In June, the Supreme Court will be announcing its decision on the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also called health care reform, also called Obamacare. To be prepared for this decision whatever way it goes, we need to let the media know what the public might lose. Please help us by answering the following questions. Each of these questions is about a part of the new law that has already gone into effect and has already benefited millions throughout our country. Thank you.
1. If you are a senior with part D Medicare, are your paying less out of pocket expenses for your brand name prescription medications?
2. Are you getting an annual physical and having the medically required tests without paying a co-pay?
3. If you are an owner of a small business with 50 or under employees, have you benefited from the new tax credits for providing health care for your employees?
4. Were you or someone you know able to get insurance when you could not before because you had what they called a “pre-existing condition”?
5. Do you have a child under 26 on your insurance plan now that you could not have before?
Please respond by replying to this email or by calling Wanda Mead Campbell at 607-723-4034 or Amy Fleming at 607-754-3621 or jpamy5@stny.rr.com
We need to hear from you.
INDOORS
Continue fertilizing houseplants every 2 to 3 weeks
OUTDOORS
Prune the flowering shrubs, such as azaleas, lilacs and honeysuckle, after they bloom. Harden off transplants to minimize the “shock” when they are transplanted. See the guidelines below for instructions on hardening off your transplants. When the apple blossoms open and tulips peak, plant sweet corn, leeks, and bush beans
Peonies and irises will tend to blood after danger of frost. Plant the tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, melons, okra, and lima beans after all danger of frost
Plant sunflowers and other colorful annuals after all danger of frost. Thin the cool season crops started in April such as leafy greens, radishes,
and carrots
*Last night, there came a frost, which has done great damage to my garden.... It is sad that Nature will play such tricks on us poor mortals, inviting us with sunny smiles to confide in her, and then, when we are entirely within her power, striking us to the heart. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The
American Notebooks *
HARDENING OFF YOUR TRANSPLANTS
1. Harden off gradually, so that seedlings become accustomed to strong sunlight, cool nights and less-frequent watering over a 7-10 day period.
2. On a mild day, start with 2-3 hours of sun in a sheltered location.
3. Protect seedlings from strong sun, wind, hard rain and cool
temperatures.
4. Increase exposure to sunlight a few additional hours at a time and gradually reduce frequency of watering, but do not allow seedlings to wilt. Avoid fertilizing.
5. Keep an eye on the weather and listen to the low temperature
prediction. If temperatures below the crop's minimum are forecast, bring the plants indoors or close the cold frame and cover it with a blanket or other insulation.
6. Know the relative hardiness of various crops. Onions and brassicas are hardy and can take temperatures in the 40's. After they are well hardened off, light frosts won't hurt them. Warm-season crops such as eggplants, melons and cukes prefer warm nights, at least 60° F. They can't stand below-freezing temperatures, even after hardening off.
7. Root-prune plants in flats a week before setting out. Use a sharp knife and cut down to the bottom of the flat between the plants. Water thoroughly.
8. After transplanting to the garden, use a weak fertilizer solution to get transplants growing again and to help avoid transplant shock
VINES announces its 3rd annual Summer Youth Employment Program at the Urban Farm, and invites youth who live in the City of Binghamton to apply.
In partnership with the Binghamton Housing Authority, Broome County Gang Prevention, and the City of Binghamton, Volunteers Improving Neighborhood Environments (VINES) will be hosting its 6-week employment program at the Binghamton Urban Farm, located on 16 Tudor St in Downtown Binghamton. The program will run from July 3rd to August 10th. Youth will gain valuable job skills as well as knowledge around growing, selling, and cooking vegetables. In addition, their work will help to make fresh and affordable vegetables available to the local community.
Applicants must attend a mandatory open house on either *May 15th OR May 17th at 6pm *located inside the Urban Farm greenhouse. For an application please see the Summer Youth Program page on our website. Or call or email us for a hard copy at 607-205-8108, vinesvolunteers@gmail.com
Kady Perry puts finishing touches on a mural on Water St. in Binghamton to commemorate the terrible impact of the 2011 floods. The project was sponsored by the S.O.M. Scholars at Binghamton University. The students pick a community project each year and this year the projects are flood related. Previous projects have been the Discovery Center Story Garden and the Laurel Community Garden among others.
Kady Perry, a Binghamton muralist, spoke with groups of flood victims through Project Renew, a mental health project for those affected by the floods. She created a "wordle" based on their words. The flood wall was painted green for a great length of the wall which is a popular walking/biking trail that skirts the river all the way to Cheri Lindsay Park beyond the Binghamton Plaza. "Passersby were yelling encouragement all weekend," Perry noted.
Picture this: three firefighters, dressed for work, standing in a blackened landscape scarred by wildfires and flash floods. They hold bright, circular signs: This is climate change. More CO2 = More Wildfires. Connect the Dots.
That's what some of our friends in New Mexico are planning for Climate Impacts Day on 5/5/12. That landscape they'll be standing in? The Bandelier National Monument, where the largest fire in New Mexico's history burned 60% of the park last year. As the planet warms, wildfires are getting both fiercer and more frequent. As Ken Frederick of the United States Bureau of Land Management and a former firefighter said, "we are in the era of the mega-fire."
But we are also in the era of the mega-movement. 350.org has led global days of action before, but things are different this year: for people everywhere, the climate crisis is no longer some distant, abstract challenge. It's here, it’s real, and its impacts are already being felt -- and people everywhere are taking notice.
Now it’s up to all of us in this movement to use this unique moment in history as a planetary wake-up call. People from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe are gearing up for 5/5/12 -- with events that will educate their communities and put a human face on the climate crisis. At each and every event, activists will take a big group photo of a massive dot representing their local climate impacts -- and as soon as the event is over they'll upload their photos to ClimateDots.org.
Our team will connect those climate dots to make a potent mosaic of images around the world. We'll spread those images far and wide, and make sure that governments and global media start connecting the dots on the climate crisis.
But these actions are linked by more than crisis -- they're also linked by hope that together we can overcome this challenge. By coming together with bold global action, we'll be strengthening our movement and showing that we are united in our outrage and our hope.
I'm sure that many of you share that hope and outrage. If you do, I look forward to joining you in action. To find an action (or start one -- there's still time to pull together a quick event) visit ClimateDots.org.
*Indoors*
· Start seeds of warm season vegetables such as tomatoes, peppers,
squash, melons, annual flowers--still not too late, but get going ASAP if
you haven't already started your seeds
· Fertilize houseplants every 2-3 weeks with high N (nitrogen)
fertilizer
*Outdoors*
· Early in the month, fertilize all fruits except strawberries
· Sow seeds for spring salad crops every 2 weeks to ensure steady
harvest
· When spring bulbs bloom, sow seeds for radish, peas, carrots,
spinach, endive, collards directly into the garden
· After daffodils bloom, plant onion sets, chard, beets, parsnips,
parsley
· Fertilize asparagus and rhubarb (and harvest if you like the size)
Courtesy of VINES.
*"No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no
culture comparable to that of the garden."-- Thomas Jefferson*
ALL I SEE IS DOLLAR SIGNS $$$$$ -
Who do the conservative Committee to Save New York, a Cuomo promoting lobbying coalition largely financed by wealthy New York City business and real-estate figures and the Capitol Tax Partners who lobby for Wall Street think they are fooling? Hoarding their money, refusing to invest in new jobs, and refusing to pay a fair share of taxes has caused the financial bind we are in. Years of empty promises for their gaming the system. Who is the idiot who thinks this is not class warfare upon the average American?
Iconic NY GE spent $84 Million to CTP for lobbying. From 2008 - 2010 GE made $10.5 Billion in profits but their tax bill was less than zero and they slashed 32,000 US jobs. GE, Verizon, Corning, and Boeing are some of the 30 corporations who paid no tax from 2008-10.
While I live on the rural fringe and cannot get high-speed phone service from Verizon their CEO tripled his salary from $7.2 million to $23.1M a year. Average Joe what would you do with just $50,000 of that? Verizon refuses to offer a fair contract to employees and wants to outsource. The Judge issued gag order restrictions on employee demonstrations. Apparently The Press did not want to antagonize an advertiser by publishing the shorter version of this editorial. Neither have they covered continued allowed demonstrations.
The Committee to Save New York was formed last year by business groups to support Cuomo's call to lower state spending and adopt a property-tax cap. They ran ads across the state to promote Cuomo's agenda, and Cuomo was successful in getting his proposals adopted by the state Legislature. The Committee to Save New York spent nearly $11.9 million, the most of any group, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics report said. In 2010, $213 million was spent on lobbying in Albany -- the first time the spending broke $200 million. Lobbying spending in the state soared to a record $220 million in 2011.
Right now, many profitable billion-dollar corporations can pay a lower New York State tax rate than neighborhood small businesses, some paying little or no taxes at all or 'sheltering' their assets offshore.
Our illustrious Governor Cuomo gave a $5 billion windfall tax cut as the millionaires' tax was allowed to expire in Dec while teachers and aides are being laid off. Since 1981 the state has rebated tax to stock traders over $16 Billion annually. What did we get for that? Oh, another casino, another form of gambling.
On the flip side, Cuomo also delayed the agreed upon welfare increase a year and then this year proposed to delay it again to half this July and the other half in July 2013; but the legislature acquiesced to October 2012. This sucker punch is after the below poverty constituents had already waited 18 years for this "inflation" windfall. Today, the grant + food stamps leave most families at only about 75% of the poverty level. The three men in a room, Cuomo, Skelos and Silver, played the same low income time delay squeeze with the EPIC drug program that will be reinstated in 2013. 16% of NYers live below the poverty level. 1.3 million NYers live below half of the poverty line. The NYS unemployment rate is still hovering around 8%. Is that the kind of moral example of state's rights we want to follow? We see who needs to sacrifice.
ALL I SEE IS DOLLAR SIGNS $$$$$ -
Americans disapprove of the Congress by an overwhelming majority. New Yorkers disapprove of Albany dysfunction. This is the year for Americans to decide what they value. Jeffrey Sachs(American economist and Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia's School of Public Health,) in his book The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity describes why America needs a "mixed economy," one where more effective federal government regulates business and invests alongside the business sector. In reviewing his book, Congressman Paul Ryan, an avowed libertarian, described it as anti-American. Ryan postures to be poles apart; more black and white thinking; all or nothing gridlock. Ryan is a puppet of the Heritage Foundation where you can get a tie that has the liberty bell on it. Do we really want our democratic symbols co-opted like they did with "family values"?
Sachs calls for government to regulate banks, protect the environment from pollution, promote science, tax millionaires and billionaires and limit the lobbying power of corporations. Does that seem more fair to the average American? Thomas Jefferson opposed the untrammeled actions of commercial banks and corporations. Jefferson wrote, "I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies." He declared the need to "crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
Eric Alterman (Distinguished Professor of English, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, and Professor of Journalism at the CUNY Graduate School) and Kevin Mattson have written The Cause: The Fight For American Liberalism From Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama. The two chronicle an intellectual (and actual) history of liberalism that even Trilling would approve of. “Liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition,” the great literary critic Lionel Trilling wrote in the preface to 1950’s The Liberal Imagination. That does not mean there’s no conservatism—just that its impulses do not “express themselves in ideas but only in action or in irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.” A look at the current Republican landscape, and you’ll see this is still perfectly true. But The Cause shows why this is also completely false. Alterman’s greatest strength is pointing out the failures of liberalism -.The Daily Beast.
What is it that keeps liberals from putting action to their beliefs? Why don't their feet touch the ground with practical application that benefits the average citizen? Are we giving up the pluralism of the Statue of Liberty? Why would we allow one party to demonize our neighbors? Is that for the common good? Is that an example of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim faiths we know? Why do we allow our government to set up catch-22 situations, i.e., expecting everyone to be able to work but sending 'low level' jobs overseas and cutting funding to job training; capping minimum wages while escalating health costs; giving freebies to Wall St. but punching donut holes to seniors, etc.
Sachs contends that Ryan overlooks obvious facts of American values from Jefferson(research-Lewis and Clark) to Lincoln(education-land grant universities) to Teddy Roosevelt(Progressive) to Franklin Roosevelt in public works (canals, highways, flood walls) in which the federal government has played a vital role. In 1913, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution made the income tax a permanent fixture in the U.S. tax system. The amendment gave Congress legal authority to tax income and resulted in a revenue law that taxed incomes of both individuals and corporations. Why are we repeating history with another Gilded Age?
Sachs contends the problem is the failure of our government to translate American values into American policies. He states the public wants to preserve social programs, wants higher taxes on the rich and wants to end the wars. He contends Ryan stands at the center of America losing its democracy by politicians trading their votes for campaign contributions from the corporate lobbies. However, it was palatable to Ryan to bailout the banks who fund him contrary to his free market philosophy.
ALL I SEE IS DOLLAR SIGNS $$$$$ -
Part I - CORPORATOCRACY
While you were pre-occupied, the dish ran away with the spoon; corporatocracy took over. A corporatocracy is a situation in which corporate bodies interact with sovereign power in an unhealthy alignment between business, banks and political power. The elite power brokers maintain these ties by lobbying efforts, funding political ads, providing bailouts and plundering the ecosystem. Corporatocracy lacks transparency and accountability. There motto appears to be: Don't Tread on Me. Lately it is referred to as the 1 percent.
This is not an indictment of captitalism. The watchwords are unhealthy effects of greed and the lack of an appreciation of what the common good is and the purpose of government. Interestingly, a recent Scientific American article - How Wealth Reduces Compassion, As riches grow, empathy for others seems to decline, by Daisy Grewal, 4-10-2012 states several study findings that build upon previous research showing how upper class individuals are worse at recognizing the emotions of others and less likely to pay attention to people they are interacting with. So how do we stop this runaway train?
On the national level one of the elite is ALEC - the American Legislative Exchange Council founded in 1973 by now deceased Paul Weyrich(Wisconsin native), the conservative stealth political activist who also founded the Heritage Foundation of right wing "moral majority" fame in the 1990's. The nonprofit ALEC still holds stealth meetings bringing together state legislators, companies and advocacy groups to shape "model legislation." The legislators then take these models back to their respective states, about 1,00 times a year these bills are introduced and about 200 times they become law. More than 2000 state legislators pay $50 yearly dues to belong. There are 92 ALEC serving in the U.S. House, 87 are Republican. There are nine in the Senate. Corporate members pay almost 99 percent of its $7 million budget. Corporate members can also donate to each state's "scholarship" fund which reimburses legislators who travel to meetings. I guess this is creeping states rights. One protest sign states:
American Legislators Exemplifying Corruption!
A current example is promoting the death of land phone lines. Indiana and Wisconsin have passed such laws. Sponsors and phone companies such as AT&T say deregulation will increase competition and increase investment in better technology. Fortunately, some bills have stalled because of concerns about how it would affect rural telephone customers since this is their only 911. If you live outside the city you know that some towns have refused certain cell towers so coverage is spotty. However, some communities and residents need those connections for business. From 2008-2010 AT&T had a $14.4 billion tax subsidy and Verizon had $12.3 billion. Ron Scheberle the executive director of ALEC spent 30 years as a lobbyist for Verizon and GTE. So why is it the companies need a law to apply their profits in a community helpful manner?
In 2011 ALEC sponsored the Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act drafted to prevent states from enforcing the new federal health insurance coverage mandate. Last year they passed a resolution proposed by the Edison Electric Institute, a trade group representing electric utilities, to urge the U.S. EPA not to define coal ash as hazardous waste. Other efforts include bills restricting voting rights(increased identification) and gun laws like the Florida "Stand Your Ground" legislation and racial profiling bills like the anti-immigrant "show me your papers" law in Arizona.
In the past few weeks corporations Coke, Pepsi, Kraft, McDonald's, Wendy's, Intuit, Reed-Elsevier, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Mars, Inc. have withdrawn membership in ALEC. Probably the U.S Chamber of Commerce will continue membership.
REF: Bloomberg Businessweek, 12-1-2011. YES! Magazine, 4-17-12. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/us/alec-a-tax-exempt-group-mixes-legis...
