so here they are ...
1. Who was the member of the Senate Intelligence Committe who voted "no" in the 14-1 vote on March 5, 2009, when the Committee voted to initiate a comprehensive review of the CIA Detention and Interrogation Program? Just curious.
2. Do you find it troubling that when the Senate Intelligence Committee asks the CIA to produce documents, the CIA proposes an alternative arrangement?
3. Do you find it troubling that the Senate Intelligence Committee doesn't smack their knuckles with a ruler when they propose an alternative?
4. Are you flabbergasted that when the CIA determined they would not allow Congress to see certain documents, they outsourced their document selection process to "outside contractors"?
5. Do these "outside contractors" have higher security clearances than members of the Senate Intelligence Committee?
6. Do you think the CIA's forwarding of over six million documents "without any index, without organizational structure" was an attempt to obsfucate the content of some sensitive documents? (Or am I just an overly-suspicious person?)
7. Do you find it troubling that the IT personnel at the secure facility that the CIA originally blamed for removing documents were "almost all contractors"?
8. What do you make of the CIA claiming the White House ordered the documents removed and the White House denying this?
9. Do you find it curious that there have been claims in the press that the Senate Intelligence Committee gained access to documents to which they had no right? (Debunked by DiFi.)
10. To repeat DiFi's own question: How can the CIA’s official response to the Committee's study stand factually in conflict with its own "Internal Panetta Review"
? Does this alone not constitute an attempt to deceive the Committee?
11. Are you astonished that the CIA denied the Senate Intelligence Committee access to the final Panetta Review?
12. Do you find it troubling that the CIA refuses to answer the 12 questions that DiFi sent to Brennan on January 23rd? Or more to the point, that the CIA seems to be blowing off requests from the Committee responsible for their oversight?
13. Do you agree that the CIA spying on their bosses is a bigger scandal than the CIA Detention and Interrogation program they appear to be trying to cover up? Are you experiencing any sense of deja vu?
14. Will our Republic survive this crisis?
March 12, 2014
http://www.gbwf.org/pheasants/melanistic.html
Backyard visitor today. I'd never seen one before, anywhere.
His body appeared inky black, with an irridescent sheen. Beautiful bird.
The Melanistic form of the Common Pheasant was first obeserved in Norfolk in 1880 and was not bred as a mutation until the 1920-30s when a few dark colored hen was located in Cambridge(Delacour, 1977). The bird was first thought to be a hybrid between colchicus & versicolor, as dark versicolor had been found in wild birds in Japan, however, experimental breeding in the early years of the mutation found this not the the case (Hachisuka, 1927).
This is a pure mutation, in which when bred to normal colored birds, the chicks are either mutant or normal, with the normal coloration dominate. When two mutants are bred together, they breed true. It is uncertain which specific subspecies was known to have produced the mutation as the majority of birds on Great Britian are a mixture of the different races released for sport. The year it first appeared in American aviaries is uncertain.
As we enter the 21st Century, there are still a good number of this mutation available in aviculture that breed true. There are perhaps more of this mutation in existence than some the pure races of colchicus! This mutant has been observed in wild populations in both the UK & the US. It is sometimes confused with Phasianus versicolor, but should be noted that this is a much darker bird.
This is a pure mutation, in which when bred to normal colored birds, the chicks are either mutant or normal, with the normal coloration dominate. When two mutants are bred together, they breed true. It is uncertain which specific subspecies was known to have produced the mutation as the majority of birds on Great Britian are a mixture of the different races released for sport. The year it first appeared in American aviaries is uncertain.
As we enter the 21st Century, there are still a good number of this mutation available in aviculture that breed true. There are perhaps more of this mutation in existence than some the pure races of colchicus! This mutant has been observed in wild populations in both the UK & the US. It is sometimes confused with Phasianus versicolor, but should be noted that this is a much darker bird.
http://www.gbwf.org/pheasants/melanistic.html
March 12, 2014
Just got an email from the Wisconsin AFL-CIO
What just happened in the state Senate?!
Scuba,
Republicans realize their ideas won’t win votes, so they’ve decided to rig the game, change the rules and disenfranchise tens of thousands of Wisconsin voters ahead of the next election. On March 12, Republicans used their Senate majority to ram through attacks on our fundamental rights to vote as citizens. By restricting ballot access and implementing new hurdles for citizens to register to vote, Republicans are blatantly trying to limit the electorate and rig elections in a politically-motivated, power-grabbing move.
Anti-voter legislation passed with a 17-16 with Rep. Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center) joining Senate Democrats in the State Senate in opposition include:
• SB 267: Adds new obstacles to voter registration.
• SB 324: Shortens the hours and days of in-person absentee voting. This bill ends weekend early voting and limits weekday early voting to between 8:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.
• SB 655: Expands the power of lobbyists to funnel campaign contributions to candidates by moving up the date lobbyists may begin making contributions from June 1 to April 15. This amounts to legalized bribery.
• AB 396: Places complicated barriers for individuals in residential facilities such as nursing homes and adult-care facilities to vote absentee.
These votes come on the heels of a new announcement that Gov. Walker is plotting a special session to pass the voter-suppressing Voter ID law if the Wisconsin Supreme Court rules the current provision unconstitutional.
Gov. Walker hopes to have Voter ID in place for his re-election in November 2014. Voter ID severely impacts young people, people of color, the elderly and the disabled by placing what amounts to a poll tax on voters. People have marched and died for the right to vote. It is a tragedy that power-hungry Republicans are systematically dismantling the voting rights of Wisconsin citizens in order to reduce the number of people who could vote against them in the next election. They’re rigging the game and hoping you don’t notice.
Republicans also voted down an opportunity to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour for all Wisconsin workers (SB 505). This was done in a minimum wage pulling motion, which was defeated 18-15 along party lines.
Hold your legislators accountable now and tell them how you feel about their actions on these important votes to working families. Remember in November the attacks on voting rights, worker rights, women’s rights and democracy.
In Solidarity,
Phil Neuenfeldt, President
Stephanie Bloomingdale, Secretary-Treasurer
P.S. Check out Scott Walker’s Blurred Lines parody by Alex Runner. You’re gonna love it!
Scuba,
Republicans realize their ideas won’t win votes, so they’ve decided to rig the game, change the rules and disenfranchise tens of thousands of Wisconsin voters ahead of the next election. On March 12, Republicans used their Senate majority to ram through attacks on our fundamental rights to vote as citizens. By restricting ballot access and implementing new hurdles for citizens to register to vote, Republicans are blatantly trying to limit the electorate and rig elections in a politically-motivated, power-grabbing move.
Anti-voter legislation passed with a 17-16 with Rep. Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center) joining Senate Democrats in the State Senate in opposition include:
• SB 267: Adds new obstacles to voter registration.
• SB 324: Shortens the hours and days of in-person absentee voting. This bill ends weekend early voting and limits weekday early voting to between 8:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.
• SB 655: Expands the power of lobbyists to funnel campaign contributions to candidates by moving up the date lobbyists may begin making contributions from June 1 to April 15. This amounts to legalized bribery.
• AB 396: Places complicated barriers for individuals in residential facilities such as nursing homes and adult-care facilities to vote absentee.
These votes come on the heels of a new announcement that Gov. Walker is plotting a special session to pass the voter-suppressing Voter ID law if the Wisconsin Supreme Court rules the current provision unconstitutional.
Gov. Walker hopes to have Voter ID in place for his re-election in November 2014. Voter ID severely impacts young people, people of color, the elderly and the disabled by placing what amounts to a poll tax on voters. People have marched and died for the right to vote. It is a tragedy that power-hungry Republicans are systematically dismantling the voting rights of Wisconsin citizens in order to reduce the number of people who could vote against them in the next election. They’re rigging the game and hoping you don’t notice.
Republicans also voted down an opportunity to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour for all Wisconsin workers (SB 505). This was done in a minimum wage pulling motion, which was defeated 18-15 along party lines.
Hold your legislators accountable now and tell them how you feel about their actions on these important votes to working families. Remember in November the attacks on voting rights, worker rights, women’s rights and democracy.
In Solidarity,
Phil Neuenfeldt, President
Stephanie Bloomingdale, Secretary-Treasurer
P.S. Check out Scott Walker’s Blurred Lines parody by Alex Runner. You’re gonna love it!
March 12, 2014
When I first stumbled across this video of Matt Damon reading Howard Zinn's statement on civil disobedience, I didn't realize that Damon was reading from Zinn until about three paragraphs in. Damon breathes new life into the 43-year old statement and dynamically delivers its punch as convincingly as if he were Zinn himself.
http://vimeo.com/48834336
Matt Damon channels Howard Zinn
http://worleydervish.blogspot.com/2013/11/matt-damon-channels-howard-zinn.htmlBy the latter part of May 1970, feelings about the war in Vietnam had become almost unbearably intense. In Boston, about a hundred of us decided to sit down at the Boston Army Base and block the road used by buses carrying draftees off to military duty. We were not so daft that we thought we were stopping the flow of soldiers to Vietnam; it was a symbolic act, a statement, a piece of guerrilla warfare. We were all arrested and charged, in the quaint language of an old statute, with "sauntering and loitering" in such a way as to obstruct traffic.
Eight of us refused to plead guilty, insisting on trial by jury, hoping we could persuade the members of the jury that ours was a justified act of civil disobedience. We did not persuade them. We were found guilty, chose jail instead of paying a fine, but the judge, apparently reluctant to have us in jail, gave us forty-eight hours to change our minds, after which we should show up in court to either pay the fine or be jailed.
In the meantime, I had been invited to go to Johns Hopkins University to debate with the philosopher Charles Frankel on the issue of civil disobedience. I decided it would be hypocritical for me, an advocate of civil disobedience, to submit dutifully to the court and thereby skip out on an opportunity to speak to hundreds of students about civil disobedience. So, on the day I was supposed to show up in court in Boston I flew to Baltimore and that evening debated with Charles Frankel. Returning to Boston I decided to meet my morning class, but two detectives were waiting for me, and I was hustled before the court and then spent a couple of days in jail.
When I first stumbled across this video of Matt Damon reading Howard Zinn's statement on civil disobedience, I didn't realize that Damon was reading from Zinn until about three paragraphs in. Damon breathes new life into the 43-year old statement and dynamically delivers its punch as convincingly as if he were Zinn himself.
http://vimeo.com/48834336
March 12, 2014
Bad news: I Googled "Democratic Party National Platform 2014".
Apparently we have no 2014 national platform worthy of a Google link. I'm not even sure there is a national Democratic Party anymore.
March 12, 2014
Yet The Democratic Party, California aside, seems think legalization is a losing issue. Behind the curve, again.
NYT: Young Republicans Find Fault With Elders on List of Social Issues
Turns out the young Republicans want to get high.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/11/us/politics/social-issues-splitting-young-republicans-from-their-elders.html
While much attention has been devoted to the split between the establishment and the Tea Party, the growing divide along generational lines among Republicans could cause a significant a rift. Younger conservatives are more firmly staking out a libertarian orientation on social issues in a way that will shape the 2016 presidential primary as candidates seek to appeal to activists who are in the party because of social issues and to younger voters who see some aspects of cultural conservatism as intolerant.
...
While views on same-sex marriage highlight an obvious division in the party, there is also a widening generational gap when it comes to marijuana. Half of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents under 45 support legalizing the drug, while two-thirds of Republicans over 45 oppose making pot legal, according to the Times/CBS News poll.
“People view it as a waste of government resources,” explained Gabriel Sachs, 19 and a Purdue University sophomore, about keeping marijuana outlawed. “We’re sending people to jail for this drug that doesn’t really hurt anyone.”
Mr. Sachs’s profile illustrates the new Republican vanguard: He supported Mr. Romney for president and likes his party’s stance on the minimum wage and taxes, but he is exasperated at Indiana legislators for trying to enact a ban on same-sex marriage. He is also active in his campus’s chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or Norml.
...
While views on same-sex marriage highlight an obvious division in the party, there is also a widening generational gap when it comes to marijuana. Half of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents under 45 support legalizing the drug, while two-thirds of Republicans over 45 oppose making pot legal, according to the Times/CBS News poll.
“People view it as a waste of government resources,” explained Gabriel Sachs, 19 and a Purdue University sophomore, about keeping marijuana outlawed. “We’re sending people to jail for this drug that doesn’t really hurt anyone.”
Mr. Sachs’s profile illustrates the new Republican vanguard: He supported Mr. Romney for president and likes his party’s stance on the minimum wage and taxes, but he is exasperated at Indiana legislators for trying to enact a ban on same-sex marriage. He is also active in his campus’s chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or Norml.
Yet The Democratic Party, California aside, seems think legalization is a losing issue. Behind the curve, again.
March 12, 2014
NYT: How Democrats Can Compete for the White Working Class
The author of this article, Thomas B. Edsall, concludes that white noncollege voters outside the South are less committed to conservative values, but that has been obscured in the south by the "continued ferocity of sociocultural and racial conservatism". The optimism seems to come from his belief that this will wane over time.
Heating up that racism, is of course, the job of Faux News, Limbaugh and other conservative radio "personalities". Another reason why it's important to speak out against their racist dog whistles.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/12/opinion/edsall-how-democrats-can-compete-for-the-white-working-class.html?ref=opinion&_r=0
On the surface, the Democratic Party’s bid to win back the votes of the white working class looks like an impossible task. Between 2008 and 2012, President Obama’s already weak support among these voters dropped from 40 percent to just 36 percent. Looked at from a different perspective, though, Democratic prospects do not seem so gloomy. There was a wide disparity in Obama’s performance among white working-class voters in different sections of the country: awful in the South and significantly better in much of the rest of the country. This suggests that a targeted regional strategy could strengthen the Democratic Party’s chances with what was once its core constituency. Before we get into regional subtleties, let’s examine the question from the national vantage point.
...
For Democrats, one of the more worrisome findings that Democracy Corps turned up is that these voters are far more suspicious of government than the general public. This is in contrast to Democrats generally, who are by most measures far more pro-government than the rest of the electorate, according to American National Election Studies. Democracy Corps found that less well-educated whites agree, by a huge 46.2 percentage point margin, with the statement “When something is run by the government, it is usually inefficient and wasteful.” This is 11.6 points more than all voters. Similarly, the general public agrees that “It is the responsibility of the government to take care of people who can’t take care of themselves” by a 19.5 percentage point margin, while whites who did not go to college agree by half that. Asked to choose between two statements — “I’m more concerned we will go too far in cutting spending and will cut off programs that middle- and working-class people rely on” or “I’m more concerned we won’t go far enough in cutting spending and our deficits will continue to grow” — all voters came down firmly on the side of worrying about cutting too much, 58-42. The white, noncollege voter was evenly split.
...
The pre-election P.R.R.I. study found that white working-class voters in the South backed Romney over Obama 62-22, compared to a 46-41 Romney advantage in the West, a 42-38 edge in the Northeast and an Obama lead of 44-36 in the Midwest. Similarly, while working-class whites in the South opposed same-sex marriage by 61-32 in the P.R.R.I. survey, in the Northeast they favored it 57-37; in the West they were split 47-45; and in the Midwest they were modestly opposed, 44-49. In the case of abortion, majorities of non-college whites outside of the South believe the practice should be legal, while those in the South were opposed 54-42.
In general, the findings of the P.R.R.I. study suggest that outside the South, Democrats should be able to make significant inroads among working-class whites – and, in fact, they have. In 2008, when Obama was losing nationally by 18 points among noncollege whites, in Michigan he carried these voters 52-46; in Illinois, 53-46; and in Connecticut, 51-47. In the South, the anti-Obama margins were staggering, which did not go without notice. Noncollege whites in Alabama voted against Obama 90-9; in Mississippi it was 89-11; and in Georgia 78-22.
...
For Democrats, one of the more worrisome findings that Democracy Corps turned up is that these voters are far more suspicious of government than the general public. This is in contrast to Democrats generally, who are by most measures far more pro-government than the rest of the electorate, according to American National Election Studies. Democracy Corps found that less well-educated whites agree, by a huge 46.2 percentage point margin, with the statement “When something is run by the government, it is usually inefficient and wasteful.” This is 11.6 points more than all voters. Similarly, the general public agrees that “It is the responsibility of the government to take care of people who can’t take care of themselves” by a 19.5 percentage point margin, while whites who did not go to college agree by half that. Asked to choose between two statements — “I’m more concerned we will go too far in cutting spending and will cut off programs that middle- and working-class people rely on” or “I’m more concerned we won’t go far enough in cutting spending and our deficits will continue to grow” — all voters came down firmly on the side of worrying about cutting too much, 58-42. The white, noncollege voter was evenly split.
...
The pre-election P.R.R.I. study found that white working-class voters in the South backed Romney over Obama 62-22, compared to a 46-41 Romney advantage in the West, a 42-38 edge in the Northeast and an Obama lead of 44-36 in the Midwest. Similarly, while working-class whites in the South opposed same-sex marriage by 61-32 in the P.R.R.I. survey, in the Northeast they favored it 57-37; in the West they were split 47-45; and in the Midwest they were modestly opposed, 44-49. In the case of abortion, majorities of non-college whites outside of the South believe the practice should be legal, while those in the South were opposed 54-42.
In general, the findings of the P.R.R.I. study suggest that outside the South, Democrats should be able to make significant inroads among working-class whites – and, in fact, they have. In 2008, when Obama was losing nationally by 18 points among noncollege whites, in Michigan he carried these voters 52-46; in Illinois, 53-46; and in Connecticut, 51-47. In the South, the anti-Obama margins were staggering, which did not go without notice. Noncollege whites in Alabama voted against Obama 90-9; in Mississippi it was 89-11; and in Georgia 78-22.
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