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White Supremacist With Ties To Neo-Nazi Groups Elected To Pennsylvania County GOP Committee

By Adam Peck on May 31, 2012 at 2:40 pm

The newest member of the Luzerne County Republican Party Committee

Republicans in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania have elected Steve Smith, a lifelong white supremacist with close ties to neo-Nazi groups and groups like Aryan Nations, to the county’s GOP Committee.

The elections, which took place in late April, were certified by the committee two weeks ago, and Smith notified supporters of his victory last week by posting a message to the online forum White News Now.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has documented Smith’s participation with known skinhead organizations like Keystone State Skinheads, (now Keystone United) which he co-founded in 2001. And his racist activism extends far beyond violent rhetoric as well, into actual violence:

In March 2003, he and two other KSS members were arrested in Scranton for beating up Antoni Williams, a black man, using stones and chunks of pavement. Smith pleaded guilty to terrorist threats and ethnic intimidation and received a 60-day sentence and probation.

Smith is also an active member of local Tea Party groups, a network that he used to gain support for his bid for the committee seat. According to the SPLC, Smith referred to the Tea Party as “fertile grounds for our activists.”

Luzerne County is hardly a small rural county either. According to the 2010 census, over 320,000 people live in Luzerne, many in the county seat of Wilkes-Barre, a large city of over 40,000 people. And in an interesting juxtaposition with the election of an anti-immigrant bigot, Luzerne County saw the nation’s largest county-level increase of Hispanics between 2000 and 2010.

NEWS FLASH

House Fails To Pass Sex-Selective Abortion Bill | On a 246-168 vote, the House of Representatives failed to pass Rep. Trent Franks’ (R-AZ) bill to ban physicians from performing abortions based on a fetus’ sex. Republicans couldn’t garner a two-thirds majority, which was required to pass the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA) under the House’s suspension of rules. Rather than addressing inequality, PRENDA would have exacerbated sex and race discrimination by targeting women of color from communities associated with sex selection whom doctors might suspect of wanting to have a prohibited abortion.

Update

7 Republicans voted against the measure: Amash, Bass, Bono Mack, Dold, Hanna, Hayworth, Paul.

Update

20 Democrats voted in favor of the sex-selective abortion bill.

Alyssa

Neal Stephenson’s Hieroglyph Project and Relationships and Technology in Science Fiction

By Alyssa Rosenberg on May 31, 2012 at 2:06 pm

I was reading through Annalee Newitz’s piece in last month’s Smithsonian about Neal Stephenson’s efforts to create a more optimistic science fiction in the wake after reading Emily Nussbaum’s piece on Community and Doctor Who in the New Yorker, and the combination struck me. The thing that I’m most interested in seeing in my science fiction right now is not solely new technology, and not solely explorations of what relationships might look like in the future: I’m interested in explorations of what our relationships to our new technology are going to be like.

One of the things Emily praised about Doctor Who in its latest incarnation was its exploration of how a specific technology—time travel—affects characters’ relationships to each other, and enhances fears of abandonment, missed chances, and the need for profound patience with the people you love. Stephenson, Annalee writes, has a more concrete set of motivations:

“We have one rule: no hackers, no hyperspace and no holocaust,” Stephenson says. He and his collaborators want to avoid pessimistic thinking and magical technologies like the “hyperspace” engines common in movies like Star Wars. And, he adds, they’re “trying to get away from the hackerly mentality of playing around with existing systems, versus trying to create new things.”Stephenson’s greatest hope is that young engineers and scientists will absorb ideas from the stories and think, “If I start working on this right now, by the time I retire it might exist.”

I think what I’m curious about is a fusion of the two. Kim Stanley Robinson’s new novel 2312 is about precisely that dilemma: what happens when humans who are interconnected to their personal computing devices to the point of having them embedded in their bodies, discover that computing’s evolved to a higher level such that they aren’t sure they trust something they’re intimately connected to? What happens when they date someone or get involved in professional relationships where someone wants them to detach? These aren’t exactly new questions—Orson Scott Card posed a lot of them with his character Jane, a sentient expression of the internet, in Speaker for the Dead—but Robinson feels like he’s riffing off Siri, the Apple personal assistant that doesn’t work as well as we’re told it will, but that we’re supposed to want to like quite a bit.

And these aren’t the only technologies that pose those kinds of questions. Watching Star Trek a couple of years ago, I was struck watching Bones repeatedly stab Kirk with injections. I have a nut allergy, and my Epi-Pens are a source of both great comfort and anxiety to me. I’m glad they exist, but I’m terrified of actually having to jab myself with one, and I was both uncomfortable and fascinated to see Bones doing that repeatedly as if it was no big thing. I’d be curious to hear from long-time Trekkies in the audiences whether there are episodes of the show or movies I might have missed that address what it’s like to have medical technology that good. Do people take more risks? Do doctors overmedicate patients? Does it lead them into error? I feel like we have a lot of science fiction, whether it’s John Scalzi’s work or The Forever War that discusses how medical technology changes decision-making by soldiers. But from a doctor’s perspective, I can’t imagine what it would be like to have a tool that powerful at your disposal, and I’d love to see a futuristic medical show that explores some of those questions. I’d totally watch a show about a futuristic Atul Gwande (or, who am I kidding, Shonda Rhimes 2032 show Space Mistresses).

Good gadget design or carefully thought-out rules are a first step towards good science fiction. But just putting those tools or those rules into action without meditating on them aren’t the only way to tell stories with them.

Economy

CHART: Millionaires Don’t Leave States Due To High Taxes

By Pat Garofalo on May 31, 2012 at 2:00 pm

A favorite conservative myth is that raising taxes on millionaires at the state level will chase those millionaires away to other states. That was the rationale Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) used to justify vetoing a millionaires surtax…twice.

However, the data doesn’t back up that claim. Steve Roth at Angry Bear used this chart showing that millionaires simply don’t congregate in low-tax states. Roth found that “of the 12 states with the highest concentration of millionaires, 10 (83%) have above- or at-trend (in this case, median) income tax rates.”

This jibes with a report from the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst which showed that “the evidence available in the research literature suggests that the worst fears of the policy debates over raising additional revenue from high-income households to sustain spending on public services are unlikely to materialize. The rich will not go on strike. They will not cease working, stop investing, or even move.”

Climate Progress

Detroit’s Prospects May Be Better Than We Think

By Climate Guest Blogger on May 31, 2012 at 1:51 pm

Detroit (by: Liza Lagman Sperl, creative commons license)by Kaid Benfield, via NRDC’s Switchboard

As almost everyone knows, Detroit is a city with some serious problems.  But, as I have written before, it’s more complicated than some pundits allow:  while it is true that the central city has been famously ”shrinking,” its suburbs have actually been growing in recent decades.  Looking at Detroit the region rather than Detroit the central city, the situation is still far from rosy, but not as dramatically dire as some suggest.

I find it nothing short of tragic that so many people are writing off the city’s prospects - and concentrating mainly on how to adapt to a decline of population and economic activity that they believe is essentially permanent – when the region has been expanding.  Hollowed-out centers accompanied by sprawl on the fringe are horrible for the environment and for people.  The last thing we should be doing is institutionalizing that pattern.

Urban thinker Richard Florida has a more optimistic view.  Writing in Atlantic Cities, he notes that things in the Motor City may be more promising than most people think:

“We’ve all read the story of Detroit’s downfall by now. Once a booming hub for automotive manufacturing and a center for technological innovation, the veritable Silicon Valley of its day, the city has witnessed devastating economic changes. Between 2000 and 2010, the city’s population fell by 25 percent, the largest drop of any city with a population over 100,000. Even New Orleans, despite Hurricane Katrina, didn’t see a population plunge as dramatic. At the height of the recent economic crisis, Detroit’s unemployment rate was 18.2 percent.

“But the other story of Detroit, the bigger one – is of its rebirth, its rising. Given the austerity of these times, this is less a story of top-down government efforts, and much more a story of the organic efforts of the entrepreneurs and artists, designers and musicians who have chosen to live in Detroit and be the stewards of its resurgence . . .

“Detroit is still a part of a large, diverse metro region. With a population of more than five million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s combined statistical area (which includes Ann Arbor), and an economic output of more than $200 billion when you add Ann Arbor, greater Detroit is the nation’s 14th largest metropolitan economy. It remains one of the world’s leading centers of automotive technology and industrial design and with its recently expanded and renovated airport, it has aerotropolis-style connections to the world. Nearby Ann Arbor and Lansing, home to the University of Michigan and Michigan State, respectively, provide research and development assets that few places can match. If Detroit has lost much, it still has much to build on—and it is.”

All that is by way of introduction to what looks to be a terrific video series on the city’s uprising.  Here is the most recent installment:

Go here for the full series (three of five installments have been published so far).

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment.  For more posts, see his blog’s home page. This piece was originally published at NRDC’s Switchboard and was reprinted with permission.

NEWS FLASH

REPORT: Anti-LGBT Murders Increased In 2011 | The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs has released its yearly assessment of hate violence (PDF) against people who are LGBTQ or HIV-affected, and though rates of violence declined by 16 percent in 2011, the number of murders increased to 30, the highest total ever documented. It’s possible, of course, that there was not an actual increase in murders, but merely in accurate reporting. Among those 30 murders, 87 percent of the victims were people of color, and 40 percent were transgender women. Young adults (ages 18-30) were almost 2.5 times more likely to experience physical violence as those age 30 and older. Countering homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia in laws, police forces, and communities at large can help reduce the risk factors for this community.

Related Posts

Security

Report: Majority Of Israeli Defense Chiefs Oppose Attack On Iran

By Eli Clifton on May 31, 2012 at 1:20 pm

Among Israel’s former top security officials, a growing consensus has emerged over the past several months that a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be counterproductive to Israeli interests. Yesterday, former Israeli spy chief Meir Dagan emphasized that point, telling an audience that “a strike could accelerate the procurement of the bomb” and “provide them with the legitimacy to achieve nuclear capabilities.” But a new report by Ynet, suggests that the consensus opposing an Israeli attack on Iran extends all the way to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s defense chiefs.

“[P]olitical sources told Ynet on Wednesday that IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz, Mossad Chief Tamir Pardo and several top section chiefs in the Mossad are against a strike at this time,” reads a report by Ynet. “Without Gantz’ support the chances of mounting a strike are slim,” an anonymous “political source” said.

Indeed, Gantz and Pardo have expressed reservations in the past about the effectiveness of an Israeli strike.

In December, Pardo warned that while Iran poses a threat to Israel, “The term existential threat is used too freely,” a view closely mirrored by former Mossad Chief Ephraim Halevy, Meir Dagan and a number of former high-ranking Israeli security officials.

And while hawks in the U.S. and Israel frequently misrepresent the intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program to portray an Iranian nuclear weapons as imminent, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz pushed back last month, telling Haaretz, “[Iran] hasn’t yet decided whether to go the extra mile.” That assessment is shared by U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

Gantz also told Haaretz, “I don’t think [Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei] will want to go the extra mile. I think the Iranian leadership is composed of very rational people.”

Ynet looked at Netanyahu’s nine-minister security forum and concluded that Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman support an attack. But Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon, Kadima Chairman Shaul Mofaz and ministers Dan Meridor, Benny Begin, Eli Yishai and Yuval Steinitz oppose a strike.

A potential Iranian nuclear weapon is widely considered a threat to both the security of U.S. and its allies in the region, as well as the nuclear non-proliferation regime. However, intelligence estimates give the West time to pursue a dual-track approach of pressure and diplomacy to resolve the crisis. Questions about the efficacy and consequences of a strike have led U.S. officials to declare that diplomacy is the “best and most permanent way” to resolve the crisis.

Justice

NEW DATA: Elections Supervisors Throughout Florida Confirm U.S. Citizens Improperly Included In Voter Purge

By Josh Israel and Adam Peck on May 31, 2012 at 1:05 pm

When Gov. Rick Scott’s (R-FL) administration distributed its controversial lists of possible non-citizen voters last month, state statute required the state’s 67 county supervisors of elections to send out letters requiring those voters to prove their eligibility to vote within 30 days — a window that will end in the next couple of weeks in many counties. But a ThinkProgress survey of several county supervisors in Florida reveals that the lists of presumed non-eligible voters is riddled with errors. In large and small jurisdictions across the state, supervisors have found that a large number of the voters on the list are indeed eligible voters.

(Click the graphic to enlarge)

Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall told ThinkProgress that she and the state’s 66 other county elections supervisors sent a “clear message” to the Scott administration at a Tampa conference two weeks ago. “One after another, [they] got up and talked about inaccuracies [in the state’s voter purge list of alleged non-citizen voters].”

In Miami-Dade, the count of voters whose citizenship status has been challenged by the Scott administration numbered in the hundreds. With time left to respond, nearly a quarter of those sent letters in have already proven their eligibility.

Several smaller counties also confirmed to ThinkProgress that voters have proven that their inclusion on the list was in error.

In Clay County, near Jacksonville, the elections supervisor received two names from the state. One proved citizenship; the other was purged from the rolls for not responding within 30 days. Charlotte County (two out of nine) and Bradford County (two out of nine) also reported significant percentage of errors on the state’s list.

Citrus County Supervisor of Elections Susan Gill (R), who serves a Tampa-area county with a population of just about 140,000, received just three names from the state that it deemed likely non-citizens. But already two of those have produced documentation to verify their citizenship and voter eligibility. One of the two was even born in New York State. The third voter, who has yet to respond to a registered letter, has never even voted.

Gill told ThinkProgress:

Everybody thinks we vote in a computer world. When you do any sort of data matches, you need several data points to make a good match. When the state first sent these 2,600 to us, some of the matches didn’t have enough information. We’re required by law to send a letter … and unfortunately they have to prove their citizenship. Some of them weren’t terribly happy. The state needs to find a better way to do the data matches.

Before the state sends out lists challenging the eligibility of voters — putting the onus on lawfully registered citizens to re-prove their eligibility — it has an obligation to be certain that that list is valid. Clearly, it did not do so here.

The purge of fully eligible voters from the voting rolls by Scott could be enough to tip the balance in Florida and, perhaps, the presidential election. In 2000, the final (disputed) margin was just 537 votes.

Tell Rick Scott to stop his Florida voter purge by adding your name here.

NEWS FLASH

One-Third Of Women Say There Is A ‘Wide-Scale Effort’ To Limit Reproductive Health Choices | A new poll shows that 31 percent of women say there is a “wide-scale effort to limit women’s reproductive health choices and services,” according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. And after the controversy over expanding access to contraception and attacks against Planned Parenthood, 42 percent of women polled said they had taken action on the issues, like donating money or trying to change friends’ minds.

NEWS FLASH

Occupy Protestors Convince City Of Buffalo To Move Its Money From JP Morgan | The Buffalo News reports that Occupy Buffalo protesters have convinced city officials to move $45 million out of an account with JP Morgan Chase, and to transfer the money to First Niagara Financial Group. “Not only will the funds earn more interest with First Niagara, a major local employer headquartered in Buffalo, but it also sends a crystal-clear message to JPMorgan Chase that the City of Buffalo is not happy with their business practices,” said city comptroller Mark Schroeder said. Activists have convinced leaders of several cities and churches to move their money from the nation’s biggest banks to smaller community banks.

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