WELCOME TO OPINIONS BASED
ON FACTS (OBOF)
&
THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (TYMHM)
YEAR THREE
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Name
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Published
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OVERVIEW
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 14
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Dec
18, 2012
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 15
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Jan. 02, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 16
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Jan. 08, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 16 EXTRA
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Jan. 11, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 17
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Jan. 15, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 18
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Jan. 22, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 19
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Jan. 29, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 20
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Feb. 05, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 21
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Feb. 14, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 22
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Feb. 20, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 23
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Feb. 27, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM PART 23 SPECIAL
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Mar. 06, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 24
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Mar. 07, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 25
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Mar. 12, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 25-EXTRA
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Mar. 14, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 26
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Mar. 19, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 27
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Mar. 26, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 28
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Apr. 02, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 29
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Apr. 08, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 30
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Apr. 17, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 31
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Apr. 23, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 32
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Apr. 30, 2013
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IN THIS
ISSUE
1. Tid Bits.
2. Public Debit & Economic Growth.
3. Earth to Washington
4. Maine
5. Call for a Constitutional Amendment by 13
States.
6. One million urge Obama to reject Keystone XL.
SEQUESTER IS
STARTING TO HIT A LOT OF PEOPLE AND
BUSINESSES.
This week will mark the second month
of Sequestration and still Congress has not come together to address the
devastating cuts beginning to hit communities. Some of those cuts involved Head Start and
education funding while other cuts leave our national security vulnerable. I’ve been getting emails from people with
their very personal story of how this is impacting them. Yes, Congress is doing nothing unless it hits
them, like taking action to stop the aircraft delays because of Traffic Controller
furloughs
Congressman Loebsack is working to
pass his bill, HR 398, which would create a permanent 10% pay cut for Congress
while also eliminating automatic pay increases.
By Igor Volsky
African Americans outperformed their
voter share, representing 13 percent of total votes cast in 2012 while making
up 12 percent of the population—despite facing great obstacles to exercising
the franchise
~~~
Public
Debt and Economic Growth
Robert Reich
NationofChange
/ Op-Ed
Published: Tuesday 30 April 2013
In the election of 1952 my father voted for Dwight
Eisenhower. When I asked him why he explained that “FDR’s debt” was still
burdening the economy — and that I and my children and my grandchildren would
be paying it down for as long as we lived.
I was only six years old and had no idea what a “debt”
was, let alone FDR’s. But I had nightmares about it for weeks.
Yet as the years went by my father stopped talking about
“FDR’s debt,” and since I was old enough to know something about economics I
never worried about it. My children have never once mentioned FDR’s debt. My
four-year-old grandchild hasn’t uttered a single word about it.
By the end of World War II, the national debt was 120
percent of the entire economy. But by the mid-1950s, it was half that.
Why did it shrink? Not because the nation stopped
spending. We had a Korean War, a Cold War, we rebuilt Germany and Japan, sent
our GI’s to college and helped them buy homes, expanded education at all
levels, and began constructing the largest public-works program in the nation’s
history — the interstate highway system.
“FDR’s debt” shrank in proportion to the
national economy because the national economy grew so fast.
I was reminded of
this by the recent commotion over an error in a research paper by Carmen Reinhart and
Kenneth Rogoff.
The two Harvard economists
had analyzed a huge amount of data from the United States
That finding, in turn, fueled austerics, who insisted
that the budget deficit (and debt) had to be cut in order to revive economic
growth.
But Reinhart and Rogoff’s computations were wrong, and
average GDP growth in very-high-debt nations is around 2.2 percent rather than
a negative 0.1 percent.
A few days ago, the
two offered a defense in an oped in the New York Times, asserting
“very small actual differences” between their critics’ results and their
own.
Regardless, Reinhart and Rogoff seem to be correct in one
basic respect: Economic growth does seem to be lower in very-high-debt
countries.
But the entire debate over their paper’s flaws begs the
central question of cause and effect.
Is growth lower because of the high debt? That would
still make the austeric’s case, even without the magic 90 percent tipping
point.
Or does
cause-and-effect the other way around? Maybe slow growth makes debt burdens
larger. There’s evidence to suggest this is the
case.
If so, government
should be fueling growth through, say, spending more — at least in the short run.
As we should have learned from what happened to “FDR’s
debt,” growth is the key.
~~~
Earth
to Washington
Repeal the Sequester.
Robert Reich
NationofChange
/ OP-ED
Published:
Saturday 27 April 2013
Economic
forecasters exist to make astrologers look good. Most had forecast growth of at
least 3 percent (on an annualized basis) in the first quarter. But we learned this morning (in the Commerce
Department’s report) it grew only 2.5 percent.
That’s better than the 2 percent growth last year and the
slowdown at the end of the year. But it’s still cause for serious
concern.
First, consumers won’t keep up the spending.Their savings
rate fell sharply — from 4.7% in the last quarter of 2012 to 2.6% from January
through March.
Add in March’s dismal employment report, the lowest
percentage of working-age adults in jobs since 1979, and January’s hike in
payroll taxes, and consumer spending will almost certainly drop.
Median household incomes
continues to decline, adjusted for inflation. Another report out today showed
consumer confidence fell in April.
Second, the recovery continues to be wildly lopsided. The
only thing really keeping it going is the rip-roaring stock market. But the
stock market only boosts the wealth of the richest 10 percent of Americans, who
own 90 percent of stocks (including 401-K retirement accounts).
But no economy can maintain momentum just on the spending
of the richest 10 percent. Third, American exports can’t possibly
pick up the slack. In fact, they’re dropping. Europe
is falling into recession because of austerity economics. Japan China
So what is Washington Europe — cutting
federal spending and reducing total demand. And the sequester doesn’t end
September 30. It takes an even bigger bite out of the federal budget next fiscal
year.
Earth to Washington
You don’t have to be an astrologer to see the dangers
ahead.
~~~
The resolution supports an amendment proposed in March by Sen. Bernie Sanders, according to the
Call for Constitutional Amendment
to end ‘corporate personhood’ on way to Maine
By Robert Long, BDN Staff
Posted April 29, 2013, at 5:37 p.m.
Sen.
Richard Woodbury, I-Yarmouth, plans to introduce a resolution Tuesday in the
Maine Senate that directs the state’s congressional delegation to support a
constitutional amendment that would overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 “Citizens United” opinion equating campaign
spending with free speech.
Woodbury
made his case for the resolution during a Maine West Virginia
In March,
independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Democratic U.S. Rep. Ted
Deutch of Florida introduced a constitutional amendment to overturn “Citizens
United.” The proposed amendment
would “expressly exclude for-profit corporations from the rights given to
natural persons by the Constitution of the United States
Woodbury,
a 2012 Clean Election candidate whose opponent’s privately funded campaign
raised more than six times
as much as his did, told a crowd of about 40 people — many of whom held signs
or wore buttons reading “End Corporate Personhood” — that “Citizens United” has
damaged democracy.
“The
‘Citizens United’ decision has been enormously destructive, to electoral
politics specifically, and even more broadly to the effective practice of
democracy in America by allowing essentially unlimited spending on elections by
corporations and interest groups,” Woodbury said. “It has trivialized the voice
and influence of regular voters.”
Monday’s
event occurred four days after MCCE released a report
showing that 2012 marked the first time since 2002 that private campaign
spending by candidates and outside groups exceeded Maine
Also
speaking at Monday’s event, which MCCE labeled a “multipartisan” gathering,
were Sen. Ed Youngblood, R-Brewer, and Rep. Mike Carey, D-Lewiston, both of
whom are sponsoring bills related to election funding reform and greater public
disclosure of campaign contributions.
Youngblood’s
bill, LD 1309, An Act to
Strengthen the Maine Clean Election Act, proposes to replace the act’s matching
funds component, which was ruled unconstitutional as a result of a 2011 U.S. Supreme
Court decision, with a mechanism that would allow publicly financed candidates
to qualify for optional supplemental funding by collecting additional
qualifying contributions.
“The
system doesn’t do anything to reduce independent expenditures. In fact, it
encourages it,” Youngblood said. “LD 1309 will put [Clean Election candidates
who formerly would have qualified for matching funds] in a position to say to
parties involved, ‘Stay out of my race.’”
He
acknowledged that it’s unlikely outside groups will immediately respect
requests from candidates not to make independent expenditures in close races,
but “the only way long-term that you’re going to get outside money out is if
candidates are willing to stand up” to third-party campaign financing, and “the
only way to do that is to have sufficient Clean Election funding.”
Youngblood’s
bill also proposes to double the amount of seed money that legislative
candidates must collect to qualify for public campaign funding and to eliminate
the mandatory seed money requirement for gubernatorial candidates.
The
Legislature’s Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee has scheduled a hearing on
Youngblood’s bill for Monday, May 6. After Monday’s event, Youngblood told the Bangor
Passage
of LD 1309 would require the Legislature to reject Gov. Paul LePage’s proposal to cut $4 million in Clean Election Act funding
from the biennial budget that begins July 1.
Carey’s
bill, LD 1271, An Act to
Increase Transparency in Reporting of Party Committees, Political Action
Committees and Ballot Question Committees, calls for a series of actions
designed to create more transparency in campaign funding. Among them are:
•
Allowing harsher penalties for campaign finance violations that occur shortly
before Election Day, for failure to file as a political action or ballot
question committee and for late filing of required reports;
•
Requires party committees and PACs to report the names, addresses and employers
of people who make “bundled” contributions; and
•
Tightens reporting requirements for aggregate expenditures during the two weeks
before an election.
“Disclosure
is the foundation of the democratic process in America
~~~
The following is the
actual wording of the Bill for a Constitutional Amendment.
113TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
Proposing an amendment to the
Constitution of the United
States
the rights of the American
people that were taken away by the Supreme
Court’s decision in the
Citizens United case and related decisions, to
protect the integrity of our
elections, and to limit the corrosive influence
of money in our democratic
process.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
llllllllll
Mr. SANDERS introduced
the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on.
A BILL
Proposing an amendment to
the Constitution of the United
States to restore the rights
of the American people that
were taken away by the Supreme
Court’s decision in
the Citizens United case and
related decisions, to protect
the integrity of our
elections, and to limit the corrosive
influence of money in our
democratic process.
1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of
Representa
2 tives of the United States of America
3 That the following article is proposed as an amendment
4 to the Constitution of the United States
5 valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitu-
6 tion when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths
of
MCG13145 S.L.C.
2.
1 the several States within seven years after the date of
its
2 submission for ratification:
3 ‘‘ARTICLE—
4 ‘‘SECTION 1. Whereas the right to vote
in public elec
5 tions belongs only to natural persons as citizens of the
6 United States
7 and expenditures to influence the outcome of public elec8
8 tions
belong only to natural persons in accordance with
9 this Article.
10 ‘‘SECTION 2. Nothing in this Constitution shall be
11 construed to restrict the
power of Congress and the States
12 to protect the integrity and fairness of the electoral
proc
13 ess, limit the corrupting influence of private wealth in
pub
14 lic elections, and guarantee the dependence of elected
offi
15 cials on the people alone by taking actions which may in
16 clude the establishment of systems of public financing
for
17 elections, the imposition of
requirements to ensure the dis
18 closure of contributions and expenditures made to influ
19 ence the outcome of a public election by candidates, indi
20 viduals, and associations of individuals, and the
imposition
21 of content neutral
limitations on all such contributions
22 and expenditures.
23 ‘‘SECTION 3. Nothing in this Article shall be con
24 strued to
alter the freedom of the press.
MCG13145 s.l.c.
3.
1 ‘‘SECTION 4. Congress and the States shall have the
2 power to enforce this
Article through appropriate legisla
3 tion.’’
~~~
More Than One Million Comments Urge Obama
Administration to Reject Keystone XL
EcoWatch / News Report
Published: Sunday 28 April 2013
Opponents of Keystone
XL have submitted more than one million comments urging
President Obama, Secretary Kerry and the State Department to reject the
Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, following the publication of the latest deficient environmental review. There is
a common message among the opponents of the pipeline: Keystone XL is all risk and no reward.
The one million comments were collected from more than 20
organizations, including: 350.org, Alliance for Climate Education, Avaaz, Bold
Nebraska, CCAN, Center for Effective Government, Credo, Environmental Action,
Friends of the Earth, FWW, Greenpeace, League of Conservation Voters, League of
Women Voters, MoveOn, NWF, Oil Change International, Natural Resources Defense
Council, Rainforest Action Network, Sierra Club and SumofUs.org.
“It’s going to take
some time for State Department and the White House to go through a million
comments, but when they do they’ll see a common thread: people from every part
of the country in every walk of life think that this pipeline is bad for our
land, water and climate,” said Daniel Kessler, spokesperson for 350.org.
“Families from Arkansas ,
Michigan , Nebraska
and across the country have weighed-in in huge numbers urging President Obama
and Secretary Kerry to reject Keystone XL,” said Randy Thompson, Nebraska
More than 200
pipeline opponents testified at the State Department hearing last week.
The tar sands spill in Arkansas has raised new
concerns about pipeline safety and the specific risks associated with
transporting corrosive and toxic tar sands—especially near and through
important bodies of water. The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would be nearly
twice as wide as the pipeline that ruptured in Arkansas, and would carry almost
nine times as much tar sands oil every day. Already, there have been reports
of illness and other health impacts from
those in the areas surrounding the Arkansas
spill—mirroring complaints from three years ago in Kalamazoo
“The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is simply not in our
national interest,” said Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources
Defense Council. “It’s a profit scheme for big oil. It would feed our addiction
to fossil fuels, accelerate climate change and put our heartland farmers,
ranchers and communities at risk. It needs to be denied.”
Momentum and citizen action are on the side of those who
want to stop this risky pipeline. More than 90 percent of those who testified
in front of the State Department last week in Grand Island , NE
“Momentum is building nationwide against the Keystone XL
tar sands pipeline. These million comments make clear that the American people
know the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is all risk and no reward, and we hope
Secretary Kerry and President Obama come to the same conclusion and reject this
harmful pipeline,” said Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation
Voters.
“It’s time for the
president to turn his climate rhetoric into climate action, by going all in on
clean energy and rejecting the dirty and dangerous Keystone XL tar sands
pipeline once and for all,” said Michael
Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club.
President Obama said in his Earth Day proclamation,
“Nothing is more powerful than millions of voices calling for change.” Millions
of voices from across the political spectrum—landowners, native tribes, organic
ranchers, parents, health professionals and environmental activists—are using
their voices to call for President Obama and Secretary Kerry to reject Keystone
XL and protect our land, water and homes.
TransCanada, the
company behind Keystone XL, has a terrible safety record despite all their
claims of world-class safety. In 2010, TransCanada built a different pipeline
called “Keystone.” In its first year, that pipeline experienced 14 separate
spills in the U.S. U.S. and Canada
~~~
If the good Lord is willing and
the creek don't rise, I'll talk with you again next Tuesday May 7, 2013.
God
Bless You All
&
God
Bless the United States of
America
Floyd
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