Posts from — November 2009

Dr. Jack Schofield announced his candidacy for election to the House of Representatives for Nevada’s Congressional District #2 on Veteran’s Day.

I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Schofield last summer here in Pahrump. I was impressed and want to introduce him to the voters of Nye County. He is unique.

He is a former Nevada State Assemblyman and State Senator. Born in 1923. In 1941 he was the Golden Gloves Welterweight Champion. He earned a Bachelor’s of Science degree from the University of Utah in 1949, a Master’s degree from University of Nevada Reno in 1967, and a doctorate in Educational Administration and Higher Education from University of Nevada Las Vegas in 1995.

He is a veteran of World War II and a member of the famous Flying Tigers.

During World War II, Jack served as a B-25H Mitchell bomber pilot for the United States Army Air Force. Lieutenant Schofield was a member of the 22nd Bomb Squadron, 341st Bomb Group, 14th Air Force based at Yangkai, China. As part of the 14th Air Force Flying Tigers, Lieutenant Schofield and his crew flew combat for allied troops fighting in China. The Flying Tigers were renowned for their flights and bombing runs through enemy fire, over the Himalayan Mountains to deliver supplies and support the ground troops in the China-Burma-India campaign.

He is experienced.

He served as a Nevada State Assemblyman from 1970-1970, and as a Nevada State Senator from 1974-1978 where he fought for the rights of Nevada’s working people. Jack served as an instructor and administrator in the Nevada public school system for forty-four years from 1953-1997 and currently presides on the Nevada Board of Regents where he has held a seat since 2002. He remains active in the Civil Air Patrol as a lieutenant colonel and serves as the Government Affairs Advisory for the Nevada Wing. He is an entrepreneur and real estate developer. He currently sits on the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

He is a devoted husband and family man.

Jack and his wife, Alene Earl, recently celebrated their sixty-seventh wedding anniversary. They are the proud parents of six children, they have thirty-two grandchildren, and forty-eight great grandchildren. He has maintained a lifelong interest in weight lifting, nutrition, boxing, and still enjoys golf and tennis. He is honored to attend graduation ceremonies at the Jack Lund Schofield Middle School in Las Vegas. At his request, the middle school is proud to have the Flying Tiger as its mascot.

Jack is seeking the Democratic nomination in Nevada’s 2nd district. He is running to restore Nevada’s economy, protect America’s military veterans, and guarantee every Nevadan’s right to a proper education.

It is obvious he has devoted his life to public service. I can remember World War II and the history making flights of the Flying Tigers over the Himalayan Mountains.

Being a beneficiary of the GI bill I share Dr. Schofield’s support and advocacy for educational opportunities.

I will endeavor to follow Dr. Schofield’s campaign on the blog I write. Those of you who do not yet know of him can learn all about him on his campaign website at http://jack2010.com/. When you get to his campaign site be sure to read the “15 American Rights” on his home page. Those are core fundamental rights which I endorse as well.

When his campaign comes to Nye County I recommend you try to attend and personally meet Dr. Schofield yourself. I think you will find him, as I did, friendly, articulate, gracious and capable.

Across the United States, people say that health care costs are too high, too many are uninsured, and too many don’t get the care they need. But it is not easy to reach agreement on just what we should do.

To find a solution, we all will need to play a part. By talking together we can begin to find a way to cope with the rising cost of health care.

As citizens, we have to make decisions together before we can act together, whether with other citizens or through legislative bodies. Acting together is essential for addressing problems that can’t be solved by one group of people or one institution. [National Issues Forums]

The National Issues Forum Institute would like to remind you to please go online and participate in our online healthcare deliberation!  We are trying to expand the impact of deliberation, by reaching more people in new ways, and we’d like you to help! You can do so in several ways:

1.  Go to http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102835914317&s=2401&e=001XXenWmCX01ixNWN8kfwy0c5aPRyJkthMdOcQn5TAn5nWw_eCG8a_7-QKZHXujta4E5qxBJE6VkpVORvmROXtXrH9Nl8d1tTUQNbUMJvo6dv0RxUUpr-_3trKYz1BXRYulCDdbL9Exw4=  to participate in our online deliberation! You can complete a workbook which helps you work through the advantages, disadvantages, and tradeoffs of three different approaches to health care reform, plus you can also share your personal experiences and read the experiences of others!

2.  Forward this link on to your friends and contacts! We want to reach more than just “the usual suspects” with this workbook, so please, forward this link on to anyone else you think might be interested in either this issue or deliberation in general.

3..  Post this link on your Facebook or Twitter page, and post it to the wall of any organization or person you think might be interested!

Once again, we really need your participation to make this experiment with online deliberation a success! If you are interested in the results of this experiment, let us know and we’d be happy to share them with you when the project is complete!

My thanks to Carolene Endersby for calling this site to my attention.

Misleading ads are commonplace on the internet. It isn’t easy to know what is factual truth and what isn’t. The video above was put out by

The Independent Women’s Forum. IWF is a nonprofit organization that’s conservative and Republican-leaning. Its Web site says that it supports “greater respect for limited government” and “free markets.” In 2003, when IWF’s director was Nancy Pfotenhauer, an aide to Senator John McCain during his 2008 presidential run, the group announced an affiliation with the conservative Americans for Prosperity, the group that’s now behind a misleading ad on health care.

This 60-second ad will air on a $750,000 buy from Sept. 4 through Sept. 9 on national cable stations, according to IWF. It also ran in late August on about a $1 million buy, as estimated by the Campaign Media Analysis Group of TNS Media Intelligence, in several states including Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Louisiana, Nebraska and Nevada. [FactCheck]

The video ad says “300,000 American women with breast cancer might have died” if our health care were “government run” like England’s, citing the American Cancer Society as a source for the figure.

[Read more →]

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is to be congratulated for holding the Senate’s Democrats together to achieve the necessary 60 votes to bring the Senate version of health insurance reform to the Senate floor for debate. I thought his speech rallying the Democratic Senators to stick together was very well done.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stuck to the Republican talking points urging just one Democrat to rebel and vote no. It costs too much ($2.5 Trillion he said), will cause a rise in cost of insurance premiums and will weaken Medicare and endanger senior citizens. Not once did he mention that 46,000 Americans die each month because of their inability to afford health insurance under the present system.

As expected, Nevada Senator John Ensign voted against the motion.

The speeches of Senator Reid and Senator McConnell revealed the sharp contrast between the Democratic and Republican Parties. It is all about people in the Democratic Party’s view. It is all about money in the Republican view.

The New York Times compares the House Public Plan versions of health care reform as being a “new government plan to compete with private insurers.” The Senate’s Public Plan would create a “new government plan to compete with private insurers but wo0uld allow states to opt out.”

It remains to be seen just how good the Senate bill will turn out to be after reconciliation of the House and Senate versions. Whatever it is, the legislation is historic and will affect the lives of my grand children all their lives. It is a step of significance as fundamental as Social Security and Medicare.

Elections do have consequences. None of this would have been possible had the Republicans won the national elections of 2006 and 2008. Nor would it have been possible without the election of President Barack Obama.

The Republican Party has been floundering badly during the last two election cycles. The waves of history seem to elude their cognition. I personally think that having competing political parties provides a better chance of achieving good policies and laws. However, that requires thoughtful competing ideas from each party. The Republican Party has been pursuing a path of retaining the status quo. History has always been an evolutionary process of change. The Republican theories of government fail to recognize that clinging to a status quo policy cannot compete with progressive change.

Those of us who live far away from Washington D.C. need to always remember that each election cycle is important and that the consequences of how we vote and who we put into public office is a direct result of our vote. The next question for us is whether we will permit Nevada to opt out of the Public Plan. It is the stuff of Republics.

The Constitution of the United States mandates that every resident (not just citizens) be counted every ten years. The census for the year 2010 will help communities (such as Pahrump) receive $400 billion in federal funds each year for hospitals, job training centers, schools, Senior centers, infrastructure such as bridges, tunnels and other public works projects and emergency services. The first census took place in 1790 and every 10 years since then. Basically it counts all the noses in the United States so that we all know how many people live here and where.

Additionally the data collected during the census helps determine the number of seats Nevada will have in the House of Representatives. Nevada currently has three such seats in Congress not counting the two Senate seats. If the population of Nevada has increased enough the state may qualify for a 4^th Congressional seat. That could well mean that the 2^nd Congressional District (now occupied by Dean Heller) could be severed in half and the rurals of Nevada have two seats in Congress. Who knows maybe you could then run for the new seat without having to shuttle all the way up and down the state seeking votes for your election.

In March 2010 census forms will be delivered to every residence in Nevada. What do you do with it when you get it? Just answer the 10 questions on the form and mail it back in. You do not even have to pay the postage.

What if you ignore it and not mail it back in? A census taker will show up at your door and ask you the ten questions from the form. You can help keep taxes down by filling it out yourself and mailing it in. Besides, you are required by law to fill out the form and send it in. Don’t want to violate federal law do you?

Think the questions are too nosy and none of the government’s business? Federal law protects your personal data from disclosure. You must give truthful information. Title 13, Chapter 7, Subtitle 2 provides that if you willfully provide a false answer you will be subject to a $500 fine.

The ten questions are:

1. How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1, 2010?

2. Where there any additional people staying here April 1, 2010 that you did not include in Question 1?

3. Is this house, apartment, or mobile home—owned by you or someone in this household with a mortgage or loan? Owned by you or someone in this household free and clear (without a mortgage or loan)? Rented? Occupied without payment of rent?

4. What is your telephone number?

5. Provide information for each person living here.

6. What is Person1’s sex?

7. What is Person 1’s age and date of birth?

8. Is Person 1 of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin?

9. What is Person 1’s race?

10. Does Person 1 sometimes live or stay somewhere else?

Not to bad is it? You will not be able to complete the form online.

What if you don’t have a home anymore? Many don’t. Well, the Census Bureau will work with you. They will have locations in homeless shelters or soup kitchens or maybe even the Senior Center in Pahrump where you can go and tell them where the car you are sleeping in is located and be counted.

The Census Bureau is persistent. They will come to your house if you fail to fill out the form completely and send it in. If you do not want them knocking on your door you can schedule a visit.

Don’t speak or read English? They have help for non-English speaking residents. They can handle some 50 languages.

Want to learn some more about the census? You can at http://2010.census.gov/2010census/index.php.

The idea is to learn about the importance of the census and the good things it can provide Nevada, Nye County and Pahrump.

Melting of the Arctic sea ice due to global warming is diluting surface waters and this is endangering some species of shellfish which need minerals in the water to form their shells and skeletons, scientists have found.

In a paper published in Science, they warned that this has serious implications for ecosystems in the Arctic.

Source: Reuters

Arctic Polar Cap

The Pew Safe Credit Cards Project said Monday the median lowest advertised credit card rate rose to 11.99% in July from 9.99% in December. At the same time, the group said, the profit banks made on credit card debt rose 46%. [CNN]

The group, which says on its Web site that it seeks to “protect customers from unfair credit card practices,” said its figures are based on a survey of nearly 400 credit card issuers. The full results of the survey are scheduled to be published next month.

The nation’s banks raised credit card rates and increased their profit from lending to consumers in the first half of 2009, according to a consumer advocacy group.

Its all about profits.

My grandaughter is just finishing up with her pre-law studies at the University of California-Chico. Next year she hopes to go to law school. She has been working at two different jobs while attending school. My own experience indicates she will also have to work while attending law school, which is more expensive than undergraduate school. She is very determined to succeed. Her parents and my wife and I try to help her but none of us are wealthy.

Earlier in the day hundreds of students marched and chanted against the increase while outside the UCLA building in Los Angeles where regents met to vote on the hike.

Protesting students and others say the increased tuition will hurt working and middle-class students who benefit from state-funded education. But officials argue that a fee increase and deep cuts in school spending are necessary because of a persistent budget crisis that has forced reductions across California’s state government.

Students chanted as they marched and waved signs at UCLA. “Education only for the rich,” one sign read.

The first tuition hike, which takes effect in January, will cost undergraduate students an additional $585 a semester. The second hike kicks in next fall, raising tuition another $1,344.

[Read more →]

Join Organizing for America and local volunteers as we work to build strong volunteer teams around Nevada. These meetings are an opportunity for you to meet other local volunteers, and learn techniques to organize in your neighborhood. We will discuss elements of a strong team, volunteer roles and responsibilities, and ways to make your volunteer time both rewarding and impactful.

Time: Saturday, December 5 from 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM

Host: Steven Sisneros, Regional Field Director,

Contact Phone:
775-537-6633

Location: Wanda Cotton’s Home (Pahrump, NV)

1900 Sutton Dr.
Pahrump, NV 89048

Maps:

• Google Maps
• MapQuest
• Yahoo! Maps

You can RSVP and sign up for the leadership training at the Organizing for America website http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gpcz2j.

For more information, visit the Organizing for America – Nevada blog at: nv.barackobama.com or follow us on:www.facebook.com/OFA.Nevada and www.twitter.com/ofa_nv.