Two really stupid things Missouri state legislators did this week

It seems as though the dumb out of the Kansas and Missouri statehouses is in competition, trying to see who can do more--and worse.

Sure, Kansas seems to keep winning but not for Missourians in Jefferson City from trying.

Check out these two little beauties this week:

First, the Republicans down there killed the expansion of Medicare in the state which, by itself is pretty monumentally stupid.

Besides helping take care of Missourians in our really broken and obscenely expensive health care system, it would have a) taken back millions of dollars in federal tax money they're willing to throw at us and b), also fantastic, it would have--drumroll, please--CREATED JOBS for and in the state.

Minority Floor Leader Jolie Justus seemed to say it best, for me, anyway, on this issue:

"It seems to me that it’s pretty simple," Justus said. "Say ‘yes,’ create the jobs, expand the health care, take the money, the money that we’ve already sent to Washington DC in the form of our taxpayer dollars.”

Then, second, with this same nutjob budget from down there in the middle of the state, check this out:

The full Senate also voted to de-fund the Department of Revenue's Division of Motor Vehicles and Driver’s Licensing. 

As Liz Lemon (actress Tina Fey) would say, "What the what?!"

Here's their reason/excuse for it:

It’s been embroiled in controversy over the scanning of source documents for driver’s license and conceal carry weapons applicants, and for compiling a list of all of Missouri’s CCW holders and giving it to a federal investigator. State Senator Kurt Schaefer (R, Columbia) says Missouri’s "DMV" will remain unfunded until the Nixon Administration begins to truly cooperate with his Appropriations Committee investigation.

“We’re not gonna be held hostage by an out-of-control (state) agency whose gonna say, ‘either you give us the money for whatever we want it for, we’re not gonna tell you what we’re using it for, or we’re gonna take it out of Missouri citizens who buy new vehicles or need a driver’s license,’" Schaefer told reporters. "We’re simply not going to do that.”

And what happens now, you ask?

All 13 budget bills now go back to the Missouri House, which will likely reject most of the Senate’s changes and set up final negotiations between both chambers. Lawmakers have until May 10th to send the budget to Governor Jay Nixon (D).

Other than the time the Republicans down there did away with campaign contribution limits, it just doesn't get much dumber.

Link to original story: http://www.kcur.org/post/missouri-senate-passes-budget-de-funds-dmv

While Kansas cuts higher education funds

This, from NBC News last evening at the same time the Kansas Legislature is cutting $29 million dollars more from the higher education budget:

Broke and ashamed: Many won't take handouts despite need

On college campuses, many students striving to make the grade don’t have enough food to eat. Trying to tackle this challenge, colleges are now bringing food pantries onto campuses, hoping to help students through these tough times.

Across the U.S., safety-net programs aimed at reaching the nearly 1 in 7 Americans living in poverty struggle to reach those in need. Food stamp enrollment climbed to record levels following the recent recession, with nearly 48 million participants in December 2012.

Other states are trying to help their students in college.

Not Kansas:

House Speaker Merrick OK with 4 percent cut to higher

education

Entitlements???

Entitlements?

Social Security?

I don't think so.

Could we have a new, far more accurate term for this?

Please?

A roundup of two definitions of the term entitlement. First from Wikipedia, there's this:

An entitlement is a guarantee of access to benefits based on established rights or by legislation. A "right" is itself an entitlement associated with a moral or social principle, such that an "entitlement" is a provision made in accordance with legal framework of a society. Typically, entitlements are laws based on concepts of principle ("rights") which are themselves based in concepts of social equality or enfranchisement.

In a casual sense, the term "entitlement" refers to a notion or belief that one (or oneself) is deserving of some particular reward or benefit^[1]—if given without deeper legal or principled cause, the term is often given with pejorative connotation (e.g. a "sense of entitlement").

Next is this, from Merriam-Webster Online:

1 a : the state or condition of being entitled : right

 b : a right to benefits specified especially by law or contract

2 : a government program providing benefits to members of a specified group; also : funds supporting or distributed by such a program

3 : belief that one is deserving of or entitled to certain privileges
 

I think we all agree on the use and usage of the original term "entitlement" and entitlements, certainly.

What I don't think we believe is that Social Security, especially, since we've paid into it our entire working lives, most of us, is an entitlement.  Not only is Social Security not an entitlement, we don't feel "entitled" to them, not at all. We expect them, yes, precisely because we did pay into them, we sacrificed for them, paycheck by paycheck but we don't "feel entitled" to them in the same way as this sounds or as is the common use of the term.

A solution shouldn't be that difficult.
 

Now, comes Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, today, speaking on the Right Wing's and Republican's desire to do away with the Voting Rights Act of 1964:
 

Scalia: renewing Voting Rights Act a 'perpetuation of racial entitlement'

To which I can only respond to Justice Scalia by saying that yes, all the races in the nation do, in fact, expect and feel entitled to fairness and being able to vote and not racism, yes, all kinds of things.

Sheesh

Difficult we have to say these things, isn't it?

Especially to someone on the highest judicial court in the nation.

Quote of the day

“The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury.” So declared John Maynard Keynes in 1937, even as F.D.R. was about to prove him right by trying to balance the budget too soon, sending the United States economy — which had been steadily recovering up to that point — into a severe recession. Slashing government spending in a depressed economy depresses the economy further; austerity should wait until a strong recovery is well under way. Unfortunately, in late 2010 and early 2011, politicians and policy makers in much of the Western world believed that they knew better, that we should focus on deficits, not jobs, even though our economies had barely begun to recover from the slump that followed the financial crisis. And by acting on that anti-Keynesian belief, they ended up proving Keynes right all over again. --Paul Krugman, economist, columnist and writer for The New York Times. Link to original post here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/30/opinion/keynes-was-right.html?_r=1

One more insanity of our federal budget

News out yesterday: NOAA Chief: 2011 Weather Was "Harbinger of Things to Come" Pressure to reduce government spending is intensifying, whereas demand for services provided by agencies such as NOAA is at an all-time high. SAN FRANCISCO -- The United States was battered this year by at least 12 natural disasters that each caused at least $1 billion in damages, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said yesterday. The agency said it was adding a June tornado outbreak in the Midwest and Southeast and record-setting wildfires in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico to a list that also includes flooding along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, drought in the Southern Plains and southwestern United States, five previous tornado outbreaks in Southern and central states, and a blizzard. That count could still rise, because NOAA is still tallying damages from Tropical Storm Lee and a late October snowstorm in the Northeast. But this year was not an aberration, NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said during a speech here yesterday. "Budgets and politics threaten our observations, our research, our modeling and our delivery of information and other services," Lubchenco added. "The unfortunate thing is that with more and more extreme events, we are being requested with increasing frequency by emergency managers, by citizens, by the business community, by farmers ... for more information on climate-scale events, which we define as anything beyond 14 days," Lubchenco said. "We will not be able to do it as efficiently or effectively as we would like to because we were not able to reorganize." MR: We could and should take it from the defense budget. But we won't. Link: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=noaa-chief-2011-was-harbi

Republicans and the destruction of Social Security

"If you think Paul Ryan and his Ayn Rand-worshipping colleagues aren't after your Social Security and Medicare, I am here to disabuse you of your naiveté. They will move heaven and earth to force through tax cuts that will so starve the government of revenue that they will be "forced" to make "hard choices" - and that doesn't mean repealing those very same tax cuts, it means cutting the benefits for which you worked." --Mike Lofgren, retired June 17 after 28 years as a Congressional staffer. He served 16 years as a professional staff member on the Republican side of both the House and Senate Budget Committees. Link to original post: http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779

What we want. What we need

We need government for the people, not for corporations.

Quote of the day

"“If you can look at a crime where everything points to one answer and not see it, you’re a dumbass. And if you can look at the deficit and not see that the problem is that the rich stopped paying taxes, you’re a Republican.” --Bill Maher, Real Time with Bill Maher, HBO

Governor Brownback gets spanked--and other notes from a Sunday paper

Yes, you read correctly--Governor Sam Brownback got spanked--figuratively, anyway--in print today in the Star on the op/ed page and by a "girl". By "girl" I mean by one Prairie Village local and international opera star--yes, really--Joyce DiDonato. It's a great article, too. As you can imagine, Ms. DiDonato doesn't think Kansas being the only state in the Union with no Arts Commission was or is a good idea and she rather lets Mr. "Right-wing/slash the budget 'cuz I'm running for the presidency" Brownback have it. Good on her. You can read it here: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/06/18/2959552/a-future-without-limits-begins.html#storylink=misearch Second note: It's sad to see all the Bishop Finn apologists/sycophants/enablers on the front page of the Star today. It's sad that there are any at all. Fortunately, there were only approximately 75 by the Star's estimate, though the picture showed far fewer than that number. Finally here today, the Department of Defense reported that 17 more American Soldiers died in our Iraq and Afghanistan wars this week, covering what was also in the Star a few days ago, that one local man, Jeremy Katzenberger of Weatherby Lake was also killed: A 26-year-old Northland soldier died Tuesday in combat in Afghanistan, leaving behind a wife and a young son. Staff Sgt. Jeremy Andrew Katzenberger of Weatherby Lake was an Army Ranger and a graduate of Park Hill High School. “Staff Sgt. Katzenberger was a phenomenal Ranger who died while leading his men in an assault against our enemies,” said Col. Michael Foster, a commander in Katzenberger’s 75th Ranger Regiment, in a release. “He died while protecting our nation and we will not forget his sacrifice.” Weatherby Lake Mayor Jerry Bos said he ordered the town’s flags to half-staff as locals mourned the death. “Everybody’s just kind of in shock,” Bos said. Katzenberger leaves behind a wife, Colleen A. (Montgomery) Katzenberger, and a 7-month-old son, Everett James, of Richmond Hill, Ga.; parents Robert and Peggy Katzenberger of Weatherby Lake; and three brothers, two of whom are also serving in the armed forces. Also killed was Pfc. Matthew J. England, 22, of Gainesville, Mo.who died June 8 in An Najaf province, Iraq when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, Fort Hood, Texas. Additonally, it was reported out of Topeka that "A sixth Fort Riley soldier has died as a result of a June 6 incident in Iraq, making it the single deadliest attack on a unit from the post since the war started more than eight years ago." "The Department of Defense said Saturday that Spc. Marcos A. Cintron, 32, of Orlando, Fla., died Thursday in a hospital in Boston where the 1st Infantry Division soldier was being treated for his wounds." In the meantime, it was reported earlier this week that we've lost a total of 4,460 American Soldiers in Iraq since the beginning of that war. (See link below). I ask again, when will we ever learn? Links: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/06/16/2955672/northland-soldier-jeremy-katzenberger.html#storylink=misearch http://www.kansascity.com/2011/06/14/2949472/us-military-deaths-in-iraq-war.html#storylink=misearch http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/CASUALTY/castop.htm

Gov. Brownback, Kansas and the Arts Commission

The budget for the Arts Commission in Kansas was $500,000 or so. 

There are 2,853,116 people in the state. 

This comes out to about 17 and a half cents per person per year for every Kansan for the arts.

But Brownback had to slash it. So he can run for president, later. He's showing he's tough, now. On the backs of Kansans. 

Hope it works for y'all.

(Thanks to Thomas Gieseke from Facebook for parts of the above).

Have a great weekend, y'all.

Race to the bottom?

A big story out today in politics is that the Republicans are going to introduce their budget plan tomorrow for 2012 and it's all about cuts--cutting spending.

GOP 2012 budget to make $4 trillion-plus in cuts

By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press

WASHINGTON – A Republican plan for the 2012 budget would cut more than $4 trillion over the next decade, more than even the president's debt commission proposed, with spending caps as well as changes in the Medicare and Medicaid health programs, its principal author said Sunday.

The spending blueprint from Rep. Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, is to be released Tuesday. It deals with the budget year that begins Oct. 1, not the current one that is the subject of negotiations aimed at preventing a partial government shutdown on Friday.

To an extent, good for them.

We do spend far too much as a country and as we all know and this is no way to remain solvent.

However... that said, slashing funding for the poor and schools and the middle class, etc., is grossly unfair and even unnecessary, particularly when they can and should cut corporate welfare and defense spending, instead.  There's so much waste in the Department of Defense and at the Pentagon, they can't even keep track of what they throw away---literally.

The next development, then, is for the Democrats and what they might propose.

Hopefully they can make intelligent, alternate proposals that are good for the working-, middle- and lower classes and we can stop gorging the fat cats of the upper 1% and corporations.  The Democrats need to come up with good, original ideas and then stick with them.

I don't expect it but I have hope.

Link:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110403/ap_on_re_us/us_gop2012_budget

On the House and NPR funding

Update:

Predictably, we lost this one in the House:  http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/03/us-house-votes-to-cut-npr-funding.html

"Under the guise of saving taxpayer dollars what they're doing is silencing NPR -- not because it saves money, but because it is not on the same ideological frequency of the extreme right," said Rep. John Larson, D-Conn.

Fortunately:  The legislation passed Thursday faces an uphill climb in the Senate, where the Democratic majority is likely to oppose it.

Link:  http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/03/us-house-votes-to-cut-npr-funding.html

Quote of the day--you want to balance the budget on who??

"They got more millionaires in New Jersey than they do teachers, but we got to have the teachers pay for everything."  --Ed Schultz, The Ed Schultz Show, MSNBC


Links:  http://www.alternet.org/news/150115/why_don't_teachers_get_the_respect_they_deserve_republicans_would_rather_destroy_schools_than_raise_taxes_on_millionaires/
www.bigeddieradio.com

The Wealthy, The Republicans and Power in America

Besides the power play that's being fought in Wisconsin right now that I posted on earlier, the other power play that's also being fought right now in Washington and across the country, is the Republican leaders' attempts to take all money away from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and so, NPR (formerly National Public Radio) and PBS (formerly the Public Broadcasting System).

And the reasoning and examples proving it are easy and obvious.

One of the most obvious "burrs" in the side of Corporate America and so, their underlings, the Republican leadership, used to be Bill Moyers, his writing and his TV shows, specifically "Bill Moyers Journal" that used to run on PBS.

That program routinely exposed both Corporate America's worst transgressions, but also government's, so the American people knew what we were up against and possibly, likely what we had to work for and be aware of.

Friday evening, I saw another PBS program, this one ProPublica's Abraham Lustgarden on Congress's Fracking Report.

First, a quick definition:  Fracking is an abbreviation for hydraulic fracturing, which energy companies have created and use for getting more oil and gas out of the ground.  It "is a process that results in the creation of fractures in rocks. The most important industrial use is in stimulating oil and gas wells, where hydraulic fracturing has been used for over 60 years in more than one million wells.  The fracturing is done from a wellbore drilled into reservoir rock formations to increase the rate and ultimate recovery of oil and natural gas."

The fracturing forces water and chemicals into the ground, in order to force out the oil or gas. 

The problem lies in that there are chemicals used in the process and a) they seem to be making large groups of us Americans sick who live within proximity of these wells and b) the corporations won't disclose what these chemicals are to the government and the American people.  They've already bought off enough government legislators, so far, so they don't have to report what's in the process.  In the meantime, as I said, it seems to be making whole groups of Americans sick.

So you see, it is this kind of reporting, given to us by and through PBS, that, as but one easy, current example, the oil industry, with all their millions of dollars, don't want the people of America to be aware of.  You can see how and why it would be in the energy companies' interests to then give campaign contribution money---read:  bribes---to their Congressmen to shut off the spigot of information that comes to us via the CPB. 

It's also why these same energy companies pay for advertising like I've seen recently, telling us how safe and wonderful this fracking is, so we can get energy from here in the US.  Naturally, in the ads, they don't call it fracking.  They use much gentler, far more acceptable terms.

But back to my point.

First, I believe, it was Bill Moyers and his show "Bill Moyers' Journal" that no doubt rankled Corporate America. 

Now it is the PBS show "Need to Know" which replaced Mr. Moyers.

With knowledge for the American people, too frequently comes action, particularly in really egregious cases of misplacement of trust or misuse of power and/ or money and the CPB, PBS and NPR are, at times, good sources of information for us, the American people.

Corporate America wants nothing of that, clearly.

And Corporate America will do all they can to see to it that is shut down, if possible. 

Fortunately for them but unfortunately for us, it is far too easy--and cheap--to do since all they have to do is give campaign contributions (read, again:  bribes)  to their government representatives.  Then they get whatever legislation they, the corporations, want.  We see it time and again.

It got so bad here in Missouri, on a more local level, that the Republican leaders did away with ALL campaign contribution limits, of course.  It's open season on legislators and legislation for them now, until we get that changed back. 

And the only way that will change, either in Jefferson City for our local politics or Washington, D.C. and the national level, is for the American people to demand the changes, unequivocally.

We have to care.  And work on it.

I say again:  We need true, stringent, tough and verifiable campaign finance reform in this country.  It's way overdue.

We also need legally-required campaign seasons that are only 3 to 6 months long, at most, like the British require, so we can, again, get the big money out of our campaigns.

It's in these ways we can be more sure of getting our government back working for us, the American people, instead of virtually exclusively for the wealthy and Corporate America.

Links:  http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/video/video-propublicas-abrahm-lustgarten-on-congresss-fracking-report/7501/
http://www.propublica.org/article/questions-for-congress-and-hollywood-about-fracking
http://www.propublica.org/series/buried-secrets-gas-drillings-environmental-threat
http://www.propublica.org/article/drilling-industry-says-diesel-use-was-legal
http://www.propublica.org/article/opponents-to-fracking-disclosure-take-big-money-from-industry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/index-flash.html
http://www.npr.org/

Whither, Republicans and Tea Party politicians?

Driving around yesterday, for work, naturally I had NPR on the radio and it was virtually entirely coverage of the previous night's election, again, naturally.

I'm on overload, I think.  It doesn't take long to get there.

Repeatedly, though, I heard that John Boehner and his Republicans in the House want to cut federal spending in order to create jobs.

And I'm all "You gotta' be kidding."

How does that work?

What economist ever told anyone, let alone them, that that could or would work?

Where are they going to cut spending?

You know they won't touch one of the biggest fatcats in the budget--the one that needs to be cut--and that is Defense Spending.

They aren't going to get us out of Iraq or Afghanistan or Japan or Italy (why are we still in Italy?) or Germany or anywhere else.

And sure, it was just announced that we're about to spend over one-half trillion dollars (511 billion dollars, to be specific) to expand the Kabul, Afghanistan embassy but they won't suggest cutting that, we know that.

So forget all that, right off.

Let's try to think the way they do, difficult and/or painful as that might be.  What would they want to cut?

And of course the answer comes up right away! 

SOCIAL PROGRAMS!!   Of course!!

Cut welfare!  Cut Social Security!  Cut anything "soft-headed" that those pesky Liberals and "Lefties" might like, want, value or trust!  Sure!  That makes sense!

But since when would cutting ANY of those things lead to more work and jobs elsewhere?

I thought if you maybe tried to fix our infrastructure (highways, bridges, sewers, etc.), that that might create jobs. 

And, of course, that's what the last Congress and this president were trying to do.

But no, cut government!  Cut government spending!

Tell me, anyone, what do you cut in this government's budget to create jobs?

I just don't see it.

These people know we're in a deep recession, right? 

You think they read the papers?

Link:  http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/03-5

A $60,000 celebration?

Don't look now but the Jackson County legislature wants to throw a $60,000 birthday party celebration

Yeah.

But it's for Martin Luther King, Jr.

There's a good idea. Not.

It seems former rocket scientist and current Jackson County Legislator James Tindall came up with this beaut.

And get this--he wants to take these funds from "the county's health and anti-drug funds."

Fellow Legislator Bob Spence said it best when he "wondered what Dr. King would think" of such a transfer.

Fortunately, "Teresa Garza Ruiz added that such spending was difficult to justify given county layoffs and other cuts."

Thank you, Ms. Ruiz.

Not to be outdone, Tindall was defended by Henry Rizzo and Dennis Waits. Mr. Rizzo called it "promoting diversity" and called it an important "'watermark' for any community that seeks success."

And that would be how? By throwing a birthday party for a the Rev. King?

Look, someone run down there and tell these clowns that you can't throw an expensive birthday party if you're broke.

Apparently their houses don't run like yours and mine.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/story/1625824.html