On Wednesday, the Texas State legislature, currently composed of 19 Republicans and 12 Democrats, unanimously passed Senate Bill 11, which mandates that every Texan applying for food assistance through the TANF (Texas Assistance for Needy Families) program, submit to an undefined "screening process" and possible drug test before receiving benefits if the screener finds "good cause" to even suspect that person is... or is likely to... abuse any "controlled substance" -- despite the fact that there is no evidence at all that people seeking assistance are more likely to do drugs.

According to the bill’s author, Sen. Jane Nelson (R-Flower Mound), the purpose of the bill:

“It ensures that TANF, formerly known as welfare, supports its core purpose of helping families to achieve self-sufficiency,” said Nelson, as she introduced the bill. “We found common ground to support a plan that makes sure state resources aren’t used to support a drug habit while at the same time making sure children receiving benefit in a productive environment.”

The state of Florida passed an almost identical testing procedure that ran from 1999 to 2001 and was reintroduced in July of 2011 that was struck down by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta the following month, citing the fact:

"there is nothing inherent to the condition of being impoverished that supports the conclusion that there is a `concrete danger' that impoverished individuals are prone to drug use."

The Tampa Tribune investigated the results of those July 2011 drug tests and found that "96 percent proved to be drug free", another 2 percent never bothering to complete the lengthy application process, and 2 percent actually failing drug testing. At an average cost of $30 per test, the state was hemorrhaging tax dollars at a rate of "$28,800-$43,200 monthly"... FAR out pacing the supposed "savings" from preventing drug-abusers from gaming the system to buy drugs.

(Another analysis of the Florida program also found it to be a costly & colossal failure.)

The Texas bill is a bit more insidious than the Florida program, leaving the decision whether or not to submit an applicant for the confiscation and testing of their bodily fluids up to an ambiguous "good cause" determination by an unspecified process.

Terri Burke, executive director of the ACLU of Texas, said she was shocked to see the measure pass unanimously when it clearly singles out poor Texans as more likely to abuse drugs when federal surveys find no difference in use across any income groups and given the clear experience of Florida that such measures cost more money than they save.

This is just further perpetuation of the stereotype that poor people are all lazy drug-abusing scam-artists, rather than just people that have fallen on hard times seeking assistance. The results of these programs is always the same. Legislators are "shocked" to discover that PEOPLE WITH NO MONEY CAN'T AFFORD TO BUY DRUGS. Pick up any tabloid or turn on the TV, and the biggest drug abusers are the rich & famous (see: Lindsay Lohan), star athletes and the rich spoiled children of corporate executives, not the Average Joe who lost his home after his multi-billion dollar bank got bailed out -- and he didn't.

Addendum: Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has proposed, not only taking this costly & ineffectual program national, but extending it to those seeking unemployment benefits as well.

During the ABC's "This Week" Roundtable Sunday, in an attempt to belittle the latest excellent job creation numbers to come out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (236,000 jobs created in February), Conservative fanboy George Will made the following incredibly clueless observation:

WILL: If the workforce participation rate were as high today as it was just 12 months ago, the unemployment rate would be 8.3 percent. If the workforce participation rate were as high today as it was when Mr. Obama was inaugurated, the unemployment rate would be over 10 percent.

Think about that statement for a moment. Will is actually arguing that job growth under Obama... growing at a rate of more than twice what is needed just to keep up with population growth, and actually produced a 0.2% decline in the Unemployment Rate last month... isn't growing fast enough to make up for the economic catastrophe created prior to President Obama taking office, and therefore is a failure. According to the Fox "business" Channel, jobless claims are actually on the decline.

And sooooo... what? We should return to the GOP economic policies that created the disaster in the first place?

For reference, by this point in Bush's presidency, the unemployment rate had gone from 4.2% the month he took office to 5.4% in March of 2005 following the longest post-war economic expansion of the 20th century and two consecutive balanced budgets under President Clinton (by contrast, unemployment has fallen under President Obama from 7.8% to 7.7% following the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and a $1.4 TRILLION dollar Deficit).

On Tuesday night, Florida GOP Golden Child Sen. Marco Rubio delivered a pre-written "response" to President Obama's State of the Union address where he bravely knocked down strawman after strawman, criticizing the president for things he didn't say, and for failing to address subjects that he, in fact, did (like "Medicare" and "early education").

During the senator's speech, he made a point of mentioning that he doesn't live among "millionaires" but instead among immigrants, retirees and senior citizens on fixed incomes. One would be forgiven if they came away believing that Senator Rubio lives in the barrio, among some of the poorest people in Miami.

Mr. President, I still live in the same working class neighborhood I grew up in. My neighbors aren't millionaires. They're retirees who depend on Social Security and Medicare. They're workers who have to get up early and go to work to pay the bills. They're immigrants who came here because they were stuck in poverty in countries where the government dominated the economy.

Problem is, Rubio's working class home has been up for sale at the bargain price of more than two thirds of a million dollars as he seeks to move out of that neighborhood to DC.

(15 key slides from the infamous 2003 UN presentation making the case for war with Iraq, with anotations. Click the pause button on lower left if slides change too fast for you.)

Ten years ago today (February 5, 2003) then Secretary of State Colin Powell delivered his infamous PowerPoint Presentation before a full session of the U.N., detailing "evidence" of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons development along with the development of advanced delivery systems.

(GlobalSecurity has the entire 45 slide presentation, plus videos, here.)

With a bit of Googling, I was able to find out just what became of each site/item depicted in these slides. Not a single item shown that day turned out to be true. While reviewing these slides, keep in mind that the United States went to war, and over 4,000 American troops (not to mention and untold number of Iraqi civilians) died based on the claims made in these slides.

(Author's Note: I suppose I have to tell insane Right-Wingers that this post should IN NO WAY be misconstrued as a "defense" of Saddam Hussein. The dictator of Iraq was a monster and earned his place in hell, but the world is FULL of evil dictators and the U.S. cannot be responsible for deposing all of them. Likewise, thousands of U.S. and coalition troops gave their lives fighting a war based on the "evidence" presented in this slideshow, and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians died. In fact, arguably, more Iraqis died in our 8-year war than under the 24-year reign of Saddam Hussein.)

(Additional videos below the fold.)

Continue reading »

Second Amendment diehards and Gun Control Advocates have been locked in battle since Crispus Attucks was the first American killed by the British at the dawn of the American Revolution in 1770.

Having lived in Texas nearly my entire life, raised by a Conservative Republican father that is also a gun collector and avid gun enthusiast, and having witnessed more than my share of Right-Wing paranoia that "jackbooted government thugs are coming to take your guns away" among residents of the tiny town in which I was raised, and how even the slightest hint of gun control can actually worsen the situation by fanning the flames of that paranoia (see: "gun sales since Obama's election and reelection"), I feel uniquely qualified to moderate a serious discussion on what forms of gun control legislation could reasonably & conceivably pass Congress today filled with Conservatives as terrified of the NRA as most of Americans are of gun violence.

In 1993, the Clinton Administration signed into law "The Brady Bill", named for President Reagan's former Press Secretary James Brady, who survived being shot in the head by Reagan's would-be assassin in 1981. The bill merely called for a completely reasonable 5-day waiting period on the purchase of most firearms ("most" because Republicans managed to insert the infamous "Gun Show loophole"), while the FBI performs a criminal background check of the buyer... which, had it of been in place in 1981, might have prevented Reagan's shooter from obtaining his handgun. The law had been gathering dust for four years as the first Bush Administration refused to sign it thanks to fierce NRA opposition.

The following year, President Clinton signed the "Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act", which included the infamous "Assault Weapons Ban", into law. The ban completely outraged the NRA and Republicans, certain it was the first step in an outright repeal of the Second Amendment. The AWB banned the sale of 19 specific models of semi-automatic firearms as well as a ban on high capacity magazines (clips holding more than 10 rounds).

The AWB was passed with a ten year sunset clause. When it came up for renewal on March 2, 2004, the Bush-43 Administration allowed the ban to expire and assault weapons and high capacity magazines could once again be legally bought & sold. Huzzah!

In recent months, horrific gun violence has filled the airwaves. The murder/suicide of a woman by her NFL boyfriend, terror in an Oregon shopping mall full of Christmas shoppers just last Tuesday, even the "Batman" shooting at an Aurora, CO movie theater, the massacre at an Indian Sikh Temple last August, and the near fatal shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords just to name a few. And the Obama Administration has likely felt hamstrung in their first term, unwilling to even address gun control prior to the election, and (IMHO) would have willingly ignored the issue throughout the rest of his second term rather than validate Right-Wing paranoia that he would "take your guns away if reelected" had it of not been for this recent rash of dramatic fatal shootings.

Brilliant comedian Chris Rock famously joked about leaving guns alone (protected by the Second Amendment), but instead "make every bullet cost $5,000." Definitely a novel solution in the right direction: focus on the ammunition, not the weapons themselves. But as mentioned earlier, my father is an avid target shooter who also makes his own bullets. Packs them right there in the garage with special equipment. You use a lot of bullets target shooting, so packing your own saves lots of money. And a $5,000 "bullet tax" would have no effect on him. "Excessive taxation" would simply drive ammo sales underground or encourage more people to pack their own the way my father does. Likewise, "excessive taxation" constricting a Constitutional right would never survive a Constitutional challenge in the courts. But I think a more reasonable "cigarette-tax" sized fee placed on gunpowder/ammunition sales of perhaps $25.00 per pound of black powder could conceivably pass through Congress in light of recent events IF you stipulated that ALL revenue raised by this tax were spent on "security" of public buildings like schools and "mental health" services.

Another rational idea that focuses on ammunition, bring back the ban on high-capacity clips from the 1993 "Assault Weapons Ban". The ban on magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds was greatly disliked by the NRA and Radical Right, but popular among the general public. Because of its popularity, opponents could not come out too forcefully for its repeal without looking like an irrational "gun nut" that would then be pilloried in the Press and defeated at the ballot box. That's why President Bush simply waited three years for the ban to expire on it's own rather than repeal the popular law early in his first term.

So have at it folks! What are your ideas for limiting gun violence? Tell us your ideas for sensible gun laws that could feasibly pass both a Republican controlled House and survive a Republican filibuster in the Senate (let's pray the filibuster is reformed on January 3rd) to be signed into law by President Obama in his second term.

The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary Friday wasn't the first school shooting since the ban expired. In fact, it's already the fourth school-shooting just this year.

But as I've often said, "There's no way to put the genie back in the bottle." The guns are already out there. An outright repeal of the Second Amendment would not only be impossible, but would actually cause gun sales to EXPLODE in the days/weeks/months leading up to its demise. No, we need novel new ideas to prevent & discourage gun violence. Thoughts? (I'll be live Moderating for the next hour.)

via ThinkProgress,

Gov. Rick Snyder agreed to an interview with APR ("American Public Radio") host Jeremy Hobson, who stumped the governor when he was asked to explain... if the intent of his legislation isn't to destroy the unions... just how does "union busting" attract jobs to his state of Michigan?

SNYDER: This is about more and better jobs coming to Michigan. If you look at Indiana, they did similar legislation in February. And literally, thousands of new jobs are coming to Indiana where this was a major consideration in companies’ decision to move to that state.

HOBSON: Are you saying then that companies decided to go to Indiana, for example, because there’s less union membership in Indiana?

SNYDER: No, and I don’t want to speak for the companies but it is very clear that companies are looking at Indiana that previously did not. [...]

HOBSON: Well, make that connection though. You’re saying that, by not requiring workers to pay union dues, that therefore companies are going to be more attracted to the state. Why would that be?

SNYDER: Well, that’s a question for the companies but there is a strong sense, and companies do look at that. That’s something we’ve suffered here.[...]

HOBSON: Union membership has fallen dramatically in Michigan and across the country and it’s not as though that has translated into some boom in employment. I see the point you’re making, but it hasn’t been borne out in the evidence, has it?

SNYDER: Well, it’s been borne out in the Indiana case.

There has been NO "boom in employment" in Indiana as a result of their anti-union "Right-to-Work" laws. An LA Times report Tuesday noted that Michigan created more jobs last October (pre-RTW) than the year before while Indiana created less (after passing their own RTW in January.) MediaMatters points out, RTW states have produced less than 1/3 as many jobs as non-RTW states (900K vs 3-million).

Of course, we know exactly why Republican governors equate RTW with attracting jobs to their state: because many corporations have chosen states WITHOUT unions to open new plants (where they can pay employees less without fear of retaliation by organized workers.) So, despite numerous protests that RTW has "nothing to do with busting unions", Snyder's arguments defending RTW otherwise makes no sense.

Ten years ago today on December 6, 2002, the Bush Administration fired its top two economic advisers: Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey due to the continuing lagging economy (when Bush took office, unemployment was 4.2%. In Dec of 2002... more than a year after 9/11... the rate jumped from 5.7% to 6.0% in one month). In November of 2002, when O'Neill, a "deficit hawk", tried to warn Vice President Dick Cheney that growing budget deficits... expected to top $500 billion that fiscal year alone... posed a threat to the economy. Cheney cut him off, saying, "You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don't matter."

O'Neill was replaced with CSX (the freight train company) CEO John Snow, also a "deficit hawk", yet appointed the unenviable task of convincing the public (ie: Wall Street) that "deficits don't matter".

It is worth remembering on this tenth anniversary just how we got here. When the Bush Administration took office 22 months earlier, they were handed a balanced budget in which the government was actually collecting more in taxes than it needed to run the federal government. Less than two years later, O'Neill was warning of a HALF-TRILLION DOLLAR deficit for 2003. The surplus revenue under Clinton was used to start paying off our Debt which had exploded under Reagan and the first President Bush. Presidential candidate George W. Bush actually campaigned on the fact that because we were collecting more in taxes than it takes to run the government, that means we were being "overtaxed", telling cheering crowds, "It's not the government's money, it's YOUR money!", and therefore deserved a "tax cut"... the much heralded "Bush Tax Cut" that we are fighting over today, despite the fact that the original premise in support of them... a budget surplus... hasn't existed in over 12 years.

Think about this: How do we EVER pay off the Debt if the moment we take in enough in taxes to start paying it off, Republicans use it as an excuse for tax cuts?

Blast from the past: July 2006

My first post C&L ever linked to was a May 2007 Op/Ed on how oil companies appeared to be shutting down refineries "for maintenance" to deliberately (IMHO) drive up gas prices the same way Enron drove up electricity prices in California in 2000, the year before they collapsed in scandal. You might recall that back in the Spring of 2000, California was plagued by rolling blackouts because of electricity plants closed "due to maintenance". Most people still remember those secret audio recordings (NSFW) on the news of two young Enron Energy Traders joking about having to repay the money they stole from "Grandma Millie" in California, or CEO Jeff Skilling comparing California to the Titanic.

Fast forward 12 years (though I HIGHLY doubt the practice ever ceased) to last May & October. Reports were all over the news of gas prices spiking well over $4/gal in California, despite the fact gas & oil supplies were UP and gas prices were DOWN in the rest of the country. The reason for the 50cent/gallon spike in California? Several large oil refineries supposedly had to be "shutdown for maintenance" (according to McClatchy, May's West Coast spike was partly blamed on a Feb. 18 fire at BP's Cherry Point refinery in Washington. October's California spike was explained as partly a market reaction to an Aug. 6 fire at Chevron's Richmond refinery... both spikes taking place MONTHS after those fires and independent of the "closures" that supposedly interrupted supply.)

A McClatchy News investigation has found evidence that during the refinery closures in May that were behind the spike in gas prices, the plants were actually up & running at least part of that time... perhaps even the entire time... and producing gasoline. So why the spike in prices?

In response to this information, Democratic Senators in Congress (THIS is why Dem majorities are so important) led by Sen. Maria Cantwell have called for a formal investigation into whether oil companies have been deliberately closing... or even entirely falsely claiming the closure of... oil refineries for the sole purpose of market manipulation and driving gas prices up.

Just as we saw with Enron in 2000, and just as I reported back in 2007, the practice of artificially limiting the supply of energy just to push up prices by greedy energy executives is nothing new, but unlike in 2000 and 2007, Democrats now control both the White House and part of Congress, making a serious investigation with tangible consequences that much more likely. A Credit Suisse report last February claims every one-penny increase in the price of gasoline sucks one-Billion dollars annually out of the economy (I'd argue the number is FAR higher, because higher fuel costs means higher transportation costs for stores, increasing prices, doubling the impact. While slower sales mean layoffs that contract the economy still further.)

Tell me again GOP how "deregulation" helps the economy? Please. I really want to hear your answer on this one.

Fox "news" Sunday added a special guest to their "Power Panel" yesterday, famed investigative reporter (and self-described Republican) Bob Woodward, in (what appeared to me) a deliberate ploy to try and get him to compare the Benghazi incident (and the imagined "cover-up" they are fake-outraged over) to Woodward's own famed "Watergate" scandal. Unfortunately for them, Woodward did not see the Benghazi incident as being anything close to the magnitude of the Watergate break-in & sub-sequent coverup:

CHRIS WALLACE: "Where do you think the so-called Libya scandal is now?"

BOB WOODWARD: "Well I think there are some serious unanswered questions, but the suggestion that they should have Watergate-style independent special committees to investigate this... I don't see that yet because the question seems to be: 'What did Susan Rice know and when did she know it?' which falls not very high on the scale of: Do we really need to get to the bottom of this?"

Woodward dismisses "What did Susan Rice know and when did she know it?" as insufficient cause for a sweeping investigation (or rises to the level of Watergate) because in the Watergate scandal, the question was "What did THE PRESIDENT know and when did he know it?", which is several hundred magnitudes more serious than what one lowly Ambassador knew & when.

"Benghazi" is "the scandal that wasn't there." General Petraeus already testified last week that, while they immediately suspected terrorism, they did NOT want that information made public for fear of tipping off the attackers, and the fact is the anti-Islam video behind the riots in Egypt WERE used as cover for the Libya attack, so the idea the attack was connected to the famed YouTube video was indeed the truth.

But Republicans have never let "facts" get in the way of a good argument. Thank your lucky stars the Senate didn't fall into GOP hands this election because we all know what happened the last time a successful Democratic president won reelection with a Republican Congress (endless partisan investigations culminating in impeachment).

They still don't get it, and based on this exchange, they never will.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal received wide bi-partisan praise last week for his strong criticism of Governor Romney after he doubled down on his "47%" remark by suggesting President Obama won by promising his base "free stuff". Jindal called Romney's remarks "stupid", noting that the way to win over voters isn't to show contempt for them or question their intelligence, but never actually explained what Republicans SHOULD do instead. Which makes this exchange on Fox "news" Sunday yesterday all the more fascinating.

Fox "news" Sunday's Chris Wallace points out to Jindal that "single-women voters broke heavily for President Obama over Gov. Romney and asked what can be done to fix it:

WALLACE: And, Governor Jindal, let's take a look at unmarried women, who backed Obama by a wide margin. Unmarried women voted for Obama by a margin of 67 percent to 31 percent.

Governor, you say to Republicans, don't change your principles, modernize. Don't moderate. But, you've got to know during this campaign, the Democrats hammered your party when it came to freedom of choice on abortion, when it came to access to birth control, when it came to funding of Planned Parenthood.

How do you convince unmarried women that you are looking out for them?

JINDAL: Well, Chris, a couple of things. One, I think we can still be true to our principles -- I'm pro-life. I follow the teachings of my church and my faith.

But at the same time, I think we can respect those that disagree with us. We don't need to demonize those who disagree with us. We need to respect the fact that others have come to different conclusions based on their own sincerely held beliefs and have a civil debate.

We don't need to demonize -- and we also don't need to be saying stupid things [referring to Romney's remarks]. Look, we had candidates in Indiana and Missouri that said offensive things that only hurt themselves and lost those Senate seats, but also have hurt the Republican Party across the board. So, I think we can be true to our principles. We don't need to pander or change our principles, but at the same time, we can be respectful.

"We can respect those that disagree with US"? Yes, because the way to make women feel welcome is to think of them as outsiders. And I find it fascinating that he acknowledges that they had candidates (Akin and Mourdock) that "said stupid things", but not the fact they represent a far deeper problem with the GOP than he seems to realize. The problem with Akin and Mourdock is that they actually said out loud what many of them already think in private.

The initial question posed to Gov. Jindal already points to one huge glaring fact: Single women didn't vote for the President 2-to-1 over Romney simply because of women's health issues ("freedom of choice on abortion, birth control, and Planned Parenthood"). The GOP had a candidate that refused to even say he supported "equal pay for equal work" during the debates, and refused to denounce Rush Limbaugh for calling Sandra Fluke "a slut" (in addition to the "redefine rape" guys: Todd Akin, Roscoe Bartlett & Richard Mourdock).

The fact Republicans STILL doesn't get that their problem with women voters goes FAR beyond just a disagreement on Abortion, means they haven't learned a thing from this latest election-trouncing. And believing the way to win back women voters is to prove the GOP can tolerate them rather than actually ADDRESS their concerns, further guarantees (thankfully) their continuing future irrelevance for at least one more election (and likely many more).