The real IRS scandal
The following statement is by Robert Fitrakis, Chair, Federal Elections Commission, Green Shadow Cabinet:
No one should be shocked that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is once again using its power to harass grassroots patriot groups and local Tea Party organizations, as reported in the news recently.
The real scandal is that the IRS did not go after Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, or the pro-Obama propaganda groups Organizing for America and Priorities USA. These are the four major tax-exempt “social welfare” organizations under the IRS code, who are deciding who is running our country.
The Obama administration’s IRS is adopting the same tactics used by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Obama’s IRS is auditing and investigating minor fringe players instead of major donors that uphold the two-party system. This is the same tactic the EPA uses to go after small independent gas stations who toss out oil, while ignoring egregious violations of environmental law by oil giants British Petroleum and Exxon.
No one should be shocked that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is once again using its power to harass grassroots patriot groups and local Tea Party organizations, as reported in the news recently.
The real scandal is that the IRS did not go after Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, or the pro-Obama propaganda groups Organizing for America and Priorities USA. These are the four major tax-exempt “social welfare” organizations under the IRS code, who are deciding who is running our country.
The Obama administration’s IRS is adopting the same tactics used by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Obama’s IRS is auditing and investigating minor fringe players instead of major donors that uphold the two-party system. This is the same tactic the EPA uses to go after small independent gas stations who toss out oil, while ignoring egregious violations of environmental law by oil giants British Petroleum and Exxon.
San Onofre at the no nukes brink
In January, it seemed the restart of San Onofre Unit 2 would be a corporate cake walk.
With its massive money and clout, Southern California Edison was ready to ram through a license exception for a reactor whose botched $770 million steam generator fix had kept it shut for a year.
But a funny thing has happened on the way to the restart: a No Nukes groundswell has turned this routine rubber stamping into an epic battle the grassroots just might win.
Indeed, if ever there was a time when individual activism could have a magnified impact, this is it (see www.sanonofresafety.org and www.a4nr.org).
This comes as the nuclear industry is in nearly full retreat. Two US reactors are already down this year. Yet another proposed project has just been cancelled in North Carolina. And powerful grassroots campaigns have pushed numerous operating reactors to the brink of extinction throughout the US, Europe and Japan, where all but two reactors remain shut since Fukushima.
In California, it's San Onofre that's perched at the brink.
With its massive money and clout, Southern California Edison was ready to ram through a license exception for a reactor whose botched $770 million steam generator fix had kept it shut for a year.
But a funny thing has happened on the way to the restart: a No Nukes groundswell has turned this routine rubber stamping into an epic battle the grassroots just might win.
Indeed, if ever there was a time when individual activism could have a magnified impact, this is it (see www.sanonofresafety.org and www.a4nr.org).
This comes as the nuclear industry is in nearly full retreat. Two US reactors are already down this year. Yet another proposed project has just been cancelled in North Carolina. And powerful grassroots campaigns have pushed numerous operating reactors to the brink of extinction throughout the US, Europe and Japan, where all but two reactors remain shut since Fukushima.
In California, it's San Onofre that's perched at the brink.
Indefinite Enemies
You’re strapped to a metal table, unable to move. They stick a two-foot plastic tube up your nose, then down the back of your throat into your stomach. They squirt in the liquid protein. You gag, bleed, vomit. It’s unbearably painful.
The practice of involuntary force-feeding is condemned by most medical organizations, including the AMA. It’s banned by most governments. It’s torture.
When I read about the process by which authorities are breaking the hunger strike at the Guantanamo Bay detention center — a process that’s also used regularly in U.S. federal prisons, by the way — I was struck by the utter efficiency of it. The “food” is transmitted directly from bureaucracy to digestive system, bypassing the consciousness of the individual hunger striker. The human being inhabiting this body is completely irrelevant; he only dies when we say so.
Just think about how powerful we are. Just think about how secure we are.
The practice of involuntary force-feeding is condemned by most medical organizations, including the AMA. It’s banned by most governments. It’s torture.
When I read about the process by which authorities are breaking the hunger strike at the Guantanamo Bay detention center — a process that’s also used regularly in U.S. federal prisons, by the way — I was struck by the utter efficiency of it. The “food” is transmitted directly from bureaucracy to digestive system, bypassing the consciousness of the individual hunger striker. The human being inhabiting this body is completely irrelevant; he only dies when we say so.
Just think about how powerful we are. Just think about how secure we are.
Obama in Plunderland: Down the Corporate Rabbit Hole
The president’s new choices for Commerce secretary and FCC chair underscore how far down the rabbit hole his populist conceits have tumbled. Yet the Obama rhetoric about standing up for working people against “special interests” is as profuse as ever. Would you care for a spot of Kool-Aid at the Mad Hatter’s tea party?
Of course the Republican economic program is worse, and President Romney’s policies would have been even more corporate-driven. That doesn't in the slightest make acceptable what Obama is doing. His latest high-level appointments -- boosting corporate power and shafting the public -- are despicable.
Of course the Republican economic program is worse, and President Romney’s policies would have been even more corporate-driven. That doesn't in the slightest make acceptable what Obama is doing. His latest high-level appointments -- boosting corporate power and shafting the public -- are despicable.
A Floor of Decency
“Everywhere near the building, the stench of death was overpowering. Men in surgical masks sprayed disinfectant in the air.”
We move from tragedy to tragedy with hellish regularity.
“The scope of injuries,” Jim Yardley writes in the New York Times, “was horrifying: fractured skulls, crushed rib cages, severed livers, ruptured spleens. One survivor lost both legs. . . . A teenage girl named Sania lost her right leg. Another teenager, Anna, lost her right hand.”
This wasn’t from a bomb in Boston. It was from a collapsed building outside Dhaka, Bangladesh — another shocking sweatshop disaster, this one claiming the lives, according to the most recent count, of 385 people, with many more missing and at least 1,000 injured. Eight people, including the owner of the building, which housed five separate garment operations employing more than 3,000 people, were arrested. Workers, the Times reported, saw cracks in the walls of the building the day before it collapsed. They were told to go to work anyway.
We move from tragedy to tragedy with hellish regularity.
“The scope of injuries,” Jim Yardley writes in the New York Times, “was horrifying: fractured skulls, crushed rib cages, severed livers, ruptured spleens. One survivor lost both legs. . . . A teenage girl named Sania lost her right leg. Another teenager, Anna, lost her right hand.”
This wasn’t from a bomb in Boston. It was from a collapsed building outside Dhaka, Bangladesh — another shocking sweatshop disaster, this one claiming the lives, according to the most recent count, of 385 people, with many more missing and at least 1,000 injured. Eight people, including the owner of the building, which housed five separate garment operations employing more than 3,000 people, were arrested. Workers, the Times reported, saw cracks in the walls of the building the day before it collapsed. They were told to go to work anyway.
Don’t Vent, Organize -- And “Primary” a Democrat Near You
Progressives often wonder why so many Republican lawmakers stick to their avowed principles while so many Democratic lawmakers abandon theirs. We can grasp some answers by assessing the current nationwide drive called “Primary My Congressman” -- a case study of how right-wing forces gain ground in electoral terrain where progressives fear to tread.
Sponsored by Club for Growth Action, the “Primary My Congressman” effort aims to replace “moderate Republicans” with “economic conservatives” -- in other words, GOP hardliners even more devoted to boosting corporate power and dismantling the public sector. “In districts that are heavily Republican,” the group says, “there are literally dozens of missed opportunities to elect real fiscal conservatives to Congress -- not more ‘moderates’ who will compromise with Democrats. . .”
Such threats of serious primary challenges often cause the targeted incumbents to quickly veer rightward, or they may never get through the next Republican primary.
Progressive activists and organizations could launch similar primary challenges, but -- to the delight of the Democratic Party establishment -- they rarely do. Why not?
Sponsored by Club for Growth Action, the “Primary My Congressman” effort aims to replace “moderate Republicans” with “economic conservatives” -- in other words, GOP hardliners even more devoted to boosting corporate power and dismantling the public sector. “In districts that are heavily Republican,” the group says, “there are literally dozens of missed opportunities to elect real fiscal conservatives to Congress -- not more ‘moderates’ who will compromise with Democrats. . .”
Such threats of serious primary challenges often cause the targeted incumbents to quickly veer rightward, or they may never get through the next Republican primary.
Progressive activists and organizations could launch similar primary challenges, but -- to the delight of the Democratic Party establishment -- they rarely do. Why not?
Bank bailout recipient sends foreclosed food to landfill under sheriff's guard
March 23, 2013 was a chilly day in Augusta, Georgia, when hundreds of families gathered to claim free food from a local supermarket that had been foreclosed. What greeted the hungry people of this neighborhood instead was a line of sheriff's deputies and barricades around the store's entire stock. Local charities had declined to pick up the food, diapers, tolietries, and clothing. Under instruction from the bank, Sun Trust, sheriffs deputies supervised as all the food was put into a dumpster while hungry families watched in horror and disbelief.
The locally-owned store, Laney Supermarket, is a historic landmark that serves a community where unemployment is above 40 percent. The area has few other nearby markets. Until the owners failed to pay rent and were evicted by the property owner, Sun Trust, they offered rides to those who needed them to and from the market. According to the owner, "You know, sometime[s] I would drive three miles from over here, [and] pick them up. After they do their shopping I take them home."
The locally-owned store, Laney Supermarket, is a historic landmark that serves a community where unemployment is above 40 percent. The area has few other nearby markets. Until the owners failed to pay rent and were evicted by the property owner, Sun Trust, they offered rides to those who needed them to and from the market. According to the owner, "You know, sometime[s] I would drive three miles from over here, [and] pick them up. After they do their shopping I take them home."
North Carolinians will be arrested today
(Durham, North Carolina) – In the face of unprecedented and far reaching attacks on North Carolinians ability to vote, go to school and properly care for their families, the North Carolina NAACP State Conference held a national media conference call at 3:00 pm to discuss a nonviolent civil disobedience “pray-in” at the North Carolina General Assembly later today. Leaders say the “pray-in” is the first of many nonviolent direct actions in the state where leaders will be arrested and jailed.
“The decision to engage in civil disobedience is not one we take lightly,” stated Rev. Dr. William Barber of the North Carolina NAACP State Conference. “But right-wing extremists in the state legislature and Governor’s office are acting like the George Wallaces of the 21st century. They are pursuing a cruel, unusual and unconstitutional agenda reminiscent of the Old South. This is a state issue with national implications, since many of these same regressive forces are at play in other states. North Carolina is ground zero in a national struggle to defend democracy for all.”
“The decision to engage in civil disobedience is not one we take lightly,” stated Rev. Dr. William Barber of the North Carolina NAACP State Conference. “But right-wing extremists in the state legislature and Governor’s office are acting like the George Wallaces of the 21st century. They are pursuing a cruel, unusual and unconstitutional agenda reminiscent of the Old South. This is a state issue with national implications, since many of these same regressive forces are at play in other states. North Carolina is ground zero in a national struggle to defend democracy for all.”
Los Angeles to San Onofre: "Not So Fast!"
A unanimous Los Angeles City Council has demanded the Nuclear Regulatory Commission conduct extended investigations before any restart at the San Onofre atomic power plant.
The move reflects a deep-rooted public opposition to resumed operations at reactors perched in a tsunami zone near earthquake faults that threaten all of southern California.
Meanwhile, yet another top-level atomic insider has told ABC News that San Onofre Units 2 and 3 are not safe to operate.
On April 23, LA's eleven City Council members approved a resolution directing the NRC to "make no decision about restarting either San Onofre unit" until it conducts a "prudent, transparent and precautionary" investigation. The city wants "ample opportunity" for public comment and confirmation that "mandated repairs, replacements, or other actions" have been completed to guarantee the public safety.
The move reflects a deep-rooted public opposition to resumed operations at reactors perched in a tsunami zone near earthquake faults that threaten all of southern California.
Meanwhile, yet another top-level atomic insider has told ABC News that San Onofre Units 2 and 3 are not safe to operate.
On April 23, LA's eleven City Council members approved a resolution directing the NRC to "make no decision about restarting either San Onofre unit" until it conducts a "prudent, transparent and precautionary" investigation. The city wants "ample opportunity" for public comment and confirmation that "mandated repairs, replacements, or other actions" have been completed to guarantee the public safety.