Semper Fi: Always Faithful

On February 24, 2012 at 10Pm Lawrence O'Donnell will be doing a special on Semper Fi.  If you are interested or one of the many Marines stationed at Camp LeJune, North Carolina from 1957 - 1987. This may pretain to you.

Semper Fi: Always Faithful Trailer from Rachel Libert on Vimeo.

Inspiration for Semper Fi: Always Faithful

Originally published in the Huffington Post.
Serendipity is often the starting point for documentary films and this was certainly the case with my film Semper Fi: Always Faithful. Nearly four years ago, my Co-Director Tony Hardmon and I were researching a documentary film about an innovative public health program when we met the sister of a man named Jerry Ensminger. She told us that her brother was in the process of exposing water contamination at a Marine Corps Base and she was looking for filmmakers to document it. We were skeptical but she laid out this incredible story of intrigue, heartbreak and betrayal. It piqued our interest enough that we showed up in Washington, DC two weeks later and met a gruff retired Marine on the mission of his life.
Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger was a devoted Marine for nearly 25 years. As a drill instructor he lived and breathed the "Corps" and was responsible for indoctrinating thousands of new recruits. Jerry moved to North Carolina's Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in 1975 when his wife was pregnant with their second child Janey. When Janey was six years old she was diagnosed with a rare type of leukemia. Despite countless excruciating medical procedures and a tireless desire to live, Janey succumbed to her disease when she was only nine years old. Jerry's world collapsed and he was left with the nagging question "why?" He began a relentless search for answers in 1997 upon hearing a local news story on the issue, which led to the discovery of one of the largest water contamination incidents in U.S. history.
The drinking water at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune had been highly contaminated by carcinogenic chemicals for nearly thirty years. It's estimated that nearly a million Marines and their families drank, bathed and cooked with this water between 1957 and 1987.
Semper Fi: Always Faithful follows Jerry as he fights for justice on behalf of the Marines and their families exposed to these deadly toxins. In the process, we also witness this dutiful soldier transform himself into the activist he never imagined he'd become. We felt that this was a unique opportunity to tell the story of an environmental disaster from a very personal perspective.
When we first learned about the situation at Camp Lejeune, we were surprised that the water was contaminated for such a long period of time and that the Marine Corps hadn't notified former residents of their exposure to carcinogenic toxins until 2008. When we dug deeper and learned that the United States Department of Defense is our nation's largest polluter, we knew that this was an important story with far-reaching repercussions.
This issue does not just affect military personnel and their families. At the same time that we were documenting Jerry's efforts to raise awareness about Camp Lejeune, the Department of Defense was fighting for exemptions from environmental laws and battling with regulators over the safe standards for some of the most common contaminants found in this country. There are over 130 military sites on the EPA's National Priorities List for clean-up. At some of these sites, toxins have spread from the military base into neighboring civilian communities.
While making the film, I began to see that the Department of Defense is behaving the way that most polluters behave. They often bury their head in the sand and hope that no harm comes from what they've done. I think the difference here is that we expect more from our government than from private industry.
In many ways, the story of Semper Fi: Always Faithful is a classic David and Goliath tale and it was this conflict and heroism that initially attracted us. When we began making the film we were somewhat cynical about how much one man could achieve when fighting the U.S. government. Jerry and his team have dispelled any doubts that we had. We hope the film illustrates that social change is possible especially when undertaken by relentless and determined individuals.

Semper Fi: Always Faithful premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on Thursday April 21, 2011 and will screen three additional times during the festival.

Contamination at Camp Lejune

WHAT HAPPENED
Between 1957 – 1987 an estimated 750,000 to 1,000,000 people may have drank and bathed in tap water containing extremely high concentrations of toxic chemicals at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina. It is believed to be one of the largest water contamination incident s in US history.
Leaking underground storage tanks, industrial area spills, waste disposal sites and waste from an off-base dry cleaning business were identified as the sources of the contamination. Over 70 chemicals were found in the water, including benzene, vinyl chloride and trichloroethylene (TCE), three known human carcinogens, in addition perchloroethylene (PCE), a probable carcinogen. 

Caring for Camp Lejeune Veterans Act of 2011

by Levi Newman on October 10, 2011

One of the most toxic contaminations in the country began in 1957 and continued through 1987 at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Marines and their family members consumed or used contaminated water containing various volatile compounds for years. According to the St. Petersburg Times, a regulation on the books of Camp Lejeune shows the Corps knew the danger organic solvents posed as early as 1974. The paper reported that the news went public in1984.
The Caring for Camp Lejeune Veterans Act of 2011 was proposed as a way to provide hospital care, medical services, and nursing home care for any illness acquired by veterans and family members who suffered effects from contamination. In June of 2011, the bill passed out of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs with bipartisan support. However, since September, Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) has faced stiff opposition from military and veterans groups, Department of Defense and the Veterans Affairs regarding his method to fund the bill.
To pay for the bill, Burr included a provision that would remove the appropriations that help cover the cost of the Defense Commissary System and would fold the commissaries in with the military exchange system. This would effectively eliminate the discounted grocery benefits many service-members and their families rely upon.
Currently, the bill is on the Senate editorial calendar, awaiting debate on the Senate floor. A major push for the legislation has been provided by an upcoming documentary, Rachel Libert and Tony Hardmon’s Semper Fi: Always Faithful.
While legislation rests in the hands of Congress, we should rely on each other more than ever to keep the faith and help one another. Semper Fidelis.

Link to the timeline, courtesy of St. Petersberg Times.

The Last Of CPAC

These are the lasst videos i will post.  There are more and you can see them on YouTube at CPAC

CPAC 2012: Reince Priebus


Uploaded by townhall on Feb 14, 2012

CPAC 2012: Reince Priebus

Uploaded by townerman23 on Feb 6, 2012

Watch This Vide and More In FULL HD On our Website : http://bit.ly/wQxZNI

CPAC 2012 - February 9-11, 2012 - - Video is a preview trailer for CPAC 2012. Join the American Conservative Union in Washington, DC for their 38th Conservative Political Action Conference - the largest annual gathering and agenda-setting event for conservative activists and leaders from across the country. The theme is - "We STILL Hold These Truths" - an ode to our country's founding "First Principles," including: 1.) Constitutionally Limited Government; 2.) Individual Liberty; 3.) Free Markets; 4.) Strong National Defense; and 5.) Preserving Traditional Values. Learn more at

CPAC 2012: Kirk Cameron Interview at CPAC

Uploaded by townhall on Feb 11, 2012

Kirk Cameron interviewed by Townhall 

Heaviest 2013 defense budget cuts would fall on troops

 

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/02/13/138781/heaviest-2013-defense-budget-cuts.html#storylink=cpy

By Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — As the Pentagon sought to show Monday that it had made tough spending decisions in its fiscal 2013 budget proposal, the brunt of the reductions would fall on U.S. ground troops, which face job losses, modest pay raises and increased health care costs while serving in a smaller force.
Even with those cuts, however, the Pentagon's base budget, which excludes most war spending, would decrease only slightly next year — from the current $531 billion to $525 billion — before rising to $534 billion in 2014.
The proposed budget shifts some long-term war costs into the base budget and includes greater spending on operations and maintenance, a driver of the growth. By the 2017 fiscal year, the base budget is projected to reach $567 billion.
The Pentagon has said it's responding to the economic downturn by saving $259.4 billion, but that reflects only cuts in the projected growth of spending through the 2017 fiscal year.
"Despite the president's good intentions to improve the balance between military and non-military security spending, the budget leaves it essentially unchanged through 2016," Miriam Pemberton, a research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, a left-leaning think tank, said in a statement.
The budget is intended to reflect the Obama administration's new defense strategy, which calls for a leaner, more agile force that's prepared for any kind of threat, while focusing on Asia and the Middle East. The strategy, which officials introduced last month, said the military must be ready to conduct several operations at the same time.
Under the new budget plan, which Congress must approve, Pentagon officials said that some troops — although it didn't specify how many — would be forced to leave the military as the department shrank the size of the services. By 2017, the Army is projected to shrink by 72,000 soldiers to 490,000, the Marines will shrink by 20,000 to 182,000, the Navy will shrink by 6,200 to 319,500 and the Air Force will shrink by 4,200 to 328,600.
Robert Hale, the Pentagon's comptroller, said the military would be "humane" in its cuts, and that they'd still leave a larger force than before the wars started. In 2001, there were 480,000 soldiers and 180,000 Marines.
The Pentagon called for retiring some planes that transport troops, including 27 C-5As and 65 C-130s. It said it planned to reduce pay raises to below private-sector levels, with troops receiving 1.7 percent raises for the next two years, followed by 0.5 percent increases in 2015 and 1 percent hikes in 2016.
The budget also would delay the purchase of several weapons systems — notably 179 of the controversial F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, the most expensive weapons system in U.S. military history. Hale said the delay was to give the developer, Lockheed Martin, time to correct problems with the system, but critics have charged that delaying the purchases while not canceling them outright kicked the decision down the road and potentially raises the cost per system in the future.
Service members also will face increased health care fees, deductibles and co-payments phased in over several years, although the Pentagon didn't offer specifics. Military-age retirees who make more than $45,179 annually — a pension usually reserved for officers — will see their health care costs nearly quadruple, from $600 annually in fiscal year 2013 to $2,048 in 2017.

The United States withdrew forces from Iraq in December, but the Pentagon asked for $2.9 billion to spend there, largely to pay for the removal of equipment still in the country, Hale said. Another $88.5 billion in contingency funding will pay for operations in Afghanistan in the new fiscal year.
Some of the figures don't appear to reflect the Pentagon's stated goals. The Defense Department has called training Afghan security forces a key to its strategy to exit Afghanistan, yet the budget proposal cuts spending on that training mission by half, from $11.2 billion this fiscal year to $5.7 billion in 2013.
Hale said military officials thought that start-up costs for the mission of training some 352,000 Afghan soldiers and police officers_ such as spending on infrastructure for new Afghan bases and supplying the Afghans with uniforms and weapons — had passed.
"Don't take that reduction as any sign of a reduction in our commitment" to Afghan forces, Hale said. "We are fully committed to them."
Even the reduced spending on Afghan security forces, however, is more than the Army would spend on schools, day care centers and commissaries for its soldiers' families. The Army asked for $8.5 billion for military family support.
Hale said the department also would ask Congress to start two rounds of base realignments and closures — the always-controversial proceedings known as BRAC — in 2013 and 2015, which he said would lead to $5 billion in savings. Those savings aren't yet included in the budget proposal, Hale said.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/02/13/138781/heaviest-2013-defense-budget-cuts.html#storylink=cpy

Severe Conservative Syndrome

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: February 12, 2012

Mitt Romney has a gift for words — self-destructive words. On Friday he did it again, telling the Conservative Political Action Conference that he was a “severely conservative governor.”

As Molly Ball of The Atlantic pointed out, Mr. Romney “described conservatism as if it were a disease.” Indeed. Mark Liberman, a linguistics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, provided a list of words that most commonly follow the adverb “severely”; the top five, in frequency of use, are disabled, depressed, ill, limited and injured.

That’s clearly not what Mr. Romney meant to convey. Yet if you look at the race for the G.O.P. presidential nomination, you have to wonder whether it was a Freudian slip. For something has clearly gone very wrong with modern American conservatism.

Start with Rick Santorum, who, according to Public Policy Polling, is the clear current favorite among usual Republican primary voters, running 15 points ahead of Mr. Romney. Anyone with an Internet connection is aware that Mr. Santorum is best known for 2003 remarks about homosexuality, incest and bestiality. But his strangeness runs deeper than that.

For example, last year Mr. Santorum made a point of defending the medieval Crusades against the “American left who hates Christendom.” Historical issues aside (hey, what are a few massacres of infidels and Jews among friends?), what was this doing in a 21st-century campaign?

Nor is this only about sex and religion: he has also declared that climate change is a hoax, part of a “beautifully concocted scheme” on the part of “the left” to provide “an excuse for more government control of your life.” You may say that such conspiracy-theorizing is hardly unique to Mr. Santorum, but that’s the point: tinfoil hats have become a common, if not mandatory, G.O.P. fashion accessory.

Then there’s Ron Paul, who came in a strong second in Maine’s caucuses despite widespread publicity over such matters as the racist (and conspiracy-minded) newsletters published under his name in the 1990s and his declarations that both the Civil War and the Civil Rights Act were mistakes. Clearly, a large segment of his party’s base is comfortable with views one might have thought were on the extreme fringe.

Finally, there’s Mr. Romney, who will probably get the nomination despite his evident failure to make an emotional connection with, well, anyone. The truth, of course, is that he was not a “severely conservative” governor. His signature achievement was a health reform identical in all important respects to the national reform signed into law by President Obama four years later. And in a rational political world, his campaign would be centered on that achievement.

But Mr. Romney is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, and whatever his personal beliefs may really be — if, indeed, he believes anything other than that he should be president — he needs to win over primary voters who really are severely conservative in both his intended and unintended senses.

So he can’t run on his record in office. Nor was he trying very hard to run on his business career even before people began asking hard (and appropriate) questions about the nature of that career.

Instead, his stump speeches rely almost entirely on fantasies and fabrications designed to appeal to the delusions of the conservative base. No, President Obama isn’t someone who “began his presidency by apologizing for America,” as Mr. Romney declared, yet again, a week ago. But this “Four-Pinocchio Falsehood,” as the Washington Post Fact Checker puts it, is at the heart of the Romney campaign.

How did American conservatism end up so detached from, indeed at odds with, facts and rationality? For it was not always thus. After all, that health reform Mr. Romney wants us to forget followed a blueprint originally laid out at the Heritage Foundation!

My short answer is that the long-running con game of economic conservatives and the wealthy supporters they serve finally went bad. For decades the G.O.P. has won elections by appealing to social and racial divisions, only to turn after each victory to deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy — a process that reached its epitome when George W. Bush won re-election by posing as America’s defender against gay married terrorists, then announced that he had a mandate to privatize Social Security.

Over time, however, this strategy created a base that really believed in all the hokum — and now the party elite has lost control.

The point is that today’s dismal G.O.P. field — is there anyone who doesn’t consider it dismal? — is no accident. Economic conservatives played a cynical game, and now they’re facing the blowback, a party that suffers from “severe” conservatism in the worst way. And the malady may take many years to cure.

President Obama's Budget Interactive

UPDATED February 12, 2012

Four Ways to Slice Obama’s 2013 Budget Proposal

Explore every nook and cranny of President Obama's federal budget proposal.

All Spending

Types of Spending

Changes

Department Totals

Senate GOP tries to restore Keystone pipeline

Obama administration rejects Keystone XL pipeline

On Jan. 18, President Obama rejected a Canadian firm’s application for a permit to build and operate the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, a massive project that would have stretched from Canada’s oil sands to refineries in Texas. Here’s a look at some of the key players in the pipeline plan and the protests against it.


WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 7, 2011. Crowds against the Keystone XL Pipeline gather outside the Reagan Building in Washington, DC on October 7, 2011. There were many others supporting different causes that came to the event. (Photo by Tracy A. Woodward/The Washington Post)?? 

By Juliet Eilperin, Published: February 13

Senate Republicans introduced an amendment Monday to a federal transportation bill that would speed the construction and operation of a controversial oil pipeline between Canada and the United States.

The move sparked a backlash from environmentalists, who generated hundreds of thousands of e-mails against the amendment within hours.

It remains unclear how quickly the Senate will vote on the amendment, which has the backing of 44 Republicans and one Democrat. Senate Democratic leaders oppose it and the chamber is embroiled in a separate fight over President Obama’s contraception coverage policy.

The amendment indicates the debate over TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline — which would transport heavy crude from Canada’s oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries — will continue to help define the two parties this election. Proponents say it will create jobs and provide the United States with a reliable energy supply. Opponents argue that the energy-intensive extraction of crude in Canada will accelerate climate change, and they worry that a spill could jeopardize sensitive habitat.

President Obama denied the TransCanada permit application last month, saying a congressionally mandated deadline did not allow his aides enough time to evaluate the project once Nebraska completed a rerouting of the pipeline around the sensitive Sand Hills habitat. The firm has indicated it will reapply for a federal permit.

The measure sponsored by GOP Sens. John Hoeven (N.D.), Richard G. Lugar (Ind.) and David Vitter (La.) would eliminate the need for TransCanada to obtain a federal permit to cross the U.S.-Canada border, while allowing Nebraska unlimited time to develop an alternative route through its territory.

Hoeven said that the measure “not only acknowledges the vital national interest this project represents on many levels, but also works in a bipartisan way to begin construction.”

More than 30 environmental and liberal groups began a noon drive to muster at least half a million messages to Congress within 24 hours in opposition to the project. They reached that goal just before 7 p.m. They planned to deliver those and later messages Tuesday to the offices of Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

“Anyone who thought environmentalists were graying into irrelevance was wrong,” said climate activist Bill McKibben, who co-founded the group 350.org and had helped lead protests against the pipeline.

But Lugar spokesman Neil Brown said that Republicans would continue pressing for approval of the project. “We are committed to succeed where President Obama failed on Keystone XL, so we’ll try every avenue to get a vote and keep coming back on KXL until we get a vote for jobs,” he said.

800,000 Americans Tell Senate: Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline

More than 800,000 messages urging rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline are delivered to the U.S. Senate, February 14, 2012 (Photo by 350.org)


WASHINGTON, DC, February 14, 2012 (ENS) - Over the last 24 hours, environmental and progressive groups flooded the Senate with more than 800,000 messages opposing TransCanada's Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.


The 1,700-mile-long proposed pipeline would carry heavy bitumen oil from the tar sands of northern Alberta to refineries in Oklahoma and on the Texas Gulf Coast.

The surge in activism came as Senate Republicans tried to add an amendment giving Congress authority to approve the pipeline to a bill intended to reauthorize transportation funding for the next six years.

Because the pipeline would cross an international border, a Presidential Permit is required stating that the project is in the national interest.

The Senate's amendment to the transportation bill would reverse President Barack Obama's January 18 decision to block the controversial project because it is not in the national interest.

In December, Congress passed and the President signed a bill to extend the payroll tax cut. Attached was an amendment requiring Obama to decide whether or not to approve the pipeline within 60 days. Saying more time was needed for a new route through Nebraska to be determined, Obama met the 60 day deadline by rejecting the pipeline.

More than 800,000 messages urging rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline are delivered to the U.S. Senate, February 14, 2012 (Photo by 350.org)

Today, representatives from the coalition delivered the 800,000 messages directly to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican.

The petition drive was organized by a group of over 30 organizations and businesses with the goal of sending the Senate half a million messages in under 24 hours.

The online drive quickly went viral, powered in part by blogs and online advertising, tweets from celebrities, including the founder of Twitter, Evan Williams, and attention from Stephen Colbert, who interviewed 350.org founder and petition organizer Bill McKibben on his Comedy Central TV show Monday night.

The online push inspired offline action as well, organizers said.

In Kentucky, over 2,000 people gathered at a rally opposing mountaintop removal mining picked up their cell phones and called Senator McConnell, urging him to stop pushing the pipeline.

In New York City, dozens of people visited Senator Charles Schumer's office and got him on the record opposing the pipeline.

Petition deliveries also took place in Ohio, Maine, North Carolina, New Mexico, and elsewhere.

Fifteen of the nation's top climate scientists also added their names to the effort by sending a personal letter to the Senate and the House of Representatives, urging the leadership of both parties to abandon the tar sands pipeline because of its potential damaging impact on the environment and climate.

"We are researchers at work on the science of climate change and allied fields," the scientists wrote. "Last summer, we called on President Obama to block the proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Canada's tar sands. We were gratified to see that he did so, and since some in Congress are seeking to revive this plan, we wanted to restate the case against it."

"The tar sands are a huge pool of carbon, one that it does not make sense to exploit. It takes a lot of energy and water to extract and refine this resource into useable fuel, and the mining is environmentally destructive," the scientists explained. "Adding this on top of conventional fossil fuels will leave our children and grandchildren a climate system with consequences that are out of their control. It makes no sense to build a pipeline that would dramatically increase exploitation of this resource."

"When other huge oil fields or coal mines were opened in the past, we knew much less about the damage that the carbon they contained would do to the earth's climate and its oceans. Now that we do know," the scientists urged, "it's imperative that we move quickly to alternate forms of energy - and that we leave the tar sands in the ground."

"We can say categorically that this pipeline is not in the nation's, or the planet's best interest," wrote the group, which includes Dr. James Hansen of NASA, Dr. Michael Mann at Penn State, and Dr. Ralph Keeling at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California.

Many of the groups involved in the effort to collect signatures are pledging to keep up the fight against Keystone XL as long as Republicans continue to try and bring measures designed to resurrect the project.

CREDO Mobile phone company President Michael Kieschnick said, "The Senate should consider this one day of action as a warning. The American people are watching very closely whether the Senate represents Big Oil or the public health. If the Keystone XL pipeline is forced through, we will do much, much more until it is permanently blocked."

Participating groups included: 350.org, Alliance for Climate Education, Avaaz, BOLD Nebraska, Brighter Planet, Center for Biological Diversity, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Climate Reality Project, Climate Solutions, CREDO, Democracy for America, Environmental Action, Energy Action Coalition, Environmental Defense, Frack Action/Water Defense, Friends of the Earth, FUSE, Global Exchange, Green America, Green for All, Indigenous Environmental Network, League of Conservation Voters, Labor Network for Sustainability, MoveOn.org Political Action, National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, Oil Change International, Other 98%, Public Citizen, Patagonia, The North Face, Rainforest Action Network, Rebuild the Dream, Sierra Club, Solar Mosaic, Sojourners, Sungevity, Tar Sands Campaign, US Climate Action Network and Vote Solar.

Many of the groups involved in the effort to collect signatures are pledging to keep up the fight against Keystone XL as long as Republicans continue to try and bring measures designed to resurrect the project.

The Great Divorce

January 30, 2012

By DAVID BROOKS

I’ll be shocked if there’s another book this year as important as Charles Murray’s “Coming Apart.” I’ll be shocked if there’s another book that so compellingly describes the most important trends in American society.

Murray’s basic argument is not new, that America is dividing into a two-caste society. What’s impressive is the incredible data he produces to illustrate that trend and deepen our understanding of it.

His story starts in 1963. There was a gap between rich and poor then, but it wasn’t that big. A house in an upper-crust suburb cost only twice as much as the average new American home. The tippy-top luxury car, the Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz, cost about $47,000 in 2010 dollars. That’s pricey, but nowhere near the price of the top luxury cars today.

More important, the income gaps did not lead to big behavior gaps. Roughly 98 percent of men between the ages of 30 and 49 were in the labor force, upper class and lower class alike. Only about 3 percent of white kids were born outside of marriage. The rates were similar, upper class and lower class.

Since then, America has polarized. The word “class” doesn’t even capture the divide Murray describes. You might say the country has bifurcated into different social tribes, with a tenuous common culture linking them.

The upper tribe is now segregated from the lower tribe. In 1963, rich people who lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan lived close to members of the middle class. Most adult Manhattanites who lived south of 96th Street back then hadn’t even completed high school. Today, almost all of Manhattan south of 96th Street is an upper-tribe enclave.

Today, Murray demonstrates, there is an archipelago of affluent enclaves clustered around the coastal cities, Chicago, Dallas and so on. If you’re born into one of them, you will probably go to college with people from one of the enclaves; you’ll marry someone from one of the enclaves; you’ll go off and live in one of the enclaves.

Worse, there are vast behavioral gaps between the educated upper tribe (20 percent of the country) and the lower tribe (30 percent of the country). This is where Murray is at his best, and he’s mostly using data on white Americans, so the effects of race and other complicating factors don’t come into play.

Roughly 7 percent of the white kids in the upper tribe are born out of wedlock, compared with roughly 45 percent of the kids in the lower tribe. In the upper tribe, nearly every man aged 30 to 49 is in the labor force. In the lower tribe, men in their prime working ages have been steadily dropping out of the labor force, in good times and bad.

People in the lower tribe are much less likely to get married, less likely to go to church, less likely to be active in their communities, more likely to watch TV excessively, more likely to be obese.

Murray’s story contradicts the ideologies of both parties. Republicans claim that America is threatened by a decadent cultural elite that corrupts regular Americans, who love God, country and traditional values. That story is false. The cultural elites live more conservative, traditionalist lives than the cultural masses.

Democrats claim America is threatened by the financial elite, who hog society’s resources. But that’s a distraction. The real social gap is between the top 20 percent and the lower 30 percent. The liberal members of the upper tribe latch onto this top 1 percent narrative because it excuses them from the central role they themselves are playing in driving inequality and unfairness.

It’s wrong to describe an America in which the salt of the earth common people are preyed upon by this or that nefarious elite. It’s wrong to tell the familiar underdog morality tale in which the problems of the masses are caused by the elites.

The truth is, members of the upper tribe have made themselves phenomenally productive. They may mimic bohemian manners, but they have returned to 1950s traditionalist values and practices. They have low divorce rates, arduous work ethics and strict codes to regulate their kids.

Members of the lower tribe work hard and dream big, but are more removed from traditional bourgeois norms. They live in disorganized, postmodern neighborhoods in which it is much harder to be self-disciplined and productive.

I doubt Murray would agree, but we need a National Service Program. We need a program that would force members of the upper tribe and the lower tribe to live together, if only for a few years. We need a program in which people from both tribes work together to spread out the values, practices and institutions that lead to achievement.

If we could jam the tribes together, we’d have a better elite and a better mass.

Apple admits it has a human rights problem

After years of complaints and workers' suicides in China the technology giant faces up to the human cost of its gadgets

Stephen Foley New York
Tuesday 14 February 2012


Thousands of Chinese factory workers will be given the chance to detail the punishing conditions on assembly lines producing Apple iPads and iPhones, after the US company bowed to criticism and agreed to allow independent inspections of its supply chain.

Facing a growing scandal over the working conditions of those making its best-selling gadgets, Apple has called in assessors from the same organisation that was set up to stamp out sweatshops in the clothing industry more than a decade ago. The move is an admission that Apple's own system of monitoring suppliers has failed to stamp out abuses, and that the negative publicity surrounding its Chinese operations threatens to cause a consumer backlash against its products.

But campaigners for Chinese workers immediately criticised the company for conducting a public relations exercise instead of actually alleviating the long hours, harsh management and safety problems which have driven some workers to suicide and led to fatal accidents at a number of plants.

Inspectors from the Fair Labour Association started work yesterday at the Foxconn factory near the booming southern city of Shenzhen, where iPads are made. In 2010, a spate of 13 suicides or attempted suicides at that factory, known as Foxconn City, first turned a spotlight on the companies Apple uses to build its devices. Another Foxconn factory in Chengdu will also be inspected, Apple said, with the first findings to be published by the FLA next month. Apple said all of its suppliers had agreed to co-operate with the FLA and to let their workers speak freely.

Apple has come under fire for building a consumer electronics powerhouse on the backs of exploited workers, many of whom earn as little as 30p an hour. Employees of some suppliers complain of 10-hour shifts with only one permitted break, and of being forced to stand for so long that their legs swell. Last year, there were two fatal explosions at plants producing Apple goods, including one caused by the ignition of dust released by the polishing of new iPads.

The FLA will ask employees about working and living conditions, including health and safety, pay and hours. Its team will inspect manufacturing areas, dormitories and other facilities.

"We believe workers everywhere have the right to a safe and fair work environment, which is why we have asked the FLA to independently assess the performance of our largest suppliers," said Apple's chief executive, Tim Cook. "The inspections now under way are unprecedented in the electronics industry."

Apple's decision to call in the FLA comes after a new round of exposés of conditions at its suppliers. Last week, the campaign group China Labour Watch wrote an open letter to Mr Cook demanding that Apple accept lower profits so suppliers can raise wages, employ more staff and invest in improving safety.

Yesterday, the organisation dismissed Apple's commitment to independent inspections as a publicity stunt. "We already know what the conditions are like in the factories," said Fan Yuan, a China Labour Watch activist. "What Apple needs to do right now is take action to solve the problems. This move is not really about solving the problems, but rather about Apple getting publicity and rebuilding its positive image."

The FLA was set up in 1998 to monitor a code of practice introduced by clothing manufacturers that aimed to stamp out sweatshop conditions among their suppliers, following a similar public outcry and the success of consumer boycotts of offending companies.

Its work comes in addition to the audits conducted every year by Apple itself, which introduced a code of practice limiting the length of workers' shifts and demanded proper overtime pay. The company's spot-checks, though, reveal scores of violations at most suppliers.

Mr Cook, who took over the leadership of Apple last year from the late Steve Jobs, is fêted as the architect of its lean and flexible supply chain, which has been central to its ability to turn devices from concept to mass production in a matter of months. He has also focused on getting products produced at the lowest possible costs, which is one of the reasons that Apple's profits are among the fattest in the technology industry.

Yesterday, Apple's share price passed $500 for the first time in its history, just seven months after it first topped $400. The company is now the most valuable in the world, at $460bn.

Apple in China: The allegations

In July 2009, a Foxconn employee fell from an apartment building after losing an iPhone prototype. Over the next two years, at least 18 more of the company's workers have attempted suicide or have fallen from buildings in ways that suggested suicide.

In 2010, 137 workers at the Suzhou facility owned by Apple suppliers Wintek were injured after being ordered to use a poisonous chemical, n-hexane, to clean iPhone screens because it dried faster. Although Apple claims to have contacted all the employees affected, many say they have heard nothing.

In May 2011, four employees were killed and 18 were injured in a dust explosion at a Foxconn factory in Chengdu, which produces iPad parts. Chinese campaigners claim they warned Apple of hazardous conditions at the plant.

In December 2011, another 61 workers were injured in a gas explosion at the Riteng Computer Accessory Co factory in Shanghai, which was trialling aluminium iPad 2 back panels.

Employees allege that many of Foxconn's dormitories, where 70,000 workers live, are overcrowded, with reports of 20 workers being housed in a three-room apartment.

Jenny Stevens

Corporate income tax cut nears approval in Florida

Lawmakers moved closer to approving a tax plan that would double the corporate income tax exemption, from $25,000 to $50,000, meaning 3,770 companies would be exempt from paying any income taxes.


Posted on Tuesday, 02.14.12

The Miami Herald
2012 FLORIDA LEGISLATURE


By Toluse Olorunnipa

TALLAHASSEE -- After a partisan spectacle of procedural gamesmanship, House lawmakers moved closer to passing a massive package of business tax cuts.

The two-hour debate over the tax cuts was bitter at times, bouncing around to many of the hot-button political issues of the day — organized labor, contraception, Cuba, domestic partnerships, immigration and inequality. During the lengthy bout of political posturing, both Republicans and Democrats used procedural maneuvers to steer the debate towards politically divisive issues.

The tax plan, a priority of Gov. Rick Scott, would double the corporate income tax exemption, from $25,000 to $50,000, meaning 3,770 companies would be exempt from paying any income taxes.

Scott has said he would like to completely phase out the state’s corporate income tax, in order to make Florida more business-friendly. Companies paid nearly $2 billion in state income tax last year, about 8 percent of all revenue collected by Florida.

Several other parts of the tax package would cut costs for thousands of businesses and reduce revenue in the state. The measures would slash taxes on oil drilled in Florida (by $3.3 million), manufacturing equipment ($56.4 million), private plane repair ($12.3 million) and electricity at produce packing houses ($1.1 million).

Taken together, the cuts mean about $108 million in less revenue annually for the state, and about $13.2 million less for local governments.

The debate — which degenerated into a parliamentary scene of procedural maneuvers, highlighted the tension between Democrats and the Republicans, who hold a significant majority.

Democrats in the House used the opportunity to pepper high-ranking Republicans with a flurry of questions on a wide-range of political issues.

Democrats offered 15 amendments to the corporate tax cut, attempting to deny the benefit to companies that ship jobs offshore, deny health insurance for domestic partners, deny coverage for contraceptives, work with countries that sponsor terrorism, or discriminate against veterans.

In an attempt to call the Republicans’ bluff on immigration, Rep. Scott Randolph, D-Orlando, offered an amendment that would provide the corporate tax cut only to companies that used an E-Verify system to prevent the hiring of undocumented immigrants. Several Republicans, including Gov. Rick Scott, campaigned on the issue, but have generally avoided the politically-dangerous topic this year.

Rep. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, R-Miami, countered each of the amendments with an amendment of his own, stating that companies that hire unionized labor would not be eligible for a tax cut.

Each time, state Representatives voted to change the Democrat-led amendments into the anti-union amendment, effectively blocking a vote on the Democrat’s issues.

“There’s nothing in the rules that says that I can’t do this,” Lopez-Cantera told protesting Democrats. “I’m just doing what the rules afford me the right to do in this Chamber.”

The tax package faces a full vote in the House on Wednesday. The House also moved forward on other tax measures, including this year’s back-to-school sales tax holiday and a property tax exemption for surviving spouses of veterans and first responders killed in the line of duty.


charleo1


 Corporations don't want to pay a living wage. Done.
They don't want to provide retirement. Done.
They don't want to provide healthcare benefits. Done.
They want publicly financed debt. Done.
They want subsidies to off set business expense. Done
They want public school money. Done.
They want regulations removed holding them responsible for faulty products, dishonest financial
deals, and pollution clean ups. Done.
They want to pay no taxes on profits from all of the above.
And, they won't to do business in a state where they couldn't use taxpayer money to buy every
politician in it.

A Like Reply Yesterday 08:19 PM


KLC557



Collapse Expand It's about time to vote out all Republicans, they are only for big business and themselves. You Christians better wake-up and see they are devils in sheep's clothing. Remember the Republicans are the ones that opened up free trading that allowed Corporations to out source our jobs to other countries and not pay Taxes. If a Company wants to do business here in the states they need to pay taxes period. Then we come to the Presidential Candidates if they don't keep their money in the States and pay taxes on it they shouldn't be allowed to run. It's illegal for us as tax payers to do it so why do they get to. It shows how much they love their Country, if they are keeping their money elsewhere. Sounds to me they are UN-American and shouldn't be so GREEDY.

A Like Reply

BOOM: David Brooks, Charles Murray, and the Reign of Mammon

by LaVonne Neff 02-15-2012
8:56am



Der Mammon und sein Sklave. Holzstich, 1896 via Wiki Commons, http://bit.ly/zom5Df

Tuesday's New York Times carried a thought-provoking op-ed by David Brooks called "The Materialist Fallacy." I recommend that you read it: it's only 764 words long. Brooks argues that "in the half-century between 1962 and the present, America has become more prosperous, peaceful and fair, but the social fabric has deteriorated." This is not just because of job loss (the liberal explanation) or government intrusiveness (the libertarian explanation) or "the abandonment of traditional bourgeois norms" (the neo-conservative explanation).

It has more to do with declining social context and social capital, says Brooks, who never met a financial capitalist he didn't like. He really likes Charles Murray's new book, however: Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010. (If you're not up for the 416-page book, you might want to read Brooks's January 30 column in praise of it.) Both authors worry about nefarious social forces that are driving a wedge between rich and poor, productive and non-productive, law-abiding and outlaws.

Brooks is partly right, and so are his critics. Yes, there's a rip in our social fabric. Yes, it is caused or made worse by job loss, ill-advised government programs, and shifting (or abandoned) values. Yes, it diminishes social capital and impoverishes social context. But also, Mr Brooks, and perhaps fundamentally, our decaying social fabric is the direct result of our enthusiastic worship of Mammon--the love of money that is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10).


I don't need to remind anybody about rapacious financiers, bloated CEOs, unscrupulous lobbyists, and corrupt politicians. But there were plenty of those in the 1890s and the 1920s, and, as Brooks points out, the social fabric still stayed more or less intact back then. Even two World Wars and a Great Depression didn't unravel it. People still finished school, still got jobs, and still got married before having children, if not always before getting pregnant. Why did things start to break down in the 60s?

It's all the Boomers' fault, right? I mean, the first Boomers were getting their driver's licenses in 1962, the very year Brooks chooses as the beginning of the end. And once we had wheels, and cars with back seats, and, hey, the Pill!--it was all downhill from there.

Nope. Brooks doesn't think it's that simple. But I don't see him fretting about the sea change in the cult of Mammon that took place in the 1950s when we older Boomers were children. For the first time, kids — millions of us — became a market segment. With a brand-new television set planted in nearly every living room in America, we were sitting ducks for anyone who had a product to sell and money to buy air time. We were as plankton to whales, as baby seals to sharks.

The marketers told us we were fantastic, and we believed them. They told us we deserved whatever we wanted, and we agreed. They warned us, sometimes not so subtly ("often a bridesmaid, never a bride"), that if we didn't buy their product, we might face some diminution of our social capital, and we trembled. And they encouraged us to buy their product right now, whether or not we had cash on hand.

Believing them, we stopped thinking about tomorrow. Sha la la-la-la-la, live for today — never mind that what we did today might get us in debt, or destroy our brains, or produce babies. We were the "Now" generation, and proud of it.

But what do you get when people start wanting everything now, so much so that they stop making and carrying out long-range plans, that they defer commitment indefinitely, that they heedlessly risk future solvency in favor of present satisfaction? Well, at the front end, you get a great economy based on thriving businesses with ever-expanding sales volumes. Then, when the rush subsides, you get fatherless children, inadequate education, declining health, a hazardous environment, crumbling roads, and joblessness. You get a social fabric shot full of holes.

So whom shall we blame for the present sad state of so many Americans? Government? Big business? Mysterious social forces? Our own lack of moral fiber? Sure, why not. We've all sold out to Mammon. Our society's organizing principle is the love of money.

Alas, until we as individuals and as a nation stop worshiping at Mammon's altar, all attempts to fix the social fabric--be they Republican, Democratic, socialist, anarchist, moralist, religious, or academic--will be about as effective as sewing "a piece of new cloth on an old garment" (Mark 16:21). Still, a patched garment, if no new fabric exists, is better than no garment at all.

LaVonne Neff is an amateur theologian and cook; lover of language and travel; wife, mother, grandmother, godmother, dogmother; perpetual student, constant reader, and Christian contrarian. She blogs at Lively Dust and at The Neff Review.

The Materialist Fallacy

February 13, 2012

By DAVID BROOKS

The half-century between 1912 and 1962 was a period of great wars and economic tumult but also of impressive social cohesion. Marriage rates were high. Community groups connected people across class.

In the half-century between 1962 and the present, America has become more prosperous, peaceful and fair, but the social fabric has deteriorated. Social trust has plummeted. Society has segmented. The share of Americans born out of wedlock is now at 40 percent and rising.

As early as the 1970s, three large theories had emerged to explain the weakening of the social fabric. Liberals congregated around an economically determinist theory. The loss of good working-class jobs undermined communities and led to the social deterioration.

Libertarians congregated around a government-centric theory. Great Society programs enabled people to avoid work and gave young women an incentive to have children without marrying.

Neo-conservatives had a more culturally deterministic theory. Many of them had been poor during the Depression. Economic stress had not undermined the family then. Moreover, social breakdown began in the 1960s, a time of unprecedented prosperity. They argued that the abandonment of traditional bourgeois norms led to social disruption, especially for those in fragile circumstances.

Over the past 25 years, though, a new body of research has emerged, which should lead to new theories. This research tends to support a few common themes. First, no matter how social disorganization got started, once it starts, it takes on a momentum of its own. People who grow up in disrupted communities are more likely to lead disrupted lives as adults, magnifying disorder from one generation to the next.

Second, it’s not true that people in disorganized neighborhoods have bad values. Their goals are not different from everybody else’s. It’s that they lack the social capital to enact those values.

Third, while individuals are to be held responsible for their behavior, social context is more powerful than we thought. If any of us grew up in a neighborhood where a third of the men dropped out of school, we’d be much worse off, too.

The recent research details how disruption breeds disruption. This research includes the thousands of studies on attachment theory, which show that children who can’t form secure attachments by 18 months face a much worse set of chances for the rest of their lives because they find it harder to build stable relationships.

It includes the diverse work on self-control by Walter Mischel, Angela Duckworth, Roy Baumeister and others, which shows, among other things, that people raised in disrupted circumstances find it harder to control their impulses throughout their lives.

It includes the work of Annette Lareau, whose classic book, “Unequal Childhoods,” was just updated last year. She shows that different social classes have radically different child-rearing techniques, producing different outcomes.

Over the past two weeks, Charles Murray’s book, “Coming Apart,” has restarted the social disruption debate. But, judging by the firestorm, you would have no idea that the sociological and psychological research of the past 25 years even existed.

Murray neglects this research in his book. Meanwhile, his left-wing critics in the blogosphere have reverted to crude 1970s economic determinism: It’s all the fault of lost jobs. People who talk about behavior are blaming the victim. Anybody who talks about social norms is really saying that the poor are lazy.

Liberal economists haven’t silenced conservatives, but they have completely eclipsed liberal sociologists and liberal psychologists. Even noneconomist commentators reduce the rich texture of how disadvantage is actually lived to a crude materialism that has little to do with reality.

I don’t care how many factory jobs have been lost, it still doesn’t make sense to drop out of high school. The influences that lead so many to do so are much deeper and more complicated than anything that can be grasped in an economic model or populist slogan.

This economic determinism would be bad enough if it was just making public debate dumber. But the amputation of sociologic, psychological and cognitive considerations makes good policy impossible.

The American social fabric is now so depleted that even if manufacturing jobs miraculously came back we still would not be producing enough stable, skilled workers to fill them. It’s not enough just to have economic growth policies. The country also needs to rebuild orderly communities.

This requires bourgeois paternalism: Building organizations and structures that induce people to behave responsibly rather than irresponsibly and, yes, sometimes using government to do so.

Social repair requires sociological thinking. The depressing lesson of the last few weeks is that the public debate is dominated by people who stopped thinking in 1975.

Is Glenn Beck A Hypocrite?

I found this and decided to post this article.  Cenk (The young turks) had Andrew on his show tonight and they were politely discussing this and his venture at CPAC this past weekend. 
Here is the video.....

Andrew Breitbart: It’s OK to smear Occupy, because tea party has been unfairly portrayed


“I tand by precisely what I said,” Breitbart says.
Cenk talks to Andrew Breitbart about a video that captures him yelling, “Stop raping people!” at Occupy protesters outside the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
what I’m trying to understand is if you’re doing it on purpose, like, you know you’re being unfair, or do you think you’re being eminently fair?” Cenk asks.
Do you really think you can smear the whole movement?” Breitbart answers, “I’m being too fair. Fair is playing by the same rules that you and NBC and The Huffington Post played against smearing the tea party.”

Written by Steven Rosenblum in politics, TV, VIP on 26 May 2011

  It is important that I start by saying I don’t personally know Andrew Breitbart or Glenn Beck. I met Breitbart once, for about 60 seconds, at CPAC 2010. I also interviewed him by phone on May 21^st, with my co-host Daria DiGiovanni, on Conservative Republican Forum. I have never met or spoken to Glenn Beck. I admire what both of these men have accomplished.

 

Glenn Beck versus Andrew Breitbart

*Updated (see below).

On the evening of May 24^th I became aware of a feud between Andrew Breitbart and Glenn Beck, two conservative media heavyweights, that apparently has been brewing for the better part of a year. The dispute goes back to the story of Shirley Sherrod, the USDA employee, who was forced to resign in July of 2009 after a video of her speaking at a local NAACP chapter meeting was shown on Breitbart’s BigGovernment website.
In the video Mrs. Sherrod- who is black- talks about an experience she had with a white farmer who came to her for help saving his farm. She tells the audience among other things that, “I was struggling with the fact that so many black people have lost their farmland and here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land — so I didn’t give him the full force of what I could do. I did enough.”


This video became public at a time when the NAACP and much of the liberal media were attempting to portray the Tea Party movement as racist. Not surprisingly conservative media outlets: including FoxNews and others ran with the story. This led to Mrs. Sherrod, the USDA’s Georgia Director of Rural Development, being forced to resign by Secretary Tom Vilsack to avoid embarrassing the Department and the Obama Administration.
Unfortunately the video on BigGoverment’s website was not the full video of the event. It was however “the entirety of the speech [Breitbart] had in his possession”, according to blogger Ed Morrissey at HotAir.com. Mrs. Sherrod goes on to explain the error of her initial impression, this fact was later confirmed by the farmer himself and his wife. In fact the wife calls Sherrod a “friend” who “helped us save our farm”.
Andrew Breitbart has said that the point of the video was not Mrs. Sherrod’s statement, but rather the way that the audience laughed and seemed to approve of her not giving the white farmer “the full force of what” she could do. Again, the NAACP was accusing the Tea Party of racism and Breitbart had a tape of people at a NAACP chapter meeting embracing her story of black on white racism.
The dispute between Beck and Breitbart stems from some of the claims Beck made about how he covered the story, including: “We didn’t rush to condemn her”, “We defended her and said her side of the story demanded to be heard- because– context matters.”


It is true that on his Fox News Channel show Beck did not condemn Shirley Sherrod. But what was not revealed to his TV audience, and was largely ignored in the media, was that earlier that morning on his nationally syndicated radio program (before all the exculpatory information became known and put her comments in context) Beck did attack Sherrod in 3 segments, totaling about 9 minutes.
Click below to hear the segments from 7/20/2010:
Glenn Beck Radio Audio Segment 4
Glenn Beck Radio Audio Segment 11
Glenn Beck Radio Audio Segment 12
If Beck had simply said he didn’t have all the facts when his radio show aired and had framed his future coverage of the story that way, there would have been no problem. But instead he told this cable audience, “I have a story I want to share with you that I haven’t shared yet. Do you know why I didn’t do the Shirley Sherrod story? Did anyone think that story was uncommon for the people that we have in the White House? That there might be some prejudice that is happening? No. I stood in my office with my entire team, and I said, “Something’s wrong, don’t do this story.” That’s what saved me: the Sword of the Spirit.”
Clearly, this is not the case. He attacked Mrs. Sherrod on his radio show based on the information he had in his possession at that time. He also ignored the context of the article that accompanied the audio he was using to attack her. Then when the full story became clear Mr. Beck didn’t simply admit it, he made himself the victim and started to blame others.
Click below to see Glenn later the same day on his Fox News show:
Beck- Context Matters Part 1
Beck- Context Matters Part 2
Beck- Context Matters Part 3
Beck- Context Matters Part 4
On his Twitter feed Breitbart says he’s “been trying since July 2010 to get him [Beck] to set [the] record straight”. He says he “sucked it up for most of a year & went to Beck’s office last month. Talked to [a] top exec. Expected results. Got none”.
Breitbart goes on to ask “Beck fans” 5 questions:

1. “Is it cool your guru goes behind my back to hire away my editors, take bloggers/contributors & while bad mouthing me?”
2. “Why’d he take so much Big content w/out attribution during even our high times? Is partial attribution the ‘truth’ standard?”
3. “When he was throwing me under [the] Sherrod bus, why’d he double down & lie to O’Reilly’s face that he didn’t do [the] story?”
4. “Why has he avoided a year of me trying to settle this privately through Kerry, LibertyChick & others?”
5. “Why’d you go after O’Keefe & me (though I had nothing to do w/NPR)? @mmfa [Media Matters for America] sure liked that d*ck move!”

I have been to GlennBeck.com and TheBlaze.com to see if Mr. Beck has addressed Mr. Breitbart’s charges. I could find no evidence that he has. On his cable show Beck tells his viewers a few things that have always made me respect him: “Don’t take my word for anything I say on this show”, “do your own research”, “truth has no agenda” and “QUESTION WITH BOLDNESS”.
I don’t have a dog in this hunt. Both Andrew Breitbart and Glenn Beck are titans of conservative media that have inspired many of us to write, broadcast, investigate and question. If I had never heard of the two of them I might not be writing for this publication and likely would not be hosting my own radio show.
Andrew Breitbart vs. Glenn Beck, to me, is the equivalent of the old Japanese monster movie ‘King Kong vs. Godzilla’ (I’m not sure who is who). It is a colossal battle and just as the result of those two monsters fighting led to the destruction of Tokyo, a battle between Breitbart and Beck could lead to damage to the conservative movement and media. The only winners in this dispute are left-wing media organizations like Media Matters for America, the DailyKos, MSNBC and the New York Times.
And yet it seems the difficult question that must be asked, because “the truth has no agenda”, is: “Is Glenn Beck a hypocrite?” Has he failed to live by the standards he espouses to his audience? His listeners, viewers and all the people that buy his books and have traveled vast distances to attend his rallies, not to mention all the people that follow his 9 principles and 12 values (912) deserve to know the truth of what really happened.
Andrew Breitbart has made his side of the story extraordinarily clear and very public. He has brought the issue of Glenn Beck’s ethics and integrity to the court of public opinion, because he says Beck refused to deal with it privately for almost a year. To put it simply Beck’s principles and values have been challenged, this time by a conservative peer not some left-winger. Shouldn’t Glenn address this? His silence is deafening.
Updated 12:30pm 5/26/11:
It appears that Glenn Beck’s  producers did go on to defend Mrs. Sherrod in the 4th hour of the show which is available only to SUBSCRIBERS OF HIS INSIDER EXTREME service. They play audio of a CNN interview with Mrs. Sherrod, where she defends herself and tries to explain why she did not fight when the USDA and White House demanded her resignation. You can judge for yourself the veracity of her claims and how much the Beck producers actually defend Sherrod.