Give ‘Em Hell, Bernie

Stephan:  Bernie Sanders is SR's candidate for the Democratic nomination for President. It is time to put an honest man in office. One who actually thinks wellness at every level of society is important.
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) Credit: aattp.org

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt)
Credit: aattp.org

Many years ago I pitched a magazine editor on a story about Bernie Sanders, then a congressman from Vermont, who’d agreed to something extraordinary – he agreed to let me, a reporter, stick next to him without restrictions over the course of a month in congress.

“People need to know how this place works. It’s absurd,” he’d said. (Bernie often uses the word absurd, his Brooklyn roots coming through in his pronunciation – ob-zert.)

Bernie wasn’t quite so famous at the time and the editor scratched his head. “Bernie Sanders,” he said. “That’s the one who cares, right?”

“Right, that’s the guy,” I said.

I got the go-ahead and the resulting story was a wild journey through the tortuous bureaucratic maze of our national legislature. I didn’t write this at the time, but I was struck every day by what a strange and interesting figure Sanders was.

Many of the battles he brought me along to witness, he lost. And no normal politician […]

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Senators Approve Bill To Stop EPA From Using ‘Secret Science’

Stephan:  This is the latest and in many ways the sneakiest attempt by the Republican Party to stop effective climate change remediation. History is going to be very harsh on these politicians, and any citizen voting Republican bears part of the blame. That may seem harsh, but it is the truth.
Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), Senate sponsor of the Secret Science Reform Act. Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), Senate sponsor of the Secret Science Reform Act.
Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

A Senate committee has advanced legislation that would change how the Environmental Protection Agency uses science to craft regulations intended to protect the environment and public health, the Hill reported Tuesday.

On party line votes, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee voted 11-9 to approve the “Secret Science Reform Act,” a bill to prohibit the EPA from using science that includes private data, or data that can’t be easily reproduced. The bill has been pushed strongly by House Republicans for the last two years, but this is the first time it has been advanced by the Senate. It is sponsored by Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY).

The purpose of the Secret Science bill, according to its House sponsor Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), is to stop “hidden and flawed” science from being the basis of EPA regulations. However, many scientific organizations have disagreed with […]

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Blue Shield

Stephan:  I have to confess I did not know about the special rights enjoyed by police. This is actually a pretty appalling article. The question it left me with is: Why doesn't everyone have such rights?

Baltimore_Police_Department_logo_patch1It has been more than two weeks since Baltimore police dragged Freddie Gray into the paddy-wagon from which he would emerge, half an hour later, with a fatal injury to his spine. But as another day ticks by, Gray’s neighbors and fellow citizens remain largely uninformed about what occurred in that van, and why.

As was true in a spate of recent death-in-custody cases, the Baltimore police department’s seeming reluctance (or inability) to mount a prompt, thorough investigation of its own officers has generated escalating protests, fueled by existing distrust of the police and suggestions of a cover-up.

But in this case it wasn’t just the thin blue line of solidarity shielding the cops involved from having to testify against themselves or each other.

The problem, said Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, is that city officials were unable to “fully engage” with the officers “because of our Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights.”

That such a bill of rights exists was news to many in Maryland. But the mayor was correct to note […]

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House Gives $334 Billion Tax Break to 25 Richest Americans

Stephan:  The thing about living in an oligarchy is that when it gets to a certain point of emotional security for the oligarchs it becomes shameless; there is no attempt to hang a merkin on the greed. Here is a classic example of the process in action. This is just an amazing story.
Stacks of bills

Credit: Shutterstock

The House of Representatives gave 25 of the nation’s billionaires a $334 billion tax break on April 16 when it voted 240-179 to repeal the estate tax. The nearly 100-year old tax raises $27 billion a year for the US government. Of the 2,662,000 Americans who died in 2013, just 3,700 of their estates paid any estate tax – one out of every 700 estates.

Of the nation’s 25 wealthiest billionaires, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, George Soros, and Carl Icahn have all campaigned publicly to keep a strong estate tax. In contrast, the Mars family has been a big funder of efforts to repeal the tax.

The repeal would allow the nation’s wealthiest citizens to pass on all of their enormous wealth to their heirs with no taxes paid. The chart below outlines how much the 25 richest Americans would owe if their entire estates were subject to a 40 percent tax rate – after the first $5.4 million in wealth was excluded.

Billionaire
Wealth Source
Wealth
(in $ Billions)

Estate Tax @ 40%
(In $ Billions)

Bill Gates
Microsoft
81.0
32.4

Warren […]

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Most U.S. Middle-School Kids Don’t Know How Government Works

Stephan:  How long can a democracy endure when its children don't even know what a democracy is. I agree with Justice Sandra Day O Connor when she says, the results are “truly frightening, and demonstrate that we must put the same emphasis on these subjects that we are putting on math and science.” The only additional comment I would make is that if we are emphasizing science and math, we are doing a dreadful job of it. American school children rank very low in the developed world on either science or math.
Eighth grade students from Oyster-Adams Bilingual School learn auto mechanics in Washington D.C.

Eighth grade students from Oyster-Adams Bilingual School learn auto mechanics in Washington D.C.

More than half of U.S. eighth-graders say Americans believe the U.S. government should guarantee them a job when they grow up.

That’s one of the findings of a federal test of children’s knowledge of history, civics and geography. Only 32 percent correctly answered the question about a belief shared by most people in the U.S. The right response: the government should be a democracy. Eleven percent said citizens favored a single political party and 6 percent, an official religion.

The results of the 2014 test, called the National Assessment of Educational Progress, were released Wednesday as Congress considers replacing the federal testing law known as No Child Left Behind, which President Barack Obama and others blame for promoting too tight a focus on math and reading at the expense of other subjects.

Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, founder of civics education nonprofit, iCivics, said […]

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