Yes they do

 

The environment gets orphaned yet again.

Election Day and beyond

Peter Dykstra for Environmental Health News

There’s no doubt that there’s plenty for House and Senate candidates to talk about as the midterm elections near: inflation, gasoline prices, Putin and Ukraine, Xi and China, race and crime, guns, education, immigration and more.

But all of these issues have crowded out – once again – the only issue that’s certain to be with us 30, 50 or even 100 years from now: climate change and environment.

Why we must keep Congress Blue

I still think John Roberts is the worst Chief Justice since Roger Taney

Robert Reich

On Monday, the Supreme Court gathered to consider whether affirmative action in college admissions nourishes a multicultural nation or impermissibly divides Americans by race.

I do not expect this Court to uphold affirmative action, notwithstanding the clear precedent for doing so.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. -- the conservative least likely to champion dramatic change in the court’s precedents -- has for his entire legal career opposed what he has called the “sordid business” of dividing Americans by race, including affirmative action

As Special Assistant to the Attorney General in the Reagan Justice Department, Roberts argued that affirmative action was bound to fail because it required the "recruiting of inadequately prepared candidates."

Roberts also complained to the Attorney General that the Department of Labor and its Office of Federal Contract Compliance were promoting "offensive preferences" based on race and gender, and questioned the executive order on which the Office of Contract Compliance was based.

He criticized a Supreme Court decision barring states from eliminating public education for children of undocumented immigrants.

And he supported a narrow "program specific" interpretation of Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Later, while in the White House, Roberts sought to slow progress on combating discrimination in housing, arguing that the administration should "go slowly" on proposed fair housing legislation, claiming that such legislation represented "government intrusion."

Compared to the Trump justices, Roberts seems almost judicious. But on the issue of affirmative action and on several other key issues he’s as bad if not worse than his rightwing siblings on the Court.

1.3 million US Adults with Diabetes Ration Insulin Due to High Cost

Universal access to insulin, without cost barriers, is urgently needed

 JAKE JOHNSON for Common Dreams

New research unveiled October 17 estimates that around 1.3 million U.S. adults with diabetes either skipped entire insulin doses, took less than needed, or put off purchases of the medicine over the past year due to its high cost, a striking indictment of a healthcare system that allows profit-seeking pharmaceutical companies to drive up prices at will.

The authors of the new study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, analyzed data from the 2021 National Health Interview Survey, examining a sample representative of 1.4 million U.S. adults with type 1 diabetes and 5.8 million with type 2 diabetes.

The results indicate that 16.5% of all adult insulin users across the U.S. rationed insulin in some way in the past year, with rationing more common among those with type 1 diabetes than type 2.

"Universal access to insulin, without cost barriers, is urgently needed," Adam Gaffney, an ICU doctor at the Cambridge Health Alliance and the lead author of the study, told NBC News. "We have allowed pharmaceutical companies to set the agenda, and that is coming at the cost to our patients."

It’s official: Charlestown will now deliberately overtax residents thanks to the CCA Council majority

CCA makes its ad hoc policy of overtaxing to build up huge surpluses official town policy

By Will Collette

This article originally ran on February 20 as the CCA used its 3-2 majority on the Town Council to push through a policy of financial mismanagement. As you mark your ballots - if you haven't already - just remember this: The CCA has shown it DOES NOT know how to properly manage the town's money. Read on for the proof.

For weeks, we’ve been warning you this was coming. The Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) used its 3-2 town council majority to ram a new town policy on taxing and spending that will cost YOU more in taxes than is required or reasonable to run the town.

The February 14 Town Council meeting was a showcase of CCA obstinacy and nuttery. The outcome was pre-ordained by the secret leadership committee of the CCA.

Their three obedient Council minions also voted to BLOCK an independent outside investigation of why $3 million was misplaced within the town budget for more than a year.  

You would think, given the CCA’s claims they are financial geniuses (without evidence of their actual credentials), that they would want the best possible insights into why they ended up spending $3 million that wasn’t really available to spend. But the myth of the CCA’s infallibility is more important.

They also voted to BLOCK consideration of Council President Deb Carney’s alternative budget surplus proposal that would save taxpayers money through a more reasonable-sized emergency reserve and returning excess funds to the taxpayers.

The differences between Carney’s proposal and the CCA/Budget Commission’s plan are spelled out in detail HERE.

And most importantly, they voted to ADOPT the terrible surplus funds policy proposed by Budget Commission chair Dick Sartor. He claims he’s just doing what the town’s consultants recommended but that’s not true – read HERE to see why.

And now they are bragging about how this is such a good thing for the taxpayers of Charlestown when the opposite is true.

In a nutshell: overtax, then overspend

Here’s the situation in a nutshell. For years, the Budget Commission recommends a budget that taxes property owners an average of $1 million a year more than needed to run the town. When the size of the budget surplus gets to be embarrassingly large, they find some illogical way to spend it down.

To them, not over-taxing in the first place is not an option. Neither is refunding overly large surpluses back to taxpayers.

This has been an ad hoc policy of the CCA and the Budget Commission since the CCA took control of town government.

Now, based on the Feb. 14 party-line vote by the CCA council members, it is Charlestown’s official policy.

The case of the missing $3 million

The Budget Commission began the process to prepare next year’s budget believing the surplus was around $9 million. That’s almost one-third of our total budget of $30 million.

However, in early January, the town’s auditors informed the budget commission and Town staff that the unassigned surplus wasn’t the $9 million they thought they had because somehow $3 million has been spent in FY 2022 that wasn’t actually available to be spent.

The error of the misplaced money has been a problem since at least Fiscal Year 2020. I guess it was one of those things that Dick Sartor calls “unknown unknowns,” although it is his job, as well as our Treasurer and Town Administrator Mark Stankiewicz to be watch the money.

To help you place this in the timeline, we are currently in FY 2022 and this $3 million oopsie has thrown a monkey wrench into the Budget Commission’s FY 2023 planning. The initial mistake happened in FY 2020. The Commission was pissed at the auditors taking so long to them the bad news.

The search was on for someone to blame. Remember now that in Charlestown, it is impossible for the CCA to ever be wrong. By extension, that means the town government they control can do no wrong.

Town Administrator Mark Stankiewicz is above suspicion even though it’s his job to oversee town finances under the Town Charter and this oopsie happened under his nose. He scapegoated one of the several Town Treasurers we’ve had in the last few years rather than accept any responsibility himself.

For this, we pay him $150,000 a year plus a travel allowance so he can commute to Charlestown from Stoughton, MA.

Now, according to Stankiewicz everything is going great and all of its financial controls are perfect.

Stankiewicz says his staff doesn't have "the bandwidth" to handle large sums of money

But let’s remember that Stankiewicz told the Providence Journal on November 28 that Charlestown is stalling on plans to use $2.3 million in pandemic relief federal funding because, according to Stankiewicz, town staff “lack the bandwidth” to know how to use federal money lawfully.

If he was honest, Stankiewicz would include himself in that description. Please note that town staff handle federal money all the time and, so far, have not drawn any federal heat. 

If they “lack the bandwidth,” that’s on Stankiewicz, who either failed to recruit, train and oversee staff properly – as the $3 million oopsie makes clear. Or he's just trashing the staff to cover for his own inadequacies.

On his own hook, Stankiewicz told the Journal, he plans to hire an outside consultant. But forget about bringing in someone from outside to help us figure out how to make sure the $3 million oopsie doesn’t reoccur.

Never admit, never apologize

Roy Cohn and his protege in 1983 (Vanity Fair)

Many villains of history have used the principle “never admit, never apologize.” Roy Cohn, the guy who pretty much created Sen. Joe McCarthy and later mentored Richard Nixon and Donald Trump, is credited with making the line famous.

The CCA has, since its inception, never admitted fault or weakness, Why would they since they’ve never made a mistake? Whenever they have come close to getting nailed, as during the February 14 Council meeting, they fall back on distraction.

As they were being pummeled for the $3 million oopsie, several CCA diehards took the floor to argue, irrelevantly, “but Charlestown has the lowest tax rate!”

Ah, so because we have a low tax rate, it’s OK to misplace a tenth of the budget for nearly two years.

While it is true that our RATE is low, that’s only half the story. Our actual tax is the tax rate multiplied by our relatively high assessments. Our tax rate and assessments are made higher by a number of privileged exceptions that boost our taxes such as fake fire districts, wealthy people with conservation easements and others whose property is incorrectly zoned.

Our rate is also low because the town provides virtually none of the services that other municipalities take for granted. And finally, due to Planning Commissar Ruth Platner’s deliberate efforts to block any and all new affordable housing for families, our enrollment in the Chariho School system has dropped sharply and the costs associated with it as well.

Nothing justifies the CCA’s push to deliberately overtax every year to create a bloated surplus beyond what we need to cope with an emergency.

But “never admit, never apologize” when you can distract and, in the end, can count on the loyal votes of your minions on the Town Council not to mention the public’s short attention span especially when it comes to complex and detailed issues..

Budget Commission chair Dick Sartor is intent on rebuilding the Unassigned Fund Balance to unprecedented heights no matter what it takes. He scorns anyone who fails to be awed by his wisdom at applying his own unique vision of municipal economics.

During the February 14 meeting, he droned on and on expressing his Alice through the Looking Glass view of Charlestown finance and sparring with Deb Carney, his long-time nemesis. My favorite moment in the whole on-line meeting came at two hours and twenty-two minutes when Council President Carney directed the town IT staffer to “Please remove Mr. Sartor from the screen.”

She's innocent. They're not.

For more cartoons by Ruben Bolling, CLICK HERE

 

Fall back is coming

 

CRU asks Charlestown residents to make sure to vote

 

Fellow Residents of Charlestown,  VOTE! Though many people are voting early, election day is Tuesday, November 8.  If you haven't already, we urge you to vote on election day or sooner! You can see sections of the Charlestown ballot with CRU-supported candidates highlighted here.  Early voting is at the Town Hall. You can find your election day polling place here.  ONE MORE TIME Some of our candidates will be outside Rippy's Liquor and Marketplace (4158 South County Trail), on Saturday, November 5, from 1 pm until 3 pm. Stop by and chat about the issues that matter to you.  PLEASE JOIN OUR CANDIDATES ON ELECTION DAY If you would like to hang out with some really nice people (the CRU candidates), please volunteer to stand with our candidates and hold a sign or pass out literature. We guarantee it will be fun! If you can spend a couple hours, please call or text Deb Carney at 401-486-2105.  LOTS OF SUPPORT If you haven't seen these articles supporting CRU and CRU candidates, check them out:  Longtime Charlestown resident explains why the CCA lost his vote.  Former Council and Zoning Board member objects to "I've got mine, screw the rest of you."  Deb Carney's long track record.  Charlestown attorney worries about CCA candidate ignoring the law and legal process.  Descendent of Charlestown residents since 1750 says conservation worked long before the CCA.  Time to end the CCA hypocrisy.   With thanks, Tim Quillen, Chair Charlestown Residents United     Paid for by Charlestown Residents United P.O. Box 412 Charlestown, RI 02813   Visit our Website

Yet another CCA candidate with a conflict of interest

Walter Mahony nailed by CRMC for illegal dumping

By Thom Cahir

This article originally ran on September 29.

Reading the description on the CCA mailer received in our mailboxes over the last few days describing Planning Commissioner Walter Mahony, it certainly paints a rosy picture of someone “(F)ocused on the sustainable balance between development and land preservation.” 

However, that seems to directly contradict the fact he was cited by the Coastal Resources Management Council for illegally dumping yard waste from his property “on the coastal feature” of his property at “27 Stumpy Point Lane, Charlestown; without benefit of a CRMC assent or in violation of a Council order.” 

CLICK HERE to read the Ceast-and-Desist Order for yourself.

It’s now election season and voters have to ask if this is the kind of person they want representing them in front of anyone coming forth and making application for permits, or reviews? 

For context, take a look at the March 23, 2022 meeting at about the 2:05:00 mark of the meeting, the lawyer for the applicant directly confronts Mr. Mahony about his ecological misdeed and it gets quite heated. Click here for the video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-sIkLFj8VOy_zTSz9289fEqKso4JDANb/view?usp=drivesdk.

Mr. Mahony shouts more than once that “(I)t was dismissed.” 

However, the lawyer, Mr. Kelly, replies quite calmly in the end, after being accused of slander by Commissioner Platner, “Sue me if I’m slandering you, sue me!” After that Mr. Mahony got very quiet. You can see the exchange on the video. 

The whole thing ends quite appropriately as Mr. Kelly points out, “You people make things up as you go along.” 

Isn’t it time to elect a professional group to represent the Planning Commission, and not a group looking to protect their own interests and penalize their opponents? 

Please vote for Abby Godino and Patty Stamps in November to help alleviate the conflicts currently plaguing the Planning Commission. 

EDITOR'S NOTE: When Lila Delman listed 27 Stumpy Point Lane, it was described as "Extraordinary offering on a PRIVATE PENINSULA on Ninigret Pond…this magnificent property rests on two acres of pristine land surrounded on three sides of water. This rare, private compound ensconced with windows to take advantage of every water view."  

Tax assessor records show Mahony bought the property in October 2012 for $2,834,750 though it is now assessed at $2,531,3000. For all that money, you'd expect Mahony to properly manage his yard waste. - Will Collette 

The Public Shouldn’t Pay for Drugs Twice

When tax dollars fund the research and development, why should we pay exorbitant prices?

By James Stout

When Covid-19 vaccines arrived in the winter of 2020, the much-heralded shots put a spotlight on the big pharmaceutical companies that had brought them to market — especially Pfizer and Moderna. It could be easy to miss one important detail: Those vaccines, like many of those companies’ flagship products, would not have been possible without public funding.

By one estimate, the National Institutes of Health spent $17 billion on vaccine technologies fundamental to the Covid-19 vaccine. More recently, the United States’ Operation Warp Speed poured billions into development. And according to a 2021 study, 95.5 percent of the funding behind AstraZeneca’s vaccine came from the British government.

Despite this massive influx of public cash, the resulting Covid-19 vaccines raked in huge profits for the corporations that brought them to market. Moderna’s vaccine, for example, created at least five billionaires — an illustration of the current drug development system in which research is publicly funded, but corporations profit.

Pharmaceutical companies often reap the rewards of public spending. In fact, in the U.S, every new drug approved by the FDA between 2010 and 2019 has relied on grants from the NIH. Meanwhile, the companies sometimes turn around and charge the public exorbitant prices for the same drugs their tax dollars helped create.

Part of the problem is an outdated licensing system that allows private companies to buy exclusive rights to use publicly funded research, with few strings attached. Many of these issues stem from the way intellectual property, or IP, is licensed in the U.S. and some other wealthy countries. Making changes to the way we fund research and license drugs could help treat millions of people, particularly in developing nations.

Political violence in America isn’t going away anytime soon

Especially right-wing violence fed by Republican misinformation

Richard Forno, University of Maryland, Baltimore County 

A member of the National Guard patrols the U.S.
Capitol on March 4, 2021. 
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

A warning about the threat of political violence heading into the 2022 midterm elections was issued to state and local law enforcement officials by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Oct. 28, 2022.

The bulletin was released the same day that Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s husband was hospitalized after a home invasion by a lone right-wing extremist seeking to harm her.

This incident is the latest in an increasing stream of extremist confrontations taking place across the United States in recent years. These incidents have primarily targeted Democrats, including a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020. But threats from both sides of the political spectrum are up significantly.

And, of course, there was the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, where supporters of a defeated Republican president, acting on a widespread lie he perpetuated, violently attempted to prevent the certification of electoral votes. According to well-documented public evidence, some rioters planned to find and execute both Speaker Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence.

Such incidents reflect a disturbing trend that targets the very fabric, foundation and future of U.S. democracy. But what led to this point?

As a researcher taking a critical and apolitical eye toward security issues, I believe the rise in contemporary right-wing political extremism – and violence – began with an outdated focus in national communications policy.

3 Lies Republicans Are Using This Election

Fight the Big Lie and Lies

By Robert Reich

It’s not just the Big Lie. Republicans are telling three other lies they hope will swing the midterms.

They involve crime, inflation, and taxes.

Here are the GOP’s claims, followed by the facts.

1. They claim crime is rising because Democrats have been “soft” on crime.

Rubbish. Rising crime rates are due to the proliferation of guns, which Republicans refuse to control.

While violent crime rose 28 percent from 2019 to 2020, gun homicides rose 35 percent. States that have weakened gun laws have seen gun crime surge. Clearly, a major driver of the national increase in violence is the easy availability of guns.

The violence can’t be explained by any of the Republican talking points about “soft on crime” Democrats.

Lack of police funding? No. On average, all cities — whether run by Democrats or Republicans — saw an increase in police funding in 2022.

Criminal justice reforms? No. Wherever bail reforms have been implemented, re-arrest rates remain stable. Data shows no connection between the policies of progressive prosecutors and changes in crime rates.

In fact, crime is rising faster in Republican, Trump-supporting states. In 2020, per capita murder rates were 40 percent higher in states won by Trump than in those won by Joe Biden.

Republican policies have made it easier for people to get and carry guns. Republicans are lying about the real cause of rising crime to protect some of their biggest supporters, big gun manufacturers and the NRA.

2. Republicans claim that inflation is due to Biden’s spending, and wage increases.

Baloney. Biden’s spending can’t be causing our current inflation because inflation has broken out everywhere around the world, often at much higher rates than in the US.

Besides, heavy spending by the US government began in 2020, before the Biden administration, in order to protect Americans and the economy from the ravages of COVID-19 — and it was necessary.

Wages can’t be pushing inflation because wages have been increasing at a slower pace than prices — leaving most workers worse off.

The major cause of the current inflation is the global post-pandemic shortage of all sorts of things, coupled with Putin’s war in Ukraine and China’s lockdowns.

The biggest domestic culprit for America’s current inflation is big corporations that are using inflation as an excuse for raising prices above their own cost increases, resulting in the highest profit margins since 1950 — while consumers are paying through the nose.

The biggest domestic cause of inflation is corporate power. Republicans are lying about this to protect their big corporate patrons.

3. Republicans say Democrats voted to hire an army of IRS agents who will audit and harass the middle class.

Wrong. The IRS won’t be going after the middle class. It will be going after ultra-wealthy tax cheats.

The Inflation Reduction Act, passed in July, provides funding to begin to get IRS staffing back to what it was before 2010, after which Republicans cut staff by roughly 30 percent, despite increases since then in the number of Americans filing tax returns.

The extra staff are needed to prevent high-end tax evasion, which is more difficult to root out (the ultra-wealthy hire squads of accountants and tax attorneys to hide their taxable incomes). It’s estimated that the richest 1 percent are hiding more than 20 percent of their earnings from the IRS.

The Treasury Department and the IRS have made it clear that audit rates for households earning $400,000 or under will remain same.

Republicans are lying about what the IRS will do with the new funding to protect their ultra-wealthy patrons.

None of these three lies is as brazen and damaging as Trump’s Big Lie. But they’re all being used by Republican candidates in these last weeks before the midterms.

So know the truth. And spread it.

(Source: youtube.com)

Robert Reich's writes at robertreich.substack.com. His latest book is "THE SYSTEM: Who Rigged It, How To Fix It." He is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center. He served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written 17 other books, including the best sellers "Aftershock,""The Work of Nations," "Beyond Outrage," and "The Common Good." He is a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, founder of Inequality Media, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentaries "Inequality For All," streaming on YouTube, and "Saving Capitalism," now streaming on Netflix.

Around here, it's Elaine Morgan, Justin Price, Westin Place and John Pacheco

For more cartoons by Jen Sorenson, CLICK HERE.

 

Save the Future! VOTE!

By Ruben Bolling 

 

The Party of Can't