Poor No More! Or That 'Hard-Working Middle Class'

by Sherman Yellen

Protest in Wisconsin, 2011

When have you last heard the term "hard-working poor" coming from any politician? Probably not in the past decade. Nobody is a member of the working poor anymore. Everyone is a member of the over-worked, over-taxed, hard-working middle class. That includes those making $25,000 a year as a Wal-Mart store manager, to those making $450,000 as a hedge fund clipper, to those making $12,000 dollars as a part time hospital cleaning woman. Continued...

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Memo to Texas, Alabama & Nebraska: Mind Your Own Business

by William S. Becker

A new poll in California indicates a dead heat among that state’s voters on Proposition 23, the ballot initiative in which out-of-state oil companies are trying to cripple the nation’s most progressive law to combat global climate change.

That law is AB 32.  Proposition 23 would stall its implementation. In the event voters decide to keep AB 32 intact, the attorneys general of at least three states – Texas, Alabama and Nebraska -- say they’re ready to sue California to kill it.  In effect, the three AGs want to prove it’s unconstitutional for a state to decide it won’t purchase dirty energy – for example, coal-fired electricity -- from somewhere else.

California’s voters would be justified defeating Proposition 23 just to send a message to outside agitators to mind their own damn business.  After all, California’s people and their economy have a lot to lose from climate change, including water shortages, wild fires and sea-level rise along the state’s 840 miles of coastline.

For the rest of us, the derailment of AB 32 would be another major loss to the carbon lobby in a year of depressing policy defeats, first in Copenhagen, then in Congress.  By default, the world’s hope for climate leadership from the United States now rests with state and local governments.  Partly as a result of California’s example, more than 30 states are implementing or creating their own climate action plans. The Nov. 2 election, including the outcome of Proposition 23, will affect the political climate for climate action well beyond California. Continued...

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The U.S. Military's 1947 Warning on Intolerance

by Janet Ritz

A film produced by the U.S. Military in 1947 was meant to present the case for the desegregation of the armed forces. Though not initially intended for broadcast to the general public, it speaks to the divisions present in society today.

The production is dated by current standards. The message is prescient given the current strife and division: the ostracization of the "other," whether through protests of mosques, by Glenn Beck's scheduled through-the-looking-glass rally at the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, or by the funding of climate science denial and extreme tea party activism against the current administration by the Koch Brothers, two of the biggest polluters on the planet.

The film was shot to convince members of the military that desegregation was the right idea. The subsequent integration of African-Americans into the armed forces has since become an integral part of the command structure with our strategy in war. (See: Powell Doctrine).

It now serves as a warning to the future as produced by a military that had fought years of heartbreaking war where millions had lost their lives due to prejudice and intolerance. Continued...

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New Yorker: Koch Brothers Waging War Against Obama

by Janet Ritz

Jane Mayer, reporting on The New Yorker Magazine, has written a comprehensive article entitled: Covert Operations, The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.  In it, Mayer gives an exhaustive report on the Koch brothers'  funding of extreme right-win opposition to the current administration.

The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation. These views dovetail with the brothers’ corporate interests. In a study released this spring, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace issued a report identifying the company as a “kingpin of climate science denial.” The report showed that, from 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Indeed, the brothers have funded opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies—from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program—that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus.

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Koch Industries' Unsolicited Emails: More questions than answers

by Janet Ritz

Earlier this month, I post an article (link) that included information about Koch Industries' involvement with Americans for Prosperity.

On April 6, 2010, I received a request for a correction from Koch Industries regarding their involvement with Dick Armey; a request that began with the representative's claim of Koch Industries' "environmental stewardship."

I updated my post regarding Dick Armey (from current to prior involvement with Koch affiliated groups) and requested answers in return to four questions about Koch Industries' environmental stewardship and involvement with Americans for Prosperity:

1. Is AFP, as seemingly implied in Lee Fang's [Think Progress] article, planning to challenge any town hall meetings, representatives or legislators over upcoming climate legislation in the manner as was observed during last summer's town hall meetings on the health care debate?

2. Is Koch Industries, as stated in Fang's article, "the largest funder of climate science denying organizations in the world" and, whether that is true or not, what is Koch Industries' position on climate change?

3. Does Koch Industries have a position on the threats of violence that have become a risk with an incited population?

4. Is Koch Industries either working with and/or interested in working with the current administration to find the best way for both business and the environment to succeed? If so, what initiatives have been proposed and/or undertaken? If not, what would you like to see happen?

The representative replied that that Koch would get back to me. I await further communication.

This exchange became all the more interesting after Rachel Maddow's April 15th report that Talking Points Memo had received an unsolicited email from Koch Industries (a different representative from the one who had contacted me) claiming no affiliation with Tea Parties (from the TPM report) (a claim that Koch has since withdrawn).  Continued...

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About those offshore rigs

by Janet Ritz

Unlike many of my colleagues, I was not all that surprised at President Obama's announcement that he will open up specific locations to offshore drilling. The urge to demand a consistent position of the president when it comes to the climate seems like the right thing to do. But I have long been aware of the pragmatic and, quite possibly, cynical considerations that may have led to the president's decision.

It is about the climate. Not the long-term trends of weather and geophysics, but the political and factional climate currently in our country, since there can be no argument a storm is brewing come November that could make last August look like a picnic.

How is a president to deal with climate legislation in such a poisonous atmosphere? The rigs give a clue. Offshore drilling on the locations he cited could take years to put in place and longer to see results. By that time, if we're not getting our energy from alternative sources, those rigs will be the least of our problems.  

The "drill-baby-drill" mantra, however, despite the evidence to the contrary of the advantage it would provide, has become a talking point that flares whenever gas prices rise -- gas prices that rise in the summer also rise in conjunction with election cycles. 

Is it possible that certain industries might not want democrats reelected to the slim majorities they now hold?

With the initiatives President Obama will be put through on energy in the next few months, as evidenced by the new fuel standards set the other day and with the climate legislation that is coming up this summer, he faces an easy (for his opponents) talking point (among many) with drill-baby-drill. 

Do you remember last summer? The demonstrations and town halls that turned into hate-fests? Behind many of those who protested was a group, Americans for Prosperity, that is run by the former Rep. Dick Armey.  That has received some publicity.  What had not been widely publicized is Armey's connection to one of world's biggest polluters, Koch Industries...   Continued...

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