Stand up and speak out against HB 990. We can no longer afford to play politics with our lives

HB 990, here in Georgia, creates an additional barrier for over 600,000 Georgians from accessing health care in our state through Medicaid.  

We must join together and speak out against the GOP agenda. Currently 3,600 people who would be eligible for Medicaid are dying each year in our state.

Please sign and share this Atlanta Jobs with Justice petition with your social network.

If you are able please join members of the Cover Georgia coalition Tuesday March 11 from 10:00am to 11:00am for a rally on the steps of the Capitol (Washington Street) to advocate for expanding Medicaid.

The Governor’s own Office of Planning and Budget shows that Medicaid expansion will generates $750 million over a decade in new tax revenue from insurer premiums.

New tax revenue, a healthyier workforce--only reactionaries within the GOP would use the power of Government to keep working people sick and desperate (side note this is really about keeping a downward pressure on wages and protecting  a Government agenda of upward redistribution of wealth to the 1%).

I'm running for State House here in Georgia because its time to stand up to the GOP efforts to blame the Federal Government rather than do the hard work of building an efficient, effective, health care system in our state.  Contribute $36.00 right now on behalf of the 3,600 people who will die this year because of GOP footdragging.  Your contribution will help get an ally of working people under the Gold Dome. 

Senate Republicans Block Veterans Bill

I got involved in politics because of the failure of the political class in the run up to the Iraq War 2.

The GOP blocking the Veterans bill recently reminds me of this failure of leadership and their vote against Veterans is causing quite a stir on social media from people across the political spectrum. 

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has more:

The legislation was backed by the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and virtually every other veterans’ and military service organization in the country.  

“The cost of war does not end once the last shots are fired and the last battles are fought,” Sanders said.  “When members of the military lose arms, legs and eyesight fighting in wars that Congress authorized, we have a moral obligation to make sure that those Americans receive all of the benefits that they have earned and deserve.  When American soldiers die in combat, we have a moral obligation to make sure that the spouses and children they leave behind are taken care of and do not live in abject poverty.”   

The measure would have improved health and dental care services provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs. It also would have allowed the VA to open 27 new clinics and medical facilities. Educational opportunities would have been expanded for post-9/11 veterans. Another provision would have improved access to care and benefits for veterans who experienced sexual trauma while serving in the military. Also full cost-of-living adjustments would be restored for future military retirees. 

This Chris Hayes segment is worth a watch


Also see: Jon Stewart Is Shocked (But Not Surprised) By GOP Killing Veterans Bill

 Republicans block Senate bill to boost veterans' benefits - CSMonitor.com 

Six In Ten Small Business Owners Want A $10.10 Minimum Wage... Its the reactionaries who oppose it.

In some positive polling news it appears that small business owners support creating a middle out economy [Side note: Read 'Middle-Out' Economics: Why the Right's Supply-Side Dogma Is Wrong - Eric Liu & Nick Hanauer - The Atlantic]. My hunch is that small business owners understand that when workers have more money in their pocket they spend it. 

Think Progress has more

Nearly six in 10 small business owners support raising the minimum wage to $10.10, according to a new poll on behalf of Small Business Majority (SBM), with most respondents citing the prospect of increased consumer demand and improved competitiveness with large chain retailers as reasons for their endorsement of the wage hike. 

The poll found 57 percent of small business owners support a $10.10 federal minimum wage, with 27 percent strongly in favor of the idea. The entrepreneurs polled were predominantly Republican, with 47 percent identifying as Republican or Republican-leaning as compared to just 35 percent who identified more with the Democratic party. Two thirds of the businesses polled had less than half a million dollars in revenue in 2013, and 59 percent of the business owners were older than 50 years of age.

As  T. William Lester, David Madland, and Jackie Odum noted back in December over at the Center for American Progress raising the minimum wage will help the economy

 Raising the minimum wage would be good for our economy. A higher minimum wage not only increases workers’ incomes—which is sorely needed to boost demand and get the economy going—but it also reduces turnover, cuts the costs that low-road employers impose on taxpayers, and pushes businesses toward a high-road, high-human-capital model.

Despite these positive benefits, and the sad fact that the minimum wage is worth far less today than it was in the late 1960s, with the Senate set to vote to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour, opponents will likely trot out the same unfounded argument that the minimum wage reduces employment. And with today’s unemployment rate stuck above 7 percent, we anticipate these types of arguments to reach a fevered pitch.

The reality is that those opposed to increasing the minimum wage don't oppose it for economic reasons.  They oppose it for ideological and anti-democratic reasons.  They seek to shift power away from the state creating a wage floor that protects everyone and into the hands of owners who are then able to drive down wages and make people more desperate and dependent on their employer.  

Corey Robin has a good breakdown of that in a post Why the Left Gets Neoliberalism Wrong: It’s the Feudalism, Stupid!

 the real, or at least a main, thrust of neoliberalism, according to some of its most interesting and important theoreticians (and its actual practice): not to liberate the individual or to deregulate the marketplace, but to shift power from government (or at least those sectors of government like the legislature that make some claim to or pretense of democratic legitimacy

If you've never read Robin's book The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palinyou should check it out.

Stuff to read...

NSA surveillance hurting tech firms' business

 Feds Refuse to Release Public Comments on NSA Reform — Citing Privacy | Wired.com  

Birthers, (Stimulus) Deniers, and Economic Myths | Econbrowser 

Republicans joining populists in ending corporate welfare for banks

Did Inflation Phobia Cause the Great Recession? - NYTimes.com

 Putin Goes to War in Crimea : The New Yorker 

The Conflict in Ukraine: More Complex Than You Might Think - Glenn Kates - The Atlantic

Why Russia No Longer Fears the West - Ben Judah - POLITICO Magazine 

 Assad Regime's Drought Response Triggered Syrian War | Environment News Service 

Saudi Arabia: Besieged and Fearful by Immanuel Wallerstein

European centre-left launches election drive, attacks austerity | Reuters 

Essay: Anatomy of the Deep State | Blog, Perspectives | BillMoyers.com 

Reactions to Mike Lofgren's Essay on the Deep State | Blog, Perspectives | BillMoyers.com

Henry Giroux on Resisting the Neoliberal Revolution | Blog, Perspectives | BillMoyers.com 

Cecily McMillan's Occupy trial is a huge test of US civil liberties. Will they survive? | theguardian.com 

The Political Underbelly of the Pensions Crisis: What Broke the System, and How Do We Fix It? | Next New Deal 

Math: Your Secret Weapon Against Wall Street and the NSA | Mother Jones 

Organizers Worth Their Salt | Labor Notes 

epistemic consciousness » 3:AM Magazine 

on william james and john la farge » 3:AM Magazine 

Stephanie Kelton podcast with Randy Wray on MMT

Check it out.

Diane Ravitch on education reform and poverty

If you look at most of the political talk in Georgia, especially around the issue of education, it stays far far away from the topic of poverty.  Lots of self help platitudes and Government is bad non sequitors but not much talk of poverty.

Diane Ravitch nails it:

It is all the rage among the pseudo-reformers to dismiss the importance of poverty. Although most of the pseudo-reformers grew up in affluence, attended elite private school, and send their own children to equally splendid private schools, they feel certain in their hearts that poverty is a state of mind that can be easily overcome. All it takes is one great teacher. Or three effective teachers in a row. Or lots of grit. Or a no-excuses school where children dress for success, follow rules without questioning, and act like little test-taking machines. One by one, the pseudo-reformers insist, they will end poverty.

No one needs a higher minimum wage. No one needs a change in the tax structure. Nothing need be done except fire teachers who can’t raise test scores and hire lots of TFA, whose enthusiasm is sure to overcome their lack of training and experience.

The fact that social scientists have demonstrated the significance of poverty on one’s life chances never penetrates the discussion. In one State of the Union Address, the President lauded a peculiar study which claimed that the influence of a third or fourth grade teacher affected one’s lifetime earnings, even presented pregnancies years later. Enough such teachers, one surmises, and poverty will be vanquished. The Secretary of Education used to point to schools where 100% of the students, impoverished as could be, went to college, until the news media realized that such schools usually had a trick, like high attrition rates.

The fact is that poverty does matter. No matter what standardized test you look at, the results portray the influence of socioeconomic status on test scores . Despite outliers, the kids with the most advantages are at the top, the kids with the fewest advantages are at the bottom. This is true of international tests, state tests, federal tests, the ACT, the SAT.

Standardized tests are the means by which privilege is distributed. The outcomes are predictable.

Here is yet another demonstration that poverty matters. So does advantage. But no matter what research or evidence shows, the charade goes on.

Apathy or action?

If you read the cultural tea leaves of the moment--We are either at the apex of crisis and decline or the moment of blossoming and rejuvenation, a radical upsurge of hope.  

If you'll pardon my feuerbachian leanings--the choice fundamentally is in the hands of those who role up their sleeves and act; or chose instead to be overwhelmed by fear and apathy and not act.

Those who see themselves as historical actors will change the world.  Those who see themselves as victims of the winds of time, powerful governments, corporate overlords et al will be just that victims.

Today's action by students in front of the White House was a step in the right direction.  The future is ours for the taking. 

Mike Lofgren on The Deep State

 Mike Lofgren Essay: Anatomy of the Deep State

Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose. My analysis of this phenomenon is not an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day. Nor can this other government be accurately termed an “establishment.” All complex societies have an establishment, a social network committed to its own enrichment and perpetuation. In terms of its scope, financial resources and sheer global reach, the American hybrid state, the Deep State, is in a class by itself. That said, it is neither omniscient nor invincible. The institution is not so much sinister (although it has highly sinister aspects) as it is relentlessly well entrenched. Far from being invincible, its failures, such as those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, are routine enough that it is only the Deep State’s protectiveness towards its higher-ranking personnel that allows them to escape the consequences of their frequent ineptitude.

Deficit Is Falling Because Of Government Austerity, Not Economic Recovery

You can find the economist Stephanie Kelton on twitter here.

Noam Chomsky (2013) "Pedagogy of the Oppressed"