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From: Gregory Browri To: undisclosed-recipients:; Bcc: jeevacation@gmail.com Subject: Greg Brown's Weekend Reading and Other Things.... 08/11/2013 Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2013 11:12:31 +0000 Attachments: Meet_the_l 1-year- old_conquering_thefashion_world,one_bow_tie_at_a_time_Oliver_Bergin_Telegraph_Au g_7,_2013.pdf; Ben_Bradlee_bio_August_ 11,_2013.pdf; Ben_Bradlee_to_receive_Medal_of_Freedom_David_Nakamura_TWP_August_8,_2013.pdf ; A_hard_landing_for_the_middle_class_Harold_Meyerson_TWP_August_9,2013.pdf; The_Tea_Party's_Path_to_Irrelevanceiames_Traub_NYT_August_6,2013.pdf; The dovmward_path_of_upward_mobility_Fareed_Zakaria_TWP_November_9,2013.pdf; Republicans_Against_Reality_PauliCrugman_NYT_August_4,_2013.pdf; Why_Is_SNAP_Part_of_the_Farm_Billioel_Berg_Moyers_&_CoJuly_2,2013.pdf; Jack_Villamaino,_Forrner_GOP_Candidate,_Gets_4_Months_Iniail_For_Felony_Voter_Fr aud_Nick Wing_Huff_Post_08_09_2013.pdf; The_6_1 t_Embarrassing_Political_Moments_of_the_August_11,_2013.pdf; Out-Of- Touch Politicians- Huff Post_August_11,_2013.pdf; The_Biggest_Thra_to:Americajts_Own_Military_Budget_Michael_Cohen_The_Guardi an_August_10,_2013.pdf; Elvis_Costello_bio_Aug_11,_2013.pdf Inline-Images: image.png; image(1).png; image(2).png; image(3).png; image(4).png; image(5).png; image(6).png; image(7).png; image(8).png; image(9).png; image(10).png; image(11).png; image(12).png; image(13).png; image(14).png DEAR FRIEND One of the greatest newspapers in America is The Washington Post and one of the reasons is that for 23 years Ben Bradley was its soul, conscience, clarity, intellect, honesty and its Executive Editor. Benjamin Crowninshield "Ben" Bradlee (born August 26, 1921) is a vice president at- large of The Washington Post. As executive editor of the Post from 1968 to 1991, he became a national figure during the presidency of Richard Nixon, when he challenged the federal government over the right to publish the Pentagon Papers and oversaw the publication of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's stories documenting the Watergate scandal. EFTA01142502 This week it was announced that former president Bill Clinton, talk-show icon Oprah Winfrey and Benjamin C. Bradlee, the former executive editor of The Washington Post who oversaw the Watergate coverage that helped end the presidency of Richard Nixon, will be awarded the country's highest civilian honor by President Obama later this year. Obama will present the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 16 honorees in all, including the late astronaut Sally Ride, women's rights activist Gloria Steinem, baseball star Ernie Banks, former University of North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith and country singer Loretta Lynn. More than 500 people who have made "especially meritorious contributions"to national security, world peace or cultural developments have received the medal in the 50 years since President John F. Kennedy established the awards. In announcing the medal winners, Obama said, "The Presidential Medal of Freedom goes to men and women who have dedicated their own lives to enriching ours. This year's honorees have been blessed with extraordinary talent, but what sets them apart is their giftfor sharing that talent with the world." Other winners this year are the late senator Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii; former senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana; the late civil rights activist Bayard Bustin; jazz legend Arturo Sandoval; Nobel Prize winners Daniel Kahneman and Mario Molina; Patricia Wald, chief judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit; and civil rights leader C. T. Vivian. In bestowing the award on Clinton, the White House emphasized his continuing contributions to the country after his presidency, including his formation of the Clinton Foundation "to improve global health, strengthen economies, promote health and wellness, and protect the environment." The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, which Clinton started with former president George W. Bush in 2010, was also cited. In a brief biography accompanying the announcement of the awards, the White House called Bradlee, 91, who remains a vice president at large at the newspaper, "one of the most respected newsmen of his EFTA01142503 generation" for his tenure as The Post's top editor from 1968 through 1991, during the paper's heyday. "Good God, howfabulous," Bradlee said in a phone interview from the vacation home he owns with his wife, Post writer Sally Quinn, in the Hamptons. "What more can a man get? I feel terribly honored. What does a person do to deserve this kind of prize?" Katharine Graham, The Post's late publisher, tapped Bradlee to run the paper's news coverage during a time of great competition among Washington's daily newspapers, and Bradlee quickly reshaped The Post to reflect his own pugnacious personality. In 1971, The Post, along with the New York Times, successfully won a legal battle with the Nixon administration over the right to publish the Pentagon Papers, which revealed the Johnson administration's political machinations over U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. A year later, two young Post reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, began investigating a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate hotel. Bradlee and Graham backed the pair despite heavy pressure from the Nixon administration, as the reporters traced the story all the way to the White House, precipitating the president's resignation in 1974. In a moment recounted in several books about the Watergate story, Bradlee instructed Bernstein to quote then-Attorney General John Mitchell on his threats against Graham after the reporter contacted Mitchell to inform him of an explosive story. The Post won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for its Watergate coverage. Bradlee's award was announced just three days after news broke that Washington Post Co. Chairman Donald E. Graham, ICatharine's son, has agreed to sell the newspaper to Amazon founder Jeffrey Bezos for $25O million, ending the family's 80-year ownership of the publication. The awards will be presented in a ceremony at the White House later this year. Meet the 11-year-old conquering the fashion world, one bow tie at a time — Telegraph Moziah Bridges started up his bow tie business aged 14 now he's selling his creations around the world and giving back to his Memphis community. EFTA01142504  Moziah Bridges sporting one of his designs n -year-old Moziah Bridges describes himself as a "young, dapper man" - something surely no-one can disagree with. Website: httn://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/columns/olivia-bergiuMIGm227600/Alect-the-n-year-old-conquering-the-fashion-world-one-bow-tie- at-a-time.html The round spectacle-sporting, self-assured resident of Memphis, Tennessee has been sewing snazzy bow ties since he was nine-years-old, and was the recent subject of a Fox News profile on young entrepreneurs - young being the operative word. "I really was a young, dapper man, and I couldn'tfind any bow ties that I really liked," explained Bridges of his start-up, aptly called Mo's Bows. With the help of his grandmother, who taught him how to sew, he ran up several bow ties and the rest is history. In his own words, Bridges says his business is "so important because it's me, I'm starting young and that's all that matters. Plus I'm handsome." As his mother, Tramica reasoned: 'You don't have to wait until you're older if you have a dream and you have a passion, we say gofor it." Bridges currently has 6o styles listed on Etsy, an online handmade marketplace. Prices start at £13.36 ranging to £36.74, and each style has an adorable name such as 'Holidays With Granny, 'Lady Sings the Blues' and 'Dinner With Mom'. Positive feedback from satisfied customers dominates his e-store's profile. He is also stocked in three stores in his hometown, as well as in five additional boutiques across the US. He estimates to have made $30,000 (approx £20,000) since launching Mo's Bows, but has already proved to be ethically-minded. In 2012, two children from the Glenview-Edgewood Manor EFTA01142505 Neighborhood were awarded a scholarship to a local summer camp thanks to the proceeds from the Mo's Bows 'Summer Camp' collection. Bridges explains: "I see kids outside getting in trouble so I thought if I send them to summer camp they won't get in that much trouble so I made these bow ties called the 'Go Mo scholarship bow tie' and it helps." Indeed, loo per cent of the proceeds from the ties were used towards the summer camp fees. With a father and grandfather who love dressing in three-piece suits 'just because", Mo says style is: "in my blood, I mean I really like to dress up in neck ties and bow ties, I'm just a really young dapper man." He dreams of being a fully-fledged fashion designer some day; Ralph Lauren and Michael Kors: you have been warned. ******* EU Regulations I have a number of Conservative friends who sincerely believe that Government is TOO BIG and INEFFICIENT And in may ways I agree with them Here is a simple comparison of an example why If there was still a shred of doubt the world is totally insane, this should remove it: Only Divine intervention can now restore us to sanity I This says it all Pythagoras' Theorem: 24 words. Lord's Prayer: 66 words. Archimedes' Principle: 67 words. Ten Commandments: 179 words. Gettysburg Address: 286 words. US Declaration of Independence : 1,300 words. US Constitution with all 27 Amendments: 7,818 words. EU Regulations on the Sale of CABBAGES: 26,911 words. What no one talks about is that one of the reasons that there are 26,911 words in the EU% Regulations for the Sale of Cabbages may have to do with the proliferation of lobbyist who continually push the inclusion of provisions beneficial to the special interests of the companies and groups that they represent. The Big Ugly is that it is business and business interests that is overwhelming governments on every level with the inclusion of legislative provisions that favor their desires, even when it harms the country and its people ****** The 6 Most Embarrassing Political Moments of the 'oos EFTA01142506 1. Larry Craig Gets Caught Soliciting Sex in Men's Room Senator Larry Craig (R-estroom) gave new meaning to the word caucusing when he was caught playing footsie in an airport men's room with his infamous "wide stance." Needless to say, the comedians had a field day mocking Craig, or as David Letterman dubbed him, 'The Restroom Don Juan." Craig announced his resignation, then reversed his decision after "talking it over with guy in stall number 3" (Conan O'Brien), angering his Republican colleagues, some of whom "stopped having sex with him" (Jimmy Kimmel). The staunchly anti-gay lawmaker denied being a hypocrite, saying, "Hey, I wasn't trying to marry the cop in the bathroom" (Conan). Later, he was inducted into the Idaho Hall of Fame —not the entire hall, "just the men's room" (Jay Leno). 2. Dick Cheney Shoots a Guy in the Face When Dick Cheney mistook a 78-year-old lawyer for a quail, he became the first sitting vice president to shoot a man since Alexander Hamilton. Comedians everywhere declared open season on Cheney: 'The real question now is, is this a one-time thing, or will the vice president try to kill again?" asked David Letterman. "In fairness to Dick Cheney, every five years he has to shed innocent blood or he violates his deal with the devil," joked Jimmy Kimmel. "It's amazing, the only time you get accountability out of this administration is when they are actually holding a smoking gun," quipped Bill Maher. 3. Howard Dean Emits Primal Scream At a rally following his third-place finish in the 2004 Iowa Caucus, Howard Dean emitted a crazy, red- faced, vein-popping scream that was replayed hundreds of times on cable and broadcast news shows. Dean's "I Have A Scream" speech also quickly gained cult-like status on the Web, inspiring a series of hilarious mashups. Dean's campaign quickly fizzled amid a chorus of heckling. As Jay Leno joked, "Howard Dean announced today he will campaign in seven states. The states are Rage, Frenzy, Fury, Rath, Fever, Agitation, and Delirium. Yeeeeaaaah!" 4. Sarah Palin Gives Disastrous Interview to Katie Couric EFTA01142507 In what may be the most damaging interview any candidate on a presidential ticket has ever given, Sarah Palin dispensed one idiotic statement after the next to CBS's Katie Couric. Palin was widely mocked for her failure to think of any Supreme Court decisions other than Roe v. Wade; her failure to name a single newspaper or magazine she reads other than "all of 'em, any of 'em"; and her claim to foreign policy expertise because Vladimir Putin likes to rear his head and fly over Alaskan airspace. It teetered on such self-parody that all Tina Fey had to do on "Saturday Night Live" was repeat parts of Palin's answers verbatim, gosh darnit, and also there too, you betcha! 5. Eliot Spitzer Gets Caught With Prostitute Former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer rose to power as a sanctimonious crusader against ethics violations and corruption, but he didn't let that get in the way of his taste for high-priced hookers. As Attorney General, Spitzer had famously busted prostitution rings, apparently so he could keep them all for himself. Spitzer was forced to resign after being outed as Client No. 9 at the Emperor's V.I.P. Club. Jay Leno was confused: "He's the governor — who were the eight guys in front of him? You'd think as governor, you'd at least get to go first. 6. Mark Sanford Goes 'Hiking the Appalachian Trail' After he went missing for several days, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford became a national laughingstock when it turned out he was not "hiking the Appalachian Trail," as his staff claimed, but was in fact off in Argentina chasing tail. "It turned out he was down there because he was sleeping with a woman from Argentina. Once again, foreigners taking jobs that Americans won't do," David Letterman joked. "Just another politician with a conservative mind and a liberal penis," quipped Jon Stewart As a continuum: Although not as bad as the actions above there is almost nothing worse than Out- Of-Touch Politicians of any age or in any political party. This week The Huffington Post posted some of the gaffs of Rudy Giuliani, Dan Quayle, Martha Coakley, Spiro Agnew, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush John Kerry, Michael Dukakis, Mitt Romney and Barrack Obama in an their attempt to be one of the people.... What they said and did is both embarrassing and telling. With this said, I urge you to take a look at the attached Out Of Touch Politicians -- Huffington Post article. For those of you who have never lived in the UK you might not know the legendary British science fiction series Doctor Who which originally ran for 26 seasons on BBC One, from 23 November 1963 until 6 December 1989. After an unsuccessful attempt to revive regular production in 1996 with a backdoor pilot in the form of a television film, the series was relaunched in 2005 by Russell T Davies who was showrunner and head writer for the first five years of its revival, produced in-house by BBC Wales in Cardiff. Series 1 in the 21st century, featuring Christopher Eccleston as the ninth incarnation, was produced by the BBC. Series 2 and 3 had some development money contributed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), which was credited as a co-producer. Doctor Who also spawned spin-offs in multiple media, including Torchwood (2006-11) and The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007-11) — both created by Russell T Davies, K-9 (2009-1o), the four-part video series P.R.O.B.E. (1994-96), and a single pilot episode of K-9 and Company (1981). There also have been many spoofs and cultural references of the character in other media. Dr. Who has achieved cult status around the world and is a significant part of British pop culture. EFTA01142508 EFTA01142509 Twelve doctors have headlined the series as the Doctor. The transition from one actor to another is written into the plot of the show as regeneration, a life process of Time Lords through which the character of the Doctor takes on a new body and, to some extent, new personality, which occurs when sustaining injury which would be fatal to most other species. Although each portrayal is different, and on occasions the various incarnations have even met one another, they are all meant to be aspects of the same character. The Doctor is currently portrayed by Matt Smith, who took up the role after David Tennant's last appearance in an episode broadcast on 1 January 2010. On 1 June 2013, it was announced that Matt Smith would leave the series and the eleventh Doctor would regenerate in the 2013 Christmas special. On 4 August 2013, Scottish born actor, Peter Capaldi was announced as the twelfth incarnation of the Doctor. The Doctor almost always shares his adventures with up to three companions, and since 1963 more than 35 actors have been featured in these roles. The First Doctor's first companions were his granddaughter Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford) and her teachers Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill) and Ian Chesterton (William Russell). The only story from the original series in which the Doctor travels alone is The Deadly Assassin. Notable companions from the earlier series included Romana, a Time Lady; Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen); and Jo Grant (Katy Manning). Dramatically, the companions' characters provide a surrogate with whom the audience can identify, and serve to further the story by requesting exposition from the Doctor and manufacturing peril for the Doctor to resolve. The Doctor regularly gains new companions and loses old ones; sometimes they return home or find new causes — or loves — on worlds they have visited. Some have died during the course of the series. Companions are usually human, or humanoid aliens. The show has received recognition from critics and the public as one of the finest British television series, winning the 2006 British Academy Television Awardfor Best Drama Series and five consecutive (2005-10) awards at the National Television Awards during Russell T Davies's tenure as Executive Producer. American audiences most recently saw Capaldi as a World Health Organization doctor in the movie World War Z, and he also has big-screen roles in the upcoming The Fifth Estate this fall and next year's Maleficent. Again for those who don't know the series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord—a time travelling, humanoid alien known as the Doctor Who. The series is currently telecast in 5o countries and is in the Pantheon of television around the world. With this said, a sincere congratulations to Peter Capaldi.... And like James Bond, long live Dr. Who.... THIS WEEK's READINGS In an op-ed this week in The Washington Post, columnist Harold Meyerson wrote — A hard landingfor the middle class — where he compared the current economic trend in industrialized countries to what is happening in the Airline industry where more and more seating space is being redistributed upward as carriers are enlarging, upgrading and increasing their first-class and business- class sections for the well-heeled few at the expense of their coach sections. As someone who almost always flies in the front of the bus, I welcome this change but I also see it as another example of how the middle class is being squeezed in ways that often go unnoticed. The new business-class seats that Lufthansa is installing convert to quasi-beds that are 6 feet 6 inches long and two feet wide. The price for working, eating, drinking and sleeping on this commodious couch, round-trip from Kennedy airport to Frankfurt and back, is a cool $5,000. Lufthansa is hardly alone. Delta, United and American have all announced plans to upgrade their business-class seats for cross-country and transcontinental flights. Then there's Emirates, which now sells first-class suites — complete with a shower — that go for a tidy $19,000 on the New York-Dubai route. EFTA01142510 At the other end of the economic spectrum, low-cost airlines that re-create the thrill of traveling in steerage are thriving, too. The new business model, apparently, is to shrink the seats, charge extra for everything and offer nothing for free that might be construed as an amenity. That's certainly the credo of Spirit Airlines, which charges its benumbed passengers a fee for their carry-on bags, $3 for water and $10 for printing out boarding passes and whose seats don't recline. Spirit boasts one of the highest profit margins in the industry and plans to expand by 15 percent to 20 percent every year for the next eight years, according to the Los Angeles Times. It also ranks dead last in customer satisfaction — indeed, in last year's Consumer Reports survey, it had one of the lowest overall customer satisfaction scores of any company in any industry that the magazine had ever surveyed. But people fly Spirit Airlines because the fares are what they can afford. The upgrading of business and the downgrading of coach present a fairly faithful mirror of what's happening in the larger economy: the disappearance of the middle class. As University of California- Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez has documented, between 2009 and 2011, the incomes of the wealthiest 1 percent of American families grew by 11.2 percent while those of the remaining 99 percent shrunk by 0.4 percent. Median household income has declined every year since 2008. Profits, meanwhile, have risen to their highest share of the nation's economy since World War II, while wages have sunk to their lowest share. In an economy such as this, the growing markets are the rich and corporations, which have more money to spend on luxury travel, and the downwardly mobile everyone else, whose travel options are increasingly confined to discount outfits like Spirit and the increasingly hellacious coach sections of other airlines. This week, one of the last airlines devoted to what we might call a middle-class travel experience succumbed to the increasing economic bi-polarization of U.S. consumers. JetBlue, which has never had a first-class or business section but which afforded its coach customers more legroom than other airlines, announced that it would create a new first-class section on its cross-country flights with suites containing seats that fold down to full lie-flat beds. In an unusually concrete way, JetBlue's change of cabin configuration highlights what the changes to our broader economy have meant. Its ability to provide its customers with more spacious seats was the direct result of not having a first-class section. Airplanes, like stagnating economies, are finite, and if one class takes up more space or commands more resources, the other class gets less. The U.S. economy has not stagnated over the past four decades, but so much of its wealth has been claimed by the very top that most Americans have experienced it as a zero-sum game in which they've lost ground. As tax rules favored the wealthy, as employees lost the power to bargain for their wages, as globalization reduced the incomes of millions of workers, the rich grew richer at everyone else's expense. That's the reality that today's air travel illustrates, as the comfortable standard seat that once was the norm goes the way of the dwindling middle class. This week in the New York Times, James Traub wrote an article asking the question — The Tea Party's Path to Irrelevance — as The Tea Party's new crusade: preventing illegal immigrants from gaining citizenship, which they say is giving amnesty to lawbreakers. Judson Phillips, the founder of Tea Party Nation, recently told Politico that his members were "more upset about the amnesty bill than they were about Obamacare." They're so upset, in fact, that Republican supporters of immigration reform, like Senators Marco Rubio of Florida and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have become marked men in their party, while House Republicans have followed the Tea Party lead by refusing to even consider the Senate's bipartisan reform plan. Tea Partyers often style themselves as disciples of Thomas Jefferson, the high apostle of limited government. But by taking the ramparts against immigration, the movement is following a trajectory that looks less like the glorious arc of Jefferson's Republican Party than the suicidal path of Jefferson's great rivals, the long-forgotten Federalists, who also refused to accept the inexorable changes of EFTA01142511 American demography. The Federalists began as the faction that supported the new Constitution, with its "federal" framework, rather than the existing model of a loose "confederation"of states. They were the national party, claiming to represent the interests of the entire country. Culturally, however, they were identified with the ancient stock of New England and the mid-Atlantic, as the other major party at the time, the Jeffersonian Republicans (no relation to today's Republicans), were with the South. The Federalists held together for the first few decades, but in 1803 the Louisiana Purchase — Jefferson's great coup — drove a wedge between the party's ideology and its demography. The national party was suddenly faced with a nation that looked very different from what it knew: in a stroke, a vast new territory would be opened for colonization, creating new economic and political interests, slavery among them. "The people of the East can not reconcile their habits, views and interests with those of the South and West,"declared Thomas Pickering, a leading Massachusetts Federalist. Every Federalist in Congress save John Quincy Adams voted against the Louisiana Purchase. Adams, too, saw that New England, the cradle of the revolution, had become a small part of a new nation. Change "beingfound in nature,"he wrote stoically, "cannot be resisted." But resist is precisely what the Federalists did. Fearing that Irish, English and German newcomers would vote for the Jeffersonian Republicans, they argued — unsuccessfully - for excluding immigrants from voting or holding office, and pushed to extend the period of naturalization from 5 to 14 years. Leading Federalists even plotted to "establish a separate government in New England,"as William Plumer, a senator from Delaware, later conceded. (The plot collapsed only when the proposed military leader, Aaron Burr, killed the proposed political guide, Alexander Hamilton.) The Federalists later drummed out Adams, who voted with the Jeffersonian Republicans to impose an embargo on England in retaliation for English harassment of American merchant ships and impressment of American sailors. This was the foreshadowing moment of the War of 1812, which the Anglophile Federalists stoutly opposed. Finally, in the fall of 1814, the Federalists convened the Hartford Convention to vote on whether to stay in or out of the Union. By then even the hotheads realized how little support they had, and the movement collapsed. And the Federalists, now scorned as an anti-national party, collapsed as well. Contrast that defiance with Jefferson's Republicans, who stood for decentralized government and the interests of yeoman farmers, primarily in the coastal South. They ruled the country from 1801 to 1825, when they were unseated by Adams — who, after splitting with the Federalists, had joined with a breakaway Republican faction. In response, Jefferson's descendants, known as the Old Radicals, did exactly what the Federalists would not do: they joined up with the new Americans, many of them immigrants, who were settling the country opened up by the Louisiana Purchase. Their standard- bearer in 1828, Andrew Jackson, favored tariffs and "internal improvements"like roads and canals, the big-government programs of the day. The new party, known first as the Democratic-Republicans, and then simply as the Democrats, thrashed Adams that year. (Adams's party, the National Republicans, gave way to the Whigs, which in turn evolved into the modern Republican Party.) Today's Republicans are not likely to disappear completely, like the Federalists did. But Republican leaders like Mr. Rubio and Mr. Graham understand that a party that seeks to defy demography, relying on white resentment toward a rising tide of nonwhite newcomers, dooms itself to permanent minority status. Opposing big government is squarely in the American grain; trying to hold back the demographic tide is quixotic. Professional politicians do not want to become the party of a legacy class. The problem is that the Tea Party is not a party, and its members are quite prepared to ride their hobbyhorse into a dead end. And many Republicans, at least in the House, seem fully prepared to join them there, and may end up dragging the rest of the party with them.The example of those early days shows that American political parties once knew how to adapt to a changing reality. It is a lesson many seem to have forgotten. EFTA01142512 There is no place in democracy or politics for ideology purity as governments on every level should represent every citizens and be tolerant of their needs in views. We don't have to go back to 1801 to see what happens when ideology purity is imposed in a democracy, all we have to do is look at the current mess that the Muslim Brotherhood and its democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi caused in Egypt. Whether it is conservative, liberal or a theocracy, leadership that tries to impose its will of ideology purity will sooner or later be rebuffed and The Tea Party's fate is no different no matter how they dress it up historical hogwash. I like to go into my archives to re-read articles and this week I came across an article published on November g, 2011 in The Washington Post by Fareed Zakaria — The Downward Path of Upward Mobility — where he countered Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) who had declared, "Class is not a fixed designation in this country. We are an upwardly mobile society with a lot of movement between income groups." Ryan contrasted social mobility in the United States with that in Europe, where "top-heavy welfare states have replaced the traditional aristocracies, and masses of the long- term unemployed are locked into the new lower class." Now almost two years later, like climate change the debate over the growing gap between the rich and poor has been settled by almost everyone, with former Indiana Republican Governor Mitch Daniels saying, "upward mobility from the bottom is the crux of the American." And when Time Magazine did a cover story that year asking, "Can You Still Move Up in America?" The answer, citing a series of academic studies was, no; not as much as you could in the past and — most devastatingly — not as much as you can in Europe. In 2010 the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, found that "upward mobility from the bottom" — Daniels's definition — was significantly lower in the United States than in most major European countries, including Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark. Another study, by the Institute for the Study of Labor in Germany in 2006, uses other metrics and concludes that "the U.S. appears to be exceptional in having less rather than more upward mobility." The 2010 Economic Mobility Project study found that in almost every respect, the United States has a more rigid socioeconomic class structure than Canada. More than a quarter of U.S. sons of top-earning fathers remain in the top tenth of earners as adults, compared to 18 percent of similarly situated Canadian sons. U.S. sons of fathers in the bottom tenth of earners are more likely to remain in the bottom tenth of earners as adults than are Canadian sons (22 percent vs. 16 percent). And U.S. sons of fathers in the bottom third of earnings distribution are less likely to make it into the top half as adults than are sons of low-earning Canadian fathers. Surveying all the evidence, Scott Winship, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, concludes in this week's National Review: "What is clear is that in at least one regard American mobility is exceptional.... IW]here we stand out is our limited upward mobilityfrom the bottom." When you think about it, these results should not be so surprising. European countries, perhaps haunted by their past as class-ridden societies, have made serious investments to create equality of opportunity for all. They typically have extremely good childhood health and nutrition programs, and they have far better public education systems than the United States does. As a result, poor children compete on a more equal footing against the rich. In the United States, however, if you are born into poverty, you are highly likely to have malnutrition, childhood sicknesses and a bad education. The dirty little secret about the U.S. welfare state is that it spends very little on the poor — who don't vote much — lavishing attention instead on the middle class. The result is clear. A student interviewed by Opportunity Nation, a bipartisan group founded to address these issues, put it succinctly, "The ZIP code you're born in shouldn't determine your destiny, but too often it does." EFTA01142513 Tackling income inequality is a very difficult challenge. Tax increases on the rich will do relatively little to change the basic trend, which is fueled by globalization, technology and the increasing gains conferred by education. (Getting back to the 1990 levels of income distribution in the United States, for example, would mean hundreds of billions of dollars of redistribution every year, which is exponentially larger than the biggest tax hikes anyone is proposing.) As Zakaria points out, we do know how to create social mobility — because we used to do it. In addition, we can learn from those countries that do it so well, particularly in Northern Europe and Canada. The ingredients are obvious: decent health care and nutrition for children, good public education, high-quality infrastructure — including broadband Internet — to connect all regions and all people to market opportunities, and a flexible and competitive free economy. That will get America moving again — and all Americans moving again. So why are the Republican opposition threatening to shut-down the government, voting against social programs that would help those in need and trying to overturn Obamacare instead of coming up with solutions that would make it better? Last week in the New York Times, economist Paul Krugman wrote — Republicans Against Reality — saying that the modern G.O.P. is lost in fantasy, unable to participate in actual governing as the House Republicans voted for the 40th time to repeal Obamacare and like the previous 39 votes, this action will have no effect whatsoever. Krugman article is not about policy substance — instead or their inability to accept very basic reality constraints, like the fact that you can't cut overall spending without cutting spending on particular programs, or the fact that voting to repeal legislation doesn't change the law when the other party controls the Senate and the White House. He chronicles that House leaders canceled voting on a transportation bill, because not enough representatives were willing to vote for the bill's steep spending cuts. Although, just a few months ago House Republicans approved an extreme austerity budget, mandating severe overall cuts in federal spending — and each specific bill will have to involve large cuts in order to meet that target. But it turned out that a significant number of representatives, while willing to vote for huge spending cuts as long as there weren't any specifics, balked at the details. Don't cut you, don't cut me, cut that fellow behind the tree. Then House leaders announced plans to hold a vote cutting spending on food stamps in half — a demand that is likely to sink the already struggling effort to agree with the Senate on a farm bill. Then they held the pointless vote on Obamacare, apparently just to make themselves feel better. (It's curious how comforting they find the idea of denying health care to millions of Americans.) And then they went home for recess, even though the end of the fiscal year is looming and hardly any of the legislation needed to run the federal government has passed. In other words, Republicans, confronted with the responsibilities of governing, essentially threw a tantrum, then ran off to sulk. How did the G.O.P. get to this point? On budget issues, the proximate source of the party's troubles lies in the decision to turn the formulation of fiscal policy over to a con man. Representative Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, has always been a magic-asterisk kind of guy — someone who makes big claims about having a plan to slash deficits but refuses to spell out any of the all-important details. Back in 2011 the Congressional Budget Office, in evaluating one of Mr. Ryan's plans, came close to open sarcasm; it described the extreme spending cuts Mr. Ryan was assuming, then remarked, tersely, "No proposals were specified that would generate that path." What's happening now is that the G.O.P. is trying to convert Mr. Ryan's big talk into actual legislation — and is finding, unsurprisingly, that it can't be done. Yet Republicans aren't willing to face up to that reality. Instead, they're just running away. EFTA01142514 Kurgman: When it comes to fiscal policy, then, Republicans have fallen victim to their own con game. And I would argue that something similar explains how the party lost its way, not just on fiscal policy, but on everything. Think of it this way: For a long time the Republican establishment got its way by playing a con game with the party's base. Voters would be mobilized as soldiers in an ideological crusade, fired up by warnings that liberals were going to turn the country over to gay married terrorists, not to mention taking your hard-earned dollars and giving them to Those People. Then, once the election was over, the establishment would get on with its real priorities — deregulation and lower taxes on the wealthy. At this point, however, the establishment has lost control. Meanwhile, base voters actually believe the stories they were told — for example, that the government is spending vast sums on things that are a complete waste or at any rate don't do anything for people like them. (Don't let the government get its hands on Medicare!) And the party establishment can't get the base to accept fiscal or political reality without, in effect, admitting to those base voters that they were lied to. The result is what we see now in the House: a party that, as I said, seems unable to participate in even the most basic processes of governing. What makes this frightening is that Republicans do, in fact, have a majority in the House, so America can't be governed at all unless a sufficient number of those House Republicans are willing to face reality. And that quorum of reasonable Republicans may not exist. Giving a black eye to the opposition is not governing. And as I have said from the beginning Obamacare is a long way from perfection but at least it is an attempt by Democrats and the President to fix our broken health service (or lack of) in America. If Republicans were serious about governing instead of repealing Obamacare they would be offering amendments to improve it. And if Republicans are serious about cutting the budget they should start with the waste of public funds in their own districts, which they most likely know better than somewhere else across the country. But as we see, this isn't happening. Finally, for my Republican friends, please don't see this as partisanship, any party that can only say no other than to cite ideology purity, except when it impacts their constitutes negatively, has definitely lost its moral compass and isn't living in reality. Every since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in a partisan 5/4 decision there has been an increasing ripple effect. Within hours of the court's decision three states that had been covered, Texas, Mississippi and Alabama ushered in photo ID requirements that had been previously held at bay by the Voting Rights Act. In North Carolina the Republican Governor is expected to sign a bill limiting early voting and voting registration opportunities and broadening ID requirements. And now in Florida where five counties which were covered by the Voting Rights Act, the Republican Governor Rick Scott is restarting an effort that he says is designed to purge the voting rolls of non-citizens which a lot of people believe is being used to purge the voting rolls of Democrats. When he tried this last year he was stopped by the Voting Rights Act and his attempts initially began with a pool of i86,000 names of potential non-citizens, (60% of the names were Hispanic while on 13% of Florida electorate is Hispanic) which was whittled down to less than 2600 and his list of non-citizens was sent to election supervisors who found that fewer than 4o had voted illegally. What Republicans don't talk about it is Jack Villamaino, the former GOP Candidate who was sentenced to 1 year in jail for Felony Voter Fraud and under a plea bargain most likely will on serve 4 Months in jail. See the attached article by Nick Wing in The Huffington Post - Jack Villamaino, Former GOP Candidate, Gets .4 Months In Jail For Felony Voter Fraud. EFTA01142515 See weblink: http://www.wggb.com/play/?vajd=4206494 In the midst of his 2012 GOP primary campaign for a Massachusetts state House seat, Jack Villamaino changed the party affiliation of nearly 300 people in his town of East Longmeadow. Days later, the same number of absentee ballot requests were dropped off at the town clerk's office, a list that was almost a "name-for-name match" for those whose registration information Villamaino had altered. Earlier this week, Villamaino pleaded guilty to felony charges of stealing ballots and changing the party affiliation of 28o Democrats during his campaign for state representative. A judge sentenced him to a year in jail, only four months of which he'll be forced to serve behind bars. The remainder of that sentence will be suspended, and Villamaino will also be required to serve a year of probation. Villamaino's defense attorney had hoped the judge would throw out the felony conviction, while Hampden District Attorney Mark Mastroianni had sought additional felony charges for forgery and perjury. Villamaino, a former East Longmeadow Board of Selectmen chairman who resigned last year amid the scandal, ultimately lost his Republican primary, and the GOP candidate subsequently lost to the Democrat in the race. His wife, Courtney Llewellyn, is also facing charges stemming from the scandal, though has pleaded not guilty and will appear in court later this month. The issue of voter fraud has arisen as a hot-button issue over the past few years, and while the debate is frequently partisan, people on both sides of the aisle have been found guilty of the crime. Last month, a conservative judge sentenced Ohio Democratic poll worker Melowese Richardson to five years in prison for illegal voting. She was found guilty of having voted for her sister, who was in a coma, in 2012 and in previous elections. Also in July, the highly publicized case against Corm Small, a young Republican who threw voter registration forms into a dumpster before the 2012 elections, ended without any legal consequences. While these actions may call into question the integrity of the vote, voter ID laws, the most frequently proposed measure to combat fraud, wouldn't have done anything to prevent them. All said, voter fraud is still incredibly rare, with in-person violations being one of the least common crimes. A recent nationwide analysis of 2,068 alleged election-fraud cases since 2000 found only 10 instances of in- person fraud. Voter fraud is important, but more worse is voter suppression because when we see in the Third World or in totalitarian dominated countries we are outraged as it is a denial of one of the basic tenants in democracy. Yet we now have a Republican culture that feel comfortable denying voting rights to anyone who are might vote for their opposition. We use to pride ourselves of being the #1 democracy of inclusion. Today, the only difference between Rick Scott and his ilk and those of Robert Mugabe EFTA01142516 and other despots, is that at least he will tell you up front that votes don't matter as long has he gets the desired result. Voter suppression is ugly however it is cloaked and as a result Rick Scott is no different than Jack Villamaino, other than the orange jump suit that one will be warring over the next four months. This week The Huffmgton Post published a video -- Rich Folks on Welfare -- Ahmed Shihab- Eldin hosting a round table discussion this week with Donald Carr, Dr. Lisa Wade, Roger Johnson and Christopher Cook. One of the most egregious parts of the Farm Bill is the more than $5 billion a year in direct payment subsidies given to land owners regardless of need, regardless of income or whether you had a bad crop or a good crop. In fact one woman received hundreds of thousands in direct farm subsidies even though she had never visited the farm that she owned. Because direct payments are based on historical crops, a farmer doesn't have to plant anything to receive the farm subsidies that are grandfathered into their land. During the depression these farm subsidies were coupled with food programs, now called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Weblink: http://videos.huffingtonpost.comfrich-folks-on-welfare-517807617 While 83% of the families receiving food stamps have children and 43% of the families receiving food stamps have a head of household working a full time job and still unable to feed their family. So why are rich farmers receiving billions in farm subsidies whether or not they need it and Congress is signaling that they are going to cut $2o billion from the food stamps program. The difference is that six major companies control more than 5o% of food chain in America and the corporation and rich farmers have lobbyist , while the "working poor" and "the poor"at the mercy of whatever is left. As Dr. Lisa Wade, professor of Sociology as Occidental College says in the video, "if we decide that it is not our job tofeed children, elderly, disabled and the poor then we have loss our right to call ourselves a civilize society and we are certainly not going to be a successful society because these children are going to be the next generation of adults.... " At the same time 15 members of Congress or their spouses received $237,000 in farm subsidies. I invite you to view the video on the above weblink and for background on the marriage of the Farm Bill and SNAP and Joel Berg's article in Moyers & Company - Why Is SNAP Part of the Farm Bill? - see attached. Yesterday in The Guardian UK, Michael Cohen wrote - The Biggest Threat to America? Its Own Military Budget - and wow is he right The United States spends 58 percent of the total defense dollars paid out by the world's top ro military powers, which combined for $1.19 trillion in military funding in 2011. With its unparalleled global reach, the US outspends China, the next-biggest military power, by nearly 6-to-r. military spending We have start a serious dialog why are we following the USSR down the same sink hole of sinking more of our country's resources and wealth in the Military Industrial Complex than we can afford, while our infrastructure is in serious decay, we are cutting teachers, firefighters and subsistence programs for our children, elderly, disabl