Monday, July 13, 2015
Missourians, Lamenting Equality in America
Sadly, shamefully, really, Dent County, Missouri, Southeast of Fort Leonard Wood, is mixing their religion and opinions with government just now, it seems.
That these people would, as I said above, laament or protest further equality busting out in our country is not just sad but wrong and unjust. It's not completely surprising but it is unfortunate, certainly.
The American Economy: How We Got To Here
What Americans need to know about our nation and economy, from an economist.
Kansas Crazy
The story is 2 weeks old but still, it's so surprising, even disappointing, it's difficult to believe. What's not difficult to believe is that it's out of Kansas.
Kansas allows concealed guns in Statehouse without permit
Stunning. Some information:
Visitors to the Kansas Statehouse now can bring concealed guns into the historic building without a state permit.
The new law took effect July 1 and ended a requirement for residents 21 and older to obtain a state permit to carry a concealed firearm, The Wichita Eagle reported. The state last year began allowing people to carry concealed guns into the Statehouse if they had a permit.
The new law took effect July 1 and ended a requirement for residents 21 and older to obtain a state permit to carry a concealed firearm, The Wichita Eagle reported. The state last year began allowing people to carry concealed guns into the Statehouse if they had a permit.
Ending the permit requirement means people don’t have to undergo a background check or complete eight hours of firearms training to carry a concealed gun. Kansas is among a handful of states without such restrictions.
While dangerous, at least, they get credit for not being total hypocrties. They support guns everywhere. This will help give them just that.
Not hypocritical.
Just dangerous.
And stupid.
Sunday, July 12, 2015
Huge, Breaking National and International News
This came today, this afternoon, over at Daily Kos:
Report: Iran Nuclear Deal REACHED -
to be Announced Tomorrow
If the two unnamed envoys' accounts are accurate, it has been a historic couple of weeks for the Obama Administration, and, I daresay, for the entire planet Earth. w00t!
It's also reassuring to know that Israeli PM Netanyahu and his Goposaur pals in Congress will be powerless to thwart any agreement.
If true and if a good, strong, verifiable deal to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons, this is not just huge but great news for Iran, for the United States, for the entire Middle East and even, of course, the world. And yes, like it or not, it would be excellent, fantastic, even events for the Obama administration.
Now wait for every Republican in Congress want to shoot it down.
Saturday, July 11, 2015
The Insanity of Not Funding Our Highways and Infrastructure
Right now, neither our own Missouri state legislature nor our national, Federal, Congressional legislature are funding the maintenance, repair and improvements of our infrastructure--our highways, etc. This just broke in the last week:
No expansion projects for the next five years, says MoDOT
No Missouri Department of Transportation expansion projects, such as new lanes, interchanges or bridges, are planned over the next five years. That represents a first in the department’s history, the result of a bleak funding outlook.
The belt-tightening comes as MoDOT braces for lean years after the death of a gasoline tax hike in the Legislature and rejection by voters of a sales tax increase that would have provided about $5.4 billion over 10 years for roads and bridges as well as ports, railways and public transit.
The Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission this month approved MoDOT’s Statewide Transportation Improvement Program report, which covers plans for fiscal years 2016 to 2020.
Steve Miller, chairman of the commission, said in a post on MoDOT’s website Monday that the plan is a “glimpse to a future that no Missourian should want.”
He also said the first contract awards of the new fiscal year, which began this month, were the lowest in memory and bad for Missouri contractors, who are now seeking work in our neighboring states with brighter prospects.
But wait. It gets better. worse.
Some contractors already are leaving the road business to focus on railroad work, or leaving the state entirely, said Len Toenjes, president of the Associated General Contractors of Missouri.
“Our folks are at their wits’ end with what’s happening, or not happening, in Jefferson City and are going to work elsewhere,” he said.
Without any growth in state revenue, Missouri will not be able to match available federal transportation funds by fiscal year 2017. Missouri can match $1 of state funds with $4 of federal funds.
“Our folks are at their wits’ end with what’s happening, or not happening, in Jefferson City and are going to work elsewhere,” he said.
Without any growth in state revenue, Missouri will not be able to match available federal transportation funds by fiscal year 2017. Missouri can match $1 of state funds with $4 of federal funds.
Then it gets downright stupid:
MoDOT has reduced its workforce by 20 percent, disposed of more than 750 pieces of equipment and sold 124 facilities since 2011 for savings of more than $605 million, the department said.
MoDOT estimates that $885 million of federal reimbursements in fiscal year 2016 will drop to $491 million in fiscal year 2020 due to declining construction because of “insufficient state revenues.”
By 2018, the state could lose $400 million in federal funds, even though Missourians will still be paying federal gasoline taxes that won’t fund Missouri projects.
We're turning away money. We're turning away, then, Federal dollars because we don't keep up our end of the investment bargain. And at the same time, we're paying into the "Federal pot" but not able to take what we should back out of it.
To whom but Right Wing, "Conservative" Republicans does this make sense?
And this is just on the state level. For anyone following highway funding on the Federal level, in Washington, we know there, too, the Right Wing Republicans, just like our Missouri representatives, are blocking any increase in this funding. It's ridiculous. And this on top of the fact that gasoline costs are at their lowest in years. This should make their job of raising these funds, the gas tax, all the easier. But then, these are Republicans.
They haven't raised the gas tax in years--since 1992--we drive less, as a nation, than we used so that also shrinks the fund and we need more and more repair and updates to our highways and infrastructure. It's insane. It's certainly fiscally irresponsible.
Think about this, too.
If Congress, in Washington, were to pass a good, reasonable gas tax, as they ought, so we can get money to and in the Highway Fund and then were to pass a good, true, workable, comprehensive jobs/infrastructure bill---translated: DO THEIR JOBS---we could give more Americans jobs and get more Americans to work, improve our infrastructure and boost the economy, all three. Three total, huge wins. For anyone and anywhere else, this would be a no-brainer. But then we're dealing with Right Wingers. And Republicans. And people who don't want this president to be successful.
So screw you, America. You have to wait.
You have to wait until there's a Republican back in the White House.
If even then.
God forbid.
Falling apart: America's neglected infrastructure - CBS News
Why Congress Can't Solve America's Infrastructure Crisis
The Race to Rebuild America's Infrastructure
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Two Huge Sources and Reasons for Hope
I saw two media releases yesterday that gave me hope for the future of electricity and reducing pollution and carbon emissions. And then there's the hope for humankind.
First this from Bill McKibben and his 350.org group and The New Yorker:
Power to the People
Why the rise of green energy makes utility companies nervous.A little bit from the article.
Mark and Sara Borkowski live with their two young daughters in a century-old, fifteen-hundred-square-foot house in Rutland, Vermont. Mark drives a school bus, and Sara works as a special-ed teacher; the cost of heating and cooling their house through the year consumes a large fraction of their combined income. Last summer, however, persuaded by Green Mountain Power, the main electric utility in Vermont, the Borkowskis decided to give their home an energy makeover. In the course of several days, coördinated teams of contractors stuffed the house with new insulation, put in a heat pump for the hot water, and installed two air-source heat pumps to warm the home. They also switched all the light bulbs to L.E.D.s and put a small solar array on the slate roof of the garage.
The Borkowskis paid for the improvements, but the utility financed the charges through their electric bill, which fell the very first month. Before the makeover, from October of 2013 to January of 2014, the Borkowskis used thirty-four hundred and eleven kilowatt-hours of electricity and three hundred and twenty-five gallons of fuel oil. From October of 2014 to January of 2015, they used twenty-eight hundred and fifty-six kilowatt-hours of electricity and no oil at all. President Obama has announced that by 2025 he wants the United States to reduce its total carbon footprint by up to twenty-eight per cent of 2005 levels. The Borkowskis reduced the footprint of their house by eighty-eight per cent in a matter of days, and at no net cost.
I’ve travelled the world writing about and organizing against climate change, but, standing in the Borkowskis’ kitchen and looking at their electric bill, I felt a fairly rare emotion: hope. The numbers reveal a sudden new truth—that innovative, energy-saving and energy-producing technology is now cheap enough for everyday use. The Borkowskis’ house is not an Aspen earth shelter made of adobe and old tires, built by a former software executive who converted to planetary consciousness at Burning Man. It’s an utterly plain house, with Frozen bedspreads and One Direction posters, inhabited by a working-class family of four, two rabbits, and a parakeet named Oliver. It sits in a less than picturesque neighborhood, in a town made famous in recent years for its heroin problem. Its significance lies in its ordinariness. The federal Energy Secretary, Ernest Moniz, has visited, along with the entire Vermont congressional delegation. If you can make a house like this affordably green, you should be able to do it anywhere.
I’ve travelled the world writing about and organizing against climate change, but, standing in the Borkowskis’ kitchen and looking at their electric bill, I felt a fairly rare emotion: hope. The numbers reveal a sudden new truth—that innovative, energy-saving and energy-producing technology is now cheap enough for everyday use. The Borkowskis’ house is not an Aspen earth shelter made of adobe and old tires, built by a former software executive who converted to planetary consciousness at Burning Man. It’s an utterly plain house, with Frozen bedspreads and One Direction posters, inhabited by a working-class family of four, two rabbits, and a parakeet named Oliver. It sits in a less than picturesque neighborhood, in a town made famous in recent years for its heroin problem. Its significance lies in its ordinariness. The federal Energy Secretary, Ernest Moniz, has visited, along with the entire Vermont congressional delegation. If you can make a house like this affordably green, you should be able to do it anywhere.
Oh, yeah.
Hope.
Secondly, this. I wrote about this a year or two ago, the hope it can and would and should mean for us. This is from Bloomberg Business News.
Invisible Solar Cells That Could Power
Skyscrapers
Can you imagine skyscrapers, creating their own energy, their own electricity?
Can you imagine how the owners and/or developers of these things would virtually line up to have their huge, towering buildings create their own electricity?
The saved, unused, uncovered Earth since we wouldn't need as many "solar farms," covered in panels?
Can you imagine the savings?
Can you imagine the reduced pollution and carbon emissions?
Then imagine lowered--possibly drastically lowered--energy bills?
One day, getting away from hydroelectric dams, jamming up our rivers?
Imagine.
Monday, July 6, 2015
Sunday, July 5, 2015
Congratulations, Kansas City
Yes sir, congratulations, Kansas City. You hit the news. Heck, you even hit international news. Just for all the wrong reasons. This, from the UK:
Black teen in critical condition after store employee 'shoots him for stealing 79-cent pack of cookies'
A teenager, first. And yes, black. And shot and in critical condition for 79 cents of cookies. And in the middle of the day, no less.
Really?
Kansas City? America?
Aren't we better than this?
Can't we be?
Quote of the Day -- Sunday Edition
“It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising the sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin. Let us, then, look to the great cause, and endeavor to preserve it in full force.
Let us by all wise and constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means of preserving our liberties.”
~Founding Father James Monroe, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1817
~Founding Father James Monroe, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1817
Saturday, July 4, 2015
Friday, July 3, 2015
Why We Need To Cut the Defense Budget
The fact is, our Defense Department budget is not just large but huge. It's bloated, truth be told. It's famously beyond what any other one nation spends, many times over, it's wasteful, it's actually unaccounted for and downright immoral. It ends up actually weakening us. Professor Reich, once again, educates us Americans.
The Left and Right, Both, Can Get on this Bandwagon (Guest Post)
I saw this yesterday on Facebook on economist, writer, professor Robert Reich's page:
The heads of government-controlled housing finance agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will each get whopping raises -- from $600,000 this year to $4 million next. Congress set up Fannie and Freddie so Americans could get mortgages more cheaply. In the financial crisis the agencies were bailed out with nearly $190 billion of taxpayer dollars, and taxpayers are still backstopping them. They’re overseen by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, whose director, Mel Watt, just approved the pay raises.
Watt says the $4 million pay packages are necessary to keep the two heads, Timothy Mayopoulos and Don Layton, from bolting for the private sector (Mayopoulos has been complaining about his salary). Baloney. The President of the United States will get $400,000 this year; the Vice President, $233,000; Senators, $193,400; the Chief Justice of the United States, $258,100; Associate Justices, $246,800; cabinet secretaries, $199,700. We don’t pay any of them $4 million to keep them doing their jobs.
Mayopoulos (below, left) joined Fannie in 2009 as general counsel after being fired by Bank of America. When Layton joined Freddie in 2012 after retiring from J.P. Morgan, he called it “a great opportunity to participate in public service.” Which is precisely the point. If they’re public servants, they shouldn’t be paid a penny more than cabinet secretaries. If they’re not public servants, and if Fannie and Freddie are just like any private-sector mortgage lenders, these two agencies should be abolished.
What We Must Do
What we must do to get our government back for the people. A few people know this like Lawrence Lessig and Robert Reich and Bernie Sanders.
Link: Get the Big, Ugly Money Out of Our Election System and Government
Thursday, July 2, 2015
Obama's Coming to Take Our Guns!
From Phoenix this week:
2008: Obama's coming to take our guns!
2009: Obama's coming to take our guns!
2010: Obama's coming to take our guns!
2011: Obama's coming to take our guns!
2012: Obama's coming to take our guns!
2013: Obama's coming to take our guns!
2014: Obama's coming to take our guns!
2015: Obama's coming to take our guns!
It got tiresome the second year they said it.
We knew it was stupid the first year, the first time they said it. The second year, it was already old.
The One Presidential Candidate Asking the One Big Question
Vermont Senator and 2016 Democratic Party Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders asks an important, timely question.
It's a question that needs answering, frankly, and that no other candidate is asking or seeking the answers to.
Just Before We Celebrate Our Own Independence Day
On this day in American history:
The city of East St. Louis, Illinois was the scene of one of the bloodiest race riots in the 20th century. Racial tensions began to increase in February, 1917 when 470 African American workers were hired to replace white workers who had gone on strike against the Aluminum Ore Company.
The violence started on May 28th, 1917, shortly after a city council meeting was called. Angry white workers lodged formal complaints against black migrations to the Mayor of East St. Louis. After the meeting had ended, news of an attempted robbery of a white man by an armed black man began to circulate through the city. As a result of this news, white mobs formed and rampaged through downtown, beating all African Americans who were found. The mobs also stopped trolleys and streetcars, pulling black passengers out and beating them on the streets and sidewalks. Illinois Governor Frank O. Lowden eventually called in the National Guard to quell the violence, and the mobs slowly dispersed. The May 28th disturbances were only a prelude to the violence that erupted on July 2, 1917.
After the May 28th riots, little was done to prevent any further problems. No precautions were taken to ensure white job security or to grant union recognition. This further increased the already-high level of hostilities towards African Americans. No reforms were made in police force which did little to quell the violence in May. Governor Lowden ordered the National Guard out of the city on June 10th, leaving residents of East St. Louis in an uneasy state of high racial tension.
On July 2, 1917, the violence resumed. Men, women, and children were beaten and shot to death. Around six o’ clock that evening, white mobs began to set fire to the homes of black residents. Residents had to choose between burning alive in their homes, or run out of the burning houses, only to be met by gunfire. In other parts of the city, white mobs began to lynch African Americans against the backdrop of burning buildings. As darkness came and the National Guard returned, the violence began to wane, but did not come to a complete stop.
In response to the rioting, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) sent W.E.B. DuBois and Martha Gruening to investigate the incident. They compiled a report entitled “Massacre at East St. Louis,” which was published in the NAACP’s magazine, The Crisis. The NAACP also staged a silent protest march in New York City in response to the violence. Thousands of well-dressed African Americans marched down Fifth Avenue, showing their concern about the events in East St. Louis.
The Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) also responded to the violence. On July 8th, 1917, the UNIA’s President, Marcus Garvey said “This is a crime against the laws of humanity; it is a crime against the laws of the nation, it is a crime against Nature, and a crime against the God of all mankind.” He also believed that the entire riot was part of a larger conspiracy against African Americans who migrated North in search of a better life: “The whole thing, my friends, is a bloody farce, and that the police and soldiers did nothing to stem the murder thirst of the mob is a conspiracy on the part of the civil authorities to condone the acts of the white mob against Negroes.”
A year after the riot, a Special Committee formed by the United States House of Representatives launched an investigation into police actions during the East St. Louis Riot. Investigators found that the National Guard and also the East St. Louis police force had not acted adequately during the riots, revealing that the police often fled from the scenes of murder and arson. Some even fled from stationhouses and refused to answer calls for help. The investigation resulted in the indictment of several members of the East St. Louis police force.
Sources:
Allen D. Grimshaw, “Actions of Police and the Military in American Race Riots,” Phylon 24:3 (3rd Qtr, 1963); Robert A. Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, Vol. I, (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983); Elliot M. Rudwick, Race Riot at East St. Louis: July 2, 1917 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1964).
Allen D. Grimshaw, “Actions of Police and the Military in American Race Riots,” Phylon 24:3 (3rd Qtr, 1963); Robert A. Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, Vol. I, (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983); Elliot M. Rudwick, Race Riot at East St. Louis: July 2, 1917 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1964).
Entertainment Overnight -- Walk On By
Foolish pride
Is all that I have left
Walk on by (don't stop)
Walk on
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
Quote of the Day
From Humans of New York
"I've been a deep believer my whole life.
18 years as a Southern Baptist.
More than 40 years as a mainline Protestant. I'm an ordained pastor.
But it's just stopped making sense to me. You see people doing terrible things in the name of religion, and you think: 'Those people believe just as strongly as I do. They're just as convinced as I am.' And it just doesn't make sense anymore.
It doesn't make sense to believe in a God that dabbles in people's lives.
If a plane crashes, and one person survives, everyone thanks God. They say: 'God had a purpose for that person. God saved her for a reason!' Do we not realize how cruel that is? Do we not realize how cruel it is to say that if God had a purpose for that person, he also had a purpose in killing everyone else on that plane? And a purpose in starving millions of children?
A purpose in slavery and genocide?
For every time you say that there's a purpose behind one person's success, you invalidate billions of people. You say there is a purpose to their suffering. And that's just cruel."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
