This Comedy Central clip is so on the money, it’s not funny. « The Reality-Based Community [feedly]

This Comedy Central clip is so on the money, it's not funny. « The Reality-Based Community

Navigated from This Comedy Central clip is so on the money, it's not funny. « The Reality-Based Community | shared via feedly mobile

feedly. feed your mind. http://www.feedly.com

Word: Bill Moyers: The End of Democracy

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/19/1263894/-Bill-Moyers-The-End-of-Democracy

BILL MOYERS: We are so close to losing our democracy to the mercenary class, it's as if we are leaning way over the rim of the Grand Canyon and all that's needed is a swift kick in the pants. Look out below.

The predators in Washington are only this far from monopoly control of our government. They have bought the political system, lock, stock and pork barrel, making change from within impossible. That's the real joke.

Sometimes I long for the wit of a Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert. They treat this town as burlesque, and with satire and parody show it the disrespect it deserves. We laugh, and punch each other on the arm, and tweet that the rascals got their just dessert. Still, the last laugh always seems to go to the boldface names that populate this town. To them belong the spoils of a looted city. They get the tax breaks, the loopholes, the contracts, the payoffs.

They fix the system so multimillionaire hedge fund managers and private equity tycoons pay less of a tax rate on their income than school teachers, police and fire fighters, secretaries and janitors. They give subsidies to rich corporate farms and cut food stamps for working people facing hunger. They remove oversight of the wall street casinos, bail out the bankers who torpedo the economy, fight the modest reforms of Dodd-Frank, prolong tax havens for multinationals, and stick it to consumers while rewarding corporations.

We pay. We pay at the grocery store. We pay at the gas pump. We pay the taxes they write off. Our low-wage workers pay with sweat and deprivation because this town – aloof, self-obsessed, bought off and doing very well, thank you – feels no pain.

The journalists who could tell us these things rarely do – and some, never. They aren't blind, simply bedazzled. Watch the evening news – any evening news – or the Sunday talk shows. Listen to the chit-chat of the early risers on morning TV -- and ask yourself if you are learning anything about how this town actually works.

William Greider, one of our craft's finest reporters, fierce and unbought, despite a long life in Washington once said that no one can hope to understand what is driving political behavior without asking the kind of gut-level questions politicians ask themselves in private: "Who are the winners in this matter and who are the losers? Who gets the money and who has to pay? Who must be heard on this question and who can be safely ignored?"

Perhaps they don't ask these questions because they fear banishment from the parties and perks, from the access that passes as seduction in this town.

Or perhaps they do not tell us these things because they fear that if the system were exposed for what it is, outraged citizens would descend on this town, and tear it apart with their bare hands.

Hallelujah! Your friend just shared a video with you from colbertnation.com

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/431625/december-18-2013/exclusive---aaron-neville-and-musicorps----hallelujah-

My top reason for opposing the death penalty

As an advisory board member for Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (OADP.org), I was asked to highlight my most important reason to oppose the death penalty. Here is my response:

"A system committed to having a death penalty is a system that forces the state to pretend to have attained a standard of perfection and fairness that is absurdly far from the reality of the legal system in America today. Thus, having death in the system freezes everything because, if our system is so good today that it can be just to kill people with it, then it needs no improvement--and, in fact, all improvements in procedure and research into sources of error only call into question the claim to existing perfection, and thus the moral claim for the existing death sentences and past executions. And that means that having death locks us into a terribly flawed system that actively resists evidence of systematic errors and necessary improvements. And it turns what should be a quest for justice into a war to justify the status quo against all evidence of its many failings."

Seven Ripoffs That Capitalists Would Like to Keep out of the Media | Common Dreams

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/12/16-1

Seven Ripoffs That Capitalists Would Like to Keep out of the Media

What capitalism likes to keep quiet about itself would fill a book... or an evening news hour. (File)Tax-avoiding, consumer-exploiting big business leaders are largely responsible for these abuses. Congress just lets it happen. Corporate heads and members of Congress seem incapable of relating to the people that are being victimized, and the mainstream media seems to have lost the ability to express the views of lower-income Americans.

1. Corporations Profit from Food Stamps

It's odd to think about billion-dollar financial institutions objecting to cuts in the SNAP program, but some of them are administrators of the program, collecting fees from a benefit meant for children and other needy Americans, and enjoying subsidies of state tax money for services that could be performed by the states themselves. They want more people on food stamps, not less. Three corporations have cornered the market: JP Morgan, Xerox, and eFunds Corp.

According to a JP Morgan spokesman, the food stamp program "is a very important business to JP Morgan. It's an important business in terms of its size and scale...The good news from JP Morgan's perspective is the infrastructure that we built has been able to cope with that increase in volume.."

2. Crash the Economy, Get Your Money Back. Die with a Student Loan, Stay in Debt.

The financial industry has manipulated the bankruptcy laws to ensure that high-risk derivatives, which devastated the market in 2008, have FIRST CLAIM over savings deposit insurance, pension funds, and everything else.

But the same banker-friendly "bankruptcy reform" has ensured that college graduates keep their student loans till they die. And sometimes even after that, as the debt is transfered to their parents.

3. Almost 70% of Corporations Are Not Required to Pay ANY Federal Taxes

And that's even before tax avoidance kicks in. The 'nontaxable' designation exempts 69% of U.S. corporations from taxes, thus sparing them the expense of hiring tax lawyers to contrive tax avoidance strategies.

The Wall Street Journal states, "The percentage of U.S. corporations organized as nontaxable businesses has grown from about 24% in 1986 to about 69% as of 2008, according to the latest-available Internal Revenue Service data. The percentage of all firms is far higher when partnerships and sole proprietors are included."

In recent years the businesses taking advantage of the exemption include law firms, hedge funds, real estate partnerships, venture capital firms, and investment banks.

4. Lotteries Pay for Corporate Tax Avoidance

This means revenue comes from the poorest residents of a community rather than from billion-dollar corporations. Many of the lottery players don't realize how bad the odds are. Fill out $2 tickets for 12 hours a day for 50 years and you'll have half a chance of winning.

Some astonishing facts reveal the extent of the problem. Low-income households spend anywhere from five to nine percent of their earnings on lotteries. A Pennsylvania survey found that nearly half of low-income residents planned to gamble at a newly-opened casino. America's gambling losses in 2007 were nine times greater than just 25 years before.

5. The National Football League Pays No Federal Taxes

One of the most profitable organizations in America, with billions in tickets, TV rights, and merchandise sales, and with an NFL Commissioner who earned more money than the CEOs of Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola, and AT&T, is considered a non-profit. It has a tax-exempt status.

It gets even worse. While the individual teams themselves are not exempt from federal taxes, they enjoy multi-million-dollar subsidies from their states for new and refurbished stadiums. Fans - and non-fans - of the Washington Redskins, the Cincinnati Bengals, the Minnesota Vikings, the Seattle Seahawks, the San Francisco 49ers, and the Pittsburgh Steelers are among those who pay taxes for their hometown football fields. New Orleans taxpayers paid for leather stadium seats. For the Dallas Cowboys, a $6 million property tax bill was waived.

A Harvard University urban planning study determined that 70 percent of the capital cost of NFL stadiums has been provided by taxpayers, rather than by NFL owners.

6. Live on Park Avenue, Get a Farm Subsidy

A disturbing but fascinating report called "Farm Subsidies and the Big Dogs" lists Washington, DC, Chicago, and New York City, in that order, as the worst offenders.

• In New York, "Many entities receive the federal subsidies at their downtown office buildings, such as 30 Rockefeller Plaza, or at their million dollar residential condos."
• In Chicago, "Nearly every neighborhood in the city receives federal farm subsidy payments - including the Gold Coast, Downtown-Loop, Lincoln Park, and even the President's neighbors in Hyde Park."
• In Washington, "Even U.S. Senators are receiving farm subsidy checks."

Perhaps more of us should become farmers. In Florida, according to Forbes, "anyone could legally qualify their land as farmland by stocking it with a few cows." Wealthy heir Mark Rockefeller received $342,000 to NOT farm, to allow his Idaho land to return to its natural state.

7. Profit Margin Magic: Turning a dollar into $100,000

Which costs the consumer more, printer ink or bottled water? Calculations by DataGenetics reveal that the ink in a $16.99 cartridge comes to almost $3,400 per gallon. The cost of a gallon of cartridge ink would buy enough gasoline to run the average car for over two years.

Water seems to cost less, until the details are factored in: we're paying for our own public water, which we've given away almost for free, and which comes back to us in no better condition than when it started.

For every 100,000 bottles sold, Nestle pays the proceeds from ONE bottle to those of us (the taxpayers) who own the water.

So This Is Capitalism..

Consumer-exploiting, tax-avoiding, profit-maximizing, responsibility-shirking, winner-take-all capitalism. An economic system which, as Milton Friedman once believed, "distributes the fruits of economic progress among all people."

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Paul Buchheit is a college teacher, an active member of US Uncut Chicago, founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org), and the editor and main author of "American Wars: Illusions and Realities" (Clarity Press). He can be reached at paul@UsAgainstGreed.org.

Daily Kos: Dear Leopold, Rest In Hell

Adam Hochchild's amazing book "King Leopold's Ghost" was my introduction to this forgotten Holocaust.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/17/1263307/-Rest-In-Hell-Dear-Leopold?detail=email

Dear Leopold, Rest In Hell

I first read Heart of Darkness nearly a decade ago. And one quote has stuck with me ever since: "The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves[white folk], is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much." It is a powerful line because of its straight up simplicity. But I am the great-grandson of sharecroppers from Egypt, MS and the great-great-grandson of slaves. My ancestors were shuffled here from Angola, where their former lands were captured by white Europeans. And yet, it pains me to admit, I never fully understood the absolute horror of European colonialism until I read Conrad's classic.

Today is the 104th anniversary of the death of Belgium's King Leopold II. The book made me loathe this greedy man who was, like many Kings of his era, a spoiled, insecure and violent maniac. Belgium, unlike its neighbors, didn't control many colonies. Of course, Leopold thought, how could a country be influential if it didn't have darker peoples under its boot (It should be noted, however, that Leopold's invasion of the Congo started off as a personal investment, which makes it even more heinous). The despot's nefarious forces, dubbed the Force Publique, invaded the Congo Free State and unleashed a horror many of us can't even fathom. The invaders raped Congolese women, destroyed homes and villages, sucked vital resources rubber and ivory) from the country and, more infamously as shown above, cut off the hands of native peoples to intimidate those who didn't produce enough rubber to meet the quota or to show military superiors that bullets hadn't been wasted on, gasp--wait for it, animals. Those beautiful black hands, by the way, are still a presence in Belgium. I was in Brussels several years ago and a candy shop, near the European Commission's headquarters, was selling chocolate hands. No other customer seemed to recognize the odious irony of it all. But, then again, that's Europe for you: a lovely and historically rich continent spectacularly ignorant of its role in multiple genocides.

Leopold was truly an evil man who enriched himself by murdering some 10 million people. Most Belgians are, amazingly, unaware of his crimes. Instead, they see him as the longest reigning monarch in the country's history who helped build things. Belgium is indeed a beautiful country, but whatever Leopold built there was constructed on the bloodied backs of millions of black people who were slaughtered or maimed by his "rubber regime". The the only good to come from Leopold's unfortunate birth was its role in spawning the first global humanitarian cause, a campaign formed to combat his actions in the Congo.

Ultimately, we should always remember the day Leopold gave us the pleasure of leaving this planet.  And while I rarely, if ever, celebrate the demise of another human being, that bastard made himself an exception. He was a brutal monster who illustrated the evils of colonialism and white supremacy better than any creature I can imagine. We hear and learn, rightfully, about the Holocaust and the millions of Jews sent to their deaths by Nazism; but seldom are we made aware of the millions of Congolese lives lost to Leopold's terrorism.

So let us celebrate this December 17th and the expiration of a dreadful man whose bloody stamp on history we sadly forget.

Consider this my letter of approval. Follow @juanmthompson

A great way to teach kids how to overcome obstacles

(Thanks to generous donors in this area, Chess for Success started up in Salem this year at Washington Elementary.
Click on the link to add your support.)

Dear Chess Supporters,

I am writing you today with great news!  Thanks to you, this year Chess for Success was able to expand to 75 schools and is changing the lives of over 3,100 children.  Your donations allow us to help children who are living in poverty develop the skills that they need to be successful and rise above their circumstances.  By teaching children critical thinking, determination, strategy and patience we are giving them the tools they need to tackle any obstacle.  Chess teaches these skills, chess gives children living in poverty the power to dream big.  Don’t just take my word for it; listen to what one of our coaches says:

 “Knowing how to play a “smart” game boosts their confidence.  Many get a chance to use logic, planning, etc., and become more complex thinkers.  I love when they work out their own strategies and find success.” –CFS Coach

Thank you for recognizing the importance of education and the power of chess.  You are helping us achieve our mission and we could not do it without you. 

This holiday season we ask that you help us give the gift of chess to a child in need. Donate today and change a life forever.

A $10 donation buys a chess set for a child
A $25 donation provides a month of chess instruction
A $50 donation provides 3 chess books to the school library
A $150 donation sponsors a child for an entire year

DONATE LINK

Thank you for helping children succeed!

Warmly,

Julie Young
Executive Director

Great letter re: Bridgeasaurus Boondogglus

 If the Bridgeasaurus Boondogglus "Oversight Team" weren't doing so much dealing from the bottom of the deck, these kinds of comments would not be necessary, but thank goodness someone submitted them. The "Oversight Team" should be focused on ensuring that the "Edifice Complex" doesn't result in a gargantuan waste of resources in the name of a passing auto-dominated era, instead of being focused on how to package and sell a still-evolving proposal that's typical of the worst thinking of that era. But the Oversight Team was and remains stacked with unabashed Bridgasaurus boosters, pols who are firmly committed to a retrograde vision of more auto infrastructure (more is better).

*Comments to Oversight Team on the Salem Alternative for the Salem River Crossing *
 
I urge the Oversight Team to keep in mind the Purpose and Need for the DEIS that you have developed.In summary, the project will attempt to reduce congestion levels at the existing bridgeheads and remediate safety and operational deficiencies in the existing bridges and in the
study area (DEIS, ES-2). The federal regulations point out that the focus of the alternatives analysis in the EIS is "to serve as the means of assessing the environmental impact of proposed agency actions, rather than justifying decisions already made" (40 CRF Sec. 1502.2(g)). The purpose of this expensive study process is NOT to justify building a new bridge over the river on the outskirts of Salem.As the Federal Highway Administration points out:

"The decision-making process should first consider those alternatives which meet the purpose and need for the project at an acceptable cost and level of environmental impact relative to the benefits which will be derived from the project" (U.S. FHWA memorandum, 9/18/90).

Please consider the following comments and observations as you continue to review the alternatives in the Salem River Crossing DEIS:

*1.**The Oversight Team must do a thorough traffic comparison of the Salem Alternative with all of the other alternatives in the DEIS.*

The information available to date on the new Salem Alternative does not adequately compare the new hybrid alternative with other reasonable alternatives in the DEIS. The information available from the Oversight Team's October meeting compares the Salem alternative only with alternative 4D and a "no build" alternative. That is not consistent with NEPA requirements.

The Salem Alternative was proposed by the Salem City Council as an alternative to Alternative 4D, which was recommended by the Oversight Committee.Alternative 4D was never selected as the"preferred alternative." That process requires the concurrence of the cities of Salem and Keizer, Polk and Marion Counties, SKATS MPO and ODOT.Then FHWA ultimately selects the preferred alternative.That process has not yet happened.

Therefore, in order to determine if the Salem Alternative is truly the best alternative, it must go through the same process as the other alternatives in the DEIS. The alternatives analysis is the heart of the environmental impact statement.It should present the environmental impacts of the proposal and the alternatives in comparative form, thus sharply defining the issues and providing a clear basis for choice among options by the decision maker and the public (40 CFR, Sec. 1502.14).

The Oversight Team is required to "rigorously explore and objectively evaluate all reasonable alternatives, and for alternatives which were eliminated from detailed study, briefly discuss the reasons for their having been eliminated."

Before you make a new recommendation to the decision makers,the Salem Alternative must go through the same analysis as the prior recommendation did.If the other alternatives are being discarded, you should explain why.For example, the hand out from the November Oversight
Team Meeting contained traffic comparisons of the Salem Alternative with Alternative 4D and the No Build Alternative but none of the other alternatives...

...It is clear that the biggest impact of the Salem Alternative is the increase in congestion for several intersections in north Salem. Liberty and Pine, Liberty and Hickoryand Commercial and Pine do not benefit from the Salem Alternative.(The numbers for Commercial St. and Hickory Street are somewhat of an anomaly it appears.)Traffic between downtown Salem and Keizer would suffer. In addition, for the most part the Salem Alternative increases congestion at the Commercial/ Marion and Marion/Liberty Street intersections as compared to Alternative 2A.

2.***The Oversight Team should be sure that the traffic study done for the Salem Alternative uses the same assumptions that were usedto analyze all of the DEIS alternatives.*

The traffic analysis for all of the alternatives needs to take into account current data reflecting travel behaviors.Traffic levels are already well below the estimate in the DEIS.Studies find that Americans
continue to drive less than they did several years ago, and it is not related to the recession.(See Statesman Journal article, December 5, 2013.)

3.*The Salem Alternative is clearly not designed to be an "expressway" as was anticipated by the Keizer city council.*
 
Expressways do not have bicycle/pedestrian facilities, and the v/c ratio for Salem should be .85 or less, according to the Oregon Highway Plan. Keizer's interest in a free-flowing thoroughfare from I-5 and Keizer Station to Polk County would be thwarted by the number of on-grade intersections proposed in the Salem Alternative.From what I can tell from the drawings and description, twonew intersections on the east side of the river and six on the west side would slow traffic considerably. At
least some of those intersections presumably would have traffic lights.The Oversight Team must compare the travel times of the Salem Alternative with the other alternatives, as done in Table 3.1- 35 in the DEIS.

4.***The true cost of the Salem Alternative should take into account the cost of a new interchange on Highway 22.*

The proposed Salem Alternative eliminates the west bound access to Rosemont in West Salem.That traffic is supposed to use Wallace Road or Edgewater, decreasing the usefulness of the new facility for those residents headed for the west end of West Salem. The Salem Alternative requires another new, expensive project to fix that access problem, and kicks the can down the road for many West Salem residents.

5.***The Salem Alternative will require goal exceptions on the west side, and maybe an extension of the urban growth boundary.*

Those exceptions will be difficult to justify when some of the alternatives, particularly 2A, are reasonable and do not require any exceptions.Any analysis needs to evaluate minor revisions to 2A that do not require exceptions.There may be refinements to 2A that would reduce congestion (such as the full extension of Marine Drive,further reduction of private access onto Wallace Road[1] , and signage to channel traffic into the correct lanes before getting on the bridge from the east.) Other refinements would include retro-fitting to make the existing bridges more earthquake proof; and emergency vehicle access to the bicycle/pedestrian bridge from the west.
 
6.***The Oversight Team should urge that Salem move forward with the construction of Marine Drive, which is already in the Salem Area TSP.*

That project can be built independently of any alternative in the DEIS.Marine Drive would take a considerable amount of pressure off of Wallace Road, which would greatly relieve the back up onto Marion Street Bridge.Salem could re-evaluate the congestion at the bridge heads after
the new Marine Drive is built to see if a new, expensive bridge can still be justified.

Thank you for your consideration.

Kathy Lincoln

------------------------------------------------------------------------
 [1]  I recently counted 8 private approaches on to Wallace Road on *each *side of the road,between Edgewater and Glen Creek. Many businesses have more than one driveway to Wallace Road and also have alternative access to the side or rear of the property. Closing those accesses would go a long way toward alleviating congestion on Wallace Road.

Treating guns as if they were as lethal as cars

Native Oregonian Bill Kristof sees the connection:

Take cars, which are also potentially lethal instruments ubiquitous in America. We've undertaken a remarkable half-century effort to make automobiles far, far safer — and that is precisely the model for what we should do with guns. We've introduced seat belts, air bags, prominent brake lights and padded dashboards. We've cracked down on drunken drivers, improved road layouts and railings, introduced graduated licenses for young drivers and required insurance for drivers.

The upshot is that we have reduced the vehicle fatality rate per 100 million miles driven by more than 80 percent — so that firearms now claim more American lives each year than vehicles.

We need to approach gun safety in the same meticulous way we approach safety in motor vehicles and so many other aspects of life: It's ridiculous that a cellphone can require a code to use, but a gun doesn't.

For an essay first written and published in 1999 and updated and republished after several gun massacres since, see prorev.com/idguns.htm

http://mgpaquin.wordpress.com/2013/12/15/the-pasty-little-putz-dowd-friedman-kristof-and-bruni-51/

Colin Powell calls for universal health care in the U.S.

Dec 5, 2013, 12:19pm PST Updated: Dec 6, 2013, 5:05am PST
> Gen. Colin Powell calls for universal health care in the U.S.
> Andrew Harrer
>
> Valerie Bauman
> Staff Writer- Puget Sound Business Journal
> Former Secretary of State and longtime Republican Colin Powell is calling for a universal health care solution in the U.S.
>
> "We are a wealthy enough country with the capacity to make sure that every one of our fellow citizens has access to quality health care," he said Thursday at a Seattle fundraiser for prostate cancer. "(Let's show) the rest of the world what our democratic system is all about and how we take care of all of our citizens."
>
> The retired four-star general, a prostate cancer survivor, spoke at the Prostate Cancer Survivors Celebration Breakfast, organized by UW Medicine and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
>
> Powell took the opportunity to share some of his own experiences and to publicly call for a health care solution similar to those in Canada, Japan and other countries that have a universal, single-payer system.
>
> In the case of his own cancer diagnosis, he recovered, thanks to what he described as universal health care offered through the U.S. military.
>
> "I am not an expert in health care, or Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, or however you choose to describe it, but I do know this: I have benefited from that kind of universal health care in my 55 years of public life," Powell said. "And I don't see why we can't do what Europe is doing, what Canada is doing, what Korea is doing, what all these other places are doing."
>
> He also shared a story about his wife, Alma, who recently had a serious health scare with three aneurysms and a blockage in an artery.
>
> Both he and his wife had swift, effective treatment and never had to fear whether they could afford the care they needed, he said.
>
> Powell compared that to the experience of a woman named Anne who sells him firewood and does work around his yard.
>
> "She and her family live out in the country somewhere, they have very limited means," he said. "I buy wood from her every year. I've got about four years worth of wood out in the back yard. I can't resist her, and she needs the money."
>
> About three weeks ago she came to his door, and when he told her he had no work for her, she asked him for help paying for a health crisis.
>
> Even though she had insurance, it wouldn't cover MRIs she needed before doctors would perform surgery to treat a growth in her brain. Powell gave the woman the money, and she's receiving treatment now.
>
> "After these two events, of Alma and Anne, I've been thinking, why is it like this?" Powell said.
>
> "Every country I've visited, every developed country, they have universal health care. They don't understand why the United States of America, which uses more health care than just about anybody else, still (has) 40 million people not properly insured."
>
> "I think universal health care is one of the things we should really be focused on, and I hope that will happen," Powell said. "Whether it's Obamacare, or son of Obamacare, I don't care. As long as we get it done