Good Morning!
Longwood Gardens. February, 2013. Photo by joanneleon.
Joe Perry - "Man Of Peace"
News and Opinion
It's all about the entitlements. The sequester was designed by the Obama administration to force Democrats to vote to cut Social Security, Medicare, perhaps other programs. This is the big thing that everybody is missing about the sequester. It's a manufactured crisis, deficit terrorism, as priceman calls it, and a form of the shock doctrine/disaster capitalism, as Naomi Klein calls it. Hat tip to bobswern.
Exclusive: The Woodward, Sperling emails revealed
Sperling wrote:
But I do truly believe you should rethink your comment about saying saying that Potus asking for revenues is moving the goal post. I know you may not believe this, but as a friend, I think you will regret staking out that claim. The idea that the sequester was to force both sides to go back to try at a big or grand bargain with a mix of entitlements and revenues (even if there were serious disagreements on composition) was part of the DNA of the thing from the start. It was an accepted part of the understanding — from the start. Really. It was assumed by the Rs on the Supercommittee that came right after: it was assumed in the November-December 2012 negotiations. There may have been big disagreements over rates and ratios — but that it was supposed to be replaced by entitlements and revenues of some form is not controversial. (Indeed, the discretionary savings amount from the Boehner-Obama negotiations were locked in in BCA: the sequester was just designed to force all back to table on entitlements and revenues.)
This is not a blog post. This is on the opinion page of the Washington Post. The author, Mike Lofgren, ditched the Republican party in 2011 after 28 years as a staffer on both the House and Senate budget committees. He became an Independent and did not become a Democrat because our party has jumped the shark too, and his judgment on that was confirmed by the Obama administration's recent kabuki on the sequester, going as far as to release immigrants from detention three days before the sequester because of the threat of upcoming budget cuts -- as a fearmongering tactic.
A country with bad political theater
With both parties now dedicated to polarizing guerrilla theater rather than rational problem-solving, Washington’s governing establishment has jumped the shark. It has collectively become the very caricature that each party thinks the other is. With battle lines thus drawn, it is no wonder that we endure crisis after crisis: The Senate has not passed a budget in three years, previously routine debt-limit votes have become occasions for stock market meltdowns, and government now receives funding only through omnibus measures and stopgap continuing resolutions, rather than traditional appropriations bills.
Budgetary crisis has become the normal fabric of political life. Regardless of how sequestration is resolved, government funding for 2013 will expire March 27, when we will face yet another manufactured fiscal emergency and the possibility of government shutdown. And government accountants expect we will reach the debt limit on May 19. Any resolution of these issues will simply plant more land mines in our path over the next four years, as each side jockeys to place the other in a politically untenable position ahead of yet another contrived fiscal deadline.
Politics in Washington has become far worse than the traditional partisan to-and-fro inherent in any democracy. It now presents a danger to orderly day-to-day governance of the country. Politics is no longer the art of the possible; it is bad theater. We are lurching perilously close to becoming Italy, where citizens appear to have given up on being self-governing citizens and instead have cynically chosen reality TV. Criminally implicated tycoons and comedians vie for the presidency; these candidates appeal to many Italians because they provide a diversion from a government in perpetual crisis.
Basically, a flat out lie in the Saturday morning address from the president. But what else is new? Sperling admitted just a few days earlier in this email that the sequester was designed to force Democrats to vote for cutting entitlements, Republicans to vote for new revenue. A "My Grand Bargain or else" situation. Is this the "single wasteful tax loophole" he's talking about? He fails to mention the other requirement -- cutting Social Security. This article mentions that they are saying they might be able to retroactively undo the spending cuts. They seem to be much more focused on who might get blamed for this rather than who is getting hurt, losing jobs, getting furloughed, cutting services and benefits in the middle of a recession that for many is a long depression.
Spending cuts now in place, Obama and congressional Republicans brace for next fiscal fights
Even as they pledged a renewed effort to retroactively undo the spending cuts, both parties said the blame rests squarely on the other for any damage the cuts might inflict. There were no indications that either side was wavering from entrenched positions that for weeks had prevented progress on a deal to find a way out: Republicans refusing any deal with more tax revenue and Democrats snubbing any deal without it.
“None of this is necessary,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday. “It’s happening because Republicans in Congress chose this outcome over closing a single wasteful tax loophole that helps reduce the deficit.”
[Emphasis added]
Here is some more from the Saturday morning address. On the front page of the
White House site, it says this "Learn about President Obama's plan to avoid harmful budget cuts and reduce the deficit in a way that helps grow the economy and strengthen the middle class."
Weekly Address: Congress Must Compromise to Stop the Impact of the Sequester
In his weekly address, President Obama tells the American people that a series of harmful budget cuts—called the sequester—have taken effect because Congress failed to act.
[...]
In his weekly address, President Obama tells the American people that a series of harmful budget cuts—called the sequester—have taken effect because Congress failed to act. Because Republicans in Congress refused to compromise to close tax loopholes for the wealthiest Americans, hundreds of thousands of Americans will lose their jobs or see their paycheck reduced, and middle class families will be hurt. Congress must join the President now to replace these cuts with a balanced approach that reduces our deficit while also making smart investments in areas that help our economy grow.
Hi, everybody. On Friday, I met with leaders of both parties in Congress to try and find a way forward in light of the severe budget cuts – known in Washington as “the sequester” – that have already started to inflict pain on communities across the country.
These cuts are not smart. They will hurt our economy and cost us jobs. And Congress can turn them off at any time – as soon as both sides are willing to compromise.
[...]
This will cause a ripple effect across the economy. Businesses will suffer because customers will have less money to spend. The longer these cuts remain in place, the greater the damage. Economists estimate they could eventually cost us more than 750,000 jobs and slow our economy by over one-half of one percent.
Here’s the thing: none of this is necessary. It’s happening because Republicans in Congress chose this outcome over closing a single wasteful tax loophole that helps reduce the deficit. Just this week, they decided that protecting special interest tax breaks for the well-off and well-connected is more important than protecting our military and middle-class families from these cuts.
I still believe we can and must replace these cuts with a balanced approach – one that combines smart spending cuts with entitlement reform and changes to our tax code that make it more fair for families and businesses without raising anyone’s tax rates. That’s how we can reduce our deficit without laying off workers, or forcing parents and students to pay the price. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. It’s the kind of approach I’ve proposed for two years now. A majority of the American people agree with me on this approach – including a majority of Republicans. We just need Republicans in Congress to catch up with their own party and the rest of the country.
Now, I know there are Republicans in Congress who would actually rather see tax loopholes closed than let these cuts go through. And I know there are Democrats who’d rather do smart entitlement reform than let these cuts go through. There’s a caucus of common sense. And I’m going to keep reaching out to them to fix this for good.
Because the American people are weary of perpetual partisanship and brinksmanship. This is America, and in America, we don’t careen from one manufactured crisis to another. We make smart choices. We plan. We prioritize. So I’m going to push through this paralysis and keep fighting for the real challenges facing middle-class families. I’m going to keep pushing for high-quality preschool for every family that wants it, and make sure the minimum wage becomes a wage you can live on. I’m going to keep pushing to fix our immigration system, repair our transportation system, and keep our children safe from gun violence.
That’s the work you elected me to do. That’s what I’m focused on every single day. Thanks.
[Emphasis added]
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (by Naomi Klein)
Klein introduces two of her main themes.
That practitioners of the shock doctrine tend to seek a blank slate on which to create their ideal free market economies, which usually requires a violent destruction of the existing economic order.
The similarities between economic shock doctrine and the original shock therapy – a psychiatric technique where electric shocks were applied to mentally ill patients.
[...]
The book argues that the free market policies of Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman have risen to prominence in some countries because they were pushed through while the citizens were reacting to disasters or upheavals. It is implied that some man-made crises, such as the Falklands war, may have been created with the intention of pushing through these unpopular reforms in their wake.
[...]
The Irish Times describes Klein’s arguments as "compelling" with Dr. Tom Clonan reporting that she "systematically and calmly demonstrates to the reader" the way in which neoconservative figures were intimately linked to seismic events that "resulted in the loss of millions of lives". Near the end of the review Clonan’s offers a précis for Klein’s central argument – that the neoconservative project is not about "implanting of democracy" but a repressive prescription for the maximising of global profit for a small elite. "Neocons see the ideal ratio of super-rich to permanent-poor as consistent with an uber-class of business oligarchs and their political cronies from the top 20%". The remaining 80% of the world’s population, the "disposable poor", would subsist in "planned misery" unable to afford adequate housing, privatised education or health care.[9] The Independent called the book "a compelling account of the way big business and politics use global disasters for their own ends",[10] while Stephen Amidon of the New York Observer calls it a "compelling study of the dark heart of contemporary capitalism."[11]
Wall Street (and Main Street) give sequester a big yawn
There's proof to Zandi's statement. A recent survey showed that fewer than one in five of those polled said they understand very well what would happen if the sequester went into effect.
Zandi also said that the Washington blame game is confusing the issue.
"People are very suspicious about the politics of it all and who's right and who's not," said Zandi. "They don't know who to believe and don't really understand the seriousness of it all."
One analyst said people might be too busy to even notice what's going on.
"So many people are working long hours, trying to feed the family, and just keep their heads together. I don't think they even have time to focus on sequestration," said Timothy Nash, an economics professor at Northwood University.
This was on the front page of the NY Times. Yarite. The budget wars are going to stop now (because they are going to work together to cut entitlements, with Obama leading the charge?) I think they need a long recess for something as big as that. July 30th sounds about right and then they can skip town for six weeks. McConnell swears the Republicans won't raise taxes, no matter what. Maybe they will go for the "tax expenditures" meme. Who knows? The only thing we know is that flattening the tax code, lowering the corporate tax rate, and cutting entitlements is in the batshit Bowles-Simpson plan. Together they can take it to the greedy grandma geezers, as Alan Simpson might say.
As Cuts Arrive, Parties Pledge to Call Off the Budget Wars
But both the president and his Republican adversaries said they would not carry the fight over the cuts into a coming legislative effort to finance the government through Sept. 30, essentially declaring a cease-fire in the budget wars that have dominated Washington since 2011.
[...]
Both sides indicated that for now, that may be enough — a fiscal peace through political exhaustion.
[...]
By mid-March, Senator Murray and her House Budget Committee counterpart, Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, will produce broad blueprints for spending and tax policy over 10 years, the next vehicles for bipartisanship on the deficit — if those budget plans can be reconciled.
That is doubtful. Mr. Ryan has said his plan will try to balance the budget within 10 years, without raising taxes and without any abrupt hits to Social Security and Medicare. His plan will lock in the savings from the across-the-board cuts but will shift the targets away from defense.
In contrast, Ms. Murray said, the Senate plan will undo the cuts beyond this fiscal year with a mix of tax increases and other spending reductions.
This is absurd. Robert Reich will become a contortionist on demand for the party leadership while trying to look tough and fair minded at other times. This one is just unbelievable, more of the Obama admin trying to shift the blame for his sequester to the Republicans. That didn't work so well, so now it's a Tea Party Plot.
Remember remember the 1st of Marchember, the Tea Party treason and plot.... Nah, doesn't work, Robert. Gone off the deep end... for the party.
The Sequester and the Tea Party Plot
Tea Party Republicans are crowing about the “sequestration” cuts beginning today (Friday). “This will be the first significant tea party victory in that we got what we set out to do in changing Washington,” says Rep. Tim Huelskamp (Kan.), a Tea Partier who was first elected in 2010.
Sequestration is only the start. What they set out to do was not simply change Washington but eviscerate the U.S. government — “drown it in the bathtub,” in the words of their guru Grover Norquist – slashing Social Security and Medicare, ending worker protections we’ve had since the 1930s, eroding civil rights and voting rights, terminating programs that have helped the poor for generations, and making it impossible for the government to invest in our future.
Bradley Manning Support Network
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Manning entered a very unusual plea known as a "naked plea" or a "bareback plea" which is plea decided upon by him and his attorney, not a plea bargain with the prosecutor. He pled guilty to 10 of the charges, not guilty on 12 of them, including the capital espionage offense, but the government will still be calling all of the witnesses and going through the full court martial process, scheduled to begin on June 3. He can still be found guilty on the other 12 charges. One interesting thing is that a military judge has maximum sentences but no minimums. The judge, Army Colonel Denise Lind, can sentence him according to what she thinks is appropriate. And don't forget that her boss, President Obama, exercised undue command influence when he made a public statement saying that Manning was guilty, as did the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dempsey. Both of them showed highly unfair and unprofessional conduct by doing that. It seemed that they had already made a judgment and had no worry about it having any effect on the case, though it should have in a nation of laws.
Bradley Manning prosecution to call full witness list despite guilty plea
Supporters argue that the soldier has done enough and that plans for full-blown prosecution is a blatantly political act
It will be the sixth time the Espionage Act has been unleashed against the source of an official leak of classified information under the Obama administration - more than the total number of times it has been deployed under all previous presidents since it was enacted in 1917.
[...]
The team of three military prosecutors presenting the government's case, led by Major Ashden Fein, have thrown the book at Manning. This week they revealed that they intended to call no fewer than 141 witnesses for a possible 12-week trial – a display of prosecutorial muscle that has astonished experts in military law. Eugene Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale law school, said: "I find it shocking that any trial counsel would think that a judge would permit 141 witnesses. This is not an anti-trust case, there are not that many moving parts in this case."
Alexa O'Brien has published Manning's full plea. The government has refused to release it. I don't know how she did it. Pretty amazing.
Pfc. Bradley E. Manning's Statement for the Providence Inquiry
This statement below was read by Private First Class Bradley E. Bradley at a providence inquiry for his formal plea of guilty to one specification as charged and nine specifications for lesser included offenses. He pled not guilty to 12 other specifications. This rush transcript was taken by journalist Alexa O'Brien at the Article 39(a) session of United States v. Pfc. Bradley Manning on February 28, 2013 at Fort Meade, MD, USA.
Judge Lind: Pfc. Manning you may read your statement.
Pfc. Bradley Manning: Yes, your Honor. I wrote this statement in the confinement facility. The following facts are provided in support of the providence inquiry for my court martial, United States v. Pfc. Bradley E. Manning.
[...]
On 8 January 2010, I collected the CD-RW I stored in the conference room of the T-SCIF and placed it into the cargo pocket of my ACU or Army Combat Uniform. At the end of my shift, I took the CD-RW out of the T-SCIF and brought it to my Containerized Housing Unit of CHU. I copied the data onto my personal laptop. Later at the beginning of my shift, I returned the CD-RW back to the conference room of the T-SCIF. At the time I saved the SigActs to my laptop, I planned to take them with me on mid-tour leave and decide what to do with them.
At some point prior to my mid-tour, I transfered the information from my computer to a Secure Digital memory card from my digital camera. The SD card for the camera also worked on my computer and allowed me to store the SigAct tables in a secure manner for transport.
I began mid-tour leave on 23 January 2010, flying from Atlanta, Georgia to Reagan National Airport in Virginia. I arrived at the home of my aunt, Debra M. Van Alstyne, in Potomac, Maryland and quickly got into contact with my then boyfriend, Tyler R. Watkins. Tyler, then a student at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, and I made plans for me to visit him him Boston, Massachusetts [missed word].
[...]
During this time a blizzard bombarded the mid-atlantic, and I spent a significant period of time essentially stuck in my aunt's house in Maryland. I began to think about what I knew and the information I still had in my possession. For me, the SigActs represented the on the ground reality of both the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I felt that we were risking so much for people that seemed unwilling to cooperate with us, leading to frustration and anger on both sides. I began to become depressed with the situation that we found ourselves increasingly mired in year after year. The SigActs documented this in great detail and provide a context of what we were seeing on the ground.
In attempting to conduct counter-terrorism or CT and counter-insurgency COIN operations we became obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists and not being suspicious of and avoiding cooperation with our Host Nation partners, and ignoring the second and third order effects of accomplishing short-term goals and missions. I believe that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information contained within the CIDNE-I and CIDNE-A tables this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as [missed word] as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan.
I also believed the detailed analysis of the data over a long period of time by different sectors of society might cause society to reevaluate the need or even the desire to even to engage in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations that ignore the complex dynamics of the people living in the effected environment everyday.
At my aunt's house I debated what I should do with the SigActs-- in particular whether I should hold on to them-- or expose them through a press agency. At this point I decided that it made sense to try to expose the SigAct tables to an American newspaper. I first called my local news paper, The Washington Post, and spoke with a woman saying that she was a reporter. I asked her if the Washington Post would be interested in receiving information that would have enormous value to the American public.
Although we spoke for about five minutes concerning the general nature of what I possessed, I do not believe she took me seriously. She informed me that the Washington Post would possibly be interested, but that such decisions were made only after seeing the information I was referring to and after consideration by senior editors.
I then decided to contact [missed word] the most popular newspaper, The New York Times. I called the public editor number on The New York Times website. The phone rang and was answered by a machine. I went through the menu to the section for news tips. I was routed to an answering machine. I left a message stating I had access to information about Iraq and Afghanistan that I believed was very important. However, despite leaving my Skype phone number and personal email address, I never received a reply from The New York Times.
I also briefly considered dropping into the office for the Political Commentary blog, Politico, however the weather conditions during my leave hampered my efforts to travel. After these failed efforts I had ultimately decided to submit the materials to the WLO. I was not sure if the WLO would actually publish these SigAct tables [missed a few words]. I was concerned that they might not be noticed by the American media. However, based upon what I read about the WLO through my research described above, this seemed to be the best medium for publishing this information to the world within my reach.
At my aunts house I joined in on an IRC conversation and stated I had information that needed to be shared with the world. I wrote that the information would help document the true cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the individuals in the IRC asked me to describe the information. However, before I could describe the information another individual pointed me to the link for the WLO web site online submission system. After ending my IRC connection, I considered my options one more time. Ultimately, I felt that the right thing to do was to release the SigActs.
On 3 February 2010, I visited the WLO website on my computer and clicked on the submit documents link. Next I found the submit your information online link and elected to submit the SigActs via the onion router or TOR anonymizing network by special link. TOR is a system intended to provide anonymity online. The software routes internet traffic through a network of servers and other TOR clients in order to conceal the user's location and identity.
[Emphasis added]
In the Friday news dump. McKibben is calling for protests any time Kerry or Obama speak in public and is organizing another day of action and training in May.
Some Tough News on Keystone XL
On a Friday afternoon, with Secretary of State John Kerry half a world away and D.C. focused on the budget fight, the State Department released a new environmental impact statement for the pipeline. Like the last such report, it found that approving a 800,000 barrel-a-day fuse to one of the planet’s biggest carbon bombs was “unlikely to have a substantial impact” on the tar sands or the climate.
That, in a word, is nonsense -- some of our most important climate scientists in the U.S. have written the State Department to explain exactly how dangerous Keystone is. Just yesterday Europe’s top climate diplomat pointed out that it would send a truly terrible signal to the rest of the world.
[...]
First -- since it’s clear that the polite but firm warnings of our top climate scientists aren’t being heard -- anytime that the President or Secretary of State Kerry appears in public, it’s crucial that we let them know that we won’t accept this pipeline or the damage it will do to our climate. We need a team of rapid responders coast-to-coast who can turn around with 24 hours notice and raise a ruckus at these events when we find out about them.
Join The Keystone XL Rapid Response Team
When You're In A Hole, Stop Digging. Day Of Action, May 2013
Wall Street’s Bonus Pool Has Quintupled Since 1985
2012 was the second most profitable year in Wall Street’s history, with banks making north of $140 billion. Wall Street’s bonus pool, while not yet back to the heights it achieved before the financial crisis, is growing again, and the average cash bonus hit $121,900.
This is part and parcel of a longer trend on Wall Street, which has seen pay skyrocket as the financial industry was deregulated. According to Bloomberg News, Wall Street’s bonus pool has nearly quintupled since 1985, growing from $4 billion to more than $20 billion (in constant dollars)
Sanders Statement on Tar Sands Pipeline
“No one who is serious about protecting the future of our planet and reversing global warming could support this pipeline project. Tar sands oil is the dirtiest on Earth, and the Environmental Protection Agency has said clearly that tar sands production releases 82 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil.
“President Obama spoke eloquently in his Inaugural Address and State of the Union about the need to take action to reverse global warming. It’s now time to turn words into action. The president cannot tell us that he is concerned about globlal warming and approve the Keystone XL project. I again call on the president to reject this dangerous project and continue moving our nation toward energy efficiency and sustainable energy.
“It is bad enough that some people in Washington deny the overwhelming scientific evidence and claim that global warming is a hoax and a Hollywood conspiracy. In my view, it would be equally absurd to claim concern about global warming while then approving decisions that will literally throw fuel on the fire of this planetary crisis. The president must reject the Keystone XL project.”
March 4. It's hilarious (not really) how this president postponed so many shitty deals for the American people until after his election. The reports on the Afghanistan war were delayed until after the election and the announcement that we're not really leaving in 2014 after all. The Social Security cuts, the sequester, the TPP trade deal, the Keystone pipeline report by the State Department... and so on.
Ahead of Singapore Round of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Negotiations, U.S. Public Opposition to Deal Grows
More Than 300 Civil Society Groups Call for Transparency and Core Principles for International Economic Pacts, While the AFL-CIO Releases New Organizational Resolution Criticizing Direction and Process of TPP Talks
WASHINGTON - March 1 - With the sixteenth round of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations slated to begin on March 4 in Singapore, opposition to the deal in the United States continues to mount.
[...]
Adding to the criticism, on February 27, the AFL-CIO released an executive council statementquestioning the current path of TPP negotiations. It stated, “The United States cannot afford another trade agreement that hollows out our industrial base and adds to our substantial trade deficit.” It continued, “We do not need another trade deal that simply boosts corporate profits by encouraging offshoring good jobs while undermining wages, benefits and worker rights. We must do better.”
[...]
President Barack Obama has called for completion of the TPP, which would be the largest U.S. trade agreement since the 1995 World Trade Organization, by early October. To date, Congress and the public have been denied access to draft texts of the massive pact, which has been under negotiation for three years.
Jamie Dimon to Analyst: 'That's Why I'm Richer Than You'
Dimon doesn't sound like a guy who is the slightest bit worried about being held accountable for anything. He's the most powerful person fighting the Volcker rule and calls it "unnecessary". He was paid $23 million in 2011. Check out this article too -- it's pretty hilarious, about Dimon putting his foot in his mouth at Investor Day:
"3 Contentious Claims Jamie Dimon Made At JPMorgan Chase Investor Day"
At a J.P. Morgan investor event this week Mike Mayo, an analyst at CLSA, who has been a critic of large banks and, at times, Dimon, asked if J.P. Morgan wasn't at a competitive disadvantage compared to more highly capitalized peers. (Here is a playback via Business Insider: link.reuters.com/fys36t)
Mayo: I think what I hear UBS saying in the presentation is that if I'm an affluent customer I'll feel a lot better going to UBS if they have 13.5 (percent) capital ratio than another big bank with a 10 percent ratio. Do you agree with that?
Dimon: You would go to UBS and not JPMorgan?
Mayo: I didn't say that. That's their argument.
Dimon: That's why I'm richer than you.
Laughter, perhaps embarrassed, perhaps of the schoolyard variety, ensues.
That, indeed, is why Dimon is richer than most of us. He's not gotten rich running a bank on 19th-century lines, conservative with high capital to make its tony clients comfortable. He's gotten rich, and he's not alone, running banks with high leverage under comparatively loose regulatory regimes.
J.P. Morgan shareholders, it should be noted, have done a lot less well. Since Dimon became president and COO in July 2004, the bank's stock is up about 30 percent. Since he became both chairman and CEO in 2006 it is up barely at all.
Oxymoron Alert: No one cares about controversial CEO pay
The simplest and most straightforward requirement in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act may be section 953(b), which asks corporations to disclose the CEO’s pay as a multiple of the median-paid employee at the firm.
So far, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has yet to write the rule that will cause corporations to publish this number. But corporate America says the SEC should shelve its plans to require companies to disclose this ratio because … no one cares about it.
[...]
So tantamount to watching paint dry is the pay ratio that corporate America convinced one-term- (and now, former-) Congresswoman Nan Hayworth, a New York Republican, to propose an act of Congress to repeal this Dodd-Frank provision. Hayworth explained that the “information is not beneficial.”
The troops who fight the wars for the magnificent oil companies and too big to fail banks with their magnificent salaries and bonuses, who never set foot on a battlefield, often end up down and out veterans, and homeless. Twenty-two veterans commit suicide every day. One every 65 minutes.
The group, which takes an aggressive “911 attitude” to homelessness, fans out to America’s forgotten places — bridge underpasses, dry river beds, bus stop shelters, even the concrete pads of subdivision houses that were never built. Started in 2010, the “vetwork,” as Mr. Leal likes to call it, now has 20 chapters around the country, with 113 active volunteers in California alone, who subsidize the work out of their own pockets. In an article Thursday, I write about the project’s work to with homeless female veterans, who are going without housing at higher rates than male veterans.
Among the ranks of the project’s volunteers are military families with spare housing and deployed soldiers who make their empty homes available to homeless vets while they are away.
U.S. military veteran suicides rise, one dies every 65 minutes
"This data provides a fuller, more accurate, and sadly, an even more alarming picture of veteran suicide rates," said Democratic Senator Patty Murray of Washington state, who has championed legislation to strengthen mental health care for veterans.
The news came two weeks after the U.S. military acknowledged that suicides hit a record in 2012, outpacing combat deaths, with 349 active-duty suicides - almost one a day.
[Emphasis added]
Blog Posts and Tweets of Interest
Evening Blues
How The News Media is Preventing You From Taking Meaningful ACTION
State Department assessment of Keystone XL tar sands pipeline downplays environmental risks
What Sperling Wrote
US college educated workers bypassed for jobs. Why?
Vets and Milfam in San Jose - Welcoming them to Netroots Nation 2013
Transwoman sues California university after being expelled for fraudulently being herself
Count Von Count Counts 20 Times the Administration Has Blown Off Targeted Killing Memo Requests
Secret Service Denies Truthout’s Request For Aaron Swartz Documents
Occupy The SEC Sues Fed, SEC, CFTC, FDIC, Treasury
Seal & Jeff Beck - "Like A Rolling Stone"