Arizona’s congressional GOP delegation owned by the Koch brothers

Posted: 23 Jan 2012 09:06 AM PST …Posted by AzBlueMeanie

AZ Republicans copy ALEC bill limiting asbestos liability

Posted: 23 Jan 2012 09:16 AM PST… by David Safier

Legislature to repeal the Arizona Republic’s unconstitutional pension reform legislation

Posted: 23 Jan 2012 08:48 AM PST ..Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Arizona Republic encouraged the state legislature to pursue unconstitutional and unlawful legislation which had the Goldwater Institute’s fingerprints all over it (ALEC and the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity no doubt in the shadows). And our Tea-Publican legislature dutifully complied.

Fear Motivates Conservatives More Than Liberals

Researchers looking at how we fixate on fear threats more evidence of a biological component to the red-blue divide.

By Emily Badger .. http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/fear-motivates-conservatives-more-than-liberals-39283/?utm_source=Newsletter197&utm_medium=email&utm_content=0124&utm_campaign=newsletters

The tone of this year’s Republican presidential primary (which now seems destined to last much longerthan Mitt Romney had been planning) seems sort of, well, fearful. One after the other, these would-be presidents have warned of looming threats — war with Iran, economic collapse, class warfare, social disintegration, illegal immigration — and have sought to position themselves as the best candidate for the job of protecting America.

Their political advisers must understand a psychological phenomenon that researchers have been studying for some time now: conservatives appear to be motivated by fear in a way that liberals are not. An expanding body ofresearch suggests that Republicans and Democrats differ on some fundamental level in how they respond to positive and negative stimuli. A new study, published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, adds even more evidence to the theory that these two groups quite literally see the world differently.

Food and Additive Causes for Arthritis, Gout,Fibromyalgia

01-23-2012  •  arclein

The nightshade vegetables are lesser-known offenders; however, for some people, eating any nightshade can cause excruciating pain and disability. This small family of vegetables contains a natural substance called solanine; when consumed, it can p …

In 1962, Michael Harrington’s "The Other America" exposed the nation’s dark side, saying:

"In morality and in justice, every citizen should be committed to abolishing the other America, for it is intolerable that the richest nation in human history should allow such needless suffering."

"But more than that, if we solve the problem of the other America we will have learned how to solve the problems of all of America."

Jack Kennedy was concerned enough to ask Walter Heller, his Council of Economic Advisor chairman, to examine the problem.

In his January 8, 1964 State of the Union address, poverty levels also got Lyndon Johnson to say his administration "today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America."

In fact, he barely scratched it. However, he got Congress to enact measures helping America’s poor.

Inequality then was severe. Today, it’s unprecedented and growing. Wealthy elites are richer than ever. Census data show around half of US households impoverished or bordering on it.

In fact, government data consistently over-estimate good news and understate the bad. As a result, unprecedented numbers of US households are impoverished under protracted Main Street Depression conditions.

Political Washington’s austerity harshness causes greater harm. Shocking bipartisan indifference to human need and suffering is criminal.

In the world’s richest ever country, poverty is highest among industrialized nations. Homelessness and hunger levels are unprecedented. Over 20% of US families haven’t enough money to buy food and need help.

Over half of US children need food stamps to eat. Tens of millions have no health insurance. Those with it pay double the cost in other developed nations. Policies enacted under Obama assure tougher times ahead.

Unemployment approaches record highs. Manipulated government data hide it. Those employed work longer for less. Home foreclosures and bankruptcies affect millions. Adjusted for inflation, median income’s no higher than in the 1970s.

In their book titled, "Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer," Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson explained how unprecedented wealth transfers to America’s rich destroyed middle class households. It also deepened poverty and created a permanent underclass.

Last September, Forbes magazine’s annual report on America’s richest 400 showed net worth soaring to over $1.5 trillion, up 12% from 2010. At the same time, poverty and human need spiral higher.

Studies Show Shocking US Inequality

Last November, The New York Times headlined, "Middle-Class Areas Shrink as Income Gap Grows, New Report Shows," saying:

A Stanford University study titled, "Growth in the Residential Segregation of Families by Income, 1970 – 2009," said households living in middle income areas declined sharply since 1970. Rising income inequality left once better off ones mostly low-income or poor.

In fact, data through 2007 were examined before today’s economic crisis began. Conditions now are much worse. Study author Sean Reardon said income shifts have far-reaching implications for future generations if present trends continue. Children are especially disadvantaged without access to good schools, preschool, child care, and support networks.

Former solid middle class areas are now low-income or poor. Income differences have profound effects. One example shows up on standardized test scores. The differential between rich and poor children is 40% greater than in 1970.

Moreover, the gap between rich and poor college completion (a key predictor of future success) is 50% greater than the 1990s. Over half of children from higher income families finish college compared to less than 10% of those in lower income households.

According to Harvard sociologist William Julius Wilson:

"Rising inequality" produces a "two-tiered society….in which the more affluent citizens live lives fundamentally different from middle and lower-income groups. This divide decreases a sense of community."

In October 2011, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published after-tax income data from 1979 – 2007, saying it grew:

• 275% for the top 1%;

• 65% for the next 19%;

• less than 40% for next 60%; and

• just 18% for the bottom 20%.

Data were adjusted for household size differentials. However, inflation adjusted measures weren’t provided. They show far greater differences between rich and poor. According to Professor Paul Buchheit, America’s top 1% tripled their after-tax income from 1980 – 2006, while the bottom 90% saw theirs drop over 20%.

"(O)ur economy," he said, "allows a tiny percentage of us to take an inordinate amount of money from society, at an increasing rate."

According to economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty, America’s income inequality was the highest in recorded history in 2007 before the current crisis began, and Census data way understate it.

One Dollar for Life/economics public school teacher Robert Freeman said "(b)etween 2002 and 2006, (an) astounding three-quarters of the economy’s growth was captured by the top 1%."

In his January 2010 Common Dreams article, he said it had "70% of all financial assets," a record high. Moreover, the bottom 40% own nothing and have a combined zero net worth.

In December 2011, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) reported on income differentials from 1996 – 2006, saying inflation adjusted it grew 25%. However, averages obscure variations. America’s poorest 20% saw income levels fall 6%, and if measured since 1979, it would have been much greater.

In contrast, top 1% earners saw incomes double from 1996 – 2006. Middle income ones experienced a 10% increase. In addition, income inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient increased 9% before taxes and 11% after-tax.

Capital gains and dividends most advantage richer Americans. Overall taxes in 2006 were less progressive than in 1996. Today, extremes are greater.

A 2011 Michael Norton/Dan Ariely study titled, "Building a Better America – One Wealth Quintile at a Time," showed most Americans vastly underestimate today’s wealth disparities.

They believe the richest 20% control about 59% of the nation’s wealth. It’s about 84%, say the study authors. It fact, it’s over 90%, perhaps well over.

A January 2012 Indiana University/School of Public and Environmental Affairs study titled, "At Risk: America’s Poor During and After the Great Recession" discussed enormous growing problems facing the nation’s least advantaged.

Protracted economic weakness "inflicted long-lasting damage to individuals, families, and communities," it said. It created a "near poor" and "new poor" underclass.

Long-term unemployment contributes greatly. Over four million Americans say they’ve been out of work over a year, the largest number since data collection began in 1948.

From 2006 – 2010, impoverished households increased 27% and keep rising. Young people and minorities between 18 and 34 have been hardest hit. Safety net protections are inadequate and eroding. Hard times getting harder affect greater numbers of people.

A Final Comment

Wrongheaded policies assure growing misery while America’s rich never had it so good.

That’s the dilemma voters face in an election year when neither party offers solutions. Instead, they assure growing wealth disparity, greater poverty, and human misery.

Only grassroots activism can change things. OWS protests show promise. Nothing will happen easily or quickly.

The mother of all social justice struggles continues. It better because growing inequality and human need are too intolerable to accept.

Organized people power works. Using it can beat organized money. If that’s not incentive enough, what is?

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.                                 

Ron Paul: The Debt Ceiling Is on Auto-Pilot 

… Click on link above to view video

01-23-2012  •  www.dailypaul.com 

Ron Paul talks about the national debt (video) .

Geothermal test will pour water into volcano to make power

01-23-2012  •  www.usatoday.com 

Geothermal energy developers plan to pump 24 million gallons of water into the side of a dormant volcano in central Oregon this summer to demonstrate technology they hope will give a boost to a green energy sector that has yet to live up to its promi …

Doctor Calls Police, Child Services on Mother Who Refuses To Vaccinate Son

01-23-2012  •  www.lewrockwell.com/Curt Linderman Sr.

Once again the tyrannical claws of the medical industrial complex, supported by big brother government, have grazed the flesh of an intelligent, educated mother that has refused to bow down to the lies of the vaccine agenda.…

… Gotcha …  

Fingertip biometrics at Disney turnstiles: the Mouse does its bit for the police state

01-23-2012  •  www.boingboing.net 

These machines (which, I’m told, capture the shape of your fingertip instead of your fingerprint itself) are used to keep Disney World customers from sharing or re-selling their admission tickets, and are part of a general and growing police-stat …

We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Evidence

By Mary Theroux | Wednesday January 18, 2012 at 3:37 PM PST  … http://blog.independent.org/2012/01/18/we-dont-need-no-stinkin-evidence/

Mary posted earlier about the provisions of the New Years Eve-signed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) a/k/a the “Homeland Battlefield Bill,” allowing the President of the U.S., at his or her sole discretion, to order the indefinite detention of any U.S. citizen, with no burden of proof whatsoever, and no recourse for the detainee—in fact making the President judge, jury, and jailer.

Congress now proposes to provide U.S. bureaucrats the power to block any internet site or provider, with no due process or recourse available to the blocked sites. A group of distinguished law professors has gone through the proposed legislation, Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), also known as House Bill 3261, and advises that it would:

Allow the government to block internet access to any website that ‘facilitated’ copyright or trademark infringement—a term that the Department of Justice interprets to mean nothing more than having a link on a web page to another site that turns out to be infringing.

The professors go on to warn: …  By failing to guarantee the challenged web sites notice or an opportunity to be heard in court before their sites are shut down, SOPA represents the most ill-advised and destructive intellectual property legislation in recent memory.

I would go farther and propose that its passage would add another nail in the coffin for the expectation that government always and forever bears the burden of proof prior to being able to deprive anyone of his or her freedom or property.

Further, the legislation provides government the surely nearly irresistible cover for gaining control over a medium that poses the perhaps greatest threat to its exercise of limitless power.

The totalitarian regimes targeted by the “Arab Spring” found themselves unable to withstand the power of the people connected through the internet. Today, those in power everywhere, from petty bureaucrats to despots, must certainly be feeling vulnerable and eagerly seeking the means to disarm dissenters, of which the internet is a hotbed. Whatever else its aims, SOPA fills this bill quite nicely for the U.S. government. Governments everywhere, from China to Venezuela, must be drooling at the prospect of soon being able to pass their very own SOPA.

The call has gone up for massive protests and a campaign of calls and letters to elected representatives to stop SOPA and its Senate-equivalent, the PROTECT IP Act. However, after similar outcries of a vast majority against the TARP legislation of 2009, and the passage of ObamaCare, we must not be surprised if such protests fail to stop this incredibly dangerous power grab.

After all, the concept of “representation” is so 18th century.

… I find this proposal this article notes interesting from 2 perspectives …

… One … our AZ State Legislature has the audacity to suggest that buyers of property should be provided full disclosure about the availability of water to their site …

… Two … this same AZ State Legislature provides a veil behind which its members hide as they do NOT have to disclose to us (you & me) who owns their vote$ …

… And our current 100 year water supply requirement is nothing more than “smoke & mirrors” it is valueless as this requirement never informs the buyer in most cases all the wells are pulling from the same source … many straws … one container …