Hasta La Gadget!

Dear Oklahoma Representative Sally Kern,

Allow me to repent.

You see, Mrs. Kern, I repent because at one time I detested you.

Yes, I disliked you and I didn’t even know you.

I hated you for the words you said.

I hated you for the House Bills you introduced.

I hated you for the blindsided harm and shame you placed not only on gays, but also on Muslims, and blacks, and other minorities as well. Not to mention the hurt of gay children across Oklahoma when you insinuate they are less than.

However, Representative Kern, I also realize that love is the answer. While hate may prevail for a short amount of time, ultimately love wins. Sally, John 4:8 says; “Whoever does not Love does not know God, because God is love.”

Sally Kern, I repent for the amount of dislike I had in my heart towards you, because I realized you don’t know God. Because, if you do know God like I do then you must realize the hate that has spewed from you is a turnoff for those who desire to be Christ-like. Matthew 7:16 says, “By their fruit you will recognize them.” Mrs. Kern, I am not the judge, that is up to Jesus. But as far as I can see thus far the fruit you are bearing is hate.

So Mrs. Kern, even as you introduced three new House Bills in Oklahoma trying to destroy the lives of many LGBT people whom you are supposed to protect. I ask as for your forgiveness for the hate that I had in my heart. And, I pray that God reveals himself to you in a way that he never has. And that he shows you what love really is.

In closing, Mrs. Kern, I would like to remind you of Hebrews 12:14-15 where it warns, “Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root rises up to cause trouble and defile many.”

In love and forgiveness,
Dillon Peña

CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) — A woman admitted on Wednesday that she helped two of her children conceal evidence of a gang-related double slaying that occurred at her home, where the bodies were buried in a yard.

Arnetta Welch pleaded guilty to hindering apprehension, Camden County prosecutors said. The 42-year-old is expected to get a two-year probation term when she’s sentenced in March. Welch bought cleaning supplies and helped with the removal of evidence following the February 2010 killings of Michael Hawkins and his girlfriend, Muriah Huff, prosecutors said. The couple were tortured, beaten, shot and buried in the backyard of Welch’s Camden home, prosecutors have said.

The bodies of Hawkins, of Mount Holly, and Huff, of Cinnaminson, weren’t discovered for three days.

Hawkins, 23, was killed over a gang dispute and a stolen bottle of liquor, authorities say. Huff, 18, had accompanied Hawkins to the home and was killed to prevent her from identifying the attackers, they say.

Welch’s children, 19-year-old Shatara Carter and 24-year-old Dennis Welch, were among 10 defendants who have been convicted or pleaded guilty for their roles in the slayings.

Dennis Welch pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter in 2013 and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Carter, who was 14 at the time of the killings, pleaded guilty as an adult to aggravated manslaughter last year and was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

San Juan, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico

Why not a Commonwealth of Texas? That thought occurred to me reading about political stalemate in Washington while celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the Sierra Club’s vibrant chapter here.

A modern Whiskey Rebellion afflicts America. Calling itself “The Tea Party” these rebels have nothing to do with the Boston merchants who dumped India Company tea into the harbor. New England patriots wanted representation. When they got it, they quite promptly levied and supported higher taxes (mainly tariffs) to encourage commercial growth, provide national defense and finance canals and roads.

But there was another colonial faction for whom the issue was not “taxation without representation” but taxation, period. When the fledging Administration of George Washington levied – democratically – a tax on whiskey, the Scotch-Irish of the frontier rose in rebellion. Washington suppressed them. The Constitution survived.

That spirit– representation as a means of evading taxation – dominates “Tea Party” conservatism. Some on the right don’t want to pay. Many others object to the things taxation buys — good schools and health care for everyone, police instead of vigilante self-defense, public parks in place of private estates – or does — coddling children by keeping smog out of the air, protecting the gullible by banning patent medicines, interfering with the right of workers to labor in dangerous factories.

Today’s Whiskey Rebels, empowered by the Supreme Court’s campaign finance rulings, abuse the Constitution’s checks and balances. They jam the gears blocking even governmental business – pay-off the deficit or build decent bridges – they theoretically favor. The Arizona legislature has passed “nullification statutes” harkening back to before the Civil War, while Texas Governor Rick Perry oscillates between promising to secede and threatening to run for President.

The irony of the Whiskey/Tea Rebellion is that it thrives in states that are, net, “takers” from Washington. They receive more federal benefits (which they claim not to want) than they pay in federal taxes, while “maker” states like Massachusetts, New York and California are overtaxed. The current federal deficit is fed by government spending in (mostly) Tea Party “taker” states (mostly Tea Party learning.) South Carolina is the biggest net “taker.” Their Congressional delegations, adherents to Grover Norquist’s “No new taxes” pledge, block the country from dealing with the deficit while meeting vital public needs, – even maintaining the interstate highways system is anathema.

Clearly the commitment of Tea Party “taker states” to representation is tepid. They deny it to the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico statehood advocates. At home they expend enormous political ingenuity erecting voting barriers to students, minorities, the elderly or poor.

So let’s give them a choice. Consider Puerto Rico. Residents pay no federal income tax. They enjoy no vote in Congress or for the Presidency. We should allow any “taker state”, (those not paying their fair shares of federal taxes,) to opt into Commonwealth status. The accumulated share of the federal debt attributable to services provided to its residents would be transferred from Washington, DC to, say, Austin. (Texas must lead the parade. Only Texas can legitimate Commonwealth Status for other Whiskey Rebellion/Tea Party red hots.)

Optional Commonwealth status for Whiskey Rebellion/Tea Party rebels has huge advantages.

1. Commonwealth status does not create the mucky legal and practical problems of secession. Congress can do this! We already have four states that call themselves Commonwealth – Kentucky, Massachusetts, Virginia and Pennsylvania. No legal issues at all.
2. The “taker states” would be know their taxes were used exclusively to pay for services they themselves consumed. If they didn’t want paved roads, Washington wouldn’t jam concrete down their throats. Pesky “Nanny State” rules like minimum wages would also go away.
3. But they get to keep the Constitution they love so much. A Commonwealth is governed by the Constitution and is part of the US. Everyone could move around freely. Puerto Ricans serve in the US military. No new borders need to be created or policed (Imagine if Texas seceded and we needed TWO border walls to keep immigrants out).
4. Democracy and fundamental civil rights would still be guaranteed by the US Constitution; we retain the fruits of the Revolution and the Civil War.
5. Since the remaining “maker states” pay more to Washington than they receive, the federal deficit would gradually dwindle and vanish.
6. If the citizens of the remaining states want better roads, or universal health care, clean energy, or a higher minimum wage, a Congress liberated from its Whiskey Rebellion/Tea Party faction can approve such programs. (It is usually forgotten that it was only after the Slave Interest left the Congress in 1861 that legislators approves the transcontinental railroad, the Land Grant College system and the Homestead Act. Modern America would never have emerged without that brief window when “Representation but no taxation” delegations left Congress.



7. The Texas Lone Star flag is almost identical to that of Puerto Rico. Both were stolen by US military occupation. They belong together.
8. If Texas was joined by even a few other “taker” states –say Arizona, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, and Idaho — the Democrats would immediately regain both Houses of Congress. Sensible conservatives could then reclaim the GOP. Our two party system could resume functioning, healing American politics.
9. NY, California, Colorado and Michigan could retain talented international students graduating from their universities.
10. The obstruction of voting rights to minorities, the poor and the young in Commonwealths like Texas or South Carolina would be less unfair, since all their residents would be denied representation in Washington, DC.
11. America would be spared the threat of yet another Texas Presidency – haven’t Lyndon Johnson and two Bushes taught us enough?
12. Puerto Rico might even get to decide if it wants to remain a Commonwealth.

Could Tea Party/Whiskey Rebellion hard-liners really resist being spared the federal income tax? Could the Koch Brothers?

Well, maybe. There are a couple of flies in the Commonwealth ointment. The “taker” state share of the national debt is big – Texas only gets an extra nickel for every dollar of taxes it pays, but Arizona gets $1.40 of services for $1.00 in taxes, and South Carolina chocks in at a decadal average of $3.24 in benefits for every federal tax dollar paid.

Or it might turn out that even Whiskey Rebellion red-hots are grateful for Grand Canyon National Park, the control tower at the Dallas-Forth Worth airport, Mississippi Interstate Highways, Wichita ribs inspected by the Department of Agriculture, and South Carolina drugs tested by the FDA. Maintaining some of these services under a Commonwealth, without access to the federal income tax, is as Puerto Ricans have discovered, very challenging.

So perhaps the “taker” states wouldn’t “take” the Commonwealth option. But then at least we would know the truth – they really don’t mind taxes – as long as someone else pays them. Which, since the Whiskey Rebellion was all about fury among frontiersmen at being asked to pay for their own defense, wouldn’t be a first in American history. But we could call out the militia and be done with it. (Remember, this is a satire.)

Poverty hurts children and our nation’s future. This stark statement is backed by years of scientific research and the more we learn about the brain and its development the more devastatingly true we know this to be. Childhood poverty can and does scar children for life. Yet in the largest economy on earth we stand by as 14.7 million languish in poverty. Here’s a snapshot of who our poor children are today:

• Every other baby is a child of color. And 1 in 2 Black babies is poor – the poorest child in America.
• 1 in 3 Hispanic children under 5 is poor during their years of rapid brain development.
• More than 1 in 4 urban children and nearly 1 in 4 rural children is poor.
• 1 in 5 of all children in America is poor—14.7 million children.
• 1 in 6 Black children is extremely poor living on less than $8 a day.
• 1 in 7 Hispanic children under five is extremely poor.
• 1 in 8 Hispanic children is poor.
• Less than 1 in 9 White children is poor; 4.1 million children.

A child of color is more than twice as likely to be poor as a White child. Of the 14.7 million children living beneath the poverty line in 2013, defined as a family of four living on less than $23,834 a year, or $16.25 a person a day, over 40 percent lived in extreme poverty on less than $11,917 a year, half the poverty line – barely $8 a person a day.

The 14.7 million poor children in America exceeds the populations of 12 U.S. states combined: Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming and is greater than the populations of Sweden and Costa Rica combined.

Our nearly 6.5 million extremely poor children exceeds the combined populations of Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming and is greater than the populations of Denmark or Finland.

It is a national disgrace that so many poor children live in the United States of America –the world’s richest economy. It doesn’t have to be this way. It’s costly. And it’s the greatest threat to our future national, economic and military security.

The Children’s Defense Fund has just released a groundbreaking report called Ending Child Poverty Now showing for the first time how America could end child poverty, as defined by the Supplemental Poverty measure, for 60 percent of all poor children and 72 percent of all poor Black children. We can make this happen by investing another 2 percent of the federal budget to improve existing programs and policies that increase parental employment, make work pay and ensure children’s basic needs are met. Poverty for children under 3 and children in single parent households would drop 64 percent and 97 percent of all poor children would experience improvements in their economic circumstances.

CDF contracted with the non-partisan, independent Urban Institute to generate real numbers on the costs to implement improvements to existing policies and programs and the number of children who would benefit. CDF’s report shows how relatively modest changes in policies we know work can be combined to significantly reduce child poverty, and implemented right now if our political leaders put common good, common sense and economic sense for children first to improve the lives and futures of millions of children, and save taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars each year.

CDF’s report estimates a cost of $77.2 billion a year for the combined proposed policy improvements and suggests multiple tradeoffs our country can make to pay for this huge, long overdue and urgently needed reduction in child poverty without raising the federal deficit including:

• Closing tax loopholes that let U.S. corporations avoid $90 billion annually in federal income taxes by shifting profits to subsidiaries in foreign tax havens; or
• Eliminating tax breaks for the wealthy by taxing capital gains and dividends at the same rate as wages, saving more than $84 billion a year; or
• Scrapping the F-35 fighter jet program already several years behind schedule and 68 percent over budget and still not producing fully functioning planes. For the $1.5 trillion projected costs of this program, the nation could reduce child poverty 60 percent for 19 years, potentially breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty.

Download CDF’s new report and share it widely with your child advocacy networks and faith communities to learn changes that can be made at the national, state and local levels. Fifty years after President Lyndon Johnson declared a war on poverty, it’s time for all Americans to work together to finish the job beginning with ending child poverty in our nation with the largest economy on earth.

Sign up for actions you can take for a real plan to end child poverty now.

While you were away, Facebook took over mobile. Without you scorning them at every turn (I’m guilty, too), Facebook quietly moved the pieces on the board, and the game now looks different. there was a point in time when Facebook didn’t “get” mobile, admitting as much ahead of cranking the wheel hard and forging a new path. Now, they run … Continue reading