“Losing Our Way”: Bob Herbert Talks with Bill Moyers about How America Has Become a Country with an Abundance of Wealth and a Serious Problem with Income Inequality (VIDEO)

Posted on October 16, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro
Bob Herbert

Bob Herbert

 

By Elaine Magliaro

Back in 2011, Bob Herbert, who was then a columnist for the New York Times, wrote an op-ed for the paper titled Losing Our Way. In his column, Herbert looked at the income inequality plaguing the United States in the 21st century. He noted that there was plenty of economic activity in this country—as well as an abundance of wealth. Unfortunately, Herbert said that the folks at the top were “seizing virtually all the marbles.”

Herbert:

Arthur Miller, echoing the poet Archibald MacLeish, liked to say that the essence of America was its promises. That was a long time ago. Limitless greed, unrestrained corporate power and a ferocious addiction to foreign oil have led us to an era of perpetual war and economic decline. Young people today are staring at a future in which they will be less well off than their elders, a reversal of fortune that should send a shudder through everyone.

The U.S. has not just misplaced its priorities. When the most powerful country ever to inhabit the earth finds it so easy to plunge into the horror of warfare but almost impossible to find adequate work for its people or to properly educate its young, it has lost its way entirely.

Nearly 14 million Americans are jobless and the outlook for many of them is grim. Since there is just one job available for every five individuals looking for work, four of the five are out of luck. Instead of a land of opportunity, the U.S. is increasingly becoming a place of limited expectations. A college professor in Washington told me this week that graduates from his program were finding jobs, but they were not making very much money, certainly not enough to think about raising a family.

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Posted in Democracy, Economics, Justice, Oligarchy, Society, United States | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

The Battle of King’s Mountain: An Historical Anniversary

Posted on October 7, 2014 by Chuck Stanley

by Charlton Stanley

By this time of the day on October 7, 1780, it was all over.  The dead and dying laid together on a chilly Carolina hillside on this date 234 years ago.  It only lasted an hour, but what an hour it was.

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Posted in American History, Heroism, History, US Army, US Military, War | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

Just for Fun: A Sarah Palin Picture to Share

Posted on October 7, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

By Elaine Magliaro

One of my husband’s young friends posted this picture on Facebook. I had to share it with my friends at Flowers for Socrates.

SarahPalinEbola2

Posted in Humor | Tagged | 5 Comments

John Oliver Skewers Law Enforcement for Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture Laws (VIDEO)

Posted on October 6, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

By Elaine Magliaro

John Oliver did a hilarious segment on civil forfeiture on his HBO program last night. I thought readers of this blog would enjoy watching it so I’m posting it at FFS for you.

About Civil Asset Forfeiture:

According to the ACLU, federal and state law enforcement agents seize millions of dollars from people during traffic stops every year. All the agents have to do is assert “that they believe the money is connected to some illegal activity and without ever pursuing criminal charges.” The ACLU says that under federal law and the laws of most states, “they are entitled to keep most (and sometimes all) of the money and property they seize.”

ACLU:

In many jurisdictions, the money can go to pay for salaries, advanced equipment and other perks. When salaries and perks are on the line, officers have a strong incentive to increase the seizures, as evidenced by an increase in the regularity and size of such seizures in recent years. Asset forfeiture practices often go hand-in-hand with racial profiling and disproportionately impact low-income African-American or Hispanic people who the police decide look suspicious and for whom the arcane process of trying to get one’s property back is an expensive challenge.  ACLU believes that such routine “civil asset forfeiture” puts our civil liberties and property rights under assault, and calls for reform of state and federal civil asset forfeiture laws.

NOTE: In addition to seizing money, law enforcement agents have also taken people’s houses and vehicles

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Civil Forfeiture (HBO)

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Posted in Corruption, Courts, Financial, Government, Justice, Law Enforcement, United States | Tagged , , , , | 17 Comments

NEWS ROUNDUP: October 5, 2014

Posted on October 5, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

NewsHeadlineBy Elaine Magliaro

EDUCATION

Rotten to the Core: How an Apple mega-deal cost Los Angeles classrooms $1 billion—Bad business and worse ethics? A scandal is brewing in L.A. over a sketchy intiative to give every student an iPad (Salon)

The great charter school rip-off: Finally, the truth catches up to education “reform” phonies—Fraud, financial mismanagement, lousy results: Reports highlight awful charter schools and people are catching on (Salon)

Venture Capitalists Are Poised to ‘Disrupt’ Everything About the Education Market: Venture capitalists and for-profit firms are salivating over the exploding $788.7 billion market in K-12 education. What does this mean for public school students? (The Nation)

The Remarkable Idiocy of ‘Economically-Driven Education’ (Huffington Post)

Professors on food stamps: The shocking true story of academia in 2014—Forget minimum wage, some adjunct professors say they’re making 50 cents an hour. Wait till you read these stories (Salon)

Ego, money and false promises: Michelle Rhee’s big secret and the collapse of education “reform”—There’s big money in education “reform,” and now it’s flowing to tech companies that want to disrupt public schools (Salon)

Teacher-Hating Right-Wing Shill Campbell Brown Deserves All The Criticism She’s Getting (Politicus USA)

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Posted in News Roundup | 3 Comments

The Case of the Secret Recordings: A Tale about Bank Examiner Carmen Segarra, the New York Fed, and Goldman Sachs

Posted on October 5, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro
Carmen Segarra

Carmen Segarra

By Elaine Magliaro

Last week, I read ProPublica’s story about Carmen Segarra, a bank examiner and whistle-blower who made secret recordings while she was working at the New York FED. Segarra had been hired by the FED in late 2011 “as part of a group of examiners brought on to monitor GoldmanSachssystemically important banks in the aftermath of the Dodd-Frank regulatory overhaul. The Fed wanted experts in key areas — such as operations, compliance and credit risk — to examine the ‘Too Big To Fail’ financial institutions.” Just seven months after being hired by the NY FED, however, Segarra was fired.

Following her firing, Segarra filed a wrongful termination suit. She sued the New York FED and her bosses. She claimed that “she was retaliated against for refusing to back down from a negative finding about Goldman Sachs.” Segarra had discovered that Goldman Sachs “lacked an adequate company-wide policy to manage conflicts of interest…” She said she was fired “after her superiors urged her to change this finding and she refused.”

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Posted in Financial, Investing, Stock Market, United States, Wall Street | Tagged , , , , | 18 Comments

Antonin Scalia’s Thoughts on Secularists, the Devil, the Separation of Church and State, and Religion in the Public Square

Posted on October 4, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia

Supreme Court Justice
Antonin Scalia

By Elaine Magliaro

Antonin Scalia on the Separation of Church and State

Antonin Scalia is our country’s longest-serving Supreme Court Justice. Scalia, a Catholic, was appointed to the highest court in the land by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. Earlier this week, Justice Scalia, who is part of the court’s “conservative wing,” talked about the separation of church and state during a speech he gave at Colorado Christian University. According to the Washington Times, Justice Scalia “was preaching to the choir when he told the audience at Colorado Christian University that a battle is underway over whether to allow religion in public life, from referencing God in the Pledge of Allegiance to holding prayers before city hall meetings.”

Jordan Steffen Steffen of The Denver Post reported that Scalia said, “No principle of democracy is more fundamental than what has become known as the separation of church and state.” Steffen wrote that Scalia “lamented about the need for a balance in the separation of church and state. But he also criticized what he said was a growing effort to quash religion in politics and stressed the importance of religious freedom.” Scalia said, “There are those who would have us believe that the separation of church and state must mean that God must be driven out of the public forum. That is simply not what our Constitution has ever meant.”

Steffen added that Justice Scalia also warned his audience that a religious preoccupation with the government “will destroy the church.”

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Posted in Christianity, Conservatives, Constitutional Law, Courts, Free Speech, Government, Jurisprudence, Politics, Religion, Roman Catholic Church, SCOTUS, United Kingdom | Tagged , , , , | 14 Comments

Catholic Bishops and Religious Rights vs. Women’s Rights…and Women’s Health

Posted on October 3, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

CatholicBishopsBy Elaine Magliaro

NOTE: I originally posted the following article at Res Ipsa Loquitor on March 4, 2012. I decided to repost it at Flowers for Socrates after reading Mike Spindell’s article Proof Most “Right to Life” People Are Liars. In his post, Mike talked about male domination of women and people who are attempting to restrict the freedom of women in the United States. My article looks at women’s rights, women’s health, Catholic bishops, and Catholic hospitals in this country.

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There has been a lot of discussion in the media recently about the HHS contraception coverage mandate. Much of the talk has focused on women’s sex lives and the types of birth control that doctors prescribe for women in order to prevent pregnancy—as well as on the separation of church and state and the mandate’s infringement on religious freedom and the Catholic Church’s First Amendment rights. There has been much less talk about women’s health, women’s rights, and the use of birth control pills to treat certain female medical conditions, including polycystic ovary syndrome and endometriosis. Both of these conditions can cause severe pain and lead to other health problems. According to Bruce Nolan of The Times-Picayune, the Institute of Medicine—which is a non-profit advisory panel—recommended the contraception coverage because “those services are basic to individual health.”

emergency_roomMany Americans—especially women—think that contraceptive coverage and other “female-related” medical services ARE basic to women’s health.  Catholic bishops, however, believe that contraceptive coverage and some hospital services are in conflict with the church’s “moral conscience.” The bishops contend that the church has the right to deny certain types of health insurance coverage for women who work for Catholic institutions. It doesn’t matter to the bishops whether the female employees are members of other religions…are atheists or agnostics. The church’s position is that all female employees of Catholic institutions should be denied access to all forms of contraceptives and not be provided medical insurance that would cover the cost of certain medical procedures. The bishops also believe that certain types of treatment and procedures—including tubal ligations—should not be provided to women at Catholic hospitals.

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Posted in Christianity, Conservatives, Equal Rights, Health Care, Health Care Insurance, Hospitals, Politics, Religion, Reproductive Rights, Roman Catholic Church, Society, United States | Tagged , , , , | 19 Comments

Tim Dickinson of “Rolling Stone” Looks at the Koch Brothers’ “Toxic Empire”

Posted on September 29, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro
Charles & David Koch

Charles & David Koch

By Elaine Magliaro

Tim Dickinson has an interesting article about the billionaire siblings Charles and David Koch over at Rolling Stone. Dickinson’s piece is titled Inside the Koch Brothers’ Toxic Empire. He notes below the title of his article that the Kochs “control one of the world’s largest fortunes, which they are using to buy up our political system.” He adds that what the billionaire brothers don’t want people to know is “how they made all that money.”

Excerpt from Inside the Koch Brothers’ Toxic Empire:

The enormity of the Koch fortune is no mystery. Brothers Charles and David are each worth more than $40 billion. The electoral influence of the Koch brothers is similarly well-chronicled. The Kochs are our homegrown oligarchs; they’ve cornered the market on Republican politics and are nakedly attempting to buy Congress and the White House. Their political network helped finance the Tea Party and powers today’s GOP. Koch-affiliated organizations raised some $400 million during the 2012 election, and aim to spend another $290 million to elect Republicans in this year’s midterms. So far in this cycle, Koch-backed entities have bought 44,000 political ads to boost Republican efforts to take back the Senate.

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Posted in Big Oil, Campaign Finance, Fascists/Corporatists, Justice, Oligarchy, Politics, Tea Party, United States | Tagged | 5 Comments

John Oliver Provides the Most Thorough “News” Coverage on America’s Predator Drone Strikes to Date on HBO’s “Last Week Tonight”

Posted on September 29, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

By Elaine Magliaro

It seems to me that we get much of our best coverage of news stories from comedians/comedy programs these days. I’m a big fan of The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and Last Week Tonight—which is hosted by John Oliver. On Sunday, Oliver did a segment on American drone strikes that beats most news stories on the subject that we’ve gotten from the mainstream media. That said, I have to acknowledge intrepid investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill. Scahill has done his part to cover the subject of drone strikes over the course of several years. Yet, we rarely see journalists like Scahill being interviewed on the Sunday morning “news” shows.

John Oliver on Drones

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Posted in American History, CIA, Media, Pakistan, Propaganda, Short Video, United States, US Military, War on "Terror" | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments