Sarah Solon

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Reading this excerpt from Progressive States, I feel like I'm listening to a political scenerio that should be coupled with the tag line, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas." And being from Colorado (where we went through the whole TABOR debate last year), this slime hits especially close to home.

"What happens when the Chamber of Commerce hands $8 million to a rightwing political operative for the purpose of beating up on unions? Sleazy attacks, attempts to mislead, and outright lies, apparently. At least, that's what has happened with Rick Berman's Center for Union Facts, a front group with huge amounts of funding from the Chamber.

The Orwellian-named Center is running ads in four states attacking public employees and their unions. By less than random chance, the four states also have TABOR-style public spending cap initiatives headed for their ballots this fall. While Berman told the Associated Press in Montana that the ads are not related to the initiatives, evidence indicates otherwise. Berman's lackeys were hobnobbing with Howard Rich's libertarian gang at a meeting last weekend of Americans for Limited Government - which is helping orchestrate the TABOR-style initiatives in states around the country, including the four where Berman is now running the ads."

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Streetsblog posts that a ban from back in the day (the early nineties to be exact) prohibits vehicles that weigh over 6,000 pounds from driving down some California Streets. Originally aimed at trucks, and originally set in place during the heyday of the mini-van, the ban has become a litmus test of the times. The heavy, gas guzzling SUVs many now drive weigh well beyond 6,000 pounds - Hummers weigh over 2,000 more pounds, and should thus be banned from these streets. Funny? Yes. True? MmHm. Telling? You Betcha.

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Gotham Gazette's post on global warming begins with a discussion of the manatee who's journeyed up north this summer - from Florida to New York and Connecticut - and spurs some interesting comments on population density and its effect on the environment. What leaves a lesser impact, these comments ask, driving your Subaru through pristine green landscape just to get to the store or using mass transit and owning less stuff because you live in a tiny NYC apartment?

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Brand new blog Inclusionist.org has a solid analysis of President Clinton's Op-Ed in Tuesday's New York Times, which he wrote to mark the 10th Anniversary of Welfare Reform. Using the terms of one of our favorite economists, Jared Bernstein, this posts casts welfare reform into the larger dynamic Bernstein points to: YOYO (You're On Your Own) vs. WITT( We're In This Together) frames of social and economic policies.

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And I'm sure you already have, but I'd just like to take a moment to celebrate the FDA's long-overdo decision to make Plan B available without a prescription to all women over 18. In our Year in Review of 2005, DMI named the FDA's refusal to approve Plan B for over-the-counter distribution one of the ten worst policies of the year (see page 5). Every little incremental bit helps, and today's is a big triumph for subtracting the role that fringe political pressure plays on pragmatical health policy and on the ability of women to easily access the health care and services they need.

Sarah Solon: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 1:18 PM, Aug 24, 2006 in Blog Stroll
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