Obama Slashes Heating Assistance, May Help Fight Obesity Epidemic

Explaining that the program had too much money in it, President Obama this week defended cutting funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).  He's facing a barrage of criticism for taking $2.5 billion from the $5 billion agency, which assists elderly, disabled and low-income citizens in staying warm in winter and cool in summer.  Increasing numbers of people have been applying for assistance in paying energy bills due to rising joblessness and record cold temperatures.  But Obama's rationale for cutting funding is that home energy costs are decreasing and that more money can always be added to assist "folks" in the future, on a need-to-stay-alive basis.


In keeping with the White House anti-obesity initiative, what he should have said is that too much heat makes us fat anyway.  He might have explained that we really don't need all that heat. A recent study proves that living in a 60-degree house, rather than a stuffy 72-degree environment, actually generates extra body heat without shivering - a process called thermogenesis.  Scientists estimate that actual shivering burns a whopping 400 calories an hour.  But simply living in cool conditions on a consistent basis enables the body to burn what is called "brown fat" to raise body temperature naturally.  Harvard researcher C. Ronald Kahn theorizes that people can actually lose weight over time by lowering their thermostats - he estimates most people will burn 3,500 calories and lose one pound a month living in a cool home. Presumably, when summer comes around and poor people can't get assistance for air conditioning, they'll be told that excessive perspiration also causes those pounds to disappear. 


Naturally, all the money being saved by keeping poor people uncomfortable, unsafe and prone to disease is going toward the trillion dollar war effort, and of course, subsidizing Afghan President Karzai and his opium-dealing brother. It helps train illiterate security forces and keeps them flush in the hashish they smoke before starting their patrols, only to abandon them halfway through their shifts. Making less fortunate people suffer also enables the richest one percent of Americans  to hoard even more wealth than the poorest 95 percent have, combined.  It's Robin Hood in reverse: the government takes from the poor and gives to the rich.


According to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association(NEADA) , the number of households served by LIHEAP increased from 5.8 million in 2008 to 8.3 million in 2010. NEADA Director Martin Wolfe estimates about 3.1 million households, many of them middle class families suffering a job loss, will be cut from the program under Obama's budget proposal.  But think of all the calories burned in the process.  People will freeze to death before they even get the chance to develop diabetes.

Generation Y: Next Stop, Washingtonia




The Bonus Army Encampment, Washington, DC - 1932

 

If Millennials don’t like the moniker of the Lost Generation, or the Slacker Culture because of their 30% unemployment rate, they should think about forming a settlement in Washington DC this spring.  Right now, Portland has the distinction of being the city where 18 to 29-year-olds go to retire, and it's even the site of a new miniseries about the Gen Y'ers called "Portlandia." The trouble is, the jobless rate in Oregon is over 10% now and the city is feeling the pinch from all the youthful refugees.

Washington is lovely in the spring - it's Cherry Blossom time. and the balmy breezes will be gently blowing. And it has the historical distinction of being home to the famous semi-permanent
Tent City of World War One veterans called the Bonus Army.  These men converged on Washington during the Great Depression, seeking their benefits for having served their country.  There was a wee bit of trouble when Herbert Hoover sent out Douglas MacArthur and the National Guard to disperse the campers from the Mall, but all was eventually brought right when FDR was elected and Eleanor Roosevelt paid the settlement a visit.  The campers didn't get their money, but they did eventually get jobs. It was the start of the Civilian Conservation Corps. 

What better place than our nation's capitol to see and be seen when you're unemployed?  But where to go first?  Well, President Obama just spoke to the United States Chamber of Commerce about big business doing its patriotic duty and hiring a lot more people.  These financiers and CEOs made record profits last quarter, and just don't know what to do with all their money.  So your first stop in the job search should be in front of their headquarters.  Security might not let you in without an appointment, especially if there are thousands of you milling about on the sidewalk. But if you’re patient, you might snag some of the bigwigs on their way out to lunch.  Just look for the Abercrombie and Fitch suits and the chauffeur driven Bentleys and Mercedes.

If it’s public service you’re craving, don’t worry about the hiring freeze and all that austerity talk.  Just congregate in the halls of Congress and ask the hundreds of representatives and their thousands of staffers if they need a shoe shine or a militant bike messenger to deliver documents. Learn to identify the lobbyists, and offer to make a deli run for a few bucks.  Once you build up your cred, they may even find you useful for delivering bags of cash.  If they think you’re being annoying or pushy, just remind them that President Obama has just started an entrepreneurship initiative.  Tell them you’re trying to Win the Future and to get with the presidential program already! Tell them we're in a race to the top and they need to invest .  Tell them Austen Goolsbee sent you.

If, despite your best efforts at finding meaningful work in D.C., you are rebuffed, you might have to resort to panhandling.  Set up shop at strategic points where the cable news crews do their spot reporting and near the entrances to tourist destinations, foreign embassies, five star restaurants, John Boehner’s watering holes….  use your creativity.  Remember -  the theme of the President’s State of the Union speech was“Innovation is Imagination”.

Above all, take care of yourself.  You'll need to take regular breaks from your entrepreneurshipping.  All opportunity-seeking and no play make Jack and Jackie dull Gen Y'ers.  The Halls of Congress are a perfect venue for adult hide-and-seek leagues, though you might want to confine the paintball tourneys to C Street.  And don't forget the music, loud as you can make it, and bring as many subwoofers as you can manage.  Besides being stubborn and obtuse, most of the senators are also selectively hard of hearing, especially the aging Republican ones.

Booed but Not Bugged - Cheney at CPAC

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, making an unannounced appearance Thursday at CPAC from an undisclosed location for unknown reasons, was pelted with boos by supporters of Ron Paul as he spoke glowingly of fellow former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The young protesters reportedly were itching for a confrontation after a bad night's sleep at the bedbug-infested Marriott Wardham Park Hotel. According to a spokesman, Cheney was unruffled by the brouhaha. The unindicted war criminal has a magical golden shield of immunity from prosecution, self-reflection and empathy.  Some of the giant bedbugs allegedly flung his way by the Libertarians were said to have died of fright in midair before ever landing on their target. The few fat ones left, already bloated on toxic conservative blood, quickly succumbed upon landing.

I'm Still Wishin for a Spanish Inquisition

(Least of all, George W. Bush and his band of merry torturers).




When we found out via WikiLeaks that the Obama Administration had pressured Spain to drop its  investigation and prosecution of the so-called Bush Six, a team of lawyers who slimily wormed their way out of the Geneva Conventions and gave the thumbs-up for W. to authorize the torture of Gitmo detainees, there was outrage. We knew Obama had said prosecuting the previous administration for its war crimes was off the table in the interest of moving forward - but we never guessed he would be pressuring the rest of the world to ignore international treaties, too.  So a consortium of human rights organizations will be delivering a petition to the government and people of Spain on Monday, urging that the prosecution go forward. Here is the request for signatures/ text of the letter:

The Obama administration declared last year that it would not pursue prosecutions, ignoring the U.N. Convention Against Torture. Recent documents released by WikiLeaks demonstrate that the Obama government has been heavily pressuring Spanish authorities not to pursue prosecution.

Add your name to our letter to Spain.

To the people of Spain

From the people of the United States of America

We are writing to thank you and to ask for your support as your courts consider cases to bring American officials to justice for the crime of torture. A Spanish judge, acting under international law, will soon decide whether to investigate U.S. officials' roles in authorizing torture. We hope you agree that such cases must go forward, despite pressure from the Obama administration to drop them.

The organizations signing this letter represent hundreds of thousands in the American public who believe the U.S. government must be held to the same rule of law as other countries. We are profoundly disappointed that our own government refuses to prosecute former officials, despite open admissions and government documents showing that they approved torture.

It will take a public show of support for the case to withstand pressures from Washington. WikiLeaks cables show the extremes to which U.S. officials have gone to thwart any attempt by Spain or other countries to uphold justice. We applaud the courage shown by Spanish officials who insist on giving priority to the rule of law.

Despite earlier assertions by President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder that waterboarding is torture, former President George W. Bush publicly stated three times last year that he authorized waterboarding and added proudly that he would do it again. In a TV interview aired on November 8, Bush said he considered waterboarding legal "because the lawyer said it was legal." Waterboarding and other forms of torture were banned by the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, ratified by the United States in 1994.

If international law is to serve any useful purpose, other countries must condemn violations "by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment," in the words of the chief prosecutor at Nuremberg.

We sincerely hope that the citizens of Spain and its judiciary will dispel the notion that any country is above the law.

The timing of the petition's delivery is deliberate.  Valentines Day is an important holiday in Spain.


Among the many organizations backing the effort are CodePink Women for Peace, Psychologists for Social Responsibility, High Road for Human Rights, National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance and Progressive Democrats of America.  To sign the petition, go to RootsAction.org.  March 1 is the deadline set by Judge Eloy Velasco on his decision whether or not to prosecute the Bush Six.


The case stems from the role of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and five government lawyers in authorizing the torture of five Spanish detainees then held at Guantanamo.  The other  potential defendants are Federal Appeals Court Judge John Bybee, then an assistant in DOJ; Dick Cheney's chief of staff, David Addington; University of California Law Professor and former deputy assistant attorney general John Yoo; former Defense Department Counsel and current Chevron lawyer William J. Haynes II; and former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith. 


At least one other country - Switzerland - has an indictment pending against Bush, who recently cancelled a speaking gig in Geneva for fear of being arrested. 


Here is what the people of Spain will be seeing in newspapers and on billboards. After Obama's waffling on Egyptian democracy and growing social unrest here at home, we hope he is taking notice that the people are taking notice.  We hope signs like these will soon be popping up within our own borders.  As late historian Howard Zinn told that most humanistic of New York Times columnists, Bob Herbert, change always comes from the bottom up.

This Week in Rudeness - Incivility Resurges After Temporary Setback

It's been a week of bad manners all around. First, there was the White House Super Bowl pre-party, in which Bill O'Reilly achieved the dubious distinction of being the first interviewer in history to prevent a sitting president from uttering a complete sentence. MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell ran a few segments counting the interruptions, which totalled more than 70. I kept waiting for President Obama to be the first president in history to tell an interviewer to STFU. Didn't happen. The man is made of stone.


Then those most famous gate-crashers of all, the Salahis, managed to worm their way into a Super Bowl party hosted by the Dallas Cowboys' owner. They were discreetly escorted out by security, but not before they managed to memorialize their presence via a tweet complete with photo. The party rocked for several minutes before they were caught.


Not to be outdone, Republican Senator Orrin Hatch showed up uninvited to a Tea Party bash in D.C. last night to schmooze with Michele Bachmann, fresh from her secret Hawaian getaway where she worked hard for her freezing Minnesota constituents. Hatch, according to Talking Points Memo, "is presumably just the kind of Republican the tea party would like to take out in 2012."


Taking a page from the Salahi playbook, Hatch insisted he was invited, while Tea Party Express Director Levi Russell said he wasn't. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle: a Hatch staffer called a Tea Party staffer and finagled an unofficial, underhanded invite in lieu of an engraved invitation. Hatch was likely remembering the fate of his Utah cohort, Bob Bennett, at the hands of the Tea Party last fall and figured if he can't beat 'em, he might as well join 'em. Kind of a variation on the Tea Party tail wagging the establishment GOP dog theme. Establishment guy Hatch is running in circles, frantically biting at his own mangey tail.


The week is only halfway through, so I'll be adding to this post as needed. Suggestions and tips on various items of rudeness, mean-girliness and further evidence that the New Era of Civility is ending as quickly as it began are always welcome.

Rumsfeld Redux

Donald Rumsfeld, that grandfatherly aficianado of torture, is the latest in the long line of Bush War Criminals to come out with a Book. It's called "Known and Unknown," an allusion to one of the most convoluted explanations for the non-existence of WMDs ever to come from the fevered brain of a neo-con. (see quote below). He really didn't have to waste 800-plus pages of precious tree material to say what he has already tortuously said on so many cringe-worthy occasions. He should have called it "Drone of a Bush Clone." Here, in a nutshell, is what the Donald says in his moany groany tome:


"Death has a tendency to induce a depressing view of war".


"Freedom is untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and do bad things." (he was referring to the plunder of priceless artifacts from Iraq's museums, but in retrospect, he unintentionally was referring to the whole war itself, with him as one of the freedom-loving bad guys).


"As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you want or might wish to have at a later time."


"Osama Bid Laden is either alive and well or alive and not too well or not alive".


"I believe what I said yesterday. I don't know what I said, but I know what I think, and well, I assume that's what I said."


"Needless to say, the President is correct. Whatever it was he said."


"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are very interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns, there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know."


And there's this, which I swear he plagiarized from Sarah Palin: "I'm not into this detail stuff. I'm more concepty."


I wrote a response to Maureen Dowd's column on Rummy today, but it was rejected - I assume because of the nasty tone I assumed, and we all know we must be civil in today's climate of hate, particularly to those most deserving of our wrath. I had originally called for burning Rummy's books, but on second thought, even Satan has the right to free speech, so I have amended it somewhat:


Donald Rumsfeld is a connoisseur of torture - past, present and future. He bought and lives in a house in Maryland that was the site of the torture of Frederick Douglass by notorious slave-breaker Edward Covey. It's called Misery Hill - but by all accounts Rummy is living there happily in comfortable retirement, complete with taxpayer-funded benefits and health care. He is so well-to-do, in fact, that he's donating the proceeds of his book to a scholarship fund for American students. No foreigners, no survivors of Iraquis killed in the invasion have been invited to apply. No apologist and no soul-searcher is Ronald Dumsfeld.


Despite cheerfully admitting giving the big A-OK to torture at both Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, Rumsfeld is free to slither from one corporate media-hosted softball interview to the next to plug his memoirs. I hope he crosses the pond in search of some book-signings in, say, Switzerland. I heard there are lots of fans over there just dying to meet him...Amnesty International, the Center for Constitutional Rights. You know, in parts of the civilized world that still take the Geneva Conventions on torture seriously - and where warrants for the arrests of Bush and Co. are rumored to be the works.
There may be a few countries left that haven't been pressured by the Obama Administration to drop such nonsense in the interests of looking forward and the status quo and foreign aid and stuff. Georgie W. just had to cancel a speech in Geneva because not only were protesters on the agenda, but there were some stray flying shoes and legal documents in the mix too.


I haven't seen Rumsfeld's book on the New York Times bestseller list yet, despite the hype, and with any luck, all copies will soon be gathering dust in the bargain bins of Wal-Mart. And when it comes time to dispose of them, vendors and the publisher must take care. The unsold volumes must be treated as hazardous waste - otherwise they will just contaminate the rest of the garbage in the landfills.


Stay tuned - we still have Cheney's trip down nightmare lane to look forward to. Oh, and I almost forgot - Happy Belated Ronald Reagan's 100th Birthday, although I'm sure the extravaganza will go on at least as long as his funeral.

The Tea Party Loves the New York Democratic Governor

I thought the reason I couldn't stand Andrew Cuomo was because as attorney general, he did diddly squat to prosecute Wall Street crooks; he announced his candidacy in front of Tammany Hall (HQ of the old corrupt Boss Tweed machine), and he didn't like giving interviews. The truth is, he won on name value nepotism and the fact that his opponent was a loony named Carl Paladino.


Now I have a couple more reasons to loathe him. He will absolutely not raise corporate or state income taxes on his Wall Street friends, but will solve all our state's problems by eliminating 15,000 jobs and making severe cuts in Medicaid and education. That's right - a so-called liberal New Yorker has donned that fake fur cape of austerity. He will make sure that not only will poor people and their children get sicker, but that their schools will continue to suck. And guess who's singing this Quisling's praises? Why - the Tea Party, of course!


In an email sent out to former supporters of Paladino (yes, I am on that mailing list for the sole purpose of getting fun material to write about) Carl Gottstein, New York liaison of the Patriot Action Network, wrote: "The GOP and the TEA Party did not win the Governor's seat. But in my eyes, the Governor is taking many of our TEA concerns on as his own... I am one who knows a Gift Horse when I see one."


What more ringing endorsement could a governor ask for? Remember, Cuomo was the same guy who got President Obama to throw former Governor David Paterson under the bus so he could have a clear path to the nomination. The throwing-under-the bus was done anonymously through the New York Times. Cuomo was in the habit of making off-the-record midnight phone calls to The Times and other publications to get his story ideas through. He was forced to take part in a debate with Palodino and a slew of other more memorable candidates only when it looked like Crazy Carl might actually have a chance. The only thing he said that made sense on that made-for-TV event was "I agree with Jimmy. The rents are too damn high." He was upstaged when Carl left in search of the men's room.


So far, no word from the Democrats' progressive Working Families Party branch, which endorsed Cuomo, on whether it will protest his newfound fiscal conservatism. In its history, it has only abandoned one other Democrat: the notorious State Senator Pedro Espada, who not only shut down state government in a power-grabbing party switch a few years ago, but is also under criminal indictment for running a medical clinic fraud factory.


People laughed at me when I told them I voted for the Green Party's UPS guy for governor, who got about the same number of votes as the Madam but less than rent rapper Jimmy. (give or take one percent of the total). Now I don't feel so bad. I would rather have an inexperienced truck driver run the state into the ground through well-meaning ineptitude than a DINO (Democrat in Name Only) sell it down the river to Goldman Sachs.