progressive involvement

Glimpse of the (near) future?

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and he knows what's going on.  He spoke on the subject of surveillence in a speech yesterday at the Center for American Progress--full speech here.  Excerpt:

"The piece of technology we consider vital to the conduct of our everyday personal and professional life … happens to be a combination phone bug, listening device, location tracker and hidden camera... 

"Without adequate protections built into the law there’s no way that Americans can ever be sure that the government isn’t going to interpret its authorities more and more broadly, year after year, until the idea of a tele-screen monitoring your every move turns from dystopia to reality." 

Identity dodge

Conservatives are falling all over themselves to claim they've been harrassed by the IRS.  Some outfit named Aleteia claims that a Catholic professor critical of the Obama administration was mysteriously audited.  

Franklin Graham, the apple who fell far from the tree, likewise claims the IRS has been persecuting him.  (His organization is a 501(c)3, which has stricter requirements than a (501(c)4.  Plus, he used organization funds to campaign against marriage equality in North Carolina, so there's more to his story than he's letting on.  Just sayin')

This is fall-out from the Citizens United decision.  Citizens United led directly to the rise of "super-political action committees, a.k.a. "super-pacs."

When Karl Rove began his super PAC American Crossroads, at first his fundraising was pretty anemic. He then set up Crossroads GPS, under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, which is for “social welfare” organizations, which are supposed to further the general welfare (the provision talks about “civic betterment”). Donations to (c)(4)’s are not tax deductible. The main benefit is that contributors’ names are not public. 

The 501(c)4 status is an artful dodge to get around disclosing donors.  Donors to these organizations care more about protecting their identity than they do about getting a tax deduction.  

Also one wonders:  Do the tea party groups know that their promoters are passing themselves off as a "social welfare" organization to the IRS?  Are they aware that they're now committed to promoting the "general welfare" leading to "civic betterment"?

Incidentally, poor people who receive the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) are five times more likely to be audited than other people, mostly because conservative Congressmen keep asserting there's "fraud" somewhere in the program, which is what they always say this about programs that don't benefit them.

 

Regulation of explosive megatonnage just might be a good idea

The Boston bombing killed three and injured 150.  The West, Texas fertilizer explosion killed 15 and injured 200.  Both are horrific events, of course, but the West, Texas explosion did more actual damage to life and property than the bombings.  Yet, 95% of the news coverage has been about Boston.

Terrorism kills relatively few people, yet we can't stop ourselves from obsessing about it.  Meanwhile, industrial accidents--if that's what the West, Texas explosion proves to be--kill and maim many, many times the people directly affected by terrorism.

The Dallas Morning News has some stunning photos of the effects of a lack of regulation.  Local officials assess damage:

 

Better get cracking

Stephen Hawking, who may be the smartest person in the world, thinks we only have about another 1000 years on this planet.  He expects human beings to be extinct by then because of "our fragile planet."

"We must continue to go into space for humanity. If you understand how the universe operates, you control it in a way," Professor Hawking said, adding that "we won't survive another 1,000 years without escaping our fragile planet."

Our sun is about half-way or so through its life cycle.  In about 400,000 years, the sun will expand and consume the earth.  Earth, of course, will have been uninhabitable for 100,000 or so before that.  All surface water will evaporate, and the atmosphere will disintegrate about 300,000 from now.

This would give us plenty of time to find another planet, or another way for human beings to survive somewhere.

Global warming and climate change rolls earth's potential doomsday much, much closer.  It is entirely possible that human beings will indeed become extinct because of climate change.  The atmosphere is thin and fragile.  We've messed with it, and now face our hour of peril.  Within 100 years, many portions of our world will not be uninhabitable.

We will need another place to go. 

Pope Francis

Not yet the 1st.  In fact, he will never be Pope Francis 1 in his lifetime.  Only when there is a second do they go back and rename the first.  

Nevertheless, it is significant that he chose the name Francis.  According to Vatican deputy spokesman Thomas Rosica, he chose it in honor of St. Francis of Assisi because he was a "lover of the poor".  (Also, Francis may also have given a slight nod to St. Francis Xavier, co-founder of the Jesuit order--it was, perhaps, a two-fer.)

I was somewhat surprised to learn that there had never before been a Jesuit pope--there has been some resistance to the idea, I've since found out--and surprised also there had never been one named Francis.  St. Francis of Assisi lived 800 years ago.  Given the popularity of the saint, one might have thought someone would have taken that name before now.

The most hopeful sign is that Pope Francis truly does seem to be a humble person who understands, advocates for, and loves the poor.  What's not to like about his cooking his own food and taking public transportation to work?  He has the reputation of making poverty issues front and center. 

"Cardinal Bergoglio had a special place in his heart and his ministry for the poor, for the disenfranchised, for those living on the fringes and facing injustice," Rosica said.

So that's to the good.  It appears he will be supporting the traditional Roman position on social issues, however.  His record on homosexuals is said to be "reactionary" and "medieval."  On the other hand, he once visited an AIDS hospital and washed the feet of 12 AIDS victims.  

There will no doubt be further inquiry into then Father Bergoglio's relationship to the military junta that ruled Argentina in the late 70's and early 80's when he was head of a Jesuit seminary.  

How he handled the clergy sex abuse scandal will almost certainly also come under scrutiny.  Argentina has largely escaped the headlines on that issue, at least so far.  The Boston Globe reported the case of Archbishop Edgardo Storni of Santa Fe who resigned on Oct. 1, 2002, after a book accused him of abusing at least 47 young seminarians.  There is no reason to believe then Archbishop Bergoglio had any connection to that case, and there have been no other reports to this point. 

Francis' most significant "first" is that he is the very first Pope to come from a nation that was not once part of the Roman Empire.  In the first millenium, there were a few Popes from outside Europe, but none who have ever come from a country or region not once governed by Rome. 

Talk about the "grand sweep" of history.  This is huge, and truly historic.  Christianity, especially Roman Catholicism, was once an almost exclusively European religion.  The "break-out" from Europe in choosing a Pope is a recognition of what has been true for some time now, i.e. that the balance of world Christianity is shifting south, and, in this case, to the Americas, to wit:  He's an American!

 

Together Colorado event draws large crowd in support of immigration reform

Hundreds of people jammed St. Therese Catholic Church in Aurora today in support of immigration reform.  The gathering was part pep rally, and part political organizing.  It was sponsored by Together Colorado, a coalition of religious and faith community leaders.

"We have communities and families here in Colorado that are suffering and we believe the only moral solution to our harmful immigration policy is full citizenship for the 11 million aspiring Americans and the only one that is consistent with our religious beliefs and American values," said Rev. Nelson Bock of Our Savior's Lutheran Church.

The gathering heard from several speakers besides Rev. Bock, including Fr. Steve Adams of Pius X Catholic Church, and several persons who had specific human problems related to current immigration policies.

At the center of the event was hearing from Sen. Michael Bennet and Congresspersons Jared Polis and Mike Coffman.  Bennet and Polis both advocate a "path to citizenship," and their remarks were warmly received.

Mike Coffman gets credit just for showing up.  Coffman is--or was until very recently--a tea party Republican.  Among this constituency, anything that helps hispanics stay in this country is anathema.

Coffman's district--the 6th--has shifted out from underneath him.  The lines were re-drawn by the 2010 legislature.  The new 6th is now the "Aurora seat" and Aurora has a large constituency of minorities, hispanics in particular.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has targeted the seat in 2014, and former Speaker of Colorado House, Andrew Romanoff, has entered the race.  Though Coffman won re-election in 2012, the vote was close, and his opponent was poorly-financed.

Together Colorado is a non-partisan organization which is affiliated with PICO, the nation's largest faith-based organizing network.

Photo:  Cong. Jared Polis responds to questions from an over-flow crowd at St. Therese Catholic Church.

What happens when you think the bishops are the church and the people aren't

The current Archbishop of Los Angeles, Jose Gomez, has publicly criticized his predecessor, Roger Mahoney, and removed him from any "administrative or public duties" for his failure to act in the priest child abuse scandal.

The scandal has been unraveling for years, but, in my own recollection,  this is the first time that one bishop has so directly criticized the actions of another member of the heirarchy--and not just any bishop either, but a Cardinal to boot.

Mahoney's defense was lame.  "Nothing in my own background or education equipped me to deal with this grave problem,” he said.  Mahoney has a master's degree in social work.  

It is true that, at the time he got his degree in 1962, child sexual abuse was not discussed as openly as it is today, and less was known about the pathology of the disorder, the extent of incidence, and its effects on victims.  (The Child Abuse and Prevention Act was passed in 1973;  he should have known something by then.)

Besides, the documents don't lie.  Over 12,000 pages of testimony finally saw the light of day, and they clearly established Mahoney's culpability in the scandal.  You don't need much "background or education" to know that simple human decency required intervention that Mahoney did not supply.

He, of course, is far from the only one.  More heads should roll.  The old boy network among the bishops will see this as a way of throwing Mahoney to the wolves in exchange for taking the heat off the rest of them.  They never cared much for Mahoney anyway--he didn't get hysterical enough about women or "the gays."

It is hard to imagine Archbishop Gomez not confering with other bishops, or getting clearance from the Pope, before he went public with his criticism of a Cardinal.  

Says National Catholic Reporter (NCR):  

What Mahony and others -- Cardinals Bernard Law, Justin Rigali, Edward Egan, Anthony Bevilacqua, and a host of archbishops and bishops -- really didn't understand was the degree to which their moral compasses had been distorted by the strong magnetic pull of the clergy culture. In their fierce allegiance to that exclusive club at all costs, in their willingness to preserve the façade of holiness and the faithful's high notion of ordination, they lost sight of simple human decency and the most fundamental demands of the Gospel.

They're still in "circle the wagons" mode, hoping to ride out modernism until, in some imagined future, they can run things again.  Alas for them, and hurrah for the rest of us:  that ship sailed long ago.

Who supports background checks?

92% of Americans, 97% of American women, 86% of NRA members, and, before 1999, the NRA itself.

The "no" votes on Hurricane Sandy relief