A California tuneup - latimes.com

A California tuneup - latimes.com:

First, remove money from our election, initiative, and legislative process: no corporate campaign contributions or sponsorship of initiatives, private contributions limited to an amount that would let any Californian participate and influence, and a very high bar set for Constitutional amendment by initiative.

Second, before any intiative becomes law, it must pass a stringent Constitutional review. Most initiatives, including the ones I have supported, have been fatally flawed from partisan origins and corporate sponsorship.

Mercury Insurance has twice tried to supercede our government through the initiative process, and I finally had enough. I took my business elsewhere, sending the definition of Fascism to Mercury CEO George Joseph along with my cancellation after decades of coverage.

You might still be laboring under the delusion that Proposition 13 was a grassroots, populist, anti-tax, save-Grandma movement, but it was nothing more than a corporate grab for Sacramento power along with a welfare program for commercial real estate titans. P13 and the shadow organization HJTA was funded by commercial property owners, not bad people in themselves but certainly not representing a majority of homeowners. P13 destabilized local tax collection, robbed local governments of power to run their cities and gave it to Sacramento, helped destroy manufacturing in California in favor of Big Box retailers (so some of the state tax revenue could be sent back to locals, while capping property taxes on the established manufacturers), and set the stage for our current un-equitable real estate market. All because of a corrupt initiative process, misleading the public.

Third - many of us remember when California tried to be great. When we tried to educate each of our children, when a decent home in a safe neighborhood was affordable to anyone who worked, when we had a secure future. Instead, we have an economic landscape corrupted by the ever increasing demand to rob from the middle class to stuff the pockets of the wealthy, who turn around and pay people to lie to us in grocery store parking lots in order to gather signatures for initiatives benefiting only the top 1%. We can aspire to greatness again, but our current initiative process only throws us a shovel when we are down in a hole.

Rally to Support Gibson

Rally to Support Gibson:


Looking at the sponsors, I think I'll opt out.

#Koch Brothers Astroturf TeaParty Express?

In fact, this is nearly enough to make me sell my Gibson Guitars. I have a great ES-340 TDN. It is a natural-finish semi-hollow electric guitar from about '71 that I bought second-hand, in new condition in '75. I had been playing my '65 Gibson Melody Maker or my Ovation acoustic with a Barcus Berry pickup in ensembles and lessons at Berklee College of Music, and neither of these were cutting it. This was when Berklee was expanding from being a strictly jazz school to a music school for all (pretty much all who had some skill and a means to pay), but most guitarists had full hollow body guitars like Gibson L-5s and ES-175s.

I went home for some kind of a break, and my parents were willing to buy me a more appropriate guitar (thanks, Mom and Dad!). The shop had this ES-340 on the wall, and I asked if I could play it. They warned me that the customer had returned it because it was wired funny, and it had hung on that wall for a few times. I played it, through a Leslie rotating speaker amp (think George Harrison Here Comes the Sun) and I was hooked. We worked out a deal - very reasonable - and I now had an appropriate guitar. It turns out that this model had deliberately different wiring from most, and I've grown to love this aspect. It has a master volume instead of a volume knob for each pickup, and a blend control to continuously vary from one pickup to the other with the middle position being both. The pickup switch was off (very useful)/pickups in-phase/pickups out-of-phase. I found many uses for the out of phase sound, and this is the first Gibson that I knew of with this factory feature (Fender Stratocaster players could put their pickup switch carefully between positions to get out-of-phase sounds, and Fender recognized this and later included 5-position switches to make this an official feature).

Five years or-so earlier, I wanted my first electric guitar, and I bought that Gibson Melody Maker along with a Vox Berkeley Super Twin Reverb (rare tube model) which served me through my awful high school bands.

I still have both instruments.

Henry Juskiewicz has been a controversial leader of Gibson. Buying companies for their technology and then burying it. Announcing advanced tech that never comes to market, or finally arrives a day late and a dollar short. Failing to design modern innovative instruments that don't rely on last century's style and substance. Manufacturing products that are either too expensive for most, or not a good value considering their price premium over other US and imported brands. Just a CEO kind of guy, not apparently a Guitar kind of guy.

And now, for the second time, they have been raided for using endangered species of wood. People are crawling out of the wood-work to defend Gibson, saying this is politically motivated, it's just a bunch of trees, it's just a paperwork error, etc. But in reality, Gibson's competitors have done just fine adhering to the century-plus-old Lacy act. Martin, Taylor, Fender, etc., use the woods we guitarists value for sound, feel, and aesthetic qualities, yet they have yet to be raided.

Gibson plans this rally to engender support, and look who supports them. The billionaire-brothers paying to destroy our democracy, for one, in the form of the Koch-sponsored TeaParty Express. Ted Nugent, an off-his-rocker long-time Gibson player and musical has-been, Newt Gingrich (I didn't know Tiffany sold guitars).

One of the most important things in this country is to vote. One of the best ways to vote is with your dollars. I recommend that no one buys a Gibson, Epiphone, Maestro, or other Gibson product, until they can prove to be good members of the community.

The Associated Press: Jobs said little about pancreatic cancer struggle

The Associated Press: Jobs said little about pancreatic cancer struggle:

One quarter to one half of us in the U. S. would have been dead for seven years.

We have the best medical care in the world. We have enough medical care to treat every one of us. We have the means to give each of us the same chance as Steve Jobs to beat even a disease like pancreatic cancer, or at least survive for seven years as he did.

Yet, the for-profit, corporate, employer-based health care system we have in the United States denies this to many of us.

Efforts for over a century to right this wrong have failed because powerful and wealthy interests own politicians, buy elections, write legislation, and redistribute the wealth of the nation, that of the middle class, to a rich and powerful few at the top. When a health care system ceases to be run simply for the health of its customers and is gamed to provide funds to be invested in global markets to enrich the C-Level executives, board members, and institutional investors, such a system is broken. Fixes aren't easy, but concepts for fixes are simple.

Single payer, not-for-profit systems work well in the rest of the civilized world. For every complaint you hear in the UK, for example, about waiting months for a hip replacement, you can hear a million stories of immediate and effective treatment being given for diseases such as pancreatic cancer. Systems such as this pay caregivers well, generally provide fast, effective treatment, and cost far less than our current broken U. S. system.

Sure, we wish that each of us, down to the poorest, made enough money that we could pay retail rates for any medical care necessary, but employers are not willing to forgo the small portion of their profit necessary for this. Sure, we wish that medical insurance was affordable to each, but insurance companies insist on using consumers as an endless supply of funds to invest in global markets, with the proceeds going to the wealthy few at the top and certainly not back down to compensate their lowest-paid worker or improve service.

The free market is not free. It has failed millions of us, and only serves to keep the Steve Jobs' of the world confident that they can live each day as if it were their last. Jobs was an intelligent and driven guy who thought up great things, envisioned neat devices, and started companies that employed many. We need to un-game the market, so the best medical care is truly available to all of us, and opportunity is available to the next Steve Jobs.

Ron Paul, Herman Cain et al: Why are so many GOP candidates running? - CSMonitor.com

Ron Paul, Herman Cain et al: Why are so many GOP candidates running? - CSMonitor.com:

1. None of these people will ever be President of the United States.

2. FOX and most of the media are owned by these people, and used as a propaganda arm for a political movement.

3. They have billionaire backers in the Koch brothers and others who have essentially completed a corporate coup d'état.

4. They have a willfully ignorant, dominionist, and racist rabble in the TeaParty, claiming to be some sort of anti-tax or anti-big government group while they just serve the needs of the richest global.

5. The more candidates, the more completely they take up every bit of oxygen, every word in print, every moment on TV, and every click on the Internet.

The other 98% of us have no voice essentially as these candidates, the voice of nobody, get pulled up their flagpoles and waved around every week in front of a television audience as if they have something to say.

Dear President Obama - Jobs!

Every tax cut, budget cut, deregulation and privatization destroys jobs, families, and lives.

The current unemployment rate is simply a reflection of the public sector jobs purposefully destroyed in the US over the last two years. Without these firings at the Federal, State, and local level, our unemployment rate would be half what it is today. To continue this bizarre austerity policy is to play in to the hands of a small minority of Americans whose ideology is far to the right of most of us, and whose goal is simply to keep you from being re-elected.

The current deficit is big. It was caused by spending (wars, etc.) and decreases in revenue (tax cuts). These were choices! This deficit will shrink as the economy grows.

So much good has happened since you took office. We are no longer shedding jobs at the rate the last administration left us with, we have an end in sight to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, illegal immigration is down, our standing in the global community is light years ahead, etc., but no one hears this message. The media is owned by that tiny ideological minority, but you have a megaphone unmatched in the world. Please use this to get the message out. Speak weekly in primetime, use social media in new ways so you reach those outside your bubble, directly address the Kenyan/socialist/Muslim/spender charges. Speak the truth!

You have vast, untapped, Executive powers. Please use them. Don't let this faux Super Committee steer us toward a 1937-style re-depression.

Stay strong and consistent and deny the cutters! Draw your line, and stand quietly and firmly - the economy will grow and the country will stand with you.

New Balance - Jim Davis, you've lost my business forever

New Balance Distances Itself From Donation to Romney

to: Jim Davis, Chariman, and Rob DiMartini, President:

I have been a big supporter of New Balance since the late '70s.

I appreciate your commitment to keeping some manufacturing in the United States. I recently purchased a pair of custom 574s and couldn't be happier with your service, quality, and design.

Mr. Davis, your recent contribution of a half million dollars to the Romney-supporting PAC Restore Our Future has forced me to pledge to never buy another New Balance product, and to encourage as many people as possible to follow my lead.

A PAC like this shouldn't be allowed to exist - only a bought and paid for Supreme Court could establish corporations as persons and money as speech. This is in opposition to our Democracy and counter to the interest of 99% of your consumers.

A donation to a political group or candidate in this amount shouldn't be allowed. That this is in-part MY money, since I've purchased products that generate revenue that pay your salary, I'm ashamed. Can I get my share back?

To think that you can afford to throw money at a candidate so full of hate as Mitt Romney, money that I helped give you, makes me physically sick.

I wish you, your family, and everyone at your company good health and happiness. How can you expect to be entitled to either of these as you run your life hell bent to destroy everything that is good about America?

Sincerely...

peter.w.thonis@verizon.com

Your stakeholders aren't your C-Level execs, boardmembers, or shareholders (including me!).

Your stakeholders are your consumers, your employees, and their families. You are nothing without them.

Cultures and industries change all the time. When you game the system by buying legislators and legislation to promote your changing business, we all suffer. Learn how to run Verizon to compete on a level playing field. Learn how to compensate your lowest-paid employee first.

If your business is truly changing, lets reflect that change in compensation from the top! That's capitalism, as well as common sense.

...

On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 2:14 PM,  wrote:

Thank you for your email to the COO's office.

Verizon remains committed to working with the unions to negotiate a fair and reasonable contract. Our intent is to secure a new contract that ensures Verizon employees will continue to receive competitive pay and benefit programs, while also providing a fair return to our shareholders. Our wireline business has declined significantly in the last few years and we need a new contract that reflects today’s economic and business realities, as well as the needs of all of our stakeholders.

Our goal is to keep Verizon strong now and in the future for our employees, shareholders and customers.


Peter Thonis
Chief Communications Officer
Verizon

To Lowell McAdam, Verizon

Dear Mr. McAdam,

I stand in solidarity with the 45,000 workers who are on strike.

I am a long time customer. I give you quite a bit of money each month for a 3-phone VZW unlimited family plan, and a nearly-loaded FiOS triple play. For each of these services, you have competitors and I have no problem switching my service to a company that behaves as a good citizen.

I grew up in a time when my father could work as a CWA member for Ma Bell to feed, clothe, house and educate a family of four, while providing for a secure retirement for him and my mother. Corporate behavior such as yours now is designed to destroy that way of life. I want a road back, and you can help.

Over the past four years alone, Verizon has made $19 billion in profits while paying its top five executives $250 million in compensation and bonuses. It’s outrageous that you are demanding huge givebacks from workers at the same time.

With middle-class families already struggling, it’s time for Verizon to share its success with the hardworking Americans who made it possible. This is not a time for corporate greed. It is time to do the right thing.

Verizon kicked off bargaining with dramatic concessionary demands and has not budged. And you continue to refuse to bargain seriously with the CWA and the IBEW.

That’s why 45,000 of your employees aren’t at work but will return once you agree to bargain fairly.

Please drop your unfair demands and return to the bargaining table to negotiate a new contract in good faith.

Uncertainty is in the Eye of the Billionaire

Role Reversal...

We have turned into a nation that worships billionaires and personifies corporations. When did these titans of the universe suddenly become scared little children?

We have demonized our government, which is US, as well as teachers, people who work for a living, etc. - why have we, for 30 years, distracted ourselves from doing true work that helps people?

We let politicians, elections, and legislation be bought by wealthy and powerful interests, and these interests can't see fit to invest in anything but their own short term profits?

The lack of confidence that people have toward the Republican Party as they cheerlead the destruction of our Democracy has created a great deal of concern and IS the reason why cash from corporations is not being used to help grow the economy.

Billionaires and Corporations have NOTHING without the work and wealth of millions. We must turn this country around to show that these millions are not beneath the Billionaires and Corporations, but we are their bosses. An uncertain economic future can only be turned around when we get the Billionaires and Corporations to do their patriotic duty and invest in Americans.

Why THIS Filibuster?

The Super Committee Precedent: Why End The Filibuster Just For Deficit Reduction? | OurFuture.org

Every tax cut, deregulation, privatization, and budget cut destroys jobs, families, and lives.

The filibuster has made a mess of our democracy during the last few years, and yes, this Super Committee is another facet.

To accept as fact that our debt is our number one problem plays into the hands of a few billionaires no matter how you look at it or how it is approached.

Pay down the debt, and you redistribute the wealth of the many - the Middle Class - to the few. This will have zero stimulative action and would simply serve to divide America further into a wealthy class and a huge poor class. It would create no new jobs - direct government jobs would be destroyed, along with secondary and tertiary employment from the business these cuts would eliminate. This austerity would create further pressure on governments to support people as we stir up discontent, and stir up extremist feelings in voters to keep racist, extremist groups like the TeaParty in some position of influence.

If we stop creating debt and spread out payments, interest (admittedly low these days) goes to the very banksters who willfully destroyed our global economy, and received the assets of smaller institutions along with taxpayer bailouts.

What should be filibustered is anything anti-stimulative. Any House or Senate bill that spends money that doesn't create jobs. Any bill that spends money that goes into the hands of billionaires without benefiting the MOST of us. Any bill that allows billionaires to send money overseas whether this creates jobs there, wars there, or fortunes there.

Instead, we live with our broken, FOX and KOCH poisoned system, and we accept it.

...weinergate

Why should we even be distracted by this. A politician embarrasses himself and his family, and the sky sometimes is blue.

Anthony Weiner has not broken any laws or violated any Congressional ethics (oxymoron?) rules. He needs to zip it up, tame the tweets, fix his family, and let the voters decide.

His district might get redistricted out of existence anyway, so the outlook for the next election is not clear. As far as I know, Weiner had no plans to run for higher office.

The story here is that Weiner has been emerging as a strong liberal voice. The never-has-been-liberal media has been turning to Weiner more and more as an alternative to the never-ending parade of McConnells, Boehners, and Cantors filling the airspace in their perversion of balance and fairness. His speeches in Congress like if Republicans are legislating, it must be chilly in Hell are sometimes a lone voice of reasonableness in the face of the Orwellian twists of modern politics.

Dukakis gets Willie-Horton-ed, Kerry gets Swiftboated, Gore gets SCOTUS'ed, and no one quits, no one goes to jail. Racist idiot Breitbart carries naked pictures of congressmen in his cell phone and displays them on national media, and suddenly this non-journalist miscreant gets hoisted up as legitimate. The machine turns swiftly and strongly to silence any voice that supports the most of us.

A New Nursing Home Population: The Young : NPR

A New Nursing Home Population: The Young

You buried the lede (something you at NPR and the Corporate Media in general tend to do more and more - can't upset the billionaires). "the cost of attendant care is about a third the cost of providing care in a nursing home or institution."

The insane drive over the last 30 years to destroy families and the middle class is working. Families that could have otherwise supported members who are disabled instead have to pay more and more of their income in taxes so billionaires can pay less. These families pay a daily tax directly to C-Level execs, board members, and institutional investors who pay far less of their income in the form of taxes or the costs of necessities.

Governments that could support stable families like Fridley's instead support wars and corporate greed on Federal, State, and Local levels.

Nursing homes as an industry are consolidating under a few huge corporate umbrellas. These take the profits that could go toward better care for all, funded privately or publicly, and send them direct to the billionaires at the top. Home care with proper middle-class compensation to the individual care givers could help fix our economy, but those in the top 1% of us economically won't let that happen.

President Obama's Choice

Dear President Obama,

Bush-era tax cuts for Billionaires

UI extension

DADT

DREAM Act

These are not liberal or progressive issues, these are supported by the majority of us. Why are you ignoring and failing us? You have great Executive powers, and you party has the House and Senate right not (and will continue to have the Executive and Senate, you appear to forget).

The House announced today that it would be in-session until December 17. I have to work until the 24th to be able to feed my children. Lives are at stake here, not the football-game my-team-against-yours of day-to-day Washington politics. Make them work for us!

Americans are fairly united in their anger and insecurity about their future. Theses This is a critical time in American history. The bought-and-paid-for SCOTUS, Chamber of Commerce, FOX, and a few Billionaires can rule us, or you can lead us.

It really is your choice. Today. ACT.

No More Compromise with Republicans!

Dear Mr. President,

You have most certainly been bi-partisan enough during your first two years.

To give any ground to these treasonous liars who are taking over the House would be a cultural and political tragedy beyond the scope of anything we have seen from a White House in our history.

Their only goal is to elect more Republicans in 2012, at any cost to decency and truth. Facts do not exist in their universe, and the People are behind you.

Nothing will get done in the next two years without your leadership and the approval of the Senate. This, combined with extensive use of Executive Power (which the Republicans have been fighting to expand for decades) can lead our nation to great things.

Write your President, Senators and Congressional Representative!

This is the letter I wrote to President Obama. I work day and night to provide for my family. Please work day and night to help him provide this for the United States of America:

President Obama,

Please put the needs of the United States and its middle class ahead of a few billionaires and the powerful corporate interests.

Please explain to the American public that these are marginal rates, and even if the top marginal rate goes back up to what it was in 1999, they still have a lower rate than what they had then.

Please explain that we can't get this economy moving again with this horrible trickle-up economic policy.

Use your Executive power. Use reconciliation. Use any means at hand to do what's right.

I want to have a chance to vote for you again in 2012, and without this I may lose that opportunity.

Washington Week

Washington Week

"And In a setback for US terror prosecutions a former Guantanamo detainee tried in civilian court gets a split verdict"

Ms. Ifill, I'm incensed at your biased, corporate-smothered reporting.

We are a nation of laws with a strong system of Justice. You seem to know nothing of this. In what world does a sentence of 20 year to life equal a setback? This is not a simple story, yet you insist on repeating a tired, failed, biased message about this case and the larger issues of terrorist prosecution.

And "Republicans let us know that they are drop dead serious about cutting spending" You could take a few short minutes to explainin how Republicans have no history of or plans to cut spending, but instead you spew a tired, false, extremist meme instead of reporting news and presenting reasonable discussion.

You and much of the corporate media seems to have lost your way. I have little faith that reasonableness can be restored in my lifetime, and it's maddening and sad.

Shame on you.

Ten Truths about Speaker Pelosi

1. She's consistently supported raising the minimum wage. When the minimum wage meets or exceeds inflation, local economies benefit.

2. She's supported defense appropriations bills and others to help the men and women in the U.S. armed forces everywhere in the world.

3. She favored extending children's health insurance and unemployment benefits.

4. She's voted for virtually every law aimed at cleaning up air and water.

5. She supported No Child Left Behind and has consistently backed more help for public education.

6. She was all for a national AMBER alert system for kids.

7. She backed reform of campaign financing to lessen the influence of special interest money.

8. She talks constantly about expanding and protecting Medicare and Social Security.

9. When some House Democrats talked about impeaching President Bush, she said no.

10. She backed the president on health care reform so all Americans could get it and afford it.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/10/25/102405/commentary-pelosi-haters-havent.html#ixzz13Nqwp9KK

Let's Start With the Facts

1) Myth: President Obama tripled the deficit.

Reality: Bush’s last budget had a $1.416 trillion deficit. Obama’s first reduced that to $1.29 trillion. The Federal deficit is $120B less this year than last according to the Congressional Budget Office http://bit.ly/a5Qord

2) Myth: President Obama raised taxes, which hurt the economy.

Reality: Obama cut taxes. 40% of the “stimulus” was wasted on tax cuts which only create debt, which is why it was so much less effective than it could have been.

3) Myth: President Obama bailed out the banks.

Reality: While many people conflate the “stimulus” with the bank bailouts, the bank bailouts were requested by President Bush and his Treasury Secretary, former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson. (Paulson also wanted the bailouts to be “non-reviewable by any court or any agency.”) The bailouts passed and beganbefore the 2008 election of President Obama.

4) Myth: The stimulus didn’t work.

Reality: The stimulus worked, but was not enough. In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the stimulus raised employment by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs.

5) Myth: Businesses will hire if they get tax cuts.

Reality: A business hires the right number of employees to meet demand. Having extra cash does not cause a business to hire, but a business that has a demand for what it does will find the money to hire. Businesses want customers, not tax cuts.

6) Myth: Health care reform costs $1 trillion.

Reality: The health care reform reduces government deficits by $138 billion.

7) Myth: Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, is “going broke,” people live longer, fewer workers per retiree, etc.

Reality: Social Security has run a surplus since it began, has a trust fund in the trillions, is completely sound for at least 25 more years and cannot legally borrow so cannot contribute to the deficit (compare that to the military budget!) Life expectancy is only longer because fewer babies die; people who reach 65 live about the same number of years as they used to.

8) Myth: Government spending takes money out of the economy.

Reality: Government is We, the People and the money it spends is on We, the People. Many people do not know that it is government that builds the roads, airports, ports, courts, schools and other things that are the soil in which business thrives. Many people think that all government spending is on “welfare” and “foreign aid” when that is only a small part of the government’s budget.

A deeply divided Republican party...

After today's primary elections, guess what we'll see? Not much change from what was in place yesterday.

A deeply divided Republican party will put a few tea partiers, a few corporatist Republicans, a few new faces, a few orange old...on the Nov ballot.

In November, a few more Rs will be elected than Ds, as expected in a midterm election for the out-of-power party. No more than normal, despite the Republican-caused economic collapse we are digging our way out of. Despite the corporate influence on our government, and a complicit media.

Today's Liberty: Freedom from corporate influence on government...maybe not in our lifetimes, but...

...this might be a good first step.

Wall Street girds for Warren as consumer czar - NYPOST.com

Even Murdoch's NYP seems to accept this as a good possibility.