Category: Political

Categories
Energy Users Environment Political

Not overblown, but important to Congress

Via Sierra Club, the Daily Kos has a break down on the top presidential candidates–Republican and Democrat–and their responses to a Katie Couric question: Is Global Warming Overblow.

The answers are interesting. Fred Thompson’s response was a joke–electing him would be like electing Bush again for a third term. The other Republican candidates, at least are willing to admit there is a problem.

What I don’t understand, though, is if the presidential candidates think the problem is serious, then why does the energy bill, which is a start at addressing the problem, lying on the Congressional cutting room floor? Scientists are now saying arctic ice could be gone in less than ten years, and all the candidates are talking about solutions cutting emissions in 2050. “Thinking Green”, as if the solution can be found in a viral ad campaign.

Why stop at the candidates. If the environment is a Democratic thing, tell me something else: why are there are just as many Democrats driving gas guzzlers, as Republicans?

The problem of global warming isn’t political, it’s personal. And with recent news from the scientists, damn personal.

Categories
Political

Riots in the valley

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Rumors have been flying that riots and violence unimaginable have been happening in the fire-stricken disaster areas around Los Angeles and San Diego.

Firefighters are now refusing to enter and render assistance to victims in communities such as Rancho Bernardo and Del Mar. “We’ve heard of gangs of white people roaming the streets, shooting at anyone who passes”, said one firefighter, who wished to be anonymous.

The AP Wire just published a news flash: Del Mar Evacuation Halted Amid Gunfire…Shots are Fired at Military Helicopter”.

Pulled from a golf game, Bobcat Stick was quoted as saying, “it’s just unbelievable…how people are behaving, with the shootings and now the gang rapes and the gang violence and shooting at helicopters who are trying to help out and rescue people.”

The National Guard refused to approach Rancho Santa Fe because “we’re waiting until we have enough force in place to do an overwhelming force,” Lt. Gen. H. Dweebus Ahole told reporters on October 22nd.

Evacuees at the Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, where up to 10,000 evacuees anxiously watched the stadium’s television sets, hoping for a glimpse of their neighborhood on the local news, have spread stories of horrors–including the rape of a 7 year old girl, nay, dozens of babies being raped, as the dead from the violence lay, like kindling, waiting to be burned.

The evacuee suffering worsened when the Red Cross was denied access based on fears for the safety of the volunteers. Those denied succor at shelters have fled to nearby San Clemente, escaping past barriers erected to keep them out.

Some people haven’t been able to update their Facebook accounts. My god, the inhumanity.

This post is tagged satire. However, everything written here in the post, except the last sentence, was published in the media, but about Katrina and the people of New Orleans. Every sentence was also found to be untrue.

I wish the best for the folks in southern California, and hope the fires are soon out.

Categories
Political Religion

Joy. Oh joy oh joy oh joy

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

It’s not bad enough that St. Louis in August is characterized by hot, muggy days, with lousy air quality.

It’s not bad enough that we’ve just had our first human case of West Nile Virus in the county, and that the dangerous tick alert is still ongoing.

It’s not terrible enough that the dog days of summer in St. Louis make you want to embrace the cat and kill the pooch.

No, no, it becomes worse.

The National Federation of Republican Assemblies is being hosted here, this upcoming weekend. The event’s tag line?

“Show me your Values”

I can just hear the opening statement now: This here meetin’ of the white trailer park trash of the south is now come together. Anyone around you not waving a cute, little American flag is a godless, commie, liberal, no good spy. Shoot ‘em.”

But wait…it gets even more worse…worser…whatever.

What are the ‘beliefs’ behind this organization?

That all political power and influence should flow from the grass roots upward.

That all human rights are granted by God, not government and that government exists primarily to protect the God-given rights of its citizens.

That the Constitution was written by wise men under the inspiration of God and that the original intent of the Founders is as valid and binding today as it was in their day.

That the Constitution was written to govern a moral and religious people and it is being destroyed by those who are neither.

That the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. That sacred right extends to all persons regardless of age or infirmity and also would not allow for euthanasia, assisted suicide, or public funding for any of these practices.

That the traditional family is the foundation and cornerstone of our society and we will oppose any attempt to undermine or redefine the family unit.

That the founders never intended to separate God from government but did intend to prevent government from establishing a single state religion or inhibiting the citizen’s right to the free exercise of religion in any setting, public or private.

That free market capitalism is the only economic system that creates the opportunities and incentives that will allow maximum productivity and prosperity for its citizens. It is the necessary partner of political freedom.

In the necessity of national sovereignty, we also consider it crucial to return to appropriate state sovereignty under the 10th amendment.

Yes, let’s forget separation of church and state. Tedious thing being tolerant, idna it?

Let’s forget the fact that the ‘traditional’ family in the country typically consists of a single or divorced parent, trying to raise kids with, or without help, from the spouse no longer living at home.

Let’s forget that capitalism and the ‘free market system’ has brought us Enron, big tobacco and drug companies, and health insurance that costs too much and covers too little.

Let’s also forget that most serial murders in this country are typically committed by Christians, so are most lynchings and beatings, and that no war has ever been caused by an atheist. In fact, I can’t think of one single negative act ever committed in the name of atheism in this country. So as the whole ‘moral’ thing goes, the religious suck at it.

But it’s in the principles that you see the real purpose behind such a group: it’s all about taxes and support for capitalism, and a Darwinian survival of the economic fittest that would bring down the house. Oh, and claiming our ‘god given right’ to beat the crap out of other countries. Well, other countries that have something we want, that is.

Such noble spirits. Such statements of openness and generosity. Why I feel like I’ve just walked into a cramped, dusty, and dark closet when I read sentiments such as these.

Makes me wonder about the Presidential candidates, though. They’ll allow themselves to be associated with racist, ignorant, self-serving po’dunks, like the people in NFRA, but they won’t answer questions from YouTube. I mean, no matter how many potential “Romney girls” or men in white hoods get thrown at the GOPers, it has to be better than lunch with Phyllis Schafly.

Yes, that’s the topping on this little overbaked cake: Phyllis Schafly is keynote speaker. Why, I feel like donning my apron and running right on down, if My Man will let me. After all, I just love Phyllis, I really do; almost as much as Tom DeLay who is also attending.

Oh, rapture! And did you dig the cute little RINO hunter thing? I love it, I really do. The more groups like this shoot down moderate Republicans, the more Democrats win office. Hallelujah and pass the ammo!

You’d think that people in the Lou would have enough problems, what with the heat, the humidity, bugs, and smog — but Phyllis Schafly, Tom DeLay, tossed together with generous servings of self-interest, greed, bigotry, and the smallest minds found anywhere outside of the Shuars in Ecuador and Peru–well, it’s more than a people should be expected to bear.

The only redeeming thing about all of this? You all lost the Republican Party the Congressional vote in 2006, cupcakes. And you’re going to help the Party lose the Presidential race in 2008, too.

Categories
Government

Arbitration Fairness Act of 2007

The Consumerist has more on the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2007.

People Over Profits has an email campaign but it also helps to contact your Congressional rep directly. A letter of phone call also works wonders.

How important is this bill? There is no bill pending in Congress that scares Corporate America more than this one. There is no bill pending in Congress that could more help the American people than this one.

Due to rulings in the Supreme Court, mandatory arbitration agreements now trump the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission when it comes to employment discrimination lawsuits. This means that an arbitrator can make decisions based on civil rights, can do so without following the law, can do so without following the arbitration rules themselves, and can do so without any transparency into the decision process.

…after Sherri Warner lost her discrimination and wrongful firing suit in mandatory arbitration, a San Francisco arbitrator not only charged her nearly $16,000 for his time, he ordered her to pay her opponent’s legal fees of more than $207,000.

The fee award would probably not have been allowed in court, and it forced Warner into bankruptcy. But after her lawyer, Stephen Gorski, asked the arbitrator to explain his decision, the arbitrator refused when reminded no rules required him to do so.

Arbitrators rarely issue written opinions, making requests for review virtually impossible.

What’s scarier is that this case was ten years ago, and since then, the Supreme Court has given even more power to arbitration, including giving it power overruling on employment discrimination that now supersedes that of the EEOC. The Supremes have even given it power over the law, itself. I a recent case, one of my favorites, Buckeye Check Cashing vs. Cardenga, a man sued a check cashing company claiming that the conditions of the loan were illegal. The company, which had a mandatory arbitration clause, demanded that the claim be taken to arbitration. The state of Florida disagreed, saying that an arbitration clause that was in a contract deemed to be illegal is not enforceable.

However, our Scalia controlled Supreme Court doesn’t allow a little thing like an illegal contract deter it. It decided that it wasn’t up to the courts to determine the validity of an arbitration clause just because it happened to be in an illegal contract — the only item the courts could determine is whether the arbitration clause is, in and of itself, legal. The rest of the contract was then up to the arbitrator.

Question

Under the Federal Arbitration Act, may a party avoid arbitration by arguing that the contract in which the arbitration clause is contained is illegal?

Conclusion

No. The 7-1 majority (Justice Samuel Alito not participating) ruled that challenges to the legality of a contract as a whole must be argued before the arbitrator rather than a court. The opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia explained that “unless the challenge is to the arbitration clause itself, the issue of the contract’s validity is considered by the arbitrator in the first instance.” The Court held that the Florida Supreme Court had been wrong to rely on a distinction between void and merely voidable contracts, because the word “contract” in the Federal Arbitration Act includes contracts later found to be void. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented due to his long-held view that the FAA does not apply in state courts.

This is a frustrating topic for me, because I’ve watched over the years now as arbitration has eroded all of our judicial rights, as granted by the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution. It’s frustrating because I can’t seem to convey, in this weblog, how serious this can get.

A legal expert in Texas once said that he felt in ten years, there would no longer be a civil court system because of how much it is being eroded by an act that was basically put into law in 1925, as a way for businesses to come to ‘gentlemanly agreements’ in regards to a dispute. It was never intended to be used by corporations against the common citizen.

This is also a case of the breakdown of the system of checks and balances built into our government. The Supreme Court has empowered arbitration and supported mandatory arbitration to the point that it now is undermining the very nature of civil rights in our country, and was allowed to do so, unchecked, in the Republican controlled Congress.

Now we have a Democratic controlled congress. More than that, we have a congress where even many Republicans are beginning to look askance at the miscarriage of justice that occurs under the auspices of ‘arbitration’.

American Corporations do not want this Bill. American Corporations, who have delivered shoddy equipment, surly service, and bad faith consumerism.

Who supports this bill?

The Feingold-Johnson bill is supported by a host of consumer advocate organizations including Consumers Union, Public Citizen, American Association for Justice, Center for Responsible Lending, Consumer Federation of America, Homeowners Against Deficient Dwellings, Home Owners for Better Building, National Association of Consumer Advocates, National Consumer Law Center (on behalf of its low income clients), National Consumer Coalition for Nursing Home Reform, the National Employment Lawyers Association and Public Justice.

The list is only growing, as word of this Bill slowly trickles out.

Support the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2007. Please.

Categories
Political

The sky is falling. Blame Jay.

I hadn’t planned on covering much Missouri news until I open MissouriGreen.com, but the situation at Johnson’s Shut-Ins is getting ridiculous.

Now our Republican Lt. Gov is having a press conference at the Shut-Ins to basically blame Jay Nixon–state Attorney General and Democratic candidate for governor–for the fact that Ameren is refusing to follow through on its commitment to restore Johnson’s in a timely enough manner for the park to open this year.

The issue? There is criminal investigation–originally demanded by Governor Blunt, and ordered by a Reynolds County Judge–into the reservoir breach and Ameren has decided it won’t do anything until this is ‘resolved’. This investigation would normally fall into the province of the local district attorney, but he had a conflict of interest and the investigation than fell to the state attorney general’s office.

What an ideal situation for Governor Blunt this turned out to be: use Jay Nixon doing his job against him. Demand that Nixon’s office do an investigation and then castigate him for doing so.

The Republican governor and Lt. Governor, and various Republican state officials, as well as the Republican controlled Department of Natural Resources seem to think this is a real godsend, because they can Blame Jay whenever anything happens to delay the opening of this park. Ameren isn’t unhappy about the situation either, because it can use it to pit the parties against one another, until eventually Ameren gets off with no more than a slap on the wrist for its actions.

  • Let’s ignore Ameren’s written and verbal commitments right after the breach to fix the park and the river as soon as possible.
  • Let’s ignore the fact that until the park is fixed and the river is stabilized, the water quality is suffering and Ameren should be facing daily fines for such.
  • Why don’t we ‘forget’ the idea of the state actually paying for the repairs and then getting reimbursed from whatever settlement is derived in the upcoming lawsuit.
  • We can also forget that if this dam break had happened in the peak season, most likely hundreds, maybe even thousands of people would have been injured or killed.
  • While we’re at it, let’s ignore the folks in Reynolds County who are dependent on this park for part of their livelihood. Oh that’s right: let’s keep the school system dependent on Ameren taxes so that the county can’t aggressively push for accountability from the company. So, while we’re at it, let’s not use state money to support the school systems, either.

No need to be reminded that the qualified people who were running the DNR–through both Republican and Democrat administrations–were all fired the very day that Governor Blunt took office, so that he could put in a Doyle Childers, a Republican crony who had exceeded term limits in state office and needed a job. A man who has demonstrated that corporate and big farm issues matter much more to him then something like the clean water and the environment which, after all, don’t pay taxes or donate money to political campaigns. A man who does not have the ability or background to lead the DNR, much less have the decency to put politics aside to do his job.

Jay Nixon is doing his job as Attorney General. He’s not turning this into a political windfall. He could as easily ‘drop’ the suit and become an instant hero–but then what happens the next time Ameren decides it’s more economical to just ignore maintenance on one of their projects rather than shut down profitable energy generating operations? After all, the company doesn’t have to follow through on its commitments, not while Governor Blunt and his cronies control so much of the DNR.

This isn’t a big national story and most of you probably won’t care about what happens in this state. But the problems at the highest level of government don’t just happen by themselves–using government resources to support a political agenda starts at the local levels, and when such mechanizations are ignored or tolerated, propagate to the highest offices in the land.

I’m so mad right now I could spit. If I had known sooner that the Lt. Gov and several REPUBLICAN state officials were planning a little shindig at the park–our park, our state park, the one that belongs to all of us, not just the Republicans–I would have driven over there to see if we could turn this into a real question and answer session, instead of the blatant political get together this is turning out to be.

More at Black River News here, here and here. Make sure to read the comments.

“Blame Jay”, indeed.

Then there’s the new one from Black River News, from an unspecified tipster:

Thursday Mactec and Ameren presented to DNR for approval the final drawings for the ‘scenic overlook’ over the scour and the new campground on Goggins. DNR couldn’t/wouldn’t approve them. A representative each from Mactec and Ameren had to walk out of the meeting for a while to cool off. They are extremely frustrated with DNR’s plodding. I’m told Mactec has only a week or two of work to do on it’s current schedule, and unless DNR approves some plans soon they are going to be sitting on their hands.

If this is true, then this is evidence of gross negligence and malfeasance. How far is Childers willing to go to make Nixon ‘look bad’?

Ameren just issued a press release about 20 minutes ago, stating in part:

AmerenUE officials today stressed that it’s their belief that the Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park can be opened for day use this summer if all parties — including state agencies — work together to make the park available to Missouri’s citizens.

AmerenUE has been working diligently for the past 15 months to restore and repair the damage to the park resulting from the Taum Sauk Reservoir breach.

“We believe the park can and should be reopened for more extensive public use later this summer, including swimming in the Shut-Ins,” says AmerenUE President and Chief Executive Officer Thomas R. Voss. “However,
that will take a cooperative effort by all parties. At AmerenUE, we are ready and willing to discuss this with all pertinent agencies.”

AmerenUE believes a safe and restored river system, shut-ins access and security controls can be in place so that portions of the park can be opened by July 1. Ongoing construction activities can be segregated from public use areas so that restoration activities can continue uninterrupted.

This summer, visitors to the park would be able to enjoy the newly rebuilt park store, newly restored picnic areas and a boardwalk that provides access to areas where they can enjoy swimming in the shut-ins.

Over the past 15 months, the company has moved to restore areas affected by the breach of the Taum Sauk upper reservoir. Since the day of the Dec. 14, 2005, breach, AmerenUE and its contractors have:
— removed nearly 15,000 truckloads of material from the site;
— restored the delicate “fen” — a unique and sensitive forested wetlands with distinct features and vegetation — crews literally removed debris and silt by hand.
— worked to improve water quality in the lower reservoir and Black River;
— graded and seeded the campground area in Johnson’s Shut-Ins, rebuilt the camp store and repaired the boardwalks.

Meanwhile, the company has supported the local economy, settling thousands of dollars worth of claims, conducting an aggressive advertising campaign to promote tourism in the Taum Sauk area, and launching an award-winning Web site to give local businesses a way to reach a range of audiences.

Actually the aggressive advertising campaign and ‘award winning website’ was a dud — a passive web site that was never updated. But it’s interesting about the supposed items that have been finished.

Exactly why is the park not opening? Who is doing what, now, and how much is finished?

This is getting absurd. The DNR says last week the park can’t open this summer–work not done. Now Ameren is saying, well, yes the work is done. Which is it? Either the work is done, or it’s not. Either the park can open, or it can’t. If the work is that far along, what exactly is the hold up at the DNR? There shouldn’t be any need of a finalized lawsuit or criminal action to open the park.

What is DNR’s reason for not opening the park?

Third Update

Talk about breaking news, the St. Louis Business Journal just issued a story about the conflict between DNR and Ameren. You can read the story here. Here is the DNR press release associated with the story.

The press release, which is almost incoherent, has the following:

“We have had a plan to reopen Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park this summer that ensures public safety,” said Childers. “The State of Missouri and its citizens do not want a last-minute, band-aid fix that severely limits their use of the resource this summer. We simply cannot allow visitors into Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park under dangerous conditions.”

When the shut-ins are available for swimming, there is a great deal of public use and need for services. The heavy rains of the past two weeks have caused rebar and other dangerous materials to surface again in the shut-ins.

They don’t have to allow swimming in order to open the park. Just being able to visit the park and the shut-ins would be sufficient. The park didn’t have swimming last year, and a lot of people would like to take a peek at what’s happening with the restoration, visit the fens, walk the boardwalk by the shut-ins.

Childers keeps bringing up issues related to Nixon, yet Ameren has not once made a statement to this effect. All Ameren has asked is that the agencies involved work together, and the company has a right to ask this.

It wasn’t that long ago when Nixon’s office made a statement that the DNR and the AG had worked towards a solution, when all of a sudden, the DNR pulled out. Issued a press release condemning Nixon. Totally blew off all the work that had been accomplished.

Time for Childers to be replaced. Time for Missouri to forget Gonzales and Bush and pay attention to the problems in our own backyard.