Category: politics

News of US politics

Jonah Goldberg Is Not Smart

Seth Anderson0 comment

Spewing
Spewing

Not sure why anyone would waste time reading anything written by Jonah Goldberg, but then I whiled away a few minutes reading a review of Goldberg’s latest turd, so…

Alex Pareene writes, in part:

The full title of the new one is “The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas.” (Yes, the title “The Tyranny of ___” is itself a cliché. It’s by no means the only one Goldberg employs in the book.)

I just opened “The Tyranny of Clichés” to a random page. It is the start of Chapter 9, “Slippery Slope,” and it begins with quotations from Hume, Lincoln and T.S. Eliot. Then we’re treated to the prose of Mr. Jonah Goldberg, who is here to share his presentation on “slippery slopes.” It reads very much like a high school student’s essay assignment:

Ultimately slippery slope arguments are a mixed bag. They are useful as a way to reinforce good dogma, but they are also used to reinforce bad dogma. Similarly they can scare us away from bad policies and good policies alike. There are good slippery slope arguments and bad ones for good ends and bad ends.

What insight! What a masterful grasp of nuance! Let’s try one of our own: Airplanes can be used for good things and bad things. Some airplanes carry medicine or ice cream, but other airplanes carry bombs or bad people. But an airplane with bombs might be good because the bombs are for using on bad guys, and on the other airplane maybe the ice cream has melted.

Throughout the book, Goldberg brings his disposable Bic-sharp wit to bear on the most deserving straw men he can imagine. From the chapter on “Let Them Eat Cake”:

The notion that today’s rich are the most likely to say ‘let them eat cake!’ is a form of cultural propaganda. To be sure, there are many wealthy and politically conservative individuals who are out of touch with the hardships of poverty. But the most obvious inheritors of the cocooned arrogance and self-indulgence we associate with members of the monarchical courts of Europe are to be found not in boardrooms, but among the most celebrated liberals of American life: Hollywood celebrities.

The celebrities whose excesses Goldberg goes on to document — those he deems “among the most celebrated liberals of American life” — are Jennifer Lopez, Mariah Carey, John Travolta, (Republican) Sylvester Stallone, Kim Basinger and Sean Penn. Ah yes, the modern American aristocracy.

The book is, plainly, another dumb piece of assembly line conservative argument, gussied up with extensive footnotes. It will not impress any academics or intellectuals and it will not get the blood of true believers boiling with indignation. (It will likely sell well, thanks to bulk orders and conservative book clubs.) The phony Pulitzer bragging, that bit of slightly sad résumé-enhancement, is Goldberg all over: Desperate to impress, but utterly unconvincing.

(click here to continue reading Jonah Goldberg’s desperation – Editor’s Picks – Salon.com.)

Richard Lugar Should Retire

Seth Anderson0 comment

Welcome to Indiana
Welcome to Indiana

I would not care if the Tea Party claimed another scalp, in this case, of Republican Dick Lugar. There is no rule that says just because a Senator has been in office for a while, they never have to face a primary again. 

Gail Collins writes:

INDIANA Next Tuesday we will learn whether Richard Lugar, a Republican, wins renomination for the Senate seat he has held for almost 36 years. This is the guy who won international renown for his work against nuclear proliferation. If he loses, the Tea Party will have claimed another victim, terrifying the remaining moderate Republican in the Senate.

His opponent, Richard Mourdock, the state treasurer, claims that Lugar has become a creature of Washington. Generally, these lost-touch-with-the-people campaigns are bogus. But it does seem peculiar that Lugar’s 2012 Indiana voting address was a house he sold in 1977.

Lugar, who has a home in the Washington suburbs, says he can’t afford a place in Indiana too. This is a guy who represents a state where the median price of a house in Gas City is $88,000. Also, Lugar owns a family farm outside Indianapolis, but apparently there is no family house on the family farm. Personally, I’d have gone for the family shed.

Anyway, here is our question: Would you rather see Lugar win, striking a blow for moderate-although-actually-pretty-darned-conservative-but-just-not-crazy Republicanism? Or would you prefer to see him lose and give the Democrats a chance to pick up an unexpected seat? Feel free to choose. It’s like the basketball playoffs. Every team has its good points. Except, of course, the Miami Heat.

(click here to continue reading Changing the Subject – NYTimes.com.)

Charles Pierce adds:

Richard Lugar, the Ent who has represented the state of Indiana in the U.S. Senate since shortly after George Rogers Clark kicked the bucket, is stuck in the middle of a primary dogfight with state treasurer Richard Mourdock, a Tea Party heartthrob. That being the case, one of the hottest issues in the race has been Lugar’s status as a “Washington insider,” since, as Tea Party logic demands, the more you know about how to function within the government, the less you know about Liberty (!), competence basically being another word for treason. Anyway, as a line of attack on this issue, Mourdock is making dinner out of how little time Lugar seems to spend back home in Indiana.

While Lugar is still leading in the polls, the trend lines are not good at all, as evidenced by the fact that, over the weekend, his campaign felt compelled to release an accounting of how much time Lugar spent in the state as opposed to the amount of time he was sequestered inside the Beltway: The low point was 1985, when he was in Indiana for 20 days. That was the year he became chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The highest number came in his re-election years of 1982 and 1998, when he was in the state 92 days. As for the total number of days he spent in the state he has represented since 1977 over the course of full six-year terms, the highest was his first term, with 353 days in Indiana, and the lowest was his fifth, with 237.

(click here to continue reading Richard Lugar Re-Election 2012 – Dick Lugar’s Last Stand – Esquire.)

and, for good measure:

First of all, there is absolutely nothing prima facie wrong with any politician’s being challenged in a primary at any time in any place. God knows, the Democrats could use a couple of dozen more good solid primary fights. You can’t moan endlessly about how Americans take no interest in government and then complain when they actually do. That said, I am sorry, but the Reverend Danforth can go pound sand. He was in the Senate when the NCPAC campaigns were run. He was in the Senate when Lee Atwater was the presiding Republican genius. He was in the Senate when Newt Gingrich came to power. He likes to pretend that he’s become appalled by what’s happened to the party since he left the Senate, but he was there when all the forces were gathering, and it’s a little late to decide he doesn’t have the belly for the inevitable results. But, more to the historical point, it was Danforth most of all who is responsible for the phenomenon that is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and, in that fight, Danforth was as much a culture warrior as all the people who seem to offend him today.

It was Danforth who gave Thomas sanctimonous cover during the Senate confirmation hearings in which Thomas, at the very least, played Edward Scissorhands with the truth. Danforth even later wrote a book about it in which poor, misused soon-to-be Justice Thomas was nearly destroyed by the high-tech lynching he received, and in which Danforth confesses quite Heepishly that he may have been less than Christian in his defense of his protege. Well, horse hockey. You got what you wanted: a permanent seat on the Supreme Court for a vengeful conservative extremist. (In his book, Danforth argues that,”I did not think his political philosophy should be relevant to his nomination,” to which Clio, Muse Of History, replies, “WTF?” and opens another bottle of Virginia Gentleman.) I am utterly at the end of my patience with all of these “How could this ever have happened to my party?” arias from the people who could have stopped it at the time, but found it expedient not to do so. It’s enough to get me rooting for Richard Mourdock.

(click here to continue reading John Danforth on Dick Lugar – Dick Lugar and the Right’s Men Overboard – Esquire.)

Blill Clinton Reviews The Passage of Power

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Robert Caro's LBJ: The Passage of Power
Robert Caro’s LBJ: The Passage of Power

I have a copy, but haven’t started reading it, yet. The previous volumes have all been ripping yarns, and have high expectations for this one too.

“The Passage of Power,” the fourth installment of Robert Caro’s brilliant series on Lyndon Johnson, spans roughly five years, beginning shortly before the 1960 presidential contest, including the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban missile crisis and other seminal events of the Kennedy years, and ending a few months after the awful afternoon in Dallas that elevated L.B.J. to the presidency.

…You don’t have to be a policy wonk to marvel at the political skill L.B.J. wielded to resuscitate a bill that seemed doomed to never get a vote on the floor of either chamber. Southern Democrats were masters at bottling up legislation they hated, particularly bills expanding civil rights for black Americans. Their skills at obstruction were so admired that the newly sworn-in Johnson was firmly counseled by an ally against using the political capital he’d inherited as a result of the assassination on such a hopeless cause.

According to Caro, Johnson responded, “Well, what the hell’s the presidency for?”

This is the question every president must ask and answer. For Lyndon Johnson in the final weeks of 1963, the presidency was for two things: passing a civil rights bill with teeth, to replace the much weaker 1957 law he’d helped to pass as Senate majority leader, and launching the War on Poverty. That neither of these causes was in fact hopeless was clear possibly only to him, as few Americans in our history have matched Johnson’s knowledge of how to move legislation, and legislators.

(click here to continue reading ‘The Passage of Power,’ Robert Caro’s New L.B.J. Book – by Bill Clinton.)

Rupert Murdoch is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company

Seth Anderson0 comment

Crouch Beds
Crouch Beds

“Rupert Murdoch is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company”, couldn’t have said it better myself. Fox News should lose their broadcast license, and News Corporation should lose their corporate charter. If corporations are “people”, they should suffer the same penalties…

LONDON — A damning report on the hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch’s British newspapers concluding that Mr. Murdoch is “not a fit person” to run a huge international company has convulsed Britain’s political and media worlds and threatened a core asset of Mr. Murdoch’s American-based News Corporation.  

The parliamentary report, issued Tuesday, found that three senior Murdoch executives misled Parliament in testimony. It also alleges that the company sought to cover up widespread phone hacking that Mr. Murdoch’s News of the World, a tabloid newspaper now shut down, used to gather information about politicians, celebrities and other people in the news.

It has opened deep divisions between the main political parties, accentuated the challenge Prime Minister David Cameron faces in explaining his past ties to Mr. Murdoch and some of his top executives in Britain, and added new momentum to regulators’ scrutiny of Mr. Murdoch’s controlling interest in the British Sky Broadcasting network, or BSkyB, which is one of the most lucrative Murdoch investments.

It also offers new details that suggest further damaging revelations may lie ahead. Sprinkled through its 121 pages are tantalizing references to potentially damaging sealed documents in dozens of lawsuits from the scandal, and an audio recording in police hands of a conversation between two News of the World journalists that may implicate an unnamed Murdoch executive.

…

The members of Parliament rejected the defense of Mr. Murdoch, 81, that his executives kept him in the dark about the hacking, saying he “exhibited willful blindness to what was going on in his companies and publications.”

It said the use of illegal reporting methods and the efforts to thwart inquiries into the practice came from a culture that “permeated from the top throughout the organization and speaks volumes about the lack of effective corporate governance at News Corporation and News International,” its British newspaper subsidiary.

“We conclude, therefore, that Rupert Murdoch is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company,” the report said.

(click here to continue reading British Panel Criticizes Rupert Murdoch Over Hacking Scandal – NYTimes.com.)

May Day 2012 – Occupy Chicago – Haymarket

Seth Anderson0 comment

Every year on May 1st there is some sort of demonstration or rally in front of the Haymarket Riot Memorial statue. Here are some photos from yesterday’s events. Double click an image to embiggen.

Join ILHS at our annual May Day ceremony and commemoration of the Haymarket Martyrs. Benedicto Martinez Orozco, a leader of the Mexican union federation Frente Autentico de Trabajo, will preside over mounting a plaque from our Mexican brothers and sisters in the FAT. Then join the May Day demonstration assembling at Union Park at 12 noon and marching to Federal Plaza at 1:00 PM. This May Day demonstration, initiated by Occupy Chicago, is sponsored by a host of local unions and community groups.

(click here to continue reading May Day 2012.)

In The Brightness of the Day
In The Brightness of the Day

Be A Non Violent Activist
Be A Non Violent Activist

Tuning Up - May Day 2012
Tuning Up – May Day 2012

#Occupy May Day 2012 at the Haymarket
May Day 2012 at the Haymarket

Baby Blood - May Day 2012
Baby Bloc – May Day 2012

Chinese Delegation - May Day 2012
Chinese Delegation – May Day 2012

Stop Government Crimes
Stop Government Crimes

May Day Celebration - 2007
May Day Celebration – 2007

Occupy Barrier
Occupy Barrier

CPD on Bikes -May Day 2012
CPD on Bikes -May Day 2012

More photos here, or here (Flash)

Noam Chomsky: What next for Occupy?

Seth Anderson0 comment

Stop Taking Pictures and Join Us
Stop Taking Pictures and Join Us

Noam Chomsky is pleasantly surprised at the success of the Occupy movement.

Coverage of Occupy has been mixed. At first it was dismissive, making fun of people involved as if they were just silly kids playing games and so on. But coverage changed. In fact, one of the really remarkable and almost spectacular successes of the Occupy movement is that it has simply changed the entire framework of discussion of many issues. There were things that were sort of known, but in the margins, hidden, which are now right up front – such as the imagery of the 99% and 1%; and the dramatic facts of sharply rising inequality over the past roughly 30 years, with wealth being concentrated in actually a small fraction of 1% of the population.

For the majority, real incomes have pretty much stagnated, sometimes declined. Benefits have also declined and work hours have gone up, and so on. It’s not third world misery, but it’s not what it ought to be in a rich society, the richest in the world, in fact, with plenty of wealth around, which people can see, just not in their pockets.

All of this has now been brought to the fore. You can say that it’s now almost a standard framework of discussion. Even the terminology is accepted. That’s a big shift.

Earlier this month, the Pew foundation released one of its annual polls surveying what people think is the greatest source of tension and conflict in American life. For the first time ever, concern over income inequality was way at the top. It’s not that the poll measured income inequality itself, but the degree to which public recognition, comprehension and understanding of the issue has gone up. That’s a tribute to the Occupy movement, which put this strikingly critical fact of modern life on the agenda so that people who may have known of it from their own personal experience see that they are not alone, that this is all of us. In fact, the US is off the spectrum on this. The inequalities have risen to historically unprecedented heights. In the words of the report: “The Occupy Wall Street movement no longer occupies Wall Street, but the issue of class conflict has captured a growing share of the national consciousness. A new Pew Research Center survey of 2,048 adults finds that about two-thirds of the public (66%) believes there are “very strong” or “strong” conflicts between the rich and the poor – an increase of 19 percentage points since 2009.”

(click here to continue reading Noam Chomsky: What next for Occupy? | World news | The Guardian.)

Mars Says Goodbye to ALEC

Seth Anderson0 comment

Chocolate city
Chocolate city

Yet another corporation whose financial viability depends upon being non-controversial has wised up and left the American-hating group, American Legislative Exchange Council.

Mars Inc., the company that makes everything from Skittles to M&M’s to Uncle Ben’s, has joined McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and a half-dozen other companies in quitting the American Legislative Exchange Council.

ALEC, as it’s known, is a corporate-funded non-profit that writes pro-business and often anti-union draft legislation for state lawmakers to introduce in their legislatures. ALEC has come under fire recently from good-government and civil rights groups for pushing voter identification bills that critics say discriminate against blacks and Hispanics. ALEC foes have also blasted the organization for promoting so-called Stand Your Ground laws like the one at the center of the Trayvon Martin shooting.

Bob Edgar, the president of Common Cause, one of the groups in the anti-ALEC coalition, hailed Mars’ decision. “Its leaders understand that continued support for ALEC’s advocacy of vigilante justice and assaults on voting and employee rights, public schools, and reasonable environmental regulations is neither good business nor good corporate citizenship,” Edgar said in a statement.

(click here to continue reading Mars Inc. Says Adios to ALEC | Mother Jones.)

 

How the NYT Got It Wrong on the FDA’s New Antibiotics Rules

Seth Anderson4 Comments

Wherever I Lay My Head
Wherever I Lay My Head

Not the first time, sadly.

A casual reader taking in my account and the New York Times’ account of yesterday’s big FDA antibiotics announcement might have thought we were reacting to different events. Here’s the Times lead:

Farmers and ranchers will for the first time need a prescription from a veterinarian before using antibiotics in farm animals, in hopes that more judicious use of the drugs will reduce the tens of thousands of human deaths that result each year from the drugs’ overuse.

In the Times’ reading, the FDA placed significant restrictions on antibiotics use. My take was more critical: “The plan contains a bull-size loophole—and is purely voluntary, to boot.”

What gives? In short, the Times delivered a skim-level, FDA-friendly account of the new plan. Let’s start with the loophole. Here’s the Times:

Michael Taylor, the F.D.A.’s deputy commissioner for food, predicted that the new restrictions would save lives because farmers would have to convince a veterinarian that their animals were either sick or at risk of getting a specific illness. [Emphasis added.]

The bolded part is the key. As I reported yesterday, the FDA plan intends to phase out the use of antibiotics as growth promoters, but allows them to continue to be used to “prevent” disease. That’s a major loophole—it means that farmers can continue stuffing animals together in filthy conditions and dosing them with antibiotics to keep them alive. Margaret Mellon, senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists and a longtime watchdog of the meat industry’s antibiotic-gorging ways, put it like this in a Wednesday press release:

The outlined process appears to give the companies the opportunity to relabel drugs currently slated for growth promotion for disease prevention instead. Such relabeling could allow them to sell the exact same drugs in the very same amounts

None of this comes out in the Times story.

(click here to continue reading How the NY Times Got It Wrong on the FDA’s New Antibiotics Rules | Mother Jones.)

Critical Mass Griller
Critical Mass Griller

Margaret Mellon responds, angrily:

FDA to Establish Voluntary, Largely Secret Program to Reduce Antibiotic Overuse in Agriculture Statement by Margaret Mellon, Senior Scientist

WASHINGTON (April 11, 2012)—The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today released three documents that constitute its long-awaited response to the problem of antibiotic overuse in agriculture. There is wide recognition among scientists that such antibiotic use is driving up the rate of antibiotic-resistant diseases, which are becoming increasingly severe and more costly to treat. While the documents establish a new, completely voluntary approach to reducing antibiotic use in agriculture, the Union of Concerned Scientists cautioned that the program’s shortfalls are likely to imperil its success.

Below is a statement by Margaret Mellon, senior scientist at UCS.

“The approach announced represents a bold, well-intentioned attempt by the FDA to persuade an entire industry to voluntarily abandon claims that allow them to sell a large number of lucrative products. The agency should be congratulated for finally taking action on a serious and long-neglected public health issue, but we’re deeply skeptical that the approach will work.

“We have no reason to believe that the veterinary pharmaceutical industry—which, to date, has rarely even acknowledged that antibiotic resistance is a serious public health issue—will cooperate with the agency on a plan that could reduce its profits.

“The outlined process appears to give the companies the opportunity to relabel drugs currently slated for growth promotion for disease prevention instead. Such relabeling could allow them to sell the exact same drugs in the very same amounts. The process also allows companies to avoid risk assessments for new drug approvals.

“Unfortunately, the process will also be secret. Companies will have three months to submit voluntary plans and three years to implement them. During this entire time, the public will be kept in the dark. It could be three to four years before anyone knows how well the program is working.

“Ultimately, if antibiotic use is reduced only marginally or not at all much time and taxpayer dollars will have been wasted.

“The agency doesn’t need to embark on this novel but very risky experiment in relying on companies to police their own products. It has – and should have relied upon – its  authority under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to cancel unsafe uses of drugs.”

(click here to continue reading FDA to Establish Voluntary, Largely Secret Program to Reduce Antibiotic Overuse in Agriculture | Union of Concerned Scientists.)

ALEC Hunkers Down As Sponsors Run

Seth Anderson0 comment

Get What You Deserve
Get What You Deserve

For today’s update on the America-hating GOP lobbyists who run the American Legislative Exchange Council, Crooks and Liars blogger karoli writes, in part:

Poor, poor ALEC. They’re being victimized, don’t you know? Wednesday they went into full damage control mode even as more corporate donors bailed out on them. The list now includes Wendy’s, Intuit, McDonalds, Coke, Pepsi, Kraft Foods and the Gates Foundation. More on the Gates Foundation in a minute. On Wednesday, ALEC bleated out a statement, complaining that they’re just a little non-profit organization whose sole purpose is to help businesses turn a bit of a profit, don’t you know? And they’re being victimized by those mean, nasty lefty types.

From their statement:

ALEC is an organization that supports pro-growth, pro-jobs policies and the vigorous exchange of ideas between the public and private sector to develop state based solutions. Today, we find ourselves the focus of a well-funded, expertly coordinated intimidation campaign.

Our members join ALEC because we connect state legislators with other state legislators and with job-creators in their states. They join because we support pro-business policies that promote innovation and spur local and national competitiveness. They’re ALEC members because they’re more interested in solutions than rhetoric.

For years, ALEC has partnered with legislators to research and develop better, more effective public policies – legislation that creates a more transparent, accountable government, policies that place a priority on free enterprise and consumer choice, and tax policies that are fair, simple and that spur the kind of competiveness that puts Americans back to work.

Somebody’s going to have to explain to me how Stand Your Ground laws and Voter ID laws help create jobs. That’s left me scratching my head. How is it that laws which blatantly discriminate against people of color and have absolutely nothing to do with jobs create jobs? And then there’s abortion legislation. What does abortion legislation have to do with job creation?

As to their so-called free enterprise and consumer choice policies, let’s look at one area where they’re working hard to interfere: education. And let’s bring the Gates Foundation back into focus on this one. The Gates Foundation has now declared they will not give any further grants to ALEC. Slow clap for the Gates Foundation.

I’m not particularly impressed because there are 17 months remaining on the grant they’ve already given ALEC for “education reform”

(click here to continue reading ALEC Hunkers Down As Sponsors Run, But Untold Damage Has Already Been Done | Crooks and Liars.)

Cry me a river…

Full list of supporters of ALEC’s anti-American agenda is archived here

American Visa Rules Frustrate Foreign Performers

Seth Anderson0 comment

Fela - Oriental Theatre
Fela – Oriental Theatre

We are deprived of culture because of the morons in Washington, and their intricate, bureaucratic ballet supporting terrorism theatre. Many artists don’t even bother trying to come here anymore, it’s too costly, and too much of a hassle.

In the decade since the attacks on the twin towers, American visa procedures for foreign artists and performers have grown increasingly labyrinthine, expensive and arbitrary, arts presenters and immigration lawyers say, making the system a serious impediment to cultural exchanges with the rest of the world.

Some foreign performers and ensembles, like the Hallé orchestra from Britain, have decided that it is no longer worth their while to play in the United States. Others have been turned down flat, including a pair of bands invited to perform at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Tex., last month, or have ended up canceling performances because of processing delays, as was the case last month with the Tantehorse theater troupe from the Czech Republic, which was booked to perform in suburban Washington.

Overall, according to Homeland Security Department records, requests for the standard foreign performer’s visa declined by almost 25 percent between 2006 and 2010, the most recent fiscal year for which statistics are available. During the same period the number of these visa petitions rejected, though small in absolute numbers, rose by more than two-thirds.

“Everything is much more difficult,” said Palma R. Yanni, a former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association who also handles artists’ visas. “I didn’t think it could get worse than it was after 9/11, but the last couple of years have been terrible. It just seems like you have to fight for everything across the board, even for artists of renown. The standards have not changed, but the agency just keeps narrowing the criteria, raising the bar without notice or comment, reinterpreting things and just making everything more restrictive. We call it the culture of no.”

(click here to continue reading U.S. Visa Rules Frustrate Foreign Performers – NYTimes.com.)

Chicago At Large
Chicago At Large

It isn’t a new problem:

For example, earlier this year [2010] the agency held up three applications for visiting musicians with the Chicago Opera Theater, requesting an unusual amount of evidence to corroborate the visa requirement that the artists have achieved sufficient renown. The company eventually went over its budget to hire an immigration lawyer, who got two of the musicians into the country at the 11th hour; the third had to be replaced, said Roger Weitz, the company’s general manager.

Many arts groups say that under Mr. Mayorkas, a Cuban immigrant who was sworn in last August, their sometimes frosty relationship with Citizenship and Immigration Services has begun to thaw. Agency officials met with arts groups in April, and have recently begun soliciting comments about egregious experiences with the visa process.

Although the agency’s policies have not changed, some have been clarified for the benefit of visa applicants, and Mr. Mayorkas insisted that the commitment is genuine.

“When I make a commitment,” he said, “it is a benchmark that I am setting for our agency upon which the public should be able to rely.”

Artist representatives say that more work needs to be done to streamline the process. “This is a great start but not where we would like to see things end up,” said Tom Windish, a booking agent for independent rock bands.

And for fans, the bad news about cancellations is not likely to end anytime soon. On Thursday, for example, the reunited British ska band the Specials canceled its appearance next month at Central Park SummerStage. The reason: “visa issues.”

(click here to continue reading U.S. Seeks to Reassure Arts Groups About Visas – NYTimes.com.)

Street Musician circa 1996
Street Musician circa 1996

Even international icon Ibrahim Ferrer was denied travel to the US to accept accolades from the Grammys, a travesty especially since Mr. Ferrer died soon after…

2004, HAVANA – The United States refused to grant visas to world-renowned Cuban musicians who were invited to Sunday’s Grammy music awards, Cuban officials said.

Cuban singer Ibrahim Ferrer of the Buena Vista Social Club, seen here in 2003, was denied a visa by the US authorities. (AFP/DDP/File) Ibrahim Ferrer, the 76-year-old singer from the Grammy-nominated Buena Vista Social Club, was dumbfounded to learn that, according to the Cuban Music Institute, the United States invoked a law that applies to terrorists, drug dealers and dangerous criminals to deny him a visa.

“I don’t understand because I don’t feel I’m a terrorist. I am not, I can’t be,” he said at a news conference.

Ferrer has won three Grammys in recent years and has traveled to the United States in the past.

The other celebrated musicians who were denied visas were guitarist Manuel Galvan, pianist Guillermo Rubalcaba, percussionist Amadito Valdes, lute player Barbarito Torres and singer Eugenio Rodriguez.

(click here to continue reading US Denies Travel Visas to Grammy-Nominated Cuban Musicians.)

The pavement was alive with the sound of music
The pavement was alive with the sound of music

There really is no excuse the US Government can make, other than an increase in jingoism…

The Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles had to cancel scheduled performances last year of an Argentine music group because California immigration officials challenged whether its fusion of Jewish klezmer music and tango met the requirement to be “culturally unique.”

In other cases, California officials also challenged visa petitions in the last year that aimed to bring in an Indian group to perform at a California festival honoring the Hindu goddess Durga, a Chicago opera company seeking to bring in a Spanish singer and an African musical group.

“In the past year and a half, what we’ve seen is petitions that previously and typically were approved are being denied,” said Heather Noonan of the League of American Orchestras. “It impacts the whole range of arts disciplines. The cumulative effect makes the process of engaging international talent very challenging.”

…

Slow processing times had been a major concern. Chad Smith, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s vice president of artistic planning, said the delays began after the 9/11 terrorist attacks but had worsened in recent years, forcing his organization to pay an extra $1,000 per case for expedited visa processing.

“The need for premium processing greatly impacted our bottom line,” he said.

Immigration experts also questioned whether California officials were sufficiently trained to competently evaluate their visa petitions.

Barnett, for instance, said immigration officials have challenged visa petitions from his world-renowned organization by asking for proof that Scripps is an educational nonprofit organization.

“Twenty seconds on the Internet could have shown you that,” Barnett said. “Is this just ignorance?”

Immigration attorneys have also complained that they have been repeatedly asked to provide evidence to meet standards that are not required by law.

For example, California officials asked for proof that an Indian dance group had been together for at least a year and that an African musical group would perform only at “culturally unique” venues that did not include its scheduled appearances at universities, said Andi Floyd, a legal assistant who worked on the petitions for Virginia immigration attorney Jonathan Ginsburg. Attorneys had to point out that neither requirement was in the visa law; officials eventually approved the African petition but have not yet acted on the Indian one, Floyd said.

 

(click here to continue reading Immigration agency working to fix visa denials to artists, others – Los Angeles Times.)

The Buffett Rule (fka The Reagan Rule)

Seth Anderson0 comment

 

Shouldn't That Be a Right Turn?
Shouldn’t That Be a Right Turn?

Obama calls for some fairness in our tax policy, meaning those most able to pay more taxes, should pay more taxes.

I’m not the first President to call for this idea that everybody has got to do their fair share.  Some years ago, one of my predecessors traveled across the country pushing for the same concept.  He gave a speech where he talked about a letter he had received from a wealthy executive who paid lower tax rates than his secretary, and wanted to come to Washington and tell Congress why that was wrong.  So this President gave another speech where he said it was “crazy” — that’s a quote — that certain tax loopholes make it possible for multimillionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying 10 percent of his salary.  That wild-eyed, socialist, tax-hiking class warrior was Ronald Reagan.

He thought that, in America, the wealthiest should pay their fair share, and he said so.  I know that position might disqualify him from the Republican primaries these days, but what Ronald Reagan was calling for then is the same thing that we’re calling for now:  a return to basic fairness and responsibility; everybody doing their part.  And if it will help convince folks in Congress to make the right choice, we could call it the Reagan Rule instead of the Buffett Rule.

(click here to continue reading The Buffett Rule (aka The Reagan Rule) | The White House.)

The President believes we should build an economy where everyone does their fair share and everyone plays by the same set of rules. That’s why he proposed the Buffett Rule. It’s simple: if you make more than $1 million a year, you should pay at least the same percentage of your income in taxes as middle class families do. On the other hand, if you make under $250,000 a year – like 98 percent of American families do – your taxes shouldn’t go up.

 

The Worst Farm Bill Ever

Seth Anderson0 comment

Summer Squash
Summer Squash

The so-called Farm Bill is a five year plan for American agriculture policy, and as usual, rewards food corporations instead of consumers, and is adverse to encouraging sustainable food production.

For decades, groups like Fred Hoefner’s [National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition] have worked hard to create a set of programs designed to at least partially offset US farm policy’s tendency to bolster Big Ag. The programs, which the Obama Administration in 2009 grouped under the banner of Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food, include initiatives designed to assist new farmers to get loans help communities roll out farmers markets, and reduce  costs for farms to transition to organic.

Taken as a whole, Hoefner says, the programs amount to about $175 million per year—less than 1 percent of the non-food stamps portion of the farm bill. “These programs make up an extremely modest portion of the farm bill’s budget, but they’ve had a large impact on communities nationwide,” Hoefner said. Hoefner pointed to a wide-ranging recent USDA study documenting positive impact of the programs.

Corn and Cornier
Corn and Cornier

and of course having lots of money to hire lobbyists always pays off for food corporations:

Big Ag continues to get support for monster corn and soy crops. Large commodity growers will take a nominal hit in the next farm bill. For years, farmers in a few chosen crops—corn, soy, cotton, etc.—have received $5 billion per year in so-called “direct payments” based on the acreage under production. In order to receive direct payments, farmers had to sign so called “conservation-compliance” agreements, which obligated them to create conservation plans for highly erodible land and agree not to drain wetlands for planting. The conservation-compliance agreements were far from perfect, Hoefner says, but they did help slow soil erosion in the Corn Belt for years.

In the next farm bill, direct payments will almost certainly be scrapped, Hoefner says, and replaced by a revenue-insurance scheme that is projected to cost $3.5 billion per year, saving taxpayers $1.5 billion per year. Sounds like a step forward, right? Wrong. First of all, in current negotiations, there is no conservation-compliance requirement for revenue insurance—meaning that farmers will have incentive to drain wetlands to grow crops, as well as expand crops onto erosion-prone land. Moreover, the new scheme will likely insure prices at high levels—meaning that relatively small price dips could cost taxpayers serious money, potentially wiping out that promised $1.5 billion in savings.

The switch to revenue insurance, Hoefner says, will “further reduce the risk of putting the pedal to the metal on commodity production, [with] no incentive whatsoever to diversify crops or leave any ground unplanted.” All of that, of course, is manna to the companies that supply inputs to industrial-scale farmers: seed and pesticide companies like Monsanto and Syngenta; and to the companies that buy corn and soy and transform them into a range of low-quality, profitable foods.

(click here to continue reading The Worst Farm Bill Ever? | Mother Jones.)

Some of my bounty from FreshPicks.com
Some of my bounty from FreshPicks.com

Lobbyists won’t like this suggestion:

The federal government could save about $1 billion a year by reducing the subsidies it pays to large farmers to cover much of the cost of their crop insurance, according to a report by Congressional auditors due to be released on Thursday.

The report raised the prospect of the government’s capping the amount that farmers receive at $40,000 a year, much as the government caps payments in other farm programs. Any move to limit the subsidy, however, is likely to be opposed by rural lawmakers, who say the program provides a safety net for agriculture.

The report, by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, was requested by Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, as part of his efforts to cut government spending.

Under the federal crop insurance program, farmers can buy insurance policies that cover poor yields, declines in prices or both. The insurance is obtained through private companies, but the federal government pays about 62 percent of the premiums, plus administrative expenses.

The crop insurance subsidy, according to the G.A.O. report, ballooned to $7.3 billion last year from $951 million in 2000, or about $1.2 billion adjusted for inflation. A Congressional Budget Office study cited in the report estimates that the premium subsidy will cost $39 billion from 2012 to 2016, about $7.8 billion a year.

Unlike other farm programs that have income or payment limits, crop insurance payments have no such restrictions, so farmers can get millions in subsidies regardless of their income. The G.A.O. said a cap last year would have affected about 4 percent of farmers in the program, who accounted for about a third of the premium subsidies and were mostly associated with large farms.

(click here to continue reading Cap on Farm Insurance Subsidy Could Save Billions, Report Says – NYTimes.com.)

City Farm
City Farm

and we ignore climate change at our peril:

One of the biggest challenges facing this planet isn’t simply feeding a growing population — perhaps as many as 10 billion by the year 2100. The challenge is feeding all those people as the climate changes in ways we can barely project. A new report called “Achieving Food Security in the Face of Climate Change” (PDF) illustrates the complexity of the problem and makes clear that action must be taken soon to address it.

Commissioned by Cgiar — a research alliance financed by the United Nations and the World Bank — it recommends essential changes in the way we think about farming, food and equitable access to it, and the way these things affect climate change.

It is tempting to assume that expanding agricultural acreage and using new technology, like genetically engineered crops, will somehow save the day. The report says that efficiency and sustainability will also require fundamental changes in how we grow and consume food: reducing waste in production and distribution and finding ways to farm that reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and other “negative environmental impacts of agriculture,” like soil loss and water pollution. The report also calls for better dietary habits in wealthy countries, which have a disproportionately and unsustainably high calorie intake, and targeted aid to populations whose farming is most at risk.

(click here to continue reading Sustainably Feeding a Changing World – NYTimes.com.)

Intuit To Drop Voter Suppression Group ALEC

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Sunset Over American Empire
Sunset Over American Empire

Inuit left the hate group, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a couple of days ago, btw

Software company Intuit, the makers of programs such as Turbo Tax and Quicken, announced today that they will join Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Kraft as the fourth company to end their partnership with the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council this week.

The Center for Media & Democracy, which launched ALECexposed.com last year, broke the news:

A stampede seems to be on the way as more and more groups break ties and dump ALEC. Intuit, Inc. (maker of Quicken and QuickBooks accounting software) told the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) that Intuit also decided not to renew its membership after it expired in 2011. That comment came from Bernie McKay, Vice President of Government Affairs. He gave this response when CMD identified that Intuit was no longer listed on the board and contacted the company. CMD began its effort to spotlight Intuit and other corporate funders and tie these corporations to the ALEC agenda when it launched ALECexposed.org in July 2011. … Intuit’s McKay explained to CMD that the company doesn’t “usually issue statements about membership in any organization” and declined to comment further.

Although Pepsi quietly left ALEC as recently as last January, the growing exodus of companies’ from ALEC’s began earlier this week when the progressive group Color of Change announced a petition and boycott campaign targeting ALEC’s corporate supporters. Other corporations that have not yet publicly renounced their support of ALEC include Koch Industries, Wal-Mart, Pfizer, Reynolds American, Altria/Philip Morris, Procter & Gamble, Exxon Mobil and British alcohol firm Diageo (makers of Smirnoff and Johnnie Walker).

(click here to continue reading Intuit Is Now The Fourth Company To Drop Voter Suppression Group ALEC | ThinkProgress.)

Full list of supporters of ALEC’s anti-American agenda is archived here

McDonalds, Gates Foundation to sever ties with ALEC

Seth Anderson0 comment

So Much Unsaid You Won't Say
So Much Unsaid You Won’t Say

Two more wise corporations leaving the hate group, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)

Two more institutions, one commercial and one non-profit, have announced that they will part ways with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provided an education grant to ALEC, and will not be making future grants. The foundation said it would not award another grant to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in the face of criticism of the council’s involvement in voting laws and in “stand your ground” gun laws such as one under scrutiny in the Trayvon Martin shooting in Florida. “At this point, we’ve decided that it’s not the right environment to continue working with them,” Gates Foundation spokesman Chris Williams told Reuters on Tuesday.

The split will take effect once the Gates Foundation pays the balance of a $376,000 education grant that it awarded to the conservative group last year, Williams said.

As the result of the Color of Change campaign to educate and agitate among the corporate sponsors of ALEC, McDonald’s has been proactive in clarifying their position with ALEC. They told Mother Jones that “it recently decided to cut ties with ALEC, the corporate-backed group that drafts pro-free-market legislation for state lawmakers around the country.” “While [we] were a member of ALEC in 2011, we evaluate all professional memberships annually and made the business decision not to renew in 2012,” Ashlee Yingling, a McDonald’s spokeswoman, wrote in an email. Yingling didn’t mention any specific campaign or outside pressure as playing a role in the company’s decision to leave ALEC.

(click here to continue reading Daily Kos: McDonalds, Gates Foundation to sever ties with ALEC.)

 

Kraft drops membership in ALEC

Seth Anderson1 Comment

A Monster Maker an Eye
A Monster Maker an Eye

Like I said, a little sunshine goes a long way, and hate groups like ALEC need to hide their agenda from the public, or else publicly traded corporations will flee. Kudos to PepsiCo, Coca-Cola and Kraft for running away earlier than later…

Kraft Foods joined Coca-Cola in bowing to consumer pressure this week to cut ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative lobbying group that has recently backed controversial voter ID and so-called “stand your ground” laws.

Kraft said in a statement that it has “made the decision not to renew” its ALEC membership, which is expiring. The company, based in north suburban Northfield, was opaque in its reasoning, citing “limited resources” and saying that its involvement with ALEC “has been strictly limited to discussions about economic growth and development, transportation and tax policy.”

Advocacy group Color of Change launched a boycott against Coca-Cola for its participation in ALEC’s Private Enterprise Board, but within hours, the soft drink giant issued a statement saying that it had “elected to discontinue its membership.”

The company blamed ALEC’s support of “discriminatory food and beverage taxes” instead of “issues that have no direct bearing on our business.”

“We have a long-standing policy of only taking positions on issues that impact our company and industry,” Coca-Cola said.

The withdrawals pleased ALEC detractors, which includes the Center for Media and Democracy. The liberal-leaning nonprofit said it had launched a protest campaign in tandem with Color of Change opposing what it said were ALEC’s efforts to deny climate change, undermine public schools and encourage laws that would require voters to present various forms of identification before voting.

…In January, PepsiCo quietly pulled itself off the board.

(click here to continue reading Kraft drops membership in conservative group amid protest – chicagotribune.com.)