Chronicle Joins Dark Side to Keep Consumers in the Dark

In today's SF Chronicle, an editorial urges a no vote on Proposition 37, the GMO labeling measure on the November ballot. Prop. 37 would require all food sold in stores in California containing genetically modified organisms or GMOs to disclose that clearly on the label.  It's a modest step for consumer awareness.  Don't you want to know what you are eating and feeding to your kids?

The makers of these organisms, engineered into plants to make them more pesticide resistant, give them longer shelf lives, and otherwise modify their genetic make up chemically, are spending major bucks to come up with spurious arguments why this simple measure is bad for the consumers.  Who is behind the No of Prop. 37 campaign? major chemical companies like Dow, Monsanto and others, who stand to profit big time by keeping you, the consumer, in the dark.   They apparently don't think "better living through chemistry" is a motto that will win the hearts and minds of the American people in the 21st century so now they bring up the specter of citizen lawsuits, and the unscrupulous lawyers who will take advantage of the law to make millions for themselves and drive mom and pop retailers out of business.

Or that's the line in today's Chronicle editorial:  "We do not have an issue with the concept of letting Californians know whether the food they eat has been genetically modified in some way....Perhaps the main problem with Prop. 37 is that it invites citizen lawsuits as a primary means of enforcing the labeling law."

They then cite what they claim to be abuses of California's Prop. 65, which requires notice of toxic materials like lead and cancer causing chemicals in products sold in California.  Yes, we all know there are those who exploit the law for their own benefit. It happens with all aspects of life.   But that does not justify the greater evil of allowing unchecked chemically altered foods to be foisted upon unsuspecting consumers with no consequence.

And without citizen lawsuits, with the possibility of recovering attorney's fees, who would bring scofflaws to task?  That's why these provisions are put into laws like the California Environmental Quality Act, the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air act.  When these laws are broken, people, the environment, the air we breathe, the water we drink and yes, the food we eat, all suffer.  Who better to be able to stop violations than the citizens designed to be protected. The chemical companies won't do it.  And allowing recovery of attorney fees makes it possible for ordinary people who can't afford to hire attorneys to fight long battles against much better funded opponents to protect them from potentially life-threatening, environment-damaging toxins.

A flimsy excuse for not voting for a sensible law that, after all, only labels what's in the product. it doesn't outlaw GMO's.  Monsanto and Dow and can continue their food experiments to their hearts' content.  They just have to tell us which foods they are experimenting on.  I guess their biggest fear is an informed public will choose not to use their family as guinea pigs in the chemical companies' experiment.

To read the other side of the story, go to http://www.carighttoknow.org     

Debra Defends Romney on the 47% - with about 47% enthusiasm

Trying hard to justify Romney's blooper

Here she goes again. In today’s Chronicle, Debra Saunders, who I believe is secretly pulling out her hair by its roots over having to yet again, defend her boy Romney, as the good little Republican she is, uses some convoluted reasoning to tell us that Romney’s statement at that now infamous fundraiser, caught on video, and broadcast all over the internet and picked up by both the mainstream and the down stream media all week – and who took that video anyway and how did it find its way to Mother Jones I wonder?)  about 47% of Americans not paying taxes is “in the right neighborhood.” (Poor choice of words, as Romney’s neighborhood is on the other side of the tracks and up the hill from the people he purports to be talking about. I guess he has a good telescope to keep an eye on the peons below.)

While acknowledging it was a mistake to lump in the likes of senior citizens who have worked their whole life paying into the system, and now live on their meager Social Security, she says Romney “also hit on a truth: the percent of filers who pay payroll taxes for Social Security, but not federal income taxes has grown a lot.”

Taxes are taxes are taxes

Note:    Payroll taxes ARE income taxes. They come out of your income.  They go into a federal pot.  They may or may not be around to help you when you reach the age of retirement.  (Not, if Ryan/Romney have their way – they’d rather you put your money in the all mighty market and let the whims of economic forces, which the people who live in their neighborhood control, determine whether you get a pot of gold or potluck at the end of your working days). And only about 17% of people pay neither of these taxes. These include the elderly and the "working poor."

Saunders concedes Washington had good reason to provide some tax relief for the working poor, but parrots Romney’s belief that this somehow results in “over half of voters [supporting] any scheme designed to expand the federal government secure in the knowledge that they likely will not have to pay for it.”

Huh?  Where did that come from?   Over half the voters want the government to expand the government?  Which part of the government?  The military? I don’t think so.  Homeland security?  Probably not that either.   Maybe the part that builds roads and bridges, and puts out fires and catches criminals, and protects our air and water and food safety.    Those could all use shoring up.   But the part about not having to pay for it comes right out of the air. Or the Romney talking points.

The working poor pay taxes. Plain and simple. Stop lying about that.  Even if they get some federal breaks, they pay FICA, they pay sales tax, they pay property tax (and don’t tell me that if they rent, they don’t. Savvy landlords factor their tax load into that rent, and in poorest neighborhoods, abuses abound). And don't get me started on retires. They paid their whole working life into the system.  Do  Debra and her man Romney really expect us to believe these folks want more government without having to pay for it? 

The price of civilization

As Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said, “Paying taxes is the price of admission to a civilized society ”  (or some variation on that. In a legal opinion he said: "Taxes are what we pay for civilized society" and he is reported to have said (in a book by Justice Felix Frankfurter on Holmes' life) to a young secretary:  "I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization." 

What kind of society do we want?  Do we really want only pharmaceutical companies researching drugs to cure diseases? Do we want private toll roads?   Private fire departments?  Sick people too poor to pay for private insurance or private doctors, spreading germs to all?  Kids too ignorant to get any kind of job because their parents can’t send them to the private schools?  Or maybe we do. Maybe we want kids to work in factories for a pittance, like Romney saw in China, where the barbed wire is to keep people out, because a pittance looks good when you’re starving on the street.

The big lie - Tax cuts for the rich create jobs

And one last point. Debra lambasts the Obama proposal for increased taxes on the rich, reading from her Republican playbook, that to do so would “give business another reason to sit on their capital instead if hiring new workers.” Well, Debra, or someone, anyone, please show me the jobs, created in this country because of the Bush tax cuts.  Where are they, what are they?  According to one report by Forbes writer Rick Ungar (admittedly calling himself the "token leftie, much as Debra refers to herself as the "token Republican") in July of this year, during the Bush years, the increase in employment in the United States was between 4.5 and 7%.   That's a lot less than in the years without major tax cuts for the wealthy. So much for "job creators." 

As Ungar says:  Putting more money in the pockets of the wealthy may create a few jobs for the foreign bankers who get to count the extra money funneled into into the off-shore accounts of the rich, but there is nothing in the way of actual data to support the notion that putting more money into the pockets of the wealthiest Americans will inure to the benefit of those looking for work.

Why Organic is Better - Let me count the ways

A few days ago, my husband, who is not a true blue organic fan, told me his lips had been tingling for two days.  He thought maybe he was getting the dreaded cold sore, but nothing developed and the tingling continued.  Then it dawned on him.  The thing that had triggered the mystery lip-discomfort.  He had eaten a prune the night before.

 "was it organic?" I asked.

"No," he said sheepishly.

"Pesticide residue," I said.

"But I washed it." said he.

"Doesn't matter, if it was over-doused with poison."

"Yuck," he said.

Pesticide residue in our food is just one of the reasons that eating organic food is better for you. Despite what you might have read in the newspapers lately about there being no more nutrition in organic food than in conventionally grown food (a dubious claim, if you read the literature and comments closely), consider these other reasons to grow and eat organic:

• Better for the land.  Soil that is not saturated with pesticides is more healthy, using natural mulch for fertilizer and no pesticides to linger in the ground, leach out to the water table or run-off to nearby streams and lakes.

• Better for the people who grow and pick the produce we eat. Farmworkers have long been on the front line of the pesticide load.  Several of the early farmworker struggles were over the use of heavy pesticides in the fields. Farmworkers and their families experienced higher rates of cancer and reproductive disorders than the general population.Have we really forgotten all that?

• No GMO's (genetically modified organisms), which is better for the health of the land as well as the people eating the food. Why? GMO food has been "modified" to resist pesticides that kills weeds and bugs, so the pesticide load is likely to be high, not to mention the issue of mutations in insect and plant life that adapt to the new conditions. 

• Promotes local agriculture over agribiz.  Wouldn't you like to know where your food comes from? Smaller farms growing organic produce just makes more sense.  Get to know your local farmers, if you live in a productive area of the Country, and most areas are productive at least part of the year. Even if they don't grow purely organically, chances are they will uses fewer pesticides and artificial fertilizers, and if not, start pressuring them as consumers and neighbors.  Support your local food economy and it will support you.

Down to the Wire - Last Minute Cash and Flash on the Campaign Trail

It's after Labor Day and the absentee ballots go our in one month. And you have no money.  What to do?  Panic of course. Then call the Campaign Doctor. Can't find one in the Yellow Pages?  Let us help.

Go back over the names in your data base, spreadsheet, Rolodex, stack of business cards, Christmas card list, high school yearbook, book club members, church members, PTA members, co-workers, and everyone on your block.  Call them up or stop by their home if they're near by and you already have a relationship with them. Hand them an envelope and ask for money.

Oh, that sounds easy, you say. Hi, here's an envelope, give me some dough. Ha!  Not quite as simple as that, but try these few not-terribly-difficult-or-painful steps and watch the cash start coming in:

• Make the call.  If you don't pick up the phone, the money won't come.  So start dialing for dollars now.

• Have a script.  All you need is something simple like this:  Hi Hillary, have you got a minute? You know I'm running for dogcatcher here in Pleasant Valley. Well, the election is coming closer and I need your help to make sure my mail gets to the absentee voters. There are more of them today then ever. I need to raise $10,000 to finish my mailing. You know how expensive the post office is these days! Can I count on a $500 contribution from you and Bill? 

(Now you pause, take a deep breath and sweat for a five count)

Hilary has to say something. It's likely to be along these lines: Well, that's a little steep for us, Michelle; I'll talk to Bill tonight and see if we can come up with $250. We'd love to see you as dogcatcher. I'll call you back tomorrow.

Your turn: Thanks Hil!   I am under a bit of a time crunch. I think you will like the pieces we are sending.  My opponent has been telling some untruths and I need to set the record straight.

Hil: Of course, Micelle. Talk to you then.

See?  Nothing to it. Just be upbeat, specific about what the money will be used for and ask.  The pause is crucial or you will find yourself talking them down.  Let them consider what they can give.  Of course it's best to have some idea of what they are capable of giving first. And of course, know if there are donation limits in your race.

And it's better yet to have done this several months ago, so you have a war chest and your last minute calls are just to shore it up, not get the whole campaign rolling.  But if you find yourself in a crisis, try the phone, and leave no stone, or relative, unturned. 
  

•  Follow up - And if Hilary forgets to call you back, call her and offer to pick up the     check personally. Then do it. And thank her profusely.  Now she is invested in you and your campaign and maybe she'll even walk a precinct or call her lists on your behalf too.

Debra Debra Debra - Come back to Earth!

I cringe to think what Debra Saunders, the so-called "token" Republican of the San Francisco Chronicle will do to Clinton's speech and then to Obama's, considering the mash up she made of Michelle's.  In a weirdly constructed column, Saunders entitled:  First lady: You, too, can be Mitt Romney, today, she takes the Obamas to task for having received student loans, as described in Michelle Obama's stirring speech at the Democratic Convention on Tuesday.


This is the weird part. I had to read these three short paragraphs several times and I must say I am stumped . Maybe you can hep me understand what this all means if anything, to Ms. Saunders:
 
     "As I listened the first lady talk about what her family did to make sure she got a first-class education and how she and her husband struggled to pay off their hefty student loans, I couldn't help but think that Barack and Michelle Obama would not be the fine people they are today if they hadn't had to stretch themselves to get ahead.

     "So why do they seem to think the government should hand out more taxpayer-backed grants and loans to today's college and graduate students? If someone else had handed their college and law-school educations to the Obamas, they'd be Mitt Romney.

    "Yet they bash Romney for not having to work as hard as they had to in order to get where they are today."

Ok, let's parse those sentences. First she says Michelle and Barack are fine people because of the struggles they had to get ahead.  So far so good.  Then she asks why they think government should help other people get ahead.  Huh?   What does this mean?  Others should not get what they got?  Which is really not "getting" anything, but the opportunity to got to college and then work hard to pay back the loans that paid for their education.  Is this what she's saying.

And then, say what? These hard working people who want others to have the same opportunities they did bash Willard Mitt Romney because he had to "work as hard as they had to in order to be where they are today?"

Did the editor leave out a crucial sentence?  Is Debra really saying that Romney a) had to work hard and b) is now where the Obamas are today? 

I don't get it.  Romney came from wealth.  When he went to college he lived in a basement and ate spaghetti with the lovely Ann through choice, not circumstances.  And poor Ann just never could never understood why he did that.  Something about the Mormon missionary experience he had to get out of his system I guess.  Did he take out student loans? Maybe, I don't think so.  (and so what?) Is he now where the Obamas are today?  Not by a long shot. He's on Jupiter and they are simply living on Planet Earth. And this is meant by way of analogy, not to slam Mr. Romney for being out of touch with the home planet (even though he is.) 

(For those who don't like to interrupt their reading to click through to arcane internet sites, and to paraphrase Bill Clinton, here's the score: Romney $250 million; Obamas not quite $6 million. No, it's not chump change, but Barack Obama didn't have a rich daddy who gave him his first stock options or who bought him a home when he got tired of the "dump" he lived in in college.)

I guess Saunders is drinking whatever they've been pouring over in Romney world. Because she finishes up her column with the wholly unsubstantiated statement that "More student aid leads to higher tuition; higher tuition leads to record college debt." 

Not that I don't think some unscrupulous college chancellors in both public and private schools wouldn't jump at any excuse to bloat their own salaries as we have seen all too often in our own UC system, but come on.  If that's the case, don't punish the students, change the system.   Does Saunders really believe people shouldn't get student loans?  Does she really believe Mitt had to work as hard as the Obamas ever in his life?

Earth to Debra, come on back down here and let's get you some help.  Seriously, making her write this column every single day of the Convention might just be too much to ask of a nice San Francisco Republican.

 

Poor Little Desperate Debra Saunders

Really Reaching Saunders:

Poor Debra Saunders, she's getting a little desperate this week.  It must be tough being a Republican in a Democratic Town, but she gets a column in the San Francisco Chronicle at least twice a week, and more this week.  (One of these days they'll get around to firing her and hiring me, or at least inviting me to post my blogs as a counter point, but I'm not holding my breath.)  First there was her column taking the Democrats to task for saying that the Republican's (Mitt's) economic plan was to give tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans while taxing the middle class more to pay for it.  Well, says Debra there's no evidence for that. The Dems just use the analysis provided by the Tax Policy Center.  

Well, Debra, where's your evidence that it's not true?  She doesn't cite a single reference for her supposition. What the Tax Policy Center did was analyze what they know of Mitt's plan pointing out they have to take what he says and make assumptions based on that because "Governor Romney has not offered a fully-specified plan. He has been explicit about the tax cuts he has in mind, including a one-fifth reduction in marginal tax rates from today’s level, which would drop the top rate from 35 percent to 28 percent and a cut in capital gains and dividend taxes for families with incomes below $200,000. He and his team have also said that reform should be revenue-neutral and not increase taxes on capital gains and dividends. But they have not provided any detail about what tax preferences they would cut to make up lost revenue."

Such a revenue neutral plan would logically "reduce taxes for high-income households, requiring higher taxes on middle- or low-income households. I doubt that’s his intent, but it is an implication of what we can tell about his plan so far." Understanding TPC’s Analysis of Governor Romney’s Tax Plan by Donald Marron.

Even Debra was forced to admit that Romney was vague about his policies, and that the Tax Policy Center's assumptions were logical given the information provided.  But, she continues, Romney would never raise taxes on the middle class.  Don't hold your breath.

Pro-life Saunders:

In today's column, she asks "where are the pro life Democrats."  Newsflash for Debra, we are all pro-life. We are also mostly pro-choice.  As in women should be able to make their own choices about their own bodies. It's not one or the other.  The anti-choice crowd calls themselves pro-life, but they are for the most part, anti-life, after that life is a born human being anyway.

Easy to love the fetus. No muss, no fuss.  No cost except for pre-natal care, which the I'm not sure how the Republicans feel about paying for for poor women, but I can guess.  Obamacare, as we are all now calling it, is a truly pro-life program.  Just ask that mom of the little girl with the heart condition who won't be kicked off her insurance plan by the time she's five - unless Romney is elected.  

Two Faced Republicans

I guess flip flopping and contradictions are natural to Republicans. Romney was for Obamacare, when it was called Romneycare, and he instituted it in Massachusetts, before he was against it, and Paul Ryan, who is ready to disembowel Obamacare if he and Romney are elected, in 2010 requested a grant that would be funded from that program for his own State.  What's that old song from the cold war era - the era the Republicans want to take us back to?  Oh yeah, "Two Faces Have I" 

Invisible Antics at the Democratic National Convention

Watching the Republican Convention last week, when Clint Eastwood chatted with an empty chair supposedly occupied by an invisible Obama (by the way, little did he know that Obama really was in that chair, wearing his Superhero cloak of invisibility and taking it all very well!), I got to thinking how the Democrats can use the same trick in Charlotte. It was a show stopper you have to admit.

Here are a few ideas for how using a chair as a prop can boost ratings and poll numbers for Obama:

• 1.       Stephen Colbert interviews invisible Romney, asking him to explain his varying positions on women’s right to choose, health care, social security and other social issues from when he was Governor. Of course, you’d need two chairs for that, one on each side of the stage, and you’d probably need an invisible traffic cop to keep the two invisible Romneys from attacking each other.

• 2.       Obama interviews a copy of the Romney health care plan propped up in a chair, while an invisible page turner points to the pertinent topics where the two plans are identical.

• 3.       A whole line up of Massachusetts women, senior citizens, moms with babies and workers stand up very visibly on stage and thank Romney for his health care plan and give brief anecdotes on how it helped them in their times of need. Not nearly so witty as the empty chair routine maybe, but I hear Convention crowds go wild for real people.

• 4.       Invisible Paul Ryan dodges and weaves an invisible Todd Akin as he tells people his own plan for limiting abortion and protecting Medicare.  Real senior citizens can pelt him with mock vouchers from the wings.

Romney was so proud of his own Romney Care in Massachusetts, he featured it in his official portrait.

Not exactly as they say on Wait,Wait Don’t Tell Me, if any of these things happen at the Democratic Convention, we’ll be in for a rip roaring good show. 

Soylant Green, is it on the Republican Menu yet?

From our friends at the Pundit Pie blog:

We thought we’d be served some red meat by Paul Ryan in his Convention speech last night, but I felt like I got my blood sucked instead.                                                                   

I can still feel the fang marks.  He not only looks like a vampire, his seductive blue eyes and deceptive boyish good looks are geared toward taking you by surprise when the fangs go in.  Soon we may all be a nation of the undead if the Republican have their way.    

                                         Separated at birth?  Ryan and Eddie Munster

The meat they offering is just pink slime dressed up in Republican red white and blue.  Or is it something worse?

No red meat, or even rattlesnake that tastes like chicken, they offer up a diet of lies, devoid of nutrition, but sold in Prime-Time to a nation hungry for answers to the question of why they can’t find work, their kids can’t afford school, their homes are about to be foreclosed on.   Why they can’t afford health insurance.  Ryan glibly says Trust us, we’ll save Medicare.   But they neglect to tell you their savings will cost you dearly when you get to the check- out line and find that you have to pick up more of a bill, despite paying into it all these years.

They say they will create 12 million jobs, but they don’t say how or where.  (And oh surprise, the projection of 12 million jobs is about right for the economy anyway, that is, nothing they do has anything to do with it, and if they really were the job creators, they’re figures would be way higher than average.) Not everyone can come out of a community college and go into investment banking. Will these jobs be in China? Maybe they’ll export American workers the way they exported their money.  Set up work camps in China where you can answer tech support questions for pennies a day and sleep five to a room.

Their biggest lie is that giving tax breaks to the rich makes them into “job creators.”  Well, where’s the beef?, as the little old lady used to say.  Mitt Romney says trust me to fix what’s wrong with this country; I’m a successful businessman.   But success to these parasites means something very different than it to does t the average American taxpayer.  According  to Rolling Stone, Bain Capital, which Romney boasts about, was nothing but another blood sucking corporation not interested in “creating jobs” but in looting the treasuries of the companies they gobbled up.  There’s the red meat, unfortunately the meat of the working families sucked dry in the wake of the Romney and his “successful” business dealings.  Successful for him.  Tragic for you and me.  Let’s listen between the lines of the right wing rhetoric as they try to tell us how being a successful business man translates into being a successful leader of a nation. 

Sure Romney was successful in business; his success comes at our expense. He got rich. You didn’t.  And another thing,  While he boasts about tithing to his church, he refuses to tell us how much (if anything) he’s  tithed to his Country over the past several years.    Show us the tax returns Mitt.

When will Americans wake up out of their dream of pulling themselves up by bootstraps they don’t have and into an economy that people like Romney have already shipped overseas?   These people are in for themselves. They get the meat, we get the trickled down juices that spill out of their bloodied mouths. Worse, we are the meat. They would be very happy to turn all of the working Americans into their own version of Soylent green.  It’s what for Republican dinner.