Reporting: 13 different radio stations and Internet programs
1. The Hush Now – Shiver Me Starships
2. Deer Tick – The Black Dirt Sessions
3. Ad Frank & the Fast Easy Women – Your Secrets Are Mine Now
4. The Lights Out – Rock Pony EP
5. Streight Angular – Alright EP
6. Winterpills – Tuxedo of Ashes EP
7. Bearstronaut – “Shannon”
8. Juliana Hatfield – Peace & Love
9. Spirit Kid – Spirit Kid
10. Viva Viva – Viva Viva
11. Endless Wave – City Walls EP
12. Eli “Paperboy” Reed – Come and Get It
13. Freezepop – Imaginary Friends
14. Marc Pinansky – As A Child EP
15. The Wandas – New Wave Blues
16. Leo Blais – The Free EP
17. Bleu – Four
18. Hallelujah the Hills – Collective Psychosis Begone
19. The Holey Moleys – Cheese is Christ EP
20. Kingsley Flood – Dust Windows
21. Mean Creek – “The Comedian”
22. Pernice Brothers – Goodbye, Killer
23. John Shade – All You Love is Need
24. Wicked Whiskey – Under the Gun
25. The Luxury – In the Wake of What Won’t Change
26. Bon Savants – “Tidal Waves”
27. Ketman – Ketman A Go-Go
28. Oranjuly – Oranjuly
29. The Weisstronauts – Weisstronauts In Memphis
30. Gene Dante & The Future Starlets – “The Love Letter Is Dead”
Monday, October 25, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
10 Questions for Tea Partiers
Guest perspective by Ralph Nader
Here are ten Questions for Tea Partiers that they want or do not want to answer. I say it this way because people who call themselves Tea Partiers do not have the same view of politics, government, Big Business or the Constitution. Their opinions range from pure Libertarian to actively furthering the privileges of plutocracy. Their income and occupational background vary as well, though most seem to be middle-income and up.
My guess is that most Tea Partiers come from the conservative wing of the Republican Party who are fed up with both the corporate Republicans like Bush and Cheney, as well as the Democrats like Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi.
With the above in mind, the following questions can serve to go beyond abstractions and generalizations of indignation and get to some more specific responses.
1. Can you be against Big Government and not press for reductions in the vast military budgets, fraught with bureaucratic and large contractors’ waste, fraud and abuse? Military spending now takes up half of the federal government’s operating budgets. The libertarian Cato Institute believes that to cut deficits, we have to also cut the defense budget.
2. Can you believe in the free market and not condemn hundreds of billions of dollars of corporate welfare-bailouts, subsidies, handouts, and giveaways?
3. Can you want to preserve the legitimate sovereignty of our country and not reject the trade agreements known as NAFTA and GATT (The World Trade Organization in Geneva, Switzerland) that scholars have described as the greatest surrender of local, state and national sovereignty in our history?
4. Can you be for law and order and not support a bigger and faster crackdown on the corporate crime wave, that needs more prosecutors and larger enforcement budgets to stop the stealing of taxpayers and consumer dollars so widely reported in the Wall Street Journal and Business Week? Law enforcement officials estimate that for every dollar for prosecution, seventeen to twenty dollars are returned.
5. Can you be against invasions of privacy by government and business without rejecting the provisions of the Patriot Act that leave you defenseless to constant unlawful snooping, appropriation of personal information and even search of your home without notification until 72 hours later?
6. Can you be against regulation of serious medical malpractice (over 100,000 lives lost a year, according to a study by Harvard physicians), unsafe drugs that have serious side effects or cause the very injury/illness they were sold to prevent, motor vehicles with defective brakes, tires and throttles, contaminated food from China, Mexico and domestic processors?
7. Can you keep calling for Freedom and yet tolerate control of your credit and other economic rights by hidden and arbitrary credit ratings and credit scores? What Freedom do you have when you have to sign industry-wide fine print one-sided “contracts” with your banks, insurance companies, car dealers, and credit card companies? Many of these contracts even block your Constitutional access to the courthouse.
8. Can you be for a new, clean system of politics and elections and still accept the Republican and Democratic Two Party dictatorship that is propped up by complex state laws, frivolous litigation and harassment to exclude from the ballot third parties and independent candidates who want reform, accountability, and stronger voices for the voters?
9. If you want a return to our Constitution—its principles of limited and separation of power and its emphasis on “We the People” in its preamble—can you still support Washington’s wars that have not been declared by Congress (Article I Section 8) or giving corporations equal rights with humans plus special privileges and immunities. The word “corporation” or “company” never appears in the Constitution. How can you support eminent domain powers given by governments to corporations over homeowners, or massive week-end bailouts by the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department of businesses, even reckless foreign banks, without receiving the authority and the appropriations from the Congress, as the Constitution requires?
10. You want less taxation and lower deficits. How can you succeed unless you stop big corporations from escaping their fair share of taxes by manipulating foreign jurisdictions against our tax laws, for example, or by letting trillions of dollars of speculation on Wall Street go without any sales tax, while you pay six, seven or eight percent sales tax on the necessities you buy in stores?
Let’s hear from you Tea Partiers. Meanwhile, see the work of video-journalist, Steve Ference, who has interviewed and given voice to those among you in his new paperback “Voices of the Tea Party” published by Lulu.com on July 4, 2010. Contact VoicesoftheTeaParty@gmail.com.
Here are ten Questions for Tea Partiers that they want or do not want to answer. I say it this way because people who call themselves Tea Partiers do not have the same view of politics, government, Big Business or the Constitution. Their opinions range from pure Libertarian to actively furthering the privileges of plutocracy. Their income and occupational background vary as well, though most seem to be middle-income and up.
My guess is that most Tea Partiers come from the conservative wing of the Republican Party who are fed up with both the corporate Republicans like Bush and Cheney, as well as the Democrats like Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi.
With the above in mind, the following questions can serve to go beyond abstractions and generalizations of indignation and get to some more specific responses.
1. Can you be against Big Government and not press for reductions in the vast military budgets, fraught with bureaucratic and large contractors’ waste, fraud and abuse? Military spending now takes up half of the federal government’s operating budgets. The libertarian Cato Institute believes that to cut deficits, we have to also cut the defense budget.
2. Can you believe in the free market and not condemn hundreds of billions of dollars of corporate welfare-bailouts, subsidies, handouts, and giveaways?
3. Can you want to preserve the legitimate sovereignty of our country and not reject the trade agreements known as NAFTA and GATT (The World Trade Organization in Geneva, Switzerland) that scholars have described as the greatest surrender of local, state and national sovereignty in our history?
4. Can you be for law and order and not support a bigger and faster crackdown on the corporate crime wave, that needs more prosecutors and larger enforcement budgets to stop the stealing of taxpayers and consumer dollars so widely reported in the Wall Street Journal and Business Week? Law enforcement officials estimate that for every dollar for prosecution, seventeen to twenty dollars are returned.
5. Can you be against invasions of privacy by government and business without rejecting the provisions of the Patriot Act that leave you defenseless to constant unlawful snooping, appropriation of personal information and even search of your home without notification until 72 hours later?
6. Can you be against regulation of serious medical malpractice (over 100,000 lives lost a year, according to a study by Harvard physicians), unsafe drugs that have serious side effects or cause the very injury/illness they were sold to prevent, motor vehicles with defective brakes, tires and throttles, contaminated food from China, Mexico and domestic processors?
7. Can you keep calling for Freedom and yet tolerate control of your credit and other economic rights by hidden and arbitrary credit ratings and credit scores? What Freedom do you have when you have to sign industry-wide fine print one-sided “contracts” with your banks, insurance companies, car dealers, and credit card companies? Many of these contracts even block your Constitutional access to the courthouse.
8. Can you be for a new, clean system of politics and elections and still accept the Republican and Democratic Two Party dictatorship that is propped up by complex state laws, frivolous litigation and harassment to exclude from the ballot third parties and independent candidates who want reform, accountability, and stronger voices for the voters?
9. If you want a return to our Constitution—its principles of limited and separation of power and its emphasis on “We the People” in its preamble—can you still support Washington’s wars that have not been declared by Congress (Article I Section 8) or giving corporations equal rights with humans plus special privileges and immunities. The word “corporation” or “company” never appears in the Constitution. How can you support eminent domain powers given by governments to corporations over homeowners, or massive week-end bailouts by the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department of businesses, even reckless foreign banks, without receiving the authority and the appropriations from the Congress, as the Constitution requires?
10. You want less taxation and lower deficits. How can you succeed unless you stop big corporations from escaping their fair share of taxes by manipulating foreign jurisdictions against our tax laws, for example, or by letting trillions of dollars of speculation on Wall Street go without any sales tax, while you pay six, seven or eight percent sales tax on the necessities you buy in stores?
Let’s hear from you Tea Partiers. Meanwhile, see the work of video-journalist, Steve Ference, who has interviewed and given voice to those among you in his new paperback “Voices of the Tea Party” published by Lulu.com on July 4, 2010. Contact VoicesoftheTeaParty@gmail.com.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Rainbow over Concord, MA
On my way to an editor's meeting on Friday, I saw this out my back windshield. It was much more awesome than the picture reflects.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
How Sprint lost my business
This weekend, Sprint lost my business.
I have been with the company, in one form or another, for the better part of 10 years. It started back in 1997 when I got my first cellphone from Omnipoint at a little bodego in Jamaica Plain that was run by a Spanish DJ I knew at WUNR where I worked at the time. Omnipoint was later acquired by Nextel, which was later acquired by Sprint.
With the exception of a break for a couple of years in the mid-2000s, when I had Earthlink, I have been with the same company.
During the last seven years, I have had some form of smartphone: First an analog Treo, then a Motorola Q9, which was great, and then three Q9Cs, which were a disaster. Every few months, the buttons stopped illuminating and the battery would start acting strange. After two replacements, I was unable to get any more replacements since the warranty ran out. The last time was two weeks after the warranty ran out. If I'm in the car at night, I can't dial the phone, because the buttons don't illuminate. The other day, the battery, which normally lasts about three days without a charge, just died in the middle of the day.
I don't fault Sprint for this - the product was faulty. But they sold me the faulty product in the first place. They should have at least offered me some kind of inexpensive exchange.
So, I've been waiting until my renewal came up to get something new.
Sprint actually has the least expensive phone service (before they changed their plans). Because I had been with the company for a while, I had an older plan: $59 for two phones, a $15 data plan for one of the phones, and a third phone for $10. Total cost, before taxes, was about $85 [with taxes pushing it up to $100].
However, a couple of months ago, Sprint switched their plans around and when I went to look at getting another smartphone, our bill for the three phones would jump to $150 a month [plus taxes]. I was shocked and thought, This can't be right.
So, I visited the Sprint store and, sure enough, if I wanted to get even a new, simple smartphone, like a Blackberry or something [no more Motorolas, thanks], it was going to double my bill. Plus, I was going to need to pay about $50 to $150 to get into an inexpensive smartphone. I talked to an online salesperson and the gave me the same pitch. I even went to Best Buy and it was the same with them.
Even though my wife wasn't using data on her phone, I had to pay for it on her phone anyway if I wanted data on my new phone. I kept telling them, I only need data for one, why can't you leave my bill where it is? Sorry, this is the way we're doing things now. Great.
None of the other plans offered anything cheaper with three phones either, especially if only one had data. I quickly came to the conclusion that we were going to have to go down to two phones.
I then looked into a pay-as-you-go service and that was pretty reasonable. But, if I wanted all three phones, it was going to get me up over what I was paying, plus $250 for a new Blackberry, and another $100 for two new basic phones. There would be more minutes, but no free ones at night. That didn't work work either. It looked like I was going to be stuck.
I looked at all the reviews of the non-smartphone upgrade options with Sprint and none had a calendar service that I needed and most were geared towards kids texting [can you see me with a pink sparkle phone? No thanks]. Also, the online reviews varied with some folks saying they hated the phones and others saying they were fine. Did I want to risk it?
My wife, who is a Mac person, had been talking about getting an iPhone. Not because she needed it, but because the commercials looked cool and she thought it might be fun to have one. Her sister and brother-in-law have them too and they love them [they have an iPad too, which is pretty cool, BTW].
On a whim, I looked into them at Best Buy and was impressed. They have all kinds of features and apps, are super fast, and colorful. Wow.
I realized that the ATT plan would actually only be a bit more than my original plan [$99 plus tax]. I also got free 18-month financing for the iPhones and 30 percent off accessories [spend some money, help the economy in China, etc.]. And the money I saved not going with Sprint's plan will pay for the iPhones during the next two years, which isn't bad either.
When I got them home, we were both super impressed with them. Not only that, but ATT's service is three to four bars here instead of Sprint's one to two bars. Meaning the signal is better too.
So, I guess, even though I'm spending a bit more money, I owe a big thank you to Sprint for not listening to me, the customer. I have better phones with better signals and all kinds of cool gadgets. Thanks, Sprint!
I have been with the company, in one form or another, for the better part of 10 years. It started back in 1997 when I got my first cellphone from Omnipoint at a little bodego in Jamaica Plain that was run by a Spanish DJ I knew at WUNR where I worked at the time. Omnipoint was later acquired by Nextel, which was later acquired by Sprint.
With the exception of a break for a couple of years in the mid-2000s, when I had Earthlink, I have been with the same company.
During the last seven years, I have had some form of smartphone: First an analog Treo, then a Motorola Q9, which was great, and then three Q9Cs, which were a disaster. Every few months, the buttons stopped illuminating and the battery would start acting strange. After two replacements, I was unable to get any more replacements since the warranty ran out. The last time was two weeks after the warranty ran out. If I'm in the car at night, I can't dial the phone, because the buttons don't illuminate. The other day, the battery, which normally lasts about three days without a charge, just died in the middle of the day.
I don't fault Sprint for this - the product was faulty. But they sold me the faulty product in the first place. They should have at least offered me some kind of inexpensive exchange.
So, I've been waiting until my renewal came up to get something new.
Sprint actually has the least expensive phone service (before they changed their plans). Because I had been with the company for a while, I had an older plan: $59 for two phones, a $15 data plan for one of the phones, and a third phone for $10. Total cost, before taxes, was about $85 [with taxes pushing it up to $100].
However, a couple of months ago, Sprint switched their plans around and when I went to look at getting another smartphone, our bill for the three phones would jump to $150 a month [plus taxes]. I was shocked and thought, This can't be right.
So, I visited the Sprint store and, sure enough, if I wanted to get even a new, simple smartphone, like a Blackberry or something [no more Motorolas, thanks], it was going to double my bill. Plus, I was going to need to pay about $50 to $150 to get into an inexpensive smartphone. I talked to an online salesperson and the gave me the same pitch. I even went to Best Buy and it was the same with them.
Even though my wife wasn't using data on her phone, I had to pay for it on her phone anyway if I wanted data on my new phone. I kept telling them, I only need data for one, why can't you leave my bill where it is? Sorry, this is the way we're doing things now. Great.
None of the other plans offered anything cheaper with three phones either, especially if only one had data. I quickly came to the conclusion that we were going to have to go down to two phones.
I then looked into a pay-as-you-go service and that was pretty reasonable. But, if I wanted all three phones, it was going to get me up over what I was paying, plus $250 for a new Blackberry, and another $100 for two new basic phones. There would be more minutes, but no free ones at night. That didn't work work either. It looked like I was going to be stuck.
I looked at all the reviews of the non-smartphone upgrade options with Sprint and none had a calendar service that I needed and most were geared towards kids texting [can you see me with a pink sparkle phone? No thanks]. Also, the online reviews varied with some folks saying they hated the phones and others saying they were fine. Did I want to risk it?
My wife, who is a Mac person, had been talking about getting an iPhone. Not because she needed it, but because the commercials looked cool and she thought it might be fun to have one. Her sister and brother-in-law have them too and they love them [they have an iPad too, which is pretty cool, BTW].
On a whim, I looked into them at Best Buy and was impressed. They have all kinds of features and apps, are super fast, and colorful. Wow.
I realized that the ATT plan would actually only be a bit more than my original plan [$99 plus tax]. I also got free 18-month financing for the iPhones and 30 percent off accessories [spend some money, help the economy in China, etc.]. And the money I saved not going with Sprint's plan will pay for the iPhones during the next two years, which isn't bad either.
When I got them home, we were both super impressed with them. Not only that, but ATT's service is three to four bars here instead of Sprint's one to two bars. Meaning the signal is better too.
So, I guess, even though I'm spending a bit more money, I owe a big thank you to Sprint for not listening to me, the customer. I have better phones with better signals and all kinds of cool gadgets. Thanks, Sprint!
Monday, October 4, 2010
Hot story over at OurConcord.com
I want to point all my regular Politizine readers to this pretty hot story I have over at my other site, OurConcord.com: ["NH AG: Concord attorney broke lobbying law"].
Warning: Always read the fine print ...
Recently, I've been considering whether or not to buy a new car. I've been doing research, looking at cars, checking out flyers, and seeing what's out there. The usual.
Last week though, I came across an interesting trick presented by two Kia dealerships, AutoServ in Concord and Bonneville in Manch. Both dealers have advertised pretty low prices for cars in the Hippo (Bonneville had a display ad; AutoServ a multi-page circular). The AutoServ flyer had an asterisk next to the "buy for" price. When you look up the disclaimer, it says that all "buy for" prices on new vehicles include a "20% of MSRP" down payment. On the used vehicles, it's $3,000. So, the "buy for" price isn't really a "buy for" price at all. It's "buy for" plus thousands more.
This is so close to bait and switch it isn't even funny. Imagine the surprise of someone going into the dealership to look at a 2010 Dodge Challenger for $14K only to find out that it is $17K or more! But, it's not really "bait and switch" - because, yes, there is a very small asterisk and yes, there is very small fine print telling potential shoppers that they will actually be paying more than the BIG NUMBER price listed in the circular.
The Bonneville ad also has a disclaimer, noting that all lease and purchase prices include a $2,999 down payment. So, that 2010 Kia Optima isn't really $11,900 ... it's $14,899.
There really ought to be a law against these kinds of tricks. Since there isn't, consumers, as I have said before, should just ignore the tricks that are out there in flyers and television commercials. Simply decide on the vehicle you want, go to Edmunds.com and look up the invoice price, and ask the dealer to get as close to that as possible. With so many car choices out there, it can be a little hard making a decision. But a little protection from the tricks can take you a lot way.
Last week though, I came across an interesting trick presented by two Kia dealerships, AutoServ in Concord and Bonneville in Manch. Both dealers have advertised pretty low prices for cars in the Hippo (Bonneville had a display ad; AutoServ a multi-page circular). The AutoServ flyer had an asterisk next to the "buy for" price. When you look up the disclaimer, it says that all "buy for" prices on new vehicles include a "20% of MSRP" down payment. On the used vehicles, it's $3,000. So, the "buy for" price isn't really a "buy for" price at all. It's "buy for" plus thousands more.
This is so close to bait and switch it isn't even funny. Imagine the surprise of someone going into the dealership to look at a 2010 Dodge Challenger for $14K only to find out that it is $17K or more! But, it's not really "bait and switch" - because, yes, there is a very small asterisk and yes, there is very small fine print telling potential shoppers that they will actually be paying more than the BIG NUMBER price listed in the circular.
The Bonneville ad also has a disclaimer, noting that all lease and purchase prices include a $2,999 down payment. So, that 2010 Kia Optima isn't really $11,900 ... it's $14,899.
There really ought to be a law against these kinds of tricks. Since there isn't, consumers, as I have said before, should just ignore the tricks that are out there in flyers and television commercials. Simply decide on the vehicle you want, go to Edmunds.com and look up the invoice price, and ask the dealer to get as close to that as possible. With so many car choices out there, it can be a little hard making a decision. But a little protection from the tricks can take you a lot way.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Why say Yes to the party of No?
Guest perspective by Ralph Nader
How does the Big Business-indentured Republican Party get away with expectations of a runaway election victory this November? If such a victory should occur in Congress and for many governorships and state legislatures, it will be due to a ten percent or so shift in voters who voted Democratic in 2008 and are expected to vote Republican this year or stay home in despair or disgust. The rest of the voters who do vote will still stay with their hereditary Republican or Democratic candidates.
So what is accounting for a possible ten percent shift? Let’s briefly review some of the Congressional Republicans’ voiced positions:
1. They want to do nothing about unfair Chinese trade practices that lure jobs away from our country though huge factory subsidies, and where workers are repressed and counterfeit products abound. Imagine, Republicans coddling a communist regime, luring the auto parts, electronic, solar and drug ingredients industries away from America, often in violation of the World Trade Organization rules. And, in turn, China is exporting to the U.S. impure food, faulty tires, toxic drywall, lead-tainted toys and medicines which are contaminated, defective or harmful. Don’t forget the dumping violations.
2. Republicans, led by Senator Richard Shelby and his banking friends, declared their adamant opposition to Professor Elizabeth Warren becoming head of the new consumer financial regulation agency. (To avoid a confrontation with them, President Obama made her a special assistant to organize this consumer watchdog.) Ms. Warren has a solid record of exposing and communicating clearly to families the tricks and traps of credit card companies, mortgage firms, and intermediaries that have taken so many billions of consumer dollars with impunity.
3. The Republicans led by their House leader, John Boehner (Rep. Ohio), a total toady of the gouging student loan companies, opposed the Democrats successful reform of this taxpayer boondoggle that guaranteed obscene profits and had the taxpayers absorb any student defaults. Boehner’s lobbying should upset millions of parents who had to foot the bill for so many years.
4. The Republicans are opposed to raising the federal minimum wage to what it was, adjusted for inflation, in 1968!! They opposed an adequate budget for health and safety enforcement by OSHA to diminish the 58,000 American workers who die every year from workplace toxics and trauma. They are now blocking protections for coal miners pending in the Senate after the Massey mine disaster.
5. Republicans oppose doing anything about “too big to fail” even after Wall Street’s reckless, avaricious collapse of the economy, costing 8 million jobs and trillions of lost pension and mutual fund dollars.
Moreover, they do not support genuine enforcement of the anti-trust laws which are supposed to break up monopolization efforts, monopolies or oligopolies like Monsanto (seeds) or the big five banks—bailed out by taxpayers and secure in their domination of well over 50 percent of all bank assets, deposits and the credit card business. This is by far the highest concentration of financial power in modern U.S. history. With few exceptions, the GOP want very few federal cops on the corporate crime beat.
6. Fighting for the last billionaire and multimillionaire, Republicans are blocking ending Bush’s tax cuts on incomes beyond $250,000 per year. Yes, Republicans want to reduce the deficit yet they want to end revenues of over 700 billion dollar over ten years of restored super-rich taxes. They are blocking renewal of the estate taxes after their expiration on Dec. 31, 2009 left no taxes this year on the estates of the super-rich. (Over 99 percent of estates were already exempt from the federal estate tax.)
7. No matter that Republicans caved to the health insurance companies getting over 30 million new covered customers, starting in 2014, they supported the industry’s blaming the federal government, no less, for this month’s latest sharp hike in insurance premiums by Aetna and others largely on the policies of individuals and small business. The Republicans did this after blocking the “public option” that would have given consumers both a choice and the benefit of some competition to the big insurance firms.
8. Have the Congressional Republicans ever challenged the bloated, wasteful, contractor-corrupt military budget that makes up half of the entire government’s discretionary budget?
Even the Congress’s own auditing agency—the Government Accountability Office (GAO) declares the Pentagon budget unauditable. Many Pentagon audits document the abuses of Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater and other firms in the deficit-driving, bloody Iraq and Afghanistan wars (both Republican espoused.) The Pentagon’s burgeoning budget, now nearing $800 billion a year, is deemed untouchable. (A few Republicans, like Charles Grassley and John McCain sometimes object to contracting abuses.)
9. President Obama wants a counter-recessionary public works program renovating airports, bridges, highways, rail and mass transit, drinking water and sewage treatment facilities and other infrastructures. Republicans sneer at this local job creation for much needed facilities.
10. Unlike any Republican Party since its creation in 1854, it has misused the filibuster threat, and any one of its Senators misuse the rules and block even going to a floor discussion or a nomination vote. The Party is earning its moniker as the Party of NO. Republicans have turned the U.S. Senate into America’s graveyard.
There is much more, but enough has been cited to ask again—how are Republicans seen by the polls as front runners in the upcoming election?
The answer my friends, is not in the stars. The answer is in the clueless and spineless Democrats, busily dialing for the same corporate campaign dollars.
The other answer is in the ten percent of the actual voters who need to seriously avail themselves of the facts and a modicum of thought. For if they don’t, they will continue to pay bills handed to them and their children by their ruling corporatists in Republican clothing.
How does the Big Business-indentured Republican Party get away with expectations of a runaway election victory this November? If such a victory should occur in Congress and for many governorships and state legislatures, it will be due to a ten percent or so shift in voters who voted Democratic in 2008 and are expected to vote Republican this year or stay home in despair or disgust. The rest of the voters who do vote will still stay with their hereditary Republican or Democratic candidates.
So what is accounting for a possible ten percent shift? Let’s briefly review some of the Congressional Republicans’ voiced positions:
1. They want to do nothing about unfair Chinese trade practices that lure jobs away from our country though huge factory subsidies, and where workers are repressed and counterfeit products abound. Imagine, Republicans coddling a communist regime, luring the auto parts, electronic, solar and drug ingredients industries away from America, often in violation of the World Trade Organization rules. And, in turn, China is exporting to the U.S. impure food, faulty tires, toxic drywall, lead-tainted toys and medicines which are contaminated, defective or harmful. Don’t forget the dumping violations.
2. Republicans, led by Senator Richard Shelby and his banking friends, declared their adamant opposition to Professor Elizabeth Warren becoming head of the new consumer financial regulation agency. (To avoid a confrontation with them, President Obama made her a special assistant to organize this consumer watchdog.) Ms. Warren has a solid record of exposing and communicating clearly to families the tricks and traps of credit card companies, mortgage firms, and intermediaries that have taken so many billions of consumer dollars with impunity.
3. The Republicans led by their House leader, John Boehner (Rep. Ohio), a total toady of the gouging student loan companies, opposed the Democrats successful reform of this taxpayer boondoggle that guaranteed obscene profits and had the taxpayers absorb any student defaults. Boehner’s lobbying should upset millions of parents who had to foot the bill for so many years.
4. The Republicans are opposed to raising the federal minimum wage to what it was, adjusted for inflation, in 1968!! They opposed an adequate budget for health and safety enforcement by OSHA to diminish the 58,000 American workers who die every year from workplace toxics and trauma. They are now blocking protections for coal miners pending in the Senate after the Massey mine disaster.
5. Republicans oppose doing anything about “too big to fail” even after Wall Street’s reckless, avaricious collapse of the economy, costing 8 million jobs and trillions of lost pension and mutual fund dollars.
Moreover, they do not support genuine enforcement of the anti-trust laws which are supposed to break up monopolization efforts, monopolies or oligopolies like Monsanto (seeds) or the big five banks—bailed out by taxpayers and secure in their domination of well over 50 percent of all bank assets, deposits and the credit card business. This is by far the highest concentration of financial power in modern U.S. history. With few exceptions, the GOP want very few federal cops on the corporate crime beat.
6. Fighting for the last billionaire and multimillionaire, Republicans are blocking ending Bush’s tax cuts on incomes beyond $250,000 per year. Yes, Republicans want to reduce the deficit yet they want to end revenues of over 700 billion dollar over ten years of restored super-rich taxes. They are blocking renewal of the estate taxes after their expiration on Dec. 31, 2009 left no taxes this year on the estates of the super-rich. (Over 99 percent of estates were already exempt from the federal estate tax.)
7. No matter that Republicans caved to the health insurance companies getting over 30 million new covered customers, starting in 2014, they supported the industry’s blaming the federal government, no less, for this month’s latest sharp hike in insurance premiums by Aetna and others largely on the policies of individuals and small business. The Republicans did this after blocking the “public option” that would have given consumers both a choice and the benefit of some competition to the big insurance firms.
8. Have the Congressional Republicans ever challenged the bloated, wasteful, contractor-corrupt military budget that makes up half of the entire government’s discretionary budget?
Even the Congress’s own auditing agency—the Government Accountability Office (GAO) declares the Pentagon budget unauditable. Many Pentagon audits document the abuses of Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater and other firms in the deficit-driving, bloody Iraq and Afghanistan wars (both Republican espoused.) The Pentagon’s burgeoning budget, now nearing $800 billion a year, is deemed untouchable. (A few Republicans, like Charles Grassley and John McCain sometimes object to contracting abuses.)
9. President Obama wants a counter-recessionary public works program renovating airports, bridges, highways, rail and mass transit, drinking water and sewage treatment facilities and other infrastructures. Republicans sneer at this local job creation for much needed facilities.
10. Unlike any Republican Party since its creation in 1854, it has misused the filibuster threat, and any one of its Senators misuse the rules and block even going to a floor discussion or a nomination vote. The Party is earning its moniker as the Party of NO. Republicans have turned the U.S. Senate into America’s graveyard.
There is much more, but enough has been cited to ask again—how are Republicans seen by the polls as front runners in the upcoming election?
The answer my friends, is not in the stars. The answer is in the clueless and spineless Democrats, busily dialing for the same corporate campaign dollars.
The other answer is in the ten percent of the actual voters who need to seriously avail themselves of the facts and a modicum of thought. For if they don’t, they will continue to pay bills handed to them and their children by their ruling corporatists in Republican clothing.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Since 'Unsafe At Any Speed'
Guest perspective by Ralph Nader
Let’s celebrate some good news, before some qualifications are considered. Traffic fatalities in the U.S.A have dropped to a 60 year low. There were 33,808 deaths in 2009—a 9.7 percent decline from the previous year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety administration (NHTSA). The reduction was across the board from passenger vehicles, light trucks, large trucks, motorcycles and pedestrians.
Since 1966 when the motor vehicle and highway safety laws were passed by Congress—led by Democrats but with significant Republican support—the fatality rate dropped from 5.49 percent (50,894 lives lost) to 1.13 percent in 2009 (33,808 lives lost.) This large live-saving reduction occurred while absolute vehicle miles traveled increased more than threefold in those intervening decades.
These sharp reductions in “accidents” did not happen by chance. They came about because the national highway safety mission was enacted into law.
The national policy to address a major public safety epidemic—started with the Congressional outrage following General Motors and its clumsy attempt to have private detectives try to “dig up dirt” on me before and after publication of my book “Unsafe at Any Speed” in November 1965.
Extensive Congressional hearings in the Senate and the House pulled together the overwhelming evidence that the auto companies were suppressing the use of long-available safety devices and selling style and horsepower over safety and fuel efficiency. Forty-four years ago in September 1966, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the legislation and presented me with one of the pens at the White House ceremony.
The deliberate legislative process worked as it was supposed to work. The press and TV in Washington and Detroit covered the Auto Safety developments week after week in 1966 as a regular reporting beat instead of just an occasional feature. This kept the heat on any recalcitrance by members of Congress. The auto company executives had their say at hearings and proved unpersuasive.
NHTSA was established as an agency in the Department of Transportation with Dr. William Haddon, a very knowledgeable scholar and specialist in trauma prevention on the highway? NHTSA was given regulatory authority to establish mandatory safety standards, require vehicle defect recalls and research advanced prototype safety vehicles suitable for mass production.
Intelligent, experienced people went to work for NHTSA to tackle this fourth leading cause of death in the U.S. integrating vehicle, highway and driver inputs. Useful research and testing expanded rapidly along with motorist expectation levels for safer vehicles.
Far fewer people were losing their lives and incurring serious injuries due to greater seat-belt usage, better air bags, brakes and tires, stronger enforcement of drunk-driving laws, improvements in highway design right down to “hot spot” corrections at high-casualty locations.
More recently, the wider adoption of electronic stability controls and better collision avoidance capabilities augur even better safety on the roads.
Along the way since 1966, however, there were many missed opportunities, delays, suppression of needed upgrades of existing vehicle and tire standards, and avoidance of necessary recalls. Many lives have been lost and injuries inflicted as a result of such callousness.
Pressure came from the auto company lobbying operation and their friends in the White House and Congress, especially their powerful perennial defender, Democrat John Dingell from Michigan, who almost never saw a safety standard or fuel efficiency upgrade he liked. On the consumer side have been long-time advocates Joan Claybrook and Clarence Ditlow.
In the past decade, distracted drivers using cell phones and other electronic gadgets are involved in the loss of over 1000 lives a year. Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood has made this growing peril a major cause.
With the rise in the number of motorcycles to 11 million, there has been a steady rise in motorcycle fatalities over the years. This is due in no small part to 30 states not having a mandatory helmet law. “Along with taxes and weather, there is the certainty that no mandatory helmet laws leave more motorcyclists dead on the highway,” says Jackie Gillan, vice president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety. “It’s like having a cure for AIDS over twenty years and not applying it in certain states,” she added.
Safety laws have to be updated and strengthened from time to time. Currently a bill is moving through Congress, largely opposed by industry, to toughen the weak penalty provisions, strengthen some safeguards against newly discovered defects and increase the pitifully small budget in NHTSA for motor vehicle safety standards, recalls and research.
The current annual budget is about $150 million, which is less than three months worth of your tax dollars paying corporate contractors to guard the U.S. Embassy and its personnel in Baghdad, Iraq.
While the decline in highway casualties in 2009 can be attributed to a considerable degree to the recession, the record of highway safety regulation, bumps and all, certainly compares favorably with the anemic safety frameworks set up for other widespread technologies such as offshore drilling and spilling.
Let’s celebrate some good news, before some qualifications are considered. Traffic fatalities in the U.S.A have dropped to a 60 year low. There were 33,808 deaths in 2009—a 9.7 percent decline from the previous year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety administration (NHTSA). The reduction was across the board from passenger vehicles, light trucks, large trucks, motorcycles and pedestrians.
Since 1966 when the motor vehicle and highway safety laws were passed by Congress—led by Democrats but with significant Republican support—the fatality rate dropped from 5.49 percent (50,894 lives lost) to 1.13 percent in 2009 (33,808 lives lost.) This large live-saving reduction occurred while absolute vehicle miles traveled increased more than threefold in those intervening decades.
These sharp reductions in “accidents” did not happen by chance. They came about because the national highway safety mission was enacted into law.
The national policy to address a major public safety epidemic—started with the Congressional outrage following General Motors and its clumsy attempt to have private detectives try to “dig up dirt” on me before and after publication of my book “Unsafe at Any Speed” in November 1965.
Extensive Congressional hearings in the Senate and the House pulled together the overwhelming evidence that the auto companies were suppressing the use of long-available safety devices and selling style and horsepower over safety and fuel efficiency. Forty-four years ago in September 1966, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the legislation and presented me with one of the pens at the White House ceremony.
The deliberate legislative process worked as it was supposed to work. The press and TV in Washington and Detroit covered the Auto Safety developments week after week in 1966 as a regular reporting beat instead of just an occasional feature. This kept the heat on any recalcitrance by members of Congress. The auto company executives had their say at hearings and proved unpersuasive.
NHTSA was established as an agency in the Department of Transportation with Dr. William Haddon, a very knowledgeable scholar and specialist in trauma prevention on the highway? NHTSA was given regulatory authority to establish mandatory safety standards, require vehicle defect recalls and research advanced prototype safety vehicles suitable for mass production.
Intelligent, experienced people went to work for NHTSA to tackle this fourth leading cause of death in the U.S. integrating vehicle, highway and driver inputs. Useful research and testing expanded rapidly along with motorist expectation levels for safer vehicles.
Far fewer people were losing their lives and incurring serious injuries due to greater seat-belt usage, better air bags, brakes and tires, stronger enforcement of drunk-driving laws, improvements in highway design right down to “hot spot” corrections at high-casualty locations.
More recently, the wider adoption of electronic stability controls and better collision avoidance capabilities augur even better safety on the roads.
Along the way since 1966, however, there were many missed opportunities, delays, suppression of needed upgrades of existing vehicle and tire standards, and avoidance of necessary recalls. Many lives have been lost and injuries inflicted as a result of such callousness.
Pressure came from the auto company lobbying operation and their friends in the White House and Congress, especially their powerful perennial defender, Democrat John Dingell from Michigan, who almost never saw a safety standard or fuel efficiency upgrade he liked. On the consumer side have been long-time advocates Joan Claybrook and Clarence Ditlow.
In the past decade, distracted drivers using cell phones and other electronic gadgets are involved in the loss of over 1000 lives a year. Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood has made this growing peril a major cause.
With the rise in the number of motorcycles to 11 million, there has been a steady rise in motorcycle fatalities over the years. This is due in no small part to 30 states not having a mandatory helmet law. “Along with taxes and weather, there is the certainty that no mandatory helmet laws leave more motorcyclists dead on the highway,” says Jackie Gillan, vice president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety. “It’s like having a cure for AIDS over twenty years and not applying it in certain states,” she added.
Safety laws have to be updated and strengthened from time to time. Currently a bill is moving through Congress, largely opposed by industry, to toughen the weak penalty provisions, strengthen some safeguards against newly discovered defects and increase the pitifully small budget in NHTSA for motor vehicle safety standards, recalls and research.
The current annual budget is about $150 million, which is less than three months worth of your tax dollars paying corporate contractors to guard the U.S. Embassy and its personnel in Baghdad, Iraq.
While the decline in highway casualties in 2009 can be attributed to a considerable degree to the recession, the record of highway safety regulation, bumps and all, certainly compares favorably with the anemic safety frameworks set up for other widespread technologies such as offshore drilling and spilling.
October 2010 Top 30 Chart
Reporting: 13 different radio stations and Internet programs
1. Hooray for Earth – Momo EP
2. Deer Tick – The Black Dirt Sessions
3. Endless Wave – City Walls EP
4. Ad Frank & the Fast Easy Women – Your Secrets Are Mine Now
5. Eli “Paperboy” Reed – Come and Get It
6. Pernice Brothers – Goodbye, Killer
7. uliana Hatfield – How to Walk Away
8. The Hush Now – Shiver Me Starships
9. Kingsley Flood – Dust Windows
10. New Collisions – The Optimist
11. Oranjuly – Oranjuly
12. Gene Dante & The Future Starlets – “The Love Letter Is Dead”
13. The Holey Moleys – Cheese is Christ EP
14. Mean Creek – “The Comedian”
15. John Shade – All You Love is Need
16. Walter Sickert & The Army of Broken Toys – Steam Ship Killers
17. The Wandas – New Wave Blues
18. Hallelujah the Hills – Collective Psychosis Begone
19. The Weisstronauts – Weisstronauts In Memphis
20. Spirit Kid – Spirit Kid
21. Needy Visions – Needy Visions
22. The Acrobrats – Hair Trigger
23. Roz Raskin and the Rice Cakes – Feel Like Human
24. Bon Savants – “Tidal Wave”
25. Freezepop – Imaginary Friends
26. Kristen Hersh – Crooked
27. Kermit’s Finger – Grudge
28. Jenny Dee and the Deelinquents – Keeping Time
29. Ketman – Ketman A Go-Go
30. Taxpayer – Photo EP
1. Hooray for Earth – Momo EP
2. Deer Tick – The Black Dirt Sessions
3. Endless Wave – City Walls EP
4. Ad Frank & the Fast Easy Women – Your Secrets Are Mine Now
5. Eli “Paperboy” Reed – Come and Get It
6. Pernice Brothers – Goodbye, Killer
7. uliana Hatfield – How to Walk Away
8. The Hush Now – Shiver Me Starships
9. Kingsley Flood – Dust Windows
10. New Collisions – The Optimist
11. Oranjuly – Oranjuly
12. Gene Dante & The Future Starlets – “The Love Letter Is Dead”
13. The Holey Moleys – Cheese is Christ EP
14. Mean Creek – “The Comedian”
15. John Shade – All You Love is Need
16. Walter Sickert & The Army of Broken Toys – Steam Ship Killers
17. The Wandas – New Wave Blues
18. Hallelujah the Hills – Collective Psychosis Begone
19. The Weisstronauts – Weisstronauts In Memphis
20. Spirit Kid – Spirit Kid
21. Needy Visions – Needy Visions
22. The Acrobrats – Hair Trigger
23. Roz Raskin and the Rice Cakes – Feel Like Human
24. Bon Savants – “Tidal Wave”
25. Freezepop – Imaginary Friends
26. Kristen Hersh – Crooked
27. Kermit’s Finger – Grudge
28. Jenny Dee and the Deelinquents – Keeping Time
29. Ketman – Ketman A Go-Go
30. Taxpayer – Photo EP
Monday, September 20, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Ayotte declared the winner ...
Kelly Ayotte has been declared the winner of the NH GOP primary by about 1,600 votes.
On deadline but I wanted to say one thing in a post this morning ...
It is good to see that here in New Hampshire, those political candidates that aired the most negative and in some cases, downright repulsive and borderline libel campaign advertising, went down to defeat last night. Every ... single ... one.
So, a note to future politicos: When big money consultants say that negative advertising works remember, they are correct: Negative campaigning works to help in your defeat ... at least here in the Granite State. Stay positive, stay focused, and tell the people what you're going to do.
I'll have more commentary later on today or tomorrow, hopefully, when we get more results from the Ayotte-Lamontangne race, that is currently too close to call. Ayotte reportedly has about a 1,000 vote lead as of 4 a.m. this morning, according to the Union Leader email blast. There may even be a recount in the works.
So, a note to future politicos: When big money consultants say that negative advertising works remember, they are correct: Negative campaigning works to help in your defeat ... at least here in the Granite State. Stay positive, stay focused, and tell the people what you're going to do.
I'll have more commentary later on today or tomorrow, hopefully, when we get more results from the Ayotte-Lamontangne race, that is currently too close to call. Ayotte reportedly has about a 1,000 vote lead as of 4 a.m. this morning, according to the Union Leader email blast. There may even be a recount in the works.
Monday, September 13, 2010
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