It took a union on the Tuesday OPEN thread
Wikimedia Commons
75 years ago:
“An effort is being made by the Roanoke Needlework Guild through February 15 to raise funds with which to furnish shoes for the estimated 889 children in the city public schools in need of footwear to come to school.”
Looking Back, The Roanoke Times, Feb. 4, 2013
February 5, 2013 - 10:00 AM
Is anyone aware if nurses at one of the local hospitals are moving towards unionization?
I know that we’re all stunned that it was 8 Republican men who voted against moving to debate on the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. Marco Rubio among them.
One need look no further than the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 to witness the effects of unfettered business practices on the conditions workers faced at the time. The fire killed 146 workers, mostly young, female immigrants. Located on the 8th, 9th and 10th floors, some exits and stairwells were locked by the owners of the company. There were no fire alarms and the only fire escape collapsed under the weight of the workers. Fire truck ladders were too short to reach the floors and safety nets shredded when bodies landed on them. It took this tragedy to begin the process of improving conditions for such workers and enacting stricter fire safety codes. Thanks to these regulations and a greater appreciation for the rights of workers, an incident such as this is far less likely to occur in this country now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire#Consequences_and_legacy
Has anyone read over on the BRC all the idiocy the Virginia GOP is engaging in? It’s as though they’re deliberately trying to turn the state into a Letterman punchline.
Ah, some kind and polite right-wing intellectuals are back to commenting on an important issue for all Americans — the size of Michelle Obama’s rear end.
What dolts.
What the heck is wrong with Alabama? A guy who beats a dog to death with a pipe and waves his guns threatening kids is allowed to walk around free?
If he’d been black, they’d have locked him up and thrown away the key long ago.
Hey Dan, its been a while, but I thought I would share a video with you from the General Assembly a few weeks ago.
12th District Delegate Joseph Yost got up and gave this nice speech relating to the whole Newtown/Gun Control Debate…although it is really about something else.
I believe that all Republicans and Democrats can agree to his statements, and I also knew this was something that was close to your heart.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4B82RWZJaw
Have a great day!
Gdad,
The terms right wing & intellectual are mutually exclusive.
On a (I hope) non-political subject. Late last year the CALM act went into effect. It is supposed to stop TV stations from raising the volume during commercial breaks. It seems to my family that the stations are still doing it. It is very annoying. Comments?
Let’s see, in the news today we have the CBO saying obamacare will push 7 million people out of their job-based insurance coverage; the justice department saying it is OK to for “high-level” gov’t officials to summarily execute American citizens; Biden (obama’s first decision) touring the globe not knowing the difference between Portugal and Poland…
And what does gdad think is important??? “the size of Michelle Obama’s rear end”
God I would love to hear the liberal outcry had this been done by the Bush administration.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/05/glenn-beck-obama-girl-football_n_2623928.html
How cute. Glenn Beck stopped crying long enough to slam Obama’s masculinity.
Here ya go gdad. I have seen Michelle Obama in person and in close proximity. Whoever says she is large, overweight, etc. is simply wrong. She is tall but seemed quite fit. The issue referenced involved someone who demonstrated a small-minded approach to people he didn’t like.
Kristen,
Is there anyone here that does not understand that huffpost is not “real” news?
Is that where you get your “intelligent” information from?
The drone program is powerful incentive to avoid hanging out in terrorist camps. I know I just canceled MY flight.
Comment by old blue — February 5, 2013 @ 5:22 pm
I agree – especially the annoying car commercials and Ashley furniture. There is a website to “report” the abuses:
The easiest way to file a loud commercial complaint is by using the FCC’s online complaint form at http://www.fcc.gov/complaints.
To use the form, click on the Complaint Type button “Broadcast (TV and Radio), Cable, and Satellite Issues,” and then click on the Category button “Loud Commercials.” This will take you to the “Form 2000G – Loud Commercial Complaint” form. Fill out the form and click on “Complete the form” to submit your complaint to the FCC.
Mikeo, if something actually happens, what does it matter where it’s reported? It’s embarrassing, I realize. I don’t consider anything involving Beck “real news”… It’s more of a freak show.
That’s one thing about Obama. He kills Muslims like it’s his day job. He’s a Crusader.
Sure Kristen and on that we agree. I have no problem with drone strikes on terrorists. I just know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if a memo like this had come from Bush, people like you and Sandi and Dan would be apoplectic about the “war criminals” in the White House. Strangely, when it’s Obama, you have no problem with it. I think there’s a word for that.
Sadly Chuck, we know you are not kidding. Did you sleep through Abu Ghraib and “the case for torture”, Rendition and secret prisons? Do you think Bush had no drones and killed no terrorists? The genie was let out of the bottle under Bush and anyone dumb enough to think it will voluntarily go back in the bottle, are just plain funny.
Thanks Hillary. I did that a while back No acknowledgement of receipt by the FCC, let alone action.
hey sandi,
obama says, “screw torture. that’s so old school. heck, i get to kill American citizens with drones, and all i gotta do is allege a compelling case for thinking they are dastardly terrorists about to undertake a dastardly terrorist attack, somewhere. sheesh, the lib-media will swallow anything i tell my press secretary to say…heck, they’ll swallow it even if HE doesn’t believe what I’m telling him to say. what a country!”
I think you’ve been “abu ghraib’ed” all right, by obama.
Chuck is reading minds now. He sounds omniscient.
But if he was, actually, then he’d be able to tell us what the gay teen suicide rate was 10 years ago vs today.
And he hasn’t done that, despite multiple polite requests from me, after I politely challenged his assumptions.
I guess this is a long way of saying, Chuck doesn’t necessarily know what Sandi or I think.
And I don’t presume to know what she thinks, or Chuck, either.
Even Bush stopped short of targeting American citizens. The document was leaked to provide wiggle room for CIA nominee John Brennan.
hi Chuck.
I think the word you are looking for is “hypocrissy.” Another word, which is easliy applied in this case to the libs you named above, is “hypocrites”.
And, the adjective best used immediately prior to the word “hypocrites” is “shameless”.
No worries Chuck, the UN is on it.
Hey Frank, it is not my fault if you do not understand how these things work. I tried to tell people how this would end, no one cared when it was Bush/Cheney and no, I don’t give a damn now.
I don’t think that Americans camped out in the desert planning attacks on America should be treated any differently than the terrorists from other countries they’re working with. I have no special feeling for Americans looking to attack their own. Im fact, I find them even more repugnant.
Whether or not we should be using drones in the first place, and summarily executing anyone at all without due process, is a different question. But Americans posting up with al Qaeda…lie down with dogs, get blown up with them.
I’ve said before I’m unhappy with Obama for not shutting down Guantanamo. That hasn’t changed.
Like the song says, ♫ “My give a damn’s busted“♫
The leaked memo portrays acts by our government that I think are wrong. Yeah, I know this war on terrorism is a different kind of war and you have to use unconventional tactics and all the rationalizations, but I don’t like it. The rendition and torture perpetrated by the Bush Administration was a crime, and what President Obama is allowing via the drone program is not much different. It really doesn’t matter who is killed with this program. What matters is that we are killing people on suspicion that they might do something in the future! I think that is misguided policy – very neocon and hawkish – and only serves to foment ill-will against the US.
One of the prime reasons I voted for President Obama was the hope that he would put an end to programs just like this, but he has not. For that, I am profoundly disappointed in this administration’s actions.
Yeah like calling us hypocrites is going to matter coming from you? Wow, you are so tone deaf it is ear splitting.
http://tinyurl.com/akg79pk
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Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics
Why the world needs better data.
BY URI DADUSH
FEBRUARY 5, 2013
SNIP
Why do such statistics continue to be used when many now recognize that they are deeply flawed? Sheer inertia is part of the explanation, and gathering more nuanced and better-targeted statistics and disseminating them is costly. But perhaps the most important reason is that powerful interest groups latch on to the commonly used statistics that suit them.
Particular groups should have the right to their own view, but not to their own facts. Political leaders in the United States and around the world should invest in statistics that tell the truth and treat headline figures with healthy skepticism. Those charged with the big decisions that determine lives should be expected to delve deeper into what is really going on.
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http://tinyurl.com/am6x8fe
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Death by Loophole
Obama’s legal rationale for whacking Americans is so broad you could fly a drone through it.
BY ROSA BROOKS
FEBRUARY 5, 2013
“Tell me how this ends,” asked General David Petraeus in 2003. He was speaking of the war in Iraq, which was born out of faulty intelligence and faultier strategic logic, and spiraled rapidly out of control. Today we know the answer to Petraeus’s question: The war ended with tenuous stability for Iraq — won at the price of some 4,500 dead Americans, an unknown but much higher number of dead Iraqis, roughly a trillion dollars in direct costs, and incalculable damage to the United States’ global reputation. By 2012, two-thirds of Americans were convinced the war in Iraq hadn’t been worth it.
But Petraeus might just as well have asked his famous question of a different war — not the war in Iraq, which he’s often credited with salvaging, or even the war in Afghanistan, which he later struggled to turn around, but the covert drone war over which he presided during his brief tenure as director of the CIA.
SNIP
**
“Is anyone aware if nurses at one of the local hospitals are moving towards unionization?”
Yes, the secret meeting is tomorrow night at Fork in the Alley.
http://tinyurl.com/a769k7g
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State Sen. Richard Saslaw says in Virginia “one-third of the gasoline is purchased by out-of-state people”
SNIP
Saslaw offered no credible proof to back his statistic. Each time we asked him, he cited a different possible source: the DMV, the Virginia Department of Transportation, maybe a newspaper article.
There’s a good reason none of his possible sources pan out: the statistic does not exist. Virginia taxes gasoline sales at the wholesale level, not at the pumps. So there’s no data on the percentage of gas purchased in Virginia by out-of-state drivers.
The burden of proof falls on Saslaw and he comes up empty. We could find no element of truth in his statement, which we rate False.
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Hey Sandi,
W. also caused the power outage at the Super Bowl.
Hypocrite.
No, mike o, that’s what some right wingers seem to think is important. Even suzie has commented on it NUMEROUS times.
I think the drone program as it’s currently being used should be reconsidered because there is too much so called “collateral” damage.
I support its use instead of boots on the ground and in much more limited use when the targets are definitively identified. But when there is hard information that an American citizen is collaborating with Al Quaeda or other terrorist groups and the target is confirmed, then I see no problem with taking them out They have made their choice and placed themselves in harm’s way. As far as I am concerned with that act of treason they have forfeited their right to American citizenship.
The burden of proof falls on Saslaw and he comes up empty. We could find no element of truth in his statement, which we rate False.
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Comment by Dave Hicks — February 5, 2013 @ 10:40 pm
A report in Bloomberg/BusinessWeek magazine states that out of state motorists drive over 7 billion miles per year in Va and says that data comes from a study by the Va. Dept. of Transportation. Gov. McDonnell
says his wholesale sales tax on gasoline would be revenue neutral Then he says that with that tax and dropping the gasoline tax at the pump, the price of gas would go down 16;6 cents per gallon. Does he not think that wholesale tax will be passed on to dealers and ultimately charged to drivers at the pump? That contention makes no sense. This is a ruse to allow oil companies to make more money and to get the nose under the tent to use general funds money for transportation instead of having a specific revenue stream dedicated only to transportation that is adequate to take care of the needs. Ultimately, it will lead to less funds for schools, health care, mental health, local police, etc.
The way that makes sense to do this is to raise the gas tax at the pump and dedicate all the money to transportation. But the Republicans do not have the guts to do what is right in this case because they are unwilling to pass anything that can be identified as a tax increase. They’ll raise
fees, borrow money from state requirement accounts or fail to fund their obligation to them so that they can claim they balanced the budget. But they cannot be honest with Va’s citizens. They play a shell game.
Hey Frank,
You ignored W’s abuses, I ignore O’s.
Hypocrite.
Sandi,
I didn’t think W. abused anything.
You libs went …ballistic… over the wire-tap issue. You libs went …ballistic x 10… over water-boarding.
You libs are …silent… about obama’s drones killing Americans that they deem, according to his belief, suitable to be killed.
Personally, I’m for all of the above. You libs are only opposed to what W. did.
Ergo, you libs are… hypocrites.
Frank,
You need some defogger for your eyes, if you think “you libs” are “silent” about Obama’s use of drones. Most liberals oppose that kind of warfare, and cite it as yet one more piece of evidence that Obama is not liberal.
Hey Frank, you are in a distinct and blind minority on thinking that “didn’t think W. abused anything”.
Bruce Fein is a conservative constitutional scholar who laid it all out pretty well in 2007:
“The founding fathers expected an executive who tried to overreach and expected the executive would be hampered and curtailed by the legislative branch… They [Congress] have basically renounced — walked away from their responsibility to oversee and check.” — Bruce Fein
Recently, Fein has been in the national spotlight after his editorial in the online newsmagazine SLATE called for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney, in which he outlines the various cases against the Vice President. Fein also testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee on June 27, 2007 about President Bush’s use of “signing statement.”
* According to Fein, Cheney has: Asserted Presidential power to create military commissions, which combine the functions of judge, jury, and prosecutor in the trial of war crimes.
* Claimed authority to detain American citizens as enemy combatants indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay on the President’s say-so alone.
* Initiated kidnappings, secret detentions, and torture in Eastern European prisons of suspected international terrorists.
* Championed a Presidential power to torture in contravention of federal statutes and treaties.
* Engineered the National Security Agency’s warrantless domestic surveillance program targeting American citizens on American soil in contravention of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.
* Orchestrated the invocation of executive privilege to conceal from Congress secret spying programs to gather foreign intelligence, and their legal justifications.
* Summoned the privilege to refuse to disclose his consulting of business executives in conjunction with his Energy Task Force.
* Retaliated against Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame, through chief of staff Scooter Libby, for questioning the administration’s evidence of weapons of mass destruction as justification for invading Iraq”
And on that same panel was this guy who nailed it very succinctly, and this remains your dilemma:
“On January 20th, 2009, if George Bush and Dick Cheney are not appropriately held to account this Administration will hand off a toolbox with more powers than any President has ever had, more powers than the founders could have imagined. And that box may be handed to Hillary Clinton or it may be handed to Mitt Romney or Barack Obama or someone else. But whoever gets it, one of the things we know about power is that people don’t give away the tools.” — John Nichols”
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07132007/profile.html
I was saying this November 19, 2009 and March 31, 2011 and I am saying it now. Of course you and others want to call us out for hypocrisy while still maintaining that Bush did nothing wrong. That makes you a hypocrite and your opinion on my hypocrisy is worthless as well.
The precedent was set and as Dan says, calling Obama a liberal, Socialist or Marxist for doing the same kinds of things is total hypocrisy, dishonest and lacking in integrity. Siding with the ACLU is also an odd place for you conservatives.
Bush was wrong to do it. Obama is wrong to do it.
As the earlier discussion on Gas tax, Hybrid tax, etc is so far back I put my last and the following here.
FWIIW, I strongly support the idea of a “mileage tax” assuming that the privacy “issues” can be resolved.
Here in Virginia it should not be a big issue, at the State level. We require State Inspection. Validating millage should not be a big issue. At the federal level the data collection / validation could be trickier.
http://tinyurl.com/b3nk9lk
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Can a miles-traveled tax finance infrastructure?
By BURGESS EVERETT | 2/6/13 5:00 AM EST
Imagine paying into the nation’s roads and bridges based on how far you drive each year, rather than how much gasoline you consume.
That future is not far off, transportation experts and some lawmakers say. But the United States has not yet fully committed to researching a replacement for the outdated federal gasoline tax, which increasingly brings in fewer dollars relative to the trillions in investment needed for roads, rails and ports.
SNIP
**
Though?
How do you account in a “mileage tax” how many of those miles were spent in states other than Virginia? This doesn’t make any sense to me. For billing drivers for miles traveled on Virginia roads -including out-of-state people – I don’t see anything that would work better than tolls.
“How do you account in a “mileage tax” how many of those miles were spent in states other than Virginia? This doesn’t make any sense to me. For billing drivers for miles traveled on Virginia roads -including out-of-state people – I don’t see anything that would work better than tolls.”
–Comment by Kristen
I hear you on the mileage tax issue, Kristen, but the same issue exists with tolls. How do you collect tolls from drivers who rarely go on interstates? I shudder to think of toll booths on 419, or 460, or roads like that.
Dave Hicks, I generally like the idea of a miles-traveled tax, ever since I read about a study several years ago…I think done in Oregon. It’s far less costly than tolls, and has a real ability to generate appropriate revenues on a true user-fee type of basis.
Ideally, the fees collected would be indexed based on the relative impact of the vehicle…i.e. larger/heavier vehicles have a higher per-mile fee than a compact car, simply due to the physical wear larger vehicles create. Some of that is captured with the fuels tax, since larger/heavier vehicles almost always use more fuel, but it still doesn’t appropriately collect on the commercial vehicles that generate by far the most physical damage and wear on the infrastructure.
Additionally, it would be best if fees were largely collected/allocated based on where the driving was done…i.e. if a driver uses primarily interstates for driving, the fees should fund interstate systems…and if someone is driving mostly secondary and minor primary highways in a rural area…likewise. The tricky part is how to accomplish that. The only way wuld be some form of GPS tracking device in every vehicle, and I oppose that. Without it though, how would out-of-state travel be taxed? For states like Virginia with a lot of tourist travel and through-freight traffic, that’s a huge chunk of change that we currently collect on with fuel sales (part of why I oppose the plans being debated in the GA).
The other issue with a miles-travel tax is, if we simplify the matter and tax based on odometer readings at annual inspection time, and send all revenues to the state to then allocate based on the various competing needs (essentially how we do it now with existing revenue sources), how does the collection for those taxes get handled? Is that information collected and sent to Richmond, where annual assessments are mailed out? Would they be paid as a part of other state taxes, or have a separate timeframe? Could people set up calculated monthly payroll withholdings to cover estimated mileage, then submit actual numbers with their 760 to cover overage or reimbursements? Does the owner pay the fee at the time of the inspection, with the station remitting the fee to the state (major fraud/non-payment potential there)? With buying/selling vehicles, how would such a system ensure that all miles driven were actually accounted for? New beauracracy?
I think in terms of what I’ve seen, it’s probably the most fair way to apply user fees for transportation infrastructure…but it’s also the most complicated to implement.
Frank, Dan, Sandi, et al,
As I am neither a Liberal nor a Conservative, I don’t have a dog in this drone fight — as to which POTUSs did what.
That said, a curse on both their house for any Judge, Jury, and Executioner scheme — sans well documented combatant status requirements, immediate danger, etc, IMHO.
The “tool” is of less concern to me than is the preemptive non-battlefield nature sans judicial oversight.
I know that the traditional battlefield has changed. But….
See: http://tinyurl.com/ay3sv2x
Dave Hicks, as Ted Nugent, that mad man who ought to know said, you “go after the mad-man” and leave the rest of us alone. I get that as a real and important battle tool in the fight against an enemy as euphemistic as “a terrorist”, both domestically and in other nations, but the tool will be used by those you trust as well as by those you do not. That is the nature of setting precedent and unleashing tools.
IMO, our time for effecting a rewind is past. All we can do is pray for restraint, whistle-blowers and the power of the free press. Sad, ain’t it.
Re: Kristen @ 11:30 am
The federal gas tax is (in theory) distributed to the individual states based on a formula. Within Virginia (and most states, as far as I know) the state’s gas tax is not distributed to local governments not based on where each vehicle drives but rather is distributed by a formula.
The current State-to-State gas tax is based on what State you buy the gas in, not where you drive. I can assure you that I seldom pay gas tax in WV, but drive there quite often. So, I think the objection you raise is not unique to a mileage tax.
Maybe the national mileage tax could be collected and distributed by such a formula — if the conformation of mileage issue is resolved.
The “who get the money” v. “who maintains the roads” under a State-to-State mileage tax might not be significantly different than the State-to-State gas tax.
I see merit in the “miles traveled tax”. Or just making the gas tax a percentage so it covers the need, which is by far the “easiest” fix of all of them.
Dave Hicks
I totally agree. I don’t really care who commits the abuse of power. It’s still abuse of power. The sorry fact is, anyone can be secretly declared an “enemy of the people”, if you will, and either incarcerated without benefit of Habeas Corpus, or executed. And these abuses of power are always done in the name of the people, to “protect us”. That’s how police states work. Welcome to the United Police State of America.
Dave Hicks,
Well said.
Sandi,
Has obama been excoriated by the main stream media for doing what he has done? Where is the out-rage by the libs on this blog?
Nope, and nowhere.
Hypocrites.
Re: Other John @ 11:44 am
Yup, yup, & yup.
—–
Re: Sandi Saunders @ 12:26 pm
I’d agree, were the “experts” not saying that alternative power was going to replace petroleum fuel over time and were that process not already afoot (as a small %, so far, to be sure).
IMHO, it is time to get ahead of the curve and level the playing field before we are too far down the line and the NIMBY / WYSDWYS resistance get too large a voter base, IMHO.
For those approving the drone strike “paper” — unseen:
How would you compare and contrast it to:
http://tinyurl.com/ay7f4nf
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Israel’s Preemptive Strikes On Syria: Self-Defense Under International Law?
By Stewart M. Patrick and Andrew Reddie
COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS/Worldcrunch
SNIP
Judgement about the legality of armed force in instances of self-defense typically have to pass what is often referred to as “the Caroline test” of imminence. In 1837, British forces attacked a U.S.-flagged steamboat (the SS Caroline) being used to supply rebels in Upper Canada against the British colonial government. In his famous analysis of the incident, the U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster exculpated the British. “[E]ven supposing the necessity of the moment authorized them to enter the territories of the United States at all, [they] did nothing unreasonable or excessive.” The act was justified, inasmuch as the “necessity of self-defense was instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment of deliberation.” Subsequent international legal development has generally embraced this idea insofar as self-defense is allowed in anticipation of attacks that are imminent, though the precise contours of this standard remain contested.
Much more problematic is the launching of a “preemptive” attack against a threat that is developing but not yet imminent. A decade ago, in its 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States [PDF], the administration of George W.Bush enunciated a right to “preemption”. The basis of this controversial doctrine was that in an age of catastrophic threats, the United States needed the leeway to launch armed attacks to protect itself from catastrophic threats that were emerging but not yet fully realized.
SNIP
Clearly, Israel holds a broad view of what constitutes its self-defense. This view is sustained by the fact that Israel and Syria have failed to sign a peace agreement following their most recent conflagration in 1982. For their part, Israel and Hezbollah have remained at odds following conflict in 2006 while Israel, along with the United States, has labeled them a terrorist organization. These geopolitical concerns explain the circumspect reaction from Washington. As Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta explained drily, “the United States supports whatever steps are taken to make sure these weapons don’t fall into the hands of terrorists.”
Israel’s use of force may be a prudent act of statecraft. Whether it is formally legal is another matter, and doubtless of secondary concern in Jerusalem.
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