TonyPalmeri.Com Update For August 14, 2005
1. Solidarity For Cindy Peace Rally. In Many ways, Cindy Sheehan is the American government's worst nightmare: a parent of a fallen soldier not content with the hollow statements of condolence coming out of the White House and the Pentagon. On Monday, August 15th the Fox Valley Peace Coalition and the Fellowship of Reconciliation are sponsoring a Solidarity With Cindy Peace Rally at Houdini Plaza in Appleton from 5 - 6 p.m. See the official announcement here: http://www.tonypalmeri.com/solidforcindy.htm
2. Palmeri Audio File: Interviews with Mike McCabe, Jay Heck, Matthew Scully, debates from the Time For Tony assembly campaign and other audio files can now be found in one central location: http://www.tonypalmeri.com/palmeriaudiofile.htm
3. Send Wal-Mart Back To School: On August 10th, Oshkosh citizens joined activists in two dozen other states and more than 30 cities in urging a Wal-Mart boycott as regards the purchase of school supplies. Here's some coverage with links to some of Wal-Mart's most egregious misdeeds http://www.tonypalmeri.com/wakeupwalmart.htm
By the way, Wal-Mart stands to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Supreme Court's recent "eminent domination" decision, as noted by the always irreverent Mark Fiore: http://www.markfiore.com/animation/domination.html
4. Free Bus From Oshkosh To Fighting Bob Fest: I suspect we're going to have quite a motley crew on this bus http://www.tonypalmeri.com/fightingbobfest.htm If you live close to Oshkosh and are free on September 10th please make the trip. It will be fun. And if we're not careful we might learn something.
5. Judge Gritton's Substitutions: There are 8 judges in Wisconsin's 4th Circuit. By law, parties to civil actions are entitled to request one judge substitution without having to provide any reasons. One judge, Thomas Gritton, far outpaces his 7 peers in the number of times he has been substituted: http://www.tonypalmeri.com/subs.htm
6. Sudan Information: Several refugee families from the Sudanese Dinka tribe (perhaps the most well-known Dinka in the United State is former NBA star Manute Bol) now reside in Oshkosh. On Sunday I attended a wonderful picnic at St. Mary's church in Oshkosh at which I was able to meet almost all of the families. When asked what citizens can do to help the Sudanese, Dinka speakers said that helping to end the media's suppression of news regarding the Sudan Crisis would be a good place to start. An excellent source of information is Sudan.net
7. ABV Afghanistan Update #3: Our friend Colin Crowley says that in Afghanistan, "People are so desperate for diversion that they go through the trouble to pirate Jean Claude Van Damme films in a foreign language." http://www.geocities.com/abvarmy/LIA.html
8. Happy Birthday Social Security: August 14th is the 70th anniversary of FDR's signing Social Security legislation into law. Here's a good history of the bill page http://www.socialsecurity.gov/history/ Democracy Now! had an excellent interview with FDR's grandson last Friday http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/12/1422252
9. Tax Policy Center Shows Regressive Nature of US Tax Code. I missed this one from back in February:
The Tax Policy Center has published a table that states that taxpayers earning more than $10,000,000 in 2004 paid lower tax rates than taxpayers earning between $1,000,000 and $10,000,000. Among other things, it breaks down the average tax rate by cash income into various income tax categories.
According to the Tax Policy Center, the average tax rate paid by the 9,000 taxpayers earning over $10,000,000 in 2004 was 20.1%, more than 2% lower than the nearly quarter million taxpayers earning between $1,000,000 and $10,000,000. If taxpayers earning over $10,000,000 were taxed at 22.3%, the rate of those earning between $1,000,000 and $10,000,000, the federal government would have received an additional $4.8 billion in revenue.
Taxpayers who earned more than $10,000,000 paid a lower average rate than any category of taxpayer earning over $100,000. Although taxpayers in the $75,000 to $100,000 range paid 18.9% of their income in taxes, 1.2% less than those making over $10,000,000, taxpayers in the $100,000 to $200,000 range paid an average of 20.6%, or 0.5% more than those making over $10,000,000.
Furthermore, the Tax Policy Center's analysis is described by David Cay Johnston, New York Times columnist and author of Perfectly Legal as "understating the real economic gains of those at the very top, who have perfectly legal ways to defer reporting income for tax purposes."
The Tax Policy Center is a nonpartisan joint venture of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution and comprised of nationally recognized experts in tax, budget, and social policy who have served at the highest levels of government. Source: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/U.S._2004_tax_rates_lower_for_those_earning_over_%2410_million%2C_Tax_Policy_Center_says
10. WI Taxpayers Being Ripped Off Right In Front Of Our Eyes: Jim The New Democrat Doyle, the man whose chief case for reelection next year is that he's not as evil as Republicans Scott Walker or Mark Green (really inspiring campaign Doyle's gonna run, eh?), came into office pledging to cut 10,000 jobs from the state workforce. Today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contained even more evidence that private contractors are costing the state much more than state workers: http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/aug05/348376.asp
On Monday, Aug. 15 at 7 p.m. on Oshkosh Cable Access Channel 2, Cheryl Hentz and I will interview Paulette Feld and Larry Lautenschlager, both members of the Wisconsin State Employees Union. They discuss the private contracting as well as their recently-negotiated contract and other issues the WSEU still face. The interview can also be seen on Thursday at 1 p.m. and Saturday at 6 p.m.
Peace, -Tony