EFTA01181438.pdf

From: Gregory Brown To: undisclosed-recipients:; Bce: [email protected] Subject: Greg Brown's Weekend Reading and Other Things.... 9/23/12 Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2012 13:53:01 +0000 Attachments: The_Very_Real_Threat_of_Sea- level Rise to the United States Peter Gleick Huff Post 09 18 12.pdf; Mitt Romney„Class_Wamor_NYT_Editonal_September_18,_2012.pdf; Romney's_47%_made_up_largely_of_elderly_and_low- wa_ge_workers_Richard_Rubin_TWP_September_l 8„2012.pdf; PIE_CHARTS,Does_Half_The_Country_Really_Not_Pay_Any_Taxes_Luigi_Montanez_U pworthy_Sep_18_2012.pdf; Charts,You_Might_Be_the_47_Percentif_Motheriones_Sept._18,2012.pdf; Apple„Google,Microsoft_Avoid_Taxes_By_Keeping_Billions_In_Profits_Offshore„Senat e_Report_Mark_Gongloff_Huff_Post_09_20_12.pdf; An_election- year_ploy_Get_tough_on_China_TWP_Editorial_September_18,_2012.pdf; 4_Pinocchios_for_a_truncated,14-year- old_Obama_clip_Fact_Checker_TWP_09_20_12.pdf; Romney's_class_warfare_Eugene_Robinson_The_Washington_Post_)9_20_12.pdf; Disdainfor_Workers_Paulyrugman_September_20„2012.pdf; Young„Gifted_and_Neglected_Chestere_Finn_NYT_September_18,_2012.pdf; Could_Asia_really_go_to_war_over_these_The_Economist_September_22,_2012.pdf; Bill_Moyers_&_Company_Electionsfor_Sale_September_21„2012.pdf; Bill_Moyers_Essay_- More Money„Less_Democracy_Essay_Transcrip_September_21„2012.pdf Dear Friends.... As many of you know, recently I have started the Weekend Reading with "every Presidential election should be called the silly season, as it often brings out the ridiculous," and this past week was no different with the release by Mother Jones Magazine's website of a hidden camera video from a Boca Raton fund-raiser with high rollers in May for Mitt Romney, when in a reply to a fat cat at the $50,000-a-plate dinner, he wrote off 47 percent of the country as deadbeats, freeloaders, moochers and "victims" who feel they're entitled to stuff You would think that a smart guy like Romney should realize that writing off almost half or the people in the country (many in his own Republican party) who use and benefit from the government programs including Medicate, Medicare, food stamps, Pell Grants, low cost housing and unemployment assistance — is not a wise thing to do for a candidate seeking to be President of all Americans. But when confronted, instead of backtracking, he doubled-down to the point where many within his own party openly discribed the comments as ugly, dismissive and as Conservative columnist and editor of The Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol put it, "stupid and arrogant " Not mentioned or included by Mr. Romney — are the 7,000 individuals who had incomes of more than $1 million last year who paid NO FEDERAL INCOME TAXES, or the 26 major corporations such as Verizon and General Electric who paid no net federal corporate taxes between 2008 and 2011 and that nearly 55% of large American- owned corporations reported zero tax liabilities for multiple years between 1998 and 2005, according to a Government Accountability Office report. And that corporate income taxes' share of total federal taxes collected has been falling steadily and are the lowest since the 1940s. But then Romney who made tens of millions each year and paid less than 14% in Federal Income taxes over the past several years, said that he did nothing wrong EFTA01181438 because he paid the legal amount of taxes.... As the New York Times said in an editorial this past week, Romney is a "class warrior." There is a staggering decline of sea ice around the North Pole's Arctic waters. . The edge of the Arctic ice cap is usually far south of where it is this season. More than 600,000 square kilometres (sq km) more ice has melted in 2012 than was ever recorded by satellites before. The vast polar ice cap, which regulates the Earth's temperature and has been a permanent fixture in our understanding of how the world works, has this year retreated further and faster than anyone expected. The previous record, set in 2007, was officially broken on 27 August when satellite images averaged over five days showed the ice then extended 4.11 million sq km, a reduction of nearly 50% compared to just 40 years ago. Since 27 August, the ice just kept melting — at nearly 40,000 sq km a day until a few days ago. Satellite pictures this weekend showed the cap covering only 3.49m sq km. This year, 11.7m sq km of ice melted, 22% more than the long-term average of 9.18m sq km. The record minimum extent is now likely to be formally called on Monday by the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Colorado. The record hasn't just been broken, it's been smashed to smithereens, adding weight to predictions that the Arctic may be ice-free in summer months within 20 years, say British, Italian and American-based scientists on board the Arctic Sunrise. They and everyone else who is studying this change are shocked at the speed and extent of the ice loss. The Cambridge University Sea ice researcher Nick Toberg, who has analysed underwater ice thickness data collected by British nuclear submarine HMS Tireless in 2004 and 2007, said: "This is staggering. It's disturbing, scary that we have physically changed theface of the planet. We have about 4m sq km of sea ice. If that goes in the summer months that's about the same as adding 20 years of CO2 at current [human-caused] rates into the atmosphere. That's how vital the =tic sea ice is. We can expect the Arctic to be icelive in summer within 20 years," she says. "The ice won't go away the whole year. It will still be cold enough in the Arctic to freeze in winter But by 2030 I'd say we will have an ice-free summer Arctic. That does not mean that natural ice variability cannot bring it back again, but the trend, we think, will be downward." "This is a defining moment in human history" said Kumi Naidoo, director of Greenpeace International in Amsterdam. "In just over 30 years we have altered the way our planet looks from space and soon the north pole may be completely ice-free in summer. "Fossilfuel companies are still making profits despite thefact that climate change is so clearly upon us. Our politicians are putting corporate interests above scientific warnings andfailing in their duties to the public". Global Warming is REAL and unless we change our ways, mankind will face the conquenses. This week Shane Perkinson, (who is a program manager in Libya with the USAID's Office of Transition Initatives) wrote this op-ed in The Washington Post: The Sept. 15 article "As Arab world evolves, U.S. pursues uneasy alignments"stated that the attack in Benghazi that killed the ambassador and three other Americans demonstrated "how short-lived the gratitude toward the United States lasted" for our support in their revolution against Moammar Gaddafi. Taking the actions of the band of armed gunmen that carried out the attack as representative of the sentiments of the people of Benghazi or Libya is as misguided as the attitudes that have led protesters across the Arab world to attack U.S. facilities in retaliation for the twisted views of a few individuals who posted an offensive video online. In my work, I have been inundated with letters of solidarity and support from Libyans who are outraged by the actions of a few. Indeed, a recent Gallup poll shows that Libyans have a higher opinion of the United States than any other country in the Arab world. At times like these we must guard against taking the actions of the few to represent the views of the whole. As a person who has worked in more than 50 countries on five continents over the last forty years, with many dear Libyan friends including newly elected President Mohammad Al Magariaf , whom is the Nelson Mandela of Libyan if not the entire Arab Spring, I can assure you that no one was angrier than the new Libyan leadership and EFTA01181439 almost all of the Libyan people. Evidence of this was the many demonstrations throughout the country in support of America, with 30,000 people marching in Benghazi on Friday decrying the terrorist attack that killed US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans twelve days ago and seizing the headquarters for Ansar al-Sharia, a loosely connected radical Islamist group. As militia members fled, the protesters torched a vehicle and took over the group's building without firing a single shot. To calm down tensions, President Magariaf went to Benghazi, thanking the protesters for helping evict "armed groups and requesting that everyone go home Still upset, protesters stormed the bases of three militias on Saturday, including the headquarters of Ansar al-Sharia, a hard-line Islamist group that officials have linked to the attack on the United States mission. Like any other form of new government, new democracies can go through rough periods, with the French Revolution being a prime example. As a result the new democracies created by the Arab Spring are and will be no different. In the age of the 30 second television commercial suggesting that immediate gratification is available to all and for everything, it is easy to forget the terrible twos of our own children growing pains. No one really knows what the new democracies created as a result of the Arab Spring will look like decades from now. But I can tell you that their leaderships and most of the people don't hate America. As such, we should not paint entire countries, their leaders and people with the brush of a few extremist terrorist — an d instead show patience as they go through the growing pains that most new societies have to experience. that everyone show patience. As most of you know I am a big fan of Bill Moyers and in this week's show he and Trevor Potter (General Council to John McCain's 2008 Presidential Campaign) discuss how American elections are bought and sold, who covers the cost, and how the rest of us pay the price. Nothing corrupts our political system more than the ability of the rich and influential to spend limitless amounts of money — often in secret — with the intention of creating preferred political outcomes. And far from being a regulator of campaign finances, our political funding laws — aided by a corporate-friendly Supreme Court and self-interested politicians — only facilitate the process of empowering the few while subjugating the many. Few understand how money moves in and out of our political system better than campaign finance reform advocate Trevor Potter. A former chairman of the Federal Election Commission and founding president of the Campaign Legal Center, Potter was Stephen Colbert's chief advisor when Colbert formed his own super PAC and 501 (c)(4) in a clever effort to expose the potential for chicanery behind each. BILL MOYERS: If you're a super PAC, empowered by the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision to take unlimited donations, you're supposed to make your donors public. And you're not supposed to coordinate your efforts with the candidate. But there are ways to get around both requirements and to hide those campaign mega-dollars. Instead of calling yourself a super PAC you become a "social welfare" group. That's right, a "social welfare" group, and the IRS designates you a 501(c)(4) non-profit. These are sucking up more and more of the big money precisely because their donors can remain secret. And just to add insult to injury, they're tax exempt. By the way, "The Washington Post's" Chris Cillizza reports that pro-Romney outside groups have paid for three out of four of the ads supporting him in this election cycle while pro-Obama outside groups have paid for one in every five ads backing the president. The conservative groups, Cillizza writes, "have kept Romney in the game" and he should be able to "outspend Obama rather significantly in the final weeks of the race." So whether you want to call it an arms race, a plague of Biblical proportions, or the death spiral of democracy, take it seriously. Especially all that secret money. It's poison being mainlined into our country's arteries, as destructive as arsenic in your drinking water. And you'll never know who put it there. No one knows the ins-and-outs of this cash-and- carry racket better than Trevor Potter, and no one is more committed to cleaning it up. A former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, he served as general counsel to John McCain during the senator's presidential EFTA01181440 campaigns in 2000 and again in 2008. Trevor Potter is with the law firm of Caplin and Drysdale in Washington, and he's the founding president of the Campaign Legal Center, that's a non-partisan group committed to "representing the public interest in enforcement of campaign and media law." All very impressive, but let's face it, these days Trevor Potter's greatest claim to fame is as the man who keeps Stephen Colbert out of jail. He advised Colbert on how to create his own super PAC and then to set up his more clandestine 501(c)(4). Take a look. Bill and Potter discuss how American elections are bought and sold, who covers the cost, and how the rest of us pay the price. "I can assure you that if someone is spending millions of dollars to elect the candidate, the candidate knows where that money is coming from. There's nothing illegal about telling them, but the voters aren't going to know that;' Potter tells Bill. "We're creating opportunities for corruption and candidates being beholden to specific private interests because of funding, yet there's no disclosure to the rest of us." Also on the show, a Bill Moyers essay on how the Citizens United decision has candidates campaigning for cash more than votes, and how that money is pouring into TV ads and high paid political consultants As Frederick Townsend Martin a century ago summed up campaign finance when he declared, We are the rich; we own America; we got it, God knows how, but we intend to keep it." Weekend Reading In Peter Glieck's article in The Huffington Post, The Very Real Threat ofSea-level Rise to the United States he says, "Climate change is no laughing matter. Uncontrolled, human-caused climate change is a real threat to the United States economy, hundreds of millions ofAmericans, and their local communities. The increasingly extreme weather of the pastfew years is a sign of things to come: rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, increasing storm and droughtfrequency and intensity, changing vegetation, and rapidly disappearing Arctic ice. There are plenty of remaining uncertainties — such as the speed of the changes, their extent and severity, the costs ofsuffering impacts versus the costs of adapting to or preventing them -- and the scientific community continues to work hard to understand and reduce these uncertainties. But one of the most certain and devastating consequencesfor the United States is going to be the very climate impact that Romney chose to mock: rising seas." Sea levels are rising for two reasons: thermal expansion and an increase in the volume of the ocean. As the planet warms, so do the oceans, and warmer water takes up more space than colder water. As ice in glaciers and the ice caps on Antarctica and Greenland melt, the volume of the oceans grows. And sea levels have been increasing an average of over 3 mm per year -- more than 50 percent faster than over the past century. Indeed, sea levels are actually rising at the upper range of model projections, and there is growing concern that scientists have conservatively underestimated the speed at which some of the massive ice volumes in Greenland may deteriorate and melt. There is so much ice on Greenland alone, that were it to melt into the oceans, sea levels would rise nearly 24 feet. A global increase in sea level of a meter (more than three feet) by the year 2100 is now "widely accepted as a serious possibility" and even the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recommends planning for as much as 1.5 meters (nearlyfivefeet). The risks to our populations and economies posed by this threat are clear. The United States has a vast and vulnerable coastline. More than half the nation's population lives in coastal counties. Nearly four million people already live within three feet of today's high-tide level, with hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure at risk. Residential structures in today's 100-year floodplain of just New York City and Nassau, Suffolk, and EFTA01181441 Westchester counties already have a total estimated value of over $125 billion. New York's Sea Level Rise Task Force identified a wide range of growing threats associated with sea-level rise, including storm surges, inundation and flooding, rising water tables, salt water intrusion to groundwater, and coastal erosion. And adaptation won't be cheap. Many sea-level rise impacts will simply be unavoidable, and building coastal defenses for those things that can be protected will impose vast costs on society. Approximately 1,100 miles of new or modified coastal protection structures will be needed just along the Pacific Coast and San Francisco Bay to protect against expected increases in coastal flooding at a cost of tens of billions of dollars. Our only climate options are mitigate, adapt, or suffer, and the only real question is what the future mix will be. The most important thing to do is slow and eventually stop human-caused climate change, and thus slow and eventually stop additional sea-level rise. But even reducing greenhouse gas emissions will not prevent significant rises from occurring in the coming years, because of the gases we've already put in the atmosphere, with a concomitant increase in both severe coastal flooding and the need for costly adaptation measures. While reducing the risks of sea-level rise will not be easy or cheap, it will be far harder and more expensive if the people we elect mock the risks we face, or even worse, fail to act. One thing that I agree with many Republicans is that there is a class warfare that was place front and center this week when a hidden camera video from a Boca Raton fund-raiser with high rollers in May for Mitt Romney was released by Mother Jones Magazine on their website, where the Republican candidate described almost half of America as moochers suffering from a culture of dependency, which is why they don't appreciate his message of tax cuts and trickle-down economics. What he doesn't tell you as Nicolas Kristof wrote in the New York Times this week, "It Takes One to Know One", that if you include state, local and federal taxes of all kinds. according to Citizens for Tax Justice, "the majority ofAmericanfamilies pay more than one-quarter ofincomes in total taxes" — and this is allot more than Romney pays. Echoing this was an Editorial in the New York Times this week, Mitt Romney, Class Warrior, "there is class warfare being waged in the 2012 campaign. It is Mr. Romney who is waging it, not President Obama, and he's stood the whole idea on its head." - "The truth is that Mr. Romney has been trying to incite the anger ofa small slice ofthe richest Americans who needno government assistance but get it anyway, against the workingpoor, older Americans, the disabled workers and veterans, and even a significant chunk ofmiddle-class Americans." And for a savvy business guy who is touted as being detailed oriented you would think that he would understand that included in the 46.4% of Americans who don't pay Federal Income Tax, 28.3% pay Federal Payroll Tax which covers Social Security, Medicare, unemployment, 10.3% are elderly, 6.9% have incomes of less than $20,000 and the remaining 1% include soldiers in Iran, Afghanistan and returning veterans unable to get jobs. But if you add the 53.6 of households who pay Federal Tax and the 28.3 who only pay Payroll Tax, this leaves just 18.1% of households pay neither the federal income tax nor the federal payroll tax. Of those, over half consist of retired, elderly Americans. And most of the rest are the working poor who qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is a Republican policy that gives tax breaks to low-income workers in lieu of a higher minimum wage. And what is the safety net for if it isn't for Americans who need assistance to survive. Include are two attachments with charts that detail Federal Taxes breakdown — Charts: You Might Be the 47 Percent If... from Mother Jones Magazine and PIE CHARTS: Does Half The Country Really Not Pay Any Taxes? from Upworthy's social media website. Also included is Richard Rubin's op-ed in The Washington Post, Romney's 47% made up largely of elderly and low-wage workers — "Mr. Romney doesn't know what this country looks like, and he has no idea how government works," Richard Armitage, former deputy secretary of state in the administration of George W. Bush and a former top Defense Department official, said in an interview today. "The veterans who serve 20 years or more in the service, they get benefits -- that's government money." Obviously there are people who game the system ("the moochers') but as a percentage almost all of the people who don't pay Federal Income Tax and Federal Payroll Tax that are just plain old or poor — which is why the EFTA01181442 federal government provides food stamps to 46.7 million people, or about 15 percent of the population and 48.8 million people were enrolled in Medicare, the health program for the elderly. Recently every Presidential election in America the candidates try to outdo each other to show voters that they are stronger than their opponents on national defense and this year is no difference. Forget the fact that we are still in an eleven year war in Afghanistan with no definable goals and/or definite end, both President Obama and his Republican opponent Mitt Romney with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanding that the US issue a "red-line," have said that they will use a military solution to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. But as military experts point out, this would take a comprehensive air assault followed by ground troops to insure that the targeted facilities are destroyed. And then these same experts will tell you that short of overthrowing the Iranian government, a military air assault (which will have untold consequences for the US, Israel and the entire region, (not to mention driving up energy prices into the stratosphere) will only delay development of Iran's nuclear program. But this piece is not about Iran, Afghanistan, Israel or the attacks on American Embassies, it is about that both President Obama and Mitt Romney have decided play the get tough on China card to impress voters despite the potential consequences. This game of chicken was intensified with President Obama's announcement Monday of a new international trade case against China in swing-state Ohio strikes many as a transparently political use of his incumbency and Mr. Romney's idea, to brand China a currency manipulator, with sanctions to follow, that he promises will get faster results. As The Washington Post wrote in its Editorial, An election-year ploy: Get tough on China; "IT'S AN IRON LAW of U.S. politics: You can't go wrong bashing China. Polls show the public believes that this count)); is losing jobs due to unfair economic competition from abroad, especiallyfrom China. And so, everyfour years, presidential candidatesfall all over themselves promising to get tough on imports." TWP: "Thefact is that China has plenty of ways to retaliate when this count?), protects specific industries; on balance, that retaliation may cost more American jobs. Even U-China does not retaliate, the higher production costs and higher consumer prices that trade protection imposes are not evenly distributed. Protectionist measures may "save" jobsfor higher-paid workers at the expense of those who make less. These are the sorts of nuances and trade-offs to which we hope the winner of this election will pay more attention. Though the United States and China are competingfor global market share, avoiding an actual trade war is very much in both nations' intemst." What real craziness is that at this same time the tensions between China and Japan are at their highest in years, with both countries posturing over the sovereignty of the Senkaku/Diaoyu (uninhabited) islands. The islands are little more than rocks and of no strategic military or economic value somehow flared into a full scale dispute with the Chinese sending 16 surveillance ships to challenge Japan's claim to the islands. You only have to irritate a giant to experience of their wrath caused by another party. Which is exactly what President Obama and Mitt Romney is doing. Obviously we are in the silly season of Presidential politics and both President Obama and Mitt Romney should understand that their partisan antics could have unintended consequences. In the silly season of Presidential politics candidates and their supporters say and do the most ridiculous things and this past week trying to give voters more red meat so that they and the press forget their candidate's latest gaff, Mitt Romney's campaign released a video from a truncated, 14-year-old Obama clip as evidence that President Obama believes in redistribution of wealth when he was actually referring to redistribution of government resources so that schools and government agencies more efficiently address the needs and services of the people. EFTA01181443  "As we think about the policy research surrounding the issues that I just named — policy research for the working poor, broadly defined — I think that what we're gonna have to do is somehow resuscitate the notion that government action can be effective at all. There has been a systematic, I don't think it's too strong to call it a propaganda campaign, against the possibility ofgovernment action and its efficacy. And I think some of it has been deserved. Chicago Housing Authority has not been a model ofgood policy making. And neither necessarily have been the Chicago public schools. What that means then is that as we try to resuscitate this notion that we're all in this thing together; leave nobody behind, we do have to be innovative in thinking how, what are the delivery systems that are actually effective and meet people where they live, and my suggestion I guess would be that the trick, and this is one of thefew areas where I think there have to be technical issues that have to be dealt with as opposed to just political issues, how do we structure government systems that pool resources and hence facilitate some redistribution, because I actually believe in redistribution, at least at a certain level to make sure that everybody's got a shot. How do we pool resources at the same time as we decentralize delivery systems in ways that both foster competition, can work in the marketplace, and can foster innovation at the local level and can be tailored to particular communities." — State Sen. Barack Obama, at a conference at Loyola University, Oct. 1998 [missing section in bold] Please feel free to download the attached article by Fact Checker in The Washington Post this week, 4 Pinocchiosfor a truncated, 14-year-old Obama clip or link on the weblink below: clip/2012/09/20/9b40f4b8-0330-11e2-91e7-2962c74e7738_blog.html?wpisrc=emailtoa friend You will see that the Romney Campaign used the selected clip to support their LIE — "You know, President Obama said he believes in redistribution," GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan said Tuesday. But then wasn't it one of Romney's advisors who said that they will not run their campaign on "Facts" or was that on Fact Checker? This past week I had wonderful lunch in Beverly Hills with a dear friend who is a staunch Republican. As we enjoyed a great meal with fantastic wine followed by a Monte Cristo #2 cigar we discussed politics. During the conversation he admitted that he no longer read my weekend offerings feeling that I have "drank the kool aid" because of what he said that my blind support for President Obama, who he called "the worse most divisive President in the history of America," was too much for him to endure Asking why I hated Republicans, I explained that today's Republican Party is not the Republican Party of Abe Lincoln, Harriet Tubman, Fredrick Douglas, Teddy Roosevelt , Dwight Eisenhower, Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King, Nelson Rockefeller, Jack Kemp, Collin Powell, Charlie Crist, my Father and his friends 1940s, 50s and 60s. The current Republican Party is not the same party that fought against slavery, broke up the big trust/corporations, championed the first government inspection of food, supported integration, workers rights, environmental concerns and tolerance — Today's Republican party celebrates wealth over work, suppresses voters rights for those who they've written off, suggest deporting eleven million guest workers, (many of whom who do jobs that American's won't do), start wars that they can't finish and spend taxpayer's money like drunken sailors. Today's Republican Party would not have supported The GI Bill that enabled tens of millions of veterans and their families to move from poor into the middle class or the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 that created the America's highway system that changed the face of the country, producing tens of millions of manufacturing and construction jobs and opened up rural areas beyond anyone's calculation. Today's Republican party believes in wealth above labor and does not appreciate any contribution that isn't six figures or larger in dollar. As Paul Kurgman wrote this week in the New York Times, Disdain for Workers, "the modern Republican Party just doesn't have much respect for people who work for other people, no matter how faithfully and well they do their jobs. All the party's affection is reserved for 'yob creators," a k a employers and investors. Leading figures in the party find it hard even to pretend to have any regard for ordinary working families — who, it goes without saying, make up the vast majority ofAmericans." EFTA01181444 Consequently it is easy for them behind closed doors to share contempt for the masses, dismissing them as freeloaders who pay no taxes, who don't assume responsibility for their lives, and who think government should take care of them. Or as The Wall Street Journal famously described low-income workers whose wages fall below the income-tax threshold as "lucky duckies." I believe that we should celebrate our greatest teachers with the same vigor that we shower on our greatest athletes. artists, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and richest billionaires. To suggest that a nurse or firefighter who is now living on social security (or worse disability) are lay-abouts gaming the system and hedge fund guys are job creators is BULL.... and disingenuous. In the age of machines we no longer appreciate craftsmanship and in the age of outsourcing we no longer value craftsmen. Forget Ayn Rand, these elitist should be quoting Gordon Gekko from the movie Wall Street, "The richest one percent of this country owns half our country's wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It's bullshit. You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own. We make the rules, pal. The news, war, peace, famine, upheaval, the price per paper clip. We pick that rabbit out of the hat while everybody sits out there wondering how the hell we did it Now you're not naive enough to think we're living in a democracy, are you buddy? It's the free market. And you're a part of it You've got that killer instinct. Stick around pal, I've still got a lot to teach you." Because this is the real distain that they have for those in our society who are less fortunatie of fell through the cracks. So to answer my friend, I explained that when Republicans treat workers with the same appreciation as they do with rich people, job creators and employers.... I will gladly vote for their candidates. And although the Democratic Party is far from perfect, it is definitely the lesser of two evils. As Eugene Robinson wrote in The Washington Post this week, Romney's class warfare, the comments that Mitt Romney made to like-minded souls in Boca Raton in May, "are not only grossly offensive but astonishingly ignorant." Think about — to champion American Exceptionalism and then say that nearly half of Americans are layabouts who leave the house only when they need to cash a government check is ugly and un-American — And the major reason why I don't support the Republican Party today, is that they are no longer a big tent party, whose goals are to make sure that every American has access to The American Dream and feel the duty to provide a safety-net for those who are less fortunate or for some reason have fallen through the cracks of society. Whether you are a Democrat or Republican, Rich or Poor, Black, White or Hispanic or live in Cleveland, Ohio or Jackson Mississippi, it is universally acknowledged that the Public Education System in America is broken. Some blame teachers, others standardized testing (and then there are the usual), poor parental support, criminal element, class size, unions, administrators, poor diets and so on. What few people focus on is how do we educate our most gifted children? How do we keep them motivated in a sea of gang violence, over-crowded classes with stressed out teachers and inferior facilities.? As Chester Finn wrote in the New York limes article Young, Gifted and Neglected - "Every motivated, high- potential young American deserves a similar opportunity. But the majority of very smart kids lack the wherewithal to enroll in rigorous private schools. They depend on public education to prepare them for life. Yet that system is failing to create enough opportunities for hundreds of thousands of these high-potential girls and boys. " EFTA01181445 And like Mr. Finn, I also believe that "it's time to end the bias against gifted and talented education and quit assuming that every school must be all things to all students, a simplistic formula that ends up neglecting all sorts of girls and boys, many of them poor and minority, who would benefit more from specialized public schools. America should have a thousand or more high schools for able students, not 165, and elementary and middle schools that spot and prepare their future pupils" From a country who put a man on the moon, a rover/robot on Mars, invented the personal computer, Internet, iPod and skyscraper, as well as the number one university system in the world.... why can't our politicians, teachers, administrators and parents work together to insure that these gifted children receive the best education possible as they are the future Steve Jobs, Condoleezza Rice, heart surgeon and master builder. This Week's Quote A fool and his money are lucky enough to get together in thefirst place. -- Gordon Gekko Advice for the Week A dvce for Married Men Never laugh at your wife's choices; you are one ofthem This Week's Music This week I am feeling Arrested Development which was one of those bends that weren't able to survive their own success.... They truly had their own sound of music which I hope you enjoy Arrested Development - Tennessee - and http://youtu.be/81mkW-vhPBo Arrested Development - People Everyday - v=pNSMtLjnLIY&feature=related and http://youtu.be/pNSMtLjnLIY Arrested Development - Mr. Wendal - and http://youtu.be/JIXM 37HISo Arrested Development - Raining Revolution - v=lYnseZpFgN0&feature=BFa&list=AL94UKMTqg-9BdcRtzXUtwQAIV9SeBwX5f Arrested Development - Dawn Of The Dreads - A&feature=BFa&list=AL94UKMTqg-9BdcRtzXUtwQAIV9SeBwXSf Arrested Development - Give A Man A Fish - v=o68RjNum89c&feature=BFa&list=AL94UKMTqg-9BdcRtzXUtwQAIV9SeBwXSf Arrested Development - In Tha South - U&feature=BFa&list=AL94UKMTqg-9BdcRtzXUtwQAIV9SeBwXSf and v=fALqdfrzt-U&feature=share&list=AL94UKMTqg-9BdcRtzXUtwCIAIV9SeBwXSf EFTA01181446 Arrested Development - Fame 191 PCn8&feature=BFa&list=AL94UKMTqg-9BdcRtzXUtwQA,V9SeBwX5f I hope that you enjoyed this weekend's offerings and wishing you a great week.... Sincerely, Greg Brown Ciregmy Brown Chairman & CEO GlotolCast Partners, LLC US: +I-415-9947851 Tel: +14300-406-5892 Fax: +1-310461-0927 Sic e: EFTA01181447