Category Archives: Republican Party

Mental illness: more profitable than you might think

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Add the mentally ill to illegal immigrants and non-violent drug offenders, and you have the magic profit formula for America’s private prison industry and its shareholders.

Mother Jones has a timeline illustrating how deinstitutionalization has moved thousands of mentally ill people out of hospitals—and into jails and prisons.

I’ve taken just the past 35 years of that timeline and pasted it below — notice Saint Raygun’s heartwarming contributions towards mental health services in 1981:

1977 There are 650 community health facilities serving 1.9 million mentally ill patients a year.
1980 President Jimmy Carter signs the Mental Health Systems Act, which aims to restructure the community mental health center program and improve services for people with chronic mental illness.
1981 Under President Ronald Reagan, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act repeals Carter’s community health legislation and establishes block grants for the states, ending the federal government’s role in providing services to the mentally ill.  Federal mental health spending decreases by 30 percent.
1984 An Ohio-based study finds that up to 30 percent of homeless people are thought to suffer from serious mental illness.
1985 Federal funding drops to 11 percent of community mental health agency budgets.
1990 Clozapine, the first “atypical” anti-psychotic drug to be developed, is approved by the FDA as a treatment for schizophrenia.
2004 Studies suggest approximately 16 percent of prison and jail inmates are seriously mentally ill, roughly 320,000 people. This year, there are about 100,000 psychiatric beds in public and private hospitals. That means there are more three times as many seriously mentally ill people in jails and prisons than in hospitals.
2009 In the aftermath of the Great Recession, states are forced to cut $4.35 billion in public mental health spending over the next three years, the largest reduction in funding since deinstitutionalization.
2010 There are 43,000 psychiatric beds in America, or about 14 beds per 100,000 people—the same ratio as in 1850.

Read the whole thing: TIMELINE: Deinstitutionalization And Its Consequences

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From 2009 – 2012, these six states made the deepest cuts to their mental health budgets: South Carolina, Alabama, Alaska, Illinois, Nevada, District of Columbia, and California.

I wonder how many private prisons are in these states?

three pie charts in a row

Image: Mother Jones

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Largest Prison-Owning Corporation Issues Massive Dividend of $675 Million to Shareholders

If you want to make money these days, owning stock in a prison company is the place to do it.  The confinement of human beings, while selling their cheap labor to companies seeking to save on labor costs has become a cash cow.  One company that has benefited handsomely from the profit boom is the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).

CCA is the largest owner of private prisons in the nation, behind only the federal government and three states. The company just announced that it’s Board of Directors has declared a special dividend to shareholders of $675 million dollars.

…The CCA operates a total of 67 prison facilities throughout the United States, with a total capacity of 92,500 beds in 20 states and the District of Columbia.  The company was heavily criticized for offering to buy prisons in 48 states, in exchange for a guaranteed occupancy rate of at least 90%.

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It’s not just the private prison industry. Something else to consider:

A jury on Wednesday awarded a total of $240 million to 32 mentally disabled turkey processing plant workers in Iowa for what an expert witness described as years of “virtual enslavement” by [Henry's Turkey Service, of Goldthwaite, Texas] that oversaw their care, work and lodging…

During the weeklong trial that ended Wednesday, officials testified about the squalid conditions they found during a 2009 inspection of the bunkhouse where the men were housed. The building, which was in a rural area several miles from the West Liberty Foods turkey processing plant where they worked, was falling apart, infested with rodents and full of fire hazards.

Social workers spoke of the physical and verbal abuse the men said they had been subjected to by the Henry’s supervisors who oversaw their work and care. They said they had been forced to work through illness and injuries, denied bathroom breaks, locked in their rooms, kicked in the groin and, in one case, handcuffed to a bed…

By 2008, Henry’s was being paid more than $500,000 per year by West Liberty Foods, but it was paying the men the same $65 per month that it always had. The company docked the men’s wages and Social Security disability benefits, telling them it was to pay for the cost of their care and lodging, and it never applied for medical care or other services for the disabled that the men would have qualified for in Iowa.

Henry’s began employing mentally disabled men in the 1960s and 1970s who had been released from Texas mental institutions. Hundreds of them were sent to labor camps in Iowa and elsewhere in the coming decades, where they were supplied on contract as workers to local employers. Company officials argued that the arrangement was a benefit to the men, and that they were once praised for giving them employment opportunities…

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Related: 

Don’t ever say Republicans–with their deregulation and “pay workers less so CEOs can get more” and “corporations  are people” mentality–aren’t job creators. Companies like private prisons and Henry’s Turkey Service are just selective about the wages they want to pay and the type of workforce “willing” to work for those wages. Remember, it was the glassy-eyed Teaparty Queen, Michele Bachmann, who said that the federal minimum wage should be eliminated for the benefit of job growth.

Clearly if you deinstitutionalize the mentally ill / disabled, you’ll be able to make a handsome profit on their confinement in labor camps or prisons — with the added bonus that you won’t “waste” money on having to care for them. If the Republican Party had its way, we’d all be working for $65 a month in company housing that was falling apart.

American fundamentalist Christianity combined with deregulated Capitalism in 2013 – same as it ever was:

“Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” – Ezekiel 16:49

Not ONE program / service for taxpayers should be cut while subsidies are given to big banks

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Bloomberg: So what if we told you …the largest U.S. banks aren’t really profitable at all? What if the billions of dollars they allegedly earn for their shareholders were almost entirely a gift from U.S. taxpayers?


image recall-all-republicans

The top five banks — JPMorgan, Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. - – account for $64 billion of the total subsidy, an amount roughly equal to their typical annual profits (see tables for data on individual banks). In other words, the banks occupying the commanding heights of the U.S. financial industry — with almost $9 trillion in assets, more than half the size of the U.S. economy – would just about break even in the absence of corporate welfare. In large part, the profits they report are essentially transfers from taxpayers to their shareholders.

Neither bank executives nor shareholders have much incentive to change the situation. On the contrary, the financial industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars every election cycle on campaign donations and lobbying, much of which is aimed at maintaining the subsidy. The result is a bloated financial sector and recurring credit gluts. Left unchecked, the superbanks could ultimately require bailouts that exceed the government’s resources. Picture a meltdown in which the Treasury is helpless to step in as it did in 2008 and 2009.

Regulators can change the game by paring down the subsidy. One option is to make banks fund their activities with more equity from shareholders, a measure that would make them less likely to need bailouts (we recommend $1 of equity for each $5 of assets, far more than the 1-to-33 ratio that new global rules require). Another idea is to shock creditors out of complacency by making some of them take losses when banks run into trouble. A third is to prevent banks from using the subsidy to finance speculative trading, the aim of the Volcker rule in the U.S. and financial ring-fencing in the U.K.

— Why Should Taxpayers Give Big Banks $83 Billion a Year? – Bloomberg

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Last month, Washingtonblog wrote about Chris Whalen’s report that the top banks receive more than $780 billion per year in subsidies. Whalen is one of America’s top banking analysts. Specifically, Whalen estimates the following types of subsidies to the giant banks:

  • $360 billion in Federal Reserve subsidies, by creating an artificial “spread” in interest rates…
  • $120 billion in federal deposit insurance (through the FDIC, backed by the Treasury)
  • At least $100 billion in government-guaranteed loans, especially mortgages
  • At least $100 billion in monopolistic advantages in the secondary market for home mortgages…
  • More than $100 billion in fees in the over-the-counter (OTC) derivative market…

That totals $780 billion per year. And that’s only a PARTIAL list.

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It’s funny how the GOP / Fox likes its voting base to focus on things like the pay and benefits of federal, state, and local government employees (Republican consensus: civil servants are way overpaid when compared to 7-Eleven and Walmart workers), marriage equality, and pseudo-wars on Christian holidays. Keep the rubes riled with the Shiny Object of the Week (SOOTW).

The massive financial transfers between the U.S. Treasury and big banks (and big oil, big ag, etc) are well worth the SOOTW campaigns. The GOP doesn’t want a smaller government to save the taxpayers money! They want a smaller government so all the money spent on employees and regulation (and on programs / services for working class taxpayers) can be re-routed to banks, oil companies and corporate ag.

Obviously, in order to increase the flow of tax money to banks (and oil and ag), the Republican Party continuously fights for MORE tax cuts and LESS regulation. And by using Orwellian methods of doublespeak / doublethink, they fight for these things and call themselves the True Patriots™ simultaneously – that’s specifically so their base-rubes can at least feel superior while they support their own ruin.

The NRA is nothing more than a lobby for gun and ammunition manufacturers…

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…and the elected GOP establishment is nothing more than their personal representatives.

Adolphus Busch IV requested the NRA immediately cancel his lifetime membership,  one day after the U.S. Senate rejected a bill that would have expanded background checks on guns:

“…One only has to ask why the NRA reversed its original position on background checks. Was it not the NRA position to support background checks when Mr. LaPierre himself stated in 1999 that NRA saw checks as ‘reasonable’? [...]

I am simply unable to comprehend how assault weapons and large capacity magazines have a role in your vision. The NRA I see today has undermined the values upon which it was established. Your current strategic focus clearly places priority on the needs of gun and ammunition manufacturers while disregarding the opinions of your 4 million individual members.

One only has to look at the makeup of the 75-member board of directors, dominated by manufacturing interests, to confirm my point. The NRA appears to have evolved into the lobby for gun and ammunition manufacturers rather than gun owners.”

(h/t wilwheaton)

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via sandandglass

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jetgirl78: “I’ve heard some say the blocking the step would be a victory. My question is victory for who? Victory for what? All that happened today it was the preservation of the loophole that lets dangerous criminals buy guns without a background check. That didn’t make our kids safer.”

jetgirl78: “I’ve heard folks say that having the families of victims lobby for this legislation was somehow misplaced. A prop, somebody called them. Emotional blackmail, some outlets said. Are they serious? Do we really think that thousands of families whose lives have been shattered by gun violence don’t have a right to weigh in on this issue?”

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“I have something I want to say to the victims of Newtown, or any other shooting,” Davis said. “I don’t care if it’s here in Minneapolis or anyplace else. Just because a bad thing happened to you doesn’t mean that you get to put a king in charge of my life. I’m sorry that you suffered a tragedy, but you know what? Deal with it, and don’t force me to lose my liberty, which is a greater tragedy than your loss. I’m sick and tired of seeing these victims trotted out, given rides on Air Force One, hauled into the Senate well, and everyone is just afraid — they’re terrified of these victims.”

“I would stand in front of them and tell them, ‘go to hell,’” he added.

Source via sandandglass

Kind of embarrassed? Why aren’t Minnesota voters MORTIFIED at this point?

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“People are tired of her antagonistic, propagating gridlock. A lot of people come up to me and say we’re kind of embarrassed by our representation in Washington.” — Democrat Jim Graves, announcing his plans to challenge Michele Bachmann for her seat in Congress again in 2014.

Last year Bachmann beat Graves by only a little over 4,000 votes — in a recently gerrymandered district (making it the most conservative district in the state) — by outspending him 12-to-1 in the one of the cycle’s most expensive congressional campaigns.

Michele Bachmann is just one person. Granted, she’s one crazy, weird, extremely strange person… but! the only reason she’s in Congress with power and influence and a national stage is because thousands of people in Minnesota’s 6th District actually, deliberately chose HER to represent them. Unbelievably these people looked into her glassy eyes, held her thousand-yard stare, and listened to her batshit ideas, garbled facts, and general tinfoilhattery. Then (then!) they marched into a voting booth and decided she was the person who best reflected their beliefs and values. Think about that.

The GOP: Party of Self

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JM Ashby: Representative Paul Broun (R-GA) doesn’t support gay marriage because he’s “not going to marry one,” but did you also know he doesn’t support ending discrimination against transgender persons because he ‘doesn’t want a sex change?’ ”I don’t want to pay for a sex change operation. I’m not interested. I like being a boy.”

In other news, Broun doesn’t support tampons because he doesn’t menstruate. He doesn’t support wheelchairs because he can walk just fine, thank you very much. Basically, if it’s not Broun, Broun doesn’t support it: “I like being me and I’m not interested in things that aren’t me.” 

Broun is the basic definition of the Republican Party.

10 most common jobs: public vs. private sector and the Republican agenda

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WHAT MIDDLE CLASS? If you’re a teapartier who claims to be worried about your children’s (and grandchildren’s) futures because of the national debt, you might want to re-examine the priorities that Fox and the Koch brothers are selling you. Would you recognize a class war if you saw one?

Here are the 10 most common jobs in the public sector (federal, state, and local):

Tables above: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

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And here are the 10 most common jobs in the private sector:

Table: GovExec

Here are the mean wages earned for the most common private-sector jobs.  NOTE: The poverty level for 2012 was set at $23,050 (total yearly income):

Did you know these were the 10 most common jobs? This is what we have after America’s manufacturing / retail industry was Reaganized / Bain-Capitalized. The bottom line is that out of 10 of the most common private-sector jobs in America, three pay BELOW the poverty level, and three more pay just above the poverty level — that’s 6 out of 10 of the most common jobs that pay wages near the poverty level!

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So while the 1% wealthy-elites are busy funneling all available profits and cash into their off-shore accounts (from the ever-increasing productivity and labor of their employees and from executive bonuses, corporate welfare, loopholes, and exemptions), the rest of America is transforming into a nation of Walmart workers, waitresses, and janitors who earn poverty-level wages for full-time work.

Conversely, it’s probably safe to presume that the most common public-sector jobs listed above pay a little better than poverty-level.  So when Republicans and the wealthy want to eviscerate government (and government workers) at all levels, it’s not really about spending and the deficit or fiscal responsibility. It’s about how (and to whom) tax revenue will be distributed, and it’s about engineering our expectations for employment in the private-sector.

If you employ less government workers and take tax revenue away from the social safety net, you now have a bunch of money you can funnel over to corporations and the wealthy through loopholes, corporate welfare, and exemptions (those off-shore accounts don’t fund themselves!). In turn, corporations and wealthy individuals will continue to reward their politicians with a steady supply of hefty campaign contributions and a seat on their board after retirement.

Additionally, instead of increasing private-sector wages to be more in line with public-sector wages (which would be reasonable since costs increase and so should wages), the goal of the wealthy-elite and their career politicians is to bring government wages down to more closely match what Walmart workers and janitors earn. But remember: labor unions are The Evil. Plus if there are less government jobs, there will be more competition for shitty-paying private sector jobs. Not only do they want to pay poverty-level wages to a majority of Americans (more money for themselves), but they want people to believe it’s the only fair solution.  And that’s where Fox, Rush, and astroturfs like Tea Party Patriots come into play.

To the teapartiers: look at those tables above and think about what wages you hope your kid or your grandkid will be able to earn in the future. Doesn’t that resonate more personally for you? Shouldn’t this be as important as the non-issue of the national debt? I call the debt a non-issue because if/when a Republican is seated in the White House again, it will in fact be a Non-Issue to that political party’s agenda once more. And when that day comes that they move on – because they will move on – you’ll be earning poverty-level wages, watching Fox ‘news’ and, spittle flying, defending more tax cuts and some newly manufactured reason to go to war in some other country. Wash, rinse, and repeat.

Rebranding a freakshow when the freaks won’t cooperate

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[The GOP's] greatest political strength today is their ability to dominate heavily white areas. — Ruy Teixeira | Think Progress

The Michele Bachmann sideshow is hurting the GOP – Due to a series of gaffes, she is again on the receiving end of criticism, including from Fox News powerhouse Bill O’Reilly. The congresswoman is also, as reported by The Daily Beast’s John Avlon, “embroiled in a litany of legal proceedings related to her rolling disaster of a presidential campaign — including an Office of Congressional Ethics investigation into campaign improprieties.” It’s almost as if Bachmann were a Democratic mole embedded in the Republican Party with the purpose of chasing away a wide range of voters. Her latest sound-bite-producing comment, this time on ObamaCare, begged for audio accompaniment of the Twilight Zone theme. Try to imagine it: “Let’s repeal this failure before it literally kills women, kills children, kills senior citizens. Let’s not do that. Let’s love people. Let’s care about people. Let’s repeal it now while we can.”

Suddenly conservative Christians have a problem with politicizing religion??!? – “It’s sad when clergy egregiously politicize worship,” Mark Tooley, president of the conservative Christian organization Institute on Religion and Democracy, wrote in one of several blogs and articles that have criticized the sermon. “Is this characterization of religious conservatives as racists, chauvinists and bigots really fair and accurate? And if political critique of religious conservatives were appropriate in an Easter sermon, couldn’t León offer a thoughtful analysis rather than snide smugness?”

NRA Still Undermining Weakened Gun Legislation – Last month the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a plan to increase penalties for straw purchases, or buying a gun for someone who can’t pass a background check. According to the Post, NRA lobbyists are pushing a revision that would make it much harder to prosecute gun traffickers: The NRA’s draft language would require law enforcement officials to prove that the straw purchaser had reason to believe the buyer was prohibited from obtaining guns or knew that the buyer intended to commit a crime, according to an analysis of the NRA proposal provided to The Washington Post by the Bloomberg-led mayors group.

Leaving the massive gun-show loophole in place, on purpose – Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said closing the gun-show loophole is “a bridge too far” for most Senate Republicans. He added that the “paperwork requirements alone would be significant.” The nation would like to reduce mass murders, but for some federal lawmakers, “paperwork requirements” have to take precedence? Similarly, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was asked whether expanded background checks can survive in the Senate. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I don’t think it makes any sense. The current system is broken. Fix the current system.” …that might be possible if Senate Republicans weren’t also blocking ATF from functioning effectively…

  
  
gifset: sandandglass

The Republicans’ Diversity Deserts | Charles Blow – Too many House Republican districts are isolated in naturally homogeneous areas or gerrymandered ghettos, so elected officials there rarely hear — or see — the great and growing diversity of this country and the infusion of energy and ideas and art with which it enriches us. These districts produce representatives unaccountable to the confluence. And this will likely be the case for the next decade. [...] With the exception of a few districts, a map of the areas in this country with the fewest minorities looks strikingly similar to a map of the areas from which Congressional Republicans hail. In fact, although this is the most diverse Congress in history, not one of the blacks or Asians in the House is a Republican. Only about a sixth of the Hispanics are Republicans, and fewer than a third of the women are.

“My father had a ranch. We used to hire 50 to 60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes. You know, it takes two people to pick the same tomatoes now. It’s all done by machine.” — Republican Congressman Don Young from Alaska

Top Critique of GOP is Unwillingness to Compromise – A new Gallup Poll finds rank-and-file Republicans, independents, and Democrats voice the same primary criticism of the GOP: it is “too inflexible” or “unwilling to compromise.” When asked to say what they most dislike about the Republican Party, 26% of Republicans, 17% of independents, and 22% of Democrats offer this critique — leading all other mentions.

From the Department of Outreach – Representative Steve King (R-IA) and Senator Jim InHofe (R-OK) want to ban the federal government from translating documents into other languages. An attempt to codify English as our official language and violate the Voting Rights Act.

Exxon Mobil pipeline leaks ‘a few thousand’ barrels of crude oil in Arkansas – Exxon Mobil said that one of its pipelines leaked ‘a few thousand’ barrels of Canadian heavy crude oil near Mayflower, Ark., prompting the evacuation of 22 homes and reinforcing concerns many critics have raised about the Keystone XL pipeline that is awaiting State Department approval.

Alaska Lawmaker Tells Exxon Valdez Spill Not Its Fault – Alaska is set to give oil companies, including ExxonMobil, a massive tax cut. The bill, which passed the Senate 11-9 and is endorsed by Republican Gov. Sean Parnell, is being debated by the House of Representatives. The plan raises the base tax rate that companies pay no matter the price of oil, and also gives them a $5 credit for every barrel they produce. The plan would cost the state anywhere from $3 billion to $9.5 billion over the next six years. As if that weren’t enough, Republicans in the state House want to make the tax cut even larger. And as they debated doing so, Rep. Kurt Olson (R) told a company representative that Exxon shouldn’t be blamed for the second-worst oil spill in U.S. history, the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989…

Loaded for Bear(shit): Consultants Cash In on Palin – Sarah Palin attempted to relaunch her political career this week with a new video which railed against “the big consultants, the big money men, and the big bad media.” …Seen through the lens of the invaluable Center for Responsive Politics, Palin’s PAC spent $5.1 million in the last election cycle (more than it raised in that time period, raising some questions about Palin’s claims of fiscal responsibility). But the real news comes when you look at how donors’ money was actually doled out: just $298,500 to candidates. The bulk of the rest of it, more than $4.8 million, went to—you guessed it—consultants.

  
The Daily Show | March 27th 2013

“If your boss suddenly decided he had a moral objection to your health insurance plan covering cholesterol medication—and had the power to act on his objection—it would be outrageous invasion of your privacy and the doctor-patient relationship. It’s the kind of thing that no politician would ever want to see happen, unless that politician were a Republican, and instead of needing cholesterol medication, you needed birth control coverage.” — Jed Lewison

Elevating the religious beliefs of some people over the civil rights of all – As in every state, residents of Kentucky already enjoy religious liberty under the First Amendment, but conservatives in the state legislature decided to craft a proposal that would empower Kentuckians with “sincerely held” religious beliefs to disregard state laws and regulations. In effect, if a law conflicted with the tenets of your faith as you interpret them, your conscience would trump your obligation to follow the law…

Tennessee Republicans pushing to cut welfare benefits if kids’ report cards don’t measure up – Tennessee has among the lowest average monthly benefits for a recipient of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families in the country. But not content with that, the state legislature is pushing a plan to cut benefits for families of kids who don’t do well enough in school. [...] Now those kids are essentially asked to bear the burden of maintaining their families’ cash incomes, or putting additional burdens on their parents. The math a kid living on TANF is concerned with is likely this: How many hours ago did I have my last meal? How many days overdue is the rent or the electric bill? And, if this bill passes: What score do I need on this next test to keep my family’s income from being slashed?

Always low prices. Always. (With a little E. Coli for good measure.)

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CDC Confirms Multistate E. coli Outbreak from Farm Rich Products | Food Safety News

Update (March 29, 5:30 PM PST): The U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service has posted a distribution list of where affected products were sent. That list includes Wal Mart stores nationwide, Winn-Dixie stores in Florida, and a variety of retailers in Michigan.

At least 24 people in 15 states have fallen ill with E. coli O121 in an outbreak traced back to Farm Rich brand frozen pizzas, quesadillas, philly cheese steaks and mozzarella bites, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed, following initial reports Thursday evening. Seven people have been hospitalized in connection to the products, which were sold nationwide. One patient has developed hemolytic uremic syndrome…

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When Capitalism trumps Democracy: 

  • Sequester may lead to less safe food, FDA Commissioner says: Fewer food safety inspections and an increased risk to consumers will result from the lack of a new 2013 budget from Congress and the upcoming across-the-board spending cuts, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said Thursday. The cuts are scheduled to take effect Friday unless the White House and Congress can come to a budget agreement. The reduced inspections and budget cuts could delay a new food safety law which requires the agency to boost inspections and directs farms and food facilities to ensure their food is safe. The FDA has said the so-called sequestration cuts will mean 2,100 fewer food safety inspections this year, though Hamburg said in an interview with The Associated Press that the number is an estimate. She said most of the effects wouldn’t be felt for a while, and the agency won’t have to furlough workers.
  • How ALEC Has Undermined Food Safety By Pushing ‘Ag Gag’ Laws Across The Country: Two more states are considering bills that would prevent whistleblowers from exposing cruel or unsafe practices in factory farms, joining five other states with similar “ag gag” bills. [...]  it turns out the real basis for the bills has its origins in the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative think tank that has been behind such legislative pushes as “stand your ground” gun laws, voter ID laws and laws mandating states teach climate change denial in schools. Several of the lawmakers who are pushing ag gag laws have agriculture industry ties and ties to ALEC — nearly one in four Iowa lawmakers who voted for Iowa’s ag gag law, for example, are members of ALEC. In 2002, ALEC introduced a piece of mock legislation titled the Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act, which labels people who interfere with any animal operations “terrorists” and made it illegal for anyone to enter “an animal or research facility to take pictures by photograph, video camera, or other means with the intent to commit criminal activities or defame the facility or its owner.” ALEC began pushing the legislation in 2004, and several of the bills currently being considered borrow language from AETA — Indiana’s bill aims to keep farming operations “free from the threat of terrorism and interference from unauthorized third persons,” for instance.
  • Food Safety Modernization Act Testing Requirement Axed:  At the very beginning of 2013, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration released its proposals for the most important food safety regulations in a generation. The proposed rule on “Current Good Manufacturing Practice and Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls For Human Food,” lays out the procedures that food manufacturers — cookie factories, grocery warehouses, frozen foods packagers — would need to implement in order to reduce the risk that their products would harbor pathogens. The proposal grew out of the landmark Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) passed exactly two years earlier, and it aimed to prevent one million illnesses a year. One strange quirk of the proposed rule, though, is that it doesn’t require facilities to conduct microbiological testing to confirm that their food safety programs are working. It says that manufacturers can swab surfaces or test samples of finished goods for microbes if they like, but it puts them under no obligation to do so. [... The FDA] is accepting public comments on the regulations until May 15, so if you want them to require food manufacturers to test their facilities and products for pathogens, speak up soon.

Newtown and gun control vs. the NRA and gun deaths: 90% vs. 10% of America

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image liberalsarecool

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The Newtown killer fired 155 bullets, murdering 20 children and six teachers in all of five minutes.

  • 155 bullets in five minutes.
  • Not on a battlefield — inside a school.
  • This is what Republican lawmakers are protecting.

(via inothernews)

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“Shame on us if we’ve forgotten. I haven’t forgotten those kids. Shame on us if we’ve forgotten.” — President Barack Obama, 3/28/2013.

President Barack Obama Thursday urged supporters to use the next 10 days to pressure lawmakers to back sweeping new gun control legislation, repeatedly invoking the Newtown massacre in his most aggressive call to action in recent weeks.

“We need everybody to remember how we felt 100 days ago and to make sure what we said wasn’t just a bunch of platitudes,” Obama said during an event that featured the mothers of children who have died due to gun violence.

Obama called on backers to attend town hall meetings and other events during the remainder of Congress’ Easter Recess and press lawmakers, particularly those who have not backed a universal background check system, on why. “If they’re not part of that 90% [who support universal checks] … then you should ask them why not? Why are you part of the 10%?”

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FIND & CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES:

Senators of the 113th Congress — Sort by: Name |  State |  Party

House Representatives of the 113th Congress — Sort by: State | Name

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One Nation Under The Gun: Thousands Of Gun Deaths Since Newtown

A little more than three months after Newtown, there have been 2,244 [gun deaths].

Two thousand, two hundred and forty-four deaths in about three months.

Click here for an interactive map of those who have died.

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Adam Lanza, mom had NRA certificates – The NRA is proud to count you a member or supporter right up UNTIL you shoot up a kindergarten classroom (or other public place)

The NRA pushed back on an association with the Lanzas later on Thursday. “There is no record of a member relationship between Newtown killer Adam Lanza, nor between Nancy Lanza, A. Lanza or N. Lanza with the National Rifle Association,” the organization said in a statement. “Reporting to the contrary is reckless, false and defamatory.”


From Dec/2012 search warrant of the Lanza’s home

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Conn. senators demand NRA ‘cease and desist’ making robo-calls to Newtown residents

Wayne LaPierre Jr., Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Rifle Association speaks at its members annual meeting during its national convention in St. Louis on Saturday.
image: CHRISTIAN GOODEN/AP

Residents of Newtown say they have been r receiving automated messages from the NRA, which is led by Wayne LaPierre Jr.

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Arsenal of Guns, Ammo, Knives Found in Lanza Home

The three guns that Adam Lanza brought with him to Sandy Hook Elementary school in December were just the tip of the iceberg. According to search warrants unsealed for the first time this morning, FBI investigators found a veritable arsenal inside the Lanza home, including four more guns, well over 1,600 rounds of ammo and numerous high-capacity magazines, three samurai swords, a six-foot spear, and a small collection of knives with blades as long as twelve inches.

See images of some of the items seized on December 2012 warrant: 

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America’s future: too frail to work, too poor to retire will become the “new normal”

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Here’s the scariest thing you’ll read today:

We are on the precipice of the greatest retirement crisis in the history of the world. In the decades to come, we will witness millions of elderly Americans, the Baby Boomers and others, slipping into poverty. Too frail to work, too poor to retire will become the “new normal” for many elderly Americans.

That dire prediction, which I wrote two years ago, is already coming true. Our national demographics, coupled with indisputable glaringly insufficient retirement savings and human physiology, suggest that a catastrophic outcome for at least a significant percentage of our elderly population is inevitable. With the average 401(k) balance for 65 year olds estimated at $25,000 by independent experts—$100,000 if you believe the retirement planning industry—the decades many elders will spend in forced or elected “retirement” will be grim.

According to the author, the impending crisis will happen in ‘waves’ to a majority of elderly Americans:

  • Wave 1: Retirees Come Back To Work
  • Wave 2: Workers Delay Full Retirement
  • Wave 3: Full Retirement Is Unachievable
  • Wave 4: Drowning

While you reflect on how irresponsible it is to not save for retirement, take a moment to reflect on Paul Ryan’s budget (and the 95% of Republican House members who voted for it) – along with all the slicing and dicing they want to do to the social safety net, health care reform, and Medicare in order to provide more tax relief to the wealthy.

Be sure to consider all the jobs that are not being created right now because of the conservative hangups on spending cuts and the deficit. Issues which, when a Republican is in office, members of this specific political party aren’t concerned about at all. Maybe it’s time we willingly spent our taxes on infrastructure and people instead of exponentially expanding our military industrial complex each year, quit paying to have other countries blown up and rebuilt for the profit of a few.

Then consider: how are people with the low-wage Bain Capital replacement jobs, or people who are unemployed, supposed to find some money to put in a “retirement account”? Maybe they should forego eating a few times a month. Or maybe they could just save all those tax breaks they get for private jets or dancing horses. It would be irresponsible if they don’t, right?

Average income increase for 90% of us over the past 40 years: a whopping $59.00

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Average income rose just $59 from 1966 to 2011 for the bottom 90 percent once those incomes were adjusted for inflation… the top 10 percent fared much better, according to a new study of tax data from David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize winner: In 2011 the average AGI of the vast majority fell to $30,437 per taxpayer, its lowest level since 1966 when measured in 2011 dollars. The vast majority averaged a mere $59 more in 2011 than in 1966. For the top 10 percent, by the same measures, average income rose by $116,071 to $254,864, an increase of 84 percent over 1966.

[...] The biggest driver in that disparity, Cay Johnston wrote, was not that the rich were working harder, “but the shift of income from labor to capital and changes in federal income, gift, and estate tax rules.” Indeed, the estate tax has been eased over recent decades and federal income taxes have become more favorable to the wealthy thanks to breaks for investment income. A recent study, in fact, found that the capital gains tax cut, which benefits the wealthy but does virtually nothing for everyone else, was “by far” the biggest driver in the growth of American income inequality.

Other important facts: 

(via ThinkProgress)

The rise in wealth inequality? It’s permanent: “the advantaged [are] becoming permanently better-off, while the disadvantaged becoming permanently worse-off.” [...] If we were seeing a lot of transient inequality, that would mean the households at the bottom in any given year still have a good shot at improving their lifetime earnings. The fact that the inequality is of the permanent sort shuts the window on that optimistic interpretation: The earners at the bottom are stuck at the bottom, and their lifetime earnings are about as low as one would think. (via Ezra Klein)

With this ever-increasing, permanent inequality, now decades in the making, what’s most important to Republicans? 95% of the GOP-led House voting in favor of Paul Ryan’s Class Warfare Budget:

  • Recent analyses have shown that [Ryan's] budget plan’s tax reforms, which lower top tax rates to 25 percent, would give millionaires at least $200,000 in tax cuts. At the same time, it would slash the social safety net, targeting poverty programs for two-thirds of its cuts. (via Travis Waldron)
  • Ryan’s budget would end Medicare, cut taxes by over $5 trillion, take health care benefits away from millions of Americans, make “massive” cuts to in programs for low-income and vulnerable Americans, and relies on smoke and mirrors to balance the budget within a decade… It’s designed to satisfy folks who believe the wealthy are over-burdened by taxes and struggling families have too much access to affordable health care. (via Steve Benen)

Unfortunately the non-wealthy, low-info Republican base voters — who have been personally harmed by income inequality just like everyone else — have been successfully programmed to chase the regularly-scheduled and completely manufactured social outrages dangled before them (usually involving guns, God, and gays), instead of paying attention to what their party is actually doing with tax laws and budgets.

50-49: Senate narrowly passes Democratic budget for 2014

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U.S. Senate approves its first budget since 2009
By Agence France-Presse
Saturday, March 23, 2013 6:38 EDT

The US Senate reached a milestone early Saturday when it overcame partisan gridlock to approve its first budget resolution in four years, setting up a political duel with the Republican-held House.

The sweeping plan for fiscal year 2014, the first budget blueprint passed by the Democrat-led Senate under President Barack Obama since 2009, squeaked by by the narrowest of margins, 50-49. [...]

The plan, shepherded by Senate Budget Committee chair Patty Murray, seeks nearly $1 trillion in new revenue over the next decade, mostly through the closure of tax loopholes that favor the wealthy, and an equal amount in reductions to government spending.

The House of Representatives on Thursday adopted its own budget resolution, which seeks to reach balance within 10 years through significant reductions in federal spending, the overhaul of entitlements like Medicare and the repeal of Obama’s health care law.

The glaring partisanship of Congress ensures that neither plan will be enacted into law. Instead they will serve as the starting points for a broader debate this year over budget policy.

SOME DETAILS: 

  • 100 amendments were voted on in a marathon, 13-hour session known in the Senate as a “vote-a-rama.
  • The parties’ leaders contended with more than 560 filed amendments. Most fell by the wayside and were not voted on, but there were key amendments that were approved, including a repeal of an unpopular tax on medical devices that was enacted as part of “Obamacare.”
  • Senators also went on record in support of the Keystone Pipeline.

SFGate: 

  • Joining all Republicans voting no were four Democrats who face re-election next year in potentially difficult races: Sens. Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska, Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., did not vote.
  • The Senate’s budget would shrink annual federal shortfalls over the next decade to nearly $400 billion, raise unspecified taxes by $975 billion and cull modest savings from domestic programs.
  • They also voiced support for eliminating the $2,500 annual cap on flexible spending account contributions imposed by Obama’s health care overhaul.
  • [They voted] for charging regular postal rates for mailings by political parties, which currently qualify for the lower prices paid by non-profits.
  • In a rebuke to one of the Senate’s most conservative members, they overwhelmingly rejected a proposal by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., to cut even deeper than the House GOP budget and eliminate deficits in just five years.
  • Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget claims $4 trillion more in savings… by digging deeply into Medicaid, food stamps and other safety net programs for the needy. It would also transform the Medicare health care program for seniors into a voucher-like system for future recipients.
  • They voted in favor of giving states more powers to collect sales taxes on online purchases their citizens make from out-of-state Internet companies.
  • Shoehorned into the package is $100 billion for public works projects and other programs aimed at creating jobs.

NEXT UP: this summer’s hostage crisis. 

The Senate’s Vote-a-rama: Paul Ryan and GOP House FAIL

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The Hill: The Democratic-controlled Senate appears set to approve its first budget resolution in four years. Votes on amendments to the budget began Thursday night, with a final vote set for late Friday or early Saturday.

Brian Beutler explains why tuning into CSpan2 this afternoon to watch the Senate’s “vote-a-rama” could be very educational:

“…before the Senate passes its budget this weekend, it must first get through “votearama” — the quirk in the budget rules that essentially opens the amendment floodgates to eager lawmakers.

These amendments, like the budget itself, aren’t really binding. They’re highly politicized. And because there hasn’t been a Senate budget in a few years, there’s a huge pent up demand among members for using votearama as an opportunity to preen and take political stands. [...]

For instance: Last night, Senate Dems put Republicans on the spot and forced a vote on the House GOP budget. It failed, obviously, but because it’s the GOP’s central organizing manifesto, nearly every Republican member voted for it.

What went mostly unnoticed, though, is that Dems also forced the GOP to take a position on the single most politically contentious part of the Ryan budget — its call to replace the Medicare guarantee with a private insurance subsidy. That amendment was written to put members on record over whether to prohibit such a dramatic policy change. And by a vote of 96-3 the Senate answered that question with a resounding “yes.” Only Sens. Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Rand Paul voted to effectively endorse Medicare privatization.

That says a lot about the politics of the Republican platform. Their commitment to a fiscal policy agenda they know to be politically toxic in its particulars is actually pretty impressive.

Democrats, by contrast, voted to preserve the tax increases their budget calls for. And they will circle their wagons around the Affordable Care Act when Republicans try to use the budget process to significantly undermine it. But on the particular, narrow issue of the ACA’s medical device tax, more than half the party joined the GOP in support of an amendment that called for its repeal…”

How bad was Paul Ryan’s night? Joan McCarter on March 22, 2013

Every Senate Republican but three voted to repudiate Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan. The three? The three teabaggiest of all: Rand Paul (R-KY) Mike Lee (R-UT), and Ted Cruz. …The slap-in-the-face vote was cast yesterday as the Senate continued working on its 2014 budget, an opportunity for all sorts of political hay-making, because budget rules allow for unlimited amendments. This one was offered by Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) Thursday night. It’s a “No Vouchers for Medicare” amendment, repudiating the Ryan budget and “to prohibit replacing guaranteed benefits with the House passed budget plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program.” The Senate voted overwhelmingly for it, 96-3.

Ryan’s budget as a whole fared a little better. Republicans really didn’t want to have to vote on it, but Patty Murray made them, by offering it as one of the first amendments. It failed, 40-59.

“There seemed to be some resistance among my Republican colleagues in bringing up the House Republican budget for a vote. And it’s pretty easy to see why that is. The House Republican approach has been thoroughly reviewed and just as thoroughly rejected by the American people.” — Patty Murray, twisting the knife last night.

Paul Ryan’s star is definitely fading. Last year, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) was hailed as the man with a plan to save America. Today, barely half of his own party thinks highly of him. According to a Rasmussen poll released Monday, Ryan’s approval rating has plummeted since the November election. In the poll, only 35 percent of likely voters said they had a favorable view of him, while a 54 percent majority said they viewed him unfavorably. That’s a stunning reversal from last August, when 50 percent of voters liked Ryan, versus 32 percent who did not.

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Also: The 39th time was not the charm on Obamacare repeal | Steve Benen on March 22, 2013: 

Remember when the 2012 presidential election ended the debate over repealing the Affordable Care Act? To a degree that is truly comical, congressional Republicans didn’t get the memo.

The Senate on Friday rejected another GOP attempt to repeal President Obama’s healthcare law. An amendment to the Senate budget resolution from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) failed on a 45-54 vote on Friday. Cruz’s amendment would have repealed the Affordable Care Act and encouraged patient-centered reforms to reduce costs.

Senate Republicans knew Cruz’s amendment was pointless, and knew it wouldn’t pass, but literally every GOP senator voted for it anyway — just because. [...]

To listen to Republican rhetoric on Capitol Hill is to hear a series of complaints about President Obama: he’s not being “serious” enough about getting things done… But it’s against this backdrop that Republicans vote, over and over again, to repeal a health care law they know won’t be repealed. They do so, in part because they have a radicalized base that expects near-constant pandering, in part because some of their leaders have broader ambitions and see these tactics as useful, and in part because these votes just seem to help Republicans feel better about themselves.

Michele Bachmann will be so upset. Literally! 

Some have the repeal count up to 54 times, with more attempts (yes, plural!) to be offered today.

On Obamacare’s Third Anniversary, Here Are Three Ways The Reform Law Has Helped Real Americans

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Also Rand Paul, the winner of CPAC, is sponsoring a far-right extremist  amendment to have the U.S. withdraw from the U.N.  Not only is that a terrible idea for several reasons (one being economically), but “a recent poll showed that eight in ten Americans believe that the U.S. needs to maintain a strong relationship with the United Nations.”

And get this: Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) “is planning on filing an amendment to the Senate budget resolution making it impossible for any gun control legislation to pass the Senate without a two-thirds majority—a standard currently reserved for the ratification of treaties. (That’s an even higher threshold than that imposed by filibusters, which can be broken with 60 votes.) ”[I]f the Lee amendment is passed, the practical effect will be that gun control can never again pass the Senate,” the far-right Second Amendment group Gun Owners of America boasted in an email to members on Friday. Lee’s amendment won’t pass. But the fact that Republicans would consider carving out an entirely new voting threshold just for gun control legislation tells you just how little ground they’re willing to concede, at least publicly, on this fight.”

More excitement (haha) at CSpan2!

Paul Ryan and the GOP have some good news and some bad news

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image recall-all-republicans

House GOP Approves Budget That Cuts Taxes For Millionaires, Slashes The Social Safety Net | Travis Waldron on Mar 21, 2013

The House of Representatives this afternoon approved the Republican budget plan authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) by a vote of 221-207, with 197 Democrats and 10 Republicans voting against it. Three Democrats and one Republican did not vote.

For the third consecutive year, the House GOP has approved a budget that ends the traditional guaranteed Medicare coverage for senior citizens, makes substantial cuts to poverty programs and the social safety net, and grants massive tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. Recent analyses have shown that the budget plan’s tax reforms, which lower top tax rates to 25 percent, would give millionaires at least $200,000 in tax cuts. At the same time, it would slash the social safety net, targeting poverty programs for two-thirds of its cuts.

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House approves far-right Ryan budget plan | Steve Benen on March 21, 2013 

Though there were whispers that GOP leaders had to worry about significant defections, only 10 House Republicans broke ranks and opposed Ryan’s budget — the exact same number of Republicans who voted against their party’s budget blueprint last year.

And what a plan it is. We’re talking about an ambitious plan to redistribute wealth — from the bottom up — with a healthy dose of “almost frighteningly ambitious” social engineering. Ryan’s budget would end Medicare, cut taxes by over $5 trillion, take health care benefits away from millions of Americans, make “massive” cuts to in programs for low-income and vulnerable Americans, and relies on smoke and mirrors to balance the budget within a decade.

It is, in other words, the exact opposite of what the American mainstream wants, and bears no resemblance to the platform the American electorate endorsed in national elections four months ago. It’s designed to satisfy folks who believe the wealthy are over-burdened by taxes and struggling families have too much access to affordable health care.

Despite all of this, 95% of House GOP lawmakers voted for the plan anyway.

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CHART: Paul Ryan’s Massive Tax Cut For Millionaires | Sahil Kapur March 15, 2013

Ryan’s plan also cuts spending by some $4.6 trillion over the next decade, targeting programs like Medicaid and the portion of the budget that includes Pell Grants and food stamps. He insists his tax cuts will spur significant economic growth, and he promises to pay for them by closing unspecified tax loopholes, deductions and credits — ideally on high incomes.

“You can actually plug loopholes and subject more of higher earners’ income to taxation through a lower tax rate,” Ryan said. “We think that’s smarter.” His promise mirrors that of Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential election. The problem, as numerous independent experts concluded, is that finding that much revenue in tax expenditures would require raising effective taxes on the middle class.

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Renewed hostage-taking | Pema Levy on March 21, 2013

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said Thursday that Republicans will require a dollar in spending cuts for every dollar that they agree to raise the debt ceiling, which the United States is expected to hit in August. “Dollar for dollar is the plan,” Boehner said at a press conference. As TPM reported Thursday, conservative House Republicans are pushing their leadership to use the debt ceiling as leverage to demand major reforms or cuts, including dollar for dollar cuts.

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Remember when John Boehner and other distinguished Republicans had great fun on Twitter using the hashtag #Obamaquester when discussing sequestration cuts? This week, Boehner admitted with his own damn mouth that President Obama “didn’t want the cuts.” Watch:

…

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More Republican good news / bad news: 

  • Bad: Mitt Romney / Paul Ryan didn’t win the election, and Republicans lost seats in Congress.
  • Good: So? Doesn’t matter, the GOP will continue ‘patriotically’ ignoring what the majority of Americans voted for.

Remember: either they’ve decided they know what’s best for all of us — or they’re going to try to get away with as much as they can until we stop them. 


image: odinsblog