Proud, proud, a little bit worried, proud

I am so proud of my friends, Paul Mulshine and Andi Getek, both of them former Daily Times reporters, for staying in their home in Bay Head, N.J., and doing what news reporters do -- report.
Paul, a columnist for the Newark Star Ledger, and Andi, a teacher who teaches journalism in a middle school in Monmouth County, stayed in their home, about seven or eight blocks from the beach, and are currently without food and water, except what they stockpiled, and without electricity.  I don't know, but I suspect, that their oldest daughter, Molly, also a reporter for a local newspaper/blog, also stayed.
It's what I would have done.  It's what any reporter I know would have done.  A reporter does not turn his or her back on the story of a lifetime in the face of a little danger.  War correspondents, so many of whom have been killed, do not opt out of danger.
The list is long, but I am thinking now of Marie Colvin, who you probably never heard of, who died so heroically in Homs, Syria earlier this year.
New Yorkers are the toughest people on earth and Newersyites are the second toughest people on earth, and Gov. Chris Christie and President Obama are heroes without equal.
I lived in New Jersey -- Camden, Trenton, Toms River - for 23 years of my life and I remember several wonderful moderate (wild-eyed liberal) Republicans, including Clifford Case, Edwin Forsythe and Millicent Fenwick (on whom the Doonesbury character was based) who held office during those years. 
If that fat-assed, obnoxious, insufferable Christie runs in 2016, I may find myself forcing my right hand with my left hand (think Dr. Strangelove) to pull the lever for him.
Hurray New Jersey.  We have your back.

Grandma's coming home, are you ready?

"Government does not create jobs."
"I will create 12 million new jobs."
"Teachers don't grow the economy." 
Mitt Romney has said each of these things.  At least one of these statements is not true.  Actually, I think none of them is true.
Government -- federal state and local -- actually creates one hellava lot of jobs and can cut one hellava lot of jobs.
Mitt Romney says 600,000 women have lost their jobs in the last four years.  True.  But what he doesn't say is that many of them teachers, social workers, state workers other public sector employees in states now controlled by Republican governors and legislatures intent on breaking public sector unions and cutting spending on the social safety net to the bone.
But the laid-off workers know that and their families know that and their mortgage companies and car payment companies and utilities providers know that.  Their grocery stores and doctors and clothing stores and insurance companies know that. 
Here in Pennsylvania, 232 unemployment division workers have been laid off themselves, making  it nearly impossible for all of those who have been recently unemployed to even apply for unemployment insurance.  Brilliant, (one-term) Governor Corbett!
One concession those unemployment division workers won -- they could submit their own unemployment benefits applications before they walked out the door.  
If the Republicans succeed in being elected, seize Congress and implement their wonderful plans to turn Medicaid into block grants to the states -- because the states know so much better how to spend our money -- you can expect Grandma and/or Grandpa to wind up on your doorstep or the nearest street corner very soon
Medicaid pays for hundreds of thousands of destitute seniors to be cared for in nursing homes.  By the very existence of this benefit, it creates thousands of nursing home jobs.
Want the states to take that away?  Congrats, here comes grandma.
The nursing homes will disappear and the seniors it provides with care (after they have spent every last dime they have except Social Security and Medicare), will not have any place to go but home -- your know, the place where if they knock on your door, you have to take them in.
But there are many other ways in which government creates jobs or services, both directly and indirectly.
Take for example, the military -- and by "the military," I do not mean the troops, I mean the military industrial complex that builds weapons and provides all the goods and services that the troops need at 200 bases around the world.
Just by giving out contracts to private companies, the government creates hundreds of thousands of jobs and  enables small companies to become big companies.  Mitt Romney keeps saying he wants to support small businesses, although by his definition, a small business can employ 10,000 workers.  That ain't your corner McDonalds or your local insurance broker.  
Here's a sampling of the military contracts that were given out to private companies just in the month of October in no particular size or order:
* $59 million to the Raytheon Corp. "for the modification of an existing contract to support the Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor"  and $240 million in other contracts for whatever, all given out in one day (Oct. 5). 
* $490 million to General Dynamics, Electric Boat, in Groton, Conn., for plans, drawings and technical data for a new nuclear submarine (just the plans, mind you), plus $72.5 million to "exercise an option" for the decommissioning of the U.S.S. Enterprise.(Oct. 16).
* $8.5 million to Boeing Corp., St. Louis, to "procure 12 virtual Mission Training System kits and spares in support of the T-45 aircraft platform" (Oct. 16).
* $9.4 million for research and development for the Air Force Radiation Effects Laboratory (Oct. 16).
*$45 million to Communications and Power LLC for a "simplified driver traveling wave tube to be used by the Navy and Missile Defense Agency" (Oct. 3).
* $21 million to J. W. Clark Enterprises"for painting and vinyl wall covering throughout Hampton Roads, Va." (Oct. 3).  Pretty sure they mean the military installations in and around Hampton Roads.   Now there's a small painting company that went big. 
* $90 million for airfield pavement construction services at Anderson Air Force Base, Guam (Oct. 12). Wonder if a local company won that contract or if they have to fly workers and equipment in. 
* $349 million to Raytheon Co. for "TOW missiles wireless precision-assault capability" (Oct. 8).
That's just a very small sample of the contracts that the federal government gives out every day to private companies to maintain our military and all its gadgets and all its paving and painting and food service and uniforms and flagpoles and jeeps and barracks mattresses and toothpaste and golf courses and officer's clubs and training facilities and who knows what else.
The moving of military families from one base to another (moving companies)  is huge as is family housing (construction companies) as is clothing (the garment industry) and shoes and hats and vehicles and soda machines and fences and sand bags and flights and doctors and dentists and hospitals and VA hospitals .... and ...
Our military is already larger and more powerful than the next 10, 20 or 25 countries combined.  When you see that we are spending this kind of money on it day in and day out, you just have to say, "Wow."  
How many employees do these contracts support?  How small did these companies start out and how big have they become? 
And these are direct jobs.  Think of all the indirect ones.  Some companies have to formulate all those tests we are constantly giving to our students, soldiers, civil service employees. 
Some companies have to develop the forms and training programs and manuals and Internet sites that our governments use to contact, register, screen and eliminate applicants for jobs, welfare, food stamps, unemployment, bids and contracts. Some company has to provide the vehicles, furniture and supplies that keeps government going.
Some companies develop the computer programs and supply the computers, printer, radios, walkie-talkies, nightsticks, Tasers, police cars, prisons, courtrooms, schools, playgrounds, sports equipment and offices our public employees use.
The truth is, not many small companies become big companies without having anything whatever to do with supplying or servicing government.
And government employs a great many people.  How many teachers, police, firemen, trash collectors, road construction workers, economists, agricultural specialists, water and electric workers, state, county and municipal workers, doctors, nurses, janitors, judges, bailiffs, prison guards, parole officers, social workers, school nurses, bus drivers and cafeteria workers do we employ every single day?
Hell yes the government creates and sustains jobs, scads and scads of jobs.
Here's the bottom line -- government is an industry, perhaps the biggest industry we have left.  We are all shareholders in it and all consumers of it.  
No matter who is elected, we will all have to pay more taxes to support this industry.  That is the pain that is coming. 
But perhaps if we keep government employees working and taking home a paycheck, they can pay their own taxes and mortgages and bills and share our pain.  Otherwise, we will be paying for them, but they will not be paying for us. 

Send this around the world

How can anyone vote for this man?

The two people pictured above are employees of Sensata Technologies in Freeport, Ill., owned by Bain Capital, which is in the process of shutting the 170-employee company down and outsourcing its production of thermostats and circuit breakers to China.

Now we all know that Mitt Romney is retired from Bain Capital and is no longer directing its operations but still continues to reap millions of dollars in retirement income from the company each year.
Back in July the employees sent an open letter to Romney asking him to use his influence to keep the profitable factory open and save their jobs.
"It's not right that our good American jobs are being sent to China. It's not right that you stand to get even richer off of our loss and pain," the letter said.
"We know that you can take action to stop the offshoring of our jobs. You are running for president, promising to create good jobs. You can start keeping that promise today by stepping in and saving our jobs," it continues.  
Romney never responded.
Cheryl Randecker is the first signer of the letter as you can see in this PDF.According to the Huffington Post, Cheryl is 52 and is a 33-year Sensata veteran so it’s a safe bet she never had any other full-time job.  She received her 60-day layoff notice shortly after Labor Day and her job will end the day before Election Day.
Cheryl will become one of that 47 percent that Mitt Romney doesn't care about. She’ll apply for unemployment.  She may have to get food stamps and she probably won’t pay much in income tax next year.  If she’s lucky, she’ll get a job as a waitress or working at McDonald’s.
Now that Romney has released his 2011 tax returns, we can see why he hasn't stepped in to save any of those 170 jobs heading for China.  He transferred $700,000 of Sensata stock to Tyler Charitable Foundation, a tax-exempt non-profit he controls and thereby saved himself a bundle.  
He gets to deduct the full value of the stock, which, if he were taxed at 35 percent would be a $250,000 benefit and at 15 percent, amounts to about $100,000.  
Defenders will say two things about this:  1) he doesn’t control Bain and 2) he didn’t even take as large a charitable deduction as he could have for 2011.  
As to the first, he benefits mightily from this company that he started, ran and still profits from.  As to the second, if he loses the election he can still amend his 2011 return and take that full deduction.
Either way, he profits and ordinary, hard-working people and the little town they live in all lose.
Romney has an ad on TV that says something like: “President Obama and I both care about the poor and Middle Class.  The only difference is, I will make their lives better.”
Really?  Really?  Who believes that?

Um, maybe it's the emergency contraception

Maybe rape victims can get help here.

So you have this guy, Republican U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, running for the U.S. Senate in Missouri who sits on the House Science Committee – he sits on the House Science Committee – saying that victims of “legitimate rape” don’t get pregnant because they have some magic biological mechanism that shuts down their fertility.

I think there might be something else at work here: 

Here in America, victims of “legitimate rape,” I mean “forcible rape,” I mean “violent, brutal, super-traumatic stranger rape” tend, if they survive, to report the attack pretty quickly to the police.  And the police take them to hospitals.  

                                         Taylor Ferrara clues you in to legitimate rape.
And, the doctors at the hospitals offer these victims emergency contraception, which short-circuits any incipient conception.  That's why they call it "contra-ception."  This is a service that I doubt very many rape victims turn down because they're thinking, "Wow, I'm just thrilled to be pregnant even if it took enduring a rape to do it."

So there you have it – the magic lady parts that spring into action during “legitimate rape” is only ordinary, garden variety morning after Plan B.  But, there's a problem:  We all know right-wing, pro-life know-nothings like Akin consider emergency contraception abortion and they would gladly deny it to rape victims and every other woman on the planet if they had half a chance because, you know, the sanctity of life.

What about those other rape victims – the 13-year-old repeatedly violated by her father or uncle or stepfather, the college student who drinks too much or is slipped a date rape drug at a frat party or bar, the kidnap victim held prisoner in her attacker’s back yard for years, the woman who can’t fight back when her date (or her boyfriend or her husband) decides that no mean yes?

They’re obviously not victims of “legitimate rape” so if they get pregnant they should just shut up and have the resulting kid and raise the resulting kid and not “blame” the resulting kid because their lives, their mental health, their families and their futures have been ruined.  No, the only consideration is that precious little bundle of cells growing in their bellies.

Until the little bastards get here.  Then it’s every millionaire for himself.  Cut food stamps, slash Medicaid to the bone, get rid of WIC (the Women Infants and Children nutrition program), cut Head Start, reduce unemployment benefits, cut welfare, starve poor school districts, close public housing, close homeless shelters, shut down homeless feeding programs.  

Made rape victims pay for their own rape kits.

Heck, cutting WIC even affects the unborn because their poor pregnant mothers can't get the nutrition they need.  But that's somehow okay.  Let them all starve, let them wear rags, let them die in the streets (I mean back alleys) or hills. Just not in our sight, please.  

The poor "born" deserve what they get because their lazy, fornicating,drinking, drugging, undeserving, jobless, foreclosed-on, under-educated parents don't have defense jobs, haven't joined the military and just don't measure up to Conservative standards of American rugged individualism and self-reliance. 

We all know what's being said here: No abortion, no exceptions, no matter what.  But in order to dehumanize rape victims so you can deny them abortion services in their direst hour of need, you first have to distinguish between "real" rape victims and the pretend kind and then you have to convince yourself that "real" rape victims don't really need abortion anyway because their own bodies take care of the problem. 

This is not just what Akin believes, it is what a great many "pro-life" advocates believe, though they're not dumb enough to say it out loud.  

Gosh, and Republicans wonder why they have a gender gap problem.  They also have a "compassion gap" problem the size of the Grand Canyon.

The joys of federalism -- tobacco edition

There is this weird thing that's going on in Florida -- and only Florida -- in which long-time smokers, or in most cases their survivors, are winning millions upon millions of dollars from tobacco companies.
Only Floridians are allowed to sue.  Only Floridians (or their families) who can prove that they were addicted to cigarettes before it became public knowledge that cigarettes were addictive killers, got cancer (and in most cases died) have a hope in hell of winning. 
                                                                         * * *
Here's what happened as best as I can figure out:  In 1994, a class action lawsuit was filed in a Florida state court against all of the major tobacco companies.  There ensued a lot of really complicated legal stuff over the next 12 years, including a separate suit by the states themselves against the tobacco companies culminating in the "Master Settlement Agreement" in which the tobacco companies agreed to pay hundreds of billions of dollars to the states to pay their Medicaid costs for treating indigent smokers, and individual suits in most other states were somehow verboten as part of the agreement.
But in this one case, now known as Engle v. Liggett Group (Fla. 2006), the Miami trial judge certified a nationwide class of people with smoking-related diseases and survivors of deceased smokers.  A jury eventually heard the case and awarded damages of more than $145 billion.  A state appeals court later said the class can only be made up of Florida residents.
Then the Florida Supreme Court in 2006 decertified the class altogether and tossed out the $145 billion verdict, but it ruled that class members -- 8,000 of them -- could file individual suits using the Engle jury's findings that the tobacco companies lied about the dangers and addictiveness of smoking over decades.
                                 * * *
Sooo, ever since that ruling, trial after trial has been going on in the Florida courts with varying results.  The family of one woman won $300 million, later reduced to $37 million, another family won $5 million, later overturned, the widow of a construction worker got $75 million.
Overall, the families have won nearly 70 percent (42 cases) of the trials held so far and the tobacco companies have won about 30 percent (19).  One verdict has been overturned and several large awards have been reduced in the Florida appeals courts.  Interestingly, in April the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the tobacco companies' appeals of four cases -- thus upholding verdicts of $28 million, $15.8 million, $3.4 million and $6.2 million.
In doing so, the high court also affirmed the Engle ruling itself -- that is, the one that decertified the class, overturned the $145 billion verdict but said plaintiffs could use the jury's findings to pursue their own suits -- in Florida only. 
And so, the trials go on.  Only 7,930 or so to go.
In a recent case, a Florida appeals court ordered a new trial on damages because the smoker's husband was listed on the verdict form as supplying his wife with cigarettes, allegedly contributing to her death and thus perhaps prejudicing the jury to award low damages of only $500,000.
In another case, a Florida appellate court has thrown out a $79.2 million jury award against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.  finding that the $7.2 million compensatory damages portion was larger than the evidence at trial reasonably supported.
Some attorneys are making boatloads of money, some appellate judges are beholden to the tobacco companies for their election campaign money, some families are really making out big-time, some are losing heart-breaking amounts of money they thought they had won from sympathetic juries.  The tobacco companies are employing phalanxes of lawyers and the only fun aspect of the whole thing is watching juries take those companies for astronomical amounts of money.  

What I find so strange is this:  How did we get to the point that only Floridians can sue for wrongdoing that the tobacco companies committed on millions of people nationwide?   Or, since the states settled with the tobacco companies in 1995, why is it that anybody is allowed to sue? Or why isn't everybody? 
It's all part and parcel of our very odd and somewhat rare federal system in which the federal government and each of our 50 states can make separate and sometimes very unequal laws.
You do see the occasional suit in some other state, but they have become rare as statutes of limitation have expired, not to mention smokers.   Only the Engle class members are guaranteed the right to sue. 
It is not that way in most other countries where one set of laws govern the entire country.
Ain't life grand in these United States?

How an ALEC bill becomes a law

Just had to share this with you.  From Mark Fiore at PRWatch.org.