Restrictive Voting Laws

So far this year there have been at least 92 restrictive voting laws introduced in 33 states to combat the unsubstantiated issue of voter fraud.  There are 13 bills pending in 5 states, 5 restrictive bills are currently active in 2 states and 8 states have already passed 9 pieces of legislation restricting voting rights.*

As I have stated numerous times, I believe that voter suppression is a defining issue of our democracy.  Will we allow our elections to to be decided by denying individuals their constitutionally guaranteed right to vote by gerrymandering districts and disenfranchising voters with restrictive laws?  How can we fight for the ideals of democracy for people around the world and yet deny those same rights to our own people?

Only time will tell.

*All data courtesy of MSNBC's "UP with Steve Kornacki"

The Govenrment Shutdown and Giving the American People What They Want

As the GOP battle to repeal, replace, defund or delay the Affordable Care Act, AKA ObamaCare, we hear one Republican after another saying they are only doing what the American people want.  We hear it over and over like a drum beat; "the American people do not want this...blah blah blah".  In one of the latest WSJ/NBC polls 38% of respondents say the law is a good idea versus 43% who say it’s a bad idea.  So, Republicans are listening to and supporting an entire 43% of the American people.  

How admirable of them. 

What I want to know is why are they not listening to and supporting the American people when it comes to passing some common sense laws requiring stiffer background checks on ALL gun purchases?  A Quinnipiac University poll taken Sept. 23-29, 2013 found that 89% of the American people polled support requiring background checks for ALL gun purchases.  This includes 82% of the Republicans, 95% of Democrats and 89% of Independents.  In addition, 74% of NRA members also support universal background checks.

Obviously, the Republicans are having an issue with what I like to call SHL or Selective Hearing Loss.  They will shut the government down for 43% of "the American people" who do not like ObamaCare, but do not hear the 90% of those same American people who want universal background checks.  

Yeah, it's all about what the American people want.

Understanding the Debt Ceiling Crisis

When I read Facebook posts and tweets about the debt ceiling it is clear that there are still many people that do not realize what the debt ceiling really is.  This explains why they do not also understand the consequences of default.  Here is a quick Economics 101 explanation.  According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury website: 

     "The debt limit is the total amount of money that the United States government is authorized to borrow to meet its existing legal obligations, including Social Security and Medicare benefits, military salaries, interest on the national debt, tax refunds, and other payments. The debt limit does not authorize new spending commitments. It simply allows the government to finance existing legal obligations that Congresses and presidents of both parties have made in the past."  

Simply put, raising the debt limit - or ceiling - allows the Federal Government to pay the bills that were created by a budget that was already passed.  I cannot emphasize that enough.  This does not allow the Government to spend more money.  In other words, they all got together and said we are going to fund programs that cost $X but we only have $Y to pay for them so we will just borrow the additional money.  In effect, we are putting the needed revenues on the Government credit card.  This is called deficit spending.  Now the time has come to borrow the money to pay for those programs; to pay our credit card bill that has come due.  Again; this is money that has already been authorized and spent.  However, now the Republicans are saying they will not allow that to happen.  They will not allow the Government to borrow that money to pay those bills.  Again; they already agreed to spend it.  What would happen to your credit if you refused to pay your credit card bill?  Now imagine that your credit card is the basis for the world economy.  

We already saw our credit rating take a hit from AAA to AA status in 2011 when the Republicans took the country to the brink of default before President Obama caved to their demands.  To be fair, the President has agreed to sit down and discuss spending - and new revenues - but not while the GOP is holding the full faith and credit of the United States hostage to get their way.  This is not the way we do things in America.  At least it's not the way we are supposed to do things but more and more this is becoming the case with the GOP.  This is not just a debt limit fight this time but a fight for the very way our democracy is supposed to function.  

Stand firm Mr. President.

Taking Care of the Blue Marble

All of these news headlines appeared on the same day:

Mercury contamination in fish expected to rise in coming decades  

In US, 'rivers on Rolaids' are legacy of acid rain

Ocean Acidification Will Make Climate Change Worse

Russian Arctic: Wildlife at risk from oil drilling

Take a moment to click on each link and read each of the articles.  We have mercury levels in fish rising out of control threatening a vital link in the ecosystem.  Acid rain causing high levels of alkaloids in streams and rivers making them dangerous for wildlife and crop irrigation.  That same acid rain is making our oceans more acidic threatening fragile coral reefs and potentially speeding up the rate of global warming.  And finally, Russian plans to drill in the arctic that will threaten wildlife habitats.  

To put it mildly, this is scary stuff.

When are we going to wake up and start taking care of this home that we call Earth so that our children, their children and their children's children can enjoy its wonders as we have.

The NSA vs. Facebook

In recent weeks people across the country have been railing against the NSA archiving of all sorts of personal data associated with them in it's effort to keep us safe from terrorist attacks.  However, everyday at this same time, people all across this great nation of ours share mounds upon mounds of personal data willingly on social media sites - Facebook in particular - with no thought what-so-ever as to what is happening with that data.  We trust that the "security settings" provided us in Facebook will prevent unauthorized persons from gaining access to information about us that we only want to share with "friends". 

Now it appears that whatever trust we had in Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook has been severely compromised.  It seems that Facebook has been keeping "shadow profiles" of us that contain more personal information about us than we have been providing and that for approximately a year a data leak exposed this data to untold numbers of people.  What damage this leak may have caused - or will cause - has yet to be determined.  I highly advise you to read the linked story for more information.  What I for one would like to know is whether this is the extent to which Facebook is collecting our personal data or whether this is just the tip of a very large iceberg.

So.  We have this massive data collection by the NSA being done to ensure our security with oversight by the court, Congress and the Executive branch of government.  And we have Facebook collecting unauthorized personal data to be used for undisclosed purposes with zero oversight from anyone.  It is all personal data.  It is all being collected but for very different reasons.  Why haven't we heard more about Facebook's activity?

A New Take On The Guns Don't Kill People Arguement

For years gun advocates have used this reasoning to defend gun possession:

"Guns don't kill people - People kill people"

If one follows that logic than it is people we need to worry about in the gun debate.  Need to simplify it further?  People are the problem.  It serves to reason then that we need to take a closer look at the people who are handling those guns.  It then serves to reason that we need a process that will allow us to that closer look.  Unbelievable as it may seem, we already have that process:  the background check.  We just need to make it universal for all sales. 

Keystone Pipeline or Clean Renewable Energy

The recent events in Arkansas are just another example of why President Obama must take a deep breath and not be bullied into approving the Keystone pipeline.  Already there is evidence that ExxonMobil is going to great lengths to cover up how bad this spill really is.  The original Exxon estimate was "a few thousand barrels" but the EPA is putting the spill at around 7,000 barrels.  

This follows the 2011 ExxonMobile spill from a pipeline carrying oil across Montana dumping 42,000 gallons of oil into the Yellowstone river.  Then there was the 2010 spill in Michigan that polluted the Talmadge Creek and about 36 miles of the Kalamazoo river.  

Read the documentation.  Do some research.  We already have over 127,000 miles of pipeline buried underground and criss-crossing the country.  The homeowners in Arkansas didn't even know that there was a pipeline running under their homes.  

This "oil" is a disaster already in the making.  Look at the video again and pay special attention to the 1:08 mark.  Just look at "high tech" solution that Exxon is employing to clean up this spill.  It looks like they bought up all the Bounty paper towels in town and tossed them on the spill.  This is what we have to look forward to with Keystone.   

Profits and Greed

On  February 26, 2013 we saw this headline:  Profits at U.S. banks up 37% - CBS News:  The very next day we were treated with the news that JPMorgan Chase would be cutting 17,000 jobs.  Today - despite the uncertainty in the economy with the sequester taking hold - the Dow hit a new record high while at the same time we still see the unemployment rate remaining high.  What's up?  Simple.  It's that major greed factor setting in again.  The wealth is piling up at the top and at this point it isn't even trickling down to those of us in the struggling, disappearing Middle Class.  To get an excellent graphical representation of the true extent of wealth inequality in America check out this video.  It is both informative and enlightening.