Sustainability Action Newsletter, Lawrence Chapter, 07 August 2012

The largest free weekly compilation of regional events and gatherings about all things sustainable at Discomfit Magazine.

Scott Rothschild: "New districts, photo ID, GOP warfare await voters" @ Lawrence Journal World

[Excerpt]

When Kansans vote Tuesday they will deal with different districts, a new requirement to provide photo identification and the smoke from Republican Party warfare.

Officials are predicting a low turnout at the polls, which will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

In the Republican Party primary, Gov. Sam Brownback, the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, the billionaire Koch brothers, and Kansans for Life have been working to defeat a group of Republican senators who they say have been obstacles to their agenda. ...

Read more at Lawrence Journal World.

Gore Vidal, R. I. P. 31 July 2012

Professor Edward Flentje: "A Referendum on Brownback" @ Winfield Daily Courier

[Excerpt]    Reporters from Reuters, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal descended on Kansas in the last few weeks to cover a political contest they view to be of national significance, that is, a battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party in the reddest of red states.

Never in state history has a sitting Kansas governor led a public campaign to oust legislators of his own party. In doing so, Gov. Sam Brownback is making the Republican primary on Aug. 7 a referendum on his governorship.

Brownback is asking Republican primary voters in a number of legislative races across the state to side with a slate of candidates composed by him and his allies against incumbent legislators. These targeted legislators view themselves as “traditional” Republicans in the lineage of Kansas icons such as Alf Landon, Dwight Eisenhower and Bob Dole, and former Republican governors; and they believe government has a more affirmative role in assuring a high quality of life for Kansans.

An understanding of what is at stake in the election requires a look at those who have energized Brownback’s rise to power and what they have in store for Kansas.

Read more at the Winfield Daily Courier.

TRNN Week June 10 - 15

Egypt Moves Towards Outright Dictatorship Jihan Hifaz: Supreme Court disbands Parliament and brings back emergency powers; Real News crew temporarily detained Go to story | Go to homepage

Euro-Crisis Used to Destroy Social Contract European adjustments are not the product of a mistake, but a design to break down some of the leftover architecture of the Cold War, which might be called the insurance premium that was paid against conversion to communism. Go to story | Go to homepage

June 14 Greeks Face a Momentous Decision Costas Lapavitsas: If Syriza wins coming elections and does not fulfill its promises, face up to leaving the Euro, it will open a path for far right Go to story | Go to homepage

Hundreds Rally to Fight for Philadelphia Public Schools Philadelphia communities outraged by austerity and school privatization Go to story | Go to homepage

June 13 Marching in Memory of Khaled Said, Protesters Call For Election Boycott "The Military Council is trying to stick us between two candidates, so we've created a third option: boycott the elections or spoil your vote" Go to story | Go to homepage

What I'd Ask JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon Robert Johnson: We are unlikely to hear tough questions from Senate Banking Committee as JP Morgan is their biggest campaign contributor Go to story | Go to homepage

What Would a Green Industrial Strategy Look Like? Robert Pollin: Shifting spending from the military-industrial complex to a green economy would create more jobs and build a sustainable industrial base Go to story | Go to homepage

The Best of Larry Wilkerson TRNN's collection of Larry Wilkerson interviews Go to story | Go to homepage

June 12 Egyptian Men and Women Protest Sexual Harassment After several violent attacks against women in the heart of the revolutionary Tahrir Square, male and female activists organized a protest against an issue that is rarely talked about in Egypt. Go to story | Go to homepage

Five "Indisputable Points" About Human Caused Climate Change Jeff Kiehl: There has been a breakdown between scientific information and effective public policy Go to story | Go to homepage

Will Military Budget Cuts Weaken Defence and Lose Jobs? Bob Pollin: Cuts triggered by the Congressional sequestration process are not as big as Pentagon spin and military spending is an inefficient "job creator" Go to story | Go to homepage

June 11 Reflections on Wisconsin Report on film "We Are Wisconsin", featuring Brian and Melissa Austin; active police officer and a housewife turned activist Go to story | Go to homepage

America has an Industrial Policy - It's Run by the Pentagon Bob Pollin: We need an industrial policy aimed at jobs and a green economy, not massive public spending on the military Go to story | Go to homepage

Israel and Women's Disobedience Social TV: Israeli women who disobey the movement restrictions the state is forcing on the Palestinians are being threatened and made targets of investigations of the police Go to story | Go to homepage

June 10 Who Wants Peace in Colombia? Forrest Hylton: The far right is not interested in a peace process Go to story | Go to homepage

Climate Change: Hasn't Warming Happened Before? Valérie Masson-Delmotte: Warming that took place during medieval times and earlier is not the same phenomenon that is happening now Go to story | Go to homepage

Did Social Over Spending Cause the Euro-Crisis? Carlo Panico: Most media pays no attention to scientific economic literature Go to story | Go to homepage

Watch live streaming video from globalrevolution at livestream.com

Failed Rhyme: "Recipe for Koch Libertarian John Birch Stew"

Suggested mantra while preparing this stew, "Only the strong need survive."

Start with putting into a large pot,
As much social Darwinian stock that can be got,

Add a bit of medieval "free market" hocus-pocus,
Throw in big chunks of "Liberty" mumbo-jumbo.

Next, dip your 'Dirty Harry' in for thirty seconds,
Safely hide it back in your breeches.

Beckon all addicts,
"Jump in the stew."

Dash in gullible Kansas Progs,
Bring to a slow boil.

Wrap up in bunting colored Red, White and Blue.
Alert everybody, "You can be rich, too."

Serve it up to the Masters' table,
Hurl the bones to the servants vicinity.
The leftovers charitably, to the sick outside.

Demand all take "personal responsibility."

Doesn't smell like Koch Libertarian John Birch Stew?

"It's your own fault."

The stock was soured, all Libertards know, "You can be rich, too.".

Uncle Academic's: "Trump on the stump, and the long run-up"

This just in ....

• Hendrik Hertzberg: Trumpery (The New Yorker): "Donald Trump said the other day, 'They won't be laughing if I'm elected President'. That they won't; anyway, he won't be. But they are laughing now. As is well known, gallows humor is an excellent way to keep from crying."
• Donald Trump: Mitt Romney A 'Small Business Guy' (VIDEO) (AP/The Huffington Post, First Posted: 04/17/11 11:32 AM ET Updated: 04/18/11 08:59 AM ET). The dude can't resist "Mine is bigger than his!" It remains one of his standard themes.
  
• A bit earlier: Robert De Niro Smacks Donald Trump (The Daily Beast, 23 Apr 11)

Back in 1990, Michael Lewis reviewed Trump's self-magnifying Surviving at the Top (from which, ironically, he had just fallen) [NYT, 30 June 1990; reprinted in Lewis' wonderful The Money Culture, Norton, 1991].

Trump's relentless accumulation leads people often to mistake his motive for greed, when what drives the man is more a pathological need for control. But control of what? Perhaps there was a time when he wanted to control his business; now he seems merely to want to control the opinion others hold of him. Trump has come to believe that if he nurtures his fame, his business will follow. "Success," he writes, "is so often just a matter of perception." That may explain why he goes berserk when a journalist tries to tinker with his image, but it still represents an odd and (it now seems) wrong-headed approach to commerce. The man whose first impulse after he buys a building is to change the façade has himself become nothing but a façade. And his book is a strained, sloppy exercise in restoration.

Trump's maxim here could be the motto of the National Association of Confidence Artists. (It should be affixed to every instrument his PR machinery cranks out in the course of the forthcoming campaign.)

Half a decade ago Lewis did a follow-up: The Art of Offending Donald Trump (Bloomberg, 6 Feb 2006). It's a hoot. Flip-flop he may -- on the issues of the day. But in character, he's "a man of constancy."
Dooensbury has been on Trump's case since back in the late 80s and early 90s, and took up the cudgels again in 1997.

• `DOONESBURY' CARTOON STUMPS BILLIONAIRE TRUMP (Deseret News archives: Published: Friday, Jan. 13, 1989 12:00 a.m. MST). Nice quotation on another theme of The D: "Most people are like me."
• TRUMP FISHING FOR YACHT TO REPLACE `BOAT' (Deseret News archives: Published: Thursday, June 29, 1989 12:00 a.m. MDT)
• NJ Trump expansion foe cited in 'Doonesbury' dies (AP,Wednesday, April 28, 2010 at 6:58 p.m.)

Added tidbit for Doonesbury fans: in the course of scouting around for these I ran across Paul Oldham's excellent "very brief guide to Doonesbury" that deserves notice.

Jim Hightower | TEA PARTY REBELS QUICKLY TAMED