Vanjones.net

Here is a letter I have written to people I would love to get help from. Hi! I know you are very busy and many people contacting you for your help, support, and money. I am asking if you have the time to communicate with people you may know who can help stop the corruption which is harming children and future of the USA. Some of the children are killed because of the corruption. This is a national and international corruption. I have contacts with five countries battling the same corruption. I have asked for help from the United Nations office which handles complaints about religious freedom violations and Human rights. Please look at my Facebook event on Protect America’s Children from the Hidden Predators and my Cause petition on Causes - Stop Corruption in CPS and Courts. Thank you for your time and caring. Teresa A Owen Mom to Angelica and Catrina Wife of Retired Disabled Air Force Veteran Causes Campaign I have been investigating the corruption in CPS and Juvenile Courts especially the federal crime called Kids for Cash before our daughters were removed from our home. I have contacted people, agencies, and organizations who had information about what happened in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania with Kids for Cash crime and other states who found corruption in their CPS and Juvenile Courts . A law professor from Georgetown University looked at what I had found in Kansas with Kids for Cash. She believes it is happening throughout the US. Dr. Gina Loudon sent me an article about Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act(CAPTA) . It explained states are violating CAPTA to gain the most federal money by targeting children who are low income and/or have special needs. Here are issues which are happening to children and families in Kansas: 1. Children who are low income and/or with special needs targeted by DCF for federal funds. Most of the children will not go home. 2. Children who are really being abused are either being rescued by law enforcement or killed by their abusers. These children do not have special needs. DCF knew about the abuse and the abuse was life threatening and had evidence. 3.DCF gets life insurance on the children in state custody. Too many children die in state custody which are not from genetic disease or chronic illness- accidents, murder, and medical neglect. Are children worth more dead than alive? 4. Sedgwick County DA’s office was investigated for tampering with court reports and evidence. Here are two articles in the Wichita Eagle which talks about the investigation: a.Child Welfare No Place for Bullying 9/1/09 b.Audit Says Few Social Workers Pressured 8/29/09 5. DCF and Sedgwick County Juvenile Court investigated. Full report has not been released. 6. Foster and kinship parents are not trained on how to care for children with special needs. 7. DCF placing children with abusers and have reports from social workers that children are not safe in the home and/ or with the person. 8. Governor Sam Brownback knows DCF is violating Religious Freedom/Rights and has ignored it. He talks about other elected people doing the same violations. He is the head of DCF. I am hoping Kansas will be investigated by federal authorities and/or agencies like Juvenile Law Center. The children and future of the USA is at stake. Our family update I am working on motions for district and appeals court about Religious Rights violations and not given document about appealing your case. I have filed international and federal complaints on Religious Freedom violations. US Secretary of State John Kerry is to be monitoring other countries for Religious Freedom violations for the United Nations. How can the US monitor other countries when states are violating Religious Freedom and federal government is not stopping the violations?

I can't believe you have not figured out what and who is behind the mess in Iraq. The Saudi's and the investors (i.e. major oil companies, politicians) The price of crude was stagnant with futures showing a drop in prices. The Sunnis and the big boys profit when our military move to the Persian Gulf the price of crude goes up. One Dollar a barrel increase is a lot when you are talking millions of barrels. This trick is old but new to you guys who are new to the game. When oil prices reached that magic number watch things calm down. Wars are fought for economic gain. I retired from BP after 40 years of service. I lived in Asia, not visit. I have friends who come from all different back rounds, I have the greatest backround experience. I know you won't read what I wrote or hear what I am saying, but if you do "THINK". Follow the futures of crude oil prices.

Dear Mr Jones, As a huge fan, I hope you will carefully consider this submission, improve and implement it, and achieve some more great things! I promise to help in any way possible. Best Regards, John A. Uhl MD FACEP [email protected] 408-391-4537 Want to Win Both Houses of Congress in the 2014 Midterm Elections? We Can If (and Only If) We : Learn from History and our Opponents, and Give Voters Something Worth Voting For. Republicans may seem ignorant, but they certainly do a good job of getting their way. The Tea Party successfully elected a tribe of rabid partisans who have managed to largely stymie potentially the best President to come along in our lifetime. What did Occupy accomplish? But maybe we could borrow a few Republican tactics to win the 2014 midterm elections, hold control of the Senate, recapture the House of Representatives, get all the Democratic Congress rowing in the same direction, and move the country forward. Remember Newt Gingrich’s Contract With America? It was 1994 and the Republicans promised to pass 8 Resolutions and 10 bills if they won both houses of Congress. Remember how for many years Grover Norquist has pressured Republican candidates to sign pledges to not raise any taxes ? (no matter how reasonable or necessary-not even close tax loopholes) Suppose we create a Progressive Contract with America (or some catchier name). And suppose we ask Democratic candidates to pledge to do their best to enact that agenda if elected? The Democratic Congress are almost as beholden to the rich and powerful as the Republicans are, and it is not surprising that these things did not happen after our 2008 election victory. (thus the need for the pledge) It would be great if President Obama signed on, and incredibly cool if we won. And polls suggest we could. On the other hand, now, we are cooked. No chance of winning the House and a “coin flip” per Time magazine of losing the Senate. So we may as well give it a shot. And even if we somehow won without the contract and pledge, what evidence do we have that sufficient numbers of Democrats would dare try to level the playing field against the rich and powerful? What would such a Progressive Contract with America look like? I would propose the following as a starting point, and hope it will be revised and improved, perhaps Wikipedia style, under the auspices of Rebuild the Dream, Daily Kos, Moveon.org, or similar organization(s). This will have to be a grass-roots effort, so powerful that candidates need to sign on. I : BASIC FAIRNESS ISSUES: Net neutrality--critical for a well informed electorate, and to give ordinary people some means to possibly level the playing field against the rich and powerful. Equal pay for equal work. Minimum wage of $12.50 or $15 per hour. Easy refinance of all student debt to 3% (or prime plus 2.5%), and offer new student loans at same rate. Comprehensive Immigration Reform: II: TAX REFORM: (Yes, the rich will hate these and call them class warfare, but they were the ones who started that class warfare decades ago, and if we don’t start fighting back soon, it will be increasingly difficult if not impossible to ever level the playing field.) Eliminate the lower tax rates for capital gains income. Income is income, and all should be taxed the same . All Financial Trades Should Be Taxed 0.5%. Eliminate Corporate Tax Loopholes: Reinstate Inheritance Taxes and Eliminate Perpetual Trusts to discourage the formation of a hereditary aristocracy. Bolster Social Security by Eliminating the Cap on Income, so the wealthy pay the same percentage as their secretaries and servants. III: FAIRER ELECTIONS and LESS CORRUPTION in GOVERNMENT: Not that long ago, when you paid a government official to get the laws you wanted, it was called Corruption. Now we just call that Government. To avoid becoming a nation of, by and for the money, we need: A Constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizens United. Make names of all donors public Perhaps even TV ads which accept more than $1000 from any one person would need to list the donor and amount given. (you can have all the “free speech” you want, but not anonymously) Anticorruption Measures: Even the Supreme Court acknowledges that “corruption or the appearance of corruption” is not a good thing. Yet we allow politicians to accept money, and then do what the donor asks. More ethical and reasonable would be that a politicians can take all the money they want from any individual, but if it is more than, say $10,000, they must recuse themselves from any vote likely to benefit the donors more than the general public. Make lying to confuse or mislead voters illegal. There will of course be gray areas, reasonable disagreement, and need for litigation at times, but the potential for punishment for intentional misleading should have some salutary effect. Prohibit unreasonable restrictions on voting, and registration. A new voters’ rights act to prohibit election laws designed to discourage certain groups from voting. Voter ID would be allowed, but only if states ensured that seniors, minorities, etc. were able to easily obtain such ID. Voting hours, wait lines, availability of bathrooms at voting places, etc could not be manipulated in a discriminatory manner. IV: CELEBRATE AND BUILD ON OUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS: Embrace, support and improve Obamacare. While not perfect, particularly during its rollout, it has helped, and will help many people, and was a necessary and difficult step. We should be proud of it, educate voters, and work to make it better. Most of its real faults were that it didn’t go far enough (single payer, for example) rather than it went too far. Most of its perceived faults are the result of blatant misinformation by Republicans and Faux News. Work to make Health Care more patient centered, efficient, and cost effective. Embrace global climate change as a scientific fact, and a serious threat to us all. Embrace and celebrate the new emissions standards for existing coal power plants. Strongly encourage efficiency and renewable energy use by corporations, utilities and the public. Below is an expanded discussion of the issues above, some links, and a few issues which may or may not be good additions to the Contract: I: BASIC FAIRNESS ISSUES: Net neutrality--critical for a well informed electorate, and to give ordinary people some means to possibly level the playing field against the rich and powerful. Equal pay for equal work. Whether women earn 77 cents to the male dollar, as the Obama administration sticks to, or the figure is closer to Pew's findings of 84 cents for most women and as high as 93 cents for younger women, it's clear that the playing field is not equal. It's also clear that disparities are indeed related to gender. Recent cases have shown that women who ask for pay increases often don't get them. What they get instead: negative reactions. A 2007 study found that women who asked for raises were perceived as demanding. Men, meanwhile, faced no backlash. Women are also more likely to disrupt their careers to raise children or care for ill family members, and come back at a disadvantage. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peggy-drexler/equal-pay-for-equal-work_b_5151267.html Several things could be done to help: Both men and women should be able to take family leave without retribution. All employees should be allowed to share salary information without punishment. Employers should be forbidden to punish those who ask for a raise, and in particular from treating one group of employees differently from another. And employers should not be allowed to demand information regarding one’s salary at a previous job, nor have salary guidelines which limit what can be paid based on your previous salary. That just perpetuates inequality. (There is a Fair Paycheck Act now in Congress, being blocked by Republicans. I don’t know its exact content.) Minimum wage of $12.50 or $15 per hour. Job losses from raising the minimum wage would be more than offset by the economic boost caused by millions of Americans being lifted from poverty, and better able to buy goods and services. And no one working full time should be in poverty. It is nice to get low prices at places like Walmart, but those low prices are subsidized by our tax dollars for food stamps and healthcare for Walmart employees, while the company made roughly $ 17 billion in profits in 2012. Incidentally, the CEO made over $23 million that year, and about a million employees made less than $25,000. http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/11/12/wal-mart-pay-raise/ The world economy is largely powered by the American consumer. That may not be the best or most sustainable economic system, but it is what we have. Yet middle class jobs are going away, and as long as consumers are essential, we’d better make sure lots of people can consume. Easy refinance of student debt to 3% (or prime plus 2.5%), and offer new student loans at same rate. We don’t want the rates to be so low that people incur more debt/borrow more money than necessary, or play games with borrowing and investing, etc. But if educated workers and voters are crucial to our long term success, why lend money to Too Big to Fail Banks almost for free, and charge students usurious rates? Comprehensive Immigration Reform: For a nation of immigrants, we certainly are conflicted regarding those following in our (or our ancestors) footsteps. Past time to make that right, and has support from business as well as progressives. We’ll have to reassure voters we’ve included safeguards so waves of immigrants don’t come in to take their jobs, use up healthcare tax dollars, etc. II: TAX REFORM: (Yes, the rich will hate these and call them class warfare, but they were the ones who started the class warfare decades ago, and if we don’t start fighting back soon, it will be increasingly difficult if not impossible to ever level the playing field.) 1) Eliminate the lower tax rates for capital gains income. Income is income, and all should be taxed the same . For years we’ve heard that the rich need special treatment of investment income so they will re-invest it and prosperity will “trickle down” to the rest of us. But that was never true. Nearly all new wealth in recent years has gone to the wealthiest 1% or .1%, and wealth disparity has grown to the highest levels since the Robber Barons. If you had the good fortune to have $1million in a US stock market index fund in 2013, you made about $250,000 without doing anything. If you had $1billion in such a fund, you made $250 million. Without doing anything. One could argue that capital gains should be taxed at HIGHER levels than regular income, but probably treating all income the same is fairest, with higher tax rates for the wealthy, elimination of many loopholes, and stronger alternative minimum taxes. Certainly, taxing Capital gains at LOWER rates than income obtained by real work by real people is crazy, and the fact that has been the case since 1921 largely reflects how well the government does what rich people want. 2) All Financial Trades Should Be Taxed 0.5%. It’s a simple tweak that would reign in an out-of-control financial sector, stimulate jobs, generate billions of revenue, and possibly prevent another heart-wrenching crisis. Nobel Prize-winning economists like Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman want it. Billionaires like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates want it. Polls show the majority of Americans want it. Even the Pope wants it. We’re talking about a financial transaction tax (FTT) — a tiny tax of, say, less than half a percent: maybe 3 cents per $100  — on Wall Street trading. It’s simple, more than fair, widely supported by the public, and long overdue. Wall Street has been raking in billions of dollars in profits from financial transactions. And they pay not a penny in taxes on most of them. Instead of talking about nickel-and-diming seniors by cutting their Social Security and Medicare, letting our infrastructure crumble, and forcing our children to go without proper education or medicine, we could be returning sanity and balance to our financial system. The FTT would put the breaks on the sort of reckless, breakneck-speed computer gambling that helped tank the American economy five years ago. It could raise hundreds of billions annually. Did you hear that, deficit hawks? We’d have enough to close the funding gaps in states that had their budgets destroyed by Wall Street’s risky behavior and predation. We’d even have enough to invest in new jobs. http://www.salon.com/2013/10/18/the_tax_that_could_save_america_from_wall_street_partner/ This small tax of less than ½ of 1% on Wall Street transactions can generate hundreds of billions of dollars each year in the US alone. Enough to protect American schools, housing, local governments and hospitals. Enough to pay for lifesaving AIDS medicines. Enough to support people and communities around the world – and deal with the climate challenges we're facing. It won't affect ordinary Americans, their personal savings, or every day consumer activity, such as ATMs or debit cards. It's easy to enforce and tough to evade. This is a tax on Wall Street, which created the greatest economic crisis in our nation, and globally, since the Great Depression. The same people who have returned to record profits and bonuses while ordinary Americans, the 99%, continue to pay the price of their crisis. So it's time for justice for ordinary families and businesses. For American families faced with a choice between buying food or paying the heating bill. The Robin Hood Tax is just. The banks can afford it. The systems are in place to collect it. It won't affect ordinary members of the public, their bank accounts or their savings. It's fair, it's timely, and it's possible. It's not a tax on the people, but a tax for the people. http://www.robinhoodtax.org/how-it-works A financial transaction tax would also help eliminate the scam of being able to trade stocks a few milleseconds faster, which does nothing productive, but does suck billions of dollars out of the economy and into their companies and bank accounts. Now many of our best and brightest young people go into financial fields for great wealth with no benefit to society, rather than helping solve the many large problems we face. Eliminate corporate tax loopholes: NEW REPORT: Many of America’s Most Profitable Corporations Pay Little or No Federal Income Taxes; Multinationals Pay Higher Rates Abroad Than in the U.S. “Corporate lobbyists incessantly claim that our corporate tax rate is too high, and that it’s not ‘competitive’ with the rest of the world,” said Robert McIntyre, Director of Citizens for Tax Justice and the report’s lead author. “Our new report shows that both of these claims are false. Most of the biggest companies aren’t paying anywhere near 35 percent of their profits in taxes and far too many aren’t paying U.S. taxes at all. Most multinationals are paying lower tax rates here in the United States than they pay on their foreign operations.”  111 of the companies enjoyed at least one year in which their federal income tax was zero or less.  26 companies, including Boeing, General Electric, Priceline.com and Verizon, enjoyed negative income tax rates over the entire five-year period, despite combined pre-tax profits of $170 billion.  Of the 125 multinational companies in this sample, two-thirds paid a lower U.S. tax rate than the rate they paid to foreign governments on their foreign profits. On average, their foreign effective tax rate was 12 percent larger than their U.S. effective rate. 111 of the companies enjoyed at least one year in which their federal income tax was zero or less.
  26 companies, including Boeing, General Electric, Priceline.com and Verizon, enjoyed negative income tax rates over the entire five-year period, despite combined pre-tax profits of $170 billion. 
  Of the 125 multinational companies in this sample, two-thirds paid a lower U.S. tax rate than the rate they paid to foreign governments on their foreign profits. On average, their foreign effective tax rate was 12 percent larger than their U.S. effective rate.
   The total amount of federal income tax subsidies enjoyed by the 288 profitable corporations over the five years was $362 billion. 
 We can and must do better than having many of our wealthiest and most successful companies pay little or no corporate taxes. 5) Reinstate inheritance taxes and eliminate perpetual trusts to lessen the formation of a hereditary aristocracy. (Wealth and our Commonwealth, Gates) According to a study published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, only 1.6% of Americans receive $100,000 or more in inheritance. Another 1.1% receive $50,000 to $100,000. On the other hand, 91.9% receive nothing (Kotlikoff & Gokhale, 2000). Thus, the attempt by ultra-conservatives to eliminate inheritance taxes -- which they always call "death taxes" for P.R. reasons -- would take a huge bite out of government revenues (an estimated $253 billion between 2012 and 2022) for the benefit of the heirs of the mere 0.6% of Americans whose death would lead to the payment of any estate taxes whatsoever (Citizens for Tax Justice, 2010b). http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html Bolster Social Security by eliminating the cap on income, so the wealthy pay the same percentage as their secretaries and servants. Social Security payroll tax contributions are only paid on wages up to $117,000 in 2014, , with employees  and employers contributing equally. Less than 6 percent of the population has wages above the cap. While the vast majority of Americans must make payroll tax contributions on all of their wages, millionaires and billionaires only do so on the first $117,000 of their earnings. Scrapping the cap so that all earnings are subject to the payroll tax would come very close to closing Social Security’s entire projected 75 year funding gap. Congress scrapped the cap on payroll tax contributions to Medicare’s Hospital Insurance Trust Fund in 1993. It’s time for Congress to do the same for Social Security. www.robinhoodtax.org/ Ironically, perhaps the leveling of wealth and income that would result (along with immense whining) from the above changes in tax law, is necessary for the global economy to succeed. Redistribution of some money from the wealthy to the public is the best cure for the liquidity trap discussed below, and therefore benefits not only the public, but the wealthy as well: MON JUN 09, 2014 AT 10:21 AM PDT The specter of deflation haunts Europe by gjohnsit Follow Like



 21 





Tweet

6
This page has been shared 6 times. View these Tweets.


Email Hotlist Recommend 212 Comments / 212 New  On Thursday the European Central Bank dropped interest rates on deposits to -0.1%. In effect, the ECB will charge depositors (other banks) who save their money with them.
   This isn't the first time that a European country has gone negative. Denmark and Sweden temporary did it in 2009-2010. Switzerland interest rates have been effectively negative for several years.
  The difference this time is size: there is real fear that the ECB move will force the rest of Europe and the Federal Reserve to do the same.   Desperate monetary measures like this unmask the real problem - deflation. But euro weakness means other currencies would have to appreciate. And by pushing up other currencies, the ECB action would, in effect, be passing the single currency’s deflationary pressures onto other economies.   Croatia, Hungary and Bulgaria, which are outside of the single currency, are all already suffering from deflation. Sweden and Switzerland have been flirting with negative prices. And the U.K.’s inflation rate has dropped below the Bank of England’s 2% target despite the economy’s strength.  All three nations with pegged currencies, Switzerland, Denmark, and Sweden, will almost certainly be forced by the ECB to follow suit. The more nations that go negative creates more pressure on the rest of the world to go negative.  The way we are going, the whole world will end up with zero interest rates or some variant of quantitative easing before long...Such too is the implication of a global savings rate that has spiralled to an all-time high of 25pc of GDP, starving the world of demand.  Europe's inflation rate is barely above zero, while America's is less than 2%.   The ironic thing is that the ECB's hand was forced by Japan, which has been exporting their deflation to Europe.   After Japan, the biggest exporter of deflation is China, which also has been exporting deflation for years.   Global monetary policy is in the same position and making all the same mistakes as were made early in the Great Depression. It's not a coincidence that the current dominant economic school is neoclassical - similar to the dominant economic thinking of 1930. Learning from Keynes     Just because economists no longer pay attention to most of Keynes' teachings, doesn't mean he isn't still trying to tell us something, and the 2008 crisis and the failure of the neoclassical efficient-market hypothesis opened the window to reexamine the Keynesian school.
   Consider a concept of Keynes that is most relevant today: liquidity trap.  A liquidity trap is caused when people hoard cash because they expect an adverse event such as deflation, insufficient aggregate demand, or war. Common characteristics of a liquidity trap are interest rates that are close to zero and fluctuations in the money supply that fail to translate into fluctuations in price levels.  Those are exactly the conditions that we are currently suffering from today, a point that Paul Krugman has been trying to call attention to for years.   Back in 2005, new Fed Chief Ben Bernanke warned about a global savings glut. Since then it has only gotten bigger as the global elite hide their riches from the tax man. This is happening despite global interest rates at record lows.
  This is exactly the environment that Keynes described when he created the liquidity trap theory, yet today's neoclassical economists are still "puzzled" about why economic growth remains slow, and why the economies of Europe are flat despite several rounds of austerity.   The wealthy don't invest these trillions, but instead use it to hoard and speculate, often causing disastrous bubbles. Neoclassical economics and Say's Law has no answers for this problem, but Keynes logically predicted it.
  You might think that when the global economy has such an obvious flaw that has been predicted and described in detail by one of the great economists in history, that people would pay attention. Yet outside of Krugman, everyone scratches their heads in wonder, as if Keynes had never existed.   It is long past time for mainstream economists to rediscover Keynes. 12:51 PM PT: I am not aware of what was Keynes' solution to a liquidity trap. I'd be very interested if he ever mentioned a solution. He gets props just for accurately describing it and predicting it.
  From what I've read the normal solutions are...just about everything we've already tried, such as zero interest rates, discouraging savings, monetizing assets (such as mortgage-backed securities).   There is only one last item on the list that hasn't been tried: Bernanke's Famous Helicopter Drop of money.
  It's actually a silly example, but the premise is deadly serious. It means bypassing the banks and sending money directly to consumers. It could manifest itself in many different forms. ORIGINALLY POSTED TO GJOHNSIT ON MON JUN 09, 2014 AT 10:21 AM PDT. I find it interesting, but not surprising, that Bernanke and Economists have not suggested redistribution of wealth as a solution to deflation and the liquidity trap. Even in this post, there is no mention. But this Contract could get money to consumers, and cure the liquidity trap much better than a Helicopter III: FAIRER ELECTIONS and LESS CORRUPTION in GOVERNMENT: Not that long ago, when you paid a government official to get the laws you wanted, it was called Corruption. Now we just call that Government. To avoid becoming a nation of, by and for the money, we need: A Constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizens United. Corporations are NOT people, and do not have a right to “free speech” in the form of buying elections and elected officials. The Citizens United decision gutted campaign finance restrictions and we need a constitutional amendment to limit the power and influence of money in elections and government. But there are things we can do in the meantime, without involving “free speech”. Make names of all donors public Perhaps even TV ads which accept more than $1000 from any one person would need to list the donor and amount given. (you can have all the “free speech” you want, but not anonymously) Anticorruption Measures: Even the Supreme Court acknowledges that “corruption or the appearance of corruption” is not a good thing. Yet we allow politicians to accept money, and then do what the donor asks. More ethical and reasonable would be that a politicians can take all the money they want from any individual, but if it is more than, say $10,000, they must recuse themselves from any vote likely to benefit the donors more than the general public. Make lying to confuse or mislead voters illegal. There will of course be gray areas, reasonable disagreement, and need for litigation at times, but the potential for punishment for intentional misleading should have some salutary effect. Prohibit unreasonable restrictions on voting, and registration. A new voters’ rights act to prohibit election laws designed to discourage certain groups from voting. Voter ID would be allowed, but only if states ensured that seniors, minorities, etc. were able to easily obtain such ID. Voting hours, wait lines, availability of bathrooms at voting places, etc could not be manipulated in a discriminatory manner. Stop the “revolving door” between those in government and industry,. Government officials should be banned for 3 years from lobbying the government. Politicians will hate this proposal, because it is very lucrative for former government employees to then use their relationships to sell out the public interest for special interests. Limit ability of corporations and industries to set the regulations on themselves. (I’m still working on exactly how to do this) IV: CELEBRATE AND BUILD ON OUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS: Embrace, support and improve Obamacare. While not perfect, particularly during its rollout, it has helped, and will help many people, and was a necessary and difficult step. We should be proud of it, educate voters, and work to make it better. Most of its real faults were that it didn’t go far enough (single payer, for example) rather than it went too far. Most of its perceived faults are the result of blatant misinformation by Republicans and Faux News. Work to make Health Care more patient centered, efficient, and cost effective. Embrace global climate change as a scientific fact, and a serious threat to us all. Embrace and celebrate the new emissions standards for existing coal power plants. Strongly encourage efficiency and renewable energy use by corporations, utilities and the public. V: Maybe Include, Maybe Not 1) ABORTION: (Obviously, this is an extremely contentious issue, and may not be a good addition to the contract. I think we should be courageous in the issues which level the playing field against the rich and powerful, and strategic on issues like abortion, gun control, carbon taxes, etc. If they would doom our contract to failure, we should settle for what we can get. If we can include them and win, fantastic!) Reduce the number of Abortions by one half, within 4 years, not by making abortion difficult, illegal, shameful, prohibitively expensive, or demeaning. But rather by making women’s health care including availability of contraception so good and encouraged that the vast majority of women choose whether or not to have a child BEFORE they get pregnant. When necessary, however, abortions need to be safe, available, and affordable. In states where availability of abortion clinics is very limited, federal hospitals or clinics through Public Health Service, VA, etc. could provide this care. People against abortion, often think the pro-choice people like abortion. Many of us do not. Contraception is much safer, cheaper, more broadly supported, and less ethically challenging. Abortion, in comparison with contraception, is a terrible choice; Yet, sometimes it may still be the best choice available, compared to a mother’s other options; and that decision is primarily up to the her. The “pro-Life” folks have spent decades trying to eliminate Abortion. They have caused untold suffering; they have even murdered people they disagreed with. From its maximum they have decreased the total number of abortions per year about 30% , and the number of abortions per 100 women aged 18-44 about 44%. http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/graphusabrate.html But we could halve that number again. It is long past time for a different approach. One that is humane and rational, and takes into account the best interests of women, children, and society as a whole. It is not time to make Abortion illegal or unavailable. It is time to make Abortion largely Unnecessary and Obsolete, by having the vast majority of child bearing choices made BEFORE pregnancy. This is a variation on President Clinton’s “safe, legal, and rare”. The difference now is that we would help make that happen. Contraception would be actively encouraged except when pregnancy is desired, and access to safe, affordable abortions would be provided by the federal facilities if and when needed. It would seem any rational person who truly wants fewer abortions, should support this plan. I think many Pro-Choice people suspect that the most avid anti-abortion people also object “to a women's right to make medical decisions in private”, or want “to control other people and punish those who don't follow the rules they want them to follow”. Including this plank in our Progressive Contract platform, would shed light on how much that opinion is true. Reportedly 99% of women use some form of contraception at least some time in their lives. Polls show about 8% of people think contraception is morally wrong, as opposed to about 51% who question the morality of abortion. http://www.slate.com/blogs/saletan/2014/01/15/do_pro_lifers_oppose_birth_control_polls_say_no.html (note, my conclusion is slightly different from the article I cite. Certainly, many people are against abortion and for contraception. But what is the motivation of the people actively working against abortion?) 2) Sexual Assault is a huge problem, both in the military, and on college campuses. It certainly needs to be urgently addressed, but whether in this contract is less clear. Of course we need to provide careful safeguards so innocent men’s lives are not ruined unjustly; but we need to provide much better protection for our women and other victims. One under-appreciated fact of sexual assaults both on campus and in the military is that those who sexually assault others do so repeatedly. They are repeat offenders. One way to address this is to require investigation files, and encourage victims to file a report, even when they are afraid, or unwilling, to press charges. If subsequent reports involve the same perpetrator, victims could be invited to reconsider their decision, and charges could be brought by groups of victims to mitigate some of the humiliation and fear they experience. (This may require some adjustments to the statute of limitations.) 3) CARBON TAXES: Income taxes are not always the best taxes. One could argue that taxes on fossil fuels (so we use less of them, encourage renewable energy and efficiency, and lessen global climate change) makes more sense than taxes on work (income) which we don’t necessarily want to discourage. Perhaps we could eliminate all income taxes for family income less than $200,000/year, with carbon taxes which increase only about a penny per gallon per month until they replace the income tax revenue, while incentivizing environmental stewardship. Unfortunately, even Democrats seem to feel we are entitled to pay 1/2 as much for our fuel as most of the rest of the world, so carbon taxes are a hard sell, and,alas may not make the cut this year for the Progressive contract. Carbon taxes also make perfect sense to fund our highways and bridges, since those using that infrastructure most would help pay for it. They are essentially a user fee. Cap and Trade purports to do the same thing as carbon taxes, but most of the money would go to the large banks and brokerage houses, rather than rebuilding infrastructure and replacing government revenue now obtained by taxing income. This is obviously a work in progress, but I really appreciate your considering it, and look forward to hearing from you. Thank you again for all your good work. Best Regards, John Uhl [email protected] 408-391-4537

With regards to discrediting the soldiers, spend a month, no a week in Afghanistan with a truck driver driving a United States Military vehicle. Then a week with the MP’s, a week with the petroleum haulers, and finally because the risk of death for infantry personnel has been over 12 times higher than the average for the rest of the armed forces (based on the number of infantry fatalities in Afghanistan since the war began), spend the last week with the grunts. Then you talk about discrediting our soldiers and Marines asshole bitch. R. E. SPANGENBERG USMC (ret) bring them home, or send us back!

Help us honor our soldiers and get a vote in Rules Committee. http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-resolution/412

Bro your patience and demeanor on Crossfire is admirable, especially while working with so many fervent personalities. Keep doing your thing. It's cool to see someone debate controversial issues on TV and not yell all the time.

http://www.newslo.com/tennessee/

Wrote an article that appeared in the Rochester, NY D&C earlier this year based on what Henry Ford did back in 1914. Remember, $2.40/9hrs to $5.00/8hrs., plus changes to the work week and other benefits. It took Congress a quarter century before minimum wage laws were enacted with the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, and this was still a far cry from what Henry Ford did. Our real problem is with the tax code, not just personal or business, but also with all the taxes( Workers Compensation, Unemployment, Soc. Sec., and Medicaid and Medicare) that are payroll based taxes. Steve Reamer, LeRoy, NY [email protected]

I'm writing a paper on civil rights activists and I need to email each person I researched. Can anyone help me find his address?

Do you mean highly paid high-tech job holders? Even those are diverse---unless you mean non-white, non-Asian, non-European non-middle class non-males. Bringing back manufacturing to SV would go a long way to reviving the true middle of the middle class in the Valley. Very likely, SV will continue to suffer from lack of gene pool as families find the greater SF Bay area too expensive and transient, and companies can't attract anyone other than young people willing to pay high rents.