Friday, November 30, 2012
The Gambling Addicts at Goldman Sachs....
caused the economic global meltdown.....
We need 99 Senators like Senator Sanders willing to defend the public interest, speaking the Truth to Power, taking a stand for what's right for the future.
Thank you Vermont for electing him as your Senator!
November 29, 2012
The Face of
Class Warfare
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein came to Capitol Hill this week to
call for cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. As Congress and the
White House are negotiating a year-end deficit deal, Blankfein blustered about
the need to “lower people’s expectations” about their retirement and health
care. He was loose with his facts. He spoke with all the sympathy for someone
struggling to get by on a $14,000-a-year retirement that you’d expect from a
Wall Street banker paid $16 million last year. To Bernie, Blankfein’s attack on
working families is obscene. “Think about the arrogance of these guys on Wall
Street who were bailed out by the middle class of this country when their greed
and recklessness nearly destroyed the financial system, and now they come to
Capitol Hill to lecture Congress and the American people about the need to cut
programs for working families,” Bernie said. “This is what class warfare is all
about.”
Listen to the Ed Schultz interview »
What do you think?
TAKE THE POLL
Compared to 10 years ago, the gap in living standards between the middle class and the rich is A) Wider B) Narrower C) No change D) Don’t know »
BLANKFEIN FACTS
Lloyd Blankfein was paid $16.1 million in 2011, a 14 percent increase, while Goldman's earnings fell 47 percent »
During the financial crisis, Goldman Sachs received a total of $814 billion in virtually zero interest loans from the Federal Reserve and a $10 billion bailout from the U.S. Treasury »
Goldman Sachs received a $278 million refund from the IRS in 2008, even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion that year »
In other news
THE HYPOCRISY OF LLOYD BLANKFEIN
CORPORATE TAX BREAKS
SAY NO TO SIMPSON-BOWLES
FILIBUSTER REFORM
 |
A
Good Step on Social Security
Bernie welcomed White House assurances that Social Security benefits won’t be cut as part of the budget negotiations. “This is a step in the right direction,” said the founder of the Senate’s Defending Social Security Caucus. “The simple truth is that Social Security has not contributed a nickel to the national debt so it makes no sense for it to be part of deficit negotiations.” Read more » Sign Bernie’s petition » |
 |
Sandy
and Global Warming
A hard new look at global warming should come in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and other extreme weather events. “We’ve been given a warning by science, and a wake-up call by nature; it is up to us now to heed them,” environmentalist Bill McKibben wrote in The New York Review of Books. Read Bill McKibben’s column » |
 |
Get
Breaking News Buzz Updates
One of the goals of my office is to keep people as informed as possible about major issues and the work that we are doing. The Bernie Buzz is a great way to stay informed. In addition, my office sends email updates with breaking news on important topics. Please take a moment to tell me what issues concern you most. You will then receive “Bernie Buzz Updates” – often before you read about issues you care most about in newspapers or online.  Bernie Sanders United States Senator Watch the Video & Sign Up » |
The Threat of Monsanto's GM corn
Russia suspends import and use of American GM corn after study revealed cancer risk
- The European Food Safety Authority orders review in to the research, conducted at a French university
- Russia's decision could be followed by other nations
- Experts at the University of Caen conducted an experiment running for the full lives of rats - two years
- The findings found raised levels of breast cancer, liver and kidney damage
- The same trials also found minuscule amounts of a commonly used weedkiller, Roundup
- Both the GM corn and Roundup are the creation of US biotech company Monsanto
Russia has suspended the import and use of an American GM corn following a study suggesting a link to breast cancer and organ damage.
Separately, the European Food Safety Authority(EFSA), has ordered its own review in to the research, which was conducted at a French university.
The decision by Russia could be followed by other nations in what would be a severe blow to the take-up of the controversial technology.
Cancer risk? A farmer shows two corncobs of genetically engineered corn by U.S. company Monsanto, right, and two normal corncobs from Germany, left
However, experts at the University of Caen conducted an experiment running for the full lives of rats - two years.
The findings, which were peer reviewed by independent experts before being published in a respected scientific journal, found raised levels of breast cancer, liver and kidney damage.
The same trials also found evidence that consumption of minuscule amounts of a commonly used weedkiller, Roundup, was associated with a raised risk of cancer.
Both the GM corn, which carries the name NK603, and Roundup are the creation of US biotech company Monsanto.
The decision by the Russians to suspend authorisation for the American GM corn threatens to trigger a transatlantic commercial and diplomatic row.
Contentious: A combine harvests corn in a field near Coy, Arkansas. The decision by the Russians to suspend authorisation for the American GM corn threatens to trigger a transatlantic commercial and diplomatic row
Rospotrebnadzor said the country’s Institute of Nutrition has been asked to assess the validity of the study.
It has also contacted the European Commission’s Directorate General for Health & Consumers to ask for the EU’s position on the corn’s safety.
Consumer scepticism in the UK and Europe means GM corn is not on supermarket shelves here, however it is fed to farm animals, including hens, pigs and dairy cows.
Important: In the USA, and much of Europe, corn is used to make an array of food products including cornflakes (picture posed by model)
The company said: ‘Based on our initial review, we do not believe the study presents information that would justify any change in EFSA’s views on the safety of genetically modified corn products or alter their approval status for genetically modified imports.’
The biotech industry and university researchers involved in GM research have mounted a major PR campaign over the last year to win over sceptical consumers.
In the past week, pro-GM scientists have been lining up to undermine the French experiments and criticise the way they were conducted.
However, a number of independent academics have praised the French team’s work, describing it as the most thorough and extensive feeding trials involving GM to date.
Mustafa Djamgoz, the Professor of Cancer Biology, at Imperial College, London, said the findings relating to eating GM corn were a ‘surprise’.
Prof Djamgoz, who describes himself as a neutral on GM, said: ‘The results are significant. The experiments are, more or less, the best of their kind to date.’
However, he said that it is now important to ensure they are repeated with more animals by independent laboratories to confirm the outcome.
‘We are not scaremongering here. More research, including a repetition of this particular study are warranted,’ he said.
The professor said it will take two to three years to get a definitive answer
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2208452/Russia-suspends-import-use-American-GM-corn-study-revealed-cancer-risk.html#ixzz2DkRX3EgE
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Let's get rid of Chinese-made crap!
By supporting American-made goods, we could eliminate the imported crap that doesn't last, doesn't protect workers, doesn't protect the environment.
Sorry! But we just returned the 3rd Chinese-made can opener that was a piece of crap.
And we've had the same problem with numerous other items that are poorly made crap.
Sorry! But we just returned the 3rd Chinese-made can opener that was a piece of crap.
And we've had the same problem with numerous other items that are poorly made crap.
The words of Henry Ford
Some people understood the value of the middle class - you can't buy goods if you have no $$$.
We need to return to those values.
Fast Food Forward
These include LOW WAGE JOBS created by the Gambling Industry and supported, endorsed and promoted by short-sighted politicians.
Gambling is simply a massive transfer of wealth and poor fiscal policy.
Gambling is simply a massive transfer of wealth and poor fiscal policy.
![[020] Through social media, regular people across the nation made history by targeting Walmart for its anti-worker practices. After 6 weeks of sharing posts, photos, and memes, the Black Friday strike became the biggest MSM story and covered by Jon Stewart.
Now we are focusing on the equally abusive fast-food industry as workers in NYC demand a living wage.
SHARE if you stand in solidarity with fast-food workers and help make history!
Get connected to the campaign by liking the page @[430475173680811:274:Fast Food Forward]!!](https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/s480x480/319670_448347228546804_215342597_n.jpg)
Hmmm...when do we stop following dummies?
Folks should do a little research aboutr John McCain's Gambling Addiction, his history in leaking testimony in the massive banking scandal when others went to prison.....and bunches of other stuff.
ALEC: Finally facing scrutiny
ALEC Convenes in Washington; Damage Control at Top of Agenda Friday, 30 November 2012 By Brendan Fischer, PRWatch | Report
(Photo: Mark Haller / Flickr)At the end of a tumultuous year that has seen the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) come under unprecedented scrutiny for its role in advancing a slate of right-wing legislation, the corporate-friendly organization of state lawmakers and special interest lobbyists convenes this week in Washington, DC to try and salvage its viability.
At this week's meeting, ALEC members will by treated to presentations like "Best Practices for Debt Collection and Tax Amnesty" from student loan company Sallie Mae and a talk on state unemployment from the Koch-funded Mercatus Center. Representatives of the Mortgage Bankers Association will present to the Financial Services Subcommittee, which is co-chaired by a lobbyist for Visa. The Heritage Foundation's James Sherk (whose work is funded by the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation) will discuss "how to limit union influence."
But only a handful of new "model" bills are on the agenda. According to ALEC task force documents obtained through open records requests, the meeting will largely consist of deciding which bills from its vast library to "sunset" and which to retain or amend -- an apparent effort to scrub their history of far-right model bills, and likely a response to a year of intense criticism. Hopefully the organization is reviewing some of its more retrograde proposals, such as its stalwart opposition to minimum wage laws and support for climate change denial. At least for this meeting, ALEC is focused less on proactively developing legislation and more on damage control.
ALEC Under Fire in 2012
ALEC came under particularly intense criticism starting in March 2012 for its national drive to promote the “Stand Your Ground” gun law that initially shielded 17-year-old Trayvon Martin's killer from prosecution, and weathered additional criticism in the following months over its role in advancing laws that make it harder to vote, that criminalize immigrants, protect corporations from civil liability, thwart environmental regulations, and cut holes in the social safety net -- all while enjoying tax-exempt "charitable" status.
In response to the criticism, more than 40 corporations, including General Motors, General Electric, Amazon.com, and Coca-Cola, have severed ties with ALEC. ALEC has also been the subject of multiple IRS complaints alleging that it has violated its charitable 501(c)(3) status by acting primarily as a conduit for corporate interests to lobby state legislators, thereby allowing these special interests to write-off their lobbying expenses as a charitable deduction.
ALEC legislators -- who in many cases receive substantial campaign contributions and gifts of flights and hotel rooms from the corporations that stand to benefit from the introduction of ALEC model legislation -- have also been under fire from their constituents, who have expressed concern that their elected officials have become more accountable to special interests than the people in their district.
At least 70 legislators have publicly dropped their ALEC membership in the past year and 117 ALEC member legislators lost their seats in the 2012 elections.
ALEC has been around since 1973 but has never faced this level of scrutiny. In past decades, ALEC has successfully allowed corporate interests to advance an agenda to privatize everything from schools to prisons and to reshape state laws in the corporate mold, but with the public never knowing a particular bill originated from ALEC or was initially drafted by the same corporations that profit from its passage.
Now that ALEC has been exposed, it has shifted into damage control mode -- not by making a case for why corporate influence over politics is a good thing, but by covering its tracks and attacking its critics.
Damage Control and Coverups
ALEC is seeking to scrub its history of reactionary proposals at this week's meeting but the damage control effort has been underway for months.
In April 2012, ALEC claimed to disband the task force responsible for its most controversial legislation -- such as Stand Your Ground, voter suppression, and anti-immigrant bills -- purportedly to focus exclusively on "economic" issues. At its July 2012 meeting, ALEC pledged to expand membership among"underrepresented segments," perhaps in response to critiques that ALEC laws disproportionately impact people of color, despite the vast majority of ALEC members being white.
The organization has also taken steps to cloak their activities in even greater secrecy. Instead of sending legislators proposed model bills and meeting agendas through an email that might be released through an open records request, ALEC is now sending its members a link, which expires within 72 hours, to an Internet drop box where they can access the relevant documents, in an attempt to conceal these records from the public. Many ALEC legislators are also corresponding with the organization through personal email accounts (like Gmail or Yahoo) in an apparent effort to evade state open records laws; in Wisconsin, the Center for Media and Democracy and Common Cause had to file a lawsuit to gain access to these public records and prevailed.
ALEC has also been using a public relations firm to investigate public interest groups asking questions about ALEC’s activities. ALEC has sent multiple emails to its legislative members attacking the character of its critics -- but notably failing to respond to the content of their critiques.
Echoes of Trayvon Martin Tragedy Reverberate
As the organization gathers this week at the Grand Hyatt Washington, echoes of the Trayvon Martin tragedy are again reverberating in Florida, with another African-American 17-year-old shot dead and his killer seeking to avoid responsibility by invoking the ALEC-ratified, National Rifle Association-sponsored Stand Your Ground law.
On Friday, 17-year-old Jordan Russell Davis was sitting in a car with friends when 45-year-old Michael David Dunn confronted the group for playing their music too loud. Dunn then fired nine shots into the car after "there were words exchanged." None of the teenagers were armed, but Dunn said he felt "threatened" and plans to invoke the state's Stand Your Ground law at trial. As was the case with the Trayvon Martin tragedy, the victim was African-American and the shooter was not.
The shooting comes just weeks after a panel appointed by Florida Governor Rick Scott to review the Stand Your Ground law endorsed the legislation, ignoring empirical evidence showing the laws correspond with an increase in homicides. Half of the lawmakers on the panel are ALEC members.
At this week's meeting ALEC will try to purge its library of its most controversial model bills. But in many states the damage has already been done. To truly repair the organization's reputation, ALEC legislators should go a step further and start to repeal the laws, like Stand Your Ground, that have already caused so much harm.
http://truth-out.org/news/item/13055-after-a-controversial-year-alec-convenes-in-washington-damage-control-at-top-of-agenda
poised for collapse...by perpetuating ignorance
U.S. poised for energy independence by 2035 — and climate poised for collapse
The new World Energy Outlook report from the International Energy Agency is chock-full of forecasts like that one about global energy markets [PDF]. More big news: The U.S. is poised to become the world’s largest oil producer by 2020, overtaking Saudi Arabia and Russia, and to start exporting more oil than we import by 2030.
The continued rise of dirty energy is bad news if you care about the climate. Is there any good news about clean energy? Well, renewables could become the world’s second-largest source of power generation by 2015, second only to coal, if clean-energy subsidies keep rising. The IEA projects that such subsidies could hit $240 billion by 2035, at which point renewables could draw even with coal in terms of electricity generation.
The Environmental Price of FRACKING
Fracking threatens farms and food safety
After fracking began at 32 sites within a couple miles of her ranch, Schilke’s cattle started dropping dead and Schilke herself started suffering from poor health. Ambient air testing found high levels of a bunch of nasty chemical compounds associated with fracking, and with cancer and birth defects.
State health and agriculture officials acknowledged Schilke’s air and water tests but told her she had nothing to worry about. Her doctors, however, diagnosed her with neurotoxic damage and constricted airways. “I realized that this place is killing me and my cattle,” Schilke says. She began using inhalers and a nebulizer, switched to bottled water, and quit eating her own beef and the vegetables from her garden. (Schilke sells her cattle only to buyers who will finish raising them outside the shale area, where she presumes that any chemical contamination will clear after a few months.) “My health improved,” Schilke says, “but I thought, ‘Oh my God, what are we doing to this land?’”
Around the country, farmland near fracking sites is being contaminated and livestock are getting sick and dying.
In Louisiana, seventeen cows died after an hour’s exposure to spilled fracking fluid. (Most likely cause of death: respiratory failure.) In north central Pennsylvania, 140 cattle were exposed to fracking wastewater when an impoundment was breached. Approximately seventy cows died; the remainder produced eleven calves, of which only three survived. In western Pennsylvania, an overflowing waste pit sent fracking chemicals into a pond and a pasture where pregnant cows grazed: half their calves were born dead. The following year’s animal births were sexually skewed, with ten females and two males, instead of the usual 50-50 or 60-40 split.As natural-gas drilling operations move into the Northeast, where there’s a high concentration of organic farms and local-focused eaters, expect to see more conflicts between farmers and frackers. Big questions lie behind those sad images of dead baby cows: How “cheap” is natural gas that costs lives? And is energy independence more important to us than food independence?
http://grist.org/news/fracking-threatens-farms-and-food-safety/
The Teflon President!
When people fail to pay attention to the action of their leaders, a paper pedestal is erected.
Let's not forget about Iran Contra.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Do we follow ALEC off the cliff?
Study: ALEC Is Bad for the Economy
| Thu Nov. 29, 2012
The American Legislative Exchange Council, the corporate-funded group that generates nearly a thousand pro-business model bills per year and feeds them to state legislatures nationwide, is holding its annual policy summit in the nation's capital this week to meet with new state lawmakers and "prepare the next generation of political leadership." This coincides with the release of a report showing that ALEC's economic prescriptions are not good for the economy.
Each year, ALEC ranks the states on how tightly they adhere to the group's policy recommendations—from personal and corporate tax rates, to public sector employment levels, to right-to-work laws—as a predictor of their economic growth. The study released Wednesday, by the Iowa Policy Project and Good Jobs First, two policy groups that promote economic growth at the state level, introduces those rankings to reality. It concludes: "A hard look at the actual data finds that the ALEC…recommendations not only fail to predict positive results for state economies—the policies they endorse actually forecast worse state outcomes for job creation and paychecks." (Though the report is careful to maintain that though ALEC policies are correlated with less prosperous state economies, that doesn't necessarily mean the policies caused economic decline.)
Let's take a look. In six key measures of economic growth, ALEC's "Economic Outlook Rankings" fail to coincide with the actual economic outlook of a state over time. On the horizontal axis we have all 50 states' ALEC economic grades from 2007, when ALEC started its ranking system. The vertical axis shows the percent change in actual economic performance from 2007 until last year. If ALEC's fortune-telling were correct , the plotted points would form an upward, rightward line, with a better score corresponding with a better economy. But what happens is pretty much the opposite:
Instead of boosting states' fortunes, the report finds that ALEC's preferred policies seem to provide "a recipe for economic inequality, wage suppression, and stagnant incomes, and for depriving state and local governments of the revenue needed to maintain the public infrastructure and education systems that are the true foundations of long term economic growth and shared prosperity."
Each year, ALEC ranks the states on how tightly they adhere to the group's policy recommendations—from personal and corporate tax rates, to public sector employment levels, to right-to-work laws—as a predictor of their economic growth. The study released Wednesday, by the Iowa Policy Project and Good Jobs First, two policy groups that promote economic growth at the state level, introduces those rankings to reality. It concludes: "A hard look at the actual data finds that the ALEC…recommendations not only fail to predict positive results for state economies—the policies they endorse actually forecast worse state outcomes for job creation and paychecks." (Though the report is careful to maintain that though ALEC policies are correlated with less prosperous state economies, that doesn't necessarily mean the policies caused economic decline.)
Let's take a look. In six key measures of economic growth, ALEC's "Economic Outlook Rankings" fail to coincide with the actual economic outlook of a state over time. On the horizontal axis we have all 50 states' ALEC economic grades from 2007, when ALEC started its ranking system. The vertical axis shows the percent change in actual economic performance from 2007 until last year. If ALEC's fortune-telling were correct , the plotted points would form an upward, rightward line, with a better score corresponding with a better economy. But what happens is pretty much the opposite:
Note the downward slope:
Whoa, downward slope:
A better economy means higher incomes, means more tax revenue, right?
Aaaaand upward slope:
Instead of boosting states' fortunes, the report finds that ALEC's preferred policies seem to provide "a recipe for economic inequality, wage suppression, and stagnant incomes, and for depriving state and local governments of the revenue needed to maintain the public infrastructure and education systems that are the true foundations of long term economic growth and shared prosperity."Enbridge Coming to New England
This is the Enbridge Pipeline that burst --
They don't care. Do you?
Ontario municipalities step up to protect citizens, as Enbridge files Line 9 proposal
They don't care. Do you?
Ontario municipalities step up to protect citizens, as Enbridge files Line 9 proposal
Nov 29 2012
Just as Enbridge files to reverse its Line 9 pipeline in order to ship dangerous tar sands oil east for export, municipalities across Ontario are stepping up and asking questions. It’s no wonder, as this project would bring significant new ....
Just as Enbridge files to reverse its Line 9 pipeline in order to ship dangerous tar sands oil east for export, municipalities across Ontario are stepping up and asking questions. It’s no wonder, as this project would bring significant new risks to Ontario but no rewards for those thousands of Ontarians living along the route.
So far, councils in communities along the pipeline’s route – Hamilton, Burlington, Mississauga, and Toronto have passed motions, requested more information or sought to get involved in the approval process.
The more people who learn about this project, the more people ask What does this mean for my community?
Enbridge’s proposal – a bid to pipe more dangerous tar sands oil through the most densely populated parts of Canada, crossing all the major rivers draining into Lake Ontario – could impact the drinking water of millions.
Shipping diluted bitumen is more dangerous than shipping conventional oil. Pipelines transporting dilbit spill much more often than those that don’t.
That’s why the U.S. government is actively studying this issue.
When spilled, diluted bitumen releases clouds of toxic chemicals like benzene (a known carcinogen) into the environment. This poses serious health risks to nearby residents, causing both short-term and long-term health effects.
And unlike conventional oil, tar sands oil sinks when spilled into water, coating the river or lakebed. Traditional cleanup methods don’t work, causing lasting damage and much greater expense.
This threat isn’t theoretical. Enbridge has already had serious tar sands oil spills on other pipelines that have fouled rivers, damaged the environment, made people sick and cost enormous amounts to clean up. U.S. regulators referred to Enbridge as the ‘Keystone Kops’ over their response.
With Enbridge’s poor track record on safety, questions about the condition of this nearly 40-year-old buried pipeline, and clear threats to drinking water, municipalities are smart to get involved to protect their citizens.
We should all question why our communities and our drinking water should be put in harm’s way, just so oil companies can export tar sands oil.
http://environmentaldefence.ca/blog/ontario-municipalities-step-protect-citizens-enbridge-files-line-9-proposal
http://environmentaldefence.ca/blog/ontario-municipalities-step-protect-citizens-enbridge-files-line-9-proposal
189 Seconds of Coal Ash Problems
Everywhere there is DIRTY COAL, Dirty Coal Power Plants, there are environmental issues that jeopardize the health and safety of residents.
Please do your part to protect future generations and leave the legacy of a clean environment -
Take Action Now - http://earthjustice.org/coalashaction
Every year power plants generate 140 million tons of coal ash, enough to fill a train stretching from the North Pole to the South Pole.
It contains chemicals like arsenic, mercury and lead. It can cause cancer and developmental problems. It poisons fish and wildlife in rivers and lakes.
In some places the ash is dumped into uncovered pits. In others it sits behind leaky dams. It poisons the air. It destroys the water. And the corporate polluters responsible, they claim that cleaning up this toxic mess would hurt their profits
But in 2008, when that dam broke, something changed.
Nearly half a million people asked the EPA for stronger protections. Thousands of citizens attended public meetings. Local and national environmental and public health groups got involved. We brought the coal industry face to face with the people they were hurting. Those people are America, and America spoke with one voice.
"Clean Up Coal Ash!"
But that was then and this is now. Four years later there are still no federal protections. Right now some senators want to pass a bill that will prevent the EPA from ever regulating coal ash. They want to ignore the disaster in Tennessee and avoid deadlines to clean up this toxic waste all across America. But we can't let polluter profits triumph over public health. We have to do something to clean up this mess.
So call your senators. Send this email. And share this video with your friends right now. Together we can clean up this toxic mess. But we have to take action now.
Please do your part to protect future generations and leave the legacy of a clean environment -
From Earthjustice
Take Action Now - http://earthjustice.org/coalashaction
Every year power plants generate 140 million tons of coal ash, enough to fill a train stretching from the North Pole to the South Pole.
It contains chemicals like arsenic, mercury and lead. It can cause cancer and developmental problems. It poisons fish and wildlife in rivers and lakes.
In some places the ash is dumped into uncovered pits. In others it sits behind leaky dams. It poisons the air. It destroys the water. And the corporate polluters responsible, they claim that cleaning up this toxic mess would hurt their profits
But in 2008, when that dam broke, something changed.
Nearly half a million people asked the EPA for stronger protections. Thousands of citizens attended public meetings. Local and national environmental and public health groups got involved. We brought the coal industry face to face with the people they were hurting. Those people are America, and America spoke with one voice.
"Clean Up Coal Ash!"
But that was then and this is now. Four years later there are still no federal protections. Right now some senators want to pass a bill that will prevent the EPA from ever regulating coal ash. They want to ignore the disaster in Tennessee and avoid deadlines to clean up this toxic waste all across America. But we can't let polluter profits triumph over public health. We have to do something to clean up this mess.
So call your senators. Send this email. And share this video with your friends right now. Together we can clean up this toxic mess. But we have to take action now.
Ohio GOP Secretary of State May Be Illegally Tossing Ballots
Maybe you weren't paying attention to what the GOP was doing in Ohio....it was pretty much the standard operating procedure that has become the norm of Republicans - when you can't legitimately win elections, suppress the vote, discard ballots, purge voting lists and commit any fraud to maintain control.
State representatives Kathleen Clyde (D-OH) and Debbie Phillips (D-OH) threatened to sue Wednesday evening over at least 384 ballots that have been discarded in the two districts in question, Tuscarawas and Cuyahoga. According to the state reps, some ballots were put in plain manila envelopes instead of provisional ballot envelopes, rendering them invalid. Additionally, they say Husted is rejecting ballots covered under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which allows voters who have moved to a different address within the same congressional district to vote at their former precinct.
Even more ballots are likely to have been wrongly discarded because officials are using a database already proven to be flawed and incomplete to determine the voter’s registration status.
Besides these possible breaches of federal election law, Husted is also tossing innumerable ballots that were thrown into question by poll worker error through no fault of the voter. A federal judge tried to stop him, declaring “I don’t want to see democracy die in the darkness on my watch.” But the conservative Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay that allowed Husted to throw out these votes.
Ohio leads the country in provisional ballots, with 200,000 cast this year. In 2008, the state discarded 1 out of every 5 provisional votes. These ballots are often concentrated in urban, Democratic areas — and huge percentages get discarded every election.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/11/29/1254461/ohio-secretary-of-state-may-be-illegally-tossing-ballots/
Ohio Secretary Of State May Be Illegally Tossing Ballots
With two House races heading to a recount, Husted is now facing accusations that he is illegally tossing provisional ballots. These House races will determine whether state Republicans get a super-majority to put constitutional amendments on the ballot without a single Democratic vote.
State representatives Kathleen Clyde (D-OH) and Debbie Phillips (D-OH) threatened to sue Wednesday evening over at least 384 ballots that have been discarded in the two districts in question, Tuscarawas and Cuyahoga. According to the state reps, some ballots were put in plain manila envelopes instead of provisional ballot envelopes, rendering them invalid. Additionally, they say Husted is rejecting ballots covered under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which allows voters who have moved to a different address within the same congressional district to vote at their former precinct.
Even more ballots are likely to have been wrongly discarded because officials are using a database already proven to be flawed and incomplete to determine the voter’s registration status.
Besides these possible breaches of federal election law, Husted is also tossing innumerable ballots that were thrown into question by poll worker error through no fault of the voter. A federal judge tried to stop him, declaring “I don’t want to see democracy die in the darkness on my watch.” But the conservative Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay that allowed Husted to throw out these votes.
Ohio leads the country in provisional ballots, with 200,000 cast this year. In 2008, the state discarded 1 out of every 5 provisional votes. These ballots are often concentrated in urban, Democratic areas — and huge percentages get discarded every election.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/11/29/1254461/ohio-secretary-of-state-may-be-illegally-tossing-ballots/
Reinventing Fire
Rocky Mountain Institute offers some energy information that's worth consideration --
http://blog.rmi.org/blog_Spark2012_36
http://blog.rmi.org/blog_Spark2012_36
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Don't Honk at old people
Short video - worth the watch --
A lady was videotaping her son riding a skate board when her attention switched to an old woman trying to cross the street.
You can hear the lady who is doing the taping giggling as she records the event.
The video is a quick one .... but you'll probably watch it more than once. Aren't air bags great?
Don't Honk at old people
A lady was videotaping her son riding a skate board when her attention switched to an old woman trying to cross the street.
You can hear the lady who is doing the taping giggling as she records the event.
The video is a quick one .... but you'll probably watch it more than once. Aren't air bags great?
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