Congress Making Themselves and Friends Richer, While Everyone Else Struggles to Make Ends Meet

It’s my honor every Sunday, to share space in the Times-Standard Opinion section with Jim Hightower.

I haven’t seen this column in the T-S, so I’d like to share it with you:

The great majority of Americans make about $30K a year. Incoming lawmakers, however? Extensive personal investments in Wall St. banks, oil giants and drug makers.

“Change is not the same thing as progress. In fact, change can be the exact opposite. It can be regressive, as we're now learning from -- where else? -- Congress.

A flock of tea party-infused Republicans has certainly changed the political dynamic there, and exultant GOP leaders are claiming that they are now the voice of "The People." But most people won't find themselves represented by this change, much less see it as progress.

That's because the newcomers in Congress, whether Republican or Democrat, tend to live high up the economic ladder, way out of touch with the people they're representing. Indeed, 40 percent of newly elected house members are millionaires, as are 60 percent of new senators.

Their wealth and financial ties might help explain the rush by the new Republican House majority to coddle these very same corporate powers. From gutting EPA's anti-pollution restrictions on Big Oil to undoing the restraints on Wall Street greed, they're pushing for a return to the same laissez-fairyland ideology of the past 20 years that got our country in massive messes.

At the same time, they're out to kill a green-jobs program, bust unions, cut Social Security, defund Head Start and generally stomp on the fingers of working families trying to hold onto the middle class rungs of the economic ladder.

The change in Congress is taking America backward, not forward, for the new majority literally is the voice of millionaires. That's not progress.

So we see corporations and billionaires wallowing in fabulous new wealth, while productive workers fall out of the middle class. And our new congress-members are just fine with that, even pushing a program of more tax breaks and subsidies for the corporate elite, while vehemently opposing efforts to create jobs and advance the middle class. Making the richest people richer is not a recovery -- it's a robbery.”

Condensed column – see Full Article Here.

- Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the new book, "Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go With the Flow." (Wiley, March 2008) He publishes the monthly "Hightower Lowdown," co-edited by Phillip Frazer

Crime gangs among first to deliver Japan earthquake aid

There’s a lot of reasons that I admire the Japanese. It’s inspirational watching the people stay orderly and not panic, despite the most devastating events that have hit their country since they were nuked in WWII.

What really blows my mind is how even the criminals in Japan pitch in and help when natural disasters happen.

“Tons of relief goods have been delivered to victims of Japan's catastrophic earthquake and tsunami from a dark corner of society: the "yakuza" organized crime networks.

Yakuza groups have been sending trucks from the Tokyo and Kobe regions to deliver food, water, blankets and toiletries to evacuation centers in northeast Japan, the area devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, which have left at least 27,000 dead and missing.”

Unlike here in America, where disasters like Katrina bring out the looters, the Yakuza have standards of conduct.

“Disasters bring out another side of yakuza, who move swiftly and quietly to provide aid to those most in need. The gangs' charity is rooted in their "ninkyo" code,which values justice and duty and forbids allowing others to suffer. In times such as earthquakes, they put their money where their mouths are.”

 Full Story

Skin cancer risk is higher for rich women than for poor women, study finds

The rich really are different from the rest of us – at least when it comes to skin cancer.

That’s the conclusion of a new study from Archives of Dermatology that examined the incidence of melanoma among younger women of various income levels. Not only were melanoma rates highest among those with the highest incomes, the number of new diagnoses also grew fastest in that group too. Full Story

The U.S. is engaged in Libya because of an abusive leader who is killing his own people, what about the Ivory Coast?

“While the world has been focused on airstrikes and dramatic developments on the ground in Libya, a string of Middle East uprisings and twin natural disasters and the fear of a nuclear meltdown in Japan, another serious crisis has been quietly brewing: a potential civil war in the Ivory Coast.”  Full Story

PHOTO - Charles Ble Goude, center, Ivory Coast's Minister of Youth and leader of the "Young Patriots" speaks as commander in chief of the army Phillipe Mangou, right, looks on in front of thousands of young supporters of Ivorian strongman Laurent Gbagbo on March 21 in Abidjan

Assault on American middle class continues–this time on seniors

Another Republican governor attacking the middle class – this time seniors. Have they no shame at all?

I realize they have to answer to the tea baggers who put them there, but this is an all-out war on the middle class by special interests and corporations.

Republican Gov. Rick Snyder is drawing recall threats and angry protests over his attempt to tax the pension and 401(k) incomes of millions of retirees. He also wants to eliminate a $2,300-per-person tax break for those 65 and over and reduce the credit seniors get for property tax payments.

Just another example of efforts by Republican governors like Wisconsin's Scott Walker to attack the middle class and help the businesses that donated to their campaigns. And like many in that state, people are ready to rise up and demand that Michigan's governor back down.

 Story “Michigan wants to end tax break for seniors”

Dorothy Young: Last surviving Houdini stage assistant dies at 103

Dorothy Young, the last surviving stage assistant of illusionist Harry Houdini and also an accomplished dancer, died Sunday at her home in a retirement community in Tinton Falls, N.J. She was 103.

Young's death was announced by Drew University, where she was a prominent donor and patron of the arts.

Young joined Houdini's company as a teenager after attending an open casting call during a family trip to New York.

 During her year with Houdini's stage show in the mid-1920s, she played the role of "Radio Girl of 1950," (photo right) emerging from a large mock-up of a radio and performing a dance routine.

Young went on to become a professional dancer, performing in several movies. She also published a novel inspired by her career.

Story Source 

Right Photo source     Left photo source

Guest Op-Ed: the fight over collective bargaining is not just a labor dispute in a Midwestern state

By Garret Keizer

For anyone who believes that the hard-won rights of organized labor constitute an American birthright, who would as soon see the flag burned as a picket line crossed (both acts disrespectful of blood shed in our "country's cause"), the decision of the Wisconsin Legislature to end most collective bargaining rights for public employees amounts to sacrilege. In effect, Wisconsin has become a pariah state. It ought to be treated as such.

The battle in Wisconsin, symbolically and in fact, is not a fight against a political party or a governor, much less against good people who made a horrendous electoral goof. It is a fight against what increasingly has come to feel like an American death wish, a mad potlatch of relinquishing every progressive gain of the last 100 years. We talk about "making cuts" in the tone of teenagers who cut themselves. A few billionaires and their proxies yell "jump," and we call it a sacrifice whose time has come. We need to start talking ourselves in from the ledge.”

The rest of the article is here

Medical marijuana sales surpass blockbuster drugs like Viagra

Annual sales near $2 billion and rising in states with tolerant laws

There is a noticeable aroma wafting around the medical marijuana industry. It’s the smell of money — with a strong hint of entrepreneurial opportunity.

“Medical marijuana is now a $1.7 billion market, according to a report released Wednesday by See Change Strategy, an independent financial analysis firm that specializes in new and unique markets. The figure represents estimated sales of marijuana through dispensaries in states with medical marijuana laws. It is the first time a definitive dollar figure has been given to the emerging medical cannabis industry.

To put that number in perspective, sales of medical marijuana rival annual revenue generated by Viagra, a $1.9 billion business for Pfizer.”  Full story here.

Top 10 Logical Fallacies in Politics in no particular order

#9 ARGUMENTUM AD METUM

The human brain is wired all wrong. Those not versed in logic are blissfully unaware of how much our brain messes up the most basic of arguments, leading to the mess of random thoughts, non-sequiturs, cognitive dissonance, white lies, misinformation, and syntax errors that we call consciousness. Luckily, there is one place where all of these logical missteps can be exemplified: politics. What follows is a crash course in some of the most prevalent fallacies we all make, as they appear in modern American politics. And though I consider these the "top 10" logical fallacies in politics, they are not in order, for reasons that should become clear rather quickly.

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You aren't a communist, are you?

“Whenever a politician appeals to your fears, insecurities, or paranoia, he or she is demonstrating the logical fallacy of the Argumentum ad Metum. This one is a combination of a bunch of the above fallacies, as it can be an irrelevant thesis, an falsifiable hypothesis, an appeal to motive, and a slippery slope straw man argument, as in the example, "If we don't do X, the terrorists win."

This is a common tactic throughout politics. Republicans want you to be afraid of socialism, terrorism, and a world on the verge of World War III. Democrats want you to be afraid of a global warming apocalypse, racism run amok, and Republicans. While all of these fears can in one way or another be justified, there shouldn't be any need to appeal to them when making an argument. President Bush didn't have to invoke the image of a mushroom cloud on American soil to explain the invasion of Iraq, and President Obama didn't have to invoke the image of poor mothers dying of starvation in the streets to sell his healthcare initiative.

It's a particularly sleazy way to make a point, and it is fallacious in multiple ways. Still, it is dramatic and effective, and thus all politicians and pundits use the Argumentum ad Metum on a regular basis. It works because it is an "us vs. them" form of argument, and it bypasses a certain degree of critical thinking by playing to people's emotions. Whenever you allow an argument like this to work on you, you bring the country one step closer to a bloody civil war.

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Illegal immigrants disguised as U.S. Marines fail to get through border checkpoint

I guess I would have been suspicious too if I saw ALL of their name tags said “Perez.”

The odds of one entire family of Perez’s in military uniforms are astronomical. I wonder if it was this little slip-up that got them caught?

“Thirteen illegal immigrants disguised themselves as U.S. Marines –- donning battle dress uniforms and caps -- in a failed attempt to get through a  U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint last week east of San Diego, authorities said.

The driver of the white van carrying the immigrants and another man, both U.S. citizens, were arrested  March 14 at the I-8 checkpoint near Campo and charged with alien smuggling, according to U.S. Border Patrol officials.”

Story Here

Pizza pugs, Gay cures, DUI checkpoint alerts, obnoxious apps

Animals doing people things equals comedy. This pug who really, really wants a slice of pizza proves the rule.

Apple finally pulled that "Gay Cure" app after 146,000 signed a petition protesting it.

Senators want Apple to pull DUI checkpoint alert apps, for the obvious reasons.

And Apple is threatening a legal smackdown on "adult" app store MiKandi for using the term "app store."

Meanwhile, radar detection is coming to Android.

Amazon is now OK with the Kindle-lending startup it stomped on yesterday.

The 2010 elections made your parents join Twitter and Facebook, apparently.

Still, Mom and Dad are no doubt psyched to hear that Zynga's rolling out the "English Countryside" FarmVille expansion.

Lady Gaga told Google about how she's always longed to be "searchable."

An Etsy artist so pleased to be included in Urlesque's awesome gallery of "Sad Etsy Boyfriends," showed her appreciation via a "LULZ" beanie.

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