Congress Moves Environmental Protection Back Toward the Stone Age (or at least back to the early 1900's)

A palpable hatred for both predators and other “varmints” is revealed in articles printed in the U.S. Department of Agriculture Year Book for 1920, where classics like “Hunting Down Stock Killers” and “Death To The Rodents” can be found.
See:

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2007
Wolves, Prison Labor, NPR
and
MONDAY, MAY 11, 2009
Wolves Again. . . .
This is a in part a re-post of a blog from December 6, 2007 about wolves and the persecution of predators.
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Wording of the anti-wolf stealth rider placed into budget bill by Montana's Sen. Tester and Idaho's Sen. Simpson:

SEC. 1713. Before the end of the 60-day period beginning on the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Interior shall reissue the final rule published on April 2, 2009 (74 Fed. Reg. 15123 et seq.) without regard to any other provision of statute or regulation that applies to issuance of such rule. Such reissuance (including this section) shall not be subject to judicial review and shall not abrogate or otherwise have any effect on the order and judgment issued by the United States District Court for the District of Wyoming in Case Numbers 09–CV–118J and 09–CV–138J on November 18, 2010

In other words, congressional passage of the rider reinstates the Interior Department's/US Fish & Wildlife Service, April 2, 2009 anti-wolf final de-listing rule that had been subsequently ruled illegal by the courts. Additionally, the Congress, in passing the budget bill with the rider attached, attempts to remove any review of the action by the Judicial branch of government, even to test its constitutionality. Where are these people taking us when they tell us they can pick and choose what legislation can, or cannot, be reviewed by the courts?

A friend sent out this brief discussion from Legal Planet; the Environmental Law and Policy Blog, and we can expect to be hearing more on the legal issues in the future.

The bigger loser here is the integrity of our environmental laws. This rider, a joint effort of Senator Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), is an exercise in arrogance, cowardice and congressional overreach. Oh, and let’s not forget hypocrisy: both sides of the political aisle have complained incessantly about the evils of policy riders attached to must-pass appropriations bills, yet both sides continue to attach riders left and right. (If you need examples of congressional hypocrisy, just watch any random episode of The Daily Show.) Expect to hear a lot more about harmful environmental riders in the coming budget showdowns.
. . . .
Attaching this rider to the appropriations bill, instead of debating a separate policy bill, is cowardly. Assuming that Congress knows more about the wolves than all of the participants in the litigation is arrogant. For example, this rider is worse than the rejected settlement, in that it lacks any requirement for independent scientific review. But worst of all, whoever wrote the rider seems to believe that Congress stands above judicial review.

Please see:
Of Wolves and Men. APRIL 12, 2011, by Rhead Enion for entire article.
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Federal budget vote splits Oregon delegation

WASHINGTON – A controversial budget to keep the federal government operating for the rest of the fiscal year fractured Oregon's delegation Thursday, with Democrats Peter DeFazio and Kurt Schrader voting for the measure along with Republican Greg Walden while Reps. Earl Blumenauer and David Wu opposed it.

The jagged fault lines extended to the Senate, where Democrats Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley (Merkley voted for the bill) split their votes. Wyden voted against the bill because it included language that would eliminate a provision in the health care law that allows 300,000 workers to shop for their health insurance on the open market.

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One reaction from N. E. Oregon wolf advocate Wally Sykes

"The Tester/Simpson Rider delisting wolves is a body-blow to the Endangered Species Act, a cynical ploy by the Obama Administration to try and save the seat of Montana Senator John Tester. It's the first legislative delisting in the 38-year history of the ESA, and sets a terrible precedent of using politics instead of science to delist a species. It denies citizens any say in this delisting because it excludes it from judicial review. 1200 scientists have written a letter to Obama protesting this act. Harry Reid promised a budget without riders, and the President himself promised to safeguard environmental policies, and this is how they keep their word?

"The delisting includes the wolves of eastern Oregon, which will now be subject to the Oregon Wolf Plan and protected as a state endangered species, but the biological reserve for our wolves is Idaho, where the population could be cut to 300 from about 800. This is not enough to maintain genetic diversity. Furthermore, the ESA is vital in protecting vast swathes of forest, wetlands, rivers, watersheds and desert. All this is now put at risk by this ill-considered political maneuver."

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From The Center For Biological Diversity

For Immediate Release, April 14, 2011

Contact: Kierán Suckling, (520) 275-5960

Congress Approves Wolf-killing Rider in Budget Act to Aid Montana Democrat’s Re-election

Votes Mark the First Time that Endangered Species Act Protections Have Been Removed by Politicians

WASHINGTON— In part to aid the re-election campaign of Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Congress today approved a budget bill that includes a rider removing wolves in Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Utah from the federal endangered species list and sets the stage for near-term delisting in Wyoming. The votes mark the first time that Congress has bypassed the science-based process of the Endangered Species Act and stripped federal protections from an endangered species.

The rider was submitted by Tester and Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) and approved by Democratic leadership in the U.S. Senate. The rider not only eliminates federal protection for wolves but sets a dangerous precedent for other politicians looking to halt recovery of endangered species in their home states.

“This is a dark day for wolves and for all species relying on federal protections for their survival,” said Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Senator Tester included the rider as a ploy to score political points in his 2012 reelection campaign, and now wolves and other species will have to pay the price.”

Delisting removes federal protections from an endangered species and hands management over to state control. The states with the most wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains, Idaho and Montana, intend to kill many of the 1,270 animals last counted in their two states, which include approximately 80 breeding pairs. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is likely to ramp up aerial gunning of wolves and campaigns that destroy pups in their dens.

The rider approved today by the Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives bans citizens from challenging the wolf delisting decision, even if wolf numbers plummet toward zero, while preserving anti-wolf litigation brought by the state of Wyoming and other parties.

Since the Endangered Species Act became law in 1973, Congress has never intervened to override the law and remove a plant or animal from federal protection.

“Congressional delisting without the opportunity to restore protections threatens to bring us back to the days when wolves and other wildlife were systematically poisoned on public lands,” said Suckling. “We ask President Obama to veto the federal budget to ensure that an endangered species is not massacred; that the Endangered Species Act is not gutted; and that the science, not politics, determines which species benefit from federal protections.”

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High Country News
The Range Blog
Who's afraid of the big, bad wolf?
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House

. . . .
Conventional arguments become spurious statements when scrutinized in the light of day:

1) Wolves are killing huge numbers of livestock

In Montana, from 1995 to 2007, wolves killed an average 67 livestock animals (cattle, sheep, llamas, goats and horses) per year. Last year, 97 cows/calves were killed, out of 2.5 million head of cattle in the state.

In Idaho, in 2009, wolves killed 90 cows/calves and 344 sheep. The number of sheep seems high, until you consider that sheep producers reported losing 56,000 animals that year for reasons other than predators, such as disease and weather. They also reported losing another 18,800 animals to all predators, mostly coyotes. Eagles were blamed for another 600 sheep deaths. If economics was a real argument, why not target the more destructive hunters--grizzlies, eagles, foxes and coyotes?

Now, I’ve seen a wolf tear out the guts of an animal and it’s not pleasant, but I’ve also seen hamburgers. The loss of a negligent amount of livestock to wolves seems like the price of doing this kind of business. . . . .

Please read entire article for other good info.
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Some interesting statistics about Rocky Mountain Gray Wolves From OPB/Ecotrope:

Number of confirmed Montana sheep killed by wolves: 67

Number sheep producers reported lost from other causes (i.e. disease, weather): 49,000

Number they reported lost to all predators: 17,800

Amount of money the feds spent on Northern Rockies wolf management last year: $4,566,000

Amount the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife spent the last two years: $480,000

Amount paid to Montana ranchers for 369 livestock losses to wolves in 2009: $143,000

Amount cattlemen say they’ll need to start a compensation program in Oregon: $750,000

For the whole list and other good information, see Gray wolves: By the numbers.
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Wallowa Chieftan Article on Wally Sykes (NE Oregon Ecosystems) Wolf Testimony in Salem.

Sykes: Some of my testimony is covered above. The balance is below:
We have 35 million acres of public land, half our state, in vast contiguous tracts. These lands protect our biodiversity, our watersheds, our ancient American connection to wilderness and wildness. The wolf restores much that has been degraded there, an effect clearly shown in Yellowstone and elsewhere. The wolf is good for our land and for our souls.

Successful livestock operations are the norm in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Minnesota, British Columbia, and Alberta – all in wolf country. Management techniques and non-lethal tools minimize conflicts. Compensation plans defray losses. Government, organizational and private contributors provide the hardware, the expertise and the labor to employ non-lethal measures.

In Wallowa County, fladry (flagging hung from an electrified fencing wire), RAG boxes (devices that create noise and visual distraction when triggered by a radio-collared wolf), carcass removal, hazers and range riders have ALL been provided by a combination of these agents.

Last year few of these measures were taken. But this year, 10 miles of fladry are out, and RAG boxes are up where they’ll do the most good. Hazers are on the Zumwalt, radio receivers have been given to ranchers so they’ll know when wolves are near. Wolves have been collared with both GPS and telemetry collars, and stock-growers are constantly updated with wolf locations and movements.

Wolves benefit the northeast Oregon economy. Wildlife watching is a booming industry. Wolf-watchers bring $35 million a year to the area around Yellowstone. Wallowa County saw an influx of tourists last year attracted by our wolves and more will comes this year. New jobs are available – Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife specialist and technicians, hazers, range riders, fladry fencers, even local photographers have seen new work from wolves.

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I want to take a moment and thank the Senators from the 6th smallest state in the "Union," with fewer people than the city of Dallas, Texas, for showing Montana, the state where my father was born, to be the thoughtless, insensitive, mean, greedy, and barbaric state that it apparently has become, not unlike much of the rest of the rural west, for placing the anti-wolf stealth rider in the Budget bill.
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Other Ranching News

Sage Grouse Prevail

Advocates for the West
Date: 04/14/2011

Sage Grouse Prevail - A federal judge has ordered BLM to close to livestock grazing 17 allotments in the Jarbidge Field Office in southwestern Idaho, and has given Simplot Livestock and other permittees about two weeks to remove all livestock from the closed areas. Animating the court's decision was the continuing collapse of sage-grouse populations and habitat. The Court has ordered an evidentiary hearing on Simplot's motion to lift the injunction, and thus this 7 year-old case is just getting started. Stay tuned.

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Louise du Toit - Ode to the Wolves - Wolf Paintings by Vincent A Kennard

Watch on YouTube

Obama Pitches His Budget Plan To "Hope and Change" Democrats With Bad Memories

In This Issue:

- More Explanation of My Comments About Classism Towards The Poor In Baker City When Time & Priorities Permit

- Obama's New "Hope & Change" Gambit To Suck In Progressives For His Reelection, Plus People's Budget

- Other Alternative Federal Budget News including Kucinich YouTube Video, and Montana Wolf Delisting Rider

- Single Payer Health Care Event in Baker City

- A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (YouTube Videos)

[Edited 4/14/11 to add info on wolf delisting rider. For all articles except DN! Jeffrey Sachs and The Nation article, please click on the title link to read the full article.]
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More Explanation of My Comments About Classism Towards The Poor In Baker City When Time & Priorities Permit

I received one personal comment from a friend who was offended by my statements regarding the treatment of the poor and old in Baker City, and I responded in my usually frank way, which brought more offense. My basic response to the offeded is if the shoe doesn't fit, don't wear it. There was at least one other somewhat indignant comment that I heard about as well. If nothing else I have said is true, it is true enough to me that the property maintenance jihad is destroying the few bonds that held this "community," rich and poor alike, together.

I do believe I have a responsibility to further lay out my position on the Baker City property maintenance ordinance, in response to these concerns, even though I went over much if it in several posts on the blog a few years ago. I doubt if I will change the minds that are already made up, but I promise to make the effort. The blog is nothing more than my attempt to express what clearly are my own opinions and those of like-mided folks across the globe. I want to make clear to all, especially considering the shape the world and the US are in, that at my age, I simply don't (or can't emotionally afford to) give a shit if readers like my opinions or not. (I just haven't lived my life that way--why should I or anyone start to do that now?) The "conventional wisdom" of mainstream politicians, in Baker City and elsewhere, in the mainstream media, and the like, has failed us miserably, so I see no reason why I and others should not take the opportunity, provided by the internet, to offer something to the contrary.

One problem I face with regard to responding to critics on the classism issue, is that the blog is not, or should not, become an all consuming purpose in my life--I need in fact to take time I have left to enjoy and photograph the natural world (plus all the time and processing that entails) and take care of some of the tasks in life associated with other loves, like preparing my garden, helping friends, and hatching out chickens (hey, it is spring), not to mention less enjoyable tasks like getting rid of yard waste and etc. to please the critical onlookers. Plus, being a news neurotic takes a lot of time, and there is other news to cover! I don't post but a small fraction of the articles that are important.

Additionally, I'll have to pour over old emails, videos, and other information I have accumulated on the property maintenance subject, as well as search for any new information that I may be able to incorporate on that subject. It is not something that requires just an hour of my time, but in fact days, so I plead for patience from those looking for instant results.
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Obama's New "Hope & Change" Gambit To Suck In Progressives For his Reelection

Obama, the once "hope & change," but currently war mongering corporate president, now hoping to amass a billion dollar campaign war chest from the Wall Street and other corporations he has supported and helped, is trying to override and erase his record of broken promises with today's budget speech aimed at sucking in his former, but completely forsaken, progressive supporters. Fat chance I say, or at least hope. He, like every politician before him, knows that memories fade and hope springs eternal.

See: Obama / The Billion Dollar Candidate With No Halo Or Base, By Allen L Roland

President Obama will become the first Billion dollar candidate running on a Platform of Corporate Welfare You Can Believe In ~ but the hard reality is he has no halo, no base and a raft of broken promises which no amount of money can cover up.

Having run over and all but dismissed his progressive base, which elected him in 2008, an increasingly arrogant President Obama has consummated his marriage with his new base ~ Wall Street and the global financial elite ~ and has announced his re-election with e-mails and text messages to his supposedly loyal supporters. Obviously, this would allow him to start campaigning and tap into potentially a billion dollar war chest from big money corporate donations he has often criticized in the past . . . . .

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Wanting to get some sort of progressive response to Obama's budget speech today, I did a Google search on the subject. After 6 search pages on corporate Google, I gave up due to nothing but mainstream results and looked to some more reliable progressive news and opinion sources I know of.

[4/14/11--found the following this morning:]

Democracy Now! "People’s Budget"

AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, the Congressional Progressive Caucus has unveiled an alternative plan called the "People’s Budget." With more than 80 members, the Congressional Progressive Caucus is the largest caucus within the U.S. House of Representatives. We’re now joined by the chair, the co-chair, of that caucus, Democratic Representative Raúl Grijalva of Arizona.

Welcome to Democracy Now! We hear a great deal, Congressmember Grijalva, about the Budget Chair Paul Ryan’s budget proposals. All of the networks show comparisons of the Deficit Commission, what the compromise, so-called compromise, is between the Democrats and the Republicans, and then Paul Ryan’s. But we do not hear about the People’s Budget, and you’re the largest caucus in the entire House of Representatives. How is that? And what is your assessment of the deal that Obama has reached with the Republicans?

REP. RAÚL GRIJALVA: Well, the assessment on the lack of attention, Amy, quite frankly, is that we think we have a very, very good product that can stand scrutiny, that deals with the realities of the economies that we’re in right now and into the future, and the fact that we don’t get the promotional attention is disturbing. We want, with our budget, to provide a contrast and a choice between what Ryan’s draconian budget is, basically destroying societal support for each other, and the President’s, which kind of takes a half step toward dealing with some of the issues that we feel need to be preserved and protected: Social Security, Medicare, investments in education, job creation. Our budget is solid. We have third-party validation from Professor Sachs to many other economists, Professor Irons, as well. So we feel very strongly about our budget, and we want it to be on the table.

And:

Roundtable: Assessing Obama’s Budget Plan

This from William Rivers Pitt of Truthout in an e-mail pitch for donations:

Rachel Maddow described President Obama's speech on Wednesday as a "defining moment" for his administration, and she was absolutely correct. It was an excellent speech in the main, filled with the kind of lofty rhetoric we have become accustomed to since Mr. Obama first burst onto the political scene in 2004. In it, he proposed taxing the rich, cutting the defense budget and decreasing the cost of health care. He defended Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. For many in the progressive community, it was a reminder of the man who fired the imaginations of so many during his presidential campaign.

Therein lies the problem: it was all just words. Again. There have been many such "defining moments" during this administration, most of which involved retreat, surrender and failure after festooning the walls with words. We heard great talk about including the public option in the health care bill - until Mr. Obama retreated, leaving many to wonder if he ever meant to include it at all. We heard great talk about closing Guantanamo, until he retreated. We heard great talk about repealing the Bush tax cuts for rich people, until that fell by the wayside as well. The very fact that we are still talking about those damnable tax breaks is evidence enough of how far those words go, and that is not very far at all, so far.

And then there were the other words in Wednesday's speech: the ones that tipped a wink to the Bowles-Simpson proposal to eviscerate the social contract which has sustained this nation for generations. There were the words, "Any serious plan to tackle our deficit will require us to put everything on the table." If that is true, Mr. President, then a plan to provide Medicare for all must also be on the table … but no, that's not "reasonable" or "responsible." The debate over the future of this country has been skewed so far to the right that centrism appears radical, even as the worst elements in our nation win the day time and again.

Words are no longer enough, even pretty ones. Action is required. . . .

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And another from The Nation editors:

Obama's 'Shared Sacrifice' Hits the Poor and Middle-Class Hardest

The Editors | April 13, 2011

President Obama’s speech unveiling his deficit reduction plan contained few big surprises—by its very premise, it was destined to preserve the faulty assumptions behind the whole deficit discussion—but some of his words were welcome. The president called Social Security and Medicare fundamental American commitments and, in a rebuke to Congressman Paul Ryan, left these entitlement programs largely untouched. He also refused to renew Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy. It’s a pledge Obama has made—and broken—in the past, but let’s take at face value his sincerity on the matter. (All the better to hold him to it.)

From there the president outlined his plan to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion in the next twelve years, based on the principle of “shared sacrifice.” Here’s what that looks like: for every $1 raised by closing tax loopholes for wealthy Americans, Obama proposes $2 in spending cuts. Two-thirds of those cuts would come from education, health and other social programs while one-third would come from the military budget. The president’s vision of “shared sacrifice,” in other words, hits the poor and the middle class hardest. Meanwhile, wealthy Americans and the military are asked to sacrifice less, even though it was unfunded tax cuts and wars that got us a deficit in the first place.

The problem with starting with such skewed priorities is that Obama will be negotiating with the Republican Party, whose reverse–Robin Hood agenda proposes sacrifices almost entirely from the poor and middle class to pay for tax breaks for corporations and the rich. Indeed, just such a give-and-take is how we ended up with the 2011 budget compromise that averted a shutdown at the expense of
 $38 billion in spending cuts, the majority of which will come from the departments of education, labor and health. It’s a rotten deal, which the president curiously chose to hail as “the largest annual spending cut in history.” Any more victories like this and Obama will become a new American synonym for “Pyrrhic.” The cuts in the 2011 budget—“79 percent of what we wanted,” in Paul Ryan’s words—will be exacted immediately, despite an economy still struggling to recover from the worst downturn since the Great Depression, one in which 25 million people are still bereft of full-time work.

Lost in this discussion is what the country needs: a clear strategy to rebuild the economy and revive the middle class. That requires making the investments vital to our future and figuring out how to pay for them. It requires taxing what we have too much of (financial speculation and extreme concentrations of wealth) and investing in what we have too little of (education like pre-K and affordable college, twenty-first-century infrastructure, renewable energy). And it means addressing the real source of our long-term debt crisis: not Social Security or Medicare, not “entitlements” but a broken healthcare system, dominated by powerful drug, insurance and hospital lobbies, that costs about twice as much per capita as the health system of any other industrialized country and producing worse results.

The sad fact is, President Obama knows much of this. He spoke compellingly of the injustice of an economy in which the top 1 percent enjoys quarter-million-dollar windfalls while everyone else struggles. He gets that rising healthcare costs are a burden, and that deficit-cutting is no excuse for neglecting our country’s future. But his “balanced approach” conceded too much too early to the deficit hawks and austerity pushers. He needed to reset the debate, but instead he split the difference.

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A more cynical/real politic view from Glenn Greenwald:

. . . . Obama's most loyal supporters often mock the notion that a President's greatest power is his "bully pulpit," but there's no question that this is true. Reagan was able to transform how Americans perceived numerous political issues because he relentlessly argued for his ideological and especially economic world-view: a rising tide lifts all boats, government is not the solution but is the problem, etc. -- a whole slew of platitudes and slogans that convinced Americans that conservative economic policy was optimal despite how much it undermined their own economic interests. Reagan was "transformational" because he changed conventional wisdom and those premises continue to pervade our political discourse.

When has Obama ever done any of that? When does he offer stirring, impassioned defenses of the Democrats' vision on anything, or attempt to transform (rather than dutifully follow) how Americans think about anything? It's not that he lacks the ability to do that. Americans responded to him as an inspirational figure and his skills of oratory are as effective as any politician in our lifetime. It's that he evinces no interest in it. He doesn't try because those aren't his goals. It's not that he or the office of the Presidency are powerless to engender other outcomes; it's that he doesn't use the power he has to achieve them because, quite obviously, achieving them is not his priority or even desire.

Whether in economic policy, national security, civil liberties, or the permanent consortium of corporate power that runs Washington, Obama, above all else, is content to be (one could even say eager to be) guardian of the status quo. And the forces of the status quo want tax cuts for the rich, serious cuts in government spending that don't benefit them (social programs and progressive regulatory schemes), and entitlement "reform" -- so that's what Obama will do. He won't advocate, and will actually oppose, steps as extreme as the ones Paul Ryan is proposing: that's how he will retain his "centrist" political identity and keep the fear levels high among his voting base. He'll pay lip service to some Democratic economic dogma and defend some financially inconsequential culture war positions: that's how he will signal to the base that he's still on their side. But the direction will be the same as the GOP desires and, most importantly, how the most powerful economic factions demand: not because he can't figure out how to change that dynamic, but because that's what benefits him and thus what he wants.

Ironically, Obama is turning out to be "transformational" in his own way -- by taking what was once the defining GOP approach to numerous policy areas and converting them into Democratic ones, and thus ensconcing them in the invulnerable protective shield of "bipartisan consensus." As Digby put it: "Reagan was a hard-core ideologue who didn't just tweak some processes but radically changed the prevailing conventional wisdom. Unfortunately, Obama is actually extending the Reagan consensus, even as he pursues his own agenda of creating a Grand Bargain that will bring peace among the dueling parties (a dubious goal in itself.)" That has been one of the most consequential outcomes of the first two years of his presidency in terms of Terrorism and civil liberties, and is now being consecrated in the realm of economic policy as well.

UPDATE: Obama gave a speech today on the budget that many liberals seemed to like -- some more than others. It was a fine speech as far as it goes -- advocating, among other things, defense cuts and a repeal of the Bush tax cuts and vowing to protect the poor from the pain of deep entitlement reductions -- but I've long ago ceased caring about what Obama says in individual, isolated speeches: especially an Obama now formally in re-election mode. As I said above, he can be expected to oppose Paul Ryan's plan and "pay lip service to some Democratic economic dogma." If this becomes a sustained bully pulpit campaign to rhetorically sell these principles to the citizenry accompanied by real action to defend them, that will be one thing: I'll be pleasantly surprised and will be happy to say so. But what matters is actions and outcomes.

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From The Center for Economic and Policy Research:

Statement on the President's Deficit Reduction Plan
April 13, 2011

For Immediate Release: April 13, 2011
Contact: Alan Barber, 202-293-5380 x115

Washington, D.C.- Dean Baker, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) released the following statement on the President's deficit-reduction plan:

“President Obama’s statement was about as encouraging as could have been hoped for in the context of an agenda committed to deficit reduction. He rightly stressed that the wealthy, who have been the big winners in the economy over the last three decades, can afford to pay more in taxes. He also correctly pointed out that Social Security is an essential program for the nation’s retirees and workers, and that it does not contribute to the deficit. He also pointed out that the way to fix Medicare and Medicaid is to fix the private health care system, not to privatize Medicare as the Republicans in Congress have proposed.

“On the negative side, it is unfortunate that President Obama accepted a formula that cuts three times as much from projected spending (including interest) as he proposes to increase taxes. It is also striking that he proposes to cut twice as much from domestic discretionary spending (the portion of the budget that includes most investment spending) as he does from defense spending, especially since defense spending is projected to be about 20 percent larger than domestic discretionary spending over the 10-year budget horizon.

“More importantly, a deficit reduction agenda is a serious problem in the context of an economy that badly needs additional demand. While the economy is much healthier today than it was two years ago, the pace of job growth is not acceptable. . . . .

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The False Debate on the Debt

Posted on Apr 12, 2011

By Robert Scheer

In the ever-so-smug company of the rich and powerful, it is a given that there is never to be any expression of remorse or other acknowledgment of the pain they have inflicted on the lesser mortals they so cavalierly plunder. It’s convenient for them that the media and the politicians, which they happen to own, rarely connect the dots between the scams that made the rich so rich and the alarming rise in the federal debt that is crushing this nation.

The result of this purchased public myopia is that we are left with an absurd debate over how deeply to cut teachers’ pensions and seniors’ medical benefits while preserving tax breaks for the superrich and their large corporations. At a time when 10 million American families will have lost their homes by year’s end, when $5.6 trillion in home equity has been wiped out, when most Americans face steep unemployment rates and stagnant wages, a Democratic president is likely to compromise with Republican ideologues who insist that further cuts in taxes for the rich is the way to bring back jobs.

Let’s deal right off with that canard. There is currently no shortage of corporate profits or excessive executive compensation to explain away the failure of the private sector to create jobs. On the contrary, as The New York Times reports, “In the fourth quarter, profits at American businesses were up an astounding 29.2 percent, the fastest growth in more than 60 years. Collectively, American corporations logged profits at an annual rate of $1.678 trillion.” And to add insult to injury, the top executives, who seem unable or unwilling to create jobs or adequately reward their workers, have increased their own compensation by a whopping 12 percent over the previous year, setting the median pay at $9.6 million per year for those in control of the leading 200 companies. The Times adds that “C.E.O. pay is also on the rise again at companies like Capital One and Goldman Sachs, which survived the economic storm with the help of all of those taxpayer-financed bailouts. . . . .”

See also this article referred to in the article above:
TARP Was No Win for the Taxpayers
By Paul Atkins, Mark McWatters and Kenneth Troske
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Older Views Concerning the Budget "Debate."

Two Radically conservative Senate Democrats in our 6th smallest state, Montana, with fewer people than the city of Dallas, Texas, have placed a stealth rider on the budget deal. You may remember that Sen. Max Baucus is the man who helped derail a minimally progressive "public option" health care plan for Americans. This situation, where Senators in a very small state, have the same, sometimes more, power than a Senator from California, with almost 38 times as many people, reveals one of the odd undemocratic quirks in our system of governance. I posted an alert about this on my facebook page a few days ago, but you can make a very easy and simple call to defend wolves now by going to Oregon Wild. In any state, you can go to Center For Biological Diversity--BUDGET DEAL SACRIFICES WOLVES, KNIFES ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT to send an e-mail. [Chris]
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Wolf delisting appears likely as measure joins federal budget bill

The Missoulian
April 13, 2011

A measure taking gray wolves off federal Endangered Species Act protection made it into the must-pass U.S. Senate budget bill late Monday night.

Montana Sens. Jon Tester and Max Baucus, both Democrats, placed a rider in the 2011 Appropriations Bill reauthorizing a 2009 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rule delisting the gray wolf in the northern Rocky Mountains.

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Congress, in a first, removes an animal from the Endangered Species List
New York Times
April 12, 2011

Congress for the first time is directly intervening in the Endangered Species List and removing an animal from it, establishing a precedent for political influence over the list that has outraged environmental groups.

A rider to the Congressional budget measure agreed to last weekend dictates that wolves in Montana and Idaho be taken off the endangered species list and managed instead by state wildlife agencies, which is in direct opposition to a federal judge’s recent decision forbidding the Interior Department to take such an action.

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Democracy Now! April 11, 2011

"Don’t Punish the Poor" Economist Jeffrey Sachs Slams Obama-GOP Budget Deal

President Barack Obama and congressional leaders reached a last-minute budget deal on Friday, narrowly averting a government shutdown. The deal would cut roughly $38 billion from a federal budget expected to exceed $3.7 trillion this year. We speak to Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. "Many of us who supported President Obama just feel that he’s abandoned the field," Sachs says. "He’s left it to the right wing, which wants nothing more than taxes cut for the rich, whereas the American public is saying very clearly, in every opinion survey, one after another, if you want to close the deficit, go after taxes for the rich, raise them, cut military spending, cut the excess profits in the insurance industry and healthcare, do things that would really make a difference—don’t punish the poor."

Guest:
Jeffrey Sachs, director of The Earth Institute at Columbia. He is also president and co-founder of Millennium Promise Alliance, a nonprofit organization aimed at ending extreme global poverty. He is the author of numerous books and articles on development and economic policy.

AMY GOODMAN: President Barack Obama and congressional leaders reached a last-minute budget deal Friday, narrowly averting a government shutdown. The deal would cut roughly $38 billion from a federal budget expected to exceed $3.7 trillion this year. Many details have yet to be worked out.

Much of the deal has not yet been made public. Known cuts include $13 billion from the Departments of Labor, Education and Health and Human Services. The GOP won a stand-alone vote over barring Planned Parenthood from accessing federal funds. A vote on defunding public broadcasting was dropped, as was a ban on using Environmental Protection Agency funds to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. President Obama characterized some of the cuts as, quote, "painful."

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: This agreement between Democrats and Republicans, on behalf of all Americans, is on a budget that invests in our future while making the largest annual spending cut in our history. Like any worthwhile compromise, both sides had to make tough decisions and give ground on issues that were important to them. And I certainly did that. Some of the cuts we agreed to will be painful.

AMY GOODMAN: White House Senior Adviser David Plouffe announced yesterday President Obama plans to release a long-term plan on reducing the nation’s deficit Wednesday. Speaking on Meet the Press, he said President Obama will insist the nation cannot afford to continue tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans.

SENIOR ADVISER DAVID PLOUFFE: Now, under the Republican congressional plan, people over $250,000 get over a trillion dollars in tax relief. So this is the important thing: you’re making a choice. You’re asking seniors, the middle class to pay more. You wouldn’t be having to do that if you weren’t giving the very, very wealthiest in this country just enormous tax relief.

AMY GOODMAN: Plouffe made it clear that the House Republicans’ alternative, crafted by House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, was unacceptable. He said, "Ryan’s plan] might pass the House, but it’s not going to become law."

Obama is also expected to propose cuts to entitlement programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, and changes to Social Security, a discussion he has largely left to Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

Well, to discuss the budget deal, we’re joined right now by leading economist Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University. He is director of the Earth Institute at Columbia and also president and co-founder of Millennium Promise Alliance, a nonprofit group aimed at ending extreme global poverty. He’s the author of numerous books and articles on development and economic policy.
Welcome to Democracy Now! Your understanding of what this agreement is?

JEFFREY SACHS: Well, this is a miserable step in the wrong direction. It started last December, when Obama and the Republicans agreed to cut a trillion dollars of taxes by extending the Bush tax cuts. And now, even though the details aren’t even worked out, apparently, they’re slashing into programs for the poor. So this is all going in the wrong direction, and many of us who supported President Obama just feel that he’s abandoned the field. He’s left it to the right wing, which wants nothing more than taxes cut for the rich, whereas the American public is saying very clearly, in every opinion survey, one after another, if you want to close the deficit, go after taxes for the rich, raise them, cut military spending, cut the excess profits in the insurance industry and healthcare, do things that would really make a difference—don’t punish the poor. And yet, that’s what Obama is giving up right now. It’s absurd. And when Plouffe says, "Well, it’s unacceptable that the taxes on the rich have come down," the President not only agreed to that last December, but when they announced the compromise this weekend, he referred to that historic agreement last December. So the whole thing is a bit of a mass confusion, and I find it absurd.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the four proposals.

JEFFREY SACHS: I say that there really are four proposals on the table right now. One is the Ryan plan; that is the extreme right: just do anything, slash anything, hit the poor, in order to get the tax rates down on the rich. It’s a fraud. But they have momentum because Obama is not resisting.

Then there was Obama’s muddle, because he put forward a budget plan last month, after all, not only for fiscal year 2012, but a decade-long framework. He agreed to keep taxes so low on the rich that, in effect, his proposals, if you look at the fine print, would squeeze the so-called civilian discretionary budget, where education, where infrastructure, energy, climate would all be squeezed to an unmanageable small level.

Then there’s a new proposal that the Congressional Progressive Caucus put forward last week. Terrific. It’s called the People’s Budget. It actually responds to what the people want, and that is, raise taxes on the rich, raise taxes on the corporations that are getting away with absolute unbelievable—unbelievably abusive loopholes, cut military spending, preserve spending for the poor, for education, for investment and so forth.

Then there’s a fourth position. That’s the American public. You notice the American public isn’t asked by Congress or the President these days, but the American public speaks clearly in opinion survey after opinion survey. It says the rich have had a free ride, the corporations have been running our country, the spending on the military is completely unjustified, and we want a public option on healthcare. All large majorities, not one of them happening. Why? Because the lobbyists are in control, both of the White House and Congress.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, you’re not just talking about in control of the White House and Congress, but what about the press? When you talk about these opinion polls that show a very progressive America, this is not reflected across the networks when you watch TV.

JEFFREY SACHS: Well, first of all, Fox News is pure propaganda. We know that. But it’s just relentless propaganda, and people respond to it. To my mind, the Tea Party is nothing but a Fox News Channel propagandistic creation. This is Roger Ailes at work. So that’s one part of it. But it gets a lot of—lot of press.

Same thing with the Wall Street Journal editorial page. That’s our leading business press, but it’s so relentlessly phony and right wing on the editorial page that you never hear anything about the middle. It’s only about tax cuts. It’s all this drum beat to cut taxes, cut taxes, cut taxes.

Then the mainstream, you know, basically, the New York Times, as far as I’m concerned, it just tries to protect its inside line to the White House. So, whatever the White House says, that’s what it reports. But it doesn’t report the fact that there’s a whole public opinion out there that needs to be covered. And I find that very, very sad.

AMY GOODMAN: But even outside of Fox, these discussions, for example, raising the issue of the military, that people recognize this as a huge drain on the budget, this is not raised, rarely in discussion.

JEFFREY SACHS: It’s true. When I am on talk shows and people talk about what to do, it’s all wringing your hands: "We have to cut entitlements, we have to cut entitlements." But the public is saying, "Can we get out of Afghanistan?" What an incredibly wrongheaded policy, wasting more than $100 billion a year, achieving nothing. But you’re right, this doesn’t get discussed.

AMY GOODMAN: And then, what about healthcare? What about these costs, and what can be done about it?

JEFFREY SACHS: Basically in healthcare, the U.S. has the most expensive system for what’s delivered of all the high-income countries. Why? Because we have this huge private sector health insurance industry. It’s hugely overmanned. Salaries are enormous. They spend a tremendous amount advertising, which doesn’t happen in other healthcare systems. Our specialists are paid way out of line with what happens in other countries. And that’s because we have a system that allows these huge costs, and then the government just pays a kind of cost-plus pricing, whereas a public option would get that under control and a system, called capitation, where basically insurance—or, health providers and public sector providers are responsible for the person and the family as a whole, not operation or procedure, one after another, that they get reimbursed for, is the much more efficient, low-cost way to do things.

All of it is to say, when the public option was taken off the table last year, despite a strong support of the public—and why did Obama take it off the table? Because the lobbyists told him to take it off the table. When that was taken off the table, we lost the chance to get healthcare costs under control. This is the problem. It’s lobbyists, morning 'til night. Whether it's lobbyists for healthcare, lobbyists for the financial sector, lobbyists for the war industry, and lobbyists for the tax cuts, they’re running Washington, both the White House and the Congress. And what the public wants—actually, the broad majority of the public—doesn’t get heard.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk more about the People’s Budget.

JEFFREY SACHS: The People’s Budget is a proposal of the leadership of 80 members of Congress, which is called the Progressive Caucus. I was so happy—

AMY GOODMAN: The largest caucus in Congress.

JEFFREY SACHS: I was so happy to see it when I saw it for the first time last week as it was being unveiled. I said, "Thank God. Something coming from Washington that makes sense," because they, too, have been crowded out. The White House has played a game, basically. If the far right is holding the agenda, the White House says, "We’ll be one step towards the center of the far right." But that means giving concession after concession after concession. What Obama is trying to do is to look reasonable, to look a little bit more reasonable than the extreme right. But to do so, he’s just compromising, compromising on core principles.
Then, finally comes the Congressional Progressive Caucus and says, "Stop it. Let’s do what the people really want." This is the wonderful thing about America. Sometimes you feel so frustrated: "What’s going on in this country?" as if everybody’s a Tea Partier. It’s not true. The broad majority of the public has very reasonable, very mainstream and compassionate views. They say, "Don’t slash for the poor. No, let’s start making the rich pay their due." That’s what the public says, the large majority. Who’s listening? Or who’s hearing them? The media keeps them out, by and large. And the White House and the Congress are dominated by the lobbies and by the concern about raising campaign funds. After all, President Obama is trying to raise a billion dollars for his 2012 election. Where is he going to get that? On Wall Street. Are they telling him, "Raise the taxes"? Unfortunately not.

AMY GOODMAN: What about House Speaker Boehner. What role is he playing in this?
JEFFREY SACHS: Well, the Republican Party is dominated by a absolutely obsessive single idea: slash anything, cut anything, as long as the taxes for our rich patrons come down. That’s the role he’s playing.

AMY GOODMAN: You talk about the different proposals as a—the taxes as a percentage of the GDP.

JEFFREY SACHS: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain.

JEFFREY SACHS: Basically, right now, we’re collecting this year only 15 or 16 percent of our gross national income, or gross domestic product, as taxes. That’s not enough to pay for even the most basics of government, for Social Security, for Medicare or Medicaid, military, interest on the debt. And then you have all the rest government is needed for to help educate our children, to help keep our children safe, to have the infrastructure for productive economy, to address climate change and so forth. There’s no money for that right now.

The only way seriously to have government do what government needs to do for the American people is to raise revenues right now. Now, in a normal economic recovery, maybe our current tax system would go back up to 17 or 18 percent. Ryan’s proposal and Obama’s proposal is to stop somewhere 19 to 20 percent. But if you look at what we really need to have a normal country, we would have to be 23, 24 percent of GNP—that’s just basic arithmetic—to cover our core costs and to be able to face the needs of the American people for education, for roads that don’t collapse, for a climate that doesn’t get wrecked, for a modern energy system, for science and technology, for our competitiveness. So, this means tax—taxes on the rich and on the companies have to go up, if we’re going to have a normal country. But the Republicans are dead set against it. And until now, Obama has just compromised, compromised, compromised.

AMY GOODMAN: I know you have to go teach a class. How do you think President Obama has most failed the American people?

JEFFREY SACHS: He hasn’t led. His job in our constitutional system is to help show a way forward and help to explain, help to say why we need to go this way, not to stand in the back and then announce how historic an agreement is to slash taxes on the rich or how historic an agreement is to cut $38.5 billion that’s going to slash programs for the poor. That’s not his job. His job is to lead. That’s why we who supported him—I was one of them—expected something very, very different. Now, Wednesday, maybe he’s going to try again. We hear from Plouffe, OK, this time it’s for real. But if he comes out and does again what he’s been doing, I just think he’s lost the core, the heart, of the political movement that basically supported him to bring him to office.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeffrey Sachs, I want to thank you very much for being with us, leading economist, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, also president and co-founder of Millennium Promise Alliance.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to “democracynow.org”.
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The Real News Network

Kucinich: Obama Admin Transferring Wealth to the Few

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STATEMENT OF ROBERT GREENSTEIN ON CHAIRMAN RYAN’S BUDGET PLAN

Center for Budget and Policy Priorities

Chairman Ryan’s sweeping budget plan has been labeled “courageous,” but it’s a cowardly budget in a crucial respect. It proposes a dramatic reverse-Robin-Hood approach that gets the lion’s share of its budget cuts from programs for low-income Americans — the politically and economically weakest group in America and the politically safest group for Ryan to target— even as it bestows extremely large tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans. Taken together, its proposals would produce the largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S. history, while increasing poverty and inequality more than any measure in recent times and possibly in the nation’s history.

That’s because the Ryan plan would generate at least two-thirds — about $2.9 trillion — of its $4.3 trillion in budget cuts over 10 years from programs for people of modest means, while making permanent all of President Bush’s tax cuts for high-income Americans as well as a new estate-tax giveaway in the December 2010 tax package.

Ryan has said that he borrowed some ideas from President Obama’s fiscal commission, which was chaired by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. But in a sharp departure, it stands a core principle of the Bowles-Simpson plan on its head. The co- chairs called for policymakers to set, as a basic principle, that the deficit should be reduced in a way that does not increase poverty and inequality; they called for protecting low-income and vulnerable Americans. The Ryan plan, in contrast, aims by far its most severe blows at those people — even as it drops all of the Bowles-Simpson revenue- raising measures that would secure their largest revenue increases from people at higher income levels.

On the tax side, the Ryan plan would make permanent all of the Bush tax cuts for high-income Americans, as well as the striking estate-tax giveaway included in the December 2010 tax package that benefits the estates of only the wealthiest one-quarter of 1 percent of Americans who die, at a cost of tens of billions of dollars. . . . .

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Single Payer Health Care Event in Baker City

Please mark your calendars for Wednesday, April 27, 2011, 6:30-8:00. The Mad As Hell Doctors will be in Baker City to speak at an event at the Baker County Library. If you are like me you were disappointed that single payer (Medicare for All) was taken off the table before the health care reform negotiations even started. But states can opt out if they come up with a plan that will cover as many people as the AHA for less money. A single payer bill has been introduced in the Oregon legislature and the doctors are touring the state to promote grassroots support for the bill. Vermont is close to passing single payer and Oregon needs to do the same.

It will be a fun evening of singing, hearing the doctors' testimonies and ideas.

If you have any questions at all, please call Marilyn at (541-523-4421).
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Two versions of an old Bob Dylan Song--A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall.
[It's not good news week!]

Bob Dylan - A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall


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Newer Version
A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

Bob Dylan's live-performance of his legendary "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" at "The Great Music Experience", Nara (Japan) in May 1994. Dylan plays before a massive orchestral scenery, which is the Tokyo New Philharmonic orchestra -- the first time ever he played with a classic orchestra.

Baker City--All Cops On the Poor, All the Time!

Persecuting the Old & Poor--I feel so much safer now!
[Edited 4/9/11]

If the Baker City Council, City Manager Mike Kee (& ex Police Chief of Ontario, OR), the "Justice" Court, and Baker City Police Department, have ever, and I mean ever, overstepped the bounds of moral, ethical, civil, and sensible human conduct, it was during the last month or four, when code enforcement officer Shannon Regan and Chief Wynn Lohner, allowed the police, under the color of law, using a very misguided and classist intstrument in the form of City Ordinance 3292 , to persecute two older, 80 plus year old people, and a disabled tenant, on Court Street in our "fair" town of Baker City. Their "crime?" Allowing "stuff" to be accumulated on their already ramshackle old property in an out of the way poor neighborhood that is already full of "stuff" and ramshackle old properties. Hang' em high, right?

In a supposedly "democratic" country where the Wall Street fat cats go free after causing a global collapse, and where we deny millions of our people basic health care (& etc.), where "You have 25 percent—almost 25 percent of the income in the upper one percent," (Stiglitz, Democracy Now!), and where BakerCity's own infrastructure is crumbling, Baker City spends tax dollars persecuting the poor. You can read it every day in the "crime" reports. Some of the folks are actually potential threats, but "stuff" piling up on the property of 80+ year olds in an out of the way poor section of town next to a dilapidated industrial zone? I'm sorry, but Baker City government has run amok.

See Baker City Herald:
Code enforcement conundrum

The article above is a must read for at least part of the story.

See also City Manager, ex-Police Chief Mike Kee touting it as an achievement:
Baker City Weekly Report, April 8, 2011.

Please notice in the city's photos that poor is still poor, ramshackle is still ramshackle (Although they cherry-picked the "after" photos.), even after the city ran up incomplete charge of $1,780, not including your taxpayer dollars for the officer's time for the persecution.

This is the latest evolution of the classist persecution of poor people that began most visibly when the police and City Council went after a disabled life-long Baker City resident back in 2009.

Background articles:

SUNDAY, MAY 17, 2009
Property Maintenance Jihad Targets Disabled Life-long Baker City Resident

FRIDAY, JUNE 5, 2009
Democracy In Baker City, Plus Calder Update (YouTube)

MONDAY, JANUARY 11, 2010
Law, Order, and Perhaps a Little Justice?


After the Ron Calder fiasco, the City Council, composed of business people, an old locally grown "Judge," a well off retired government employee, a mindless ex-sheriff's deputy, and a librarian, passed a tightened ordinance that they believe allows them to continue the persecution of the poor in Baker City. That is the ordinance that the police and the "Justice" Court used to go after defenseless poor and (really) old people recently. Given that the number of police, and their budget, in some measure depends upon "crimes" prosecuted and "prevented," I believe the ex-police chief City Manager uses these attacks on old people, and other incidents, in an effort to pad the police budget. It used to be called Fascism, now it is business as usual.

Please note that the ordinance, written to please some well off property owners, realtors, and hopeless anal-retentives, as well as the Council, says that:

"The general rule of nuisance law as established by centuries of legal precedent is that no one has absolute freedom in the use of his or her property, but is restrained by the coexistence of equal rights in his or her neighbor to the peaceful, safe, and enjoyable use of their property, so that each, in exercising his or her right, must do no act which causes injury to his neighbor.

The City Council further finds that unsafe, unsanitary, and otherwise improperly maintained premises and structures within the City of Baker City adversely affect the value, utility, and habitability of the property within the city as a whole. In addition to the obvious hazards which these conditions pose to public health, safety, and welfare; they specifically cause substantial damage to adjoining and nearby property."

The Council has added the clauses, of questionable legal validity, that "otherwise improperly maintained premises and structures within the City of Baker City adversely affect the value, utility, and habitability of the property within the city as a whole." and "they specifically cause substantial damage to adjoining and nearby property." Hopefully, the poor among us will find the resources to contest the legal complexities and vagueness of the claims, and the corollary that in order to live in peace with the rich or otherwise comfortable, we must not adversely affect the value of their property (even if we don't possess the will and money to do otherwise).
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George Carlin - It's a big club and you ain't in it

N.E. Oregon Birds: Song Sparrows & American White Pelicans

There is so much "going down" that most of us couldn't possibly keep up. I've been busy trying to observe birds migrating through, but also listening to news reports on my iPod, putting off taxes, and reading e-mails, some of which are disturbing to say the least. It's a mixed bag, so to speak.

This blog concerns two Oregon birds. I hope to get back to other important matters soon. Besides--it's Spring, and spring things are so much more pleasant than decadent and corrupt American politics.
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Two N. E. Oregon birds of interest.

Song Sparrows

Song Sparrows (Melospiza melodia) are a common year-round resident of our N.E. Oregon area, even inhabiting neighborhoods in Baker City where thick brushy habitat can be found, preferably near flowing water in riparian areas. You might catch a glimpse of one along the Powder River or irrigation ditches, like Settlers Slough, especially so in winter. If you maintain a good deal of shrubby habitat in your yard, as in forsythia, lilacs, Oregon grape, and etc., you may have them there too. They are often seen in my yard, especially in winter when food is scarce, because I put out millet and the commonly found bird mixes (like Audubon's).
Song Sparrow on School House Road, April 5, 2011

The problem in seeing Song Sparrows, is that they are what people might call "shy," and they don't appear in flocks. Normally, when you are lucky enough to see one, if you are not putting out seed, it is because you heard them singing or caught a glimpse of one before it drops down into the shrubbery and vanishes. They feed on a variety of insects, seeds, and fruit, and breed over a large area of North America from S. Alaska, across most of Canada, in the Western US, and the northern Mid-West and the North-eastern states.

Song Sparrow on Peach Road, Ladd Marsh, April 9, 2010
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American White Pelicans
American White Pelicans on Ladd Marsh fish pond, Union County, OR, 4/6/11

American White Pelicans (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) are relatively uncommon, oddly beautiful, five foot long white and black fishers of primarily Western North American lakes and ponds. In Oregon, I first encountered them at the Malheur National Wildlife "Refuge," about 11 or 12 years ago, or perhaps an earlier trip in the mid-ninetys, where a large flock was cooperatively fishing in two or three ranks stretched across a medium sized pond that evidently contained fish. They would drive the fish from one side of the pond to the other, swimming rapidly, often with their long pouched bills in the water, bagging what they could. It is a sight that I am unable to forget.

Peach Road, Ladd Marsh, Union County, OR, June 18, 2010

On a trip to La Grande yesterday, a fairly miserable day weather-wise, I drove through Ladd Marsh on Peach Road and found 7 or 8 of them on the small fishing pond. As I watched them swim around the pond, which also contained two Double-crested Cormorants who were happily catching small fish, three of the pelicans suddenly lunged at one of the cormorant competitors.

Three White Pelicans confronting a Double-crested Cormorant fishing competitor.

The cormorants left shortly thereafter.

Fortunately for cormorants, the White Pelicans don't possess, and couldn't use modern firearms. The pelicans haven't aways been so lucky. According to "Birds of Oregon" (Marshall, Hunter, & Contreras, OSU Press, 2003-2006), "American White Pelicans were historically shot because they were blamed for decline of commercial fish stocks, even though [it] prefers fish of low economic value (Evans and Knopf, 1993)." Other threats are fluctuating water levels from drought and irrigation uses, habitat loss, human disturbance, powerlines, botulism, and other diseases. Due to their numbers and the various threats, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife lists the American White Pelican as a Sensitive Species. Distribution in Oregon is variable, but primarily east of the Cascades, with the largest concentrations in Harney, Lake, and Klamath Counties.

Chris Hedges: This Is What Resistance Looks Like

This Is What Resistance Looks Like

Just one important article tonight.
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Monday 4 April 2011
by: Chris Hedges, Truthdig, Op-Ed

The phrase consent of the governed has been turned into a cruel joke. There is no way to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs. Civil Disobedience is the only tool we have left.

We will not halt the laying off of teachers and other public employees, the slashing of unemployment benefits, the closing of public libraries, the reduction of student loans, the foreclosures, the gutting of public education and early childhood programs or the dismantling of basic social services such as heating assistance for the elderly until we start to carry out sustained acts of civil disobedience against the financial institutions responsible for our debacle. The banks and Wall Street, which have erected the corporate state to serve their interests at our expense, caused the financial crisis. The bankers and their lobbyists crafted tax havens that account for up to $1 trillion in tax revenue lost every decade. They rewrote tax laws so the nation’s most profitable corporations, including Bank of America, could avoid paying any federal taxes. They engaged in massive fraud and deception that wiped out an estimated $40 trillion in global wealth. The banks are the ones that should be made to pay for the financial collapse. Not us. And for this reason at 11 a.m. April 15 I will join protesters in Union Square in New York City in front of the Bank of America.

. . . . (much good stuff missing--see link in title)

“If Bank of America paid their fair share of taxes, planned cuts of $1.7 billion in early childhood education, including Head Start & Title 1, would not be needed,” Zeese pointed out. “Bank of America avoids paying taxes by using subsidiaries in offshore tax havens. To eliminate their taxes, they reinvest proceeds overseas, instead of bringing the dollars home, thereby undermining the U.S. economy and avoiding federal taxes. Big Finance, like Bank of America, contributes to record deficits that are resulting in massive cuts to basic services in federal and state governments.”

The big banks and corporations are parasites. They greedily devour the entrails of the nation in a quest for profit, thrusting us all into serfdom and polluting and poisoning the ecosystem that sustains the human species. They have gobbled up more than a trillion dollars from the Department of Treasury and the Federal Reserve and created tiny enclaves of wealth and privilege where corporate managers replicate the decadence of the Forbidden City and Versailles. Those outside the gates, however, struggle to find work and watch helplessly as food and commodity prices rocket upward. The owners of one out of seven houses are now behind on their mortgage payments. In 2010 there were 3.8 million foreclosure filings and bank repossessions topped 2.8 million, a 2 percent increase over 2009 and a 23 percent increase over 2008. This record looks set to be broken in 2011. And no one in the Congress, the Obama White House, the courts or the press, all beholden to corporate money, will step in to stop or denounce the assault on families. Our ruling elite, including Barack Obama, are courtiers, shameless hedonists of power, who kneel before Wall Street and daily sell us out. The top corporate plutocrats are pulling down $900,000 an hour while one in four children depends on food stamps to eat.

We don’t need leaders. We don’t need directives from above. We don’t need formal organizations. We don’t need to waste our time appealing to the Democratic Party or writing letters to the editor. We don’t need more diatribes on the Internet. We need to physically get into the public square and create a mass movement. We need you and a few of your neighbors to begin it. We need you to walk down to your Bank of America branch and protest. We need you to come to Union Square. And once you do that you begin to create a force these elites always desperately try to snuff out—resistance.

Chris Hedges’ column appears every Monday at Truthdig. Hedges, a fellow at The Nation Institute and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, is the author of “Death of the Liberal Class.

[I so much appreciate Chris Hedges, but I would emphasize that B of A is only one of many corporations that pay little or nothing in taxes. Additionally, besides taming the financial and other business-corporate control of America, we also need to concentrate on their close relatives--the gargantuan Military-Industrial Complex (as in defense spending and the blood and money sucking American wars all over the globe), and the costly Poor People-Police-Prison-Probation-Courts Complex (PPPPPCC). Why don''t we have government sponsored health care and education for all, as in western Europe, or for another example, Libya?--Chris]

”UK-Uncut: How to do a Bail-in

Bluebirds & Buttercups Proclaim Spring's Arrival in Baker County

[Hope to edit, and perhaps add a photo or two tomorrow, but it is plenty long already. Click on photos for enlargements. Chris]

Somewhere, I have a small framed pastel drawing of a springtime scene engulfing a quote by Henry David Thoreau: "I have an appointment with spring!" The quote is found in his journal from March 3, 1853. Here is an expanded and edited version:

"As soon as those spring mornings arrive in which the birds sing, I am sure to be an early riser, . . . . I have an appointment with spring. She comes to the window to wake me, and I go forth an hour or two earlier than usual. . . . When we wake indeed, with a double awakening--not only from our ordinary nocturnal slumbers, but from our diurnal--we burst through the thallus of our ordinary life, we wake with emphasis."

After those long, cold, too often cloudy and snowy days of winter in Baker County, it is an appointment that many of us, in the northern latitudes the world over, are all to eager to keep--and none more so than myself. Despite whatever the calendar may say, the arrival of spring never seems so certain as that, but then to me, spring has never truly arrived until the buds of the buttercup burst open in the sagebrush, when the neighborhood yards begin to sparkle with the color of crocus, and when a few long, warm sunny days urge me to emerge from my shameless winter lethargy so as to begin curious adventures in our beautiful but besieged natural world. This year, after a few false starts, spring arrived, for me at least, with a celebratory bang on the last day of March and the first day of April.

I took advantage of those startlingly warm and sunny days to explore for early spring things and revel a bit in the beauty of Baker County. Here are a few of the things I found those two days.

Riding east on Highway 86 just after passing the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center and shooting range, a pair of sometimes elusive Sage Thrashers (Oreoscoptes montanus) dropped down off the barbed wire fence on the north side and scurried into the deeper sagebrush. Before reaching the top of the hill, I found another singing on a fence post and stopped to photograph it. He didn't let me get close enough for a terrific photo, but here is a Sage Trasher singing along that highway from April of last year.
Sage Thrasher
Because these excellent singers spend a lot of the time scratching out a living on the ground searching for insects, they are described as elusive, and more often heard than seen. They are actually not very difficult to find though in some of the healthier big sagebrush stands along the highway from before the Interpretive Center and on east past Ruckles Creek Road in the spring (more of a challenge thereafter). After spending the winter from se. California to Texas and portions of Mexico, they return to Baker County in late March and early April.

Another little treasure harbored by the sagebrush is one of our earliest spring wildflowers--the modestly sized but dazzlingly cheerful and hard to miss Sagebrush Buttercup (Ranunculus glaberrimus).
Sagebrush Buttercup

As it does well in somewhat disturbed or early seral communities it can be found amongst the grazed sagebrush and weeds on the BLM managed Goose Creek grazing allotment (the dogs and I hiked the dirt road west from the Sparta Road), and on up through the healthier but well grazed sagebrush areas east of Sparta. A walk along Seismograph road and some of the spur trails (or east Sparta Rd. on the ridge) will provide viewing for a few interesting plant communities, especially eroded rocky scabland areas. Most buttercups are slightly to very toxic to many mammals, but less toxic young Sagebrush Buttercup plants are used to varying degrees by wildlife and sometimes by stock animals.
Sagebrush Buttercup

Another very early wildflower that some might miss, is the unassuming little Gorman's Biscuitroot (Lomatium gormanii). It is also called "salt & pepper."
Gorman's Biscuitroot
I find them on rocky ridge tops, scablands and nearby well drained hillsides in Grant and Baker Counties. Although always found east of the Cascade's, they range north into Washington, further south in Oregon and east into Idaho. It is blooming now in areas near Seismograph Road east of Sparta.

The starchy roots of some Lomatiums were utilized as a food source by Native Americans.They were cooked and eaten or ground into a type of flour and used to make biscuits and cakes. Lomatium gormanii has a deeply buried, large round radish-like root that one report lists as being used by the Nez Perce Tribe.

I also found one lonely clump of Lanceleaf Springbeauty (Claytonia lanceolata) near Seismograph Road east of Sparta.
Springbeauty
A widely distributed species in the West, they too are among the very earliest spring flowers, emerging soon after snowmelt. I normally see them much higher in the mountains. The root, a globose corm, is said to be quite tasty, although it is much better to leave them to brighten the next year's spring (unless you happen to be actually starving).

Springbeauty, Santa Rosa Range, Humboldt County, NV, June 7, 1996

Mountain Bluebirds and Violet GreenSwallows in Sparta

Sparta Butte, April 1, 2011 (Migratory birds make a living here in early spring despite the snow)

There are many beautiful birds in the world, and a few of them live and breed right here in Baker County. One of my favorites for irresistible eye-pleasing beauty, and the best that blue has to offer, is the mountain bluebird (Sialia currucoides).

Mountain Bluebird, "Downtown" Sparta, 4/1/11
This insect eater nests throughout much of Oregon from slightly west of the Cascades to most of eastern Oregon, where it is more common. "Birds of Oregon" (Marshall, Hunter, & Contreras, OSU Press, 2003-2006), states that "important factors determining habitat selection are availability of suitable nesting cavities and open terrain (Farner, 1952)." With some shame (Hey, forgive me, I grew up in the chaparral of S. California!), I learned part of this first hand when I cut down a slightly burned dead Aspen in a "free" (is anything really free?) firewood area on the Fishlake National Forest about 25 years ago, only to find that it contained an active nesting cavity with four young mountain bluebirds at fledgling stage. A more favorable experience was watching these gorgeous birds fly from a perch high in a conifer to just a yard or so in front of me at 10,000 feet in the Pahvant Range of Utah, in order to pick up young grasshoppers in a clearing. Aside from ignorant humans (as in cutting down their nesting trees), a major threat to the species in lower elevation areas near human habitation are the alien and highly competitive European starlings and house sparrows, which also use up available tree cavities or bird boxes. Heavy grazing and fire suppression also takes a toll on the Aspen patches that are often used for nesting. Fortunately, it breeds over a wide area of the American West in cavities from sagebrush-(older) Juniper communities to near timberline and readily accepts bird boxes put up for its use outside of towns and cities.

The two birds below were refurbishing this nest box on Sparta Lane on April 1st.

Mountain Bluebird, female on nest box, Sparta, Oregon

Mountain Bluebird, male on nest box, Sparta, Oregon

Another migratory bird, the Violet-green Swallow (Tachycineta thalassina) has also returned to Sparta, despite the largely snow-covered ground. Flying insects are be at a premium, but they must know what they are doing. I have identification photos from Sparta on April 1, 2011, but here is a better, closer one.
Violet-green Swallow at nest box, ne. of Elgin, June 15, 2007

The "Birds of Oregon" reference mentioned previously states that "Unlike the Tree Swallow it commonly nests in niches and cavities on urban buildings and readily uses nesting boxes in residential areas. Its soft twittery call notes are a familiar pre-dawn sound as they fly about overhead. A very early spring migrant concentrating about streams and wetlands where emerging insects can be found until warmer weather allows them to move into more upland areas."

Waterfowl in the area.

Migratory waterfowl, moving through to more northern latitudes, are also still abundant in the Baker City area.

A true harbinger of spring as far as timing is concerned, is the Canvasback (Aythya valisineria).
Canvasback, Kearney-USFWS photo

A dozen or so seem to regularly appear about the time of the (spring) vernal equinox on the middle pond along the Best Frontage Road at the edge of Baker City, where they were last week. These have been the premier table duck of culinary connoisseurs in the past (and present), but the taste is said to depend on just what these ducks have been feeding on. Their table status among hunters, i.e., the "gold standard" (Birds of Oregon), aka "Lordly Canvasback" ("The Book of Birds," National Geographic 1939), reputation and habitat shrinkage have taken a large toll on populations though, and the Canvasback populations still appear to be declining or perhaps stable in Oregon. They are easily confused with the Redhead (Aythya americana), another not-so-common Baker County migrant. The head slopes into the bill and is not so red as in the Redhead, whose head is more abruptly round, and their "canvas" back is much whiter. Below is a Redhead for comparison.
Redhead, Tule Lake, Ladd Marsh, May 1, 2008

Other spring favorites.

The diving Common Goldeneye (Bucephala clangula) is now common in local ponds and especially in the lower Powder River canyon, with courtship displays easily observed. They also congregate along the Snake River prior to spring. Their clear nictitating membrane allows them to see very well underwater in their dives for food--a clear advantage in that environment, especially in the often muddy water of the Powder River in springtime. Their diet consists mainly of small aquatic animal life, but they do partake of plants. They nest in trees near high elevation lakes.
Common Goldeneye on a cloudy spring day in the Powder River.

The Bufflehead (Glaucionetta albeola), aka "butterball" or "buffalo-head," is also fairly common now on local ponds, although they are probably leaving soon for breeding areas in Canada and Alaska.
Buffle heads, Female left, Male on right, on Best Frontage Road-UPS Pond #2, March 22, 2011.

Birds of Oregon (reference) states that "The Bufflehead is N. America's smallest diving duck, giving it the advantage of being able to nest in abandoned holes of Northern Flickers, a plentiful resource off-limits to larger cavity-nesting ducks." They feed on aquatic insects and their larvae, but also other small aquatic animals, as well as seeds and other aquatic plant material. It also nests in trees or nest boxes near water at high elevation lakes.

Lastly for now, another spring-time migrant that has been here for several weeks, and is also leaving, is the Ring-necked Duck (Aythya collaris). These fast flyers have been common on the Best Frontage Road ponds, and the often overlooked pond along S. Airport Road at the Britt Sand and Gravel plant in the last month (along with others, including Common Mergansers).

People most often think that "Ring-bill" would be more appropriate due to the fact that the ring around the neck is rarely seen, while the ring around the bill always is. I found the duck in the following photo, which shows the ringed neck, on the dredge ponds above Phillips Reservoir back on June 12, 2008. As noted in "Birds of Oregon" reference, the Ring-necked duck may be confused with the scaups. But as they say "The black back, white crescent on the side just in front of the wing, and white-ringed bill separate the drake male ring-neck from the scaups."
Ring-necked Duck on dredge pond above Phillips Reservoir.

Ring-necks are uncommon breeders in Oregon, favoring boreal forests of upper Canada and se Alaska. They are more vegetarian feeders than others in the genus. They nest on floating or emergent vegetation or on islands close to water (previously cited "Birds of Oregon" reference).
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Decorah, Iowa, Eagle Cam
Provided by Cathy Nowak, Fish & Wildlife Biologist and more, at the ODFW Ladd Marsh Wildlife Area in Union County. Click on Decorah Eagles link:

Decorah Eagles

Total views: 11,167,542
First hatch 4/2/11.
24-hour collage of first egg pip and hatch
Second hatch 4/3/2011.
First glimpse of second hatchling
Third hatch expected in a couple of days.

The Raptor Resource Project brings you the Decorah Eagles from atop their tree at the fish hatchery in Decorah, Iowa.

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Bird Meeting in Baker City

From Joanne Britton:

There will be a meeting at the library at 9:30 AM April 9th to recruit birders, talk about where to find birds and IDing them, getting people involved in various counts, and doing a little walk along the river to look for birds. We will also plan other little trips around Baker to bird and practice skills. This will be very informal. Bring your binoculars and pass the word.
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Enough for now.
Blog will return to backlog on Obama's War on Libya, and other harsh realities, soon enough, but I hope this one has been a pleasant break.