Friday, October 10, 2014

New city policy in Whitefish prohibits gated communities | Missoula Local News - NBCMontana.com

New city policy in Whitefish prohibits gated communities | Missoula Local News - NBCMontana.com: City leaders say gated communities just don’t match the city’s vision for growth.

There are currently two gated communities. One of them, Grouse Mountain Estates, wants to add more gates. They currently have two gates inside the subdivision and want to expand with more gates at the front. It would eliminate public traffic to the roads.

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Gates are for ranches, not communities.

Wednesday, October 08, 2014

Out of control federal deficit? Not so much.

Here are the facts from the Congressional Budget Office on the federal budget deficit that every Republican in America says is spiraling out of control: 

"Relative to the size of the economy, that deficit—at an estimated 2.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)—was slightly below the average experienced over the past 40 years, and 2014 was the fifth consecutive year in which the deficit declined as a percentage of GDP since peaking at 9.8 percent in 2009."
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/49450

Fired doorman shoots property manager

http://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/news/news/local/va-hospital-called-police-on-condominium-shooting-/nhcRf/?__federated=1

Seems that the property manager fired him as doorman.

"Police apprehended the man who allegedly shot a Palm Beach property manager in the head Friday morning after the suspect went to the VA Medical Center Hospital in Riviera Beach for medical treatment, Public Safety Director Kirk Blouin said Sunday."

Florida Couple Keeps Statues of Jesus, Virgin Mary on Property Despite Threat of Legal Action by HOA

BerluchesFlorida Couple Keeps Statues of Jesus, Virgin Mary on Property Despite Threat of Legal Action by HOA: A couple in Florida will be allowed to keep statues of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary on their property after initially being told by a homeowners' association that they could not.

Enock and Ines Berluche of Kissimmee will not have to remove the statues, after being told by the Shingle Creek Reserve at the Oaks Homeowners' Association that they had to do so.

The Berluches were given legal help by the Orlando-based conservative law firm the Liberty Counsel, which was founded by Mat Staver.

Sunday, October 05, 2014

Why the shocking growth of economic inequality in the US is not a big political issue

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/why_economic_inequality_is_not_a_bigger_political_issue_20141003


Because, says David Sirota, Americans have no idea how huge the gap really is, and that makes the Democratic Party  afraid to use this as an issue in the 2014 election.  But the way I see it, this timidity is what leaves the Democratic base dispirited, and that leads to low turnout, and that means a repeat of 2010. Republicans aren't afraid to rally their base, but Democrats are.

"If critics of income inequality are wondering why the growing gap between rich and poor hasn’t been a more potent political issue in the upcoming elections, a new study offers some answers: Americans grossly underestimate this inequality. That’s one of the key findings of a survey showing the gap between CEO and average worker pay in America is more than 10 times larger than the typical American perceives. In the report, Harvard University and Chulalongkorn University researchers analyzed survey data from 40 countries about perceptions of pay gaps between rich and poor. In every country, respondents underestimated the size of the gap between CEO and average worker pay. In the United States, for example, the researchers found the median American respondent estimated that the ratio of CEO to worker income is about 30-to-1. In reality, the gap is more than 350-to-1."


"The country simply can't go on like this"

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Man_With_The_Disease

From Charles Pierce, writing about the ebola fear-mongering by right wingers, in which science and medical opinion are simply ignored:

"The country simply cannot go on this way, with one of our two political parties completely insane, and with a counter-cultural universe that claims the right to promulgate its own science as equal to the science produced by actual scientists, and with this dangerous lunacy treated as legitimate by powerful people who ought to know better. As I once wrote, it doesn't matter how many people vote for the anti-gravity party, you still can't flap your arms and fly to the moon. A dangerous disease is not a matter of debate. Your profitable fantasy and the reality of the disease do not deserve an equal place in the discussion of what we as a society will do about the disease. The response is going to have to be precise and empirical. It is going to have to be impatient with cant, and immune to the delusions on which demented ideology feeds. And, most important of all, we are going to have to trust each other, and we are going to have to trust our government, which is the political manifestation of all of us, no matter what 30 years of Reaganite heresy has taught us. We are going to have to trust ourselves as individual citizens, and we are going to have to trust ourselves as partners in the creative act of self-government. I am afraid we will not, because there is one side of our politics who will stand in the way, and another side of our politics that is too frightened or too polite to call dangerous nonsense to account, and to shun the people who are promoting it. And that is what scares me the most about the man in Texas with the disease."