Last Call

South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint vows to save America from passing any legislation or anything.

A bloc of Senate conservatives, led by South Carolina's Jim DeMint, flexed their muscles Thursday, pledging to block any bill they alone deem wasteful or unconstitutional.


Seven other GOP senators joined DeMint's effort, including three freshman he helped elect in November, and veteran Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee.

"I'm proud to stand with my fellow conservative Senate colleagues to require thorough review of bills to prevent secret passage of wasteful spending and unconstitutional legislation," DeMint said.

Beyond passing judgment on whether measures are constitutional, DeMint's new group wants any new spending to be offset by other funding cuts and for duplicative government programs to be consolidated or eliminated.

The group also demands that all government programs be reviewed periodically and that the cost of every bill be made public before the Senate votes on it, along with the full text.

Jon Summers, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he's pleased that DeMint and his allies recognize "that we need to reduce the deficit and cut spending to make government leaner and more efficient."

But, Summers said, "it's a shame their austerity does not apply to the unpaid-for, budget-busting special interest tax breaks that they seem all too happy to hand out."

Naah, those are paid for by Laffer Curve Fairies.

Jim DeMint.  Because government shouldn't really do anything, it messes up the corporate takeover of the country.  Nice to see Maverick McCain has decided that since he can't be President, nobody else can either.

Seriously, folks.  These Republicans have no interest in governing, just wielding power.

It's A Gas Gas Gas In Ohio, Part 2

Well yes, I suppose taking public transportation does save you from having to pay the nearly 10 percent premium in gas prices added in the last ten days, that is if cities could afford public transportation with knuckle-dragging Republicans screaming SOCIALISM at buses and subways and demanding they be shut down.

U.S. gas prices have increased 28 cents a gallon in the last 10 days to $3.47 per gallon. Individuals who travel by bus or commuter rail instead of filling up their tanks at that price would save $825 per month on average, the American Public Transportation Association said.

The group included the national average of $161.56 for an unreserved parking space in a downtown business district in its calculations.

Political uncertainty in oil-producing Libya is pushing up oil prices, and that in turn is forcing many Americans to pay more at the pump.

If prices remain high, individuals would save an average $9,904 each year, APTA said, adding that "this is the highest savings for public transit riders in two years."

APTA said a commuter who relies on public transportation in New York City has the most savings over a driver -- $14,376 a year -- followed by those in Boston, San Francisco, Chicago and Seattle.

So if you're lucky enough to have public transportation where you live (because Republicans in Congress have been blocking a transportation bill for nearly two years now and want tens of billions cut from public transportation nationwide and are throwing away tens of thousands of jobs rather than improve infrastructure) then by all means, use it while it still exists.

It won't in a few years.

The Sight Of White Fright Night

CNN's John Blake spends an awful lot of screen column inches exploring the question of whites as an oppressed minority in America in 2011 and I just shake my head.  The piece is very informative however as far as seeing how the divide and conquer strategy is working wonderfully for Republicans.

The notion that many white Americans feel anxious about their race is not new. Today, however, economic anxieties are feeding those racial fears, says Tim Wise, author of "White Like Me."

Wise says the recession hit blue-collar, white Americans hard, financially and psychologically.

Many white Americans have lived under the assumption that if they worked hard, they would be rewarded. Now more white Americans are sharing unemployment lines with "those people" -- black and brown, Wise says.

"For the first time since the Great Depression, white Americans have been confronted with a level of economic insecurity that we're not used to," he says. "It's not so new for black and brown folks, but for white folks, this is something we haven't seen since the Depression."

Economic insecurity is what Colby Bohannan says convinced him to form the "Former Majority Association for Equality." The association is awarding $500 scholarships to five deserving white men because they aren't eligible for scholarships reserved for women and minorities, he says.

"Living in America, you hear about this minority or that minority, but it's never been used in the same sense for Caucasian Americans," Bohannan says. "There was no one for white males until we came around."

Bohannan says the formation of his group was not motivated by racism, nor will it accept donations from hate groups.

"We're not trying to promote racial bigotry," Bohannan says. "All we're about is helping college students trying to better their lives who happen to be white males."

Some white Americans not only feel ignored in higher education; they feel excluded by popular culture.

The face of America is changing, says Wise, author of "White Like Me." American culture has become so multicultural that many of the nation's icons -- including celebrities, sports heroes, and other leaders -- are people of color.

"The very definition of being an American is going through a profound change," Wise says. "We can no longer take it for granted that we (whites) are the dictionary definition of an American."

Indeed, nearly half of whites (44%) view themselves as an oppressed people these days, the victims of discrimination and bigotry, including some 61% of Tea Party voters.

To which the rest of America is going "Effing really?"

And if you're wondering how the hell the Tea Party took over the GOP, you have your answer.  Scapegoating minority groups during times of economic tension is a proud and storied tradition in the United States, and it seems every generation or so there's a new group of "them" coming for "our" jobs and economic freedom.  The election of Barack Obama only solidified the new "them", everyone who isn't white.

It explains how Republicans have been able to so easily cleave working-class whites away from the Democratic party and the unions that supported them traditionally.  Dressing up full-out class warfare as racial tension isn't new either, but the combination of the nations first African-American President and the worst recession in 80 years has formed a nasty malignancy and backlash.

And the Republicans have exploited it beautifully despite their own incompetence.  We now live in an era where police, teachers, and firefighters making $50k a year are regularly vilified by people making five million a year as lavish wastrels living off the public dole while the "regular Joe" millionaires are treated like royalty.  Indeed, a person's contribution to society is measured by their net worth, the richer they are, the more moral they must be.

And since the big guys own and run every aspect of our corporate and government society, of course we believe them when they say the answer is to cut taxes for the super-rich so that they can "create more jobs" while the average American has gotten nothing but poorer since 1980.

That class anxiety is being diverted into racial anxiety.  The true believers think their rewards will be coming just as soon as we remove all the power from the "welfare queens" and the "union thugs" and the "pointy elitists", all the while finding out much too late the long knives are aimed at their own throats by the corporate overlords that truly have all the power.

The folks taking away the power from working class whites aren't working class Latinos, or African-Americans, or Asian-Americans, but the new class enshrined by the Supreme Court:  the Corporate American.

And they're quite happy to watch the other 99% of us kill each other.  More resources for them.  They don't quite have them all yet, you see.

It Gets Worse For Ohio Professors

Via Memeorandum, Ohio public college professors just got all of their collective bargaining rights stripped under Ohio's union-buster bill.

A bill narrowly approved by the Ohio Senate on Wednesday contains even worse news for public colleges' labor unions than they had feared: In addition to scaling back the collective-bargaining rights of all state employees, it would effectively prevent many faculty members from engaging in collective bargaining at all, by classifying them as managers, exempt from union representation, if they engage in any of several activities traditionally associated with their jobs.

The language dealing with how faculty members are classified was inserted into the bill Wednesday, just hours before the full Senate vote, as part of a 99-page omnibus amendment introduced Tuesday by the bill's sponsor, Shannon Jones, a Republican.

"We were completely blindsided by it," said Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Professors, which has local chapters on eight Ohio public university campuses that represent faculty members in collective bargaining. "We have just started to fight," he said. "We are not going to settle for this."

The classification provision defines as "management-level employees" those faculty members who, individually or through faculty senates or similar organizations, engage in any of a long list of activities generally thought of as simply part of the jobs of tenured and tenure-track professors. Those activities include participating in institutional governance or personnel decisions, selecting or reviewing administrators, preparing budgets, determining how physical resources are used, and setting educational policies "related to admissions, curriculum, subject matter, and methods of instruction and research."

The Senate passed the measure containing such language—a bill overhauling the state's collective-bargaining laws—on Wednesday by a vote of 17 to 16, with six Republicans joining all of the Senate's Democrats in opposing it. The bill is expected to have an easier time getting through the Ohio House of Representatives, where Republicans hold a 59-to-40 majority, and to be signed by Gov. John R. Kasich, a Republican, who on Wednesday issued a written statement applauding its passage by the Senate.

"This is a major step forward in correcting the imbalance between taxpayers and the government unions that work for them," the governor's statement said. "Our state, counties, cities, and school districts need the flexibility to reduce their costs and better manage their work forces, and taxpayers deserve to be treated with more fairness."

But Ohio's teachers, firefighters, public defenders, transportation engineers, police officers, and college professors don't.  Apparently they're not part of Ohio voters or citizens or taxpayers.  Since he took office, John Kasich has taken direct aim at Ohio workers, killing the rail project that would have provided thousands of jobs and now going after public employees of all stripes.

After all, as a former lobbyist for Goldman Sachs, he knows who pays the bills in the Buckeye State.

The Glass Ceiling Is Still Firmly In Place

(CNN) -- The earnings gap between men and women has narrowed, but a new White House report shows that on average women still only make about 75% as much as their male counterparts.

The report released Tuesday shows that women have not only caught up with men in college attendance but in fact have surpassed them, yet that gain hasn't translated into the pocketbook. Statistics also show women are more likely than men to live in poverty.

I'm going to try to hold back on this, because I take it personally.  I am one of those women who showed up on time, worked harder and for longer hours, and got paid a fraction of what my male coworkers earned.  That's one of the reasons I am now working for the company I joined this year. 

It's still a good old boys club.  And I'm sick of playing the game.  When 75% is an improvement, we deserve answers.

It Only Took Eight Years!

ST. LOUIS – Missouri is not leading the nation in methamphetamine lab busts and seizures for the first time since 2003, according to figures released Tuesday.

Missouri's numbers went up ten percent from last year, but according to this article Tennessee went up a whopping 41%, putting them oh so slightly ahead.  Meanwhile, pot is illegal and smoking tobacco  (which is completely legal) is being tested for at work, because some employers have decided to outlaw it even outside of the workplace.

If You Can't Trust The State's Top Election Official To Vote Properly...

The big political story here in the tri-state is the indictment of Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White on seven counts related to voter fraud.  Yes, this means that the state's top election official has been busted for lying about his residency to cheat the voting system.

Secretary of State Charlie White, the top election official in Indianapolis, is facing seven felony counts, including voter fraud, perjury and theft, all connected to what a prosecutor said was an attempt to hold on to his seat on the town council even though he was living outside of his designated district.

White was indicted by a grand jury in Hamilton County on three counts of voter fraud for allegedly lying about his address when he voted in last year's Republican primary, the Courier-Journal reports. In addition he's facing charges of perjury, fraud on a financial institution (for lying about his address) and theft for keeping the salary he received as a member of his town council after he moved out of his designated district.

A special prosecutor announced the indictment on Thursday and White turned himself in at the Hamilton County Jail this afternoon, the Indianapolis Star reports. He was released after he posted $10,000 bond. The probe has been in the works since at least October.

White has already admitted that he voted in a district where he no longer lived. His registered address was a home he and his now ex-wife had shared on and off until 2009. 

There's stupid, and then there's this guy, figuring he could game the system he was in charge of to allegedly collect his town council salary on top of his Secretary of State salary and lie about it, figuring nobody would notice.

Meanwhile, the entire point of Indiana's Voter ID law that critics contend would disenfranchise poor and minority voters in Indiana was to stop a "flood of voter fraud".  Seems the only voter fraud Indianans have to worry about are Republican Secretaries of State.  Oh, and no, the Indiana Voter ID law didn't stop Charlie White at all, good old fashioned police work did.  And of course, when White allegedly did it, it was because of his "chaotic living situation".  Just one big mistake. Voter ID laws don't apply to Charlie White, see.

Because a Republican would never cheat the system, only Dirty F'ckin Hippies and Those People do that.

Hysterical.

Jobapalooza

Ahead of today's Labor Department numbers,  Gallup's survey of Americans finds their measure of the unemployment rate back up to 10.3%, but most importantly the underemployment rate at a whopping 19.9%.

Underemployment, a measure that combines part-time workers wanting full-time work with those who are unemployed, surged in February to 19.9%. This resulted from the combination of a sharp 0.5-point increase since the end of January in the percentage unemployed and a 0.5-point increase in the percentage working part time but wanting full-time work. Underemployment is now higher than it was at this point a year ago (19.7%).

Not good in any way, meaning that there's been nothing but treading water in the last year according to Gallup's numbers.  I'll dispute their unemployment survey, but the underemployment numbers are far closer to reality than the government's 16-17% figure.

We'll see where the official figures come in.

Food Stamps For Thought, Part 5

Tyler Durden and the Zero Hedge crew note the final 2010 numbers for SNAP/Food Stamp usage in the country are pretty grim:  44.1 million Americans now on food assistance programs as we pass the 1 in 7 Americans mark at 14.3% of the country now getting help on affording basic food.



You're looking at those numbers correctly. In three years, over 16 million people have been added to the SNAP rolls, from 9% of Americans to over 14%. With oil and gas prices rising, expect these number to only get worse in 2011 as we head for the 50 million mark and one in six Americans on SNAP assistance.

I fully expect the final 2012 numbers to be well above the 52 million mark, meaning that the number of Americans on SNAP will have more than doubled from January 2007 to January 2013.

All bets are off on the social health of the country if one in seven of us can't afford food. But the answer is clearly more cuts in social programs, our Washington betters assure us.

StupidiNews!

• Both NFL players and owners have agreed to a 24 hour extension as far as expiring contract negotiations but a lockout is still considered very likely.
• Wisconsin Republicans have issued arrest orders for 14 absent Democratic Senators while Gov. Scott Walker vows today to begin laying off state workers unless they return.
• The International Criminal Court at The Hague has officially opened a war crimes investigation into Libyan ruler Qaddafi's crackdown.
• The Federal Reserve is signaling an abrupt end to bond purchases as part of "QE2" in June is on the table rather than a gradual scale-back.
• Researchers say people are more likely to react positively to virtual trainers who look and act like they do.

Last Call

In a move that should surprise precisely zero observers who have been paying attention, West Virginia Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin is joining the GOP's war on the EPA.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a vocal critic of the Environmental Protection Agency, has signed on as a co-sponsor of Republican legislation to permanently block the agency's climate rules.

The addition of Manchin, who is up for reelection in 2012, as a co-sponsor means that the authors of the bill have been able to get at least some Democratic support in both the House and the Senate. Forty-three Senate Republicans sponsored the bill.

The Hill reported earlier Thursday that three House Democrats signed on to the legislation. Reps. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), the ranking member on the House Agriculture Committee, and Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), the ranking member on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, have are both original co-sponsors. Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.) also signed on to the legislation.

It's a no-brainer for coal country's Manchin, who knows full well that should this somehow pass the Senate, it will run directly into President Obama's veto pen.  He loses nothing by doing this, and keeps his Ben Nelson/Evan Bayh cred heading into 2012.  More importantly he does the heavy lifting so fellow Sen. Jay Rockefeller doesn't have to (although Rockefeller may still be a reliable vote for Manchin's bill.)

Practical upshot is Manchin gains more than he loses by making a point of co-sponsoring this legislation.  Republicans get to fake playing the "bipartisan support" card too.  Manchin made it clear from the outset that he wasn't going to support EPA action of any type on the coal industry, and if anything he's playing exactly to type.

Having said that, Harry Reid really ought to make Manchin pay a price for this.  Voting for the bill is one thing.  Co-sponsoring it is another.

Give Until It Hurts

Remember when Louisiana GOP Gov. Bobby Jindal ran on ethics? Neither does Bobby Jindal.

WASHINGTON — Louisiana’s biggest corporate players, many with long agendas before the state government, are restricted in making campaign contributions to Gov. Bobby Jindal. But they can give whatever they like to the foundation set up by his wife months after he took office.

AT&T, which needed Mr. Jindal, a Republican, to sign off on legislation allowing the company to sell cable television services without having to negotiate with individual parishes, has pledged at least $250,000 to the Supriya Jindal Foundation for Louisiana’s Children.

Marathon Oil, which last year won approval from the Jindal administration to increase the amount of oil it can refine at its Louisiana plant, also committed to a $250,000 donation. And the military contractor Northrop Grumman, which got state officials to help set up an airplane maintenance facility at a former Air Force base, promised $10,000 to the charity.

The foundation has collected nearly $1 million in previously unreported pledges from major oil companies, insurers and other corporations in Louisiana with high-stakes regulatory issues, according to a review by The New York Times.

It is among the newest of charities set up by elected officials, including members of Congress, or their families that are mutually beneficial: companies seeking to influence politicians or curry favor can donate unrestricted amounts of money, while the officials benefit from the good will associated with charitable work financed by businesses.

Mr. Jindal has made tightening Louisiana’s ethics rules a centerpiece of his administration and has promised to crack down on the influence of special interests. But Anne Rolfes, founding director of an environmental group called the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, said the donations to Mrs. Jindal’s charity compromise the governor’s pledge.

“It may be a good cause, but it creates the appearance he is being bribed,” Ms. Rolfes said. “And if you are truly committed to ethical behavior, you just need to stay away from it all together.”

Oh I'm sure Jindal and his wife are far from alone, and I'm sure there are Democrats with similar setups. But remember, the Supreme Court says corporate payola like this is protected free speech. That's how the game works now, unlimited donations to let the Governor know they are "good corporate citizens" and the charities in turn get good press for their works.

I'm sure it's complete and utter coincidence that these companies are benefiting from their donations.

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

Sully notes this section of the Republican bill to wreck public unions in Ohio:

Sec. 3101.01 of S.B. 5: ... A marriage may only be entered into by one man and one woman. Any marriage between persons of the same sex is against the strong public policy of this state. Any marriage between persons of the same sex shall have no legal force or effect in this state and, if attempted to be entered into in this state, is void ab initio and shall not be recognized by this state. The recognition or extension by the state of the specific statutory benefits of a legal marriage to non-marital relationships between persons of the same sex or different sexes is against the strong public policy of this state. Any public act, record or judicial proceeding of this state, as defined in section 9.82 of the Revised Code, that extends the specific statutory benefits of legal marriage to non-marital relationships between persons of the same sex or different sexes is void.

It exists solely to nullify any legal protections for civil unions or same-sex relationships that may have been gained through collective bargaining for public employees. In other words, LGBT public employees under this bill would have no partner benefits whatsoever in Ohio, all voided by this legislation.  Nor would they have to right to even have them on the table under collective bargaining discussions.  Gone.  Period.

But of course it's necessary to balance the budget, because shut up that's why TEA PARTY MEANS FREEDOM!

This Week's WTH

FARMINGTON, N.M. (AP) - Authorities in Farmington say a man hired to clear an overgrown lot ran over a sleeping man with a mulching machine.
Farmington police say the man who was run over was sleeping under a tree Monday in a densely wooded vacant lot behind some businesses.

Epic fail for midday naps.

Epic Fail: Gmail Flushes Thousands Of Accounts

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Imagine opening up your e-mail and finding years of correspondence gone.  As many as 150,000 Gmail users have been confronting that scary scenario throughout the past day. Around 3:00 pm ET Sunday, Google began "investigating reports of an issue" with its popular e-mail service. Over the next few hours, it confirmed that a small fraction of Gmail users were experiencing disruptions.

At this time, it isn't known if Google will be able to restore the lost data.  Customers are carrying on, and it's understandable.  Years of correspondence, pictures, contacts and information lost.  It's also preventable.  It's one of the first basic truths of the digital world: you are ultimately responsible for your own backups.  Backups are free, inconvenient, time consuming and in every way obnoxious.  Without them you are utterly lost and at the whim of the people providing your service.  Even the best of the best are subject to glitches.  Gmail offers downloading of messages, so it is hard to make the argument that the customers are owed something for a malfunction of a free service.  One has to wonder if this was a glitch or an attack.  I'm also curious to see if Google will suffer the outcome or conveniently find a backup of user's private emails.  Either way, this is going to be interesting.