Category: Legislation

Why Big Pharma is the Problem, not the Solution

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In their never ending quest to extort rents from the rest of us, big pharma has a new tactic, it has established bogus “safety programs” that prohibit the sales of their drugs to generic manufacturers:

For decades, pharmaceutical companies have deployed an array of tactics aimed at preventing low-cost copies of their drugs from entering the marketplace.

But federal regulators contend the latest strategy — which relies on a creative interpretation of drug safety laws — is illegal.

The Federal Trade Commission recently weighed in on a legal case over the tactic involving the drug maker Actelion, and earlier this month a federal suit was filed in another case in Florida.

“We definitely see this as a significant threat to competition,” said Markus Meier, who oversees the commission’s health care competition team.

The new approach is almost elegant in its simplicity: brand-name drug makers are refusing to sell their products to generic companies, which need to analyze them so they can create the copycat versions. Traditionally, the generic drug makers purchased samples from wholesalers. But because of safety concerns, an increasing number of drugs are sold with restrictions on who can buy them, forcing the generic manufacturers to ask the brand-name companies for samples. When they do, the brand-name firms say no.

Brand-name companies say they are protecting themselves — and patients — in case the drugs are somehow used improperly. They say no law requires one company to do business with another.

Advocates for generic drugs say the practice could limit access to the low-cost drugs, which they say have saved more than a trillion dollars over the last decade. They say the companies that have most aggressively pursued the tactic tend to be those with drugs that are nearing the end of their patent life.

The problem is that Pharma can use its monopoly rents to continue to game the political system to f%$# the rest of us.

It needs to stop.

Sarah Palin Did One Right Thing, and Alaska Republicans Vote to Overturn It

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She changed the royalty structure for oil extracted from the state, and now Republicans have reversed this in a give away to big oil:

The Alaska Senate on Sunday afternoon approved the oil-tax bill that passed the House 13 hours before, sending to Gov. Sean Parnell the measure he had sought to save billions of dollars for Alaska’s leading industry.

The Senate vote was 12-8 to concur with the revised bill that the House approved 24-15 just before 2 a.m. Sunday morning (on reconsideration, three Republicans switched to support the bill). The Senate vote came past the midway point of the 90th day of the 90-day session.

Parnell said that Alaska’s current tax regime, which he backed as lieutenant governor in 2007 when it was pushed by Gov. Sarah Palin, is broken. It is taking so much money from industry, he said, that producers have been investing elsewhere, explaining the decline in oil production here. His bill, modified but not changed drastically in either the House or Senate, effectively wipes out Palin’s tax policy, Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share, or ACES.

The new bill ends ACES big progressive tax steps, where tax rates increase as the price of oil rises. Parnell and supporters said the progressive tax was punitive toward industry. ACES supporters agreed that the tax took too much money at high oil prices, but the remedy was to lower the rate — not toss it.

Today’s Republican Party in Alaska: too radical, too stupid, and too obsequious to big oil for Sarah Palin.

That is truly a major mind f%$#, and Alaska, arguably the state which is least suited to the actual cultivation of bananas, is an a clown like banana republic.

Fabulous!!!

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The French upper house has passed the same sex marriage law:

Following months of protests both for and against the measure, the French Senate on Tuesday night passed an important provision in a package of laws that would legalize same-sex marriage in the country. The vote is a political win for embattled President Hollande.

French President François Hollande has had precious little to celebrate since he was elected last May. His country’s economy has refused to ignite, unemployment is nearing record highs and his government has been rocked by recent corruption allegations.

But this week, Hollande was finally able to take a key step toward fulfilling a major campaign promise. After months of passionate debate both among lawmakers and on the streets of Paris, the French Senate late Tuesday passed a key provision of the package of laws that would ultimately place same-sex marriage on par with heterosexual marriage in the country.

Following a 10-hour debate, the Senate voted 179 to 157 in favor of an article allowing gay and lesbian couples to wed. The law will only go into effect once the Senate approves all of its component parts. A further article still pending approval would allow gay married couples in the country to adopt. The first article passed on Tuesday, however, was the most important and virtually assures the legalization of gay marriage in the country.

It could still take several weeks before all of the provisions of the law are passed in the Senate. France’s lower house, the National Assembly, passed the law in mid-February.

Good for them.

Obama is Not On Our Side

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After increasing signs that even rank and file Republicans oppose to cutting Social Security, but Barack Obama is determined to throw mama from the train:

President Obama next week will take the political risk of formally proposing cuts to Social Security and Medicare in his annual budget in an effort to demonstrate his willingness to compromise with Republicans and revive prospects for a long-term deficit-reduction deal, administration officials say.

In a significant shift in fiscal strategy, Mr. Obama on Wednesday will send a budget plan to Capitol Hill that departs from the usual presidential wish list that Republicans typically declare dead on arrival. Instead it will embody the final compromise offer that he made to Speaker John A. Boehner late last year, before Mr. Boehner abandoned negotiations in opposition to the president’s demand for higher taxes from wealthy individuals and some corporations.

 Congressional Republicans have dug in against any new tax revenues after higher taxes for the affluent were approved at the start of the year. The administration’s hope is to create cracks in Republicans’ antitax resistance, especially in the Senate, as constituents complain about the across-the-board cuts in military and domestic programs that took effect March 1.

 Mr. Obama’s proposed deficit reduction would replace those cuts. And if Republicans continue to resist the president, the White House believes that most Americans will blame them for the fiscal paralysis.

Yeah, and who is going to take the blame for gutting Social Security?

Seriously, when I have referred to him as the Manchurian Democrat, I was being prophetic.

He just flushed Democratic protection of Social Security down the f%$#ing toilet.

This is so contemptible MoveOn has gotten its hipster head out of its hipster ass and condemned his move without taking the time to set it up as a lame video contest:

“President Obama’s plan to cut Social Security would harm seniors who worked hard all their lives. Under this plan, a typical 80-year-old woman would lose the equivalent of three months worth of food every year. That’s unconscionable.

 It’s even more outrageous given that Republicans in Congress aren’t even asking for this Social Security cut. This time, the drive to cut Social Security is being led by President Obama and Democrats.

 Millions of MoveOn members did not work night and day to put President Obama into office so that he could propose policies that would hurt some of our most vulnerable people. Just as we fought and defeated President Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security, we will mobilize and stop this attempt to diminish the vital guarantee of Social Security. MoveOn’s 8 million members will not stand by and watch a Democratic President chip away at one of the most successful government programs of all time. Every member of Congress — Democrat or Republican — who votes for this proposal should expect to be held accountable.”

Call your Congresscritter, and tell them that you will do your best to have them primaried if they vote to support this.

Yeah, the Sequester is Benign………

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That’s why cancer clinics are unable to treat thousands of patients:

Cancer clinics across the country have begun turning away thousands of Medicare patients, blaming the sequester budget cuts.

Oncologists say the reduced funding, which took effect for Medicare on April 1, makes it impossible to administer expensive chemotherapy drugs while staying afloat financially.

Patients at these clinics would need to seek treatment elsewhere, such as at hospitals that might not have the capacity to accommodate them.

“If we treated the patients receiving the most expensive drugs, we’d be out of business in six months to a year,” said Jeff Vacirca, chief executive of North Shore Hematology Oncology Associates in New York. “The drugs we’re going to lose money on we’re not going to administer right now.”

………

The care will likely be more expensive: One study from actuarial firm Milliman found that chemotherapy delivered in a hospital setting costs the federal government an average of $6,500 more annually than care delivered in a community clinic.

Those costs can trickle down to patients, who are responsible for picking up a certain amount of the medical bills. Milliman found that Medicare patients ended up with an average of $650 more in out-of-pocket costs when they were seen only in a hospital setting.

So, not only are we going to kill grandma, it’s going to cost us more money to do so.

Well, anything to make Grover Norquist happy, I guess.

It Works, and It Saves the Taxpayer Money, So Let’s Make it Illegal

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I am referring to the state-owned bank of North Dakota, which will be made illegal by the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP):

Clearly, from Wall Street’s perspective, the North Dakota bank must go, and all other state efforts to replicate it must be thwarted. Wall Street’s stealth weapon may be lodged within the latest corporate trade agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which currently is being negotiated in secret. We already know that Wall Street is seeking to remove all tariff restrictions that prevent the U.S. financial services industry from doing business in countries like Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. The biggest banks also want the treaty to eliminate “non-tariff” barriers including regulations that create “unfair” competition with state-owned financial enterprises.

 Depending on the final language, it is possible that the activities of the Bank of North Dakota could be ruled illegal because “foreign bankers could claim the BND stops them from lending to commercial banks throughout the state,” according to an analysis by Sam Knight in Truthout. How perfect for Wall Street: a foreign bank can be used as a shill to knock out the BND.

The nickel tour on BND is that it is a state-owned wholesale bank (it only makes loans to other banks), and the state keeps its money in an account there.

It generates significant savings, and significant savings for the taxpayer, and its senior executives are paid less than the President of the United States.  (The most highly paid executive is paid about ½ that of POTUS.)

Also, the bank provides a financing alternative to bond sales managed by Wall Street firms.

Considering the Obama administrations neoliberal philosophies, along with its predilections toward direct and indirect government subsidies for the TBTF banks, I’m inclined to believe it.  Particularly since that is what the Obama Administration’s point person is explicitly saying the trade agreement:

Publicly owned enterprises, for example, are being targeted by negotiators. One such entity in the United States that has been the subject of considerable interest in recent years is the Bank of North Dakota (BND) – the only fully publicly owned financial institution in the country. The BND, which is only allowed to lend wholesale, was a stabilizing force that helped keep the already energy-rich state insulated from the shock of the financial crisis (Alaska, for example, didn’t fare as well). It has also brought a small fortune to the state’s treasury – $340 million in net tax gain between 1997 and 2009. Legislators in at least 13 different states have proposed studying or emulating the North Dakota model – state-owned development of central-bank style institutions guaranteed by tax revenue. But if the TPP is passed, that option might not be available. [Chief TPP Negotiator for the Office of the US Trade Representative Barbara] Weisel said that State Owned Enterprises (SOE) are routinely “competing directly with private enterprises, and often in a way that is considered unfair.”

 “Some of the advantages that can be conferred on State Owned Enterprises are things like preferential financing,” Weisel said. “Those are things that wouldn’t be provided to private companies – preferential provision of goods and services provided by a government.”

 She said that “State Owned Enterprises – which in some cases can comprise a significant percentage of an economy – can be used to undermine what we’re otherwise trying to gain from this free trade agreement.”

What they are “trying to gain” with this agreement is to replace democracy with unregulated markets (aka looting).

Call your Congresscritter and tell him that you are absolutely opposed to the TPP.

Priceless

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The Michigan state legislature, chock full of wingnuts, after losing an initiative on creating emergency managers for localities, promptly repassed the law with an attached appropriation to make it unchallengable.

And now they have appointed an emergency manager for Detroit, who has tax liens on his home in Maryland:

The man charged with fixing Detroit’s faltering finances has been hit with four liens in four years from the state of Maryland for unpaid taxes, records show.

 State records show Kevyn D. Orr, who was appointed emergency manager on Thursday, has two outstanding liens on his $1 million home in Chevy Chase, Md., for $16,000 in unemployment taxes in 2010 and 2011. Two other liens of more than $16,000 in unemployment and income taxes were satisfied in 2010 and 2011, records show.

 Orr said he didn’t know anything about the liens when shown records of them Friday morning by The Detroit News.

 “I don’t know what they are,” Orr said, as his new boss, Gov. Rick Snyder, sat next to him in The News’ offices. “That’s surprising to me, to be honest.”

 Late afternoon, a spokeswoman for Snyder — who appointed Orr to the $275,000 per year post Thursday — said Orr spent the day researching the issue and would pay “in full ASAP.” The Washington, D.C., bankruptcy attorney blamed the problems on an outside accountant hired to file his tax returns, said Sara Wurfel, a Snyder spokeswoman.

He had 4 liens filed on his home, and did not know about it. Yeah ……… right.

The emergency management process is a clown show for a reason, and it’s no accident that over half of the black voters in Michigan will be under emergency managers.

First they cut state aid to troubled municipalities, and then effectively abolish .

The motivation for this is two fold:

  • Modern movement (teabagger) conservatives visceral opposition to majority minority communities having meaningful self rule.
  • By eliminating self rule, they eliminate electoral possibilities for less senior politicians.
    • Basically, they are hoping to eliminate the “farm system” for a generation of politicians for political advantage.

That is why we are seeing this clown show.

They don’t care about governance, they just care about power. Everything is subverted to to that.

The Maryland Lege Gets One Right

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The death penalty is no more in Maryland:

The General Assembly voted to repeal the death penalty Friday, calling for an end to Maryland’s 375-year history of capital punishment and joining a growing number of states outlawing the practice.

 After nearly two hours of impassioned debate, the House of Delegates approved Gov. Martin O’Malley’s repeal legislation, 82-56, sending the measure to the governor for his signature. The state Senate voted 27-20 for repeal last week.

 “We’re a better state for ending it,” said Del. Sandy Rosenberg, a Democrat from Baltimore who has long pushed for repeal.

Absolutely.

Who Says that Irony is Dead

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Yes, it’s ironic that one of the leading opponents of Marijuana decriminalization in New York State was was busted for possession, but true irony would involve him being beaten up by said cop”

Republican New York State Assemblyman Steve Katz (AD-99) was arrested Thursday morning for possession of marijuana after he was pulled over for speeding to Albany for a legislative session. The New York State Trooper who pulled over Katz smelled marijuana in the conservative Assemblyman’s car. Katz then surrendered a bag of weed to the Trooper.

 Katz, who has strong Tea Party backing in the lower Hudson Valley, has opposed legalizing medical marijuana treatments for New Yorkers with conditions such as cancer and glaucoma while in the Assembly. The outspoken conservative with was first elected to the Assembly in 2010. He sits on the alcoholism and drug abuse committee, as well as its committees on higher education, mental health and economic development.

I do love the headline to this story though, “Katznip“.

God Bless the Swiss People*

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The Swiss voters just overwhelmingly approved a referendum for executive compensation reform, including binding shareholder votes on executive pay, bans on golden parachutes, and merger bonuses:

Swiss voters have approved measures to curb executives’ pay and outlawed golden parachutes that can result on directors pocketing multimillion-pound payoffs.

Exit polls suggested almost 68% of those who turned out for Sunday’s referendum, and all of Switzerland’s 26 cantons, were in favour of the measures, which also include giving shareholders a binding vote on executive pay, banning golden hellos and banning bonuses that encourage buying or selling firms. Boards of directors that fail to comply face jail terms.

………

Minder says the massive sums demonstrate that company boards have lost control of pay and prefer to fork out “astronomical” salaries rather than pay dividends to shareholders.

Minder told the Swiss daily Le Temps that the only solution was to give shareholders the power to set pay. If his law is passed all compensation packages to board members and company heads would need their approval.

According to the proposed law, executives of listed companies who failed to abide by the new rules could face up to three years in jail and fines amounting to up to six years’ salary.

Needless to say, the elites are freaking out over this:

The Swiss government and the upper house of parliament opposed the initiative, warning it could provoke an exodus of big companies.

Minder rejected this, saying that the level of disquiet over executive pay and bonuses in other countries meant his initiative could become Switzerland’s “best export product”.

“It’s a great advantage for investors,” he said, suggesting that instead of chasing companies away, such a law would entice investors to set up firms in Switzerland.

I’m inclined to agree that this will make businesses more competitive, not less competitive.

The amount of capital that has been wasted on paying people about whom little is exceptional but their own sense of self-worth is staggering.

If the Swiss vote triggers a race to the bottom in executive compensation, the rest of us will benefit.

*I cannot f%$#ing believe that I f%$#ing said that.

George F%$# ing Will??!?!?!!?

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George Will is not just a partisan hack. He’s the guy who prepped Ronald Reagan for the 1980s debate while knowingly using Jimmy Carter’s stolen briefing books.

So, it is with some surprise that I note that he is calling for a breakup of the big banks:

With his chronically gravelly voice and relentlessly liberal agenda, Sherrod Brown seems to have stepped out of “Les Miserables,” hoarse from singing revolutionary anthems at the barricades. Today, Ohio’s senior senator has a project worthy of Victor Hugo — and of conservatives’ support. He wants to break up the biggest banks.

 He would advocate this even if he thought such banks would never have a crisis sufficient to threaten the financial system. He believes they are unhealthy for the financial system even when they are healthy. This is because there is a silent subsidy — an unfair competitive advantage relative to community banks — inherent in being deemed by the government, implicitly but clearly, too big to fail.

 The Senate has unanimously passed a bill offered by Brown and Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, directing the Government Accountability Office to study whether banks with more than $500 billion in assets acquire an “economic benefit” because of their dangerous scale. Is their debt priced favorably because, being TBTF, they are considered especially creditworthy? Brown believes the 20 largest banks pay less when borrowing — 50 to 80 basis points less — than community banks must pay.

 In a sense, TBTF began under Ronald Reagan with the 1984 rescue of Continental Illinois, then the seventh-largest bank. In 2011, the four biggest U.S. banks (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo) had 40 percent of all federally insured deposits. Today, the 5,500 community banks have 12 percent of the banking industry’s assets. The 12 banks with $250 billion to $2.3 trillion in assets total 69 percent. The 20 largest banks’ assets total 84.5 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product.

 ………

 By breaking up the biggest banks, conservatives will not be putting asunder what the free market has joined together. Government nurtured these behemoths by weaving an improvident safety net and by practicing crony capitalism. Dismantling them would be a blow against government that has become too big not to fail. Aux barricades!

(Emphasis original)

This is not what I expect from Will, and there is a part of me that is wondering whether this is more of a political tactic than a recognition of reality.

If the Republicans want an effective line of attack, they could do a lot worse than saying that Obama is determined to protect and defend the too big to fail banks.

It is something that would undermine any populist cred that Obama might seek to achieve, and as a bonus, it’s true.

So, either Will is late to this game, or he’s the the first volley in a Republican attack.

If I were a betting man, I’d call it even money.

They Blinked

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Just a day after some wingnuts in Michigan proposed a transvaginal ultrasound bill, Michigan’s House Speaker has said it’s not gonna happen:

Michigan’s House Speaker Jase Bolger (R) on Thursday categorically ruled out legislation introduced by his Republican colleagues to mandate transvaginal ultrasounds for women before having an abortion.

“While I want to be sure women have access to the best technology available, I have absolutely no interest in forcing a woman to have a transvaginal ultrasound,” Bolger said in a statement. “This House of Representatives will not pass a bill mandating transvaginal ultrasounds.”

Mr. Bolger is aware of how toxic the teabaggers in his caucus are, even as he has made his bed with them.

It’s Back!!!!

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A transvaginal ultrasound abortion bill has been submitted in the Michigan state house:

Michigan Republicans have introduced a bill requiring all women to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound before obtaining an abortion, a move that rekindles last year’s firestorm when other GOP-led states were considering similar measures.

The legislation introduced Tuesday in the state House ensures the “performance of a diagnostic ultrasound examination of the fetus at least two hours before an abortion is performed” and requires her to sign a consent form prior to the abortion. The bill was introduced by state Rep. Joel Johnson (R) and cosponsored by 22 fellow lawmakers.

Johnson was not available for comment Wednesday, but his legislative aide, Ben Frederick, confirmed to TPM that, while the legislation does not specifically mention transvaginal ultrasounds, the bill aims to require women to undergo an ultrasound prior to receiving an abortion.

Katie Carey, a spokeswoman for Michigan’s House Democratic Leader Tim Greimel, categorically said the bill would mandate transvaginal ultrasounds for women before an abortion.

Because, as the vice presidential hopes of Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell last year so clearly  showed, it’s such a political winner.

Why Unions are In Decline

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Kris Warner compares union penetration of the labor market in the United States, and compares it to that of Canada, and rather observes that there are some real reasons for this, and that they exist because labor rights have been under legislative assault in the United States since the passage of Taft-Hartley:

Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its annual summary of unionization in the U.S. It reports that in 2012, the union-membership rate of wage and salary workers was 11.3 percent, compared with 11.8 percent in 2011. The trend has been downward for some time: Fifty years ago, the figure was almost 30 percent.

It’s conventional wisdom that the post-industrial workforce doesn’t want to be unionized. But survey data show that workers’ desire to join unions has been growing since the 1980s, and a majority of nonunion workers would now vote for union representation if given the opportunity. So if workers want unions, why is unionization falling?

Commentators have also blamed the decline on everything from globalization to technological advances to the hollowing-out of American manufacturing. But those factors are only part of the story.

Canada’s experience offers another answer. Canada has gone through many of the same economic and social changes as the U.S. since the middle of the 20th century, yet it hasn’t seen the same precipitous decline in unionization. The unionization rate in the U.S. and Canada followed fairly similar paths from 1920 to the mid-1960s, at which point they began to diverge drastically.

Differences in labor law and public policy are at the root of this disparity.

No so-called “right to work” laws in Canada, card check, or elections that are conducted in 1-3 weeks, instead of months, or possibly years, the right to first contract arbitration, so that employers cannot simply stonewall negotiations to a new union for years.

I want us to be more like Canada.

Hurrray for the ……………… Swiss?

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Switzerland citizens have petitioned binding shareholder votes on executive compensation to referendum:

In February 2008, Thomas Minder, a Swiss businessman whose family-owned company is best known for its old-fashioned herbal toothpaste, attacked his banker, UBS Chairman Marcel Ospel, as if he were a form of stubborn plaque. At a shareholders’ meeting in Basel, he stormed the podium as Ospel addressed the crowd. Ospel’s bodyguards grappled with Minder and wrestled him away before he could land his symbolic blow — he was trying to hand the embattled head of Switzerland’s largest bank a bound copy of Swiss company law, which codifies corporate temperance.

 “Gentlemen, you are responsible for the biggest write-downs in Swiss corporate history,” Minder had railed just a few minutes before, referring to UBS’s loss of $50 billion during the subprime meltdown that prompted it to seek a government bailout. “Put an end to the Americanization of UBS corporate philosophy!”

 The bodyguards marched Minder out of the hall amid a chorus of boos and jeers. Two months later, Ospel was gone, taking the fall for UBS’s recklessness, but Minder’s campaign against big bonuses had only just begun; shortly after Ospel was ousted, Minder filed the 100,000 signatures needed to launch a referendum to impose some of the tightest controls on executive compensation in the world.

 Of the top 100 Swiss companies, 49 give shareholders a consulting vote on the pay of executives. A few other countries, including the United States and Germany, have introduced advisory “say on pay” votes in response to the anger over inequality and corporate excess that drove the Occupy Wall Street movement. Britain is also planning to implement rules in late 2013 that will give shareholders a binding vote on pay and “exit payments” at least every three years. Minder’s initiative goes further, forcing all listed companies to have binding votes on compensation for company managers and directors, and ban golden handshakes and parachutes. It would also ban bonus payments to managers if their companies are taken over, and impose severe penalties — including possible jail sentences and fines — for breaches of these new rules.

Honestly, I was hoping that someone would do this, but in my wildest dream, I would have not have thought that it was the Swiss who would be at the forefront of this movement.

It appears that I have some stereotypical views about the Swiss, basically as conventional banker types, which does not reflect the actual reality.  I’ve got to be more enlightened.

Contemptible

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Biotech firms are aggressively lobbying to ban the use of generic alternatives to their ruinously expensive drugs:

In statehouses around the country, some of the nation’s biggest biotechnology companies are lobbying intensively to limit generic competition to their blockbuster drugs, potentially cutting into the billions of dollars in savings on drug costs contemplated in the federal health care overhaul law.

The complex drugs, made in living cells instead of chemical factories, account for roughly one-quarter of the nation’s $320 billion in spending on drugs, according to IMS Health. And that percentage is growing. They include some of the world’s best-selling drugs, like the rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis drugs Humira and Enbrel and the cancer treatments Herceptin, Avastin and Rituxan. The drugs now cost patients — or their insurers — tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Two companies, Amgen and Genentech, are proposing bills that would restrict the ability of pharmacists to substitute generic versions of biological drugs for brand name products.

Bills have been introduced in at least eight states since the new legislative sessions began this month. Others are pending.

Seriously. We need to move away from proprietary IP licensed drug development leveraging government research to another model.

The current one is not working.

They use monopoly rents to further expand their monopoly rents by capturing the political process, and we all pay, over, and over, and over, and over again.

I Guess that Texas Was Sick of Being a Laughing Stock

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This is why the Texas legislature took the power to select textbooks away from Texas Board of Education:

Much has changed since then. In 2011, the Texas Legislature shifted authority to order textbooks from the state to individual school districts with Senate Bill 6. The law deprived the board of its final say-so. Now, school districts have control over how they spend their almost $800 million on learning materials.

“It’s pretty clear that it reduces our authority in the sense that we’re not the only game in town,” board member Michael Soto, D-San Antonio told the Austin American-Statesman.

Filmmaker Scott Thurman describes it this way: Before, “the textbook publishers had to meet 100 percent of the TEKS [Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards]. In The Revisionaries, I follow the process of making those standards. Now, they only have to meet 50 percent of the standards…Textbook publishers have a little more wiggle room.”

He speculates that SB6 was passed because of the controversy the board raised in 2009 and 2010. “According to moderate members of the board, the far right didn’t like this at all. They wanted complete control. They wanted to lock in those standards and not allow textbook publishers to work around it.”

Yes, having a Board of Ed that is batsh%$ insane is a problem, particularly when, before the new law, they dictated text books for 5 million students in one fell swoop, which would lead text book publishers to make their books for everyone match the frequently nonsensical requirements of this body.

This is very good news for education in the US.

Just When You Think that Republicans Get Any More Contemptible………

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A state legislator in New Mexico proposed legislation to make a rape victim who has an abortion guilty of felony destruction of evidence:

A bill introduced by a Republican state Representative would make it a third-degree felony for a woman who was impregnated as the result of a rape or incest to have an abortion.

House Bill 206, brought by Rep. Cathrynn Brown, R-Carlsbad, is sure to be one of the most controversial bills of the session. While other bills do all they can to discourage women from having abortions by delaying the process, this bill would actually make it a third degree felony to not carry to term a pregnancy that is the result of rape or incest.

ProgressNow New Mexico executive director Pat Davis calls the bill “blatantly unconstitutional” and opposes the bill.

“The bill turns victims of rape and incest, who have just been through a horrible sexual assault, into felons and forces them to become incubators of evidence for the state,” David said in a statement. “According to Republican philosophy, victims who are ‘legitimately raped’ will now have to carry the fetus to term in order to prove their case.”

It in net, and blew up in her face, and suddenly, she is saying that she will rewrite the bill so that it would only apply to the rapist if they coerce an abortion.

If that had been her goal in the first place, she would have put it in in the first place.

Seriously, how do evil f%$#s like this get elected?

This is Why You Cannot Trust Republicans

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The Virginia state senate is evenly divided by party, but yesterday, when a Democratic member of the institution was at the inauguration, they passed a Gerrymandered redistricting of the senate:

An ambush reapportionment effort by Virginia Senate Republicans spilled into partisan conflict tinged with racial resentment Tuesday, raising fears of a legislative train wreck that would derail the Republican governor’s final bid for a legacy.

 Black Senate Democrats referred to the GOP’s party-line power play Monday as “plantation politics,” reprising the specter of the same spiteful partisan gridlock that paralyzed the Senate last year.

 A scowling Gov. Bob McDonnell delivered a clear rebuke while most Republicans in the House maintained a cold, dismayed silence over the Senate move that caught them off guard.

 “Obviously the tactics used yesterday were a surprise and don’t think that’s the way business should be done,” McDonnell said. “I’m not happy about the things that have happened.”

 “What I’ve said is that this session should be about education and transportation, not redistricting and other things,” he said.

 Despair over the partisan rift was so deep that many lawmakers of both parties compared the damage to the 2001 session, the only one in modern Virginia history to adjourn without finishing work on the state budget.

 Ignoring ancient legislative traditions and even a just 2004 amendment to the Virginia Constitution that limits redistricting to once a decade, the Senate’s 20 Republicans shocked Capitol Square by their actions Monday. They abruptly amended a House bill that previously made minor technical boundary adjustments into a total revision of all 40 Senate districts passed in 2011.

 With Democratic Sen. Henry Marsh away at President Barack Obama’s inaugural Monday, Senate Republicans caught the 20 Senate Democrats one vote short and muscled Sen. John Watkins’ surreptitious floor amendment to passage on a 20-19 vote with little debate in just 30 minutes.

(emphasis mine)

As to “Governor Ultrasound’s” disapproval, I would not expect a veto.

After all, he disapproved of the transvaginal ultrasound bill, and signed that into law.

Even if he were inclined to veto the bill, McDonnell wants to be the Republican Presidential or Vice-Presidential pick in 2016, and dirty tricks and voter suppression has become a core value of today’s Republican Party.

Obama Makes Gun Control Proposal

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It is pretty much what I expected, with the high point for me, being the directive to the CDC to resume studies on the public health effects of gun violence:

The 23 executive actions Mr. Obama signed on Wednesday were largely modest initiatives to toughen enforcement of existing laws and to encourage federal agencies and state governments to share more information. Mr. Obama lifted a ban on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from conducting research on gun violence and directed that a letter be sent to health care providers saying doctors may ask patients about guns in their homes.

This, along with legislative proposals proposing closing the gun show loophole on background checks, and expanding the ability of federal agencies to track guns, are probably going to be the most significant.

By virtue of legislation (literally) written by the NRA over the past few decades, federal agencies have been prohibited from collecting date to examine the problem, or to determine which dealers are knowingly selling to criminals.

It was more than I expected.