July 21: Global Warming - What every person needs to know

In the second hour, Charles Rice, distinguished K-State Professor of Soil Microbiology and President, Soil Science Society of America, joins us for a discussion of what science knows about global climate change - and it isn’t what the corporate media is saying! Contrary to what the US media and the New York Times in particular has been saying, there is not disagreement in the scientific community on this topic. Global warming is happening and it could drastically alter life as we know it. Rice also gives a report on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) meeting preparing for the 5th Assessment Report which took place this past week in South Korea.

Additional Links/Resources:

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Help Fight Climate Change - The Nature Conservancy

The Basics of Global Warming - Environmental Defense Fund

Climate Change - the Environmental Protection Agency

What is Global Warming - The National Geographic Society

Global Warming - National Resources Defense Council

The Heat Is On: The Climate Crisis, The Cover-up, The Prescription, by Ross Gelbspan

The Heat is On website.

Merchants of Doubt

Naomi Oreskes is one of the world's leading historians of science. Her research focuses on consensus and dissent in science. Her 2004 essay The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change was cited in the documentary An Inconvenient Truth and led to op-ed pieces in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.

In Merchants of Doubt, Oreskes discusses how science can be misconstrued to create doubt. Her research highlights the disconnect between the state of scientific debate and the way it is presented in the mass media and perceived by the public. Specifically, Oreskes looks at public beliefs -- or disbelief -- about climate change.

Dr. Oreskes’ visit to Kansas is a jointly sponsored effort made possible by the interinstitutional collaboration of Kansas State University, University of Kansas, and Fort Hays State University.

MP3 File

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

What does the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act do for you? Judith Baker, Regional Director for the Region 7 Office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, outlines some answers in our first hour this week. Baker will cover questions asked at the July 26th public forum sponsored by the Manhattan Alliance for Peace and Justice as well as cover new information about the changes to the U.S. health care system that took place on September 23rd.

MP3 File

75 Years Later the Battle for Social Secuirty Continues

Social Security turned 75 in August. Since 1935, Social Security has touched the lives of almost every American and provided an economic lifeline for millions of people. To read stories about how Social Security has directly impacted the lives of Americans, visit: http://www.ssa.gov/75thanniversary/readstories/1.html.

Community Bridge celebrates this important milestone this week with Nancy Altman, author of The Battle for Social Security and Chair of the Board of Directors at the Pension Rights Center and Co-director, Social Security Works in a though provoking discussion of the program and dismantling some of the myths spread by opponents of Social Security.

MP3 File

Clippings for 15 August 2010

Forget A Double Dip, We're Still In One Long Fall
Robert Reich writes for Business Insider: "It’s nonsense to think of the economy heading downward again into a double dip when most Americans never emerged from the first dip. We’re still in one long Big Dipper. More people are out of work today than they were last year, counting everyone too discouraged even to look for work. The number of workers filing new claims for jobless benefits rose last week to highest level since February. Not counting temporary census workers, a total of only 12,000 net new private and public jobs were created in July — when 125,000 are needed each month just to keep up with growth in the population of people who want and need to work."

Are You Ready For How Bad It Will Get?
Graham Summers writes for iStockAnalysis: "For months now I have averred that the US economy was not in recovery and that in point of fact all talk of "recovery" was a load of BS. I realize this view is far from the consensus. Even those who are in the bear camp aver that the Stimulus did in fact bring us out of recession at least temporarily. However, I would strongly contend that the recovery was in fact non-existent for the following reasons..."

Study: Extending Bush Tax Cuts Would Be Boon for Wealthy Individuals

Jay Heflin reports for The Hill: "An analysis released this week by the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) shows millionaires will receive, on average, a $103,834 tax cut next year if Congress extends the breaks enacted by former President George W. Bush. The sizable refund would affect 315,000 returns out of the 161 million taxpayers who file, according to the JCT. Results from the committee prompted House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Thursday to renew the vow by Democratic leaders only to extend the breaks benefiting individuals earning less than $200,000 per year and couples making less than $250,000."

The Bush Tax Plan vs. the Obama Tax Plan in One Chart
Erza Klein illustrates the proposed tax cuts for the Washington Post.  A Republican plan to extend tax cuts for the rich would add more than $36 billion to the federal deficit next year -- and transfer the bulk of that cash into the pockets of the nation's millionaires, according to a [nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation] analysis released Wednesday.

The Job Crisis: What Hit Us?
Bob Bennett writes for the Huntington Post: "The US is stuck in an economic quagmire featuring near ten percent unemployment. As politicians argue about the solution -- massive tax cuts or increases in Federal spending -- what's missing is a succinct analysis of the problem. Why has America lost 8 million jobs?"

Mass Delusion – America Style
JimQ writes for The Burning Platform: "The American public thinks they are rugged individualists, who come to conclusions based upon sound reason and a rational thought process. The truth is that the vast majority of Americans act like a herd of cattle or a horde of lemmings. Throughout history there have been many instances of mass delusion. They include the South Sea Company bubble, Mississippi Company bubble, Dutch Tulip bubble, and Salem witch trials. It appears that mass delusion has replaced baseball as the national past-time in America. In the space of the last 15 years the American public have fallen for the three whopper delusions..."

America's Biggest Jobs Program Is the US Military

Robert Reich writes on the Robert Reich's Blog: "America's biggest - and only major - jobs program is the U.S. military. Over 1,400,000 Americans are now on active duty; another 833,000 are in the reserves, many full time. Another 1,600,000 Americans work in companies that supply the military with everything from weapons to utensils.... If we didn't have this giant military jobs program, the U.S. unemployment rate would be over 11.5 percent today instead of 9.5 percent." Photo: Ed Yourdon / Flickr

Recommended Audio - American Soldiers Are Waking Up


What Social Security Can Teach Us About the Future of Health Care
Richard Kirsch writes for New Deal 2.0: "At the heart of the right-wing attack on the new health care law's individual mandate is the fact that law has the potential to become like Social Security, a popular entitlement that is an integral part of the American social fabric. Whether that promise is realized depends on no small measure on whether Congress will make improvements over time in the health care law to assure that health coverage is affordable."

Social Security Keeps 20 Million Americans Out of Poverty: A State-By-State Analysis

Paul N. Van de Water and Arloc Sherman report for the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities: "Social Security benefits play a vital role in reducing poverty. Without Social Security, according to the latest available Census data (for 2008), 19.8 million more Americans would be poor. Although most of those kept out of poverty by Social Security are elderly, nearly a third are under age 65, including 1.1 million children. (See Table 1.) Depending on their design, reductions in Social Security benefits could significantly increase poverty, particularly among the elderly."

In Florida, Slavery Still Haunts the Fields
Mischa Gaus reports for Labor Notes: "The trailer, 24 feet deep by 8 feet wide, is muggy this early August afternoon in Manhattan. Eight of us - church ladies, iPhone-wielding denizens, curious tourists - mop our brows as we clamber inside for a look at one the most shameful secrets of the American system of food production: modern-day slavery among farmworkers."

Noncooperation With Evil in the Streets of Arizona

Randall Amster comments for Waging Nonviolence: "The history of nonviolent social change is filled with injunctions to refuse compliance with unjust laws and policies. As Gandhi once famously said, 'non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.' Reflecting on the Montgomery bus boycott, Martin Luther King, Jr. observed that 'what we were really doing was withdrawing our cooperation from an evil system.... We were simply saying to the white community: We can no longer lend our cooperation to an evil system....' These teachings were alive and well during the demonstrations in Arizona against SB 1070."

Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Scalia are (RATS) Protecting the Oligarchy and Rewriting the Constitution
Richard Stitt writes for Buzzflash: "Both Supreme Court justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas describe themselves as "originalists," meaning that they believe they possess the innate knowledge of exactly what the Founding Fathers intended when they penned the U.S. Constitution. Given such an almost reverent standard it is fair to ask a few questions regarding the Judiciary branch of government which, in my opinion, no longer represents the people of our country. It has become so deeply immersed in right-wing ideology that there is little resemblance to the this branch of government today and when the Founding Fathers established it."

Far-Right, Lawless "Sovereign Citizen" Movement Growing

J. J. MacNab reports for The Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report: "Jerry Kane and his young son were active participants in the sprawling subculture of 'sovereign citizens' in America: hundreds of thousands of far-right extremists who believe that they - not judges, juries, law enforcement or elected officials - get to decide which laws to obey and which to ignore, and who don't think they should have to pay taxes. While law enforcement officers may disagree on how to deal with or even label this extremist subculture, one thing is certain: it's trouble."

The Racists Return

Joe Conason writes for Truthdig.com: "Among the most revealing aspects of life during the Obama presidency is the panoply of responses to a black family in the White House. What made so many of us proud of our country on Jan. 20, 2009, has increasingly provoked expressions of hatred from the far right. That is troubling, but not nearly as troubling as the behavior of conservatives who excuse, embolden or simply pretend to ignore the bigots surrounding them." Photo: White House/Pete Souza

Americans Are Losing Their Civility
Leonard Pitts Jr. comments in the Lawrence Journal World: "Can we be candid here? Can we just say this plainly? The public is a bunch of rude, obnoxious jerks.  OK, so I overstate. A little. Yes, there are exceptions. I’m not such a bad guy and you, of course, are a paragon of civility. But the rest of them? A cavalcade of boors, boobs, bums, bozos and troglodytes.  So it is small wonder the tale of Steven Slater has hit a nerve. The precise sequence of events is still being sorted out at this writing. The initial story was that Slater, a flight attendant for JetBlue, got into it with a woman who cursed him when he asked her not to stand up to retrieve her bags while the plane was still taxiing. At some point, Slater was apparently hit in the head; his attorney says the woman slammed the storage bin on him.

Kansas Voter Initiative Plan Draws Agriculture Groups' Ire
John Hanna writes for The Kansas City Star: "A Kansas politician's plan to allow voters to enact laws without going through the Legislature is drawing criticism from major farm groups, and a fellow Republican leader said Friday that the idea worries agriculture leaders. Kris Kobach, the Republican nominee for secretary of state, said he's not surprised interest groups oppose his voter initiative plan. As residents of other states can, Kansas residents could put proposed laws and state constitutional changes on the ballot for voters' approval."

Americas Social Forum Calls for Agriculture Based on Solidarity
Natalia Ruiz Diaz reports for Inter Press Service: "Small-scale agriculture based on the principles of solidarity and cooperation is the only way to guarantee food sovereignty in Latin America, said peasant and indigenous activists meeting in the Paraguayan capital this week."

Cafeteria Kickbacks: How food-service providers like Sodexo bilk millions from taxpayers

Lucy Komisar reports for In These Times: "At the end of the 2006 school year, children’s nutrition advocate Dorothy Brayley had a disturbing conversation with a local dairy representative. He had come to her office to discuss participation in the summer trade show of food providers she runs as director of Kids First Rhode Island. At the time, the state’s schools were buying 100,000 containers of milk each week. The salesman for Garelick Farms, New England’s largest dairy, told Brayley that Sodexo—a food and facility management corporation that managed most of the state’s school lunch programs—was paying Garelick more than competitors in order to get a bigger rebate."

Recommended Audio: Bringing Food Justice to Trader Joe’s

Trader Joe's is one of a batch of new corporations wrapping their push for profits in feel-good green slogans and promises of fair labor practices. But at least a few of their products aren't coming from fair labor at all.  The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a community organization of farmworkers in Florida, have gotten other corporations like Whole Foods and Subway to sign a pledge to buy tomatoes from growers that have good labor practices--after workers in Florida have been rescued from conditions that have been legally deemed slavery.

Trader Joe's still refuses to sign. GRITtv's Laura Flanders spoke to Kate Caldwell, Human Right to Work with Dignity Director at the National Economic Social Rights Initiative, and Nancy Romer, General Coordinator with the Brooklyn Food Coalition, about the reasons behind the protest.



The Unique Quality Of "Lifelong Heterosexual Monogamy"
Andrew Sullivan writes the Daily Dish for The Atlantic: "Ross is at his most Catholic today in his column on marriage equality, and I'd like to start a response by saying that he has conceded many secular points: that the life-long, monogamous heterosexual nuclear family is not natural and it is not the default definition of marriage in world history. Abandoning these defunct arguments - defunct because they are transparently untrue - is a helpful throat-clearing for which I'm most grateful."

USPS to Struggling Publications: Take a Hike
Mega Tandy writes for In These Times: "A familiar foe is once again threatening the future of many U.S. magazines and newspapers—and it’s not the Internet. The U.S. Postal Service’s recent proposal to hike postal rates has print publications even more worried about their future."

Google-Verizon Should Prompt FCC to Demand Net Neutrality

Susan Crawford and Lawrence Lessig comment for the San Jose Mercury News: "Candidate Barack Obama told America that he believed in an open and "neutral" Internet -- one where the owners of the wires didn't get to pick and choose which applications would run on the network. Soon after Julius Genachowski was appointed as President Barack Obama's choice to head the Federal Communications Commission, he outlined a clear and ambitious plan to turn that commitment into a reality."

A Paper Trail of Betrayal: Google's Net Neutrality Collapse
Matthew Lasar writes for Ars Technica: "Like the rest of the technology world, we're wondering why Google has chosen to ally itself with Verizon, issuing a set of joint net neutrality recommendations that critics charge would significantly weaken the Federal Communications Commission's ability to protect the open Internet.  The whole approach just seemed so at odds with Google's past fiery statements on the issue. Maybe we misread the search engine giant's previous statements, we worried. Until this month, wasn't Google one of net neutrality's biggest advocates? So this morning we re-read three Google documents again—filings with the FCC going back to 2007, shortly after Google's Eric Schmidt first asked the public to 'take action to protect Internet freedom.'"

For Better or Worse, Google Is a Nation-State

Mathew Ingram writes for GigaOm: "It’s no secret that Google isn’t the plucky young startup it was just a few years ago; it’s a colossus now, with more than $20 billion in annual revenues, over 21,000 employees, and business operations that reach into hundreds of countries. But Google’s problems go far beyond those that stem just from being a large company. The combination of its size, its far-reaching ambitions and global expansion, and its impact on so many aspects of our lives has given it a whole new class of problems. In many ways, Google might as well be a nation-state, and it continues to struggle with all the issues that come along with that status. Photo: Flickr/ Stu Spivack

The FCC Needs to Do the Right (and the Hard) Thing
Susan Crawford writes for GigaOm: "Back in November 2007, I remember sitting in my office one evening and reading then-Senator Obama’s Technology and Innovation Platform for the first time. I was genuinely excited about this PDF. I was particularly taken by a paragraph that appeared right up front:

. . . Because most Americans only have a choice of only one or two broadband carriers, carriers are tempted to impose a toll charge on content and services, discriminating against websites that are unwilling to pay for equal treatment. This could create a two-tier Internet in which websites with the best relationships with network providers can get the fastest access to consumers, while all competing websites remain in a slower lane. Such a result would threaten innovation, the open tradition and architecture of the Internet, and competition among content and backbone providers. It would also threaten the equality of speech through which the Internet has begun to transform American political and cultural discourse. Barack Obama supports the basic principle that network providers should not be allowed to charge fees to privilege the content or applications of some web sites and Internet applications over others. . . .

Forget Nuclear

This is a great, fairly new analysis from the Rocky Mountain Institute that details the risks, costs and problems with nuke plants in comparison with other available forms of energy. For those of you who dare to think of an emission-free energy future, this is a good read.

RMI researchers write: "Nuclear power, we’re told, is a vibrant industry that’s dramatically reviving because it’s proven, necessary, competitive, reliable, safe, secure, widely used, increasingly popular, and carbon-free—a perfect replacement for carbon-spewing coal power. New nuclear plants thus sound vital for climate protection, energy security, and powering a growing economy. There’s a catch, though: the private capitalmarket isn’t investing in new nuclear plants, and without financing, capitalist utilities aren’t buying. The few purchases, nearly all in Asia, are all made by central planners with a draw on the public purse. In the United States, even government subsidies approaching or exceeding new nuclear power’s total cost have failed to entice Wall Street."

For the complete report click here.

Taxing the Poor: Programming Note for NOW on PBS

Are the rich getting a sweet deal on taxes?

Watch the show RIGHT NOW at:
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/415/index.html

This month, millions of Americans are filing their taxes and hoping for the best, but are rich people actually paying a smaller percentage of taxes than the poor? NOW looks at plans in many states to raise sales taxes and lower property taxes in an effort to generate revenue. But those changes may come at an even bigger price. Anti-poverty advocates say this shift would place the heaviest tax burden on the poorest households - and benefit higher-income Americans. Despite the charge, it's a model many states have long embraced.

NOW travels to one of these states, Alabama, to document the personal impact of regressive tax policies on three very different families. They include a working mom who shows us how a ten percent sales tax on groceries makes a significant difference in what her family eats; a couple living in a ramshackle house in the backwoods, who've always held jobs but still face hunger; and a well-to-do suburban couple who benefit from huge tax breaks.

Are taxes being levied fairly when it comes to the rich and the poor?

At NOW's web site at www.pbs.org/now

See the income gap between rich and poor in your state:
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/415/states-income-inequality.html
and download the fact sheet on Kansas. Kansas ranks 28th in the nation for the division between rich and poor.

Take their quiz for surprising facts about family, taxes and fairness:
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/415/family-taxes.html

KILL THE POOR

I'm posting this because it shows how much organizations link to the Bush administration are purposely spreading false information about the state of the US economy and the impact of their policies.

09/04/2007
KILL THE POOR
Phony Poverty Study Fools Lazy Journalists
by Ted Rall

NEW YORK--They're baaack! Once again the Heritage Foundation is mangling statistics to whitewash the ugly facts of life in Republican-run America.

Last time, in 2005, they attacked the image of U.S. soldiers as cannon fodder being exploited for Halliburton. Au contraire, claimed the conservative propaganda mill. American troops, they said were actually "wealthier, more educated and more rural than the average" citizen. Of course, this wasn't true. "Military personnel are poorer and less educated" than the average Joe, I found when I took a closer look. Heritage's soldier study used junk logic and apples-to-oranges statistics to promote the GOP's wars against Iraq and Afghanistan. And it worked.

The lazy men who run the big newspapers and TV networks, deluded into believing there are two sides to every story, dutifully repeated Heritage's lies. They never questioned a word. More soldiers died. The Heritage story made us feel less guilty about it.

Now Heritage is telling us that there are no poor people--very few, anyway, and then only for short periods of time--in the United States. The truth is that capitalism is failing millions of Americans. The less we think about the problem, the less we think it is a problem, the worse it will become.

The pseudoacademic demagogues of the right want us to distrust our own eyes. Panhandlers? "Homeless by choice" urban campers, Ronald Reagan, patron saint of modern Republicanism, called them. Single mothers? He said they were "welfare queens." Americans who live in the sprawling slums of the inner cities, the washed-up Walmarted Main Streets of the farm belt, and the scary barred-window suburbs of California and Georgia and Illinois? They're living large, says the Heritage Foundation in a "study" whose dubious findings have already been reprinted--completely unquestioned, as usual--by hundreds of newspapers read by millions of gullible subscribers.

The Census Bureau says that 36.5 million Americans--one in eight--are poor. But "if poverty means a lack of nutritious food, adequate warm housing, and clothing for a family, then very few of the people identified as living 'in poverty' would, in fact, be characterized as poor," says Heritage's Robert Rector. "The typical person defined as 'poor' by the Census has cable or satellite TV, air conditioning, a microwave, a DVD player or VCR, and two color TVs."

No doubt, poor people in a technologically advanced nation like the United States don't live as minimally as those in undeveloped states like Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, on the other hand, a middle-class American homeowner would be spectacularly wealthy. A man worth $500,000 could become a warlord. There are no Afghan billionaires. Poverty is relative.

Even the claim that gadget ownership is incompatible with true poverty doesn't hold up: Rector refers to "a DVD player or VCR." But VCRs are antiquated, a decade out of date. It's like saying that someone who owns "a computer or a typewriter" isn't poor.

"Poor Americans living in houses or apartments, on average, have more living space per person than does the average citizen living in European countries such as England, France and Germany," the Heritage study asserts. There's a footnote--but the source material doesn't include figures for per-capita housing density in Europe. (As far as I can tell, such data doesn't exist.) Even if it's true, though, it's a factoid without a point. Europe, urbanized for the past 2000 years, has an overall higher population density than we do--yet enjoys the world's highest standard of living.

The more you think about Heritage's BS, the worse it gets.

"Three quarters of these 'poor'"--note the quotes--own a car," Rector continues. Are those cars in good working order, or up on blocks? He doesn't say--but there's a difference.

"When asked, [the typical 'poor person'] reports that his family was able to obtain medical care whenever needed during the past year," he continues. True--sorta. Uninsured people often rely on hospitals, enduring long waits and high fees for substandard care rendered by harried emergency room staffers. Hospitals are legally obligated to treat them--but it's hardly a workable system. Many poor (and middle class) people put off going to the doctor as long as possible.

Then there's this sparkling gem of compassion: "Some poor families," admits Rector, "do experience a temporary food shortage, a condition touted as 'hunger' by activists. But even this condition is relatively rare: 89 percent of the poor report their families always have 'enough' food to eat, while only 2 percent say they 'often' do not have enough to eat."

"Temporary food shortage." If that isn't hunger, what is? "Very simply," says the U.S. Department of Agriculture, "hunger is defined as the uneasy or painful sensation caused by lack of food. When we talk about hunger in America, we refer to the ability of people to obtain sufficient food for their household. Some people may find themselves skipping meals or cutting back on the quality or quantity of food they purchase at the stores. This recurring and involuntary lack of access to food can lead to malnutrition over time."

Economists consider a society's infant mortality rate to be the most reliable indicator of its citizens' quality of life, and the prevalence of poverty. The United States has the second-worst infant morality rate in the industrialized world--behind Latvia, tied with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia. Western Europe--France, Germany, etc.--kicks our national ass. The poverty rate for American children under 18 was 21.9 percent in 2006, the highest in the developed world.

Upwardly mobile Americans can escape poverty numerous ways--by, for example, earning a college scholarship. But we also suffer a lot of downward mobility, typically after losing a job. "While in any given year 12 to 15 percent of the population is poor," says Michael Zweig, author of "What's Class Got To Do With It, American Society in the 21st Century" (2004), "over a ten-year period 40 percent experience poverty in at least one year because most poor people cycle in and out of poverty."

Even the Heritage Foundation concedes that some poverty exists in this best of all possible laissez faire worlds. But, they argue in the finest tradition of blame-the-victim, it's "self-inflicted, a result of poor decisions and self-defeating behaviors."

Poor Americans, they say, have a "weak work ethic." The evidence: "The typical poor family with children is supported by only 800 hours of work during a year--16 hours per week. "If work in each family were raised to 2,000 hours per year--the equivalent of one adult working 40 hours per week throughout the year--nearly 75 percent of poor children would be lifted out of official poverty." This assumes that poor parents live in a magical job market where they can work as many hours as they please--a condition that would only exist with zero percent unemployment.

"Father absence is another major cause of child poverty," says Heritage's poverty study. True. "Nearly two-thirds of poor children reside in single-parent homes; each year, an additional 1.3 million children are born out of wedlock." Again true. The conservative solution: "If poor mothers married the fathers of their children, almost three-quarters would immediately be lifted out of poverty." Stupid welfare queens! Why do they refuse to marry the fathers of their children?

A cat or dog understands hunger. The fact that we have to have this discussion demonstrates the success of the right in redefining basic terms--and the failure of the press to question it.

(Ted Rall is the author of the new book "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?," an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge.)

COPYRIGHT 2007 TED RALL