Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Americans' Confidence In TV News Drops To New Low

Confidence in television news has hit a new low, a new Gallup poll reported Tuesday.

The polling firm does an annual survey of the confidence that Americans have in their biggest institutions. Just 21% of adults said they had a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in TV news. That's down a whopping 25% from 1993, when Gallup began the poll:

The survey showed an interesting political split. Overall, Democrats were much more likely than Republicans to trust TV news (34 percent versus 17 percent.) But self-identified liberals were the most disenchanted of all groups, with just 19 percent expressing confidence in the medium.

Gallup said that "Americans' negativity likely reflects the continuation of a broader trend that appeared to enjoy only a brief respite last year. Americans have grown more negative about the media in recent years, as they have about many other U.S. institutions and the direction of the country in general."

As if to illustrate that point, American newspapers also fared very poorly in the survey, with only 25 percent of respondents expressing confidence. As the news media has become increasingly controlled by a few global conglomerates who format news as entertainment programing, often little more than repackaged political "think tank" propaganda, Americans have lost confidence in traditional "old media" news outlets.

In 1910, nearly 60% of cities had competing daily papers, but today that completion of viewpoints has all but disappeared. Unfortunately, media consolidation over the past twenty years has taken its toll on the "widest possible dissemination of information as an essential check on government and business."

Through successive acquisitions and mergers a few massive multinational media conglomerates controlled by conservative owners control more and more of our vital information sources – including television networks, cable channels, newspaper publishing, radio, and the Internet.

A robust, free press has been viewed by many as an essential check on government and business since the early days of the Republic. “The only security of all is in a free press,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1823. Nearly 60 years ago, the Supreme Court declared that "the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public, that a free press is essential to the condition of a free society."

Today, people, particularly younger Americans, have gone to Internet to find the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources.

A Pew Research Center for the People & the Press survey in 2010 found that the internet surpassed television as the main source of national and international news for people younger than 30. (chart right)

Since 2007, the number of 18 to 29 year old adults citing the internet as their main source has nearly doubled, from 34% to 65%.

Over this period, the number of young people citing television as their main news source has dropped from 68% to 52%.

The internet is slowly closing in on television as Americans’ main source of national and international news.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Poll: Smartphone Users Back Obama

According to a new survey from Harris Interactive, both iPhone and Android owners find common ground when picking the next president.

Regardless of whether they're on iOS or Android, younger smartphone owners overwhelmingly choose Barack Obama -- smartphone users would vote for Barack Obama over Mitt Romney, 49 percent to 31 percent.

That wide margin holds across iOS and Android users, with iPhone owners preferring Obama to Romney 47 percent to 34 percent and Android owners preferring Obama to Romney 50 percent to 29 percent.

The survey was commissioned by Velti, a mobile marketing firm.

Politico: “The results of this survey demonstrate that the smartphone market is becoming a whole new demographic that candidates must take into consideration when building a comprehensive campaign strategy,” Velti CMO Krishna Subramanian said. “Clearly, mobile advertising is emerging as an influential medium and a distinct audience.”

Just as candidates are quickly learning how to text mobile device owners for campaign donations, so too candidates will quickly learn how to message mobile Ads to smartphones. In fact, Mitt Romney became the first U.S. politician to use Apple's iAd service in June, with another round of Google ads for Android, coming. Barack Obama's campaign is thought to be planning smartphone Ads in the near future, too.

There was some good news for Romney in the Harris Interactive poll, however: Romney leads Obama 57 percent to 34 percent among older retired iPhone and Android users.

An overwhelming 97 percent of Obama voters were either iPhone or Android users, compared with 63 percent for Romney voters. The survey was conducted online June 27-29 among 2,164 adults, 776 of whom were iPhone/Android owners.

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Attorney General Holder Calls Texas' Voter Photo I.D. Law A Poll Tax

Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday likened Texas' Senate Bill 14 (SB 14) voter photo I.D. law to a “poll tax” that was outlawed by the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

“As many of you know, yesterday was the first day in the trial of a case that the state of Texas filed against the Justice Department under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act seeking approval of it’s proposed voter ID law,” Holder told attendees of the 103rd convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). (Texas Voter Photo I.D. Federal Trial Opening Arguments)


Eric H. Holder, Jr., Attorney General of the United States speaking at the 103rd convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

Holder stated that, "After close review, the department found that this law would be harmful to minority voters and we rejected its implementation."

“Under the proposed law, concealed handgun licenses would be acceptable forms of photo ID, but student IDs would not,” the attorney general continued. “Many of those without IDs would have to travel great distances to get them. And some would struggle to pay for the documents they might need to obtain them. ... We call those poll taxes.”

The attorney general said he couldn’t predict what would happen in the Texas case, but he promised to “not allow political pretext to disenfranchise American citizens of their most precious right.”

“The arc of American history has always moved towards expanding the electorate,” Holder said. “We will simply not allow this era to be the reversal of that historic progress. I will not allow that to happen.”

In opening arguments of the photo I.D. trial DOJ trial attorney Elizabeth Westfall said that a disproportionate number of the 1.4 million Texans who do not have the proper ID are black or Hispanic.

Poll taxes were a part of Jim Crow-era laws that were used largely in southern states to disenfranchise minority voters. The 24th Amendment abolished poll taxes in federal elections and the Supreme Court later banned them in state elections as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Click here for full text of Attorney General Holder's speech as prepared for delivery.

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TDP Chair Gilberto Hinojosa Responds To Gov. Perry's Rejection Of Medicaid Funding

Texas Democratic Party State Chair Gilberto Hinojosa today responded to the Gov.

Perry's letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius reaffirming his opposition to the Affordable Care Act, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Perry said in his letter, "I stand proudly with the growing chorus of governors who reject the Obama care power grab. Neither a 'state' exchange nor the expansion of Medicaid under this program would result in better 'patient protection' or in more 'affordable care.' They would only make Texas a mere appendage of the federal government when it comes to health care. "
Hinojosa said in a statement posted on the TDP website:
Rick Perry is refusing $112 billion in health care money for uninsured Texans for three reasons. First, it doesn’t allow for kickbacks to his political donors. Second, he needs to feed his radical right wing base some red meat. And third … oh heck, he forgot the third.

Now we know why the Texas Republican platform calls for an end to teaching critical thinking skills. Any thinking makes it obvious that Perry’s bullheaded refusal of funding to expand Medicaid is wrong for Texas and deadly for Texans. Rick Perry is playing cute while a teenager never makes it to prom, a father never gets to walk his daughter down the aisle, children are dying from the lack of simple preventative care, and a mother won’t live to see her children to adulthood.

Perry’s decision will cost lives, and it will cost Texans and local governments much needed dollars in a tight economy.

Texans have to wonder how many lives and how much of your money Rick Perry is willing to sacrifice for his political career.

Texas is in 51st place among the 50 states – we are even behind Washington, DC – in delivery of health care to its citizens. But, Rick Perry is turning down these funds, because he believes that Texans know what’s best. Texans do, but their career Republican politicians don’t.

Texas Republicans, including David Dewhurst, Greg Abbott, and Joe Straus hide under the bed in fear of the Tea Party's irrational wrath if they speak up. Texans will continue to die far before their time while Rick Perry and the Republican Party pander to people who applaud the thought of watching people die in pain at the emergency room door.

Enough is enough. Politicians who call themselves “pro-life” while blithely turning down money to help the living need a swift kick to the rear end and a ticket out of the State of Texas. Help Texas Democrats get this message out.

Observer: Perry’s Titanic Blunder

by Eileen Smith @ The Observer

... In an interview Monday on Fox News, Perry was caught off-guard by a hard-hitting question posed by one of the many interchangeable female blond newscasters there: “If part of your goal is to keep the federal government out of the lives of Texans, then why give them that power?” Perry responded by not responding, saying only that Medicaid is a failed program and increasing enrollment is “like adding 1,000 people to the Titanic.”

... But where Perry really got it wrong in the Fox interview was his assertion that “every Texan has health care in this state from the standpoint of being able to have access to healthcare.” That’s like saying that every Texan has food in this state from the standpoint of being able to have access to the grocery store. It doesn’t mean the more than six million Texans who are uninsured can actually afford it. And who but our governor has access to experimental adult stem cell spinal infusions? According to a new study released by the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, Texas ranks dead last in health care services and delivery. Texas Medicaid is also one of the most limited and strictest programs in the country. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission projects that the state would actually see a net gain of $70 billion over five years if it expanded its Medicaid program. That sounds like some sort of trick.

In the end it looks like Perry would rather go down with the ship than work with the federal government on health care. And he’s taking millions of uninsured Texans down with him.

Read the full story @ The Observer.

The GOP’s Crime Against Voters

There is no public policy justification for a voter ID law. Voter impersonation at the polls - the only type of fraud that could be addressed by a voter ID law - is virtually non-existent. Despite spending millions on a 2005-2006 voter fraud crusade, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott did not find or prosecute one case of voter impersonation. A national five-year effort by the Bush Justice Department netted only 86 prosecutions from 2001 to 2006.

A 2006 study by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice found that 18 percent of Americans age 65 and over did not have a photo ID. In Texas, even the Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute admit that 37 percent of Texans over the age of 80 do not have a driver's license. The same study found that up to 25 percent of African Americans do not have a government-issued photo ID.

According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, women are more than twice as likely as men not to have a driver's license. In fact, one of every five senior women does not have a license. Also, a woman's name and address on a photo ID might not match those on the voter list due to name changes related to marriage, divorce and other factors. The Texas Department of Vital Statistics reports an average 200,000 marriages and divorces in Texas each year, after which it can take up to two months to get a new ID. Now, the Federal Real I.D. Act, that turns state driver's licenses into a national identity card, adds additional barriers for everyone, particularly women of every age, to obtain or renew their driver's license.

For many seniors, disabled veterans, and hourly workers, getting a state-issued photo ID is not only costly and time-consuming, it is also difficult if not impractical to get to the forms and information needed to get an ID from agencies with limited locations and hours. Many disable vets and elderly Texans already have difficulty getting to the polls, and forcing vets and seniors who don't have a photo ID to gather documents and jump bureaucratic hurdles to get one before voting is unwarranted and insulting because no one impersonates a voter at the polls.

Nonpartisan academic studies show photo ID laws discourage turnout. An academic study of the 2004 presidential election conducted for the bipartisan Federal Election Assistance Commission found that states with voter ID laws had an overall turnout reduction of 3 percent, a figure that reached 5.7 percent among African Americans and 10 percent among Hispanics. Former Texas Republican Party political director Royal Masset estimated that a photo ID requirement would reduce Democratic turnout in Texas by 3 percent. That is a lot Texans who would be denied the right to vote in Texas!

By Eugene Robinson, WaPo

Spare us any more hooey about “preventing fraud” and “protecting the integrity of the ballot box.”

The Republican-led crusade for voter ID laws has been revealed as a cynical ploy to disenfranchise as many likely Democratic voters as possible, with poor people and minorities the main targets.

Recent developments in Pennsylvania — one of more than a dozen states where voting rights are under siege — should be enough to erase any lingering doubt: The GOP is trying to pull off an unconscionable crime.

Late last month, the majority leader of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Mike Turzai, was addressing a meeting of the Republican State Committee. He must have felt at ease among friends because he spoke a bit too frankly.


Ticking off a list of recent accomplishments by the GOP-controlled Legislature, he mentioned the new law forcing voters to show a photo ID at the polls. Said Turzai, with more than a hint of triumph: “Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania — done.”

That’s not even slightly ambiguous. The Democratic presidential candidate has won Pennsylvania in every election since 1992.

But now the top Republican in the Pennsylvania House is boasting that, because of the new voter ID law, Mitt Romney will defy history and capture the state’s 20 electoral votes in November.

Why on earth would Turzai imagine such a result? After all, the law applies to all voters, regardless of party affiliation. It is ostensibly meant only to safeguard the electoral process and eliminate fraud. Why would a neutral law have such partisan impact?

Thanks to figures released last week by state officials, we know the answer. It turns out that 758,939 registered Pennsylvania voters do not have the most easily obtained and widely used photo ID, a state driver’s license. That’s an incredible 9.2 percent of the registered electorate.

Most of the voters without driver’s licenses live in urban areas — which just happen to be places where poor people and minorities tend to live. More than 185,000 of these voters without licenses, about one-fourth of the total, live in Philadelphia — which just happens to be a Democratic stronghold where African Americans are a plurality.

Read the full story @ Washington Post.

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Monday, July 9, 2012

Gov. Perry Says He Will Continue To Shift Uninsured Health Care Costs To The Insured

Gov. Perry's office today sent a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius reaffirming his opposition to the Affordable Care Act.

Perry said in his letter, "I stand proudly with the growing chorus of governors who reject the Obama care power grab. Neither a 'state' exchange nor the expansion of Medicaid under this program would result in better 'patient protection' or in more 'affordable care.' They would only make Texas a mere appendage of the federal government when it comes to health care. "

If Gov. Perry has his way, Texas will neither expand Medicaid nor establish a health care insurance exchange, two major provisions of the Affordable Care Act. When the Supreme Court upheld the insurance mandate provision of the Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act, which the GOP calls "Obamacare," the court also ruled that states may decline to extend Medicaid coverage to 17 million Americans with incomes below 133 percent of the federal poverty level, which is $14,856 for an individual this year.

If Texas declines the federal funding to implement the Medicaid expansion program, up to 2 million Texans will remain uninsured, seeking care in emergency rooms, shifting costs to the privately insured and increasing uncompensated care costs to health care providers. According to a report published by Texas' Republican state Comptroller, Susan Combs, the state’s uncompensated acute-care hospital expenses (emergency room and other urgent care) totaled $460 per resident in 2006, not including uncompensated costs incurred by charitable clinics or physicians. The U.S. average for such costs was $287.57. The uncompensated care problem in Texas is exacerbated by the fact that uninsured individuals often delay seeking medical care, allowing their health problems to become more serious. By the time such individuals do seek treatment, their conditions may be much more costly to treat, driving uncompensated costs even higher. It is estimated the annual costs of such uncompensated care to run in excess of $10 billion.

By refusing to participate in federal Medicaid expansion, Perry, and the Republican controlled state legislature, will force local taxpayers to pay for otherwise uncompensated care provided hospitals, which will hike hospital district taxes. Health insurance premiums, for those lucky enough to have insurance, will increase, too. The Texas Hospital Association estimates that annual health premiums for an average Texas family are $1,551 higher due to the added costs of covering the uninsured.

Texas Voter Photo I.D. Federal Trial Opening Arguments Today

The Texas Voter Photo I.D. case currently before the federal Washington D.C. Circuit Court took another step forward today as the three judge panel heard opening arguments in the trial.

The three judge panel will decide whether Texas can enforce its year-old voter photo I.D. law, which the U.S. Department of Justice contends will prevent over 600,000 registered Latino and African-American voters from casting a ballot in the November General Election.

Originally set to go into effect on January 1, 2012, the Texas Photo I.D. law would require voters to present one of a limited selection of government issued photo I.D. to election Judges in order to qualify to vote. The accepted forms of currently dated photo identification are: Department of Public Safety issued Texas driver's license, Texas election I.D., or personal identification card; Texas concealed handgun license; U.S. military I.D. card; U.S. citizenship certificate; or U.S. passport.

Under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department or a federal court is required to pre-clear laws affecting voters before they go into effect in jurisdictions with a history of voting discrimination -- and that includes Texas.

In March, the U.S. Justice Department Civil Rights Division refused to clear the Texas law, known as Senate Bill 14 (SB 14), saying Texas officials had failed to prove that it wouldn’t adversely affect minorities. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed suit against U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice in the Washington D.C. Circuit Court to have the state’s controversial voter photo I.D. law implemented without further delay.

Under federal law, lawsuits seeking so-called “pre-clearance” of changes to voting procedures in all of seven mostly Southern states and parts of nine others, are heard by three-judge panels composed of two district court judges and an appeals court judge. D.C. Circuit Judge David Tatel and District Court Judges Rosemary Collyer and Robert Wilkins were impaneled to hear the Texas photo ID case.

(click here to read a full summary of case through early June 2012.)

As the trial got under way in a packed courtroom, DOJ trial attorney Elizabeth Westfall said in her opening argument that the federal government will show racial motivation in Texas’ passage of the law.

Republicans Raise Your Prices, Bail Out Unprofitable Electricity Companies

Jack TernanBy Jack Ternan

Do you think you should pay more for electricity so that large Republican donors can stay in business? Your state government does.

In 2007, TXU was purchased in a $45 billion leveraged buyout by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Goldman Sachs, and other New York investors and was renamed Energy Future Holdings (EFH). EFH bet on coal powering our future. Unfortunately, the company now faces bankruptcy because cheap natural gas has rendered coal power plants unprofitable.

Fortunately for EFH, Republican leaders believe free market discipline only applies to the middle class and the poor. Rather than letting polluting plants close at a loss to Goldman Sachs, the Public Utility Commission (PUC) of Texas recently voted to raise the price cap on wholesale electricity by 50 percent. Starting in August, electricity generators will be able to charge $4,500 per megawatt hour instead of $3,000. According to the Texas Industrial Energy Consumers’ assessment, this change will cost consumers an additional $4.5-$4.7 billion per year on electricity costs.

According to PUC Commissioner Kenneth Anderson, who abstained from voting, increasing prices this summer will allow power companies to “cart away money, not in wheelbarrows, but in Mack Trucks.”

EFH knows how to grease the wheels of Republican government. Its affiliated PACs have given more than $6.3 million to lawmakers between October 2007 and May 2012. My opponent, Ken Paxton, has received more than $7,000 from them. Buying politicians is cheap compared to facing the consequences of bad business decisions, and this latest Republican bailout will ensure that Texas’ pay to play politics continues.

So what does this latest outrage mean for you?

It means that fixed contract you’ve signed with your retail electricity provider might not be “fixed.” It means that by 2013, when the price cap is expected to be between $7,500 and $9,000, you’ll be dishing out more money for electricity than you ever have before. And it means that you will be bailing out New York bankers who pollute your air while you do it.

The misplaced priorities of the Republican leadership are evil. Republican officials are willing to fleece you upwards of $4.5 billion ($9 billion over two years) to bail out EFH and its out-of-state owners. At the same time, they claim to be completely unable to find the $5.4 billion (over two years) needed to avoid firing teachers, closing schools, and cutting financial aid to college students. Here in Texas Senate District 8, we need leaders that will stand up for the priorities of all Texans, not out-of-state donors.

Jack Ternan is the Democratic Candidate for Senate District 8. To email Jack - click here.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4 1776.
The Unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Happy Birthday America!

Musician Keb Mo visited the White House earlier this year and performed a rendition of "America the Beautiful". Enjoy some great scenes of America and the President set to this classic song - in celebration of Independence Day.

Monday, July 2, 2012

The Terrifying Texas GOP Platform

From Forbes by John T. Harvey

. . . I am so distressed by the 2012 platform released by the Texas Republican Party that I find it impossible not to comment. While I am hardly in agreement with everything forwarded by the Democrats (and have taken aim at President Obama on a number of occasions, especially with respect to his desire to balance the federal budget), it is difficult to believe that what the Republicans put together during their convention in Fort Worth was even written in the 21st century. It is anything but pragmatic.

The GOP Platform (available here) has already made headlines with the portion that opposes the “teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills” and “critical thinking skills.” Although a partial retraction followed, this was in terms of the wording, not the general meaning.

It appears that their fear is that these “focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.”

. . . Another disturbing feature of the document is that while they “urge the Legislature to direct expenditures to academics as the first priority,” they also contend that “Since data is (sic) clear that additional money does not translate into educational achievement, and higher education costs are out of control, we support reducing taxpayer funding to all levels of education institutions.

Not only is the second statement inconsistent with the first (not to mention rather frightening), it isn’t true. The implications of the data are far from clear. In point of fact, economists have found that–not surprisingly–it matters how the money is spent (see here for a survey of the relevant literature). For example, reducing class sizes and adding remedial help appear to be particularly cost effective. Thus, contrary to the Texas GOP’s assertion, there are programs that both add to costs AND increase educational achievement.

. . . The economic policies recommended by the document are equally impractical and ill-considered. Bearing in mind that the fundamental problem faced in an advanced capitalist economy is insufficient demand to generate employment for all those willing to work (see Why Do Recessions Happen?), the following recommendations would operate to make this problem even worse:
  • We urge state and federal legislators to reduce spending.
  • We urge Congress to adopt balanced budgets by cutting spending and not increasing tax rates.
  • We recommend repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, with the goal of abolishing the I.R.S and replacing it with a national sales tax collected by the States. In the interim we urge the income tax be changed to a flatter, broader, lower tax with only minimal exemptions such as home mortgage interest deductions.
  • We favor abolishing the capital gains tax.
  • State Tax Reform – We encourage: Abolishing property taxes…Shifting the tax burden to a consumption-based tax

The first two would directly reduce the demand for goods and services, thus causing contraction and unemployment, while the last three would create a much more regressive tax system that shifted the burden onto the sector of the economy that would otherwise generate the highest level of demand per dollar of income: the poor and middle class (the top 20% of Americans spend 62% of their income, as compared to 87% for the rest).

. . . Note, too, that the second point above (regarding balanced budgets) is based on a false premise, i.e., that the federal government is budget constrained (see The Big Danger in Cutting the Deficit). ...The Texas Republican Party Platform also argues that, in contradiction to my last blog post (The Real Job Creators: Consumers), lower business taxes and deregulation will solve our jobs problem. This is false. What we really need is increased demand, which comes via consumers.

. . . This is not to say that there are not portions of the Texas Republican Party Platform that are perfectly reasonable. There are. But, by and large, it reads as if it were written in another age and in ignorance of the social, economic, and scientific evidence of the past half century. Let there be no mistake about it: the Texas Republican Party Platform is terrifying. Were its recommendations implemented, the US would resemble a third-world country with a cheap, uneducated workforce and a massive gap between rich and poor. Unemployment would be rampant, growth stagnant, and answers few and far between thanks to the systematic repression of higher order and critical thinking.

Read the full story @ Forbes.

Read the Texas Democratic platform and its comparison to the Republican platform after the "more" jump: