Thursday, January 1, 2014


News Clips For The Day


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/30/lamar-white-jr-scalise-blogger_n_6397078.html

How Louisiana Blogger Lamar White, Jr. Landed The Steve Scalise White Supremacist Scoop
Michael Calderone 
Posted: 12/30/2014

NEW YORK -- In early December, Lamar White, Jr., a third-year law student and liberal political blogger, got to work on a tip about Rep. Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican.

White learned there might be evidence that Scalise, the third highest ranking Republican in the House, had associated in the past with David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and Louisiana state representative. White, by his account, simply Googled “Steve Scalise” and “David Duke” and immediately found a couple posts on a white supremacist site that have since consumed the sleepy holiday political news cycle and rocked the Republican House leadership.

Through his search, White noticed a commenter on Stormfront, a white supremacist site, describing how in 2002 Scalise spoke to Duke’s group, the European-American Unity and Rights Organization. In a later post, the commenter again noted Scalise’s presence at the event.

White was convinced of Scalise's association with white supremacists based on those posts, telling The Huffington Post that there “was no conceivable way that somebody would have planted this story 12 years ago.” White didn’t officially seek comment from Scalise's office before posting his story Sunday morning about the congressman's 2002 speech at a Marriott hotel in Metairie, Louisiana.

White said he was motivated to pursue the Scalise story because “even though it was 12 years ago, it is important because this man was 36 years old, a state representative, an elected official. He knew exactly what he was getting into.”

Scalise has claimed otherwise. "I didn't know who all of these groups were and I detest any kind of hate group,” he said Monday. “For anyone to suggest that I was involved with a group like that is insulting and ludicrous."

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) defended Scalise Tuesday, saying the congressman “made an error in judgment."

Since the revelations broke on White’s site, CenLamar.com, journalists have been digging into Scalise’s past comments and affiliations. Scalise told Roll Call in 1999 that he agreed with some of Duke’s “conservative” views. On Monday, Duke -- who wasn't present at the 2002 gathering -- told HuffPost that Scalise is "a good person" and that the two agree on many issues.

Several news outlets have also resurrected a May 2002 report from the Des Moines Register about how the Iowa Cubs, a minor league baseball team, refused to stay at the Marriott because of the conference, showing the group had received some media attention prior to the event.

The still-unfolding story is the biggest scoop for White in the nearly nine years he's been blogging at CenLamar.com. White, 32, has maintained the blog as a sideline while working and attending school. He worked as an assistant to the mayor of his hometown of Alexandria, Louisiana, from 2007 till 2011. He then enrolled in law school at Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School in Dallas.

While writing for CenLamar.com isn't a full-time job by any stretch -- White’s last post before his Scalise scoop was an entry four days earlier on top movies of 2014 -- the liberal blogger has recently been involved in two other political controversies, in two states.

In October, White, who has cerebral palsy, expressed support for Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis after she was criticized for a campaign ad highlighting Republican challenger Greg Abbott’s disability. Abbott, who went on to win the race, was injured by a falling tree in 1984 and uses a wheelchair. After White spoke at a Davis press conference, staffers dragged him seated in his chair to the side of the stage, a move which prompted Abbott to label Davis’ supporters as “props.”

White told the Houston Chronicle that he asked be slid over by staffers because he feared falling on camera if trying to walk himself. He also tweeted: "I am a human being. Not a campaign prop."

The next month, White and another blogger reported that Republican Congressman Bill Cassidy, then in a runoff Senate election against incumbent Democrat Mary Landrieu, had improperly billed an LSU hospital for work while serving in the House.

The billing story got pickup from local media and some national media, and White’s reporting earned him a profile earlier this month in The Town Talk, a daily newspaper in Alexandria. But Cassidy disputed the allegations and handily defeated Landrieu days later.

White said that it was while reporting on the Cassidy story that Robert Reed, who was campaign manager for his mother, Gilda Reed, when she ran against Scalise in 2008, passed along the tip about Scalise associating with Duke. From there, White said, he Googled and landed the scoop in about 35 seconds.

On Sunday, White posted the story on his site and on his Facebook page, and sent it in an email to his roughly 2,000 subscribers. It quickly got significantly more attention than a typical post.

White said he noticed the Scalise story had been viewed 21,000 times through Facebook within a matter hours. A typical blog post, he said, may get around 8,000 views in its entire lifespan. By Sunday night, White said, his site had registered over 50,000 hits, which was much higher than his daily readership of around 1,110 hits. The post, he said, was also given prominent placement on Reddit.

"Almost immediately, it went viral in a way that the Cassidy story didn’t," White said. "I was surprised, in many ways reassured, that folks are still uncomfortable with the idea of a congressman hanging out with a group of white nationalists under any circumstances."



I hear talk of the coming race war... - Stormfront
www.stormfront.org › Activism › Strategy and Tactics

Stormfront
Mar 6, 2008 - I hear all this talk about race war. Where will the battle lines be drawn and who will be our main enemy? Will we have allies of different races ...
US on the brink of a Race War
2 posts
Dec 27, 2014
Was Paige Stalker's killer waging a race war?
2 posts
Dec 26, 2014
The One Sided Race War
10 posts
Nov 9, 2014
Ferguson and the Real Race War in America -- Bill Whittle
10 posts
Sep 3, 2014
More results from www.stormfront.org




“In early December, Lamar White, Jr., a third-year law student and liberal political blogger, got to work on a tip about Rep. Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican. White learned there might be evidence that Scalise, the third highest ranking Republican in the House, had associated in the past with David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and Louisiana state representative. White, by his account, simply Googled “Steve Scalise” and “David Duke” and immediately found a couple posts on a white supremacist site that have since consumed the sleepy holiday political news cycle and rocked the Republican House leadership.... White was convinced of Scalise's association with white supremacists based on those posts, telling The Huffington Post that there “was no conceivable way that somebody would have planted this story 12 years ago.”... White said he was motivated to pursue the Scalise story because “even though it was 12 years ago, it is important because this man was 36 years old, a state representative, an elected official. He knew exactly what he was getting into.” Scalise has claimed otherwise. "I didn't know who all of these groups were and I detest any kind of hate group,” he said Monday. “For anyone to suggest that I was involved with a group like that is insulting and ludicrous."... Since the revelations broke on White’s site, CenLamar.com, journalists have been digging into Scalise’s past comments and affiliations. Scalise told Roll Call in 1999 that he agreed with some of Duke’s “conservative” views.... "Almost immediately, it went viral in a way that the Cassidy story didn’t," White said. "I was surprised, in many ways reassured, that folks are still uncomfortable with the idea of a congressman hanging out with a group of white nationalists under any circumstances."

Lamar White, Jr. is an experienced liberal blogger at CenLamar.com. For the last 9 years he has written for the blog while working and attending law school at Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School in Dallas. He realized he had something big and posted it to his blog Facebook sites, sending it out to around 2000 readers. “White said he noticed the Scalise story had been viewed 21,000 times through Facebook within a matter hours. A typical blog post, he said, may get around 8,000 views in its entire lifespan. By Sunday night, White said, his site had registered over 50,000 hits, which was much higher than his daily readership of around 1,110 hits. The post, he said, was also given prominent placement on Reddit.” White is not going to be just a face in the crowd from now on, and Scalise will have a difficult time politically. Even in the South, well-educated whites have no sympathy with David Duke or any of his associates. This won't stop the Tea Party, but it will make them look a little bit less pure and innocent to conservative Americans of good conscience. That sort of “conservatism” is not espoused by all Southerners, nor by all Republicans. Scalise himself denied knowledge of the groups position on race, and Boehner has stated that he “made an error in judgment.” You betcha he did!





http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/john-mccain-arizona-tea-party-113849.html

McCain's big purge
The Arizona senator’s team has been ridding the state’s GOP apparatus of his tea party foes.
By Alex Isenstadt
12/30/14

Nearly a year ago, tea party agitators in Arizona managed to get John McCain censured by his own state party. Now, he’s getting his revenge.

As the longtime Republican senator lays the groundwork for a likely 2016 reelection bid, his political team is engaging in an aggressive and systematic campaign to reshape the state GOP apparatus by ridding it of conservative firebrands and replacing them with steadfast allies.

The ambitious effort — detailed to POLITICO by nearly a dozen McCain operatives, donors, and friends — has stretched from office buildings in Alexandria, Virginia, where strategists plotted and fundraisers collected cash for a super PAC, to Vietnamese-American communities across Arizona, where recruiters sought out supporters eager to help the incumbent defeat the tea party.

Team McCain’s goal? Unseat conservative activists who hold obscure, but influential, local party offices.

(Also on POLITICO: Republicans warm to Loretta Lynch)

Under the byzantine rules of Arizona Republican Party politics, these elected officials, known as precinct committeemen, vote for local party chairmen. The chairmen, in turn, determine how state and local GOP funds are spent, which candidates are promoted in an election year, and which political issues are highlighted — all matters of central concern for McCain heading into 2016, when the threat of a primary looms.

Prior to Aug. 26, when the races for the party offices were held, the vast majority of the 3,925 precinct slots were filled by people McCain’s team considered opponents. Now, after an influx of candidates were recruited by the senator’s allies, around 40 percent of those offices — 1,531 to be exact — will be held by people McCain’s team regards as friendly. They will have the power to vote down hostile Republican chairmen in each of their respective localities.

“There’s been a huge organizational effort that I’ve never seen before,” said Gordon James, an Arizona public relations executive and longtime McCain confidant. “A lot of the party folks who were hostile to John McCain have been marginalized, and that’s a good thing.”

The biggest foe to fall: Timothy Schwartz, the man who authored the McCain censure resolution. Earlier this month, Schwartz was ousted from his post as a GOP legislative district chairman by a group of newly elected precinct committeemen who voted in favor of a McCain-aligned candidate. Another outspoken McCain detractor, A.J. LaFaro, recently announced that he wouldn’t be seeking reelection to the Maricopa County Republican chairmanship, a tacit recognition that he didn’t have enough support to win.

In an interview, Schwartz blamed his ouster squarely on McCain, whom he said had singled him out. “It’s very clear what’s going on,” he said. “Look, John McCain has prominence and money and influence and because of that he thinks he can ramrod us.”

John McCain has prominence and money and influence and because of that he thinks he can ramrod us.

LaFaro accused the senator of engaging in the equivalent of “ethnic cleansing.” “For John McCain to have been so vindictive in his actions … It’s just amazing,” he said. “It’s been all-out war.”

McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, has long faced opposition from conservatives who view him as too moderate, particularly on immigration. During the height of the tea party movement in 2010, McCain stared down a spirited primary challenge from J.D. Hayworth, a conservative former congressman. Many in the state expect the senator to face another primary challenge in 2016.

Until this year, however, McCain aides had never seriously considered a concerted effort to remake the state GOP apparatus, which has traditionally been dominated by his conservative antagonists. That changed after the January censure, which rapped the senator for having an insufficiently conservative record that was “harmful” to Arizona.

“He was very unhappy with the censure and wanted to make sure it never happened again,” said Mike Hellon, McCain’s deputy campaign manager in 2010.

In the days after the state party’s rebuke, a group of top McCain political hands, including Jon Seaton and Christian Ferry — who worked for McCain in his 2008 campaign and have remained with him since — hatched a plan to form a super PAC that would spend money to elect a more friendly slate of precinct committeemen.

The super PAC, which was based out of offices in the Washington, D.C., suburbs and Phoenix and given the generic name “Arizona Grassroots Action PAC,” raised nearly $300,000. The largest checks, according to contribution reports, came from Gregory Maffei, a Colorado businessman, and Gregory Wendt, a San Francisco-based financial adviser, both longtime McCain donors.

Out in Arizona, the McCain forces, led by Seaton, set out to find would-be candidates for the precinct committee positions, many of them citizens with little or no political experience. They conferred with the establishment-aligned Chamber of Commerce and held recruitment house parties.

They also found a well of interest among Vietnamese-Americans, a small but politically active community which has long treated McCain, a Vietnam veteran who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war, as an ally; as a senator, he’s taken up the cause of the country’s refugees. More than 50 individuals of Vietnamese descent signed up to run for the precinct slots, and won.

One of the victors was Kevin Dang, the president of the Vietnamese Community of Arizona. Vietnamese-Americans had been motivated to run, Dang said, because of the attacks against McCain, which the community regarded as “disgraceful and discreditable.”

“The Vietnamese immigrants throughout the U.S. have a high regard for the senator, and the Vietnamese community in Arizona is proud to have him as our senator,” he said.

During the summer-time run-up to the party elections, which were held at the same time as other primary contests across the state, voters received mailers and automated phone calls from the pro-McCain super PAC advertising the new precinct committee hopefuls. In years past, these low profile races had mostly been uncontested affairs that drew only the most politically active conservatives — in other words, people generally hostile to the senator.

McCain aides maintain that he hasn’t been personally involved in the skirmishing, choosing to let his political handlers do the dirty work. But, they say, he’s pleased with the results.

“Sen. McCain has been a supporter of efforts to expand the party and to get more people involved,” said Brian Rogers, a McCain spokesman.

The effort to overhaul the state party comes as McCain, 78, is making other preparations for a reelection campaign. The day after the November midterm elections, he held a Phoenix meeting with top fundraisers that was attended by Michael Bidwill, the president of the Arizona Cardinals football franchise, and Bill Franke, the Frontier Airlines chairman.

McCain, who was first elected to the Senate in 1986, is also taking steps to show voters that he hasn’t forgotten about his home state — a perception that brought upon the defeat of his friend and Senate colleague, Indiana Republican Dick Lugar, in 2012. This month, McCain, the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, joined several members of Arizona’s congressional delegation on a fly-around to four of the state’s military installations.

Rogers, the McCain spokesman, said the senator had not made a final determination on whether to seek a sixth term but is “strongly leaning toward running again.” A decision, he said, would come sometime next year.

In Arizona, talk of a primary challenge to McCain persists.

Much of the speculation surrounds two potential conservative challengers, Reps. David Schweikert and Matt Salmon. Both have clashed with McCain in the past; in 2012, the senator endorsed establishment primary challengers to each. Spokesmen for Schweikert and Salmon didn’t respond to requests for comment.

McCain advisers believe their campaign to alter the state GOP will strengthen his hand in 2016; a more sympathetic Arizona Republican Party, they reason, will be less likely to lodge a censure resolution against him and rally activist support for any would-be primary opponents.

“If Senator McCain seeks re-election in 2016, the groundwork laid in 2014 will be extremely helpful,” Seaton wrote in an email, adding that he would be “running with the strong support of thousands of grassroots Arizonans.”

The next front for McCain will come next month in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous, when precinct committeemen there elect a new GOP chairman to succeed LaFaro. In the contest for that influential post, the McCain team is lining up behind local activist Lisa Gray and encouraging the county’s new precinct officers to support her over two opponents.

The McCain team hasn’t decided whether it will launch a similar campaign to influence local races in 2016; it’s priority that year, it says, will be reelecting the senator.

The tea party crowd, for now, isn’t retreating in the face of the McCain onslaught.

Anti-McCain forces are still in charge of the majority of precinct committee slots statewide, and, activists say, there are many remaining conservative chairmen hell-bent on making life miserable for the senator.

Schwartz, the ousted McCain foe, hinted that tea party forces were planning on striking back after the holidays. He declined to provide specifics.

“They think it’s over,” he said. “But the fat lady hasn’t sung.”




“As the longtime Republican senator lays the groundwork for a likely 2016 reelection bid, his political team is engaging in an aggressive and systematic campaign to reshape the state GOP apparatus by ridding it of conservative firebrands and replacing them with steadfast allies. The ambitious effort — detailed to POLITICO by nearly a dozen McCain operatives, donors, and friends — has stretched from office buildings in Alexandria, Virginia, where strategists plotted and fundraisers collected cash for a super PAC, to Vietnamese-American communities across Arizona, where recruiters sought out supporters eager to help the incumbent defeat the tea party.... Under the byzantine rules of Arizona Republican Party politics, these elected officials, known as precinct committeemen, vote for local party chairmen. The chairmen, in turn, determine how state and local GOP funds are spent, which candidates are promoted in an election year, and which political issues are highlighted — all matters of central concern for McCain heading into 2016, when the threat of a primary looms.... The tea party crowd, for now, isn’t retreating in the face of the McCain onslaught. Anti-McCain forces are still in charge of the majority of precinct committee slots statewide, and, activists say, there are many remaining conservative chairmen hell-bent on making life miserable for the senator. Schwartz, the ousted McCain foe, hinted that tea party forces were planning on striking back after the holidays. He declined to provide specifics.”

Today and yesterday I clipped stories about Scalise's racial scandal, and now this one about a moderate and intelligent Republican who has worked across party lines more than a few times. Both are good news. The Scalise story rallies the Democrats to the effort and McCain is apparently contributing to a reduction of the hardcore right-wing positions on the Republican side. It also makes me feel that if McCain ever is elected President of the US, he won't be as thoroughly bad as many other Republicans. I feel similarly toward Jeb Bush. Both seem to be intelligent men, and not comparable to the NeoNazi positions of too many Tea Partiers. I will follow both in future days for more information.






http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/12/09/249483_democrats-divided-how-did-they.html?rh=1

Democrats divided: How did they lose the white middle class?
BY DAVID LIGHTMAN
December 9, 2014 

HOLLYWOOD, FLA. — The Democratic Party is a mess.

One group of party leaders sees 2014 as simply a bad year, requiring just some tweaks. Others regard 2014 as a disaster and want an overhaul, and fast.

Leading the tear-it-up side are liberals, the party’s most loyal constituency. They’re angry because they saw no clear economic message pledging to help people with middle- and lower-class incomes.

“The first thing the party has to do is stand for something,” said Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future, a liberal activist group.

Elected officials offer similar warnings. Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, the Senate’s third-ranking Democrat, last month criticized his party for revamping the health care system in 2009 and 2010 instead of focusing on helping people get and keep jobs.

Then there’s the South, where Democrats were crushed last month. Getting even a quarter of the white vote was a struggle in most state races.

“The national Democratic Party is just too liberal for us,” explained Richard Harpootlian, a Columbia, S.C., attorney and former South Carolina Democratic chairman.

When the Democratic Party hierarchy met and strategized at a Florida resort last week, the split over how much is wrong was apparent.

“This happens to both parties at various times,” Connecticut Chairman Nancy DiNardo said of the 2014 defeats.

Not like this, said others. “We’ve alienated the white middle class,” protested Jeanne Buell, Idaho vice chairman.

Democrats lost control of the Senate last month. The Republicans gained seats as well in the House of Representatives, where they will hold their biggest majority since the 1940s. Republicans now have 31 of the nations’ 50 governorships, the most for either party in 16 years.

Officially, the Democratic intelligentsia is concerned and has authorized a task force to conduct a “top-to-bottom” review of what can be done. Insiders and outsiders comprise the panel, and preliminary findings are due at the party’s February meeting.

Like-minded Democrats noted the party still holds the White House, and in 2014 were victims of an unusually Republican-friendly Senate map – among the Democrats seeking re-election to the Senate, seven were in states that had voted against Obama in 2012. In the House, they said, Democrats were often victims of Republican gerrymandering.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, the Democratic National Committee chairwoman, told the party meetings to look at Democratic successes, including governors who won tight New England races.

“Voters agree with us on major issues that are important to them,” she said.

She got public praise from officials, but in private meetings and outside the room serious qualms surfaced. At one closed-door meeting, at least three officials stood up and urged the party to be more sensitive to white middle-class concerns. “There was some applause,” said Buell of Idaho.

The ultra-concerned saw the party making two tactical errors this year. It assumed that since economic numbers were pointing up, voters would give its candidates credit. And it was too intent on targeting specific groups loyal to the party, notably single women and African-Americans, instead of reaching out to middle-class whites.

Instead, candidates often ignored a telling statistic: Throughout the year, roughly two-thirds of Americans saw the country as moving in the wrong direction. They’re worried about their futures.

How, voters asked, would Democrats help? At one closed-door seminar for state chairs at the meeting, consultants found Democrats had offered about a dozen different campaign messages. Republicans made it simpler, saying that by cutting taxes and spending, people would wind up with more money to spend as they wished.

“It’s clear we need to hone our message and give people something to vote for,” said Iowa Chairman Scott Brennan. Republican Joni Ernst beat Rep. Bruce Braley, a Democrat, for Iowa’s Senate seat, a seat Democrat Tom Harkin had won five times since 1984.

Too often, chairmen said, Democrats seemed engaged in implementing strategy rather than discussing substance. “How many times can you knock on someone’s door?” asked Washington Chairman Jaxon Ravens. “It’s not so much how often you talk to them, but what you say.”

In West Virginia, for instance, Democrats have warned voters for at least 30 years that Republicans are out to take away Social Security while busting unions. Social Security survives, and union problems can’t be tied exclusively to Republican policies.

“So people just tune out,” said Belinda Biafore, the West Virginia Democratic vice chairwoman.

They might tune in if they saw party regulars in their neighborhoods. That’s why, in South Carolina, Democrats plan a workshop this spring to help people with job search skills such as resume writing and interviewing techniques.

“This is how we show our values,” explained South Carolina Democratic Chairman Jaime Harrison.

Even with a streamlined message, Democrats still have systemic hurdles that could take years to overcome.

Foremost is what Harpootlian called “the re-segregation of the South.” Democrats have long fought for majority-minority congressional districts to boost African-American representation. But that often means packing reliable Democratic votes into one district, making it easier for white Republicans to win surrounding areas.

About one-fourth of South Carolina’s voting population this year was black, but the state’s lone majority-minority district is the only one represented by a Democrat. Other Southern states have similar patterns.

Democrats want to maintain support from black and Latino voters, who have been giving them huge majorities. Winning bigger numbers among Southern whites, though, is proving difficult.

One solution, said former South Carolina Gov. James Hodges, a Democrat, is for candidates to establish their own identities apart from the national party.

“Outsiders win,” he said.

Another tactic: Demonize Republicans. Democratic regulars predicted that as Republicans get stronger, fissures between diehard conservatives and the center-right become more apparent.

That tilt toward tea party Republicans helped elect Democrats two years ago. This year, Republican regulars turned back those challenges and did well.

No one knows whether Democrats’ woes are cyclical or structural. That’s why “everything should be on the table,” said Alan Clendenin, the Florida vice chairman.

At the moment, it’s not clear what that might mean. “Too often the inclination after a night like we had on Election Day is to throw everything out and start over,” said Wasserman Schultz, “but to do that would be to ignore the incremental but significant progress that we did achieve over the last two years.”




“Leading the tear-it-up side are liberals, the party’s most loyal constituency. They’re angry because they saw no clear economic message pledging to help people with middle- and lower-class incomes. “The first thing the party has to do is stand for something,” said Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future, a liberal activist group. Elected officials offer similar warnings. Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, the Senate’s third-ranking Democrat, last month criticized his party for revamping the health care system in 2009 and 2010 instead of focusing on helping people get and keep jobs.... “The national Democratic Party is just too liberal for us,” explained Richard Harpootlian, a Columbia, S.C., attorney and former South Carolina Democratic chairman.... Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, the Democratic National Committee chairwoman, told the party meetings to look at Democratic successes, including governors who won tight New England races. “Voters agree with us on major issues that are important to them,” she said.... The ultra-concerned saw the party making two tactical errors this year. It assumed that since economic numbers were pointing up, voters would give its candidates credit. And it was too intent on targeting specific groups loyal to the party, notably single women and African-Americans, instead of reaching out to middle-class whites.... How, voters asked, would Democrats help? At one closed-door seminar for state chairs at the meeting, consultants found Democrats had offered about a dozen different campaign messages. Republicans made it simpler... Too often, chairmen said, Democrats seemed engaged in implementing strategy rather than discussing substance. “How many times can you knock on someone’s door?” asked Washington Chairman Jaxon Ravens. “It’s not so much how often you talk to them, but what you say.”... They might tune in if they saw party regulars in their neighborhoods. That’s why, in South Carolina, Democrats plan a workshop this spring to help people with job search skills such as resume writing and interviewing techniques.... One solution, said former South Carolina Gov. James Hodges, a Democrat, is for candidates to establish their own identities apart from the national party. “Outsiders win,” he said. Another tactic: Demonize Republicans. Democratic regulars predicted that as Republicans get stronger, fissures between diehard conservatives and the center-right become more apparent.”

I wonder which Middle Class White group the party leaders are talking about – the relatively well-educated people such as teachers who have at least a four year college degree, or those with a high school diploma or GED and perhaps a business or technical school background such as well-paid construction or factory workers. The absence of powerful unions is one of the main reasons the latter group has lost what money they had since their wages have remained stagnant, and their jobs have been shipped off to China. Likewise, lower level white collar workers such as secretaries who can make $40,000 or so a year are finding fewer jobs available as businesses have reacted to the economic instability since the Great Recession.

The other important barrier to the Democrats is locality. Americans with a four year college degree are more likely to be liberal than those with less education, but in the case of those who have grown up and lived mainly in rural and small town environments with less exposure to outside influences are more culturally and economically conservative despite their educational level. They are also more likely to belong to a Fundamentalist Christian church, which lately are making a push to control and change our government to eliminate “evil” influences. Unfortunately, gay marriage is considered evil by that group. Luckily not all Christians are conservative – Episcopalian, United Methodist, Unitarian Universalist tend to be much more culturally liberal than members of the Evangelical movement.

I would have liked to see the Democrats in Congress and the Senate write laws to prevent the off-shoring of businesses for tax reasons, and raise the federal minimum wage. The Middle Class is in a difficult position. They aren't all “professionals,” which is what I used to consider the Middle Class to be. Lawyers and doctors make more money than that $30 to 50 thousand a year, though they are not always wealthy. The cost of living which has continued to rise and the stagnant incomes has still taken a toll on their security. We are in danger of losing much of our Middle Class families and we should help them make it financially. We are moving toward a class system like we had in the Gilded Age – a large group of the poor and very poor and a small group of the uber rich. I felt that more of the Stimulus money that was provided in 2008 should have gone to the relief of specific homeowners for their mortgages, rather than to huge businesses and banks who were considered “too large to fail.” Businesses like that are like cats; they will always land on their feet if they fall.

I feel strongly that we as liberals should be continuing to finance public education, voter registration, upward mobility for the poor, and the growth of more and more smaller, more local businesses in each local area as opposed to tighter and tighter control and expansion by industrial giants. Coal mining companies provide jobs, but they make terrible employers. The Washington Post article “Who actually creates jobs: Start-ups, small businesses or big corporations?” – at website http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/who-actually-creates-jobs-start-ups-small-businesses-or-big-corporations/2013/04/24/d373ef08-ac2b-11e2-a8b9-2a63d75b5459_story.html – states that, according to the SBA, businesses of under 500 employees hire most of the nation's workers. Really small businesses of under 50 employees only hire about a third of the US workers, therefore tax policies encouraging those to grow while remaining local, would help create more jobs. Laws reducing taxes on businesses who provide health insurance, hire minorities and women, hire full-time rather than part-time workers, and halt the process of off-shoring would be very beneficial. Republicans might support those, too, since they are tax cuts. I would like to see the Democratic party registering voters and working in other ways in poor neighborhoods to improve their likelihood of voting for the Democrats. Many black people don't trust either white party.

As for those members of the Middle Class who are culturally and racially conservative, they would be more likely to vote Democrat if they were making a better and more reliable income. I think some of the rancor over racial issues that is occurring now is due to emotional stress caused by very real financial distress among both blacks and whites. That has frequently been coupled with the social fears of white people under duress becoming inflamed, as during the period leading up to and including the Depression of the 1930's. In that case, it was mainly the Jews who were the targets of white Christians in Europe. Where there is fear there is hatred and scapegoating of minority groups. I hope for improvements, though in the short term, racial hatred has emerged again both in Europe and in the US. That is my worst fear about our future.





http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/01/01/374382369/japans-population-declined-in-2014-as-births-fell-to-a-new-low

Japan's Population Declined In 2014 As Births Fell To A New Low
Krishnadev Calamur
JANUARY 01, 2015

Japan's population fell by a record 268,000 people last year, new data show, with preliminary figures showing just above 1 million births in 2014.

The figures released by the country's health ministry showed that the estimated number of people who died in 2014 was 1,269,000, about 1,000 above the previous year. The number of births was 1,001,000, down about 29,000 from 2013. The total population declined by a record 268,000.

The Kyodo news service adds that the number of births could slide below 1 million when new numbers are released in June.

Agence France-Presse adds that the number of births was a new low for the fourth straight year.

An official at the ministry told Kyodo a further decline in births was expected because "the number of reproductive-age women is on the decline."

Japan's aging and shrinking population have been issues of concern since the 1970s when the number of newborn babies hit more than 2 million annually. The figure dropped below 1.5 million in 1984 and below 1.1 million in 2005. The country's total population was estimated at 127.3 million in 2013.

The number of deaths has exceeded 1 million annually since 2002.

Those 65 and over are expected to make up nearly 40 percent of the population in 2060. That could mean tough economic times for the world's No. 3 economy, as we noted in a blog post in 2010.




“An official at the ministry told Kyodo a further decline in births was expected because "the number of reproductive-age women is on the decline." China was in the news several years ago for the fact that they had limited the number of children that a family is allowed to have, and at the same time the culture was inclined toward a strong preference for their boy children. Many Chinese women were having abortions if their child was a girl. In nature, girls are born a little over half the time as opposed to boys, which will provide a good number of reproductively viable women. I looked on the Net about the same issue in Japan and found that girls are actually preferred in Japan – very unusual in Asian societies. Another interesting fact emerged, however. Women there, as in the US, are more and more putting their energies into working in the marketplace than on having families, causing the overall birthrate to decline. They need to give a tax write-off for women who reproduce and encourage large families of three or more children. That should at least slow down the current trend in Japanese population.

At website http://www.sup.org/books/title/?Id=8126 of stanford university press, the book entitled the political economy of japan's low fertility, edited by Frances Mccall Rosenbluth, 2006 is reviewed. “The authors argue that the combination of an inhospitable labor market for women and insufficient support for childcare pushes women toward working harder to promote their careers, to the detriment of childbearing. Controversial and enlightening, this book provides policy recommendations for solving not just Japan's fertility issue but those of other modern democracies facing a similar crisis.”





http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/01/01/374384590/north-koreas-kim-jong-un-says-hes-open-to-summit-with-south-korea

North Korea's Kim Jong-Un Says He's Open To Summit With South Korea
Eyder Peralta
JANUARY 01, 2015

North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un says he's open to dialogue with South Korean President Park Geun-hye.

NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports Kim's overture was made during a televised address. Anthony filed this report for our Newscast unit:

"'If the atmosphere and environment are right, there's no reason not to hold a high-level summit' with South Korea, Kim said in his 30-minute long address.

"Kim added that the North is ready to expand special economic and tourist zones where South Koreans can invest and travel.

"The two sides had agreed to talks in late October, but the North canceled them in protest after South Korean activists launched balloons with propaganda leaflets into the north.

"Kim just finished the traditional three-year period of mourning for his late father, and observers have been expecting the young Kim to make some new moves."




"Kim added that the North is ready to expand special economic and tourist zones where South Koreans can invest and travel. "The two sides had agreed to talks in late October, but the North canceled them in protest after South Korean activists launched balloons with propaganda leaflets into the north.”

This should help with the problem of relatives in both North and South Korea being unable to see each other due to travel restrictions. It would make North Korea a little bit more humane, at least, and may improve relations with the South. I'm glad to see Kim do something positive for a change.





http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/12/30/372713713/tribute-the-man-who-linked-climate-change-to-global-health

Tribute: The Man Who Linked Climate Change To Global Health
JOANNE SILBERNER
DECEMBER 30, 2014

Photograph – Tony McMichael has written more than 300 papers on how erratic weather and climate can cause health problems. He died in September.

When I asked climate change expert Tony McMichael back in March how he thought the world would deal with climate change, he said, "It's likely to be an extraordinary century and we're going to have to have our wits about us to get through it."

But the legions of scientists he inspired will have to go on without him. McMichael died in September in his native Australia from complications of pneumonia, leaving behind the fledgling field he founded — determining the health effects of climate change.

As we look back on the people we lost in 2014, McMichael stands out as a pioneer and prophet.

One of his prime motivators was a sense of social justice. Before going to medical school, McMichael spent a summer volunteering at a leper colony in India. Then he trained in Australia as a physician and epidemiologist. He made a name for himself early on by defining the effects of lead on  children and establishing some of the basic rules of epidemiology.

Then McMichael took on a bigger task — determining how the global environment affects human health. In 1993 he led the health team for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's second report. That same year, he published Planetary Overload: Global Environmental Change and the Health of the Human Species, the first scholarly look at the health effects of climate change.

McMichael laid out the climate change challenge in moral terms: "While the rich countries have caused most of the increase in greenhouse gas emissions to date, the whole world will experience the consequences of climate change." And poor people, he noted, will be least able to adapt.

Many of his 300-plus scientific papers describe how increasingly erratic weather and climate can cause health problems. It may seem obvious that heat waves, ice storms, droughts, floods, and disease-carrying insects expanding their habitat can all maim and kill. But before McMichael, few people thought about climate change in those terms.

McMichael used basic epidemiology to predict an increase in these deaths. During his stints at the University of Adelaide, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Australian National University, he trained fellow scientists to watch for early signs. For example, he co-authored a study showing that death patterns in Sydney, Australia, which has been hit by an unusual number of heat waves in the last couple of decades, are changing, so that there are more deaths in the summer than in the winter. And he's inspired research on the mental health effects of climate change. Already, epidemiologists are noticing higher rates of anxiety and depression among people in both drought-stricken and flooded areas.

When I interviewed McMichael this year, I asked what focusing on a grim future all day every day does to a person. "I'm aware that my grandchildren may live in a very different and very unpleasant world," he told me. He worried that governments might not be able to survive the economic, social and political stresses brought on by a changing environment.

He said what kept him going was the conviction that replacing airy handwaving with hard epidemiological science would galvanize leaders to make changes.

But it was a long haul for him.

Government funders just weren't interested. "It doesn't seem like real science to them," he said. The health effects of climate change are "big, unbounded, and complex. There aren't going to be any single bottom-line answers that come out of it." In McMichael's own country, Prime Minister Tony Abbott has called climate change science "crap." The month McMichael died, he was the first author on a plea to Abbot to put climate change and health onto the agenda of an upcoming G20 meeting. Abbott didn't — but other countries did.

One of McMichael's last publications in a scientific journal was a request to health professionals to speak out about climate change. He noted that what he and others have predicted is now happening — more droughts, heat waves, floods, storms, fires and the like, leading to job loss, impoverishment, migration and conflict, which in turn make people more prone to illness, depression and premature death. He cited ideological rigidity and an anti-science ethos in his own Australia — his "land of droughts and flooding rains" (from a popular poem published in 1908), he wrote, has become a "land of doubts and fuddled brains."

McMichael worried that the human health dimension of climate change has long been overlooked: "Concerns have focused on risks to tangibles 'out there' — coastlines, property damage, electricity costs, iconic species and ski slopes." All important, he said, but it's perhaps even more important to recognize that climate change threatens people's health, and that in turn threatens social stability all over the world.




“When I asked climate change expert Tony McMichael back in March how he thought the world would deal with climate change, he said, "It's likely to be an extraordinary century and we're going to have to have our wits about us to get through it."... Then McMichael took on a bigger task — determining how the global environment affects human health. In 1993 he led the health team for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's second report. That same year, he published Planetary Overload: Global Environmental Change and the Health of the Human Species, the first scholarly look at the health effects of climate change.... Many of his 300-plus scientific papers describe how increasingly erratic weather and climate can cause health problems. It may seem obvious that heat waves, ice storms, droughts, floods, and disease-carrying insects expanding their habitat can all maim and kill. But before McMichael, few people thought about climate change in those terms.... For example, he co-authored a study showing that death patterns in Sydney, Australia, which has been hit by an unusual number of heat waves in the last couple of decades, are changing, so that there are more deaths in the summer than in the winter. And he's inspired research on the mental health effects of climate change. Already, epidemiologists are noticing higher rates of anxiety and depression among people in both drought-stricken and flooded areas.... He worried that governments might not be able to survive the economic, social and political stresses brought on by a changing environment. He said what kept him going was the conviction that replacing airy handwaving with hard epidemiological science would galvanize leaders to make changes. But it was a long haul for him. Government funders just weren't interested. "It doesn't seem like real science to them," he said. The health effects of climate change are "big, unbounded, and complex. There aren't going to be any single bottom-line answers that come out of it." In McMichael's own country, Prime Minister Tony Abbott has called climate change science "crap." The month McMichael died, he was the first author on a plea to Abbot to put climate change and health onto the agenda of an upcoming G20 meeting. Abbott didn't — but other countries did.”... He cited ideological rigidity and an anti-science ethos in his own Australia — his "land of droughts and flooding rains" (from a popular poem published in 1908), he wrote, has become a "land of doubts and fuddled brains."

Australia sounds a great deal like the US – “idealogical rigidity and an anti-science ethos.” I'm afraid we really are going to have a very hard time. The ultra-conservative in the US are always into conspiracy theories and predicted disasters leading to our government failing, with a complete social breakdown. As a result of that, of course, they will need to hunker down in their homes with their small arsenal of weapons and shoot poor, homeless people who are trying to break into their houses and steal their carefully hoarded canned food and money. Well, if they keep on with their current political, social and economic leanings, the resulting breakdown may occur as a direct result. They are bringing about their own apocalyptic era – famine, drought, disease and all manner of evils.

The hideous television show “The Walking Dead” is a prime example of that kind of thinking. It's very popular, surprisingly. I can't stand to see it. They keep showing animatronic skeletons covered in what looks like bits of rotting flesh, rising from their graves and lying in wait for living people, snapping their filthy-looking jaws at the poor victims. A small number of beleaguered good people who didn't die in the apocalypse use whatever weapons they can find to fight them off. It's nauseating to me to see some of the modern sci-fi and fantasy filming that is being done now. The producers have become highly skilled in producing an appearance of reality about something that is to me obscene – in other words, it has “no redeeming social value.” It also sucks as entertainment. I want characters and a story. I'm spending lots of time on my oldie goldies channel when I'm not watching the news. Unfortunately I can't pull in our PBS channel because, I suspect, they are financially on a low budget and don't broadcast at a high enough output strength for my non-cable antenna TV to pick it up.