Getting the conversation rolling on the MBTA

I'm quick to point out that putting corporate welfare up against the MBTA is a means to spark a conversation on Beacon Hill.

People want to save the MBTA and getting rid of the Hollywood Film Tax Credits is one really great way to do it.

However, even reforming the Film Tax Credit could go a long way toward preserving services on the MBTA -- and if a few reps talk over coffee about that crazy petition they were reading about on Blue Mass Group last night and how it may have have a point, that's a victory.

Maybe those reps prove key in getting some reform on the tax credit, with the savings going toward MBTA debt relief.

But to do that, we have to go after the whole enchilada, because that's the only way Beacon Hill will take people seriously.

And, who knows, maybe it'll take off and we'll really get the whole enchilada. So, sign now!

Tom Cruise's Film Tax Credit would have Covered Weekend Services: Please Sign!

Want a reason to be outraged over the service cuts facing the MBTA?

Well, here's one. In the state's wasteful Film Tax Credit law, where the state covers 25% of all a movie's expenses if they film here, we paid for 25% of Tom Cruise's $20 million dollar salary.

That's $5 million dollars the state spent in corporate welfare to Tom Cruise, as if he needs any.

Well, what else could that have paid for? In my post over at Blue Mass Group, I mentioned how all weekend commuter rail services (and any trains after 10pm) would be cut in one of the plans -- all to save a measly $5.7 million dollars.

That's right, the money we paid to Tom Cruise in corporate welfare could have almost entirely, and perhaps fully, paid for weekend services on the commuter rail for the entire year.

I hope you're as outraged as I am.

Please sign -- then email it to all your friends and people you know who ride the T, and ask them to sign, too.

Then Tweet it, Facebook it and post it at your blog.

Tell Beacon Hill to get its priorities straight.

The MBTA vs Corporate Welfare... sign the petition!

Here's the bottom line... the state gives almost as much in corporate welfare - free money - to Hollywood as the entire MBTA deficit. That's wrong.

Beacon Hill caused the MBTA crisis by dumping $2 billion in Big Dig debt on it. Now Beacon Hill should have to fix it.

Well, Beacon Hill, here's one way to almost do it in one fell swoop!

End the corporate welfare to Hollywood, save the millions of residents who count on having the MBTA!

A link to the petition below.

Blue Mass Group | The MBTA // Film Tax Credits // Tourism — Sign the Petition!

Planned Parenthood and Komen for the Cure

As the son of a breast-cancer survivor, this one really rubs me the wrong way. Susan G. Komen for the Cure is one of this country's largest fundraising organizations for breast cancer research and treatment. Planned Parenthood is at the forefront of women's preventative health care in this country, and has been for decades. 

That Komen would provide funding for breast cancer screenings for women in need at Planned Parenthoood really should be a no brainer, right? 

Well, it has been, until right-wing extremists have decided to go after all of Planned Parenthood's funding sources, and until after Komen hired an extreme right-wing ideologue, someone who ran for Governor of a state with a platform of stripping Planned Parenthood's funding, to be its Vice President. 

Before we go any further, though, let's get a few things straight. Planned Parenthood is not an 'abortion organization,' as some in the right-wing would like the rest of us to believe. It's a women's health organization, first and foremost. If a conservative tells you they want to strip Planned Parenthood of its funding because PP is all about 'abortions,' they're either dumb or lying.

Some small number of Planned Parenthood locations do provide women with that procedure, but it's funded and operated separately from the rest of the entire organization. The bulk of everything else that Planned Parenthood does is women's health issues, like providing preventative care (for example, breast cancer screenings) for women who otherwise couldn't afford it or who lived in areas where such care is difficult to find.

Planned Parenthood provides these rather mundane, but lifesaving, services to hundreds of thousands of women. They're on the front line of preventative medicine for women in this country. The funding Komen has provided up until now saw to it that 170,000 women in need got breast cancer screenings in the past 5 years alone. These are women who likely wouldn't have otherwise had any access to the screenings.

Breast cancer is usually very treatable -- when caught early. How many of those 170,000 women were saved because of those screenings? Now, how many of those 170,000 people in the next five years will die because they weren't screened early enough? Those are two questions all of us should be asking ourselves the next time Komen comes around asking for a donation. 

I, for one, will be finding some other organization when I give toward curing and treating breast cancer in the future.

Elizabeth Warren: It Gets Better

Marisa DeFranco at 3:30pm on LeftAhead

Mike and I are interviewing US Senate Candidate Marisa DeFranco at 3:30 today on LeftAhead. You can listen live at blogtalkradio.com/lefties starting at 3:30pm, or anytime after 4:30 at LeftAhead.com. There's also a mp3 player for the show on the right-hand column of this blog, and people can catch it at iTunes or some other podcast aggregators.

Why the GOP's going nuts of attacks on Bain

The reason why the GOP is so terrified of Gingrich's attacks on Bain isn't because they're afraid it will stop Romney from winning the nomination (that's a certainty at this point), but rather that they're afraid of seeing Newt put Bain's way of doing business on the table for GOP base voters, in a way Democrats never could.

Bain crushes unions, strips away benefits and ships jobs overseas, buying companies out with hundreds of millions or billions in loans. They then ditches that debt on those stripped-down companies, who can't afford it, leaving many of them out of business or shells of their former selves.

It's bad for America and the elites of the GOP don't want people to hear it, especially their base. Why? Because the elites of the GOP know it, too, but they just don't care.

Walking over the little people to make money is an easy decision for those elites, but not for most Americans. Democrats are already open to the idea that there should be some restrictions on the way companies can do business, but most base GOP voters aren't. If people, especially the GOP's base, understand exactly what companies like Bain does, they'd no more support it than they'd support drug cartels.

SOPA, the death of the internet?

Below is an excellent explanation on the vastness of the problem that SOPA, the "Stop Online Piracy Act," poses for the internet. SOPA is the music and movie industry's attempts to basically kill the internet.

It goes far beyond trying to protect copyrighted material, and descends into "let's kill websites that are competitors." Youtube.com could be shut down if Google were to not take down a single, solitary video that was flagged by the industry within 5 days. A blog could be taken down is a single, solitary commenters quoted too extensively in a single comment. In effect, the internet would become like Cable TV, with megacorporations back to controlling almost all content, from the media, to books, music and film.

Here's a great explanation of how vast this bill goes, not only allowing sites to be targeted, but advertisers, and allowing content owners to seize sites without going through normal court channels, essentially throwing due process out the window.

Here's the comment, plucked from a Techcrunch blog. It should appear as the first comment below the article.

Certainly, the implications could be seen as a turning off of just about any avenue of the internet. The real problem here (addressing questions above) is that DOJ won't be doing the primary enforcement. SOPA grants jurisdiction for aggrieved holders of protected content to bring suit in addition to the DOJ. That means the "creator of the content" -- Metallica, let's just say -- or an agent of the aggrieved -- Metallica's record company -- will have jurisdiction in federal courts in the U.S. to bring suit against those websites that either a) control the location upon which the actual infringer posts the protected content, or b) against advertisers who help those websites continue to operate.

The requirements are that both the website and the advertiser be provided adequate notice of the infringement before suit can commence. That means enough time for the website to take appropriate action (removing the content and blocking the user, most likely), and any advertisers or "enablers" as I like to call them to discontinue business with those offending websites.

The problem is bigger than just the ability to regulate granted to the DoJ. The true problem is that it is giving the media outlets direct means of redress to bring suit not only against websites, many of which are unaware anything wrong is going on, and seek either or both monetary and injunctive relief, but also those advertisers (see facebook, google, etc.) who won't discontinue business with websites which host the offending content. In this light, it is clear that the media companies will now have the ability to sanction any web outlet, or web outlet that serves advertising, without addressing the underlying problem of the user who is doing the "offending" if we can call it that. Huge monetary sanctions against Google for advertising -- the stretches of this power could kill google as we know it (which may have been the underlying intent all along, as fond as they are of Google).
Let's say a commenter posts a link on small blog A to content that infringes on X's copyright. X might not care or know about it. But X's agent, RIAA, does. Someone likes the comment on blog A, and links on Facebook. On an aside, blog A uses Google advertising. The link on Facebook makes it into the internet's mainstream, in whatever way it will. It catches the attention of X's agent RIAA.
At this point, SOPA gives DOJ or the offended party (or her agent) a right to judicial redress by imposing monetary sanctions or achieving injunctive relief (shutting down the page, site, domain). At this point, Blog A, Google, Facebook, and every other site that served as host to the offending content are potentially liable. RIAA can pursue the action by notifying DOJ or by pursuing it individually after notice. In fact, RIAA could, under some circumstances, even TAKE THE DOMAINS of the offending website (under in rem property provisions in the H.R.).

Extrapolate the single instance to what stretches the entire internet, and well...the problem truly is vastly larger than what the DoJ could manage to enforce. That was never the true purpose though, was it?