Montco DFAers are rooting for Manan Trivedi, our endorsed U.S. House candidate in suburban Philadelphia, to become a star but not of the silver screen type.  The national DFA organization from its inception has run All-Star contests, but the winner doesn’t just get recognition and a statue to place on the mantelpiece.  This year’s DFA Grassroots All-Star will win at least $25,000 and at least 2,500 volunteer hours.  That’s solid money and real help for the lucky campaign that comes out ahead in this competition.  That’s where you come in.

All it takes is your vote.  A few clicks, and you could help this superior candidate win a congressional seat that has always been in Republican hands.  Don’t forget that every Congressional seat in the U.S. is up for grabs in November; that’s hundreds of races.  DFA picked 90 of the cream of the crop, non-incumbent candidates to place in c! ontention, and Manan was among that select number.  Yesterday, when I voted, he was 10th in votes of the 90.  We need to bump him up to #1.

Really, folks, with a few easy clicks, and you could help secure serious money and hundreds of volunteer hours for Manan.  I urge you to do so and to forward this to all your progressive friends.  Montco DFA recognized Manan Trivedi as a star candidate months ago.  With your help, he’ll shine in Congress:

        http://www.grassrootsallstars.com/trivedi

Thanks much,

Beverly Hahn
Montco DFA Steering Committee

The big banks on Wall Street -- JP Morgan/Chase, Citibank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley -- have had an incredible year, getting huge taxpayer bail-outs, making record profits and paying out multi-million dollar bonuses to their CEOs while many of them are still participating in all the highly leveraged activities that caused our housing and credit crisis in the first place.

Even as Congress is poised to pass major financial reforms, it is clear that Washington will not go far enough to break up the 'Too Big To Fail' banks.

Community banks and credit unions don’t act like the big banks. Typically, they’re more responsible in how they manage their money, they’re more closely connected to the people and businesses who live near them, and they’re more inclined to make loans they know will get paid back. And your local credit union isn't going to ask Congress for a multi-billion dollar bail-out either. These are the qualities most people want banks to have.

The idea is simple.

We can send a message to Congress, the President and every candidate running for office that we don't trust big banks with our money. But it's up to us to do it.

CLICK HERE TO PLEDGE TO MOVE YOUR MONEY TO A COMMUNITY BANK OR CREDIT UNION RIGHT NOW

When we started our Boycott BP campaign, we knew we had to get their attention in a language BP understands - profits. Now, we know it's working:

A chain of Convenience Stores in Philipsburg, Pa decided to debrand three of its BP-branded stations:

"We are debranding BP. We will no longer be associated with BP by the end of the month. We are doing this because of the backlash and bad publicity from the handling of BP's catastrophe," Sean Lay, vice president of operations, said in the report. "We don't want to be associated with them anymore. We've had enough."[Convenience Store News]

Our campaign has been covered by everyone from the New York Times to industry trade newspapers. You can be sure that BP is paying attention. Now, let's turn up the heat.

Join the Boycott today and we'll send you a free bumper sticker to help spread the campaign

The New York Times calls the U.S. Supreme Court decision “reckless.” Their editorial on it was headlined “Keeping Politics Safe for the Rich.” The issue, as you may have guessed, is the court’s latest bombshell directed at democratic elections – you remember those, the ones where voices other than big corporations and the economic elite can still be heard.

The story goes that the people of Arizona had the gall to set up a system of campaign financing whereby qualifying candidates get a lump-sum grant if they forego raising large private contributions. If the opposition chooses not to participate and spends more than the grant amount, the participating candidate qualifies for additional matching funds. It’s called “clean elections,” a version of which exists in Connecticut and Maine and for judicial races, in a number of places, including Wisconsin and North Carolina. Not incidentally, more than one-third of the members of the U.S. House have already signed on to a somewhat comparable piece of legislation for the Congress, the Fair Elections Now Act.

--- Click the Read more link to continue reading and take action

I'm just about at the end of my tether with this White House and my party. Democratic-Farm-Labor is looking more attractive all the time:

White House official: 'Organized labor just flushed $10 million down the toilet'

A senior White House official just called me with a very pointed message for the administration's sometime allies in organized labor, who invested heavily in beating Blanche Lincoln, Obama's candidate, in Arkansas.

"Organized labor just flushed $10 million of their members' money down the toilet on a pointless exercise," the official said. "If even half that total had been well-targeted and applied in key House races across this country, that could have made a real difference in November."

The AFL-CIO responds:

First, an exploding residential water well in Dimock. Then, a dead creek in Greene County and toxic drinking water in the Mon Valley. Now, the extraction industry proudly brings you...

PENFIELD, Pa. - A blowout at a natural-gas well in a remote area shot explosive gas and polluted water as high as 75 feet into the air before crews were able to tame it more than half a day later, officials said Friday.

The gas never caught fire, and no injuries were reported, but state officials worried about an explosion before the well could be controlled. The well was brought under control just after noon Friday, about 16 hours after it started spewing gas and brine, said Elizabeth Ivers, a spokeswoman for driller EOG Resources Inc.

...

"The event at the well site could have been a catastrophic incident that endangered life and property," Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger said in a statement. "This was not a minor accident but a serious incident that will be fully investigated by this agency with the appropriate and necessary actions taken quickly."

And, from  WJAC, Johnstown, PA:

According to state Rep. Bud George's office, initial reports from Process Equipment Manufacturers' Association said three of four wells were secured. The other well was releasing frack water and unignited wet gas, which caused the evacuation. Officials said an estimated 1 million gallons of frack water was uncontrolled as of 11 a.m. in the area of exit 111 on Interstate 80.

Hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" is the process of blasting millions of gallons of water deep underground to break up the shale and release the gas. Most of the frack water stays underground, but what comes up must be treated or disposed of in approved facilities.

What's the next headline? "650,000 acres of Pennsylvania condemned. Residents ordered to move to Utah" ????

Hat tip to Mark Painter

It's already begun. Republican candidates are labeling their Democratic opponents as "Liberals." That's fine with me! As JFK put it 50 years ago, if that means that these Democrats are asking us to debate and develop rational solutions to America's problems and not, as is the Republican habit, just pronounce them as problems that can only be solved by electing them, then count me among them. We cannot wish our problems away, but must engage our hearts, and hands, and minds to contribute to their solution.

A Liberal Definition by John F. Kennedy:
September 14, 1960

What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label "Liberal?" If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of "Liberal." But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."

...

I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves.

...I do not favor state compulsion when voluntary individual effort can do the job and do it well. But I believe in a government which acts, which exercises its full powers and full responsibilities. Government is an art and a precious obligation; and when it has a job to do, I believe it should do it. And this requires not only great ends but that we propose concrete means of achieving them.

Our responsibility is not discharged by announcement of virtuous ends. Our responsibility is to achieve these objectives with social invention, with political skill, and executive vigor. I believe for these reasons that liberalism is our best and only hope in the world today. For the liberal society is a free society, and it is at the same time and for that reason a strong society. Its strength is drawn from the will of free people committed to great ends and peacefully striving to meet them. Only liberalism, in short, can repair our national power, restore our national purpose, and liberate our national energies. ...

... But in 1960 the cause of liberalism cannot content itself with carrying on the fight for human justice and economic liberalism here at home. For here and around the world the fear of war hangs over us every morning and every night. It lies, expressed or silent, in the minds of every American. We cannot banish it by repeating that we are economically first or that we are militarily first, for saying so doesn't make it so. ...

In Winston Churchill's words, "We cannot escape our dangers by recoiling from them. We dare not pretend such dangers do not exist."

...

 

In days of yore, banks and investors of all kinds, made money on a market facet known as "The Churn." This is money made just from the fact that a transaction is taking place. If I'm a bank, and I have your money and you want me to give it to PECO on Thursday, I can make money on interest on that money until then. Maybe PECO pays me a small percentage to make that transfer electronically instead of by a paper check and I charge you to make the payment from your checking account: I'm making money on the transaction. I didn't do anything but move some money around and I made money three ways. If I'm a stock broker and you buy or sell a stock, I get a commission whether the stock goes up or down or stays the same. I'm making money on the transaction or "the churn" of money through the ecomnomy.

Jon Stewart enlightened his audience to maybe the biggest churn game yet. The big bailed out banks borrowing money from the Federal Reserve at 0% and then buying interest bearing Treasuries that are then used to finance the bailout. Huh? you say? Watch:

The Election Reform Network, headed by Steve Strahs and assisted by Mavra Iano, released a report on an analysis of polling place records in Montgomery County from the 2008 General election. The findings are alarming. What Steve and Mavra have found is that there are differences between the number of voters that signed in at the poll, the number of voters recorded by the poll clerks and the number of votes cast on the Sequoia voting machines. In one case, a difference of 633 votes between the sign-in book and the machine count. State law requires an audit of polls with more than a few votes difference in order to certify an election, but this has not been happening in Montgomery county.

Call the Board of Elections members today at 610-278-3020 and demand that a full audit be completed:

Bruce L. Castor, Jr., Chair
James R. Matthews, Vice Chair
Mark Levy

Key Findings from the report:

•    Forty-eight out of the 406 EDs studied (12%)  had significant disparities of nine or more voters between the machine count and the numbered poll lists, while 11 EDs (3%) had disparities of 20 or more voters (see Chart B below).   
•    Based on the numbered poll lists, Franconia Northeast had a disparity of 47 voters; Whitpain 1 had a disparity of 41 voters; Upper Gwynedd 4 had a disparity of 35 voters; Abington 10-3 had a disparity of 35 voters; and Montgomery 3 had a disparity of 20 voters.
•    304 of the 406 EDs studied (75%) had some disparities between the machine count and the numbered poll lists.
•    Thirty-one of the 304 EDs (10%) with disparities between the machine count and the numbered poll lists had more machine voters than names on the numbered poll list.  The rest, or 90% of the EDs with disparities, had more names on the poll lists than voters recorded in the machine count.  
•    Of the five ED poll books - with actual voter signatures -  reviewed as a check on our poll list data, we found three with poll book signature counts of between 300 and more than 600 fewer signatures than the machine count of voters.  A fourth ED had a disparity of 63 voters in the other direction.
•    The average disparity found between the machine counts and the numbered poll lists was four voters per election district.

 

Today I was pleased to be able to attend the annual awards luncheon of the Montgomery County Advisory Council of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission (PHRC) where MontcoDFA friends Cheryl Lynne Austin and Ruth Damsker were recognized for their contributions to promoting diversity and equal rights in our community. The luncheon was held at the Williamson Restaurant in Willow Grove.

A former Assistant District Attorney in Montgomery County, Cheryl currently serves as  an Assistant Public Defender and practices elder law. She also serves as co-chair of the Diversity Committee of the Montygomery County Bar Association.

Ms. Damsker was recognized today for her countless hours of volunteerism working for fair and equitable treatment of all citizens in the areas of housing, healthcare, education, employment, the environment and civil liberties.

Ruth also asked that all in attendance today contact their legislators to ask that the funding for the important work of the PHRC not be cut again in this year's state budget.

Even in our supposed "post-racial" era, discrimination continues to plague our state. In the year ending June 30, 2009, the PHRC processed and closed 4,339 cases, providing 7,895,543 Pennsylvanians with $10,384,666 in lost wages, damages and other compensation for illegal discrimination. Their average case settlement rate of 36 percent exceeded the federal rate of 19.5 percent and the national average for peer agencies of 21.6 percent for the federal fiscal year. Of the cases handled by the commission during that year, 92 were deemed to show probable cause (enough evidence of discrimination was found to warrant further action by the state's legal system). In 1,485 cases, the charged party settled with the harmed party rather than face continued legal action.

So call your state rep and senator today and demand that we continue to invest our resources in fighting discrimation in our community.

Tony Williams, one of the Democratic candidates for governor, has been running on a platform that includes allowing tax dollars to be used to support charter schools. First of all, I have a problem with using the government's authority to levy taxes to transfer money to private institutions that are unaccountable to the voters. You can elect a new school board, but you have no say in the people that spend tax dollars that have been given to a private school. Secondly, Mr. Williams would like you to believe that charter schools can do a better job of educating our kids than the public system, but the New York Times reports that this is not necessarily the case:

But for all their support and cultural cachet, the majority of the 5,000 or so charter schools nationwide appear to be no better, and in many cases worse, than local public schools when measured by achievement on standardized tests, according to experts citing years of research. Last year one of the most comprehensive studies, by researchers from Stanford University, found that fewer than one-fifth of charter schools nationally offered a better education than comparable local schools, almost half offered an equivalent education and more than a third, 37 percent, were “significantly worse.”

I won't argue charter schools that get high levels of financial support from private sources seem to do a good job, as do exclusive, private schools like Chestnut Hill Academy. Tony and lots of other people would have you belive that the problem with public schools is the teachers unions and that throwing more money at them will not improve them. It seems from the NYT article, though, and the particular example of Chestnut Hill Academy, that tuition of $30,000 per year per student does improve the quality of education, so maybe money does help. If not, those parents are wasting their money at CHA.

BP's TransOcean Deepwater Horizon, the offshore rig that exploded and sank off the coast of Louisiana last week, lacked a high tech shut off valve that could have saved us from the ensuing ecological disaster according to Joe Romm at Climate Progress:

At the same time, BP’s “it can’t happen here” mentality is no doubt why it decided to save $500,000 and didn’t bother with “a remote-control shutoff switch that two other major oil producers, Norway and Brazil, require,” the WSJ reported (subs. req’d).

Welcome to the land of unfettered corporate greed! Aren't you glad they are finally persons?