McCamy Taylor
McCamy Taylor's JournalWithout Your Consent: Bush Era Urban Asbestos Testing (and Why Newt Will Be More of the Same)
Informed consent is the rule when it comes to medical experimentation. Anytime a drug company, medical school or university wants to test anything---a new medication to stop you from smoking, a theory about why people smoke, a new smoking cessation program---they have to prove that their experiment 1) will not harm your health, 2) that it will benefit the public health and 3) that you have been informed that you are a participant in a study and that you have been given the right to refuse to participate.
In 2007, the Environmental Protection Agency conducted an experiment on the citizens of Fort Worth, Texas without getting informed consent. They decided to try out a new method of demolishing buildings contaminated with asbestos. The so called “wet method” involved hosing down the structure as it was being leveled. The theory was that the fibers would become caked in mud which could then be crushed and destroyed. The workers conducting the experiment were not given masks or protective gear. The children walking to school nearby were not given masks or protective gear. The EPA measured the amount of asbestos released into the air----
And then buried the results, until an environmental group demanded to see the findings of the “experiment”. Then, the EPA admitted that its air monitors had detected asbestos around the site during the demolition. Then the EPA said that workers and others near the site during the demolition should probably be evaluated for exposure to the toxic substance which
“is a human carcinogen with no safe level of exposure. Asbestos exposure can lead to serious diseases such as asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma. The diseases can develop decades after exposure.”
(From today’s Fort Worth Star Telegram)
http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/12/18/3603937/report-raises-concerns-about-asbestos.html
This was not the first time the EPA had tried to experiment on the residents of Fort Worth without their consent. In 2004, the Cowtown Inn was scheduled to be leveled. The old building contained asbestos, but the government did not want to spend the time and money needed to take it down the approved way----under safety tents, with workers wearing protective gear. So, they announced plans to test the much cheaper, faster “wet” method. When citizens in the surrounding areas got wind of the plan, they protested. The experiment was stopped.
“The EPA still expects to test the wet method in a sparsely populated area. “ … We will hold EPA to its pledge to ensure that wherever the experiment is conducted, there will be meaningful opportunity for public comment on, and scientific peer review of, the test plans and test results,” commented Jim Hecker, Public Justice’s Environmental Enforcement Director.”
http://www.asbestosnetwork.com/news/nw_073004_asbestos_removal.htm
Yeah, right.
A report from August of this year describes the results of the Bush era EPA’s human experimentation.
“The EPA actually tested this theory when demolishing regional offices in St. Louis, MO, Ft. Worth, TX, and Ft. Chaffee, AR. The result was unsurprising to those who advocated against such a sea change in the way asbestos is removed from buildings prior to demolition. Basically, the “wet method” was an abject failure in prohibiting the release of airborne asbestos fibers. The EPA has set a standard level of acceptable asbestos particulate or dust, in residential environments where people are present, when sites containing asbestos are demolished. That number is set at 5,000 asbestos structures per cubic centimeter (s/cm^3). At those sites where the EPA tested the “wet method,” the amount of measured dust was significantly above that threshold. The perimeter air monitors at Ft. Worth detected increased asbestos levels, and adjacent buildings exceeded the level of acceptable asbestos settlement. The Ft. Chaffee site also had increased asbestos release, with one pavement sample coming in at 19,400 (s/cm^3), almost 4 times the acceptable normal action level. The study also found that the water used to “wet” the building, after demolition, was highly contaminated with asbestos.”
http://www.cateslaw.com/blog/14-wet-removal-of-asbestos--a-sham
Despite proof that wet demolition is not safe, lobbyists are still trying to get the EPA to approve the method---which will save them a whole lot of money.
In Crimes Against Nature Robert Kennedy Jr. wrote
“The Bush attack was not entirely unexpected. During his tenure in Texas, George W. Bush had the grimmest environmental record of any governor in the country: the Lone Star State ranked number one in both air and water pollution. In his six years in Austin, Governor Bush championed a short-term, pollution-based prosperity that enriched his political contributors and corporate cronies by lowering the quality of life for everyone else. Now President Bush is doing the same thing to the citizens in the other 49 states.”
http://www.changelingaspects.com/PDF/Crimes%20Against%20Nature.pdf
Kennedy also wrote
“Environmental injury is deficit spending—loading the costs of pollution-based prosperity onto the backs of the next generation.”
The “wet demolition” experiments in Fort Worth, Arkansas and St. Louis are proof that a four or eight year term of office for the wrong president can have lasting consequences. Somewhere out there are in my home city are workers---and school children---who may have gotten a big lungful of asbestos four years ago. A single exposure is all it takes to trigger cancer. Depending upon the direction the air was blowing that day and the way the water flowed from the site, many other people may be sitting on time bombs.
Note that Newt Gingrich, the GOP front runner, is also a front man for those who want to use us as guinea pigs without our consent.
“In 1994, industry’s greenwashing and its years of investment in political organizations, front groups, think tanks, and phony science paid off in the most pro-pollution Congress in our nation’s history. Wise Use helped propel Newt Gingrich to the Speaker’s chair of the U.S. Congress, where he began a dangerous and partially successful effort to enact his anti-environmental manifesto, Contract With America. Gingrich’s consigliore was Congressman Tom DeLay, the former bug exterminator who was determined to rid the world of pesky pesticide regulations and to promote a “biblical worldview. 26 DeLay considers DDT “safe as aspirin” 27 and the Endangered Species Act the greatest threat to Texas after illegal aliens. 28 He attributed the Columbine massacre to the teaching of evolution in schools. 29 In January 1995, Congressman DeLay invited a group of 350 lobbyists representing some of the nation’s biggest polluters to collaborate in drafting legislation that would dismantle federal health, safety, and environmental laws.”
Think that environmental protection laws are responsible for the recession? Think that those unoccupied houses are a blight and wet demolition is safer than letting them rot ( to paraphrase the title of a Fort Worth Star Telegram article from 2007 that can no longer be found online)? Think that President Newt won’t be able to give your kids a lungful of asbestos, because watchdog groups like the Sierra Club will be there to stop him? Then by all means, stay home next fall. But before you make that decision, you might want to read this article from Sierra Club, advocating the wet demolition test in Texas.
http://texas.sierraclub.org/fortworth/News/Newsletters/2007/Nov-Dec'07.pdf
“Over the last two months, I have talked and met with EPA staff about this
method and it appears to be better than the current one.”
The only way to keep the government from doing environmental tests on you and your family without your consent is to make sure that those in power in the government are not bought and paid for by the industries that do the polluting.
One final request. Before you post that Obama and Democratic Congress environmental policy are exactly the same as Bush environmental policy, please read the Robert Kennedy document linked above. Yes, I know it is over 100 pages long. But you would not want to make a statement like “Democrats and Republicans are exactly the same” without knowing exactly what the Republicans are, now would you?
Without Your Consent: The Ongoing Nightmare of Bush Environmental Policy
Informed consent is the rule when it comes to medical experimentation. Anytime a drug company, medical school or university wants to test anything---a new medication to stop you from smoking, a theory about why people smoke, a new smoking cessation program---they have to prove that their experiment 1) will not harm your health, 2) that it will benefit the public health and 3) that you have been informed that you are a participant in a study and that you have been given the right to refuse to participate.
In 2007, the Environmental Protection Agency conducted an experiment on the citizens of Fort Worth, Texas without getting informed consent. They decided to try out a new method of demolishing buildings contaminated with asbestos. The so called “wet method” involved hosing down the structure as it was being leveled. The theory was that the fibers would become caked in mud which could then be crushed and destroyed. The workers conducting the experiment were not given masks or protective gear. The children walking to school nearby were not given masks or protective gear. The EPA measured the amount of asbestos released into the air----
And then buried the results, until an environmental group demanded to see the findings of the “experiment”. Then, the EPA admitted that its air monitors had detected asbestos around the site during the demolition. Then the EPA said that workers and others near the site during the demolition should probably be evaluated for exposure to the toxic substance which
“is a human carcinogen with no safe level of exposure. Asbestos exposure can lead to serious diseases such as asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma. The diseases can develop decades after exposure.”
(From today’s Fort Worth Star Telegram)
http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/12/18/3603937/report-raises-concerns-about-asbestos.html
This was not the first time the EPA had tried to experiment on the residents of Fort Worth without their consent. In 2004, the Cowtown Inn was scheduled to be leveled. The old building contained asbestos, but the government did not want to spend the time and money needed to take it down the approved way----under safety tents, with workers wearing protective gear. So, they announced plans to test the much cheaper, faster “wet” method. When citizens in the surrounding areas got wind of the plan, they protested. The experiment was stopped.
“The EPA still expects to test the wet method in a sparsely populated area. “ … We will hold EPA to its pledge to ensure that wherever the experiment is conducted, there will be meaningful opportunity for public comment on, and scientific peer review of, the test plans and test results,” commented Jim Hecker, Public Justice’s Environmental Enforcement Director.”
http://www.asbestosnetwork.com/news/nw_073004_asbestos_removal.htm
Yeah, right.
A report from August of this year describes the results of the Bush era EPA’s human experimentation.
“The EPA actually tested this theory when demolishing regional offices in St. Louis, MO, Ft. Worth, TX, and Ft. Chaffee, AR. The result was unsurprising to those who advocated against such a sea change in the way asbestos is removed from buildings prior to demolition. Basically, the “wet method” was an abject failure in prohibiting the release of airborne asbestos fibers. The EPA has set a standard level of acceptable asbestos particulate or dust, in residential environments where people are present, when sites containing asbestos are demolished. That number is set at 5,000 asbestos structures per cubic centimeter (s/cm^3). At those sites where the EPA tested the “wet method,” the amount of measured dust was significantly above that threshold. The perimeter air monitors at Ft. Worth detected increased asbestos levels, and adjacent buildings exceeded the level of acceptable asbestos settlement. The Ft. Chaffee site also had increased asbestos release, with one pavement sample coming in at 19,400 (s/cm^3), almost 4 times the acceptable normal action level. The study also found that the water used to “wet” the building, after demolition, was highly contaminated with asbestos.”
http://www.cateslaw.com/blog/14-wet-removal-of-asbestos--a-sham
Despite proof that wet demolition is not safe, lobbyists are still trying to get the EPA to approve the method---which will save them a whole lot of money.
In Crimes Against Nature Robert Kennedy Jr. wrote
“The Bush attack was not entirely unexpected. During his tenure in Texas, George W. Bush had the grimmest environmental record of any governor in the country: the Lone Star State ranked number one in both air and water pollution. In his six years in Austin, Governor Bush championed a short-term, pollution-based prosperity that enriched his political contributors and corporate cronies by lowering the quality of life for everyone else. Now President Bush is doing the same thing to the citizens in the other 49 states.”
http://www.changelingaspects.com/PDF/Crimes%20Against%20Nature.pdf
Kennedy also wrote
“Environmental injury is deficit spending—loading the costs of pollution-based prosperity onto the backs of the next generation.”
The “wet demolition” experiments in Fort Worth, Arkansas and St. Louis are proof that a four or eight year term of office for the wrong president can have lasting consequences. Somewhere out there are in my home city are workers---and school children---who may have gotten a big lungful of asbestos four years ago. A single exposure is all it takes to trigger cancer. Depending upon the direction the air was blowing that day and the way the water flowed from the site, many other people may be sitting on time bombs.
Note that Newt Gingrich, the GOP front runner, is also a front man for those who want to use us as guinea pigs without our consent.
“In 1994, industry’s greenwashing and its years of investment in political organizations, front groups, think tanks, and phony science paid off in the most pro-pollution Congress in our nation’s history. Wise Use helped propel Newt Gingrich to the Speaker’s chair of the U.S. Congress, where he began a dangerous and partially successful effort to enact his anti-environmental manifesto, Contract With America. Gingrich’s consigliore was Congressman Tom DeLay, the former bug exterminator who was determined to rid the world of pesky pesticide regulations and to promote a “biblical worldview. 26 DeLay considers DDT “safe as aspirin” 27 and the Endangered Species Act the greatest threat to Texas after illegal aliens. 28 He attributed the Columbine massacre to the teaching of evolution in schools. 29 In January 1995, Congressman DeLay invited a group of 350 lobbyists representing some of the nation’s biggest polluters to collaborate in drafting legislation that would dismantle federal health, safety, and environmental laws.”
Think that environmental protection laws are responsible for the recession? Think that those unoccupied houses are a blight and wet demolition is safer than letting them rot ( to paraphrase the title of a Fort Worth Star Telegram article from 2007 that can no longer be found online)? Think that President Newt won’t be able to give your kids a lungful of asbestos, because watchdog groups like the Sierra Club will be there to stop him? Then by all means, stay home next fall. But before you make that decision, you might want to read this article from Sierra Club, advocating the wet demolition test in Texas.
http://texas.sierraclub.org/fortworth/News/Newsletters/2007/Nov-Dec'07.pdf
“Over the last two months, I have talked and met with EPA staff about this
method and it appears to be better than the current one.”
The only way to keep the government from doing environmental tests on you and your family without your consent is to make sure that those in power in the government are not bought and paid for by the industries that do the polluting.
One final request. Before you post that Obama and Democratic Congress environmental policy are exactly the same as Bush environmental policy, please read the Robert Kennedy document linked above. Yes, I know it is over 100 pages long. But you would not want to make a statement like “Democrats and Republicans are exactly the same” without knowing exactly what the Republicans are, now would you?
49 1/2 %
This Christmas, the majority of Americans want 1) health care for all, 2) Medicare for their parents, 3) no foreign wars for oil, 4) contraception and abortion rights (for themselves), 5) freedom of speech, 6) freedom of religion, 7)decent schools, 8) clean air and water, 9) the right to an attorney if they are charged with a crime, 10) no child to go to bed hungry at night, 11) no veterans jobless and 12) no families homeless.
This Christmas, a tiny minority of Americans want 1) to collect exorbitant premiums for health insurance while delivering no actual health care, 2) to charge exorbitant amounts of money for drugs that do little or nothing to improve health, 3) to keep wages artificially depressed by keeping workers unemployed, 4) to use the power of the American military to bring “democracy” to all the world’s resources---especially its nationalized oil, 5)your home, 6)your retirement savings, 7)a reduced “bottom line” even if it means poisoning you with arsenic tainted chicken and lead tainted jewelry and ozone rich air and oil slicked water, 8)to sell you shares in a Ponzi scheme, 9) to get a government bailout when their Ponzi scheme collapses, 10) to be above the law, 11) to be even richer than they already are and 12) to dine on caviar and expensive wine while laughing at the suckers who have made it all possible.
The majority have recently been dubbed the “99%”. The minority are the other “1%”. The United States has a democratic election system in which the majority rules. Keeping that in mind, who is more likely to get the things they desire this Christmas? We all know the answer. We have known it all our lives.
Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why?
Yes, it has something to do with money in elections Yes, it has something to do with the corporate media. Yes, easy to hack e-voting systems are partly responsible. Yes, poll taxes and gerrymandering and flawed voter rolls and police roadblocks outside minority voting places all play a role.
But how did money get into politics? How did a handful of major corporations acquire a monopoly on the news? Why did we allow them to replace our paper ballots with paperless e-voting? If 99% of us do not want these things, then why are we stuck with them?
The answer is simple. The 49 ½% made America the way it is.
Who is the 49 ½ %? The 49 ½ % are the young people who think that they will never collect Social Security so the system should be abolished. The 49 ½% are the old folks who are afraid that universal healthcare will cut into their Medicare. The 49 ½ % are the native born who think that they would be rich if not for the immigrants. The 49 ½ % are the whites who think that they will become richer if minorities become poorer. The 49 ½ % are the petrochemical workers who want safe food but think that clean air is overrated. The 49 ½ % are the fishermen who want clean water but don’t see why we have to preserve endangered species. The 49 ½ % are those with grown kids who want to see their property taxes lowered, even if it means laying off teachers. The 49 ½ % are the heterosexuals who think that victims of sexual orientation based hate crimes “need to get over themselves.” The 49 ½ % are the able bodied workers who get up each morning and head to their jobs whether they like it or not, so why should some guy with a bad back get paid to stay at home and do nothing? The 49 ½ % are the men who get up each morning and head to work whether they like it or not, so why should some woman get paid to stay home and take care of her newborn baby?
The 49 ½% are those who work long hours in a soul numbing job which pays shitty wages with no benefits for an employer who will fire them the second they or a family member get sick----and who blame another member of the 49 ½ % for their woes.
We are all members of the 49 ½ % sometimes. I dare anyone here to boast “No, I have never fallen for divide and conquer. Not once! I have always been a proud member of the 99% all my life.” In our hearts, we all believe in the 99 %, but what matters is what we live. And too many of us continue to live as 49 ½ percenters, squabbling with other workers for the crusts that fall from the mouths of the rich, using up our energy fighting among ourselves, while the vultures circle overhead, waiting to clean up the spoils.
How will we know that we are finally living as 99 percenters instead of 49 ½ percenters? Easy. That Christmas wish list up at the top of the page will become a reality.
Newt's Female Trouble
I was going to call this one “Newt’s Women Problem” but that has already been used---by about a million Google hits including a two day old piece from the Atlantic here:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/12/newt-gingrichs-woman-problem/46130/
which asks the question “Will conservative Republican women support Newt?”
Be honest, though. When has being an adulterer with a pretty trophy wife ever cost a Republican the nomination? The corporate media anoints a candidate, and the GOP base holds its nose and votes for him.
Newt’s real female trouble will begin in the general election, when he is scrutinized by all the women who are not used to doing as they are told. We know what Newt thinks about women. He likes them young and pretty and healthy---no cancer, no MS. What do women on the left think about Newt?
One of Newt’s first acts, upon talking control of Congress, was to deny funding for the Violence Against Women Act, which had been passed in the previous Congress. Newt only capitulated after NOW brought 250,000 women to protest this action.
http://www.now.org/issues/violence/stats.html
Now, what kind of man does not want to end violence against women?
NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) gave Newt a failing score when it comes to reproductive freedom, citing his 72 (out of 74) anti-choice votes and his vote to end Title X, the federal family planning funding program.
http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/elections/2012/gop-presidential-candidates/newt-gingrich.html
That can't be right! Wasn't Newt the one who vowed to end welfare---and stop the nation's single women from having babies? How did he expect to do that if they had no access to birth control? Sounds like pretty bad planning to me. Or just plain meanness.
Speaking of welfare reform , here is what one woman had to say about Newt in 1994:
"He attacks the most powerless segment of our society - young women and children. Of course, this group doesn't form PACs or contribute to the coffers of our erstwhile congressmen, therefore they're safe to victimize. He proposes to allow them only two months of welfare. If they don't find employment in those two months, he would have their children torn away from them and put in orphanages.
Snip
"Newt would make Charles Dickens' character Ebenezer Scrooge look like a saint. I can only hope Newt will one day be visited by the spirit of compassion. Undoubtedly he won't listen. After all, the spirit of compassion neither belongs to a PAC nor puts money in his pocket."
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19941126&slug=1943860
Surely Newt did not threaten to attack the American Family by forcibly taking away their children and putting them into homes. Did he? From 1994:
"Resurgent Republicans in Congress under Newt Gingrich are breathing new life into an idea whose time most people thought had already come and gone.
"They want to bring back orphanages and other forms of state-supervised residences to care for the illegitimate children of young women who would be cut from welfare rolls under their proposals."
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1994-11-27/news/1994331010_1_orphanages-newt-gingrich-illegitimacy
That’s right. Newt wanted to break up families and send the tots to orphanages for the crime of having poor parents. Not abusive parents. Not negligent parents. Poor parents.
Am I surprised? Not really. Newt left his first wife, because she was too old, ugly and diseased (cancer) to be a presidents wife. He broke the news to her when she was in the hospital recovering from surgery. He did not pay child support, forcing his ex-wife and kids to seek charity from their church. Newt’s one great virtue may be that he is no hypocrite. He does not just preach misogyny and hatred of children, he lives it.
If Newt is the GOP nominee, I expect to see women flocking to the polls next fall to cast their vote against him. Bad for Newt, good for us, since it mobilizes the Democratic base.
Sorry, J.P. Morgan, But People Without Homes WILL Quarrel With Their Leaders
The attribution of the following quote has been debated. There is no debating the sentiment it expresses.
"Capital must protect itself in every way...Debts must be collected and loans and mortgages foreclosed as soon as possible. When through a process of law the common people have lost their homes, they will be more tractable and more easily governed by the strong arm of the law applied by the central power of leading financiers. People without homes will not quarrel with their leaders. This is well known among our principle men now engaged in forming an imperialism of capitalism to govern the world. By dividing the people we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us except as teachers of the common herd.
-J.P. Morgan"
For decades, the right wing has dreamed of unraveling the safety net crafted by Democrats like LBJ, Truman and FDR. Their goal? The quote above sums it up. If people have no homes, they have no wealth. They have no economic security. They become fearful. A frightened worker is a desperate, pliable worker, who will accept any wage, any work condition, any hours, any task.
"Capital"----the banks, the investment brokers, the multinationals---must have been disconcerted when People Without Homes decided to quarrel with this leaders this fall. For decades, they were promised a meek, pliable population of suckers who would work their fingers to the bone---and then say nothing when they discovered that their savings had been stolen by the very folks who were supposed to protect it. As late as 2008, People Without Homes appeared to be following the script. President Bush got on national television. He said that the banks were Too Big to Fail. Some Americans grumbled, but most of them nodded their heads. Too big to fail. Bankers basked in the glow that you see on the face of the favorite child, the one who gets all the toys, all the praise---while the siblings get nothing.
Capital assumed that when times got bad, we would savage each other, like a pack of caged dogs fighting over a bone. Capital salivated over the thought of more domestic violence, more violence against children, more crimes against immigrants, more inter-racial tension as one group accused another of stealing its jobs, its homes, its slice of the American Dream----
Want to know Capital's big plan?
"Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion."
(Robert O. Paxton from the book Anatomy of Fascism)
Fascism with a twist. Nationalism is now Multi-nationalism. Corporations are the new Fuhrer and Il Duce. In the 20th Century, corporations were content to be the power behind the throne. Now, they demand to be worshiped directly. Heil Exxon! Heil Chase-Morgan! Heil Microsoft! Heil Pfizer! Heil Archer Daniels Midland! A twist on fascism to make it palatable in the U.S., where goose stepping has never been in style. We refuse to bow down and worship a king, but surely we can be persuaded to bow down and worship huge piles of (blood, sweat and tear stained) cash.
I meet a lot of people in my day job. People who have lost their employment, their homes, their health insurance. Folks for whom hunger is a daily fact of life. Men and women who get to choose between eating and taking the medication that keeps them alive. I never hear them complain that the _____s stole their jobs. Never. They never talk about how much better it was before the ___s regained the right to vote. They never criticize the Occupy Wall Street movement. They never talk about how much better the U.S. was when it was being attacked by terrorists and everyone was waving an American flag. They never speaking admiringly of the profits posted by the big banks. They never tell me they sleep easier at night knowing that the Carlyle Group weathered the recession unscathed. They do not trust their employer to "do the right thing" when they have a personal or family illness. They do not call the elderly "deadbeats" for collecting their Social Security and using their Medicare. They do not close their eyes and stop up their ears and tape shut their mouth and hope that the bad times will go away, magically. They are fighters, and adversity does not pacify them, it energizes them---
Which must be why Capital is so desperate to keep them from the polls. Those most willing to "quarrel with their leaders" can not afford cars. Many of them are too sick to drive. That means they may not have a current driver's license.That means when they go to the polls next fall to express their displeasure with Capital, they will be turned away. Unless the Department of Justice and the ACLU and other concerned groups succeed in overturning the new Poll Tax. Unless we defy those who seek to make registering people to vote some kind of organized criminal activity. Unless we strip corporations of their right to channel unlimited amounts of foreign and domestic money into our election process. Unless we preserve freedom of the speech on the Internet, the last place where People Without Homes can make their voices heard in a nation whose news media is corporate owned. Unless we maintain funding for our schools, which provide education and food to the next generation of People Without Homes, making them strong in body as well as mind so that they can continue to "quarrel with their leaders".....
GOP Spin Machine In Action: If You Suffer from Vertigo or Dizziness, Do Not Read
Sorry, NYT, But the GOP Did NOT Pass an Extension to the Payroll Tax Holiday
The New York Times headline and front page blurb look like something out of Bizarro World:
“Defying a veto threat from President Obama, the House passed a bill extending a cut in Social Security payroll taxes, but the Democratic majority in the Senate vowed to reject it.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/us/politics/house-passes-extension-of-payroll-tax-cut.html?hp
Read the article, and you discover that House Republicans have voted along party lines to cut unemployment benefits by 40 weeks, fund the Keystone Pipeline, allow states to require drug testing for those receiving benefits, roll back environmental safety rules and cut federal spending for the new Health Care law. Oh, and if they get all this, then they will let middle America keep its payroll tax holiday and they will allow Medicare providers to keep their shirts.
Since most of this crap is unpalatable to Senate Democrats, House Republicans have now set up a fight in which they can claim (on the front page of the New York Times, no less) that they want to extend the payroll tax holiday but Obama wants to veto it.
I can almost hear next weeks campaign slogans: “Democrats want to raise your taxes by $1500 a year.”
WaPo has the same. Front page blurb:
"House passes Republican payroll tax package
snip
White House threatens to veto payroll tax extension"
Someone please show me where Obama has suggested that he is against a payroll tax extension. If you cite the front pages of the NYT and the WaPo, you go to the back of the class.
The article associated with the headline is here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/2chambers/post/house-passes-gop-payroll-tax-package-amid-white-house-veto-threat/2011/12/13/gIQA8ywbsO_blog.html
Note this near the bottom of the article:
"Michael Steel, spokesman for House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), responded Tuesday afternoon that “the White House threatened to veto its top legislative priority for reasons that The Washington Post has reported are entirely fictitious."
Here is the article that calls Obama a liar:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/white-house-budget-spin-on-the-house-gop-payroll-tax-bill/2011/12/12/gIQAuwhrqO_blog.html?hpid=z3
Can their logic get any more convoluted than this? The WaPo accuses Obama of lying about why he plans to veto the payroll tax bill, then Republicans are quoted in the WaPo claiming that Obama is lying about why he plans to veto the payroll tax bill citing the WaPo.
I put that last part in bold, because Obama is not planning to veto the payroll tax bill. He has been demanding for weeks that Congress continue the payroll tax holiday. He is threatening to veto all the crap that the GOP has tacked onto the bill. But, if you are one of those who gets your news by skimming the headlines, you will walk away convinced that the GOP wants to give you $1500 a year and Obama wants to tax you to death...presumably so he can give the money to a bunch of rich (Black) folks who are planning to vacation in Hawaii this year at your expense.
Fox News? Don’t even ask. Huge headline:
House Votes to Extend Payroll Tax Cut
I only bother mentioning this, because misleading headlines like these are the reason so many Americans are now convinced that Obama wants to chainsaw massacre Medicare even though it was House Republicans who voted along party lines last spring to end the program.
Dizzy yet?
Sick and Poor for Christmas
Wilma lives with her retired granddad. The two of them have to make do with the grandfather’s $600/month Social Security check. $600 does not last long. Sometimes, near the end of the month they have no money for food. One week, all they had left in the house was potatoes. Potatoes! As if this is 19th century Ireland under the yoke of British colonial rule.
Wilma has a bad heart, but she can not get any help from the government. She is one of those sick people who has not been sick enough long enough to qualify for aid. When people tell Wilma “Have a merry Christmas” she grimaces. Her Christmas wishes are simple. Something to eat. Money for her medications. It would be great if she could have both.
Valero Energy Company has $37 billion in assets, according to their website. Valero has refineries all across Texas. It needs to add equipment that will remove sulfur from its products in order to comply with federal rules. It has applied for a local tax abatement that will save it tens of millions of dollars---money that will be taken out of school funds. Public schools in Texas are already strapped for cash, and schools in south and west Texas where Valero operates are not wealthy. Far from it. One of the poorest regions of the country can be found in south Texas, close to the border with Mexico. It is one of the most polluted, too. The number of children born with birth defects in that area is scary.
Years ago, the Texas state legislature attempted to encourage refineries to decrease local air pollution by promising them a tax abatement if they would install equipment to limit their local emissions. Environmental justice. Valero thinks that the school kids in the Valley should pay to limit emissions in far away cities like New York and San Francisco. That is what is known as environmental injustice . So now, the state of Texas is debating whether or not to give Valero a huge Christmas bonus for obeying federal law---while doing nothing for the kids who live in the refiner’s own backyard. No, worse than nothing. They are taking away their textbooks, their school lunches. And ten other refining companies in Texas want to do the same thing. Because they believe that they have already given too much.
"Our children's education is extremely important, but it is also important to have a fair property appraisal. Even after our exemption is granted, Valero will remain one of the largest taxpayers -- if not the largest taxpayer -- in all the areas where we have refineries."
http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/12/11/3587287/tax-exemption-request-from-valero.html
Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich claims that food stamps are frivolous. Americans use food stamps to pay for their vacations. Newt has probably never talked to Wilma. Her granddad applied for food stamps. He was told he could get $25 a month. I wonder what kind of vacation Wilma and her grandfather can take for $25.
It’s Christmas everyday for corporate America. We, the people, just keep giving and giving until we have no more to give---and then we give a little more. Christmas only comes once a year for the rest of us. And for some of us, it never comes at all.
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