Congressional Progressive Caucus on Chained CPI
Rape, ‘Football Culture’ and an Ongoing War on Women
In Steubenville, Hundreds Protest Police, Social Media Response to Alleged Rape
By Marylynne Pitz
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
STEUBENVILLE, OH Jan 6, 2012 — For more than three hours Saturday, chants, signs and speeches filled the cold air outside the Jefferson County Courthouse as a crowd of 800 to 1,000 people demanded a more thorough investigation into the alleged rape of a 16-year-old West Virginia teenager by football players from this economically depressed Ohio Valley community.
Two members of the Steubenville High School football team, Trent Mays and Malik Richmond, both 16, have been charged with assaulting the young woman last summer and face trial in February.
The case has attracted national attention because of recent Internet postings, including a 12-minute video of a former Steubenville student recounting the alleged sexual assault in graphic detail. Initially, online conversations focused on a series of alcohol-fueled parties attended Aug. 11 by football players in which the girl, who was inebriated and largely unresponsive, was carried from place to place, photographed and assaulted, according to witnesses. Later postings featured criticism of the teenagers’ behavior and the investigation that followed.
"I will not stand idly by and let a young girl’s life be ruined because she believes everyone is apathetic," said Sable Foster, a 23-year-old Kent State University senior who spoke to the crowd using a bullhorn.
Continue reading Rape, ‘Football Culture’ and an Ongoing War on Women
The Myth of the Job Creator
[Editor’s Note: Not only is increased demand in the form of increased purchase orders the real spur to new hiring, it’s also important that the demand be targeted. Increasing demand for goods produced in China at Walmart, for example, will create jobs in China. But if we increase demand for domestic goods and services by building local infrastructure such as the ‘Smart Grid’ and other clean and green energy projects, then much of the demand will be for increased local labor and local goods.]
By RP Watkins
Beaver County Blue via Daily Kos
The popular notion of the so-called “Job Creator” is a myth. Yet the very idea of Job Creators represents the most basic argument in the Supply Side story, a concept which postulates that economic growth requires expanding the means of production. The term Job Creator has been repeated and spun so frequently on Capitol Hill and across America, almost exclusively from Conservatives, that it has become accepted wisdom that job growth is determined by the means of production, the supply-side of the economy. It is not.
The reason is so stunningly simple and basic that it’s almost entirely invisible by politicians and pundits alike. This is because contrary to the supply-side mantra, most businesses are unwilling to expand hiring unless the new jobs are justified by sufficient Market Demand. It is for this reason that the popular supply-side policies of tax cuts and credits have done little to stimulate domestic hiring. If anything businesses have converted the government largesse of lower taxes into enhanced profitability, with little in the way of new jobs materializing.
An Ugly Deal: 4 Reasons the ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Deal Is Worse Than It Looks
By Robert Borosage
Beaver County Blue via OurFuture.org
Jan 1, 2013 – Early this morning, the Senate passed the fiscal cliff deal by 89-8, a margin virtually guaranteeing that it will survive in the House. The deal has some good parts. It lets the Bush tax cuts expire on the wealthy, raises the estate tax marginally and increases taxes on capital gains and dividends a bit. Unemployment benefits are extended for a year. Tax boosts for the low paid workers – the child tax credit, expanded earned income credit, refundable tuition tax credits – are extended, if only for five years. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are not touched.
But no one should be fooled. This is an ugly deal, with foul implications for the coming months.
1. Setting Up the Next Extortion
The most ominous part of the deal is what was left out. The deal makes no provision for lifting the debt ceiling. It postpones the sequester (automatic cuts in domestic and military spending) for only two months. It is a smaller deficit reduction package than that originally sought by the president. It therefore sets up the right-wing House zealots to hold the economy hostage once more, while demanding deep cuts in public services (known as cuts in domestic spending), backed by a media frenzy about deficits. And while Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid escaped unscathed in this deal, they will be the prime targets in the coming debate.
Continue reading An Ugly Deal: 4 Reasons the ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Deal Is Worse Than It Looks
Students, Youth, Debt and the 1%
New Green Jobs and the ‘Rooftop Revolution’:
Why It’s Time to Join the Solar Boom
By Danny Kennedy
Beaver County Blue via Berrett-Koeler Publishers
Dec 29, 2012 – The following is an excerpt from ‘Rooftop Revolution: How Solar Power Can Save Our Economy — and Planet’ — from Dirty Energy [2]. Copyright © 2012 by Danny Kennedy. Reprinted with permission of Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco, CA.
There’s an epic struggle afoot for the head and the heart of America. And the fat cats in Dirty Energy who feed off our addiction to fossil fuel have an obvious motivation—profits—to keep us in denial about our bad habit.
They don’t want us to dwell on our energy addiction and the damage it does to ourselves, our planet, and our children’s future. So Dirty Energy dips into its very deep pockets to tout its brand of power in the news and keep America in the dark about cleaner, smarter, more-affordable options out there. But as a growing number of Americans are finding out, they do have options.
Although change is difficult and requires traction, it’s easier when someone shines a light on the path ahead, and this is what the solar-power movement is doing: providing a solution, an alternative to business as usual, while the coal, oil, nuke, and gas giants continue their fight for the status quo. Not to be too highfalutin, but when the colonial Americans were frustrated by heavy taxation without government representation, it wasn’t until they saw a new direction—inspired by the French Republic’s demand for liberty—that forces of change pushed them to have their own revolution.
It’s time for a new revolution, an energy revolution, our revolution—a Rooftop Revolution. The movement worldwide to go solar—to usurp the powers that be in our existing electricity grids and put power in the hands of those in the developing world who don’t have it—is creating a space for as profound a change. Breaking up monopolies, spreading benefits to the poorest, making consumers producers, and getting polluters to pay and thus using market forces to get them to participate in building a clean economy—this is what the Rooftop Revolution is all about. And that’s why it’s not surprising that King CONG [coal, oil, nuclear, gas] is fighting back.
In 2012 oil barons such as the Koch brothers will spend many millions on TV ad campaigns to tar President Barack Obama with the same brush they used on Solyndra. Those who have the most to lose, the opponents of solar, will come out with fists flying—as the US Chamber of Commerce did in the 2010 election cycle. The massive business lobby outspent the Republican and Democratic National Committees combined to further its official policy of digging up every last ounce of fuel in the ground and burning it as soon as possible.
Continue reading New Green Jobs and the ‘Rooftop Revolution’:
High Design Leading to Green Jobs
Amazing New ‘Empowerhouse’ Proves That Green Doesn’t Have To Mean Expensive
By Jared Green
Beaver County Blue via The Grist
Lakiya Culley, an administrative assistant at the U.S. State Department and mother of three, just moved into one of the most innovative, energy-efficient houses in the U.S. – in a rather unlikely location.
Culley lives in Deanwood, a working class, primarily African American neighborhood of Washington, D.C., that has recently struggled with foreclosures. She is now the proud owner of an Empowerhouse, a home that produces all of its own energy, a feat made simpler by the fact that it consumes 90 percent less energy for heating and cooling than a conventional home.
Empowerhouse, which uses “passive house” technologies, was designed by students at the New School and Stevens Institute of Technology as part of the Solar Decathlon design competition, which was held on the National Mall in 2011. Developed in partnership with Habitat for Humanity and the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development, the house marks the first time in the Solar Decathlon’s history that a team partnered with civic and government organizations to make a house a reality in the District.
Solar Decathlon organizers added a new category so that teams could earn points for affordability after some criticism that homes were getting out-of-control-pricey and therefore weren’t realistic real-world models. A home from Germany, for example, cost upwards of $2 million. Each unit of the actual Empowerhouse in Deanwood (there are two apartments in the mini-complex), cost just $250,000, making it affordable in that neighborhood, according to a spokesperson at New School. The model, which was built by Habitat for Humanity volunteers, has been such a hit that six more are being planned for Ivy City, another inner-city neighborhood in the District.
Solid Arguments for the Green New Deal
Wind and Solar Power Paired with Storage Could Power Grid 99.9 Percent Of The Time
By Science News
SolidarityEconomy.net via Sciencedaily.Com
Dec. 10, 2012 — Renewable Energy Could Fully Power A Large Electric Grid 99.9 Percent Of The Time By 2030 At Costs Comparable To Today’s Electricity Expenses, According To New Research By The University Of Delaware And Delaware Technical Community College.
A Well-Designed Combination Of Wind Power, Solar Power And Storage In Batteries And Fuel Cells Would Nearly Always Exceed Electricity Demands While Keeping Costs Low, The Scientists Found.
"These Results Break The Conventional Wisdom That Renewable Energy Is Too Unreliable And Expensive," Said Co-Author Willett Kempton, Professor In The School Of Marine Science And Policy In Ud’s College Of Earth, Ocean, And Environment. "The Key Is To Get The Right Combination Of Electricity Sources And Storage — Which We Did By An Exhaustive Search — And To Calculate Costs Correctly."
Begin Global Insurrection Against Banker Occupation
by Randy Shannon
December 21, 2012
Check!
Our move.
The right wing has collapsed.
The fiscal landscape will now be negotiated between the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Corporate Democrats. This will be a defining moment for the progressives in Congress and their base in labor, PDA, and other progressive organizations. If the movement base unites around core demands and the Congressional Progressive Caucus holds firm, our movement will take off. If the CPC wavers and crumbles it will be over for the Progressive Democrats.
Now we must shift from protest to our opening gambit:
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a green jobs Marshall Plan
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big cut in military spending
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carbon tax
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Wall Street transaction tax
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expansion of Medicare coverage,
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cancellation of student debt
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restructuring of home mortgages.
Beaver County Blue: Voice of the 17th CD of Progressive Democrats of America 