Afternoon Open Thread

30 Aug 2010 Author: rikyrah

Montgomery Residents Accuse City of Demolishing Homes to Sidestep Eminent Domain Laws
Mayor Says He’s Simply Cleaning Up His City; Residents Charge City With Targeting Low-Income Families
A group of Montgomery, Alabama residents, once too nervous to buck their elected officials, are organizing in protest what they say is the city’s “reprehensible” practice of demolishing homes to sidestep state eminent domain laws.
“It’s ridiculous the city is doing this,” native Montgomery resident and de-facto community leader Karen Jones said.
“The city is intimidating people,” she said. “They don’t try to give people due process of setting up fines or even putting up a fluorescent poster in the front yard saying, ‘We’re going to demolish your house.’”
Residents and activists have accused city leaders of using a local blight ordinance to target low-income Montgomery residents so the city can take their property and re-sell it to high-end developers without paying compensation.

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mon_dieu_ishmael
This should not be happening. It is a flagrant abuse of civic power.
EdnaMae
Same old same only a different city, get rid of the poor and let the area rebuild “better homes” and price them out, and, let all those wanted to escape the “hood” and cities return to be closer to downtown areas that are now hip.
NSangoma
~
Karen Jones, did grandmama's house have indoor plumbing?
Negroes, please !
`
RobM
We do not have to reclaim the DREAM. We never lost it.
Insult to injury w/ the video being FOX news. The censors must have been asleep.
RobM
We have not lost the DREAM. Therefore there is no reason to reclaim it.
If you can't have unemployment insurance you can have welfare:
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_region/2010…
SouthernGirl2
Rick Sanchez Calls Obama ‘Cotton Picking President,’ Apologizes (VIDEO)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/30/rick-s…
Rick Sanchez referred to Barack Obama as the “cotton picking president” on CNN Monday.
Sanchez made the comment in a discussion with CNN correspondent Jessica Yellin on “Rick’s List” about the many falsehoods that have been spread about Obama, such as the claim that he is a Muslim or that he is not a citizen of the United States. His voice rising in frustration, Sanchez asked Yellin why people continued to believe the false rumors:
“He is the cotton picking president of the United States! If the president of the United States doesn’t have enough of a bully pulpit to convince people that…a lie is a lie…what the hell is going on here?”
After a commercial break, Sanchez immediately apologized. He said that soon after he had used the phrase, people had started contacting him on Twitter, pointing out that he had just used it when referring to a black man — an insensitive reference, given the phrase’s connections to slavery.
“You know I didn’t even realize it?” he said. “I was just saying ‘cotton picking’ because it’s a term that I’ve used because I grew up in the South…however, I apologize for using it, in case it was taken by anyone as an act of disrespect.”
rikyrah
August 30, 2010
SMALL BUSINESSES WAIT FOR GOP TO STOP PLAYING GAMES…. A month ago yesterday, there was reason for optimism on the small-business bill pending in the Senate. The aid package included tax breaks, new incentives, and an attempt to expand credit through a lending program that utilizes local banks, and with 59 supporters, the Democratic majority only needed one GOP vote to overcome yet another Republican filibuster.
They didn't get that vote. Shortly before the Senate broke for its recess, Republicans threw a bit of a tantrum over the number of amendments they were allowed to consider, and unanimously blocked the chamber from voting on the bill.
The consequences of GOP game-playing are as discouraging as they are obvious.
Small businesses have put hiring, supply buying and real estate expansion on hold as they wait out the vote on a small-business-aid bill that stalled in the Senate earlier this summer.
The much-debated legislation offers tax breaks and waived loan fees. But it also comes with more divisive components, such as a $30 billion fund that would help community banks give loans to small businesses…. Many small businesses had hoped the legislation would pass the Senate by the end of July. With two weeks left until Congress reconvenes, those firms are in a holding pattern.
“I'm still waiting for Congress to sign off on the bill,” says Amarjit Kaur, who runs a convenience store and gas station in Wood Village, Ore. She leases her property but has a chance to buy it. With the waived-fee provision, Kaur says she could save about $35,000 on her pending loan.
Keep in mind, the bill doesn't add to the deficit. The only reason Republicans blocked a vote was because they demanded that they be able to offer amendments to the small-business package that have nothing to do with small businesses — including measures related to border security and Bush tax cuts. They don't really expect the amendments to pass, but GOP leaders hoped (a) that the votes would put Dems in an awkward spot; and (b) the process of considering them would take up more floor time, and make it impossible to consider other legislation this year.
The Democratic leadership balked, so the vote on the bill was put off. And as a result, about a thousand small businesses are ready to expand, but are instead just sitting there, waiting for our political system and the Republican Party to be less ridiculous. (Whether the GOP did this deliberately, worried that small-business expansion before the elections might help the economy and interfere with Republican election plans, is unclear.)
Often, when the political world considers the GOP's scandalous obstructionism on Capitol Hill, we're reminded of an exasperatingly dysfunctional policymaking process. But it's worth remembering from time to time that the nonsense carries with it real-world consequences.
—Steve Benen 10:00 AM
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/indiv…
rikyrah
Wash. Examiner tries to spin away News Corp. RGA donation with apples to oranges comparisons
August 30, 2010 10:25 am ET by Julie Millican
The Washington Examiner brings us the right-wing media's latest attempt to spin away News Corp.'s $1 million donation to the Republican Governors Association by absurdly comparing CBS, NBC, and ABC employees' 2008 campaign donations with News Corp.'s donation to the RGA. Shockingly, it found that President Obama and Democratic campaign committees received more cash than their Republican counterparts.
This analysis falls flat for numerous reasons. 1) Donations by a company's employees and the donations of a corporation itself are not comparable. 2) Simply searching donations by those who identified themselves as employees of NBC, CBS, and ABC will quite naturally include numerous employees who have absolutely nothing to do with producing the networks' news. 3) 2008 was a historic year with regards to campaign fundraising, as Obama broke every campaign fundraising record on the books. Therefore, it is completely unsurprising that Obama and Democrats received more money than John McCain and Republicans.
The Examiner looked at the campaign contributions of “[s]enior executives, on-air personalities, producers, reporters, editors, writers and other self-identifying employees of ABC, CBS and NBC” and concluded that these people, “contributed more than $1 million to Democratic candidates and campaign committees in 2008.” By comparison, the same group “contributed to Republican candidates and campaign committees … a total of $142,863.”
The first problem with the Examiner's “study” is its search parameters. Simply searching for everyone who identifies themselves as being an employee of ABC, CBS, or NBC would include numerous employees who have absolutely nothing to do with the news. For instance, if you search Open Secrets for NBC employees who donated to Obama's campaign, you get a bevy of NBC Universal TV writers, animators, Web developers, lawyers, executive assistants, sales managers, accountants, stagehands, recruiters, video editors, sports producers, human resources officials, actors, and even a couple of game-show contestants. In short, not a whole heck of a lot of people who are actually involved with the organization's news content and reporting, unless Law & Order's Samuel Waterson is suddenly dictating Brian Williams' news copy. The same goes for ABC and CBS. Incidentally, the Examiner singles out a donation from Seth Davis, whom they identify as a “CBS 'journalist,' ” for scrutiny. However, Davis is a CBS Sports contributor who serves as a college basketball analyst. I'm sure his pro-Obama bias really clouds his reporting on that issue.
Secondly, individual donations are not the same as a donation from a corporation.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201008300039
rikyrah
Housing shortage prices some blacks out of New Orleans
By Todd Johnson
9:40 AM on 08/30/2010
Janell Jones says it's hard to believe that five years after Hurricane Katrina, her home still isn't restored.
She said the state funds she received to renovate weren't enough and now stays with her mother while she attempts to fix her place up.
Finding affordable housing in post-Katrina New Orleans is more difficult than it's ever been.
“[My best friend] tried for different apartments…they had hiked the rents and stuff up so high,” Jones said. “You can't afford that. Everybody's looking for jobs, everybody's trying to make it — and they can't.”
James Perry, executive director at the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center, said his agency has received “tons” of calls and complaints from residents searching for affordable housing.
He said the city's homeless population has increased from 6,000 before Katrina to 12,000 currently.
“It's not just poor people who have become homeless,” Perry said. “It's also middle class people, people who own homes…whose homes were destroyed and ended up having to renovate their homes and pay their house note…”
With the supply of housing scarce, the cost of rental property has increased by nearly 50 percent since the storm.
The lack of housing has also affected the city's demographics.
“[New Orleans] has become slightly whiter and slightly more affluent and that has everything to do with the lack of affordable housing opportunities,” Perry said.
Researchers agree.
“There's no question that those of lower classes who…had less access to resources and were disproportionately African-American were more likely to be displaced,” said Richard Campanella, geographer at Tulane University.
Campanella says the city's black populations has decreased from roughly 70 percent to 61 percent. But he says New Orleans will not lose its cultural identity.
“To make that case, one has to think of culture as static,” Campanella said. “In fact, culture is fluid. It always changes. It follows people. And if demographics change in whichever direction, then culture will change with it.”
It's hard for Janell Jones to make sense of any of her city's changes — while she still tries to get her home in order.
She remains hopeful her efforts to restore her home won't take another five years.
“I'm still paying a mortgage on this place, so I'm going to work until I get it back,” Jones said. “I have no real intention of giving up on my house…not until I have to. And that's a long way down the road.”
http://www.thegrio.com/specials/katrina—five-…
rikyrah
Philadelphia Scandal Underscores Pitiful State of Public Housing Oversight
By JONATHAN BERR Posted 6:25 PM 08/26/10
Carl Greene, the embattled director of the Philadelphia Housing Authority, was paid more than $300,000 last year, a bigger salary than either Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter ($195,000, excluding voluntary givebacks) or Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell ($167,850). But that's the least of the scandals that have enveloped the fourth-largest U.S. housing authority, a fact that should disturb even those taxpayers who live outside the City of Brotherly Love.
Over the past few weeks, Philadelphia media outlets have painted a troubling picture of Greene, who has lead the PHA since 1998. Reports say he settled four sexual harassment claims over the past five years — without notifying the PHA board. Greene faced a harassment suit in his previous job in Detroit, but Rendell, then Philadelphia's mayor, inexplicably hired him anyway. Indeed Rendell went so far as to include “a clause in Greene's contract that ensured he would be hired in Philadelphia even if he lost the suit in Detroit,” according to The Philadelphia Tribune. Rendell's spokesman Gary Tuma says that the governor is not interested in discussing Greene.
Beyond the sexual harassment issues, there are those concerning money. The Philadelphia Inquirer has reported that Greene doled out work to politically connected law firms, pressured employees to donate to his favorite nonprofit, and even threw a party using PHA funds for a board member who also is a member of City Council.
And the Greene saga doesn't end there.
In the wake of revelations that he was facing foreclosure and has an IRS tax lien, Greene failed to show up for work for several days, then said he was going on leave to deal with his personal problems, saying the stress proved to be overwhelming. Philadelphia officials are clearly tired of his antics. Mayor Nutter has called for his resignation, as has The Committee of Seventy, a Philadelphia civic watchdog group.
“His tenure is clearly in jeopardy and his legacy threatened,” says John F. Street, a former Philadelphia mayor who is now the PHA chairman, in an email to DailyFinance. “A timely retreat (resignation) in the best interest of all parties might be good. Mr Green should talk to his family, friends, lawyers and communications people about such a big step.”
The 53-year-old Greene will have plenty of time to clear his head. Members of the PHA board voted Thursday to suspend him. He'll be on paid leave while the board investigates the accusations against him. Greene was not at the meeting. His attorney told KYW Newsradio that he was being treated for an undisclosed medical condition.
See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/bMchCV
rikyrah
Recruiting Diversity Michelle Rhee's campaign to diversify DCPS means wooing white parents.
By Jonetta Rose Barras on August 27, 2010
Photo by Darrow Montgomery
For years, John Derlega had looked from his window at the rusting façade of William Lloyd Garrison Elementary School on S Street NW near Logan Circle. Of course, he had never entered the building. A classic D.C. young professional, Derlega lived local but focused elsewhere. Then he and his wife had a child.
The couple wanted a public education for their daughter. But the District of Columbia Public Schools had a reputation for being a dreadful system with just a few exceptions. So they went looking for those exceptions and researching charter schools. “We began by going to open houses. We went to Ross [Elementary School] and Capital City Charter School,” says Derlega, 37, who is white and works as a nonprofit fundraising executive. “My wife made contact with the principal at Ross; I made contact with Capital City.”
And the DCPS made contact right back in a rather surprising way: The couple received an e-mail from Chancellor Michelle Rhee. “We were blown away to get direct e-mails from her,” Derlega says.
Mona Sehgal also received the chancellor’s attention. While the 17-year Foggy Bottom resident frequently passed Francis Junior High School near 24th and N streets NW, she never went in. But after she married and had her first child, she was scouting schools in neighborhoods she’d “never visited before” and entering the city’s lottery for out-of-boundary schools.
Meanwhile, Francis morphed into the Francis-Stevens Education Campus, with a pre-K through 8th grade academic program. She attended an open house where she met the principal and Rhee. “I told them if they put a class for three-year olds there, I would consider the school,” says Sehgal, 42, who is of Indian heritage. While Seghal was off exploring distant options, DCPS created just such a program at Francis-Stevens.
When I saw the notice, I said, wait, this is what I asked for,” says Sehgal. She and her husband, who is white, recruited other families, ending up with 30—enough for two pre-school classes. “And, for the 2011-2012 school year, we already have four or five new neighborhood families interested in the school.”
Much of what you read about Rhee these days involves her often acrimonious combat with mobilized politicians and unionized teachers. But over the past two years, the battle-hardened schools chief has simultaneously been on a charm offensive, having tea with new parents, drafting e-mails to school-hunting moms and dads, and otherwise recruiting folks who might previously have shunned DCPS. And the most conspicuous targets of that wooing are ones from the demographic that include Sehgal and Derlega: affluent, educated, and disproportionately white.
Rhee rejects the notion she’s focused on any particular group. Most of her career, she says, has been spent addressing the needs of poor African-American children. “If we can make sure our children in Anacostia are getting a great education, then we will be able to shatter all the excuses people have about poor children not being able to perform,” she says.
Indeed, much of her role as DCPS’ chief marketer has involved spreading the word about good schools beyond the handful of historically excellent Upper Northwest elementary schools. “What’s in people’s heads is that there are these six schools that are good. Everybody knows them. But increasingly, there now are some really solid schools—Barnard Elementary, J.O. Wilson [for example]—that are these gems.”
DCPS has developed compelling programs and enhanced school-based leadership at “recruitment schools” like Francis-Stevens, she says. Those are poised to “turn the corner.” Not unlike Ross, “Francis-Stevens can also become a school that has a lot of demand, if we do things right.” Rhee says DCPS has been conducting “strong outreach to families. I am trying to woo everybody back—not just white people.”
Still, a glance at the places where Rhee believes her luring of parents could make a difference in school enrollment suggests a certain type of community is front and center: Gentrified locales where demographics have shifted because of the influx of people like the Derlegas and Sehgal—but where neighborhood schools remain overwhelmingly African American, inconsistent with the new diversity.
Rhee’s campaign has included bus advertisements, radio spots, e-mails, conference calls, private meetings in the homes of current or potential DCPS parents, and pep-rally-style sessions at schools including Francis-Stevens. There, she didn’t appeal to parents’ liberal guilt but urged them to choose the school that would best educate their child.
“Not all of you are going to make that decision this year; some of you will and every year the number is going to grow and grow,” she told them. She’s certain a few years ago, the folks attending that meeting “would never think of sending their kids to DCPS.”
And just who was in that group?
“It was mixed,” says Rhee. “But I would say the group was predominantly white.”
It appears DCPS’ leadership is engaged in a real-time experiment to see whether it’s possible to integrate a school system by reaching out to a group that has traditionally rejected it as an option. They are achieving some success: Between 2007 and 2010, white enrollment in DCPS increased from 6 percent to 9 percent and Hispanic enrollment increased from 11 percent to 13 percent. During that same period, African-American enrollment dropped from 80 percent to 76 percent, according to the Office of the State Superintendent of Education.
A lot of people might be uncomfortable with the experiment and its results. But the statistically complicated, politically toxic, and morally vexing question is: should they be?
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/396…
SouthernGirl2
Glenn Beck is the White Malcolm X
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/…
Glenn Beck's weekend speech was reminiscent of the radical 1960s black separatist leader: Both terrify mainstream liberals and shed politics for a message of spiritual uplift.
As hundreds of thousands gathered in Washington, D.C. for Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally, one couldn’t help but notice a powerful nostalgia for an America that is slipping away. In her remarks to the crowd, Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and conservative folk hero, said, “we must not fundamentally transform America, as some would want,” a not-so-veiled reference to President Obama and his allies. Instead, “we must restore America and restore her honor,” a message that resonated with a crowd that by all accounts was overwhelmingly white and Christian, with large numbers hailing from rural areas and small towns. Palin, like Beck, was talking about a spiritual restoration, a return to time-tested virtues that had been celebrated by the more homogeneous America of the past, in which non-traditional families were stigmatized and relatively rare, church attendance was far more common, and the dominance of Anglo-Protestant culture was unquestioned.
One gets the impression that Beck, like Malcolm X and many others before him, intends to lead a spiritual revival, if not a Great Awakening.
Mutha….
rikyrah
Black Muslims Left Out of National Conversation on Islam
Monday, 30 August 2010 06:37
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By Stephon Johnson and Orobosa Igbinedio, Special to the NNPA from the Amsterdam News –
(NNPA) – “We have to be able to decode what’s happening and realize that this is religious intolerance on one hand, and it’s [also] good ol’ red-blooded American racial and ethnic bias on the other hand,” said Imam Al-Hajj Talib Abdur-Rashid, sitting in his office at the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood Inc. in Harlem.
A controversial nationwide conversation has sparked following the proposal of a Muslim-themed community center two blocks away from Ground Zero. Those in opposition harbor the national pain of the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 nine years ago and feel it is insulting and insensitive to the memory of the near 3,000 people who lost their lives. On the other hand, religious freedom is decreed in the Constitution, therefore, developers of the center at Park 51 have a legal status to build wherever they please.
This conversation has brought protestors from both sides to the street to express their views. It has brought about political lobbying and campaign strategies in order to stir the emotions of those both in opposition and in favor.
Meanwhile, a Time magazine poll published August 19 shows that 25 percent of people in the United States believe that President Barack Obama is a Muslim and only 26 percent of people are in support of the construction of this Muslim community center.
Many in the mainstream media have failed to acknowledge that the proposed building will not simply serve as a mosque but as a fully equipped community center with a swimming pool, culinary school, art studios and other features.
Furthermore, another mosque, the Manhattan Mosque, stands only five blocks northeast from the site of Ground Zero; Muslims have been worshipping at this location since a year prior to the World Trade Center’s construction.
In the Pentagon, which was also subject to a terrorist attack on Sept. 11, there is a non-denominational center where Muslims are able to pray throughout the week and hold services on Fridays.
But despite the protests and the vitriol directed at the proposed mosque (and Islam in general), Abdur-Rashid sees something missing when it comes to the national conversation: Black Muslims.
http://www.blackvoicenews.com/news/news-wire/44…
rikyrah
New York Communities Take on Foreclosures
New York's foreclosure problem has become a full-blown crisis.
In 2009, there were 50,000 foreclosures in the entire state and nearly half were in New York City. Now, over 265,000 mortgages are past due or in the foreclosure process. Foreclosures in the city were up 16 percent in the first quarter of 2010 compared to the same period last year. Banks have provided little relief, making less than 12,000 permanent modifications throughout New York since May 2009.
That's why last month, New York Communities for Change (NYCC)—a coalition of working families fighting for economic justice throughout New York State—allied with City Comptroller John Liu and seven of New York's most powerful unions to demand that the Big Banks increase permanent mortgage modifications including principal write-downs. The banks have until September 1 to declare just how they intend to do that. If they don't they will face the consequences. Some key union leaders have said publicly that they will look to move pensions to alternative financial institutions if the banks aren't responsive.
Now NYCC has turned up the heat on the banks. It has joined with state and local legislators to make foreclosure a more expensive and onerous proposition for Wall Street.
In a press conference last week, members of NYCC, the State Senate, State Assembly and New York City Council announced legislation that would force banks to pony up to maintain foreclosed homes rather than letting them deteriorate at the expense of impacted communities.
State legislation that took effect in April required banks to maintain foreclosed properties so they don't fall into disrepair, increase blight and crime and further drive down property values while devastating entire neighborhoods.
The banks—shockingly—have been slow to respond. So the new legislation allows for a fine of $100 per day for every property the bank or servicer fails to maintain. That might not sound like a whole lot, but given the number of homes that are being boarded up and abandoned, it adds up. Under the legislation liens could also be placed on the property to enforce payment of the fines prior to any sale by the bank.
City Council Member Brad Lander—co-chair of the council's Progressive Caucus—introduced legislation that would require lenders to post a bond for every vacant property to ensure that fees and fines assessed during the foreclosure and post-foreclosure period are paid quickly.
“This is about making foreclosures a really unattractive, costly and unnecessary option so banks ramp up their mortgage modifications in an expedited manner so people can stay in their homes,” said Jon Kest, executive director of NYCC. “This legislation says if you want to foreclose on a home there are going to be a lot of steps to maintain it, there are going to be fines and fees if you don't, and you guys are going to be responsible for the money. The city and the state and the taxpayers don't want the negative effects of having these foreclosed homes everywhere—and paying for it—and it's time for the banks to pay their fair share if they are going to refuse to negotiate with the borrower in a timely fashion.”
This is just the next step in what is proving to be a very aggressive and broad campaign.
“The coalition is growing, the movement is building,” said Kest.”The unions and the comptroller are waiting to hear back from the banks on September 1 about what steps they are going to take to increase permanent modifications and principal write-downs. City and state representatives are now pushing this new legislation. This campaign is moving forward at a really successful pace. We're hitting the banks at all kinds of angles to force them towards modifications.”
http://www.thenation.com/blog/154213/new-york-c…
rikyrah
Pittsburgh teenager sues over police beating
By theGrio
4:23 PM on 08/30/2010
PITTSBURGH (AP) – Jordan Miles, a black teen who attended Pittsburgh's prestigious Creative and Performing Arts High School, has filed a federal lawsuit saying three white Pittsburgh police officers wrongfully beat him in January, then conspired to file false charges against him and concocted a cover story for their actions.
The city is not commenting on the lawsuit filed by Miles on Monday in U.S. District Court.
Miles claims the officers assumed he was a troublemaker because of his race and beat him without cause. Miles says in the lawsuit he thought he was being kidnapped by the plainclothes officers, and muttered “The Lord's Prayer” out of fear as they allegedly beat him.
http://www.thegrio.com/news/jordan-miles-sues-o…
rikyrah
Agent Orange and Veterans: A 40-Year Wait
Posted by Secretary Eric K. Shinseki on August 30, 2010 at 04:59 PM EDT
With the unwavering support of President Obama, VA is transforming to meet its 21st Century responsibilities. Advocacy, on behalf of every generation of Veterans, is central to this transformation.
Agent Orange was a blend of herbicides used by the U.S. military, during the Vietnam conflict, to deny concealment to enemy forces. More than 19 million gallons of herbicides were sprayed to remove foliage and undergrowth. The most common, Agent Orange, was sprayed in all four military zones of South Vietnam.
Heavily sprayed areas included the inland forests near the Demilitarized Zone; inland forests at the junction of the borders of Cambodia, Laos, and South Vietnam; inland forests north and northwest of Saigon; mangrove forests on the southernmost peninsula of Vietnam; and mangrove forests along major shipping channels southeast of Saigon.
The issue of Agent Orange’s toxic effects on Veterans, who served in Vietnam, has simmered for decades. Its insidious impact on those exposed to it has become increasingly apparent. That growing awareness has resulted in the Congress’, this Department’s, and the Institute of Medicine’s previous validations of some 12 diseases, which, to date, have been granted presumption of service connection for those exposed to Agent Orange.
Last October, based on the requirements of the Agent Orange Act of 1991 and the Institute of Medicine’s report, “Veterans and Agent Orange: Update 2008,” I determined that the evidence provided was sufficient to support presumptions of service connection for three additional diseases: Parkinson’s Disease, Hairy Cell and other Chronic B-Cell Leukemia, and Ischemic Heart Disease. After a public rulemaking process, we are now issuing a final regulation creating these new presumptions.
This action means that Veterans who were exposed to herbicides in service and who suffer from one of the “presumed” illnesses do not have to prove an association between their medical problems and their military service. This action helps Veterans to overcome the evidentiary requirements that might otherwise make it difficult for them to establish such an association in order to qualify for healthcare and other benefits needed as a result of their diseases. The “Presumption” simplifies and accelerates the application process and ensures that Veterans will receive the benefits they deserve.
As many as 150,000 Veterans may submit Agent Orange claims in the next 12 to 18 months. Additionally, VA will review approximately 90,000 previously denied claims from Vietnam Veterans for service connection for these three new diseases. All those who are awarded service-connection, and who are not currently enrolled in the VA health care system, will become eligible for enrollment.
Veterans who served in the Republic of Vietnam, including its inland waterways, between January 9, 1962 and May 7, 1975, are presumed to have been exposed to herbicides. If you know a Veteran who may have been exposed to herbicides in service and who suffers from one of the diseases that may be presumptively service connected, the Veteran or the Veteran's family can visit our website to find out how to file a claim for presumptive conditions related to herbicide exposure, as well as what information is needed by VA to determine disability compensation or survivors’ benefits. Additionally, VA’s Office of Public Health can answer questions about Agent Orange and VA’s services for Veterans exposed to it.
This rule is long overdue. It delivers justice to those who have suffered from Agent Orange’s toxic effects for 40 years. I have been invited to testify before the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee on 23 September to explain these decisions, and I am happy to do that. It was the right decision, and the President and I are proud to finally provide this group of Veterans the care and benefits they have long deserved.
VA is committed to addressing the health care needs of Veterans from all eras. Forty years from today, a future Secretary of VA should not be adjudicating presumptive disabilities associated with our current conflicts. Change is difficult for any good organization, but we are transforming this Department to advocate for Veterans. We will not let our Veterans languish without hope for service-connected disabilities resulting from their service.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/08/30/agent…
rikyrah
August 30, 2010
COURT SMACKS DOWN CUCCINELLI…. Shortly after taking office, Virginia's comically right-wing attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, decided his time would be well spent launching a witch hunt against a climate scientist named Michael Mann. Even for a Republican official known for pushing the activist envelope, this was pretty offensive.
Mann was a scholar at the University of Virginia from 1999 to 2005, before leaving to run Penn State's Earth System Science Center. But in the wake of the “Climategate” nonsense, Cuccinelli decided to launch an investigation, demanding “a sweeping swath of documents,” to see if Mann had manipulated climate data during his U-Va. tenure. (some of which was funded through state grants).
Was there any reason to suspect Mann of fraudulent research? Well, no. But Cuccinelli wanted to poke around anyway, just to see what he could come up with. Today, a Virginia judge told The Cooch that he's on the wrong track.
An Albemarle County Circuit Court judge has set aside a subpoena issued by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to the University of Virginia seeking documents related to the work of climate scientist and former university professor Michael Mann.
Judge Paul M. Peatross Jr. ruled that Cuccinelli can investigate whether fraud has occurred in university grants, as the attorney general had contended, but ruled that Cuccinelli's subpoena failed to state a “reason to believe” that Mann had committed fraud.
The ruling is a major blow for Cuccinelli, a global warming skeptic…..
The judge also explained to Cuccinelli that four of the five grants Mann relied on for his research were federally funded, and therefore out of bounds for the state A.G.'s investigation. Cuccinelli will reportedly try again, reworking his subpoena, while considering whether to appeal today's ruling.
Given the threat Cuccinelli's crusade posed to academic freedom, today's outcome is very good news. In a statement Mann said the judge's order “is a victory not just for me and the university, but for all scientists who live in fear that they may be subject to a politically-motivated witch hunt when their research findings prove inconvenient to powerful vested interests.”
As for the bigger picture, I'd add that the list of Cuccinelli's other excesses is getting pretty long. Virginia's A.G. has, after all, been palling around with radicals, recently considered a literacy test for some Virginians wishing to vote, questioned President Obama's citizenship, rescinded legal protections for gays at Virginia universities, argued publicly that it doesn't cost the public any money when he and his office work on a frivolous lawsuit, and, of course temporarily added a modesty shield to Virginia's great seal.
And he's only been in office since January.
—Steve Benen 3:50 PM Permalink
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/indiv…
rikyrah
Glenn Beck and white self-pity
2:56 pm August 30, 2010, by ctucker
For many of my readers, the most salient trait I have is one I had nothing to do with: the color of my skin. Whether I mention race in a post is unimportant. Many of my commenters will mention it for me.
Given that, I call attention to the fact that the words I recommend to your attention in this post were written by a white man, Christopher Hitchens, who is moderately conservative. He has some interesting things to say about the weekend’s Beck rally, which he calls the “Waterworld of white self-pity”:
One crucial element of the American subconscious is about to become salient and explicit and highly volatile. It is the realization that white America is within thinkable distance of a moment when it will no longer be the majority. . .
Until recently, the tendency has been to think of this rather than to speak of it—or to speak of it very delicately, lest the hard-won ideal of diversity be imperiled. But nobody with any feeling for the zeitgeist can avoid noticing the symptoms of white unease and the additionally uneasy forms that its expression is beginning to take.
For example, so strong is the moral stature of the Rev. Dr Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement that even the white right prefers to pretend to emulate it. . . Thus, it is really quite rare to hear slurs against President Barack Obama that are based purely on the color of his skin. Even Beck himself has tried to back away from the smears of that kind that he has spread in the past. But it is increasingly common to hear allegations that Obama is either foreign-born or a Muslim. And these insinuations are perfectly emblematic of the two main fears of the old majority: that it will be submerged by an influx from beyond the borders and that it will be challenged in its traditional ways and faiths by an alien and largely Third World religion.
This summer, then, has been the perfect register of the new anxiety, beginning with the fracas over Arizona’s immigration law, gaining in intensity with the proposal by some Republicans to amend the 14th Amendment so as to de-naturalize “anchor babies,” cresting with the continuing row over the so-called “Ground Zero” mosque, and culminating, at least symbolically, with a quasi-educated Mormon broadcaster calling for a Christian religious revival from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
I think that Hitchens is on to something, and that that’s why tea-partiers often talking about “taking the country back.” Back from whom?
http://blogs.ajc.com/cynthia-tucker/2010/08/30/…
NoirJenkins
The writer of this piece apparently knows nothing about Malcolm X. That was a pretty stupid comparison
NoirJenkins
My parents were black and used the term “cotton-picking” in the place of God-damned.
I.E. – The cotton pickin car won't start i'm supposed to pick up muh-dear for her eyeglass appointment in 5 minutes!
They also used “dad-blamed” …LOL LOL southern language is colorful and modest at the same time
SouthernGirl2
LOL @ “dad-blamed”! I believe I heard that one before.
MikePB
Those of us who have faced the threat of eminent domain know two things: It is a sobering experience and private property owners do not stand on a level playing field legally, politically or economically.
The challenge is that more eminent domain is on its way through many back doors. In addition to economic development takings using the Kelo or “blight” approach, we are in the midst of natural resource development takings in pursuit of shale gas (as in Barnett shale, Marcellus shale, and more).
The pursuit of these gas-rich shales brings with it more pipelines and more underground gas storage fields — and that (pipelines & storage fields) always means eminent domain. And in some states, the gas industry can use “forced pooling” which permit gas companies to seize gas under your property, even if you refuse to sign a lease.
Unfortunately, the otherwise excellent Institute for Justice of Kelo fame declines to intervene in energy/utility takings because, they told me, of the “public good” premise. Instead, the Institute should reconsider and offer support in this expanding “market” for eminent domain abuse.
But property owners can fight back. Our two-year battle against Houston-based Spectra Energy which seized our property rights for an underground gas storage field led to the development of a website. If you want to learn from our experience and understand this type of eminent domain, refer to this post: Spectra Energy
Or here: http://www.spectraenergywatch.com/blog/?p=616
Private property rights are so fundamental that founding fathers such as Samuel Adams described it as an “essential” right and wrote, “that no man can justly take the property of another without his consent.”
Booky
You know from whom….
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