Friday, August 10th, 2012
MICHAEL HILTZIK, - Los Angeles Times
Stephan: Benjamin Franklin Deputy Post Master for the colonies understood in the 18th century the important role the postal system played in linking the country together. Nothing has changed. As I have written several times, as I travel around the U.S. I make a point of talking with postmasters and postmistresses, particularly in the small towns and villages that dot the nation from Alaska to Hawaii. To a person they have mourned this conservative project to turn the PO into a profit center for a few. Post Offices are the place where one catches up with friends, and hears the news of the community. Closing them literally tears the guts out of these little human pods of people. This report on what is going on is the best one I have come across. Tearing the PO apart will also have powerful impact on the growing schism that is arising in the U.S. An unintended consequence none of the proponents for this ill-conceived plan even seems to think about.
While thumbing through the household mail one recent day - a bill from the vet, a statement from the bank, 47 come-ons for low-interest credit cards and a birthday card from Grandma - I pondered the following riddle:
Why is it that the same conservatives who harped on how an obscure provision of the U.S. Constitution should have invalidated the healthcare reform act never talk about the provision that gives the federal government responsibility for postal service?
It’s right there, at Article I, Section 8. Yet, in some quarters, talk of privatizing the post office never seems to ebb. That talk is experiencing another surge just now, because theU.S. Postal Service is in the process of defaulting on a payment of more than $5 billion owed to the Treasury.
Michael Hiltzik
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The Postal Service and the business of mail The Postal Service and the business of mail
USPS keeps rural post offices open, cuts hours USPS keeps rural post offices open, cuts hours
CISPA, Postal Service bills among Congress’ spring cleaning CISPA, Postal Service bills among Congress’ spring cleaning
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Thursday, August 9th, 2012
, - WTIC - CBS Connecticut
Stephan: This is how badly the middle class has been gutted in America. Think about what this study is telling us: We are a country in poverty. The vast wealth of the uber rich, and the fantasies projected by our media combine to mask how really poor we have become.
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. — Close to half of Americans die owning very little in financial assets, with senior citizens relying heavily on Social Security to help get them through their retirement years.
More than 46 percent of Americans find themselves with under $10,000 in financial assets by the time they die, according to a new study examining financial status among senior citizens. The study, ‘Were They Prepared For Retirement?,
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Thursday, August 9th, 2012
LAWRENCE LESSIG, - The Atlantic
Stephan: Representative John Dingell (D-MI) has always been a man of notable integrity. In this season of wingnut batty Theocratic Rightists, he has orchestrated a genuine attempt to force the Supreme Court to reconsider Citizens United. We should be proud that the country still has men of this stature in public service.
Representative John Dingell (D-MI), the longest-sitting member of Congress, introduced a bill Thursday designed to force the Supreme Court to reconsider its Citizens United decision. Along with at least ten co-sponsors, Dingell’s Restoring Confidence in Our Democracy Act, would ban corporations and unions from making independent political expenditures. It would also subject Super PACs to the same contribution limits that exist with other PACs. Dingell intends the bill to provide ‘the factual record which details the negative effects of increased spending in our elections.’ That factual record, he hopes, will get the Court to reverse itself, and restore Congress’ power to limit a form of spending that Dingell (rightly) believes has eroded even further America’s ‘confidence’ in ‘our democracy.’
Dingell’s bill, however, is effectively two bills– one that would require the Court to reverse itself, if indeed the new law were upheld, and the other that would not require the Court to reverse itself but would instead give the Court a chance to address a kind of corruption that so far the Supreme Court has ignored. It is unlikely (in the extreme) that the Court is going to reverse itself. But if framed properly, Dingell’s bill could well map a way […]
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Thursday, August 9th, 2012
DEANNA PAN, - Mother Jones
Stephan: Two SR readers from Louisiana sent me the URL for this story. One added, 'I live in New Orleans which will never be the same, whatever the media may tell you, and the rest of the state is sinking into a kind of fanatically religious hate filled dark ages.' This is the latest on what is going on in education there. After you read this, with actual quotes from the textbooks, you can make up your own mind.
Click through to see the great illustations that accompany this report.
Thanks to a new law privatizing public education in Louisiana, Bible-based curriculum can now indoctrinate young, pliant minds with the good news of the Lord-all on the state taxpayers’ dime.
Under Gov. Bobby Jindal’s voucher program, considered the most sweeping in the country, Louisiana is poised to spend tens of millions of dollars to help poor and middle-class students from the state’s notoriously terrible public schools receive a private education. While the governor’s plan sounds great in the glittery parlance of the state’s PR machine, the program is rife with accountability problems that actually haven’t been solved by the new standards the Louisiana Department of Education adopted two weeks ago.
For one, of the 119 (mostly Christian) participating schools, Zack Kopplin, a gutsy college sophomore who’s taken to Change.org to stonewall the program, has identified at least 19 that teach or champion creationist nonscience and will rake in nearly $4 million in public funding from the initial round of voucher designations.
Read about Bobby Jindal’s exorcism problem.
Many of these schools, Kopplin notes, rely on Pensacola-based A Beka Book curriculum or Bob Jones University Press textbooks to teach their pupils Bible-based ‘facts,’ such as the existence of Nessie the Loch Ness Monster and […]
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Thursday, August 9th, 2012
ERIKA EICHELBERGER, - Mother Jones
Stephan: California, as usual, is leading the way in adapting to climate change. Is your state doing as well? If it is a Red values state sadly the answer is probably that it is doing nothing or worse, acting like North Carolina which is attempting to ban science.
North Carolina is dealing with sea level rise by banning science. California is doing something else: actually making plans.
The Golden State has made itself a leader on climate change in recent years, with initiatives to slash greenhouse gas emissions and amp up renewable energy, and has now just released a hefty report on global warming’s impacts on the state and how it plans to adapt to a hot new West.
The report, put out by the California Energy Commission and Natural Resources Agency on Tuesday, combines the work of dozens of research teams and will lay the foundation for a climate change adaptation strategy for the state, due out by the end of this year. Here are some of the solutions they’ve brainstormed:
1. Chill-out stations. Life in a hotter California is not going to be fun. The state is projected to warm up to 8 degrees by 2100, according to the report, which means more dehydration, more heart attacks, more infectious diseases floating about. The study says cooling centers in cities will be key, and the public health department is pushing to green urban areas, install ‘cool’ roofs and pavement that reflect sunlight, and up the capacity of health centers.
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