Category Archives: elections
The Ground War in Western Pennsylvania – 2012
On the Road With Working America
This article appeared in the October 29, 2012 edition of The Nation.
One September night in the western Pennsylvania borough of Monaca, a disillusioned resident told a labor canvasser that he’d once “backed all of the Democrats all the way through,” only to realize “both sides” were “really full of shit.” Then he said something I heard often during my week in the region: “If all these factories were still running here, we’d all still have jobs.”
In the mostly white, once unionized, postindustrial towns around Pittsburgh, outsourcing casts a long shadow over undecided or uninspired voters. As Working America, an AFL-CIO affiliate for nonunion employees, tries to mobilize working-class voters for the election and beyond, offshored jobs are the ever-present context. They underlie the strongest indictments of both presidential candidates, and they’ve shaped something else: a sense that the past outstrips the future. People in this depressed region feel there’s a disconnect between the debates in Washington, DC, and the steady decline in Washington, Pennsylvania. “I’m not voting anymore,” one woman told a canvasser. “I’m done.” Her husband added, “Get the fuck off my porch.”
The Bain legacy of offshoring is costing Mitt Romney the support of voters who have been primed against President Obama. Outsourcing also presents a hindrance to Working America, the labor movement’s largest effort to engage nonunion employees outside the workplace. Like Obama’s canvassers, those for Working America tout the president’s accomplishments and assess public support for him. But they also probe grievances, swap stories and promote engagement. Working America wants to be a voice for these voters’ frustration, a challenge to their cynicism and an avenue for their mobilization. In the former steel towns of western Pennsylvania, where many have soured not just on this president but on all politics, Working America is trying to do something unions once did: bind working-class voters to progressive populism and to each other.
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Medicare for All Solution to Fiscal Cliff
Post election deficit deal threatens Medicare and Social Security |
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| By: Kay Tillow Saturday October 6, 2012 2:46 pm | |
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Sitting with starlings (photo: Monocle / flickr)
The solution is Improved Medicare for All
After the November election, there will be a major effort in Congress to pass a budget deal that will make cuts in Social Security, raise the Medicare and Social Security eligibility age, and perhaps more–unless we act to stop it with a solution that is close at hand.
There is agreement from the Wall Street Journal’s David Wessel to liberal economists Dean Baker and Paul Krugman that the pressure will be on to reach a Simpson/Bowles type of compromise. Such a bipartisan plan would damage our most cherished programs and excuse the dastardly deed by asserting that the cuts are small and necessary because of the deficit.
Those who relentlessly scream at us and finance ads to persuade us that the deficit threatens our grandchildren are obscuring the truth. The fact is that the transfer of wealth from public funds and the rest of us to the super rich is the real crisis. But those who have gorged themselves on this massive transfer of wealth also seek to undermine the Medicare and Social Security which are our grandchildren’s heritage from generations of struggles for a better life.
The Politics of the Jobs Report
The Politics of the Jobs Report
by Robert Reich
Friday, October 5, 2012
The White House is breathing easier this morning. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the unemployment rate dropped to 7.8 percent – the first time it’s been under 8 percent in 43 months.
In political terms, headlines are everything – and most major media are leading with the drop in the unemployment rate.
Look more closely, though, and the picture is murkier. According to the separate payroll survey undertaken by the BLS, just 114,000 new jobs were added in September. At least 125,000 are needed per month just to keep up with population growth. Yet August’s job number was revised upward to 142,000, and July’s to 181,000.
In other words, we’re still crawling out of the deep crater we fell into in 2008 and 2009. The percent of the working-age population now working or actively looking for work is higher than it was, but still near a thirty-year low.
But at least we’re crawling out.
Romney says we’re not doing well enough, and he’s right. But the prescriptions he’s offering – more tax cuts for the rich and for big companies – won’t do anything except enlarge the budget deficit. And the cuts he proposes in public investments like education and infrastructure, and safety nets like Medicare and Medicaid, will take money out of the pockets of people who not only desperately need it but whose spending is necessary to keep the tepid recovery going.
Romney promises if elected the economy will create 12 million new jobs in his first term. If we were back in a normal economy, that number wouldn’t be hard to reach. Bill Clinton presided over an economy that generated 22 million new jobs in eight years – and that was more than a decade ago when the economy and working-age population were smaller than now.
Both Obama and Romney assume the recovery will continue, even at a slow pace, and that we’ll be back to normal at some point. But I’m not at all sure. “Normal” is what got us into this mess in the first place. The concentration of income and wealth at the top has robbed the vast middle class of the purchasing power it needs to generate a full recovery – something that was masked by borrowing against rising home values, but can no longer be denied. Unless or until this structural problem is dealt with, we won’t be back to normal.
Study: Pennsylvania does not enforce oil and gas regulations
Clean Air Council PA * Clean Water Action PA * Delaware Riverkeeper Network * Mountain Watershed Association * PennEnvironment * Sierra Club PA Chapter
New research reveals Pennsylvania does not
enforce oil and gas regulations
State enforcement data shows more than 85% of active PA wells go uninspected, discovered violations go increasingly unpunished, repeat violators undeterred
Sep 25th, Washington, D.C. — In association with six Pennsylvania groups, national resource extraction watchdog Earthworks today released an unprecedented study, Breaking All the Rules: The Crisis in Oil & Gas Regulation revealing that states across the country fail to enforce their oil and gas development regulations. The one-year, in-depth examination of enforcement data and practices — in Pennsylvania, Texas, Ohio, New York, New Mexico and Colorado — also includes interviews with ex-industry and state agency employees.
“Pennsylvania’s enforcement of state oil and gas rules is broken,” said Earthworks’ Senior Staff Attorney Bruce Baizel. He continued, “In Pennsylvania and across the country, public health and safety are at risk because states are failing to uphold the rule of law. Until Pennsylvania can guarantee they are adequately enforcing their own rules on an ongoing basis, the state must not permit new drilling.”
As recounted in the separate Pennsylvania-specific analysis, failure to enforce oil and gas regulations means that Pennsylvania is not seeking, documenting, sanctioning, deterring, and cleaning up problems associated with irresponsible oil and gas operations such as chemical spills, equipment failure, accidents, and discharges into drinking water supplies
Among the study’s findings —
- More than 85% of all active oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania go uninspected each year: 66,000 wells.
- Rule violators are rarely punished, even more rarely of late: on average only 20% of violators have been penalized in 2012, down from 24% in 2011.
- Worst violators are getting worse: effective regulatory enforcement would stop repeat violators. In Pennsylvania, repeat violations are increasing.
Continue reading Study: Pennsylvania does not enforce oil and gas regulations
PA Court May Enjoin Voter ID Law
Pa. judge raises possibility he will move to block voter ID law
Angela Couloumbis | The Philadelphia Inquirer
HARRISBURG, Pa. — With just six weeks until the presidential election, a judge raised the possibility Tuesday that he would move to block Pennsylvania’s controversial voter ID law.
“I’m giving you a heads-up,” Commonwealth Court Judge Robert E. Simpson Jr. told lawyers after a day’s testimony on whether the law is being implemented in ways that ensure no voters will be disenfranchised. “I think it’s a possibility there could be an injunction here.”
Simpson then asked lawyers on both sides to be prepared to return to court Thursday to present arguments on what such an injunction should look like. There is no hearing Wednesday because of Yom Kippur.
Simpson gave few if any further clues to what he may decide. But his comments provided a dramatic end to a day of testimony in a protracted and widely watched fight over the law, which requires voters to present photo identification at the polls.
Critics of the law have argued that it is being rushed into effect – it was enacted in March – and will disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters, particularly minorities, the elderly and the poor. Democrats have branded it a thinly veiled attempt by Republicans to suppress the vote for President Barack Obama on Nov. 6 and boost Mitt Romney’s chances of winning Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes.
‘Revolution’ from Aliquippa’s Ace Rapper, Dorian Stevens
PA 12th Congressional District Race “One of Most Competitive in Country”
from Huffington Post:
# Pennsylvania 12th District
As a result of redistricting, fellow incumbents Jason Altmire (D) and Mark Critz (D) faced off against each other in the Democratic primary in the newly drawn conservative twelfth district in western Pennsylvania. With the help of local unions and Bill Clinton’s endorsement, Critz narrowly defeated Altmire in the April primary.
Since winning the primary, Critz — a “Frontline” Democrat — has been trying to distance himself from President Obama, who is unpopular in the district, and has announced that he will not be attending the Democratic National Convention. Since the district has a high number of of Medicare recipients, Critz has already tied his opponent, Keith Rothfus (R), to Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget, which would make significant cuts to the popular entitlement program.
The NRCC started running ads against Critz in the Pittsburgh media market in August, and has added him to its “Young Gun” recruitment program. At the end of June, Rothfus had more cash on hand than the Democratic incumbent. An August internal poll for the Critz campaign showed him leading Rothfus by ten points, but he has consistently been hovering at 50 percent or below.
This is shaping up to be the most competitive race in the state, and one of the most competitive in the country.
Continue reading PA 12th Congressional District Race “One of Most Competitive in Country”
MEDIA RELAUNCHES CAMPAIGN AGAINST SOCIAL SECURITY
MEDIA RELAUNCHES CAMPAIGN AGAINST SOCIAL SECURITY
by Harry Targ
The Lafayette, Indiana Journal and Courier, a Gannett Newspaper, printed an Associated Press story, Monday, August 13, on the front page above the fold, entitled“Little Security for Program’s Payouts.” It warned that Social Security would be in financial crisis by 2033.
The $2.7 trillion surplus in the fund, the story suggested “is starting to look small.” The story did admit that for thirty years the social security fund received more in taxes than it paid out to eligible recipients. But it raised the fear that the balance sheet would undoubtedly change in the future. In addition, the story indirectly blamed Social Security for federal deficits by suggesting that“surpluses also helped mask the size of the budget deficit being generated by the rest of the federal government.”
Banksters Turn against Obama
by Randy Shannon
When the banksters wrecked the economy in 2007, they jumped on the Obama campaign bandwagon in hopes of saving their positions of power in the economy and the government.
They were able to achieve a lot of their objectives under Obama, but not all of them. The Consumer Protection Act and Obama’s attempt to liquidate Citibank rubbed the banksters the wrong way.
Now, the banksters want more than Obama can deliver. As the story below reveals, they have executed an about-face and are throwing their money at Romney.
If Obama is re-elected the banksters chance for a double down on their economy-wrecking program may be at risk. If Obama is elected there will be a real struggle to save Medicare and Social Security from the cuts the banksters have planned.
It will take an aware and energetic voter turnout to beat the banksters in a presidential election. The big money is on Romney but the people will decide.
Goldman Sachs Leads Split With Obama, as GE Jilts Him Too
By Jonathan D. Salant – Aug 9, 2012 10:10 AM ET
Goldman Sachs Group (GS) employees have changed to red from blue.
Four years ago, employees of New York-based Goldman gave three-fourths of their campaign donations to Democratic candidates and committees, including presidential nominee Barack Obama. This time, they’re showering 70 percent of their contributions on Republicans.
That’s the biggest switch among the 25 companies whose employees have given the most to candidates and parties since 1989, according to data through June 30 compiled by Bloomberg from the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group that tracks campaign donations. Goldman isn’t alone; 13 of the companies’ employees are now giving more to Republicans after backing Democrats four years ago.
Beaver County Blue: Voice of the 17th CD of Progressive Democrats of America 