Archive for January, 2011

Save the Wolves from GOP Predators and Palin

Len Hart : :

A bone-headed decision to remove gray wolves from the federal endangered species list applies to wolf populations in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Idaho and Montana, and parts of Utah, Washington and Oregon. Apparently, gray wolves in Wyoming remain protected under terms of the Endangered Species Act. This ‘act’ has transferred the ‘management’ of the wolf population from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to state and tribal agencies. In Idaho — the wolves have become legal targets for hunters in short order.

Idaho Fish and Game commissioners have already adopted dates for the wolf hunting season in the state and will set quotas once delisting takes effect.

“We have to move on and manage them similar to other big-game animals,” Idaho Fish and Game Director Cal Groen said. “This is good news for wolves, elk, rural communities and hunters. I believe this action will help defuse the animosity and anger associated with wolves when we can manage wolves in concert with our other big game species.”

Full Story Here: The Existentialist Cowboy.

Kucinich: GOP push against healthcare law could revive single-payer push

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) argued that Republican efforts to repeal the healthcare law could actually open the door for a single-payer system favored by liberals.

Appearing on Fox News on Friday, Kucinich fired back against charges that caps on how insurance companies spend their premium dollars would put jobs at risk on the brokerage side of the industry.

“The bottom line is: they’re going to make whatever pleas they can to try to cut the limitations that are coming in place in this new bill,” he said. “But the fact of the matter is, beyond all of this is that we really have to move someday towards a not-for-profit system where the insurance companies aren’t dictating the kind of health care we’re going to have in America.”

Full Story Here: Kucinich: GOP push against healthcare law could revive single-payer push – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.

Incoming GOP Rep Taps Chief Of Staff With No Political Experience

Rep.-elect Tim Huelskamp has hired a conservative talk radio host with no Hill experience and a track record of advocating against abortion and gay marriage as his chief of staff.

The Kansas Republican hired Jim Pfaff, who hosts the Denver-based Jim Pfaff Show, to be his top staffer in Washington, D.C., Pfaff said in a phone interview Wednesday.

Pfaff has advocated at the state level against gay marriage, abortion and Democratic policy initiatives and garnered praise from former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed, who told a Colorado newspaper last year that Pfaff is “one of the greatest grass-roots organizers in the country

Full Story Here:  New Member Hires Conservative Radio Host as Chief of Staff : Roll Call.

OPS: Republicans, clueless and out to destroy the country. It’s like hiring a CEO with no business experience, or a pilot with no flight time

Judge warns of ‘Orwellian state’ in warrantless GPS tracking case

Police in Delaware may soon be unable to use global positioning systems (GPS) to keep tabs on a suspect unless they have a court-signed warrant, thanks to a recent ruling by a superior court judge who cited famed author George Orwell in her decision.

In striking down evidence obtained through warrantless GPS tracking, Delaware Judge Jan R. Jurden wrote that “an Orwellian state is now technologically feasible,” adding that “without adequate judicial preservation of privacy, there is nothing to protect our citizens from being tracked 24/7.”

The ruling goes against a federal appeals court’s decision last summer that allowed warrantless tracking by GPS.

via Judge warns of ‘Orwellian state’ in warrantless GPS tracking case | Raw Story.

Mortgage Bankers Association Stands Against Successful Foreclosure Prevention Efforts

In April 2009, the Mortgage Bankers Association — with the help of Congressional Republicans and the rest of the banking industry — successfully lobbied against the adoption of mortgage cram-down legislation, which would have allowed judges to modify mortgages for troubled borrowers in bankruptcy court. That legislation’s defeat, and the MBA’s subsequent celebrations, led Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) to say that when it comes to the Senate, the banks, “frankly, own the place.” And with 2010 coming to a close, the MBA is once again standing in opposition to programs aimed at keeping families in their homes — this time by taking aim at what are known as mortgage mediation programs, which push banks to negotiate with borrowers before finalizing a foreclosure:

John Mechem, a spokesman for the Mortgage Bankers Association, which represents the largest mortgage lenders, said the group is opposed to both mandatory and voluntary mediation programs. He argued that the programs are expensive and are often used by borrowers as a tactic to stall foreclosure.

via ThinkProgress » Mortgage Bankers Association Stands Against Successful Foreclosure Prevention Efforts.

The New Voodoo

Paul Krugman: :

Hypocrisy never goes out of style, but, even so, 2010 was something special. For it was the year of budget doubletalk — the year of arsonists posing as firemen, of people railing against deficits while doing everything they could to make those deficits bigger.

And I don’t just mean politicians. Did you notice the U-turn many political commentators and other Serious People made when the Obama-McConnell tax-cut deal was announced? One day deficits were the great evil and we needed fiscal austerity now now now, never mind the state of the economy. The next day $800 billion in debt-financed tax cuts, with the prospect of more to come, was the greatest thing since sliced bread, a triumph of bipartisanship.

Still, it was the politicians — and, yes, that mainly meant Republicans — who took the lead on the hypocrisy front.

In the first half of 2010, impassioned speeches denouncing federal red ink were the G.O.P. norm. And concerns about the deficit were the stated reason for Republican opposition to extension of unemployment benefits, or for that matter any proposal to help Americans cope with economic hardship.

Full Story Here: The New Voodoo – NYTimes.com.

‘Right to work’ means right-to-work for less

What is right is almost always practical too. So it is with union opposition to so-called right to work laws, which some Republican lawmakers and governors apparently plan to push hard in several state legislatures next year.

Supporters of right to work laws make two basic arguments:

– They bring “democracy” to the workplace by giving workers a choice of whether or not to join a union.

– They create “good paying jobs” in communities.

Both arguments are false. Right to work laws are not democratic. They don’t boost economies either. Unions are democratic and economy boosters.

via Hillbilly Report:: ‘Right to work’ means right-to-work for less.

Importing the Portuguese Model of Drug Reform

The Nation :

The most instinctive reaction Alex Stevens encounters when advocating for drug law reform is some variation of the classic “Think of the children” trope. Now, after overseeing a comprehensive review of drug policy in Portugal, where possession of everything from marijuana to heroin has been decriminalized since 2001, Stevens, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Kent in Britain, has a blunt rebuttal to that line of thinking. “Criminalization of drugs is not protecting our children,” he says. “In fact, it’s harming our children.” By any conceivable empirical metric, Portugal’s vastly liberalized drug policy has succeeded. And as Stevens argues, the most potent lesson to be learned is that the “decriminalization of drugs does not necessarily lead to increases in drug use.”

Portugal no longer views drug users through the prism of the criminal justice system. Though production, trafficking and sales of drugs remain illegal, authorities now refer people they find in simple possession of illicit substances to a panel that consists of a psychologist, social worker and legal advisor—no law enforcement personnel are present. By classifying drug addiction as a medical problem, the Portuguese have lessened the stigma and legal obstacles that addicts may otherwise encounter in seeking treatment. “The main focus of their policy change,” Stevens says, “is to emphasize social solidarity between drug users and the rest of society, so that people are not cast out just because they’re drug users.”

via Importing the Portuguese Model of Drug Reform | The Nation.

A snowy glimpse of America’s future

David Sirota

“Welcome to the New Normal.”

Those words should be displayed at New York’s airports as a welcome to bedraggled travelers during the Northeast’s latest “snowpocalypse.” Why? Because the Big Apple’s much-lamented paralysis this week is a critical cautionary tale for everyone. The episode warns us about the kind of thing that’s likely coming to the rest of America as we now willfully mix three toxic problems.

The first of those is global climate change. Though no single mega-storm is the fault of climate change, scientists agree that weather – including snow patterns – will become more intense as the planet’s ecosystem is transformed by human-produced pollution. So while New York’s near-record snowstorm may not be the direct result of unbridled carbon emissions, powerful storms like it will undoubtedly be more frequent thanks to our head-in-the-sand attitude toward the environment.

This might be slightly less alarming if our country were making investments to mitigate climate change’s worst effects. But that gets to the second problem that the New York snowstorm epitomizes: America is still being eviscerated by conservatives’ anti-tax, budget-cutting religion – a religion whose high priest is New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

via A snowy glimpse of America’s future | OregonLive.com.