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awkwardlyamusing-blog · 5 years

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Holcomb refuses to listen to constituents about Hoosier State train

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Holcomb refuses to listen to constituents about Hoosier State train

Instead of listening to ordinary Hoosiers along the train’s route he took the advice of the Department of Transportation, and killed the service.

The pundits are saying that Gov. Eric Holcomb, who just announced he’s running for re-election, is a shoo-in. After all, he’s not the perceived dour, judgmental Mike Pence, but a smiling, jovial figure. But as I learned recently, he’s also the one who puts right-wing dogma over public opinion.

Back in 2012, Amtrak announced that the four-day-a-week Hoosier State train between Indianapolis and Chicago would be discontinued in 2013 if the state did not fund its operation. Pence wasn’t enthusiastic about spending the money, but when people all along the line — especially in Lafayette, where Purdue students depend on the train —promised to help, Pence went along with it.

This year, Holcomb, instead of listening to ordinary Hoosiers along the train’s route, took the advice of his transit-hating Department of Transportation, and killed the service. While he was happy to subsidize the Indianapolis airport to the tune of $20 million, he wouldn’t even consider $3 million to maintain daily train service to Chicago.

Given Holcomb’s refusal to listen to constituents in the case of the Hoosier State, his smiling countenance is more of a mask. Democrats need to find someone good at unmasking.

Stephen Wylder

Elkhart

Create employment opportunities, offer mentorship for Indy’s youth

While we celebrate the thousands of recent graduates, others won’t seek post-secondary credentials or a career. EmployIndy estimates 30,000 people in Indianapolis, ages 16-24, are not enrolled or employed. And they are disproportionately people of color.

It’s tempting to suggest that if a person works hard, he or she can be successful, but we know environmental stressors and systemic racism often disrupt individual ambition. These young people, “opportunity youth,” are at a critical moment in their lives. Education and employment decrease a person’s likeliness to be incarcerated or to use government supports. They’re more likely to have stable housing and contribute to the growing economy.

We, the eight advisors of the Community Leadership Innovation Fund at Central Indiana Community Foundation, have committed $400,000 to create the first Opportunity Youth Collaborative to engage this population. Participants include: EmployIndy, Indiana Black Expo, Groundwork Indy, Martin Luther King Center and Hamilton County Youth Assistance Program.

We urge you to support these youth by offering mentorship, creating employment opportunities or by making a financial gift to these organizations. This population is vital to the current and future success of our community.

Instead of detention facilities, U.S. could provide foreign aid to Central America

Here’s a thought: Rather than spending millions, if not billions of dollars on detention facilities and border walls, develop a plan to assist the people in Central America to improve their living conditions in their homelands. The people who have migrated must provide reasons for their actions and this might be a starting point for developing a plan. If drug cartels are the problem, provide military support to eliminate the cartels. If it’s food or water or lack of energy, send some corporations down to address those issues. Money spent on these issues would better serve Central America.

Tom Schroeder

Indianapolis

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Enforce speed limits on Indiana’s highways

The recent tragic accident where a mother and twin toddlers were killed has been attributed to excessive speed of a truck driver. The speed limit on most if not all of I-465 is 55 mph. A lot of the time if one is driving at that speed you’re getting your doors blown off’ by autos and trucks that are flying by. When will the Indiana State Police and other law enforcement more vigorously enforce speed limits in all of Indiana? If ISP’s Supt. Douglas Carter and other law enforcement leaders say a lack of personnel and equipment is due to insufficient funding, then it’s up to Gov. Eric Holcomb, the General Assembly and local government to provide law enforcement with the means to slow all drivers to posted speed limits. Until all driver’s speeding is reduced, the slaughter of innocent persons on Indiana highways will continue.

David Schellberg

Carmel

Boost law enforcement to stop speeding violations

Another tragedy on I-465 involving a big rig. And where is law enforcement? Anymore, it is absolutely frightening to travel I-465. Recently I took a grandson to the airport from the far east-side and while I was doing 60 mph, most were going much faster. Please put law enforcement back on the roadways to stop all of the many violations that occur by the minute.

William Hilton

New Palestine

Republicans justify Trump’s racism, hypocrisy

I find it amazing that Republicans profess so much love for Israel that they cite a Democratic congresswoman’s questioning of AIPAC’s undeniably undue influence in our politics as justification for their racist comments against her when the base of the Republican Party is seemingly filled with neo-nazis and other various white supremacists who actually are anti-Semitic. Remember all those “very fine” people marching in Charlottesville chanting “Jews will not replace us?” Of course hypocrisy, racism and ignorance are hallmarks of the Republican Party. I also suppose that anyone who actually believes that climate change is a hoax, that Russia is our friend and that President Trump is a stable genius cannot be held accountable for what they say and do.

James Clark

Indianapolis

Have something to say? Submit a letter to the editor.

Democratic Party fumbles election rules

Once again the Democratic Party is preparing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. In order to qualify for the debate in September, the party leadership has decreed that candidates must not only have a required number of donors, but must also have support in certain polls. Let us hope not the same polls that showed Hillary Clinton winning in 2016.

The only thing that polls are good for is assessing name recognition. None of the current Democrat front runners are likely to garner Republican crossover voters. Only a relatively non-controversial moderate could do that, but the polling requirement will probably eliminate him or her. Having won the popular vote but lost the electoral college twice in the last 19 years, the Democrats are gearing up to do it again.

Antonia Sekula

Speedway

Trump encourages divisiveness in America

By definition a demagogue is a (political) leader who appeals to his or her constituency’s fears and prejudices and makes false promises to remedy their conceived problems. It seems to me that President Donald Trump’s picture ought to be next to this definition.

It causes me great consternation when I see Trump or Vice President Mike Pence at a rally where there are signs proclaiming, “Promises Made, Promises Kept.” The reason for this is that I can think of absolutely nothing that our president has accomplished that has benefited our country. Some would say that the tax cuts have benefited them, however, I challenge them to show me how. Others would say that appointing conservative judges will benefit our country and again I ask how. I have also heard that Trump has made our country safer and once again I am forced to ask how and from whom?

I am terribly tired of the divisiveness encouraged by Trump. With a slogan of Make America Great Again, I again have to ask how and for whom?

Mel Pfeiffer

Indianapolis

Humans disrupt ecosystem by killing turtles

A recent front page story on Hoosiers killing turtles for food is disturbing to say the least. It truly depicts why humans are one of the cruelest species on this planet. When humans enter an ecosystem and begin killing, we disrupt a perfect balance. It’s no wonder the Asian Carp are flourishing — there are no more turtles to eat the larvae.

“Killing animals for sport, for pleasure, for adventure, and for hides and furs is a phenomena which is at once disgusting and distressing. There is no justification in indulging in such acts of brutality,” the Dalai Lama once said. A turtle has one defense — strong jaws. They will never win against a human predator. I feel very sorry for these poor, beautiful creatures who are terrified of these large men invading the creek homes they may have been inhabiting for a hundred years or more — not ever bothering those around them. These Hoosiers need to find a better Indiana tradition to keep alive, or better yet, start a new tradition. Teach compassion to the younger generations. The world will be a much better place when we treat those species who are smaller than us, and even other humans who may be different than us, with respect and kindness.

Lindsey Hehman

Indianapolis

‘Many of us love this country too much to leave it’

As the son of an immigrant I feel compelled to express my disgust for the president’s racist remarks and his suggestion that four congresswomen leave the country if they don’t love it. What he fails to realize is that many of us love this country too much to leave it. We love it too much to stand by in complacent and complicit silence as its moral fiber is shredded. We love it too much to see it become a nation scorned by the rest of the world. And, most of all, we love it too much to blindly wrap ourselves in the flag and cover our eyes to xenophobia, misogyny, and racism.

Jim Solomon

Indianapolis

Trump makes no racist references to Congresswomen

It is with continued disappointment that I read the July 18 front page article “New Lines of Division.” With no attribution, IndyStar published the sentence: “Trump’s aggressive condemnation of women of color in Congress…” The president made no reference to these four women in any racial sense.

Had these ladies been Caucasian and from Canada, the president would have said the same thing — and no mention of race would have been made. However, all four of these ladies have made some awful, unpatriotic statements about our country in the past. They deserved to called out for them. The president’s statements had nothing to do with race.

Ever since President Barack Obama entered the White House, the Democrats have kept race on the front burner. It is a shame, because It keeps these wounds from healing and it really shows that the Democrats do not really want racial harmony in America.

Gordon Rose

Fishers

Immigrants, nonwhites fight for American freedoms

In the July 18 Letters to the Editor, one could interpret by letter writer Ryan Sorg’s viewpoint that he is consumed by hate for anyone having a difference of opinion when it comes to President Trump, and he wants to draw a line whereby he labels certain people to have no right to be representation. He wants to automatically label everyone else not conforming to Republicanism (Trumpism actually) as those who do not love this country. He suggests that they are anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, racist, communist, and anti-American.

Yes, too many people died for this nation in past wars for the common good, and a number of those people who went to fight were of non-white skinned races, immigrants that were not yet citizens, and even Democrats. Sir, President Trump is the one dividing this country.

Dennis Henderson

Indianapolis

Humanitarian crisis exists at border

Last Thursday I listened to an interview on NPR that Ari Shapiro conducted with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). Jordan is the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee who had, that day, heard testimony from Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan. Jordan played some semantic games in order to deflect attention from the Inspector General’s finding that the conditions were deplorable in border detention centers, and then blamed Democrats for failing to provided funding.

Shapiro tried several times to ask why the Republicans didn’t provide the funding in 2018 when they controlled both the House and the Senate, but Jordan, as he is prone to do, just kept talking. McAleenan, at the hearing, testified that he had warned Congress a year ago that there was a humanitarian crisis coming at the border. When Shapiro finally was able to ask his question, Jordan said he was only talking about the last two-and-a-half months when he blamed the Democrats. These are the games our politicians play on both sides. We have our fellow human beings caged in conditions that would not be allowed in a dog kennel and Congress just wants to point fingers. It seems that politics is more important than humanity.

Doug Broberg

Fishers

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grgedoors02142 · 7 years

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Natural Gas Industry Brings A Fake Grassroots Group To Eastern Pipeline Fights

Amid intensifying fights over new natural gas pipelines in Virginia, New Jersey and New England, the gas industry is ramping up its defense with a new front group meant to appeal to East Coasters, who have mostly avoided the fights over oil and gas development that have rocked Western states.

Your Energy launched quietly in Virginia last month, ahead of a November gubernatorial election that is shaping up to be a “referendum on pipelines,” as one local newspaper put it.

The group, which is funded by the American Gas Association, debuted as a co-sponsor of a conference at the Virginia Chamber of Commerce on May 24. Jim Cheng, who served as secretary of commerce under then-Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) and is not on the group’s payroll, spoke on its behalf.

“I am here today assisting a new organization, called Your Energy Virginia, that was created to raise the energy IQ of Virginians about the many benefits of natural gas,” said Cheng, according to audio obtained by HuffPost. “And to try to follow on these radical and uniformed elements within your communities that try to intimidate or shut down pro-energy supporters.”

As the name implies, Your Energy paints itself as a grassroots organization, something akin to the Sierra Club or the American Civil Liberties Union, but for folks who support natural gas. Its Virginia chapter’s website features promotional materials about the economic and environmental benefits of natural gas and prompts visitors to join by submitting their names, email addresses and ZIP codes. The only indication that Your Energy is a public relations campaign paid for by a major industry association appears on the privacy policy page.

The website is much clearer about Your Energy’s adversaries: The group vows to stand up to “anti-energy opponents, often out-of-state extremists,” that are “spreading misinformation and fear to stop natural gas and energy infrastructure.”

This is just the Virginia arm of a national-level Your Energy America campaign that the American Gas Association is rolling out this year. There’s an active website in Connecticut as well, and domain names have been registered in Ohio and New Jersey. Dave McCurdy, the American Gas Association president and chief executive, said his group plans to expand to more states, including on the West Coast, by the end of the year.

“The whole principle behind Your Energy is that we reject the false choice of an opposition movement that believes keeping natural resources in the ground is the only solution to climate change,” McCurdy told HuffPost. “That’s not just a false choice; it’s a dangerous choice.”

Gas companies have faced fierce opposition to new pipelines in places like Colorado, Utah and Oklahoma over the past decade. In 2014, the Western Energy Alliance brought on a lobbyist nicknamed “Dr. Evil” who encouraged the industry to wage “endless war” against environmentalists, smearing them as “radical,” “extremist” and conspiracy-minded clods. In the last few years, those fights have moved eastward as companies move to build up pipeline infrastructure in such states as Connecticut, Maryland and New Jersey, with mixed results. Virginia, the nation’s 12th-most populous state, has become a hotbed for pipeline disputes as companies seek to build two new conduits across the state.

The politics surrounding natural gas can get dicey. It is a fossil fuel, and the biggest industry players are the same corporations that produce oil, a fuel with a much higher emissions footprint. The drilling technique that made natural gas cheap and abundant in the U.S. ― hydraulic fracturing, or fracking ― involves blasting water laced with chemicals and sand deep underground to split bedrock and release gas. Traces of those chemicals have been found in groundwater, and fracking operations have been linked to earthquakes in Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Canada. Drilling sites regularly leak methane, a major component in natural gas and a powerful greenhouse gas that traps roughly 30 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.

But burning natural gas releases much lower amounts of greenhouse gases than burning other fossil fuels. As utilities have replaced coal with natural gas, U.S. emissions have dropped by double digits. The natural gas industry is also a growing source of jobs, employing nearly 115,000 people in the U.S. last year at an average salary of $78,890, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Activists in both parties pick and chose which benefits and drawbacks they highlight. Climate-hawk Democrats condemn the emission of planet-warming gases, while Republicans highlight its role in creating jobs and making the U.S. less dependent on foreign energy. President Donald Trump’s aggressive push for fossil fuels may further stoke partisan divides in energy politics, pitting fossil fuels, particularly coal, against renewables like wind and solar. McCurdy, a former Democratic congressman from Oklahoma, said he wants to position the American Gas Association, a 99-year-old group that includes many of the country’s biggest utilities and natural gas producers, in the middle.

“We’re the mainstream guys,” he said. “That’s the problem these days. These extreme kind of candidates and positions they take just inflame a small base to get publicity.”

The rhetoric coming from Your Energy echoes a playbook that’s already been used in the West. “What seems to be happening on the East Coast, and what happened in Colorado, is they said these people that are complaining about air quality and pollution issues caused by the oil and gas companies are outsiders, they’re radicals, and they’re not like you,” said Jesse Coleman, a researcher on fracking politics for Greenpeace USA.

“It’s crucial for the companies behind these front groups to portray normal community activism as somehow abhorrent or portray it as something other than what it is,” Coleman added. “You can’t really win when your opposition just wants to keep their kids healthy, so you have to make them into some sort of bogeyman.”

With Virginia heading into a gubernatorial primary on Tuesday, the battle there over two proposed natural gas pipelines has taken center stage. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline, owned by the powerful utility Dominion Energy, would stretch 600 miles from West Virginia, through Virginia, to North Carolina. The Mountain Valley Pipeline would carry gas 303 miles from northwest West Virginia to southern Virginia. Unlike the famously controversial Keystone XL and the Dakota Access pipelines, both of which convey liquid natural gas, the proposed pipelines across Virginia would carry compressed natural gas, which is lighter than air and usually dissipates into the atmosphere if the pipe springs a leak.

Nearly all of the state’s Republican gubernatorial candidates support the conduits ― except Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, who has raised concerns that pipeline builders could use eminent domain to “trample on people’s property rights.”

The debate has split the Democratic candidates. Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam has remained steadfastly neutral on the pipelines, insisting only that they be subject to environmental review. His progressive opponent, former Rep. Tom Perriello, is fiercely opposed to both pipelines and boasts of being the only candidate in the race to refuse donations from Dominion, by far the largest energy interest in the state. Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), who is barred by state law from seeking re-election this year, supports the pipelines.

You can’t really win when your opposition just wants to keep their kids healthy, so you have to make them into some sort of bogeyman. Jesse Coleman, researcher at Greenpeace USA

Dominion’s grip on Virginia politics is its own issue. In February, state lawmakers voted down a bill that would have prohibited the utility giant, long considered a kingmaker in the state, from donating to public officials. Roughly 60 candidates in Virginia, most of them Democrats, have pledged to refuse money from Dominion anyway, signaling a seismic shift in political fundraising there.

The company has been a member of the American Gas Association since at least 2009, according to corporate disclosure forms. McCurdy declined to describe how big a role Dominion may be playing in Your Energy; a Dominion spokesman did not return a call requesting comment.

To Ernie Reed, a 66-year-old anti-pipeline activist in Nelson County, Virginia, the launch of Your Energy marks another front in a battle he’s been fighting for years. In May 2014, Dominion sent him a letter asking to survey his property to make way for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. If Your Energy wants to paint him as an extremist outsider, he wishes them luck.

“I’ve been paying taxes in Virginia since 1979,” said Reed, the president of the conservation group Wild Virginia. “Any claim that the people opposing these pipelines are uninformed is as far off the mark as it could possibly be.”

The former schoolteacher said the “unprecedented” amount of time and money that energy companies are spending to promote the benefits of pipelines to local residents serves only to show that they have the weaker case.

Stephanie Weber, the Virginia director for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, said she’s seen a shift in public opinion about pipelines in recent years amid the high-profile protests over the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines.

“There will always be the faction of people who say, ‘We need the energy, this creates jobs,’ and there’s no amount of research that will sway them,” Weber told HuffPost. “But increasingly we have more and more ― and I would say even a majority at this point ― who really understand that the energy infrastructure is being basically thrust down our throats for the benefit of corporations.”

As a Virginia resident for 16 years, she said she’s no stranger to energy companies’ bullying tactics against what she called “true Virginians” ― people fighting to protect land that has been in their family for more than 100 years.

“They’re seeing corporations say, ‘This is mine, and mine for a profit,’ and having land values along the pipeline plummet so folks who may even want to sell can’t get their money’s worth,” Weber said. “This is a scare tactic that pits the corporation against the people, and it just is sad.”

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chpatdoorsl3z0a1 · 7 years

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Natural Gas Industry Brings A Fake Grassroots Group To Eastern Pipeline Fights

Your Energy launched quietly in Virginia last month, ahead of a November gubernatorial election that is shaping up to be a “referendum on pipelines,” as one local newspaper put it.

“We’re the mainstream guys,” he said. “That’s the problem these days. These extreme kind of candidates and positions they take just inflame a small base to get publicity.”

You can’t really win when your opposition just wants to keep their kids healthy, so you have to make them into some sort of bogeyman. Jesse Coleman, researcher at Greenpeace USA

type=type=RelatedArticlesblockTitle=Related Stories + articlesList=591b09a4e4b07d5f6ba62c03,59383d15e4b0c5a35c9b44fe,58cc4ad5e4b0ec9d29dc23bb,58da777ae4b018c4606b99f9,59089118e4b05c397682ce92

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2rm3Hla

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porchenclose10019 · 7 years

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Natural Gas Industry Brings A Fake Grassroots Group To Eastern Pipeline Fights

Your Energy launched quietly in Virginia last month, ahead of a November gubernatorial election that is shaping up to be a “referendum on pipelines,” as one local newspaper put it.

“We’re the mainstream guys,” he said. “That’s the problem these days. These extreme kind of candidates and positions they take just inflame a small base to get publicity.”

You can’t really win when your opposition just wants to keep their kids healthy, so you have to make them into some sort of bogeyman. Jesse Coleman, researcher at Greenpeace USA

type=type=RelatedArticlesblockTitle=Related Stories + articlesList=591b09a4e4b07d5f6ba62c03,59383d15e4b0c5a35c9b44fe,58cc4ad5e4b0ec9d29dc23bb,58da777ae4b018c4606b99f9,59089118e4b05c397682ce92

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2rm3Hla

#DIYS

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pat78701 · 7 years

Text

Natural Gas Industry Brings A Fake Grassroots Group To Eastern Pipeline Fights

Your Energy launched quietly in Virginia last month, ahead of a November gubernatorial election that is shaping up to be a “referendum on pipelines,” as one local newspaper put it.

“We’re the mainstream guys,” he said. “That’s the problem these days. These extreme kind of candidates and positions they take just inflame a small base to get publicity.”

You can’t really win when your opposition just wants to keep their kids healthy, so you have to make them into some sort of bogeyman. Jesse Coleman, researcher at Greenpeace USA

type=type=RelatedArticlesblockTitle=Related Stories + articlesList=591b09a4e4b07d5f6ba62c03,59383d15e4b0c5a35c9b44fe,58cc4ad5e4b0ec9d29dc23bb,58da777ae4b018c4606b99f9,59089118e4b05c397682ce92

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2rm3Hla

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stormdoors78476 · 7 years

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Natural Gas Industry Brings A Fake Grassroots Group To Eastern Pipeline Fights

Your Energy launched quietly in Virginia last month, ahead of a November gubernatorial election that is shaping up to be a “referendum on pipelines,” as one local newspaper put it.

“We’re the mainstream guys,” he said. “That’s the problem these days. These extreme kind of candidates and positions they take just inflame a small base to get publicity.”

You can’t really win when your opposition just wants to keep their kids healthy, so you have to make them into some sort of bogeyman. Jesse Coleman, researcher at Greenpeace USA

type=type=RelatedArticlesblockTitle=Related Stories + articlesList=591b09a4e4b07d5f6ba62c03,59383d15e4b0c5a35c9b44fe,58cc4ad5e4b0ec9d29dc23bb,58da777ae4b018c4606b99f9,59089118e4b05c397682ce92

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2rm3Hla

#DIYS

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exfrenchdorsl4p0a1 · 7 years

Text

Natural Gas Industry Brings A Fake Grassroots Group To Eastern Pipeline Fights

Your Energy launched quietly in Virginia last month, ahead of a November gubernatorial election that is shaping up to be a “referendum on pipelines,” as one local newspaper put it.

“We’re the mainstream guys,” he said. “That’s the problem these days. These extreme kind of candidates and positions they take just inflame a small base to get publicity.”

You can’t really win when your opposition just wants to keep their kids healthy, so you have to make them into some sort of bogeyman. Jesse Coleman, researcher at Greenpeace USA

type=type=RelatedArticlesblockTitle=Related Stories + articlesList=591b09a4e4b07d5f6ba62c03,59383d15e4b0c5a35c9b44fe,58cc4ad5e4b0ec9d29dc23bb,58da777ae4b018c4606b99f9,59089118e4b05c397682ce92

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2rm3Hla

#DIYS

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repwinpril9y0a1 · 7 years

Text

Natural Gas Industry Brings A Fake Grassroots Group To Eastern Pipeline Fights

Your Energy launched quietly in Virginia last month, ahead of a November gubernatorial election that is shaping up to be a “referendum on pipelines,” as one local newspaper put it.

“We’re the mainstream guys,” he said. “That’s the problem these days. These extreme kind of candidates and positions they take just inflame a small base to get publicity.”

You can’t really win when your opposition just wants to keep their kids healthy, so you have to make them into some sort of bogeyman. Jesse Coleman, researcher at Greenpeace USA

type=type=RelatedArticlesblockTitle=Related Stories + articlesList=591b09a4e4b07d5f6ba62c03,59383d15e4b0c5a35c9b44fe,58cc4ad5e4b0ec9d29dc23bb,58da777ae4b018c4606b99f9,59089118e4b05c397682ce92

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2rm3Hla

#DIYS

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rtawngs20815 · 7 years

Text

Natural Gas Industry Brings A Fake Grassroots Group To Eastern Pipeline Fights

Your Energy launched quietly in Virginia last month, ahead of a November gubernatorial election that is shaping up to be a “referendum on pipelines,” as one local newspaper put it.

“We’re the mainstream guys,” he said. “That’s the problem these days. These extreme kind of candidates and positions they take just inflame a small base to get publicity.”

You can’t really win when your opposition just wants to keep their kids healthy, so you have to make them into some sort of bogeyman. Jesse Coleman, researcher at Greenpeace USA

type=type=RelatedArticlesblockTitle=Related Stories + articlesList=591b09a4e4b07d5f6ba62c03,59383d15e4b0c5a35c9b44fe,58cc4ad5e4b0ec9d29dc23bb,58da777ae4b018c4606b99f9,59089118e4b05c397682ce92

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2rm3Hla

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rtscrndr53704 · 7 years

Text

Natural Gas Industry Brings A Fake Grassroots Group To Eastern Pipeline Fights

Your Energy launched quietly in Virginia last month, ahead of a November gubernatorial election that is shaping up to be a “referendum on pipelines,” as one local newspaper put it.

“We’re the mainstream guys,” he said. “That’s the problem these days. These extreme kind of candidates and positions they take just inflame a small base to get publicity.”

You can’t really win when your opposition just wants to keep their kids healthy, so you have to make them into some sort of bogeyman. Jesse Coleman, researcher at Greenpeace USA

type=type=RelatedArticlesblockTitle=Related Stories + articlesList=591b09a4e4b07d5f6ba62c03,59383d15e4b0c5a35c9b44fe,58cc4ad5e4b0ec9d29dc23bb,58da777ae4b018c4606b99f9,59089118e4b05c397682ce92

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2rm3Hla

#DIYS

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mdye · 7 years

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What would happen if we gave everyone free money, every year, forever, with no strings attached?

This is a concept known as a “universal basic income,” or UBI. The idea is to guarantee everyone some minimum amount of money so that no one has to live in poverty. And while it might sound a little crazy, the idea is being tested around the world — with pilot studies in Canada, Finland, the Netherlands, Kenya, and even one in the United States, based out of Silicon Valley.

In the most recent episode of the Weeds in the Wild podcast, we explored a Kenyan pilot experiment run by a nonprofit called GiveDirectly. They’re giving everyone in a small village around $22 a month for the next 12 years. We talked about how it might shape policies overseas.

In our reporting, we also talked to two people about something slightly different: what a universal basic income might mean here in the United States.

Bob Greenstein has been working on poverty-related policies for 45 years. He’s with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Andy Stern is a former national union leader.

Stern and Greenstein both like the concept of universal basic income and think that people could be trusted to spent a basic income appropriately.

But when it comes to making an American universal basic income a reality, the two have examined the same set of facts and come to fundamentally different conclusions. We spoke to Greenstein and Stern on different occasions, but we asked each of them questions about arguments the other had raised. We’ve put them into a kind of dialogue, so that they can address each other’s claims.

Would a universal basic income work in the United States?

Greenstein is skeptical of the idea. He worries, given his experience in the United States, that creating something like a UBI here would mean slashing other important safety net programs. And he doesn’t think it’s worth the trade-off:

UBI would replace virtually every program in the federal budget focused on low- or moderate-income people.

No food stamps. No Medicaid. No low-income housing. Forget child care. Head Start. Job training. Pell Grants to help people attend college.

You're going to have more deep poverty, homelessness and things like that. That's not what UBI proponents favor, I know. I've had discussions with people where they say, Bob, that's not what we're calling for! I know!

But what they're calling for? I don't see it in the US politically. I share the goals; I just don’t think you can get there from here. And I want to focus on progress we can make.

Stern argues that the US is losing jobs to automation and new technology, and is only going to lose more. He says we need to start getting very creative about ways to solve the problems that job loss will create. A universal basic income might mean cuts to welfare, Stern admits, but he argues that it would be an effective way to build bipartisan support, or “crossover.”

I think it's politically unfeasible in a ... world that, at the moment, politically, is controlled at a federal level by Republicans that we're going to hold on to the things that Bob says we need to improve upon.

I think you need crossover. And I think Bob is right that if you gave the Republicans a free rein, they would cut too many programs and hurt too many people, but I don't think that's the starting place for the discussion.

I am for getting rid of some of basic welfare as we know it. I would get rid of EITC [the earned income tax credit], food stamps, [and] unemployment insurance, and substitute cash for it. I would never touch, you know, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. So I'm taking about half of the existing welfare programs and repurposing them for a universal basic income.

How would we pay for it?

The two also disagree about whether it would be possible to fund a universal basic income even if you did make cuts to welfare as we know it. Stern has a plan to offer $1,000 a month to every citizen between the ages of 18 and 64. He estimates it will cost around $1.7 trillion, and believes we could find that by shuffling around our tax code:

I think paying for things is always important. I say that there's $500 billion as part of the 122 current cash transfer programs that could be repurposed for this.

There's $1.3 trillion in sort of corporate tax expenditures, which mostly go to [the] middle and upper middle class. There’re tax breaks, you know, for things like charitable deductions or your second vacation home that most working people don't ever get to take advantage of...

People who've lived in other countries understand that we're the only country in the OECD that doesn't have a value-added tax of any level. You know, that would raise a tremendous amount of money.

So to me it's about political will, not a question of is there enough money in the United States.

Again, Greenstein doesn’t believe that’s politically feasible. He told us that a radical shift like this is unlikely to pass, especially since it involves the government giving cash payments to people without jobs. Policy change, he says, is incremental:

Yes, I know that UBI supporters, some of them, say, “No, no, we'll do huge taxes on the rich.” Well, we haven't done a really good job of getting them through. You completely lose the right side of your left-right coalition when you do that.

And besides, we're going to need very substantial tax increases in the years ahead just to shore up and prevent insolvency in Social Security and Medicare, to deal with other big problems like crumbling infrastructure, climate change...

If I thought the political culture in the US was like Western Europe, where you have much higher levels of taxation, and more universal support, I'd love that. I'm for that. But that's not the real world in the US.

The political culture and history of the US is very clear that policymakers and the general public do not support big cash payments for poor people who don't work, who don't have jobs, who aren't employed.

I don’t agree with that! I’ve spent years fighting that!

I have really learned in 45 years in the trenches that there is not the same kind of support in this country. I wish there were!

Wishing doesn't make it so.

I've been working here on poverty and budget issues since 1972, and what I've really learned is: Change comes incrementally in this country.

It's unglamorous. It's frustrating. It's imperfect. The name of the game is just to spend year after year, decade after decade, working as hard as you can.

If automation eliminates jobs, a basic income could be a solution

Stern thinks the loss of jobs to automation is going to change what is and isn’t politically feasible:

I think technology is gonna destroy the labor market as we know it, and it's going to create a desperate need to find solutions in order to provide social stability.

Wealthy people, historically — when there were riots in the ’60s, you know — were able to respond in order to in some ways protect themselves. But now their kids, middle-class kids, are going to be affected.

So I think there will be a growing political movement that includes middle-class people involved.

And, Stern adds, the policies Greenstein is fighting for may not be any more feasible than a UBI in the current political climate.

We're about to lose some of the most basic programs we had, like Medicare, potentially. I don’t think there's any proof that it's any more politically feasible to hold on to what we have than to build on a big new idea.

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