Utah Gets Tough on Kids

This is one of those "you gotta be kidding" stories, the Uintah Elementary school in Salt Lake City made the national news, and not in a good way.  They served 40 kids their lunch, then confiscated the food and threw it away!  The school district reports that the kids parents hadn't put enough money in their lunch accounts, and this was their way of saying "Pay up".  The district later apologized on their Facebook page. 

Up to 40 kids at Uintah Elementary in Salt Lake City picked up their lunches Tuesday, then watched as the meals were taken and thrown away because of outstanding balances on their accounts — a move that shocked and angered parents.

"It was pretty traumatic and humiliating," said Erica Lukes, whose 11-year-old daughter had her cafeteria lunch taken from her as she stood in line Tuesday at Uintah Elementary School, 1571 E. 1300 South.

Lukes said as far as she knew, she was all paid up. "I think it’s despicable," she said. "These are young children that shouldn’t be punished or humiliated for something the parents obviously need to clear up."

Jason Olsen, a Salt Lake City District spokesman, said the district’s child-nutrition department became aware that Uintah had a large number of students who owed money for lunches.

As a result, the child-nutrition manager visited the school and decided to withhold lunches to deal with the issue, he said.

But cafeteria workers weren’t able to see which children owed money until they had already received lunches, Olsen explained.

The workers then took those lunches from the students and threw them away, he said, because once food is served to one student it can’t be served to another.

Republicans take on NSA

I never thought I would agree to anything the Republican party did, but they finally came up with a position I agree with as reported in The Guardian.  The Republican National Committee adopted a resolution denouncing the NSA bulk collection of phone data in the US, which they learned about thanks to Edward Snowden.  Now if they were kind enough to thank him and accord him whistleblower status, I might have to think more kindly of them, at least for a few minutes.

In its resolution, the RNC also called for a special committee to “investigate, report, and reveal to the public the extent of this domestic spying” and “hold accountable those public officials who are found to be responsible for this unconstitutional surveillance”. The resolution goes on to say that “the mass collection and retention of personal data is in itself contrary to the right of privacy protected by the fourth amendment of the United States constitution".  “I think that the committee's resolution this morning was about reflecting where it thinks sentiment lies,” the RNC deputy press secretary, Raffi Williams, told the Guardian.

“The Republican National Committee encourages Republican lawmakers to enact legislation to amend Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, the state secrets privilege, and the Fisa Amendments Act to make it clear that blanket surveillance of the internet activity, phone records and correspondence – electronic, physical, and otherwise – of any person residing in the US is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court,” the resolution says.
It also “encourages Republican lawmakers to immediately take action to halt current unconstitutional surveillance programs and provide a full public accounting of the NSA’s data collection programs”.

No word if George W Bush and Dick Cheney will be hauled before a congressional committee.

Free Trade Swamps All Boats

 This article from The Huffington Post says it all on the subject of "free trade", courtesy Alan Grayson.

A picture is worth 1000 words. So let me show you two of them. On the left, our trade balance between 1962 and 1992, before so-called "free trade agreements." And on the right, our trade balance since then:

What sane person could look at these two charts, and conclude that what America needs is more "free trade"?

We have run a trade deficit of at least $350,000,000,000.00 every single year since 2000, with no end in sight. The result is that we have gutted the U.S. manufacturing base, and run up enormous debt to foreigners -- almost $6 trillion ($6,000,000,000,000.00) in U.S. Treasury debt alone.

We buy their goods, putting their workers to work. They buy our assets, driving us deeper and deeper into debt.

Ultra Rich and the Rest of Us

A new report has been published by Oxfam, an international organization that works to eradicate the sources of poverty, showing that the richest 85 people in the world control the same wealth as the poorest 3.5 Billion people throughout the world, and the inequality is still increasing.  Titled "Working for the Few", it examines the consequences of extreme wealth inequality.

Some economic inequality is essential to drive growth and progress,

rewarding those with talent, hard earned skills, and the ambition to

innovate and take entrepreneurial risks. However, the extreme levels of

wealth concentration occurring today threaten to exclude hundreds of

millions of people from realizing the benefits of their talents and hard

work.

Extreme economic inequality is damaging and worrying for many

reasons: it is morally questionable; it can have negative impacts on

economic growth and poverty reduction; and it can multiply social

problems. It compounds other inequalities, such as those between

women and men. In many countries, extreme economic inequality is

worrying because of the pernicious impact that wealth concentrations can

have on equal political representation. When wealth captures

government policymaking, the rules bend to favor the rich, often to the

detriment of everyone else. The consequences include the erosion of

democratic governance, the pulling apart of social cohesion, and

the vanishing of equal opportunities for all.

Given the scale of rising wealth concentrations, opportunity capture and

unequal political representation are a serious and worrying trend. For

instance:

•

Almost half of the world’s wealth is now owned by just one percent of

the population.

•

The wealth of the one percent richest people in the world amounts to

$110 trillion. That’s 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the

world’s population.

•

The bottom half of the world’s population owns the same as the

richest 85 people in the world.

NSA Reform Misdirection

President Obama gave the big NSA reform pitch, but it didn't make many people happy, for a lot of different reasons.  My own reaction is pretty unhappy, he danced around big issues while trying to dress the NSA in pretty clothes.  Some of the issues I have involve the government arbitrarily and secretly assuming the right to spy on innocent citizens, and to punish anyone who reveals it as a traitor, their persecution of Edward Snowden is classical police state stuff.  Over at The Guardian Glenn Greenwald has branded it mostly PR fluff.  The ACLU says:

“The president’s speech outlined several developments which we welcome. However, the president’s decision not to end bulk collection and retention of all Americans’ data remains highly troubling. The president outlined a process to study the issue further and appears open to alternatives. But the president should end – not mend – the government’s collection and retention of all law-abiding Americans’ data. When the government collects and stores every American’s phone call data, it is engaging in a textbook example of an ‘unreasonable search’ that violates the Constitution. The president’s own review panel recommended that bulk data collection be ended, and the president should accept that recommendation in its entirety.”  See this link for an analysis of what got fixed and what didn't.

I completely agree with the ACLU when they say the government "is engaging in a textbook example of an ‘unreasonable search’ that violates the Constitution.", but the defenders of the status quo ignore that fact.  Ron Wyden had this to say about it.

“After the long push to rein in overbroad surveillance powers, we are very pleased that the President announced his intent to end the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records.  Ending this dragnet collection will go a long way toward restoring Americans’ constitutional rights and rebuilding the public’s trust. Make no mistake, this is a major milestone in our longstanding efforts to reform the National Security Agency’s bulk collection program.

We also believe that additional surveillance reforms are necessary, and we will continue to push for these reforms in the coming weeks and months.  In particular, we will work to close the “back-door searches” loophole and ensure that the government does not read Americans’ emails or other communications without a warrant.  We will work to ensure that intelligence activities do not recklessly undermine confidence in American IT products and American IT employers. We will also continue to press for meaningful reforms of the outdated Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court process. This should include the establishment of a strong, independent advocate to ensure that the Court hears both sides of the argument.

Blueberry Extortion Ruled Illegal

The US Department of Labor investigates minimum wage violations, and rightly so, but they have a tool called the "Hot Goods Order" which they used in 2012 against three Oregon Blueberry farm operations.  The tool was employed in the 1930's to shut down garment sweat shops, but it is a deadly weapon when used on perishable crops, and a federal judge agreed it was overreach in those circumstances in a suit brought by Pan-American Berry Growers and B&G Ditchen.

Attorney Tim Bernaseck represents both companies. He says his clients were faced with a choice: admit guilt, waive their right to an appeal and pay more than $200,000 in fines and back wages or let millions of dollars worth of berries rot.
Bernaseck said, “I mean it’s really unbelievable that they did this and thought that it was ok to do that. It’s just not the way that our government works, or should work. And we’re just thankful that the judge called them on it.”
In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Thomas Coffin wrote the orders unfairly stacked the deck against the farms. The department did not respond to a request for comment. The government has 14 days to appeal.

Oregons' congressmen and State officials also blasted the DOL choice of enforcement.

A retired federal Wage and Hour Division investigator who reviewed two of the cases for an attorney representing the farmers said the agency's action was hasty and alarmingly incomplete.

"They put a noose around the neck of these farmers right off. That is not what Wage and Hour is about," said Manuel Lopez of Eugene, who was a labor investigator for 27 years.

Oregon officials are furious. The state's labor commissioner, agriculture director and most of the state's congressional delegation asked the labor department to explain its action.

Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian was the most direct. In an Aug. 15 letter to the federal agency, he said seizing perishable crops probably violates the constitutional search and seizure and due process rights of farmers "who have yet to be found guilty of anything."  In an Aug. 17 letter, the congressional delegation said the federal Department of Labor "may have abandoned normal due process mechanisms." Use of a "hot goods" order is reserved for cases in which farm labor violations are "willful, egregious and/or repeated," the letter said.

Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley signed the letter, as did representatives Kurt Schrader, Peter DeFazio, Greg Walden and Suzanne Bonamici.