A Defender of the Tea Party. Me???!!! Good Grief!

I just read an article in TPM about the political effect of the recent yes/no/yes vote on the payroll tax cut.  If you are unaware of this discussion, I want to go wherever you have been, because it is indeed a disconnected place.  The payroll tax debate has been the “Grinch” of Christmas 2011.

This article, and many preceding it, blame the recent payroll tax fiasco and much of congressional gridlock, on the Tea Party.  Although I do think that the Tea Party, basing their position on the fact that they were actually elected, has effectively hijacked the entire Republican party in their ideological direction, I think this is particular bucket of blame is undeserved.  John Boehner, for example, is not considered part of that group, but is the Speaker of the House, the ‘main man’ for all House Republicans, and he supported the entire Republican unification againstthe payroll tax cut extension.  ALL Republicans, regardless of Tea Party preference or not, voted against the extension.

Don't you just love the "trickle down" idea?

The silly things that Boehner has said in justification of that “no” vote exemplifies politics today:  PARTY above ALL else. It wasn’t the  Tea Party caucus only that voted against the extension and effectively FOR a tax hike for working Americans, it was ALL Republicans.

Let’s track the discussion to make sure we know the who, what and when of it all.

We start with the President.

Dec. 8:  Obama says, no payroll tax cut, no Christmas break. source

Moving to the House:

Dec. 13:  Passes a bill extended the cuts for a year, but see what else their Bill contained:  source

• —Extended expiring long-term unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless through 2012, but shortened the maximum length of coverage from 99 to 79 weeks. Required anyone receiving benefits who does not hold a high school diploma to seek a GED; let states test applicants for illegal drug use (I thought the GOP was against big government and govt. intervention?).

• —Prevented the 2012 scheduled 27% cut in Medicare payments to doctors (purpose of the cut was to eliminate unnecessary and wasteful costs).

• Blocks Obama administration rule curbing pollution from industrial boilers; extends tax break for businesses buying equipment for 2012 (Do we hear special interest calling?).

• —Requires the President to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline within 60 days unless he declares the project would not serve the national interest (Again, special interest whispering sweet nothing).

• —Price tag, over $180 billion.

Now to the Senate;  the pre-House bill proposal in the Senate had initially been to pay for the tax cut extension with a 1% increase in taxes paid by those making over $1 million.  That proposal was ejected based on House Republicans saying absolutely not.  Here are the main points of the Senate:

Dec. 17:

• —Extends payroll tax cut through Feb. 29.
• —Renews current unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed through Feb. 29, no other changes in program (I actually like the idea of maybe not a GED/degree requirement but rather a vocational training requirement for the extension of benefits.).
• —Also prevents 27% cut in Medicare payments to doctors; extends other health care fees through Feb. 29 (What about that ‘let’s eliminate hidden, wasteful costs thing again?).
• —Same provision on Keystone as House (Democrats listen to special interest as much as Republicans).
• —All this would be paid for by increasing home loan guarantee fees charged to mortgage lenders by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration by one-tenth of 1 percentage point. The fee is passed on to home buyers and will apply to many new purchases and refinancings starting Jan. 1 (Wouldn’t this work against the home buyers market?  It also means that home buyers are subsidizing unemployment, doctors and all who benefit from the Social Security payroll tax cut?  This basically means that middle class Americans are still covering the bulk of everything.).
  
• —Price tag $33 billion.

The next step was to send the Senate bill that passed to the House and they vote on that one.

Dec. 20:  House votes “no” on the Senate bill (229-193).

What ensued next was a general disbelief by the President, Senate and American public that the House would effectively raise payroll tax cuts to the previous level and decrease take-home pay of working people.  Boehner went public, accusing Obama and Senate Democrats of causing the gridlock and playing partisan politics.  It takes a lot of nerve to do that when it was the House Republicans that attached the “poison pill” (aka Keystone pipeline) to their bill.  They knew that would never pass the Senate and had Obama’s promise of a veto.

Enter public outcry, Senate Republicans, press editorials across the country and POLLS showing Obama was getting a political bump from the juvenile behavior of House Republicans.  See again the TPM article.

And today we have concession.

Again I say, don’t blame the Tea Party, this frat party disaster was a combined effort of ALL House Republicans.

Solstice

Winter solstice, the shortest “day” of the year, celebrated by pagans throughout human history as the beginning of the return to light.

Our world needs light, our hearts need light. Darkness surrounds us: dark thoughts, dark words, dark actions. There is light in our world also, but the focus often seems to be on the pain and harshness in the world rather than on the light — the goodness — that is all around us.

Richard Radstone writes a blog that has inspired me. Richard writes of his world and his place in it with the people he loves and has chosen to spend his life. Now I want to do a 365 project.

I will focus on one thing each day of the entire year. If anyone reading this decides to come on board, your interpretation of my daily focus is your own. Many of us initiate something similar when we make resolutions for the new year. We won’t even think about how many of those resolutions make it beyond the first week of January. I will, however, do my best. If I fail, because failure is always a possibility even when positive thinkers tell us “don’t even think about failing,” it doesn’t make me ‘bad’ person, nor does it mean that all is lost, I will simply missed one thing and will try again.

Tangled but growing.

 

 

 

 

Life gets to be a tangle, going, growing this way, then that. Go to the light.

Live for the light

Unlimited Campaign Donations, eh Mitt?

I can’t believe that anyone has the nerve to say what the Republican candidates are saying these days. Mitt Romney says,

“I think the Supreme Court’s decision was following their interpretation of the campaign finance laws that were written by Congress. My own view is now we tried a lot of efforts to try and restrict what can be given to campaigns, we’d be a lot wiser to say you can give what you’d like to a campaign. They must report it immediately. And the creation of these independent expenditure committees that have to be separate from the candidate, that’s just a bad idea.”

So, I guess that means that anyone or anything* can give whatever amount they want to a campaign as long as it is declared and goes straight to the campaign, not through the SuperPAC campaign laundering system that operates now.

This interpretation of Mitt’s statement:

“This is more radical than Citizens United,” David Donnelly of Public Campaign Action Fund told me when I asked for his reaction. “It means that if he is president he will appoint Supreme Court justices that will eviscerate any ability to regulate campaign finance.”

While it’s true that Romney wants donors disclosed, this doesn’t constitute regulation; it just means the public would be aware of who is giving unregulated sums in huge amounts to campaigns.

“This would set up a pipeline from Wall Street directly to campaigns,” Donnelly concluded. “This is the one percent’s wet dream.” source

Mitt’s statement should be HEADLINED EVERYWHERE! This is what this man stands for! Mitt Romney: no finer example of the 1%.

*that would be the corporations (which are NOT people, my friend).

Congressional Holiday (shhh, let’s LOCK THE DOORS!)

Congress is leaving for the Christmas holiday!  HERE’S OUR CHANCE!

The Senate left earlier this week after passing their version of the Payroll Tax extension, thinking that the agreement with Speaker Boehner would get the bill through the House.  The Tea Party Republicans would have none of that though.  It seems that these new kids on the block think they’re really something and are going to prove it.*  Boehner says in public that their differences are with President Obama and the Democrats, but I’m not buying it anymore.  I think these House punks are in a power struggle with the Senate.  I think they are just generally out of sorts that they have to go through an election every two years and those snotty senators only have to do it every six years. At this rate, however, this present class of congressional representatives won’t have to worry about it after the next election.  We, the people, are SICK OF YOU GUYS**!

Let’s lock the doors and not let them back!

* Actually, I think they have already proven it that yes, they are indeed something  (fill in the blank) _____.

**  Do you hear what I hear??? (that would be the counting of the votes next November)

Faithful Republican . . . Unfaithful Husband

Thanks, Ashley Madison, for your endorsement of our man Newt and his skeezy ways.

 

The “Invented” People

Lots of people have already talked about Newt Gingrich’s recent comment about Palestinians being an “invented” people. I don’t have anything new to contribute to that conversation except to highlight a nice post from cynicalarab.org.  It’s a collection of photos of Palestinians before the creation of Israel in 1948. I don’t know what Newt expected to prove from his statement other than to reaffirm that he’s an obtuse chump. People aren’t invented. Descriptive terms might be, as seems to be part of Gingrich’s point, but people aren’t invented. Besides, I don’t see how pointing out that Palestinians are just Arabs disqualifies them from their land and excuses Israel’s aggressive presence and behavior toward Palestinians. It’s like calling Native Americans an invented people because they weren’t “Native Americans” or “Indians” until Europe showed up. It’s a stupid thing to say.

Photos are from Photographium, an interesting photo archive worth poking around in.

The 20 Worst Wall Street Banks Funding Our Filthiest Polluters | | AlterNet

. . . in 2010 we had the highest CO2 emissions since the beginning of industrialization. And there’s a question of who is financing these emissions? Who is paying for the plants that are causing these emissions?

This article focuses on the financing of the coal industry because the COAL industry is the biggest polluter — from the mining operation (listening, Utah?) to the burning to produce energy.  What use is cheap energy (again, Utah?)?   I’ll just bet that the savings in power bills doesn’t offset the higher doctor bills resulting from breathing filthy air.  Talk to the parent of a child with asthma and see if they would have preferred to pay$10, 25, even 50-100 more on their energy bill rather than have their child deal with the lifelong effects of pollution-caused asthma.

JP Morgan, Citi and Bank of America top the list.  Anyone surprised by this?  Just another reason to go local with your money!

The 20 Worst Wall Street Banks Funding Our Filthiest Polluters | | AlterNet.

The Daily Show and Power to the PEOPLE!

Have you read Lawrence Lessig’s book, Republic Lost?  I haven’t either, yet.  This book, however, has jumped to the top of my “must read” list.  Many of us have been blogging, talking, tumbling, etc. about the OWS (Occupy Wall Street) Movement and what it means. It sounds to me, as he talks about with Jon Stewart in the interviews below, like he has nailed it in the book.  If you have read the book, please comment below and let me know what you think.

The first segment is what was televised on The Daily Show Dec. 13, 2011; the second is the continuation of that interview, online only.  To get directly to the interviews, click on the black bars.

What is going on:  Lawrence Lessig Extended Interview Pt. 1  (06:06)

http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:video:thedailyshow.com:404242

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

The Solution:  Lawrence Lessig Extended Interview Pt. 2 (07:25)

http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:video:thedailyshow.com:404243

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Life in My Lane

Life is slowing down as the holidays approach. I work at a university and today is the last day of finals.  The student population is thinning as each finishes and leaves for home, faculty are more scarce as they wrap up classes and can do more of the leftover work at home, few deadlines right now — just a collective catching of breath.  People stop and visit in the hallways, little gifts appear on desks with grateful notes, and one occasionally catches the illusive fragrance of shared treats.  Quite lovely actually.

I love this time of year — most people do.  I love it for the slowing down, the visits, the camaraderie, for the reflective time, the catching up time, the time to do those things that were low on the priority list but should be done.  I love the sights, the smells, the flavors and textures of the holidays.  I love the crispness of the air, the warmth of coming indoors, the snuggly mittens, hats and scarves.

And so, for today, I’ll put aside the contention, the anger, the anxiety of life as we live it, and will cling to the warmth, the kindness and good things of living in this beautiful world.

Peace for Every Living Thing.

PROPOSAL TO STRIP MINE COAL ON PUBLIC LANDS!

The existing Coal Hollow mine site. Copyright Ray Bloxham/SUWA.

Please see these links for background on this issue:

Save Bryce Canyon from Coal Mining

Altoncoalmine.com

Adventure Journal

Governor Gary Herbert’s shady involvement

Following is the letter I wrote to Keith Rigtrup, Director of the Kanab BLM field office, one of the decisionmakers in the Alton Coal Mine proposal to expand onto public lands.

Mr. Rigtrup:

Please say “NO ACTION ALTERNATIVE” to this proposal! 

You have the keys to the Kingdom, so to speak.  The proposal to expand the Alton Coal Development onto public lands is a heavy-handed, short-term and extremely limited proposal that will benefit a mere handful of people.  These lands are public lands, meaning that everyone in this country can consider themselves a part-owner. 

The environmental study has shown the environmental and habitat damage that will occur.  You, as BLM director in this area, know that these are marginal lands.  These lands will NEVER, in our human lifetime, recover from the damage done by this strip coal mine.  This mine proposal is not the same as discussing roads and trails.   You know this!

If a private land owner decides that he can do this to his property, so be it.  It destroys the ecosystem, disrupts wildlife habitat, and destroys the natural beauty of the land but if the owner cares more about his $ intake, it is his right, and on his conscience.  These, however, are public lands.  You are the director, the manager, the steward of these lands and what lives in them. 

I am from southern Utah.  I grew up in Cannonville, in Bryce Valley.  I know these lands, know their beauty and their fragility.  I have extreme concerns for the impact on Bryce Canyon, and other areas westward from this proposed development.  My direct concern, however, is for the land itself.  It is unbelievable to me that anyone is even willing to consider this proposal knowing the destruction, disruption and lack of recoverability of these lands.   You know how long even tracks last in these soils.  How can you, knowing this, even consider this proposal?  Please, say NO ACTION ALTERNATIVE; please!

Please write and voice your opposition to this proposal.  There is a meeting tonight, December 7 at the Salt Lake City Library at 6:00 pm.  Please go if possible.  Please write:

• Keith Rigtrup, Bureau of Land Management, Kanab Office:  UT_Kanab_Altoncoal@blm.gov
  
• Juan Palma, Bureau of Land Management, Utah State Director:  Juan_Palma@blm.gov
• Bob Abbey, Bureau of Land Management, National Director:   Director@blm.gov
• Department of the Interior, Attn. Secretary Ken Salazar:  feedback@ios.doi.gov
  

Links to other contacts:

• Utah State
• Washington BLM