Chris Urso/Tampa Tribune
THOUSANDS OF FLORIDA RESIDENTS “AWAKE THE STATE” WITH PROTESTS AND RALLIES TO OPPOSE GOV. RICK SCOT’S BUDGET CUTS.
(Palm Beach Post)
From Key West to the state capitol building in Tallahassee, Floridians opposed to new Republican Gov. Rick Scott’s far-reaching budget cuts and anti-union proposals took to the streets and public areas to let their voices be heard over the dominance of Scott’s “Tea Party” allies. The statewide event coincided with the start of the new state legislative session, where Scott’s budget and measures targeting teachers will soon be debated. Protesters said Scott was “wrecking the state” by proposing a budget cut of nearly $5 billion and layoffs of nearly 9,000 state workers. Scott, anxious about the strength of the protesters in opposition to his plans, urged the smaller crowd of “his Tea Party” supporters in front of the state capitol “don’t be shy” and “let everyone know what you believe in.”
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OPINION: A U.S./EUROPE-IMPOSED “NO-FLY ZONE” OVER GADHAFI’S LIBYA IS “NOT A HUMANITARIAN POLICY.”
(TruthDig)
With international uproar over the crisis in Libya quickly turning into support for Western intervention in the internal conflict, William Pfaff explains that such a course would ignore the lessons of recent history and change the nature of Libya’s pro-democracy uprising into something more akin to Iraq than the spontaneous overthrow of Mubarak in Egypt. The “no-fly zone” desired by many foreign policy “experts” and discussed by the Obama administration and the powers of Europe is not inspired by “moral conviction” but by the interests of the United States and the West, as the politics of oil and the balance of power in the Arab world increasingly come into play.
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IDAHO BECOMES THE LATEST STATE TO TAKE A WHACK AT COLLECTIVE BARGAINING RIGHTS.
(Spokesman-Review)
The Idaho House passed SB 1108 on Tuesday, a sweeping measure that takes dead aim at teachers’ collective bargaining rights in a similar fashion to other efforts to strip public employees of labor rights in Wisconsin, Ohio, and elsewhere. The Idaho legislation targets teachers specifically, and would dramatically increase the authority of school districts and the state government to lay off teachers and eliminate tenure, while also restricting the bargaining power of the teachers’ union. Opponents, including nine Republican lawmakers, called SB 1108 a “mean-spirited bill” that “bashes teachers.”
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DAVID KOCH BEMOANS GOVERNMENT “CUTBACKS” FROM LAWMAKERS ELECTED THANKS TO HIS PERSONAL FORTUNE.
(Mother Jones)
“If the cutbacks happen, it will significantly diminish the level of research that can be carried on…” This is a comment from a leading donor to cancer research speaking about the detrimental impacts of drastic federal spending cuts that target the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute. Not very controversial, since the cuts to these two world-class research arms of the federal government have been opposed by many individuals and groups. But the twist to this story is that this remark came from David Koch, the infamous billionaire conservative financier and a cancer survivor who is deeply involved in funding cancer research. Koch and his brother, along with Koch Industries and their political activist organization, delivered millions of dollars in campaign contributions to Republicans and “pro-business” Democrats running for Congress in the 2010 elections, many of them backed by the “Tea Party.” Promising to slash government spending, it is these lawmakers, elected to Congress thanks to Koch money, that are proposing massive cuts to health and cancer research budgets.
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