Spill at Marcellus Shale drilling site in Bradford County prompts evacuation

Published: Wednesday, April 20, 2011, 1:00 PM     Updated: Wednesday, April 20, 2011, 3:08 PM

By DONALD GILLILAND, The Patriot-News The Patriot-News

FDA Testing Food Radioactivity – Republicans Propose Cuts

April 13, 2011

by Randy Shannon

While the Government of Japan and Tokyo Electric Power continue to struggle to control the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, the World’s people grow more and more concerned about the possible impact of radioactive contamination of air, water, and food supplies.

In the USA, our tax dollars pay for an agency, the Food and Drug Administration, that is tasked with monitoring both domestic food supplies and imported food products. After a series of fatalities in the US from domestic food contaminated with salmonella or e-coli bacteria, the public demanded more active monitoring by the FDA.

Now that radioactivity is falling on the US with the rain to be taken up by vegetation and ingested by livestock, and now that food imports may be contaminated, the public needs the FDA to become more vigilant.

Nevertheless, the Republican budget, supported by our Blue Dog Congressman Jason Altmire, proposes to cut funding for the FDA. This will help reduce the deficit. This deficit was caused, not by the FDA, but by handouts to wealthy individuals and banks.

Reproduced below are two articles. The first discusses the FDA budget. The second is an FDA announcement about its efforts to protect the food supply from radioactive contamination.

Do you want the FDA’s ability to protect you and your family from radioactivity and bacteria in your food cut? PA 4th CD Cong. Jason Altmire wants your food safety cut to help out the banks that own him. Will you stand by while your children’s safety is compromised for the greed of a few?

Continue reading FDA Testing Food Radioactivity – Republicans Propose Cuts →

Nurses to President Obama: Don’t Cut Healthcare, Retirement; Raise Corporate Taxes, End Wars

For Immediate Release                                                                              
April 12, 2011
 
RNs Won’t Endorse Politicians who Vote to Cut Social Security
 
In advance of President Obama’s speech Wednesday on the budget deficit, the nation’s largest union and professional association of nurses today called on the President to oppose any cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security – and strengthen the nation’s economy by restoring fair taxes on corporations and the super-rich, ending the wars, and creating good paying jobs.
 
“America is not broke, it’s just deficient in political courage and leadership,” said Jean Ross, RN, co-president of the 160,000-member National Nurses United. “It’s time to tell Wall Street and the politicians they finance in Washington and state governments that the American people have sacrificed enough. There can be no more cuts in healthcare programs for seniors, the disabled, and the disadvantaged, and no reductions in retirement security.”
 

Continue reading Nurses to Obama: No Cuts, Tax Corporations, End Wars →

…Instead of taxing the super rich on the bonuses dispensed by top corporations such as Exxon, Bank of America, General Electric, Chevron and Boeing, all of which managed to avoid paying any federal corporate taxes last year, the politicians of both parties in Congress are about to accede to the Republican demand that programs that help ordinary folks be cut to pay for the programs that bailed out the banks…

America’s Class Problem

“Just follow the money.”

by Randy Shannon

April 10, 2011

Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward was told by an inside informant to “just follow the money” in order to break the criminal conspiracy in the Nixon White House. This is advice that always serves well in searching for the roots of our problems and finding solutions.

As billionaire Warren Buffet pointed out last year: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

The budget cuts for working people and the tax cuts for the wealthy passed by the Republican majority with the help of Rep. Jason Altmire and other corporate Blue Dog Democrats shows that there are no holds barred. The narrow social strata of the financial elite are conducting a scorched earth economic assault upon working people.

The wealthy have enjoyed a tremendous increase in their personal income and financial holdings. They control the levers of power in the government and can present the President with offers he can’t refuse.

An important role in exercising this power is played by the Blue Dog Democrats like Jason Altmire, who aligned with the Republican minority in the 111th Congress to block progressive legislation and now is aligned with the Republican majority to help them pass these attacks on the people’s welfare.

One might wonder, with all this money the banks have, why do they want more? The banks have never recovered from the crisis of 2007. They are entering a new phase of their financial crisis based on the lingering foreclosure crisis. The largest banks – JP Morgan, Bank of America, Citibank, and others –  remain insolvent and unprofitable.

Their political power, their control of a Republican-Blue Dog axis in Congress, saved them from a government controlled liquidation and restructure in 2008. The Government is subsidizing these banks to keep them afloat. This course of action condemns the nation to years of economic malaise and further job losses. This course of action will also fail to revive these banks.

Naomi Klein, author of “The Shock Doctrine: the Rise of Disaster Capitalism,” explained this irrational impulse in an interview for the film Children of Men: “It doesn’t have the ability to think rationally, this economic model. It thinks like a drug addict: ‘Where can I get my next fix?’ It doesn’t learn wisely. You know if we think of any kind of measure of natural wisdom, it would be, you make a mistake, you correct it the next time around. But a drug addict feels terrible and then says: ‘I want more.’ And unfortunately, we have an economic model that thinks like a drug addict.”

So there is no real deficit crisis. The budget cuts are simply a transfer from your pocket to the bankers’ pocket. The cuts will also remove fiscal, health and safety restrictions on businesses so that riskier and more dangerous pursuit of profits will be possible.

As Rose Schneiderman said a century ago: “It is up to the working people to save themselves.” A rising tide of protest must be organized against the banks’ austerity policy of spending cuts for the people and tax cuts for the rich. Marches and rallies must be joined to political action to defeat Blue Dogs like Jason Altmire and the Republican majority in 2012.

Rep. John Conyers “Full Employment and Training Act” – HR 870 should be a focus of organizing. It has two essential components that can lead the nation out of this swamp. First it establishes a full employment program. Second it funds the program with a financial transaction tax on Wall Street speculators, an important step toward controlling the banks. Labor and community activists should form committees to study this bill, organize hearings, and lobby public organization to endorse the bill.

A broad coalition for full employment, a tax on Wall Street,  national healthcare and an end to wars of conquest can build a movement to change Congress in 2012.

The People’s Budget