Day: May 29, 2018

Democrats to run against the GOP’s culture of corruption

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The first planks of the Democratic Party’s “A Better Deal” platform, released last year, focused on the party’s economic agenda.

Now with daily revelations about scandals of pay-to-play politics swirling around President Trump and his current and former aides, Democrats introduced new anti-corruption proposals last week billed as “A Better Deal for Our Democracy.” Democrats’ newest midterm pitch: A crackdown on corruption:

“Instead of delivering on his promise to drain the swamp, President Trump has become the swamp,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) during a rollout event on the Capitol steps.

While the new agenda was only sketched out in broad terms [last week], it includes proposals that would eliminate loopholes that allow lobbyists and lawmakers to buy and sell influence without the public’s knowledge, allow big donors to influence the political process through unreported donations and to improve elections by eliminating partisan gerrymandering and implementing automatic voter registration.

The message, the Democrats said: Elect us in November to “clean up the chaos and corruption in Washington.”

Democrats are going to need to hire the dwarf from O Brother Where Art Thou? who depicted the “little man,” with a “broom of reform” with which Homer Stokes promised to “sweep this state clean.” A broom is the perfect symbolism for the man who keeps crying “witch hunt!”

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Economic disruption and a federal ‘jobs guarantee’

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Axios.com regularly publishes reports on how artificial intelligence, robotics, automation and computerization in the information age is eliminating jobs in the way that the industrial age caused economic disruption of the world’s economic order from its agrarian past.

Steve LeVine recently reported this fascinating piece, The coming jobs apocalypse:

Congress and the Trump administration have yet to create a coherent policy response to a widely forecast social and economic tsunami resulting from automation, including the potential for decades of flat wages and joblessness. But cities and regions are starting to act on their own.

What’s happening: In Indianapolis, about 338,000 people are at high risk of automation taking their jobs, according to a new report. In Phoenix, the number is 650,000. In both cases, that’s 35% of the workforce. In northeastern Ohio, about 40,000 workers are at high risk.

In all three places, local officials are attempting to take charge by identifying jobs most at risk, skills most likely to be in great future demand, and how to organize education and industry around a new economy.

  • Their gingerly first steps are a snapshot of how economies throughout the advanced countries will have to respond to an already-underway economic disruption that will be of unknown duration and magnitude.
  • “This is a national trend that is going to play out locally. This is something the country and really the world is facing right now,” said Rachel Korberg of the Rockefeller Foundation, which funded the reports covering Phoenix and Indianapolis.

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City Council, Stop allowing City Maintenance to Poison Tucson

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It’s no secret my fondness for edible weeds or my complete disdain for Round Up. I hung a sign in the alleyway, “No Poison, Please. Edible Weeds Grow Here.” I’ve done my best to educate the poor, misguided landscapers and maintenance workers who spray Round Up on every little weed and even baby palm trees. (Won’t kill ’em anyway…) Sometimes I’m more successful than others. At a recent city council meeting, a woman took advantage of the public hearing period to urge the council to stop weeds from coming up this monsoon season by spraying pre-emergent herbicide all over town. Right then and there I decided to use my time to speak up about it. But Mayor Rothschild, in his great wisdom, had me speak on my other issue instead. That was just the nudge I needed to share my concerns with him and all the city council members in great detail… including links. lol

Feel free to write your Council Member too!

Find your ward here.

Contact info for Council Members here

Following the city’s example

Dear Mayor Jonathon Rothschild and Council Members:

I’ve been meaning to speak up at a city council meeting about the transportation department’s overuse of herbicides for some time. After my mom got a severe headache from breathing in the Round Up sprayed in a right of way on our street, I spoke to the landscaper about it. He replied, “The city sprays it everywhere, so can we.”

Since then I have been very aware of herbicides sprayed on city property. The other day I was stunned to see an entire lot covered with it. Recently I walked by the County Public Service Center building. In the catchment basins – that should be an example of the best water-harvesting practices – there were turquoise patches of weed killer. Right where the rainwater sinks in to restore our aquifer! I brought this up to t
Department of Environmental Quality just to be told that was the work of the city maintenance department.

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