The Erickson Report for January 29 to February 11

The Erickson Report for January 29 to February 11

This week:

- Following Up
https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/trump-team-finally-releases-billions-in-hurricane-relief-for-puerto-rico-with-major-strings-attached/

- The economy
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2019/11/21/low-wage-work-is-more-pervasive-than-you-think-and-there-arent-enough-good-jobs-to-go-around/
https://www.jobqualityindex.com/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2019/12/05/understanding-the-us-economy-lots-of-rotten-jobs/#38ace8c32d97
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/its-getting-harder-to-move-beyond-a-minimum-wage-job/
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/1/20/1912013/-Year-over-year-inflation-adjusted-wages-rose-0-in-2019-51-of-workers-got-no-raises
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/realer.htm
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/grim-truth-about-trump-economy-by-joseph-e-stiglitz-2020-01
https://thehill.com/hilltv/468236-majority-of-voters-support-a-federal-jobs-guarantee-program
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/01/09/70-of-americans-say-u-s-economic-system-unfairly-favors-the-powerful/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/19/2020-reminder-55-us-women-between-18-and-54-would-rather-live-under-socialism

- Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Clowns]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/01/15/rainbowcakewhitefieldacademy/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/18/why-no-one-trusts-media-msnbc-slammed-featuring-body-language-expert-who-calls
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/18/our-planet-seriously-burning-and-adults-keep-letting-us-down-ninth-circuit-throws

- Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Outrages]
https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-has-spent-months-demonizing-homelessness-california-now-trump-wants-major
https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/tucker-carlsons-weeklong-smear-homeless-amounted-little-more-hateful-broken-windows
https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/the-trump-regime-is-just-ignoring-judicial-rulings-they-dont-like-should-dems-take-notes/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/23/biggest-loss-clean-water-protection-country-has-ever-seen-trump-guts-safeguards-us
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/1/23/1913532/-Trump-regime-finalizes-move-allowing-pollution-and-destruction-of-wetlands-protected-by-Obama-rule
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/23/netanyahu-join-trump-next-week-announce-deal-century-peace-plan-giving-israel
https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-erickson-report-page-3-two-weeks-of_18.html
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/1/8/1910205/-Appeals-court-keeps-in-place-nationwide-block-of-Trump-admin-s-discriminatory-public-charge-rule
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/27/politics/supreme-court-immigration-public-charge/index.html
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/5-4-ruling-supreme-court-allows-trump-plan-deny-green-n1124056
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/27/shameful-disgusting-disgraceful-outrage-after-supreme-court-allows-trumps-public

- We Are Not Alone
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-01-24/muslim-women-occupy-streets-in-india-against-citizenship-law
https://www.npr.org/2020/01/25/798858125/our-democracy-is-in-danger-muslims-in-india-say-police-target-them-with-violence
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/27/opinion/india-constitution-protests.html
https://www.npr.org/2020/01/25/799507583/iraqi-security-forces-storm-tahrir-square-clash-with-protesters
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/01/iraqis-protest-u-s-occupation-following-the-killing-of-iranian-general-qassem-soleimani.amp
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51247833
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/26/middleeast/iraq-protests-clashes-intl/index.html
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/200125090150459.html
https://time.com/5771621/locust-swarms-africa/
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/25/europe/turkey-earthquake-intl/index.html
https://time.com/5771867/turkey-earthquake-rescue-teams-death-toll/
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2020/01/25/death-toll-stands-22-in-turkish-earthquake-1000-hurt/23908543/
https://www.npr.org/2020/01/18/797638115/womens-march-draws-a-smaller-but-passionate-crowd
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/women-s-march-draws-thousands-rallies-across-county-n1118416
https://twitter.com/womensmarchgbal
https://womensmarchglobal.org/

- RIP
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/22/entertainment/terry-jones-dies-scli-gbr-intl/index.html
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/jan/22/terry-jones-obituary
https://www.chron.com/sports/rockets/article/Kobe-Bryant-reportedly-dead-in-California-15005767.php

146.4 - Keystone XL and the jobs lie

Keystone XL and the jobs lie

I've got an Update about the Keystone XL pipeline. Actually, I should call it a follow-up rather than an Update, but what the heck.

Very quick reminder: The Keystone XL pipeline would move tar sands oil - the dirtiest, most polluting way to get oil there is - from a huge pit in Alberta, Canada, across the prairies of the US, to refineries in Texas, after which it will sold on the international market.

I talked last week about the State Department report on the pipeline and how supporters were trying to spin it into something virtually requiring quick approval despite the report's obvious shortcomings. The biggest shortcoming being how it tries to avoid the whole question of the major and if you will majorly bad effect of expanding tar sands production on global climate change even as it admits the pipeline will promote that expansion. The effect on the climate, the report admitted, would be like putting the exhaust from an additional 6 million cars into the atmosphere.

It also develops that the report's contention that the pipeline will have little impact on greenhouse gas emissions because the sludge would just be transported another way is a view not shared by Canadian government and industry officials. Even Ross Girling, CEO of TransCanada, the company pushing the pipeline, said that developing tar sands will be set back "for decades" if new pipelines are not available "immediately."

But what I wanted to mention here is another part of the report which has gotten less attention than it deserves: jobs.

All along, supporters have been claiming the project will create untold tens of thousands of jobs. And all along, their predictions have proved to be grossly inflated. For example, in 2012, TransCanada was claiming that the project would "create 20,000 construction and manufacturing jobs in the US" as well as "118,000 spin-off jobs" - nearly 140,000 jobs in total. A year later, those 20,000 construction jobs had shrunk to 9,000.

So what does the State Department report say? It claims that during construction, the project will "support" - remember that word, it's important - will "support" a total of 42,100 total jobs, "direct, indirect, and imputed." Sounds impressive until you get into the details: "Direct" means jobs actually involved in building the pipeline. There will only be about 3900 such jobs, the report concludes. "Indirect" means jobs at companies supplying materials and equipment needed for the construction project. "Imputed" refers to jobs - again - "supported" by the money those workers will spend: A pipeline worker goes into town and has dinner at a restaurant or buys a new pair of boots, the jobs of that waitperson or sales person is an "imputed" job.

What's more, after saying this, not there but on the next page, the report gets around to defining what it means by a "job," which, it turns out, is "one position that is filled for one year." Since the project is estimated to take two years, that means they're not talking about 42,000 jobs but 21,000 jobs, only 1950 of which will be in constructing the pipeline - little more than a fifth of what TransCanada claimed and less than a tenth of their original claim.

But then get this: The report even qualifies that by saying that the term "support" includes jobs that are already filled but that would be directed to support of the pipeline project. So this ever-shrinking number is not even additional jobs but includes people who are already working.

And to cap the climax, which is a great old expression, I love that expression, to cap the climax, after the thing is built, after all those jobs vanish, during its operations, how many jobs would the pipeline require in the US, according to the State Department? Fifty. Yes, 50: 35 permanent workers and 15 temporary contractors.

Interestingly, when it's talking about the 42,000 "supported" jobs, it talks about the economic stimulus involved, about all the money being pumped through the economy. But when it talks about the 50 jobs, it reassuringly says such a small number will have "eligible impacts on population, housing, and public services in the proposed Project area." That is, in each case it focuses on what looks better for the project.

Opponents haven't given up. On the day the State Dept. report came out, a call also went out for vigils to express opposition to the pipeline. Three days later, thousands of people turned out for over 250 vigils that covered all 50 states. Some vigils had just a few people; others had several hundred or over a thousand. And there are already plans being laid for both court challenges and large-scale civil disobedience should Obama approve the project.

No matter how much those who Teddy Roosevelt called "the malefactors of great wealth," those "curses to the country" who "sacrifice everything to getting wealth" - everything here including the future of the planet - those people who want us to just give up and go away, the fact is we are not about to do so.

Sources:
http://keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/documents/organization/221135.pdf
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/11/us-usa-keystone-idUSBREA1A23S20140211
http://content.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2014/01/statement-state-department-walks-away-significant-impact-new-keystone-xl
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-marx/reject-the-keystone-xl-pi_b_4761072.html
http://mediamatters.org/research/2013/02/14/5-myths-about-keystone-xl-debunked/192668#jobs
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=keystone+xl+vigil
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/04/theodore-roosevelt-malefactors-of-great-wealth.html

142.2 - Clown Award: Gov. Scott Walkalloveryou

Clown Award: Gov. Scott Walkalloveryou

Now for one of our regular features, the Clown Award. given for meritorious stupidity

First, though, I have an update on a previous award. On what you might call my Christmas show a few weeks ago, I dubbed Rep. Jack Kingston, a GOPper from Georgia as the Grinch because he was just so morally offended by the fact that some poor kids could get free lunches at school and how they should have to sweep the floor or something to earn that lunch because there's no such thing as a free lunch, you grade-school moochers!

Well, it turns out that there is such a thing as a free lunch - if you're Jack Kingston.

An investigation by WSAV-TV in Savannah, Georgia, found that over a three-year period, Kingston and his staff charged nearly $4,200 in meals to his congressional office. He didn't pay for those meals, the taxpayers did.

Mr. Kingrinch also racked up nearly $4,300 of free meals paid for by third-party groups and over $24,000 in total expenses on Congressional junkets in that time besides expensing over $145,000 worth of meals for campaign events. I wonder how many of the attendees at campaign those events had to sweep the floor.

But getting to this week's Clown, this too is a repeat offender. It's Wisconsin Governor Scott Walkalloveryou, who double-dipped in the stupid.

On MSNBC last Monday, he declared his opposition to raising the minimum wage - something favored by 2/3 of Americans, including even half of GOPpers and 46% of "strong conservatives" - but he's against it because, quoting him,

Jobs that involve the minimum wage are overwhelmingly jobs for young people starting out in the workforce. The last thing you want to do is have fewer young people (working) at a time when unemployment rates are still way too high for teenagers going into their 20s.

In other words, minimum wage jobs are filled mostly by teenagers taking their first job at a McDonald's or something.

Bzzzt! According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, teenagers only make up a quarter of those making no more than minimum wage. Even giving him every benefit of the doubt and including everyone up to age 24 (and assuming all those people are at their first job) still brings the figure to just over 50%. Meanwhile, those aged 25-64 make up 47% of minimum wage workers.

Oh, but he wasn't done. On Sunday, on CNN, he said

I don't know about you, but if I was out of work, I'd be looking more than twice a week for a job. I'd be looking for work every day except maybe today. I take Sunday off to go to church and pray that I could find a job on Monday.

Yeah, if only all those unemployed people, all those struggling people draining their savings, emptying their bank accounts, relying on food kitchens to feed their families, losing their homes, if only they would just actually try to get a job, if only they'd just pray to get a job, they'd be fine. So if they're out of work, well, it's obviously their own fault and so why should we care.

As a quick footnote, he talks a lot about job retraining to deal with unemployment - despite have cut state aid to technical colleges in Wisconsin by 30%.

Scott Walkalloveryou is such a clown.

Sources:
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2013/12/1393-grinch-story-gopper-and-free-lunch.html
http://www.wsav.com/story/24411962/congressional-free-lunch
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/georgia-senate-candidate-expensed-thousands-in-free-lunches
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/12/most-back-minimum-wage-hike-policies-to-address-the-wealth-gap/
http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2014/jan/13/scott-walker/scott-walker-says-minimum-wage-jobs-are-overwhelmi/
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1401/05/sotu.01.html
http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/132130383.html?page=1

Left Side of the Aisle #95 - Part 5

Follow-up 3: Boy Scouts and bigotry

Two weeks ago, I noted that the Boy Scouts of America, the BSA, is expected in the near future to rescind its ban on participation by gays.

To no one's surprise, the BSA has driven the right wing BSC - and it you don't know what that means, email me and I'll tell you but know now that the B is for "bat" and the C is for "crazy."

For example, some 42 wacko groups ran an ad in USA Today calling on the Scouts to maintain the ban, claiming the change is being considered only because of the threat of loss of corporate support - which is rather funny because about 70 percent of all Boy Scout troops are sponsored by church groups, many of which are threatening to withdraw their own financial and logistical support if the change goes through. Indeed, the public policy agency of one of them - the Southern Baptist Convention - signed the ad.

There are three particularly disgusting parts of this ad. The first is the wild claim that criticism of the BSA's bigotry is an attack on "free thought." This is a standard trope of the right: Call them out for their racism, their sexism, their homophobia, their bigotry, their greed, their stupidity, their callousness, their whatever, and they'll screech that it's an assault on their freedom of speech. The claim, at bottom, is that they can say whatever they want without challenge.

The second is the assertion that banning gays, this bigotry, is a "moral principle."

The third and last is the worst. It makes reference to the so-called "perversion files" the BSA released last year. The group had kept a secret list of people banned from scouting because of having molested scouts - which it kept secret, never informing authorities. The ad refers to this and then says, quoting, "How will parents be able to entrust their children to the Boy Scouts if they trade the well-being of the boys for corporate dollars?"

In other words, the ad makes the old, bigoted, paranoid, and utterly false connection of homosexuality to pedophilia. It is completely, totally, bogus without a shred of evidence. But still they will use it to deny gays participation in society. You want it even clearer? Bryan Fischer, director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association, one of the groups signing the ad, recently declared than ending the ban on gay membership would mean that pedophiles will soon be “bunking down with your kid at jamboree.”

These people are both incredibly vile and mind-bogglingly ignorant. Then again, those two qualities often go together.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-siebold/barack-obama-boy-scouts_b_2612891.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/conservative-groups-pressure-boy-scouts-gay-ban-article-1.1256248
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/30/churches_threaten_to_pull_funding_if_boy_scouts_drop_anti_gay_ban/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societal_attitudes_toward_homosexuality#Association_with_child_abuse_and_pedophilia
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/29/bryan_fischer_boy_scouts_dropping_anti_gay_policy_is_open_invitation_to_pedophiles/?source=newsletter

Left Side of the Aisle #95 - Part 4

Follow-up 2: Aaron Swartz

Four weeks ago I talked about Aaron Swartz, the internet wunderkind who committed suicide as he faced trial on 13 felonies for trespassing into a computer closet at MIT to download articles from a database of scholarly journals.

I said at the time that the case was one of egregious prosecutorial overreach and abuse on the part of the US Attorney for Massachusetts, Carmen Ortiz. I said that the intent was to make Swartz their scarecrow to frighten others, that is, to use him to "send a message." I also said Ortiz was thinking of running for governor and that I wanted you to remember this case if she ever did.

Well, now it develops that, according to a report in the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, state prosecutors had intended to let Swartz off with a stern warning. The Middlesex County's district attorney had planned no jail time, the report said, "with Swartz duly admonished and then returned to civil society to continue his pioneering electronic work in a less legally questionable manner." The expectation was for what's called "continuance without a finding," where the charge is held in abeyance and if the defendant stays out of trouble for some period, usually some months to maybe a few years, the charge is dismissed. That's what was expected. Until Carmen Ortiz seized control of the case and turned it into 13 felonies.

Remember this case.

By the way, as a footnote, it's worth noting that last July the Boston "Phoenix" gave Ortiz it's top Muzzle Award for the year, given for violations of free speech. In this case it was for prosecuting Tarek Mehanna, who was convicted of "material aid to terrorism" and sentenced to 17 years in prison totally and entirely for what he said and wrote, not for anything he actually did. Remember, indeed.

Sources:
http://occupyamerica.crooksandliars.com/diane-sweet/feds-chose-make-example-aaron-swartz
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57565927-38/swartz-didnt-face-prison-until-feds-took-over-case-report-says/
http://dankennedy.net/2013/01/24/the-swartz-suicide-and-the-sick-culture-of-the-justice-dept/
http://thephoenix.com/Boston/news/141253-15th-annual-muzzle-awards/?page=2#TOPCONTENT

Left Side of the Aisle #95 - Part 3

Follow-up 1: Tom Harkin

Something I think I haven't done enough of is doing follow-ups on some of the stuff I talk about. I'm going to try to do some more of that. So I'll kick off the idea with three follow-ups.

First, five weeks ago, I gave Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa a Hero Award, which is given around here as the occasion arises to someone who just does the right thing.

I gave it to him for being the only liberal or so-called "progressive" Senator to vote against that supposed budget deal, that dodge of the mythical "fiscal cliff." He accurately described the "fiscal cliff" as a manufactured crisis and the deal as benefiting the richest Americans at the expense of the poorest. He also mocked those who want to "redefine the middle class as those making $400,00 a year."

Tom Harkin, an old-style populist from a time when the term actually meant something worthwhile, has announced he will retire at the end of his current term in 2014 (actually, technically, January 2015). I can't say I agreed with Tom Harkin on everything or even on a lot of things, but he is an honorable and decent man at a time when such are in short supply in our national government. He will be missed.

Sources:
http://atr.rollcall.com/iowa-tom-harkin-to-retire-in-2014/

Left Side of the Aisle #95

Left Side of the Aisle
for the week of February 14-20, 2013

This week:

Good news: DOD expands benefits available to same-sex couples
http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Leon-Panetta-expands-gay-pairs-benefits-4270287.php
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/2013/02/11/230e62f4-746f-11e2-95e4-6148e45d7adb_story.html

Clown Award: Group wants "no gays allowed" dance
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/11/diana-medley-gay-student-prom-ban-sullivan-high_n_2661919.html
http://mywabashvalley.com/fulltext?nxd_id=292862

Follow-up 1: Tom Harkin
http://atr.rollcall.com/iowa-tom-harkin-to-retire-in-2014/

Follow-up 2: Aaron Swartz
http://occupyamerica.crooksandliars.com/diane-sweet/feds-chose-make-example-aaron-swartz
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57565927-38/swartz-didnt-face-prison-until-feds-took-over-case-report-says/
http://dankennedy.net/2013/01/24/the-swartz-suicide-and-the-sick-culture-of-the-justice-dept/
http://thephoenix.com/Boston/news/141253-15th-annual-muzzle-awards/?page=2#TOPCONTENT

Follow-up 3: Boy Scouts and bigotry
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-siebold/barack-obama-boy-scouts_b_2612891.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/conservative-groups-pressure-boy-scouts-gay-ban-article-1.1256248
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/30/churches_threaten_to_pull_funding_if_boy_scouts_drop_anti_gay_ban/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societal_attitudes_toward_homosexuality#Association_with_child_abuse_and_pedophilia
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/29/bryan_fischer_boy_scouts_dropping_anti_gay_policy_is_open_invitation_to_pedophiles/?source=newsletter

Guns: Gun control from the start
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/04/23/120423fa_fact_lepore#ixzz2IdQ5ymTZ
http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/freedom/constitution/text.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-winkler/did-the-wild-west-have-mo_b_956035.html
http://www.heartsthroughhistory.com/gun-control-in-the-old-west-facts-and-fiction/
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/12/left-side-of-aisle-87-part-1.html
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2012/12/gun_death_tally_every_american_gun_death_since_newtown_sandy_hook_shooting.html

Outrage of the Week: White paper whitewashes murder
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/02/leaked-memo-drone-strikes-us-citizens.html
http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/04/16843014-exclusive-justice-department-memo-reveals-legal-case-for-drone-strikes-on-americans?lite
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2010/04/its-just-question.html