New York Times Misinforms Readers on Jerry Brown’s Budget
by Paul Hogarth‚
May. 16‚ 2012
Adam Nagourney’s report on Governor Jerry Brown’s May Revise budget got one obvious fact wrong – the state doesn’t have a “new” $16 billion shortfall. The budget deficit was already $8 billion, and now we have to deal with another $8 billion. But what also isn’t “new” about the New York Times article is the false notion (repeated ad nauseam by the traditional media) that Democrats and Republicans are somehow “equally” to blame for the budget crisis. We all know the Republicans refuse to raise any taxes whatsoever, but Nagourney claims with no evidence that Democrats are “reluctant” to make budget cuts – after they agreed to make $11 billion in cuts this year alone. Brown deserves credit for pushing some tax increases (even if they are only temporary), but the state has a structural $20 billion deficit left when Arnold Schwarzenegger. And when Jerry Brown had an opportunity to correct part of that wrong with a Vehicle License Fee, he vetoed the legislation.
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SEIU-UHW Blew $3.5 Million on Phony Ballot Drive
by Randy Shaw‚
May. 16‚ 2012
Newly released campaign spending reports reveal that SEIU-UHW squandered a staggering $3.5 million of its members’ dues on an initiative it never qualified for the ballot. After launching its so-called hospital cost containment bill with great fanfare last November, the union failed to disclose that it had exempted both Kaiser and Catholic Healthcare West (now Dignity Health) from the cost-limiting provisions. The union then recently dropped the initiative in exchange for creating a “partnership” with the California Hospital Association that involves the forming of “task forces to find solutions to cost and quality of care.” The bottom line: members’ money that could have gone to a wide range of political activities that actually would have helped working people was instead siphoned off to high-paid political consultants – rarely has so much money been spent so quickly to achieve so little for union members.
The National Security State Wins (Again)
by William Astore‚
May. 16‚ 2012
Why the Real Victor in Campaign 2012 Won’t Be Obama or Romney
Now that Mitt Romney is the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party, the media is already handicapping the presidential election big time, and the neck-and-neck opinion polls are pouring in. But whether President Obama gets his second term or Romney enters the Oval Office, there’s a third candidate no one’s paying much attention to, and that candidate is guaranteed to be the one clear winner of election 2012: the U.S. military and our ever-surging national security state.
The reasons are easy enough to explain. Despite his record as a “warrior-president,” despite the breathless “Obama got Osama” campaign boosterism, common inside-the-Beltway wisdom has it that the president has backed himself into a national security corner. He must continue to appear strong and uncompromising on defense or else he’ll get the usual Democrat-as-war-wimp label tattooed on his arm by the Republicans.
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The Real Lesson of European Elections for Obama
by Randy Shaw‚
May. 15‚ 2012
According to the media, recent elections in France, Greece and Germany show that voters have a “throw the bums out” mentality. As the Los Angeles Timesdescribed it, “in recessions, voters tend to punish the party in charge.” But the real election lesson is quite different. Voters are rebelling against austerity, and giving pro-austerity candidates/parties the heave-ho. This would mean great gains for Democrats against pro-austerity Republicans – if voters saw the parties this way. But due to Obama’s focus on deficit-reduction and failure to effectively market his stimulus package, many voters do not. Europe’s lesson is that Obama should far more aggressively promote public investment, job creation, and other economically populist – and popular – measures. If he and the Democrats do this, their success in 2008 could be repeated in 2012.
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Perez Pushes Landlord-Backed Candidate for Santa Monica
by Paul Hogarth‚
May. 15‚ 2012
At the California Democratic Convention three months ago, Assembly Speaker John Perez greased the wheels so that his candidate – Betsy Butler – got the Party Endorsement for the 50th Assembly District, although the State Assemblywoman carpet-bagged into the 50th to run against Torie Osborn, a progressive Democrat. But it’s only gotten worse since. In a press release, Butler touted her endorsement by the landlord advocacy group Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles – although the district she’s running for includes Santa Monica and West Hollywood. “It is hard to reconcile Butler’s claim to be a progressive standard bearer when she aligns herself with the folks who would love to eliminate rent control,” wrote West Hollywood activist Steve Martin in a local blog. And it also highlights Speaker Perez’s dismal record when passing pro-tenant legislation – as top priorities like repealing the Action Apartments decision and inclusionary housing have either languished, or gone down to defeat. If the Speaker’s candidate in one of the most pro-tenant districts happens to be the landlord choice, it’s all you need to know of his priorities. Meanwhile, Santa Monica tenant activists are not amused …
Coming to a Theater Near You: The Football Concussion Crisis Documentaries
by Irvin Muchnick‚
May. 15‚ 2012
Ed. Note. Since submitting this article, Beyond Chron contributor Muchnick has exposed on his own blog that the Head Games film was underwritten by Chicago billionaire music and technology entrepreneur Steve Devick, and is a promotional vehicle for his King-Devick sideline concussion test, which is in development.
There are a good half-dozen documentaries about the football concussion crisis in various stages of development. One deservedly getting a lot of attention is Sean Pamphilon’s United States of Football. Pamphilon is the guy with video busting the New Orleans Saints’ former “Bountygate” defensive coordinator, Gregg Williams.
But the first doc out of the gate is Head Games by director Steve James, the maker of Hoop Dreams, arguably the greatest nonfiction sports film of all time. The first of three private screenings this spring will take place Tuesday night in Chicago. The trailer can be viewed at http://www.headgamesthefilm.com.
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SFIFF 55 Wrapup (Pt. 2) — “Smugglers’ Songs,” “Life Without PrincipleI,” “Don’t Stop Believin’ — Everyman’s Journey”
by Peter Wong‚
May. 15‚ 2012
Rabah Ameur-Zaimeche’s historical drama “Smugglers’ Songs” (Original title: “Songs of Mandrin”) presents a realistic look at the spreading of subversive culture long before the Internet’s arrival.
The film is set in the French provinces shortly after the French government’s 1755 torture and execution of notorious bandit and folk hero Louis Mandrin. A band of Mandrin’s followers, led by Belissard (Ameur-Zaimeche), keeps their executed leader’s spirit alive by holding open-air black markets offering fabrics, jewelry, and other contraband items. But the Marquis de Levezin (an amiably scruffy Jacques Nolot) and peddler Jean Seratin (Christian Milia-Darmezin) help create and distribute the Mandrins’ most dangerous piece of contraband. The Marquis is writing a biography of Mandrin. Jean, who sells “pamphlets against men of the cloth,” has no problem adding subversive biographical songs about Mandrin to his wares. Together, these men spread the ideological seeds of the future republic to the mostly illiterate peasants.
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Progressives Should Support SF Business Tax Overhaul
by Randy Shaw‚
May. 14‚ 2012
Progressives get excited about raising taxes on corporations and the rich. They are not typically stirred by changing the way businesses are taxed unless it increases the overall revenue pie. But plans by San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and Board President David Chiu to place an initiative on the November ballot shifting the city’s business tax from payrolls to gross receipts deserves progressive support. San Francisco only abandoned its gross receipts tax due to a very suspect Court of Appeal ruling over a decade ago that has since cost cities across California billions of dollars. And given that San Francisco ballot measures raising business taxes without addressing payroll taxes failed in 2002 and 2004 (the latter in a very large turnout election), the shift in tax strategy is the most politically feasible approach to more progressive business taxation.
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To Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles: The Story Behind a Crusading San Francisco Homeowner
by Jonathan Nathan‚
May. 14‚ 2012
When Monica Kenney received the news that her home was not going to be sold, I was there. I wrote, at the time, “Kenney had received word from Fannie Mae that her eviction had been stayed for two weeks while Wells Fargo, the bank that had originally issued her loan, and Fannie Mae, the apparently wrongful current owner of the home, worked on terms for a rescission.” The atmosphere at the event was celebratory. A page had been turned for Monica Kenney, we all thought.
But in American lives, as F. Scott Fitzgerald said, there are no second acts. The quiet suffering of the people of this country does not end so much as it changes form, or shifts in intensity, until it reaches the only real endpoint, along with the joys, the tribulations, the mistakes, the triumphs, and everything else. Monica Kenney's struggle did not begin with a sneaky home loan from Wells Fargo, and it did not end with a two-week stay of her eviction. Of course not.
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Will Democrats Embrace "Austerity American Style"? Crash This Party and Find Out
by Richard Eskow‚
May. 14‚ 2012
Heard about the meeting that's being held to decide your economic future? If the answer is "no," don't feel bad: That's because you weren't invited. But Tim Geithner was. So was Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican member of Congress whose radical right-wing plans for cutting Medicare have made him the subject of a Mitt Romney "bromance." So was Bill Clinton, who showed up last year and uttered the usual Beltway insider's falsehoods about what's really wrong with Social Security.
May 16, 2012
