Hi, y’all.

Tonight’s musical selection is “Trigger on my Fire” by Black Pistol Fire from their self-titled album.

Many state legislatures (and Congress as well) have an opening prayer. Recently, an atheist lawmaker was tasked with the duty. From the Phoenix New Times:

An atheist state lawmaker tasked with delivering the opening prayer for this afternoon’s session of the House of Representatives asked that people not bow their heads.

Democratic Representative Juan Mendez, of Tempe, instead spoke about his ‘secular humanist tradition’ and even quoted author Carl Sagan.

‘Most prayers in this room begin with a request to bow your heads,’ Mendez said. ‘I would like to ask that you not bow your heads. I would like to ask that you take a moment to look around the room at all of the men and women here, in this moment, sharing together this extraordinary experience of being alive and of dedicating ourselves to working toward improving the lives of the people in our state.’

There’s also a video of the invocation. I think this kind of diversity is great, and that our lawmakers could stand to hear thought provoking words of great writers, not just scripture, before they begin their day. Here’s another recent moment where Wolf Blitzer asked a woman if she thanked the Lord for surviving the tornado. Her response is both honest and gracious.

Also, a lot of my friends are upset that apparently it’s pronounced jif, reports Yahoo! News. Or at least, so says the creator of the humble GIF, on accepting a Webby Award:

Since retiring in 2001, [Steve] Wilhite has led a quieter existence than his creation. He goes on RV trips. He built a house in the country with a lot of lawn to mow. He dabbles in color photography and Java programming. He uses e-mail and Facebook to keep up with family.

He is proud of the GIF, but remains annoyed that there is still any debate over the pronunciation of the format.

“The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations,” Mr. Wilhite said. “They are wrong. It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif.’ End of story.”

Tomorrow I leave for Burning Flipside, central Texas’ Burning Man event. I’ll be gone from Thursday through Monday, which means Richard will edit and host watercoolers during that time. See you next week!

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What’s on your mind tonight? It’s an open conversation in the comments.

Will the Connecticut General Assembly begin dismantling the state's war economy?

The Connecticut legislature has sent to the governor to sign a bill that would create a commission to develop a plan for, among other things:

“the diversification or conversion of defense-related industries with an emphasis on encouraging environmentally-sustainable and civilian product manufacturing. On or before December 1, 2014, the commission shall submit such report to the Governor and, in accordance with the provisions of section 11-4a, to the joint standing committee of the General Assembly having cognizance of matters relating to commerce.”

The commission “shall Advise the General Assembly and the Department of Economic and Community Development on issues relating to the diversification or conversion of defense-related industries” among other things.

Read the full text.

According to Peace Action, sponsor State Senator Toni N. Harp from New Haven has said,

“The proposed Futures Commission will set up a framework that allows us to convert many of our military related jobs and infrastructure into non-military industries.”

This is a remarkable breakthrough that didn’t just come out of nowhere:

“In November 2012, a ballot referendum passed in New Haven that called for moving the money from war to jobs rebuilding our infrastructure and human needs. This referendum won support nearly 6 to 1! This winter in Connecticut, the US Peace Council, No Nukes No War, the City of New Haven Peace Commission with the support of the state AFL-CIO and International Association of Machinists worked to get  SB619 introduced in the state legislature calling for a Futures Commission whose goals is to investigate how to convert the weapons manufacturing industries to producing civilian, green products and retain and develop manufacturing in the state. The Commission that this bill creates will include representatives of labor, peace and environmental organizations.”

In February, Bill Shortell, an official with the International Association of Machinists in Connecticut, explained what’s needed this way:

“Diverse forces are now converging in an attempt to carve up the military budget. These are (1) those who would cut it to reduce the deficit. There is considerable logic on their side. The solvency of the nation, in many people’s eyes, is threatened by the size of the debt compared with our GDP. About 30% of our government runs on borrowed cash. The same proportion can be applied to the military budget.

“Then there is growing group (2) that wants to “Move the Money” to much-needed social services, like health and education, and also to repair our crumbling infrastructure.

“There is also a powerful group (3) who would not reduce the military budget at all. This group somehow imagines the continued military usefulness of fighter jets, nuclear subs, etc, even though they rarely argue this. They instead generally justify continued military spending because of the millions of jobs and billions in profits that it creates.”

TIME FOR CONVERSION

“Finally, there is a small group (4), which sees the dismantling of the military budget as inevitable, and is making plans for alternative uses of the “procurement” part of the budget. This is about $100 billion of the $700 billion budget. We advocate re-assigning workers and switching capital to products, which have a peacetime use. This does NOT mean abandoning factories and retraining manufacturing workers to be nurses, teachers, and construction workers.

“We don’t need any more construction workers right now, and most military manufacturing workers are not suited or inclined to training in the social services. In addition, folding up this significant sector of US manufacturing, with no replacement products would have a disastrous impact on the US economy.

“Economic Conversion means designing peacetime manufactured products that are in demand, and re-tooling military facilities to produce them. The growing market for green technology is most often cited.

“The two other groups who would cut the military budget seem unaware of the impact of eliminating so much value-adding industry.  Nor are they focused on the plight of the military production workers or the many millions more, soldiers, administrators, security personnel, who stand to lose their job with the shrinking of the military budget. These last, however,  are not represented by unions.

“Union-based organizations like USLAW and LLP have no choice but to take into account the ideas of Economic Conversion, as we set policies and phrase our peace message. Calling flatly to “cut the military budget,”  spurs opposition from the manufacturing unions. These, in turn, have enough influence in the AFL-CIO to considerably weaken its vital input in the struggle over the reduction of the military budget.

“Economic Conversion is a difficult, complex question. There is little precedent for using government funds to manufacture anything but weapons. But if we don’t try to understand it and embrace it, the likelihood of achieving other benefits of the peace dividend fades, as the military workers and our unions cling to militarism.

“The military budget is so enormous that the goals of all three of the groups who would reduce it can be addressed. To fully achieve them, we need new taxes on people who can afford to pay.”

By Axel Caballero

In January 2013, the staff at Cuéntame received a phone call from 9 year old Stephanie Pucheta and her mom María Ortiz. Their request seemed simple and straightforward at the time: Would Cuéntame help in preventing the deportation of Stephanie’s dad, Julio Cesar Pucheta?

María and Stephanie were desperate; they had tried many avenues and contacted different immigration lawyers to no avail. Virtually broke and seemingly with nowhere else to turn to, they made the call after seeing one of our documentary campaign videos on immigration cases. Stephanie’s father had been in detention for over a year after a traffic violation and his removal proceeding was eminent. The Pucheta family story seemed all too common – reflecting precisely the horrors of our broken immigration system: A family on the verge of separation – with no resources, no legal remedies and no access to effective representations.

As with the many stories we receive, we immediately attempted to contact volunteer and human rights’ groups in the state of Georgia – where the family was located – in a last minute effort to help with their case. It was too late; Stephanie’s dad had already been deported. It didn’t come as a surprise, it happens all too often. We contacted Stephanie and María again who by then had enlisted the help of a pro bono lawyer, and asked if they wanted to tell their story. We explained to them that Cuéntame’s (which translates to ‘count me OR tell me your story’) mission was precisely that to tell stories that like theirs so often go unnoticed. Our hope was to create a small interest in the case, knowing that the system is so overwhelmed that they are viewed as another number and another file.

Stephanie was particularly keen in telling us her experience and her perspective. In an effort to capture her thoughts as pure and as best possible we decided to send Stephanie a personal camera and asked her to tell us her account of the events. Over a period of two weeks, Stephanie diligently clicked on the camera every morning and recorded a few minutes every day – a personal video diary of sorts.

Once she was done, she mailed the camera back to us so that we could see, hear and spread the message she had sent. We didn’t know what to expect. We had heard it all and seen it all. Yet, as soon as we turned on her first 9 minute clip, we knew this was different:

After watching the clip, we felt urgency, anger and shed tears. How can all of this happen? How can a Stephanie and thousands of children like her have to go through this? Couldn’t we do something about it? Wasn’t there an immigration reform bill being discussed to address these same issues? Stephanie’s story is emblematic of the over 25,000 immigrants who apply for family unity waivers each year only to be torn apart by an immigration system that emphasizes blind enforcement policies over sensible and human rights’ solutions.

As we move into a very serious, prominent and real immigration debate we see that our legislators once again have put the security industrial complex ahead of individual and human rights. Billions of dollars are being poured into the militarization of our borders, the fueling of private immigrant detention facilities and the continuation of raids and arbitrary deportations that have all but shredded basic and human rights. It is often futile to talk in these terms as the issue of immigration has been so criminalized, and tarnished with hate rhetoric by anti-immigrant groups that the mere discussion of human rights seems like an abomination in it of itself. Our families are facing a humanitarian crisis but our legislators have decided to prioritize talking about how to double up on these efforts?

We hope that our public officials listen to Stephanie and the thousands of migrant children looking for a solution. How about an immigration policy that enforces immigrant rights and deports hate?

Natural gas drilling

On May 16, the Obama Interior Department announced its long-awaited rules governing hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) on federal lands.

As part of its 171-page document of rules, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), part of the U.S. Dept. of Interior (DOI), revealed it will adopt the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) model bill written by ExxonMobil for fracking chemical fluid disclosure on U.S. public lands.

ALEC is a 98-percent corporate-funded bill mill and “dating service” that brings predominantly Republican state legislators and corporate lobbyists together at meetings to craft and vote on “model bills” behind closed doors. Many of these bills end up snaking their way into statehouses and become law in what Bill Moyers referred to as “The United States of ALEC.”

BLM will utilize an iteration of ALEC’s “Disclosure of Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid Composition Act” – a bill The New York Times revealed was written by ExxonMobil - for chemical fluid disclosure of fracking on public lands and will do so by utilizing FracFocus.org‘s voluntary online chemical disclosure database.

In a way, it’s all come full circle. As we covered here on DeSmogBlog, the original chemical disclosure standards and the decision to utilize FracFocus’ database came from the Obama Dept. of Energy’s (DOE) industry-stacked Fracking Subcommittee formed in May 2011. DOE gave a $1.5 million grant to FracFocus.

The Texas state legislature soon thereafter adopted the first bill making FracFocus the fracking chemical disclosure database at the state level in June 2011. Since then, it’s been off to the races, with the Council of State Governments adopting the TX bill as model bill in Aug. 2011, ALEC adopting it as a model bill in Oct. 2011, and the bill becoming state law in Colorado, Pennsylvania and other states.

Both the Illinois and Florida state legislatures have also tried to push through this model, but it died dead in its tracks.

FracFocus has been an anemic and failed effort by the Obama Admin. to alter the George W. Bush Admin. “Halliburton Loophole” standards for fracking chemical disclosure, which allowed the recipe of fracking chemicals to remain a “trade secret.” It’s amounted to nothing more than the same game by a different name, with a Harvard study recently giving FracFocus a “failing grade.”

The FracFocus Façade: “Truck-Sized” Disclosure Loopholes

Almost two years after FracFocus‘ debut, it is important to scrutinize its disastrous performance.

“Drilling companies in Texas, the biggest oil-and-natural gas producing state, claimed similar exemptions about 19,000 times this year through August,” explainedBloomberg in a Dec. 2012 investigation. “Trade-secret exemptions block information on more than five ingredients for every well in Texas, undermining the statute’s purpose of informing people about chemicals that are hauled through their communities and injected thousands of feet beneath their homes and farms.”

One representative from Texas – the original FracFocus state – said it allows “truck-sized” loopholes in chemical disclosure. An earlier investigative effort by Bloomberg explained just how big these 18-wheelers are.

“Energy companies failed to list more than two out of every five fracked wells in eight U.S. states from April 11, 2011, when FracFocus began operating, through the end of last year,” wrote Bloomberg. “The gaps reveal shortcomings in the voluntary approach to transparency on the site, which has received funding from oil and gas trade groups and $1.5 million from the U.S. Department of Energy.”

This moved U.S. Rep. Diane DeGette, author of the FRAC Act – which would mandate actual fracking chemical disclosure, although it’s never garnered more than a handful of co-sponsors - to say FracFocus offers nothing more than the mirage of transparency.

“FracFocus is just a fig leaf for the industry to be able to say they’re doing something in terms of disclosure,” she said.

“Fig leaf” is a generous way of putting it. After all, FracFocus is merely a PR front for the oil and gas industry.

FracFocus‘ domain is registered by Brothers & Company, a public relations firm whose clients include industry lobbying tour de force America’s Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA), Chesapeake Energy, and American Clean Skies Foundation – a front group for Chesapeake Energy.

ALEC Model Bill Gone U.S. Public Lands in BLM Rules

The number of Wisconsin children who are from low-income families has climbed for the ninth straight year, according to a new report from the state’s Department of Public Instruction.

In the 2012-13 school year, 42% of Wisconsin children were eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches. In the 2003-04 school year, just 30% of students qualified for free or reduced-price school lunches. The share of students qualifying has climbed every year since then. This video shows how the share of low-income schoolchildren has changed over time in each school district.

The criteria for qualifying for free or reduced-price lunches have stayed the same during the time period described. Students in families earning less than 130% of the federal poverty level qualify for free school lunches. For the 2013-12 school year, students from a family of four earning less than about $30,000 would qualify for free lunches. A much smaller number of students in families earning between 130% and 185% of the poverty level qualify for reduced-price lunches.

In Wisconsin’s five largest school districts, more than half the students are from low-income families. Eighty-four percent of the students in Milwaukee Public Schools are from low-income families.

The rising number of low-income students presents challenges for Wisconsin schools. Children from low-income families have poorer educational outcomes and lag their peers in educational achievement. They also are less likely to graduate from high school and become well-educated, healthy members of Wisconsin’s skilled workforce.

New policies proposed by state lawmakers may pose additional challenges to schools that serve largely low-income students. In his budget proposal, Governor Walker has recommended setting aside funding for schools that are rated the highest on DPI’s report card system. Schools that score in the lowest category would receive much less money, with the result that schools with relatively small numbers of students from low-income families would receive the most benefit. For more on that proposal, which is scheduled to be voted on next week by the legislature’s budget committee, read this blog post.

For more information, go to www.wisconsinbudgetproject.org.

Digby’s latest Post Stock market highs — and high unemployment: the new normal? struck me today because of a comment that Thurbers made on my post last night.

“We the People” are closer to the abused employees and/or the defrauded customers of Amy’s Baking Company. We are the real victims, but despite our numbers we are the ones with the least recourse and the least power to change the narrative.

- Thurbers comment 8 Firedoglake

It reminds me of the spot on Onion story, American People Hire High-Powered Lobbyist To Push Interests In Congress.

I’m really sick of how “the economy” is the stock market. It. Is. NOT. I also know that the constituents of unemployed and underemployed aren’t out there putting pressure on congress or the President.  (I’m thinking of paraphrasing SF Writer Harlan Ellison,  ”Dear Obama and Congress. Fuck you. Hire me!”)

When I was traveling cross country to see my sick mother two years ago unemployment was the real issue on people minds, I asked them why they thought the media was writing about the deficit. They didn’t have an answer. I asked if they had heard of Pete Peterson. Nobody had. “Would it surprise you to know that he is a billionaire and is making sure the media cover the deficit and ignore unemployment? Did you know that he is spending at least 500 million dollars to make sure the press cover this?” Nobody had heard of him.

One guy (an owner of a Popeye’s chicken franchise) said that there was probably some billionaire (he suggested George Soros) spending lobbying money to demand more government jobs. Or maybe the Unions were. I said, “Soros isn’t spending his money on this. The unemployed aren’t spending their money on this, they think it should be obvious. I don’t know what the Unions are doing, but they aren’t the force they once were.”

So my question is, if our elected representatives aren’t pushing for jobs, our liberal billionaires aren’t pushing for jobs, and we don’t have any highly paid lobbyists pushing for jobs, is there anyone who “counts” pushing for jobs? (And by that I mean someone who could get the attention of our congress, President or media.)

The media don’t want to write about the lack of jobs because “Stock market!” and frankly those stories are boring, nobody wants to write them and nobody wants to read them. Gawker is having a series on them and it’s like reading the sad stories on “Queen for a day” that women would tell so they could get a washing machine.

It feels like the unemployed have no leverage, no voice and nobody who is going to be their voice since they don’t have anything to give to the people who should be listening and who can make changes.

There is no sense of urgency about this problem in DC. Remember the urgency during the airlines slowdown? Inconvenience the politicians it’s, HAIR ON FIRE TIME. Millions unemployed year after year? They quote Jesus, “The unemployed will always be with us.”

The media need deadlines. Where is the ticking time bomb of this issue? Where is the disaster coverage of this disaster?

And why the hell aren’t the conservatives trying to hang unemployment around Obama’s neck?  Because it might help unemployed people get government jobs? How many jobs are the trumped up Benghazi scandal creating?

I didn’t mean this to be yet another long-winded Vulcan post, but Digby’s blog still doesn’t have a place to comment and so I’m bringing it to you.

I’d like to think that DC responds to events, but after new gun laws following Newtown got voted down, even though the majority of the voters wanted them, I’m thinking we need more than an event,  you need a goddamn money canon to shoot cash down the halls of Congress.

People sometimes talk about the people marching on Washington to get their attention. (“This time let’s bring real pitchforks!” They don’t care, only the hotels and restaurants in DC care. What will get their attention is if we jam more money down their throat than the other people bribing them. Since we can’t do that, then we need to cut off their money streams so that votes actual count for something again.  The reason that everyone is talking about getting money out of politics is that until that happens my voice is drowned out.

Speaking of money. I want something good to come out of the IRS scandal. Something the right doesn’t want.

I want Congress to rewrite the 501 c code laws. People are complaining about the IRS? Well the IRS is complaining too. “Give us better bright lines so we can define what “social welfare groups” can and can’t do.

I want them to change the rules so big corporations and rich individuals can’t give anonymous money.  I want to chase away the people who want to hide behind  front groups.  ”But that will hurt liberal groups too! Yeah right, as if George Soro is trying to hide. You don’t hide unless you are afraid that people will use that information against you. If they aren’t doing anything wrong what are they afraid of? I’m looking at you Ham Rove. Sure they will find another way, 527′s, laundering money through belief tanks and dead people foundations, but if they want to cry about the IRS thwarting them, let’s really give them something to cry about.

 Photos top: Shane Gorski bottom: RhonsTopModel Creative Commons Attribution license

http://player.vimeo.com/video/66463890

Cross dressed at Spocko’s Brain

Institutional Investors Defend the Bridge for Jamie Dimon

Jamie Dimon easily beat back a non-binding shareholders proposal to split the jobs of Chairman and CEO at JPMorgan Chase, winning 68% of the vote. Institutional investors own over 73% of the stock of JPM. That means that many if not most mutual fund managers and plenty of pension fund managers and endowment managers voted to keep in office a man who has presided over a string of law-skirting but money-making operations. JPMorgan’s list of offenses, described here, have earned the bank tens of billions at the cost of only billions in fines, penalties and put-backs from bad mortgages. And the bank estimates that there is more coming, maybe $6 billion more than it has set aside in reserves. JPM’s earnings are up, boosted by release of some $1.5 billion from reserves, but with a bit of luck, the hit will come later, now that Dimon is safe.

Mutual fund managers and other money managers think that the only important thing is the bottom line, and it’s a fact that ignoring the law delivers truckloads of money to the bottom line. That’s especially true for banks that are too big to prosecute. Eventually law enforcement shows up, in the form of bank fetishists like Lannie Breuer and his faint-hearted boss, Eric Holder, but what can they do? A minor fine, requiring the bank to give up some of its gains? An unpleasant press release? Maybe a grilling before some mild Senators, more impressed by the possibility of a campaign contribution than any interest in locking up wrong-doers?

I particularly like the coverage in the Washington Post, under the title, How Washington Humbled JP Morgan Chase Chief Jamie Dimon, in which we learn that Washington didn’t humble Dimon at all. Legal troubles, like those reported by Senator Carl Levin of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, are irrelevant to Dimon, who wasn’t at the hearing to take any of the responsibility for the London Whale Trade losses or misstatements.

And I just love the coverage given to the Capo di tutti Capi by Andrew Ross Sorkin and Steven Davidoff in the New York Times Dealbook blog. To read their praise of JPM and its Great Man, you’d never know that the bank might have side-stepped a few legal rules on its way to being the Greatest Bank Ever! They were aided in their efforts by the lobbying of such privileged rich white old men as Warren Buffett, Rupert Murdoch, Michael Bloomberg, and Hank Paulson.

I don’t know how much difference it made,though. For money managers, the only important issue is earnings. For that you need a top banker who is utterly indifferent to legal matters, willing to ignore the Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferators Sanctions Regulations and the Iranian Transactions Regulations. And you need a Chairman/CEO who can fast talk his way out of trouble, like Dimon with his Fortress Balance Sheet and his presidential cuff-links. Isn’t it wonderful that people’s retirement is in part dependent of the ability of Jamie Dimon and his sleazy bank to make money?

But the real message these institutional investors and the privileged white rich old menare sending is that Dimon is their guy, and that politicians and regulators should do as he says. Right now, Dimon wants to defeat Brown-Vitter, which would force JPM to raise equity. Higher equity reduces the amount of money Dimon and his lieutenants can borrow, and it’s borrowing that increases the amount they can gamble for their profit and the taxpayers’ loss. That might mean lower compensation for the banksters. Gasp! But the win restores any political strength Dimon may have lost, and increases his ability to stop Brown-Vitter. That hurts everybody by leaving the mega-banks with their Obama/Holder/Breuer/Congressional approved status as Too Big To Fail.

Thanks a lot, institutional investors. We salute your willingness to subordinate basic law-abiding competence to sleazy money-grubbing. How very 21st Century of you.