Web Page:
http://www.democracyupsidedown.blogspot.com
Email:
StandUp4Dems@gmail.com
Bio:
I've lived in Virginia for 29 years and been a Democrat for longer. I'm passionate about progressive issues, media reform, and advocating for the populist change we need.
Virginians have barely awakened to the nightmare that is their own public school system under the dominion of the dominionists. Thanks to Bob McDonnell and the Party of No, schools upon schools will ultimately close. NCLB has already rendered 1/3 of all US schools as "failing," based upon its rigged measure. Buildings paid for with our tax dollars will be given away via Mickey D's charter "initiative." What then?
Thanks to new legislation, "virtual schools," and their virtual "education," enabled by one of their own literally writing a recent bill to "regulate" such "schools," are poised to proliferate even as public schools are shuttered. One more governor refuses to get that starving public education hurts Virginia and the nation. But the incessant tax-cutting monster must be served (sarcasm). See Elaine in Roanoke's article here and numerous diaries by teacherken's for more on this subject. According to the Roanoke Times, Carroll County, VA is now the "model" for the entire state. (Bet NOVA thought it was.) "Virtual school" get virtual results. Education is not packaged online "curricula." The PC is no substitute for teacher-student and student-class face time and cooperative learning. But the educational bloodletting via the massive cuts to education will likely never be overcome in our lifetimes. The evidence for this mounts...
The ill-titled public option's second life is apparently over. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi declared the public option dead yesterday. You can read more here. It's not in the reconciliation, she said. Thus ends any hope that real competition will occur in health care insurance.
For at least a couple of weeks now, progressives have been taken for a ride. The public option was alive and well. As you may have heard, as of yesterday we had fifty votes (plus Joe Biden to break the tie). But wait! Claiming she didn't have the votes, Pelosi killed off the public option anyway. Something doesn't add up.
Update: What McDonnell proclaimed was an executive "directive," not an executive order.
Shortly after his swearing in, Governor Bob McDonnell broke recent tradition by refusing to advance an executive order forbidding discrimination regardless of sexual orientation. Many of us here, including the editorial staff of BC, stand in opposition to discrimination based upon sexual orientation.
But today, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Bob McDonnell shifted his non-policy concerning non-discrimination. He reversed himself by issuing such an order.
"Discrimination based on factors such as one's sexual orientation or parental status violates the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. Therefore, discrimination against enumerated classes of persons set forth in the Virginia Human Rights Act or discrimination against any class of persons without a rational basis is prohibited," McDonnell said in his directive.
"Employment discrimination of any kind will not be tolerated by this administration," the directive said. "Consistent with state and federal law, and the Virginia and United States Constitutions, I hereby direct that the hiring, promotion, compensation, treatment, discipline, and termination of state employees shall be based on an individual's job qualifications, merit and performance.
If you thought Jim Bunning's callousness "only" affected 200,000 federal employees, who now will lose jobs and insurance, guess again. Bunning had much more in store for his second act of the same play.
Having gone along with Bush's wars costing trillions, and the entirety of George W. Bush's economically profligate economic policies, Jim Bunning also this week went gunning for America's seniors and he did it, he says, to save $10 billion. Somehow I am not buying that explanation. Jim Bunning may be an older American himself (he's 78), but he doesn't need Medicare. He's got Congress's health care plan. But he set out to hurt other seniors' access to Medicare. As it turns out, that is much easier to do in one fell swoop than most people would imagine.
On the floor of the US Senate (R-KY) Jim Bunning claimed anyone (senator) can object (implicitly, to anything). And he complained of missing a basketball game, while his obstructionism has cost over 200,000 their jobs and their health care. And he gave the middle finger literally to CNN's Jonathan Karl and figuratively to Americans. "Anybody can object," he said. Well, I do. I object that he has performed this act of violence against American families. He's done it repeatedly since last Thursday. And he's proud of himself.
Blacksburg's High School's collapsed gym roof and its subsequent disruption is but a small sampling of the chaos the citizens of NOLA, Haiti, and Chile have lived. And if this is any indication of the power of just one building's collapse, then it is hard to comprehend what is in store for Haiti and Chile (and is still in store for NOLA). Here is what the microcosm looks like.
It happened on a Saturday earlier this month, shortly after the girls basketball team had practiced. That there were no injuries or deaths owes in great measure to the action by those present as cracks appeared suddenly in the gym wall. The coach sent the girls outside the building.
The news reports told the story of the gym roof collapse. They told how no one was injured, much less killed. And they told how, after a week off, Blacksburg high school students were back at school--sharing another school in the afternoon and evening. You see, the school will probably be inhabitable on into the future. No one knows yet if the adjacent main school building, which shared support beams, and used the very same structural steel, will ever be structurally sound enough to house students and teachers again. This is a town with one high school, one middle school and three elementary schools. The options are not great. But it must be said that at least school children do not have to go to school in the open air.
And so, Middle Schoolers now head to school at the crack of dawn, at this time of year even before. They still struggle getting up so early. They leave school earlier now too. Their after-school care is disrupted, in some cases lost. Their activities and schedules are significantly changed. All this is because high school students now share their school. Imagine the change for a sixth grader! Children just getting used to middle school suddenly are "invaded" by high schoolers. Middle schoolers, all 900 of them, prepare to leave just as 1200 high schoolers arrive to take over what was once their school.
In his column called The Bankruptcy Boys, economist and Nobel Laureate, Paul Krugman, warns of the perverse logic of the Starve-the-Beast folks. The ironically-named Club-for-Growth-ers lust for the day the "Beast" (whom they assume is government) is starved. And they continue trying to amass contempt for "gubment," until, they hope, they can destroy programs people need.
The real truth is that government provides services people both need and want. "Keep your hands off my Medicare" even rings forth from the ignorant among Tea Partying wing nuts, who don't even know Medicare IS a government program, paid for by payroll taxes. The specific Medicare payroll tax was demarcated in hopes (by the wrong-wing fiscal extremists) that it would sour people of Medicare. It hasn't. Still, they will not stop. Peter Peterson's Starve-the-Beast refrain is an old song he's been singing for twenty years or more. Others carried the banner before him. They have been at it for forty years now. They do the bidding of corporations and the rich. Along the way, they hope to con enough of those who dream of being rich, but never will be because these dreamers are pawns in a dangerous chess game.
Ironically "Starve the Beast" tends to result in increased federal spending, according to the conservative Cato Institute here.
I cried as the hero teacher spoke to the media about how he tackled the shooter. I cried as a young boy, no older than your son or grandson (or mine) described the scene. I cried as the students ran from the scene hands above their heads. How is it that kids this young must learn the drill. Run, keep hands up and behind the head, so neither shooter nor police mistake their intent. (They could probably run faster if not for this awkward position. But they know the drill.) They know the drill because Deer Creek Middle School is located Littleton CO, where the shooting took place yesterday, is only three miles from Columbine High.
The good news is that the students survived. The bad news is that the shooter tried to make it otherwise.
It's official: The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Carpetbagger Virginia Del. Morgan Griffith, Republican House Majority Leader of the fractious and fractiously-led Virginia House of Delegates, wants a new gig--Rick Boucher's. And he doesn't mind running in a Congressional district not his own. Unfortunately the Constitution doesn't prohibit such shenanigans. Incidentally, the man wants it both ways. He supports massive partisan gerrymandering, but doesn't respect the boundaries when his ambition and power-grab are at stake. And so, the residents of the 9th, will have to endure visits from the most divisive extremist ever to lead the Republican Party in the House of Delegates.
(Note: This post has been updated and slightly edited.)
With the list of those Senators urging a fight FOR the public option growing (now 23), Senators Warner and Webb should take note of both a new TPM article and a new poll. It turns out that Virginia voters want them to fight harder for a Medicare-like public option. Scroll down in the second link to find the really interesting responses.
Huffington Post reports that Senators Scott Brown (MA); Olympia Snowe, (ME); Susan Collins (ME); George Voinovich (OH); and Kit Bond (MO) joined with Democrats to break the Republican filibuster on the jobs bill. Read about it here.
Harry Reid said:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) thanked the newly-elected Republican from Massachusetts. "I hope this is the beginning of a new day here in the Senate. Whether this new day was created by the new Senator from Massachusetts or some other reason, I'm very, very happy that we were able to get this done. But there are some winners. Not any individual Senator, not Democrats or Republicans. The winners are small business people throughout this country."
Here are the links to the White House proposals for improving and ensuring passage of the health care bill, including how it would tweak the Senate bill (so far it seems to be more of a modified Senate bill than the better House bill). The release of the proposal paves the way for the White House Summit on health care reform this week. More later...
Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was bloviating on television interviews this weekend. And I heard him again on NPR this AM. He's pretty proud of his obstruction, while now simultaneously claiming credit for "accomplishments" (more on that in a moment). Yet he doesn't see the contradiction.
Mitch is good at something, though: his divide and conquer strategy, as Politico.com points out. I got to thinking: Mitch McConnell may think his divide and conquer is smart. And it may well be if Conservadems are Red enough (i.e., Republican enough) to fall for it. If they do (fall for it) shame on them. But otherwise, Mitch McConnell may be the longest serving Senator in KY, and the Senate Minority leader, but he is (how shall we say it?) a pathetic failure as a national steward of the American People's interests. It's a wonder, really, how KY keeps returning him to the US Senate.
Mitch has only negatives in his playbook:
• Obstruction.
• On-Your-Ownership for everyone, except corporations and the rich.
• Hypocrisy, as in this condemning the stimulus bill but being there for photo ops where stim money has helped in his home state of Kentucky.
Update: The President has repeated his correct assertion that any future shortfalls for Social Security can be fixed very simply by lifting the cap on income taxable under Social Security. (Currently, it's $109,000.) So, perhaps the president can begin to own the message. The fibbers and fabricators among the lobbyist-fed anti-Social Security crowd have been far more vocal thus far. Also, he and Congress need to control the process by which "ideas' from the Commission get implemented.
Roger Hickey of Ourfuture.org says the President now owns the deficit reduction commission. Indeed, I am afraid he does. You can read the full article here. One important question is this: In his picking Social Security antagonist Alan Simpson to co-chair the deficit reduction commission, has President Obama thrown seniors under the bus? He may well have.
Simpson's fellow co-chair is hardly a counterweight to Simpson. Erskine Bowles gives weak-kneed support for life-saving programs for seniors. With their nest eggs cannibalized by Wall Street (if seniors are so lucky as to have had nest eggs at all), seniors are more dependent on Social Security than ever. They worked for it. It was promised to them. They depend on it. Generations of Americans have. And now the president coddles the program's very enemies. What's up with that?
The real reason Social Security is now "on the table," is that corporations want it so. They resent having to match what we put into the system. Poor babies. Their fat bonuses aren't big enough. And so they do what they do best, go after the most vulnerable, the least able to lobby, fight them, and exert any power (again). They do it with sick people, with people who need a roof over their heads, and now onto seniors.
What is the President's excuse? Is this one more manifestation of his seemingly unlimited pie-eyed optimism that the Party of No will one day be won over? A hint comes in the fact that no currently serving Republican would come near this effort. Nor would any sitting Democrat, if he has any sense. So the President has done an end-run around the Senate.
Even liberal sites such as Alternet.org seem to be snookered by Teabaggers. The Alternet article suggests that teabaggers are the real deal. Populists yearning for a fairer America (not). Believing that the army that Dick (Armey) built is anything but a tool of big oil, big insurance and Wall Street is seriously misguided.
As progressives could have told the so-called MSM, and now, apparently, alternative media, there is no real populism among Teabaggers. They do try to exploit the nation's populist inclinations, however. And they do so only with progressive populism's acquiescence.
But true populism would get squashed like a bug in today's America. You wouldn't find Repugs coddling them, meeting with them (as Michael Steele did this week) and otherwise sucking up to them (witness our own "AG" who TeaPartied his way into the AG position). Most of all you won't find it in the divisive, rich, white males of the "Tea Party Movement." They are out for No. 1. And if they aren't already rich, they buy the saying that "you too can be rich." It's the potion that lures too many an American to cut a deal with the devil, only to be sucker punched by an economy built on fumes.
Earlier this week, we saw just how non-populist are the Teabaggers. Take a look at this article at Alternet.org.
During these Olympics, I thought I'd bring you an event that the IOC won't. Lindsay Van is the best ski jumper in the world. But women cannot ski jump in the Olympics because old-school men say no.
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