Head-Spinning Political Shit!

[*Anya*]

Nat, this is both head-spinning shit and it is political! A disabled panhandler clearly must have issues with poverty to need to ask for money.

That cop was also clearly punishing the generous man for giving him some.

Once again, only in America.

Some facts on poverty in general, which also are head-spinning:

"*Almost half the world — over 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.

*The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the 41 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (567 million people) is less than the wealth of the world’s 7 richest people combined.

*Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.

*Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen.

* 1 billion children live in poverty (1 in 2 children in the world). 640 million live without adequate shelter, 400 million have no access to safe water, 270 million have no access to health services. 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (or roughly 29,000 children per day).

— More Facts (and Sources) »

Poverty is the state for the majority of the world’s people and nations. Why is this? Is it enough to blame poor people for their own predicament? Have they been lazy, made poor decisions, and been solely responsible for their plight?

What about their governments? Have they pursued policies that actually harm successful development? Such causes of poverty and inequality are no doubt real. But deeper and more global causes of poverty are often less discussed.

Behind the increasing interconnectedness promised by globalization are global decisions, policies, and practices. These are typically influenced, driven, or formulated by the rich and powerful. These can be leaders of rich countries or other global actors such as multinational corporations, institutions, and influential people.

In the face of such enormous external influence, the governments of poor nations and their people are often powerless. As a result, in the global context, a few get wealthy while the majority struggle.

These next few sections explore various poverty issues in more depth:

Most of humanity lives on just a few dollars a day. Whether you live in the wealthiest nations in the world or the poorest, you will see high levels of inequality.

The poorest people will also have less access to health, education and other services. Problems of hunger, malnutrition and disease afflict the poorest in society. The poorest are also typically marginalized from society and have little representation or voice in public and political debates, making it even harder to escape poverty.

By contrast, the wealthier you are, the more likely you are to benefit from economic or political policies. The amount the world spends on military, financial bailouts and other areas that benefit the wealthy, compared to the amount spent to address the daily crisis of poverty and related problems are often staggering.

Some facts and figures on poverty presented in this page are eye-openers, to say the least."

http://www.globalissues.org/issue/2/causes-of-poverty

This isn't capital-P Political but it still spins my head and ties into my feelings about the current political climate:

Man cited for littering after cash to panhandler hits ground (http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012/05/man-cited-for-littering-after-cash-to-panhandler-hits-ground/1?csp=obinsite#.T94yI4l5nTo)

John Davis says he was cited for littering, which carries a $344 fine, rather than for giving money to a panhandler, which carries a much smaller penalty.

Davis, who pleaded not guilty on Tuesday in a Cleveland court, tells WJW that he was pulled over by a police officer after handing the money to the panhandler, who was in a wheelchair and holding a religious sign.

"Obviously he's needing some money or he wouldn't be out there," he told Fox 8.

Davis says court costs alone could run as much as $500, not including attorney fees.

"I never thought that a couple dollars could turn into a couple hundred dollars or whatever it may be at this point," Davis tells WJW-TV.

[DMW]

http://http://truth-out.org/news/item/10574-on-the-news-with-thom-hartmann-mitt-romneys-foreign-faux-pas-and-more

Just sharing latest news from Thom Hartmann and truthout with bfp

Love... Thom Hartmann, Bill Moyers and Amy Goodman

[Toughy]

http://http://truth-out.org/news/item/10574-on-the-news-with-thom-hartmann-mitt-romneys-foreign-faux-pas-and-more

Just sharing latest news from Thom Hartmann and truthout with bfp

Love... Thom Hartmann, Bill Moyers and Amy Goodman


The link does not work but I think this is what you are talking about

http://www.collegenews.com/article/mitt_romneys_london_olympic_preparation_comment_fa ux-pas

I sometimes wonder if nit-picking every word someone says is actually useful but some of them are down right funny.....not that this one is funny...

[DMW]

I should have checked the link after i posted. Now i can't find it.
Here are the homepages of Thomhartmann and Truthout. I should put up Democracy Now also. I didn't realize i was in the head - spinning thread when i posted either.. However, if enough is read...head - spinning will probably occur unfortunately.


http://www.thomhartmann.com/

http://http://truth-out.org/news/

[Toughy]

lmao..............you linked to the Thom Hartman home page (which story?) and the truthout link does not work.........

my head is spinning...........laughin....

[DMW]

That is just too damn funny... Ok..reminder to self...always check the links before moving on...Funny. Not the first time...and it won't be the last.
Thanks for telling me Toughy. Otherwise, i wouldn't have known.

Well, the front page of truth out isn't though. I swear...this fraking stuff
is Not somethin to shake a stick at. Better to drill for oil (without the fraking) in the land than do
this. Natural Gas...my ass. It is sickening. They found a way to get to it quicker, faster, cheaper and more more more...Sickening
Now, i am gonna go read about more states being ruined
from fracking. Maybe... if i have time and can stand it.

truthout.org.... and i checked it...and it works...
http://truth-out.org/

[iamkeri1]

Don't try to stand it. They think they can tell us the same story over and over, but tell us that THIS time "the bad thing" won't happen. Well it will happen and it has already happened. Don't try to stand it. Try to do something to stop it. Without a doubt this will be a tough road because fracking is providing lots of jobs, and jobs trump just about everything else including making the world no longer livable. But if you try to stand it, I think your head will blow off, so be careful.
Smooches,
Keri

[dreadgeek]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/16/kentucky-evolution-act-testing_n_1789716.html

In Kentucky, a state elected official wants creationism given the same status as evolutionary theory on the ACT. Money quote is:

"The theory of evolution is a theory, and essentially the theory of evolution is not science -- Darwin made it up," state Sen. Ben Waide (R) said. "My objection is they should ensure whatever scientific material is being put forth as a standard should at least stand up to scientific method. Under the most rudimentary, basic scientific examination, the theory of evolution has never stood up to scientific scrutiny."

This is not even wrong. I don't even know where to begin. Evolutionary theory not only holds up but it is one of the most successful theories in *any* scientific domain. How sure are biologists about evolutionary theory? It is *at least* as established as the following ideas that everyone accepts:

water is made up of two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom
the Earth orbits the Sun
the atomic model

That is as established as things get.

Cheers
Aj

[Corkey]

http://assets.dstatic.org/dnc-platform/2012-National-Platform.pdf

DNC National Platform in pdf.

[Nat]

4QeRY3v5Ds8

Romney suggests Emergency Room as alternative to health insurance

[Artdecogoddess]

4QeRY3v5Ds8

Romney suggests Emergency Room as alternative to health insurance

I am employed by an inner city hospital Emergency Department where urban blight, poverty and drug abuse is rampant. This already happening! Folks who have little or no access to primary care are using the ER as their doctor's appointment. Combine that with other urban center woes (lots of gun and knife violence, untreated substance abuse and untreated chronic illness PLUS AIDS, TB, MRSA and Hep C. What the f*ck is Romney's problem? Sigh - if that is the solution - its already being used and its NOT WORKING! Folks deserve much more than this!

ADG

[Allison W]

He's ignorant, is the problem, as is the considerable possibility that he has a strong sociopathic streak. He grew up privileged and has no idea how the rest of the world--or even the non-filthy-rich majority of his own culture--lives, quite possibly because he doesn't care what happens to them as long as he becomes more and more privileged.

[Rockinonahigh]

The other day I was getting gas at the store,while I was paying for it I got ina convo with some folks about the election.The thing I ge about Romney is corp greed,plan and simple and more of it if he is elected.But the romney side is saying Obama has riased the deficite to many times what Bush did,My anser was it was going to take money to clear up the mess Bush made and lots of it..Fact is I live in a repuplican state wuch use to be a big democrat state.Since that happened we have lost jobs anmd contrats to bring in jobs a ten fold,our education has had big set backs,medical services to the needy as well as rehab serveices is at a half stance at best,it will only get worse if we change boats in the midle of the river both for my state and country.I feel a great fear for whats to be had if Romney wins.I will hold my corse for as stronger economy,health system as well as educational system as I firmly still beleave in Obamas reason and corse to follow.Stand firm in the next election for us all.

[Corkey]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/ryan-tax-plan-math-181559697--politics.html

I think he is insulting a vast majority of people who Do understand the math.

[Toughy]

I was watching the local news this am. The story was about folks who voted Obama in 2008 and are considering voting Romney this time around. One of the guys interviewed said: Romney has business experience and knows how to make money. We need our government to start making money.

So how many folks out there actually think the government is supposed to make money like business makes money?

[*Anya*]

I was watching the local news this am. The story was about folks who voted Obama in 2008 and are considering voting Romney this time around. One of the guys interviewed said: Romney has business experience and knows how to make money. We need our government to start making money.

So how many folks out there actually think the government is supposed to make money like business makes money?


The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
H. L. Mencken

[dreadgeek]

I was watching the local news this am. The story was about folks who voted Obama in 2008 and are considering voting Romney this time around. One of the guys interviewed said: Romney has business experience and knows how to make money. We need our government to start making money.

So how many folks out there actually think the government is supposed to make money like business makes money?

I blame part of that on the twinned memes that government is either like a family or like a business and the resiliency of those memes is connected to a lack of what, for lack of any better term, I call citizenship education. We treat citizenship very casually in this country, as if it is either something akin to a biblical curse visiting upon the offspring of Americans the fruits of the iniquities of their parent and their parents before them *or* as a confection which primarily involves shouting USA! USA! because the sun happens to throw light onto the Eastern seaboard at first light. We don't actually give much thought (and even less thought) as to the nature of citizenship in a republic or of the role of government. So lacking any other, more accurate model people fall back on what they think they know which is that businesses make money, businesses can be huge and impersonal like the government, so government should make money.

Americans seem to have forgotten, despite our mouthing words to the contrary, that there's more to life than making money and that turning a profit *isn't* what governments are for.

Cheers
Aj

[Corkey]

Government is here to do for it's citizens what it's citizens can't do for themselves. It isn't a business.

[Two-spirit]

Ummm..
Romney looks at the Presidency seat as a business.. for himself and his cronies.and if your going to go for the president of the Unites States, it would be wise not to insult our foreign friends.

[Allison W]

I blame part of that on the twinned memes that government is either like a family or like a business and the resiliency of those memes is connected to a lack of what, for lack of any better term, I call citizenship education. We treat citizenship very casually in this country, as if it is either something akin to a biblical curse visiting upon the offspring of Americans the fruits of the iniquities of their parent and their parents before them *or* as a confection which primarily involves shouting USA! USA! because the sun happens to throw light onto the Eastern seaboard at first light. We don't actually give much thought (and even less thought) as to the nature of citizenship in a republic or of the role of government. So lacking any other, more accurate model people fall back on what they think they know which is that businesses make money, businesses can be huge and impersonal like the government, so government should make money.

Americans seem to have forgotten, despite our mouthing words to the contrary, that there's more to life than making money and that turning a profit *isn't* what governments are for.

Cheers
Aj

You know I've long thought this. Particularly with regards to, well, education. There's a lot of talk thrown around about whether school prepares young people for jobs, but the original purpose of free public education is almost never mentioned at all--namely, that free public education was not originally provided to prepare young people for jobs, but to prepare them for participation in a democracy. But it's not profitable to prepare the common people to participate in democracy, as that might lead them to vote their own interests and not those of their corporate masters, and so it's no longer a priority. (And this is why government should never, ever be a business.)

[Corkey]

The PA voter suppression law has been tossed by the PASC. One does not need a photo ID to vote in this years election. Do not fall for the intimidation tactics of the far right, and vote!

[Toughy]

The PA voter suppression law has been tossed by the PASC. One does not need a photo ID to vote in this years election. Do not fall for the intimidation tactics of the far right, and vote!


Actually it kinda fucked what they did. The law is not thrown out. It will not go into effect until the next election cycle. In this coming election next month, you can/will still be asked for a valid ID card, however they cannot refuse to give you a regular ballot to vote with and your vote will be counted. You should not receive a provisional ballot. The state can also continue with it's voter education campaigns about what is needed for voter identification in order to vote..

It's going to confuse the hell out of folks....

[Corkey]

Actually it kinda fucked what they did. The law is not thrown out. It will not go into effect until the next election cycle. In this coming election next month, you can/will still be asked for a valid ID card, however they cannot refuse to give you a regular ballot to vote with and your vote will be counted. You should not receive a provisional ballot. The state can also continue with it's voter education campaigns about what is needed for voter identification in order to vote..

It's going to confuse the hell out of folks....

Yes they can ask, but one is not required to show them a photo id with an expiration date. They are still working to get the rest of the law tossed. That was the important part. Do I think they will be successful, depends if we can get the wingers out of the state. The damned commercials are still running, so yep they are still trying to suppress the vote.

[Martina]

In my life so many, so many ideological changes can be marked by the Reagan administration. Because of that administration, many of the useful functions of government were dismantled or neglected into ruin. People do not see what government does for them because it doesn't DO much for them. They have come to believe that living in the richest third world country on the planet is normal. Especially in California.

Government is ineffectual and expensive and full of people talking shit that has nothing to do with our real lives. It's amazing that so many of the poor and working poor actually do vote. Who is talking about gun violence? Tell me what issue has a greater impact on the lives of poor Californians, for example?

How can we not be talking A LOT more about all the people who have lost their houses to foreclosure? Because it involves a criticism of Wall Street? Because it illustrates a massive failure of government? But Americans aren't demanding they do that. We had the Occupy Movement, but if you look at this election, it's as if that hadn't even happened? With the Citizens United decision, is there any question who owns government and that it's not the people?

I admit that education has failed to create an educated electorate. I just taught the Declaration of Independence to juniors and seniors in high school. All of them claimed to have never heard it before.

Whatever causes they attribute it to, people know that government rarely represents their interests. They know that the Bush-Gore election was stolen. People have to work to remember why we should believe in a positive role for government.

There was an article in Vanity Fair (http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/04/aaron-sorkin-west-wing) this year that talked about how many young people got into government and journalism because of The West Wing. I remember watching it and taking it in like a starved person. We so wanted to believe that government really worked like that.

From that Vanity Fair article:

For budding politicos, The West Wing was a once-a-week life raft, an alternative universe where civic-mindedness, while buffeted, ultimately triumphed. For liberals in particular, Martin Sheen’s Nobel Prize-winning, Latin-speaking President Bartlet was a soothing foil to George W. Bush’s down-home anti-intellectualism and execrable consonant swallowin’; it was as if each week Sorkin and his colleagues were writing the counter-factual, shoulda-been history of the Gore administration.

There will always be people on the far left and the far right who are deeply suspicious of government. That's good. We need that. But that the center is so disillusioned, so willingly disenfranchised by apathy and ignorance, is not good and not entirely their fault. It's the result of an ideology that upheld the freedom of corporations to pursue profit above any public good.

Under Nixon, no one questioned that there was a role for regulation. That so many people continue to blame big government for their woes is not just because people like Carl Rove succeeded brilliantly. It is a result of the apparent early success of Reagan economics, which Clinton did nothing to revise. Why would he? Silicon Valley was making a lot of people rich.

But now these policies have led to their inevitable conclusion. That the profits made by the working people of the U.S. (and other countries) go hidden and untaxed in offshore accounts while we take on the burden of debt created through, among other things, tax breaks given to these same corporations . . . that restricting corporate contributions to campaigns is a considered a restriction on free speech, that our highest court decided that . . . while people like Mitt Romney call us lazy for not succeeding as he did (by, ironically, dismantling and destroying the businesses that actually created wealth) . . . these elephants in the living room of our democracy make it hard to believe anything other than that government has handed its power over to the market.

Government is going to have to stand up to Wall Street and corporate interests and show that it really is in charge before people will be able to to see it for what it could be, for what it should be, the force by which we direct our collective lives. It is not that now. There is no consent of the governed when the ones making the decisions that most affect our lives are not elected by the people. We don't even know their names.
==========================


On offshore accounts (http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2012/07/23/super-rich-hide-21-trillion-offshore-study-says/) (from Forbes):

Once employed by gangsters such as Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano, these secret bank accounts have grown so vast and lawless that some experts tell the Trib they fear the amount of money involved threatens societies from China to Africa, Europe and the United States. World leaders railed against the impact of secret havens during the G20 summit in Pittsburgh three years ago.

“They have caused a huge imbalance in the market,” said John Christensen, director of London-based Tax Justice Network, which was established by the British Parliament in 2003 to examine tax issues worldwide.

“They are the very opposite of capitalism, which is supposed to be based on transparency. They are the shadow economy.”

From Switzerland and a couple of Caribbean islands, the black holes are in 70 or more countries. Christensen said studies by several organizations, including the International Monetary Fund, put the total stash at as much as $25 trillion.

In contrast, the Commerce Department pegs the gross national product of the United States at more than $15 trillion.

The black holes emit no light, according to organizations that study them, including the IRS. They hide owners and assets. Officers and directors are strawmen. Host countries get little, if any, taxes and earn fees mostly by promising to keep everyone in the dark. Few public records exist.

Owners revealed by accident typically are corporations in other black holes halfway across the world.

Though tax evasion and avoidance are only part of the reason for the shadow economy, they play a role. Tax losses to the United States amount to $1 trillion over a decade, according to the Congressional Research Service. That’s the amount congressional leaders tried to cut in last summer’s deficit showdown.

[Corkey]

Anyone watching the 1st debate tonight?

[Toughy]

*raising my head*..........I be watchin

[Corkey]

I'm betting (no money) that Mitt will blow it on the second question. I'm also betting (no money) his zingers will fall flat.

[lusciouskiwi]

it's so frecking funny!!!!

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/420865_10151089372522469_1171322816_n.jpg

[Martina]

http://cbsus99country.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/hillary.jpg?w=300

[firegal]

http://cbsus99country.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/hillary.jpg?w=300

Tacky as it is... it still make me chuckle and i AM a HUGE Hillary fan!

[Reader]

vZVfb7Cd4dg

[Allison W]

A little somethin' somethin' to soothe spirits bruised by the first debate.

d5i3F0YnkP0

[Two-spirit]

Anyone watching the 1st debate tonight?

I did.. we had a debate party and had a few friends over and soem strangers too. It was fun but was a little disapointed Obama didnt go for the juggler when he had a chance !.

Little Feather

[Toughy]

http://cbsus99country.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/hillary.jpg?w=300

ok I spit tea all over the desk and monitor........

[Martina]

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/581527_10151873802798912_2059293167_n.jpg

[Martina]

I was going back and forth from one of those clickable electoral college maps (http://www.270towin.com/) and the recent polls on realclearpolitics (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/), and it's kind of encouraging. Obama could lose Ohio and Florida and still win.

Here's the headspinning political shit. If Obama got Ohio, but lost Florida, Iowa, Nevada, and Colorado -- all possible -- there would be an electoral college TIE. And the Republican majority house would elect the President.

Actually there are several ways that could happen. *shudder*

[Corkey]

http://www.politicususa.com/romney.html

I tend not to get too worked up about polls.

[Martina]

http://www.politicususa.com/romney.html

I tend not to get too worked up about polls.

That's gallup and it's registered, not likely voters. I would love to be reassured, but . . .

I heard that Gallup is switching tomorrow to reporting only likely voters, so Obama will look like he took a hit if you look at Gallup numbers over the two days without realizing that. NPR said so, so it must be true.

[Corkey]

That's gallup and it's registered, not likely voters. I would love to be reassured, but . . .

Still I don't get worked up about polls, still too far out to be of any real indicator. I will be more optimistic at the exit polls. Polls in themselves are inaccurate.

[Martina]

Still I don't get worked up about polls, still too far out to be of any real indicator. I will be more optimistic at the exit polls. Polls in themselves are inaccurate.

I heard most of the exit polls were cancelled.

Anyway, that five that the article you cited reports -- poof, gone tomorrow when they report likely voters.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/10/gallup-polls-to-show-romney-obama-tied-among-likely-voters.html

[Martina]

Michelle Bachmann has a lesbian step-sister whom she has treated with kindness and respect her entire life -- except that as a politician she calls gays and lesbians depraved and vile.

It points out to me just how cynical many of these folks are. They are taking these positions knowing it will reach a certain constituency. Hate mongering when you don't even hate. That's worse somehow.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/opinion/sunday/bruni-bachmann-family-values.html?pagewanted=2&src=recg&pagewanted=all

[Girl_On_Fire]

This ultra-religious scare-tactic video pissed me the F off the other day. It's horrible! Nothing but fear-mongering and propaganda. It made me feel physically ill when I watched it.

http://youtu.be/D9vQt6IXXaM

[Corkey]

http://veracitystew.com/2012/10/21/its-come-to-this-un-to-monitor-us-election-process/

UN to monitor US election.

[Martina]

Hillary sounds like she means it when she said in an interview with Marie Claire (http://www.marieclaire.com/world-reports/inspirational-women/hillary-clinton-farewell) that she will not be running in 2016, that she wants to just live her life. "Clinton said. . . . But I really want to just have my own time back. I want to just be my own person. I'm looking forward to that.'"

The last quote I read by Bill -- and this isn't old -- was that she just needs a rest, give her a rest, and then . . .

I think she means it. She has lost her ambition for the job, something which Bill will only do the day he dies.

It's kind of scary because there is not another Democrat out there powerful enough to just take the nomination and likely win the election. She could. I don't blame her though. It's a nasty business. I wish her luck and happiness.

http://www.marieclaire.com/cm/marieclaire/images/jY/hillary-1112-3-mdn.jpghttp://media.philly.com/images/20120301_nkorea_400.jpg

[Martina]

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/BBW.jpg

[LeftWriteFemme]

IRS asked to investigate Catholic bishops’ political meddling



:canoworms: (http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/irs-asked-investigate-catholic-bishops%E2%80%99-political-meddling041112?utm_source=New+email+sign-ups&utm_campaign=9b48bb2225-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email) click on this can of worms to get the rest of the story!

[DMW]

Tea Party Paul Ryan Greece Budget
Info to Call your Senators and House Reps

Dear ,
Now that you have signed our petition to stop Rep. Paul Ryan's Republican job-killing budget and support the Congressional Progressive Caucus Back to Work Budget, there is one more thing to do to make our voices heard: call your member of Congress and tell them to say NO to the Ryan budget and YES to jobs and shared prosperity.

Here’s how: Call (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to your representative. (Or use this webpage (http://www.opencongress.org/people/zipcodelookup) to find your member’s name and phone number.)

We've already gotten close to 100,000 people to say "yes" to investing in jobs and rebuilding an economy that works for all of us, not just the people at the top. Your call to Congress will underscore that message.

The House is about to begin debate this afternoon, and a vote could come later today. Now is the time to pick up the phone and make the call. Tell your member of Congress to choose jobs, not austerity. Vote NO on the Ryan job-killing budget and YES for the Back to Work Budget.

Thank you again for all you do.

Roger Hickey, Co-Director
Campaign for America's Future

[NorCalStud]

Done. Thankyou for making it easy.

[Sun]

Just when we all thought that AZ could not get anymore fucking insane, just when we started to believe that the Feds are really going to handle the anti immigrant battleground that is the AZ legislature, just when Phoenix, decides to pass a non discrimination bill...there is a backlash from the conservatives.

Does this really surprise any of us?

Sort of.

Oh how it sucks to be caught off guard.

The city of Phoenix wants to make it a crime to use a public bathroom that is not in alignment with a persons birth certificate.

Seriously.

Bathroom Bill Targets Trans AZ - Backlash to Non Discrimination Legislation (http://www.azcentral.com/insiders/brahm1700/2013/03/18/show-me-your-papers-before-you-pee/)

[Greyson]

Okay, not ALL Michigan Republicans but a member of the Michigan Republican National Committee (RNC). A person who holds a postion of official leadership in the Michigan Republican Party.

I think people are getting scared about the possibility of the fair and right thing to do, just might happen. (But I know our laws are not necessarily about Fair and Just.)

__________________________________________________ ___________


A Michigan RNC Committeeman Wants You to Know the Truth About "Filthy" Homosexuality

By David Weigel
Posted Wednesday, March 27, 2013, at 10:48 AM

Dave Agema is a Republican National Commiteeman from Michigan, one of the state's three avatars in the organization. His successful campaign for the job told voters that there "simply weren't enough conservatives" in the RNC to challenge "the big government Republicans." He gets to vote on party bylaws, on the chairman -- stuff like that. And he's not really on board with this kinder, gentler Republican Party jive. A source points me to Agema's Facebook page (viewable only to Friends), where Agema has shared a semi-viral list by "Frank Joseph, M.D.," all about the threats posed by homosexuals.


http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2013/03/27/a_michigan_rnc_committeeman_wants_you_to_know_the_ truth_about_filthy_homosexuality.html


Everyone Should Know
These Statistics on Homosexuals
Frank Joseph, M.D.


http://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/a02rStatistcs.html

[Kobi]

More than 50 years ago, Ike all but predicted the factors that led to the NSA's massive snooping enterprise

More than 52 years ago, Dwight David Eisenhower gave his final speech as president. Eisenhower had led the American fight in Europe during World War II, and played a major part in America's transformation from a nation of industrial might and relative isolation into the first superpower of the modern age. The U.S. filled the role played by the British Empire for the previous few centuries, especially when the Soviet Union seized eastern Europe and threatened to spread its totalitarian system around the globe. Eisenhower picked up the Cold War reins from Harry Truman, building upon the massive modern military that Eisenhower deployed to defeat the Nazis and safeguard pluralistic democracy in western Europe.

Eisenhower largely presided over a peacetime military, but one that grew large enough at the beginning of the Cold War to worry the war hero about the future of the nation. In his final speech, televised live on January 17, 1961, Eisenhower warned Americans on a broad range of topics. Most do not remember his warning on deficit spending, but Eisenhower implored Americans to "avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow." Eisenhower managed to partner with Congress on three balanced budgets out of eight, but the era after his would start us on massive deficit spending as a habit rather than something to be employed only in an emergency. We have, as Eisenhower predicted, "mortgage[d] the material assets of our grandchildren," and it remains to be seen whether that has risked "the loss of their political and spiritual heritage."

Most famously, Eisenhower warned the country about the rise of what he called the "military-industrial complex," a force that would eventually erode liberty and public policy choices. "In the councils of government," Eisenhower said, "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." The wealth that got spent on the defense sector would create enormous influence and power inside and outside of government, which would eventually pervert a free society into perpetual warfare for the sake of maintaining power, unless a free nation exercised exceptional vigilance.

Eisenhower didn't limit this warning to the military-industrial complex, either. He made the same point about the perverting influence of federal money and power on science, warning that scientific discovery could be dominated by Washington, D.C. Conversely, Eisenhower also posited that there existed "the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."

Fifty years later, Eisenhower's valediction looks less like a political speech and more like prophecy. In the NSA controversies, both with the continuous telecom metadata haul (since at least 2006) and the PRISM/BLARNEY efforts to sniff through massive amounts of content on the internet, we have examples of exactly what Ike foresaw. In fact, this looks much like a marriage between the military-industrial complex and what we could call the intelligence-industrial complex, both based on predicates of never-ending war in the age of terror.

The military-industrial complex is familiar enough, but the two NSA issues show the extent to which scientific-technological industries have insinuated themselves into the same position. Nine of the largest providers of internet services in the U.S. have acted against the interests of their clients' privacy to partner with the NSA — a Defense Department agency — in their search for clues on terrorism. This includes some tech-industry leaders, such as the founders and/or CEOs of Google and Facebook, who publicly supported Obama in 2008 while he campaigned against the very surveillance that appears to be taking place now, and then again in 2012.

The shift predicted by Eisenhower, of course, did not happen in a vacuum. The Cold War held real dangers to America and Americans, and the age of terror does now. The 9/11 attacks shocked the U.S. badly enough to create a huge demand for more security. We passed the PATRIOT Act and amended the FISA law to allow our intelligence and law-enforcement agencies to "connect the dots" before attacks took place, rather than seek evidence while the bodies were stacked afterward.

At the same time, we have culturally devalued privacy, in relationships with commercial as well as governmental entities. The internet companies involved provide the best evidence of this. US News' Robert Schlesinger argued that government surveillance on the internet followed corporate surveillance of Americans and others, a surveillance to which we acquiesced with hardly a murmur of protest. "It's not a given that corporations must collect vast amounts of information from and about us," Schlesinger writes. "But failing to do so wouldn't be good for business."

Take Google — one of the major pillars of PRISM and a giant in internet transactions. Clients use it for email services, maps and GPS navigation, document storage, and even some cell-phone services. But Google makes money by learning every piece of information it finds from clients who use these services and monetizing them, Schlesinger points out. "What Google is, in fact, is a data collection company: It collects data on you 15 ways to Sunday, sorts it, chops it up and sells it." And don't even get Schlesinger started on cell phones in general, devices that literally track your movements as long as the phones are powered up.

This is big business for internet providers. In 2011, the Wall Street Journal reported that both Google and Apple collected location data in order to grab a piece of the location-based services industry, which at the time was a $2.9 billion market. At that time, the Journal projected it to grow to $8.3 billion in 2014. Both of these internet providers participated in PRISM. Telecoms like Verizon sell location data to advertisers to allow them to more effectively position billboards, for instance. "Companies have an incentive to collect and keep user data," Schlesinger concludes, "and that trove proves an irresistible target for the government in its ongoing war on terrorists."

This may be why polls don't exactly show a high level of outrage over the NSA leaks. A Washington Post/Pew Center poll reported that a 56 percent majority of respondents supported the NSA survey of telecom metadata on phone calls, while only 41 percent objected. When it came to surveying internet content, a thin 52 percent majority opposed the NSA PRISM/BLARNEY effort if applied against Americans (a point which has yet to be clarified), but that 45 percent think the government should go further than it claims to do now to watch our online activities. For an electorate that has given up privacy for convenience to the commercial market, surrendering it to the government for security may be a smaller step than Eisenhower might have imagined.

The erosion of that "political and spiritual heritage" of liberty and limited government has other implications, too. Eisenhower presaged that the expansion of the government under pressure of the military-industrial complex would "endanger our liberties or democratic processes." One cannot help but to draw connections to that expanding and intrusive government and its unaccountable bureaucracies and the targeting of political groups opposed to the current administration by the IRS, the disparate treatment by the EPA on FOIA requests depending on the politics of the requesters, and the overall lack of accountability from an administration whose best defense on these and other scandals has been ignorance of the abuses taking place on their watch. Even if these incidents come from nothing more than a government so large as to be unmanageable, Eisenhower's admonitions are still prescient.

At his heart, though, Eisenhower was still an optimist. Despite foreseeing the dangers of a perpetual wartime government in a truly dangerous world, he told Americans that "only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together." We are now alert, and we need to become knowledgeable to ensure that we protect our political and spiritual heritage of liberty — even if that means acknowledging that we ourselves may in large part be the problem.

http://news.yahoo.com/listened-eisenhower-110600933.html

[LeftWriteFemme]

bOR77tWVxKc

[DMW]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/176293/republican-lawmakers-are-playing-politics-human-lives-four-pictures#axzz2fkSUBLlc


Republican Lawmakers Are Playing Politics With Human Lives, in Four Pictures
Lee Fang on September 20, 2013 - 5:14 PM ET



Rep. John Boehner. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
 
Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has caved to the right flank of his party and decided to tie funding for the entire government to an effort to defund the Affordable Care Act. This latest gambit will have one of two results. Republicans will back down, after the Democrat-held Senate puts forward a budget with full Obamacare funding, and Boehner will be forced to allow a minority of Republican members to join House Democrats in securing a fully funded government with Obamacare included (some conservatives hope that, in this moment of negotiation, a deal could be struck that delays or partially weakens Obamacare). The second scenario is that Republicans refuse to come to the table, the government will lose funding, and with it, Obamacare will be partially defunded for the time being.

The vast majority of healthcare reform is funded through what is known as mandatory spending that is not necessarily affected by the continuing budget resolution now at issue in Congress. If the government shuts down, the only aspect of Obamacare that will be defunded is the portion that is covered through discretionary spending. Affordable Care Act discretionary spending includes funding for community health centers, preventative health programs, school-based health clinics for children, rural and Indian health centers, doctor and nurse training grants, among other programs—spending that overwhelmingly benefit rural Republican districts in many states.

The discretionary healthcare reform programs, like much of Obamacare, help save lives every day by providing care to low-income Americans. How do we know this, beyond the numerous studies and reports that say so? Ask Republicans, who have embraced and deceitfully promoted Obamacare discretionary spending programs—including the Obamacare-funded health centers and clinics that they are now attempting to shut down:

Congressman Bill Cassidy (R-LA) co-sponsored Representative Tom Grave’s (R-GA) defunding bill, the Defund Obamacare Act of 2013. Although Cassidy has joined Boehner and the party’s far right in a push to shut down Affordable Care Act discretionary spending programs, he wrote a letter to the administration asking for more discretionary spending on federal health centers. In addition, he appeared at a ribbon-cutting event—where Cassidy held a ceremonial pair of scissors—for an Obamacare-funded school-based health clinic, where he made an emotional appeal about the importance of helping children stay healthy while earning an education. Despite his plea to help children, Cassidy’s attempt to defund the government over healthcare reform will cut off money to such programs:

(Cassidy cuts the ribbon for a new Obamacare-funded school health clinic. Photo credit: NBC33)

Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS) helped sponsor Senator Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) bill to defund healthcare reform. While Moran has attacked the law and called it a failure, he proudly appeared at a publicity event to promote the groundbreaking of a $4.7 million expansion of the Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas last August. At the event, where Moran held a ceremonial shovel, the senator heaped praise the community center for helping provide comprehensive care, noting “even the most conservative politician …ought to be in favor of community health centers.” Though he did not acknowledge the source of the construction money, the $4.7 million came completely from Affordable Care Act discretionary spending.

(Moran breaking ground at an Obamacare-funded clinic in Kansas. Photo credit: Moran’s Facebook page)

Please support our journalism. Get a digital subscription for just $9.50!

Congressman Michael Grimm (R-NY) is a co-sponsor of the Defund Obamacare Act. Despite his opposition to the law and repeated attempted to repeal it, Grimm posed with jumbo-sized Obamacare checks to recipients in his district. In this photo, Grimm is presenting a check for $487,500 from the Affordable Care Act to the Community Health Center of Richmond, which received a total of over $2.7 million from Obamacare. Even if Republicans fail in repealing the Affordable Care Act, a government shutdown would cut off funding to federal health clinics.
(Grimm posing with an Obamacare check. Photo credit: Flickr user Feanny)

Congressman Mike Pompeo (R-KS) signed onto the Defund Obamacare Act in July, and argued recently in a column that the entire law must be repealed because it “harms Americans.” What would be Pompeo’s alternative? At a town hall meeting, according to the Wichita Eagle, Pompeo said that instead of Obamacare, federally funded health clinics like the Hunter Health Clinic and GraceMed in Wichita provide great examples of how to care for people who can’t afford health insurance. Pompeo failed to note that both clinics are actually heavily funded by Obamacare: Hunter Health Clinic has received over $1.67 million and GraceMed $525,000 from the Affordable Care Act. Nor did he mention that his repeal effort would withdraw funds from health clinics like the ones he praised as examples of the right type of reforms.

(Pompeo speaking before the Hunter Health Clinic. Photo credit: CFAHC)

Read Zoë Carpenter on the movement to defund Obamacare.

Related Topics: US Politics | Health | Politics
Share

[DMW]

0Jd-iaYLO1A

[*Anya*]

Tea Party Group Founder Calls For Class Action Suit Against Homosexuality

By David Badash

October 18, 2013

Rick Scarborough, the founder of Tea Party Unity, thinks homosexuality is worse than smoking, and is calling for a class action lawsuit against homosexuality — just like attorneys general of 46 states brought against the top four tobacco manufacturers in the 1990s. No word yet on who the manufacturer of homosexuality is, but given that Scarborough is a self-described “Christocrat,” it’s a pretty good guess that serving papers will be an other-wordly experience.

Scarborough spoke on a nationwide Tea Party conference call yesterday with anti-gay hate group leader Peter LaBarbera, and floated the ridiculous idea.

“Peter,” Scarborough said, “the whole issue of a class action lawsuit, you and I have talked about this a little bit. I just wonder if you’ve explored that, talked to anyone about it. Obviously, statistically now even the Centers for Disease Control verifies that homosexuality much more likely leads to AIDS than smoking leads to cancer. And yet the entire nation has rejected smoking, billions of dollars are put into a trust fund to help cancer victims and the tobacco industry was held accountable for that. Any thoughts on that kind of an approach?”

Of course, LaBarbera liked that idea a lot. “Yeah I think that’s great. I would love to see it.” Because what would be better than declaring homosexuality illegal, and… what, throwing every gay person in jail, perhaps?

How very “Christian.”

But that’s not even the worst part of the conversation, because, face it, Scarborough’s idea is just plain stupid and easily dismissed.

LaBarbera went on to say, “We always wanted to see one of the kids in high school who was counseled by the official school counselor to just be gay, then he comes down with HIV.”

Yes, he said that.

Even if it was a, “Hey, this would be an awesome marketing campaign thing” comment, it’s one hundred percent disgusting. This is a grown man who is a father saying that he “always wanted to see” a high school kid come down with AIDS.

Sick.

But it’s important to remember that Scarborough is a radical right wing religious extremist. He’s surrounded himself with other religious and conservative extremists, like disgraced former House Republican Majority Leader and now acquitted convicted criminal Tom Delay, who is on Scarborough’s Tea Party Unity steering committee.

Delay was charged and convicted of criminal election law conspiracy, and the prosecutor is appealing the acquittal.

Also on Scarborough’s steering committee are Don Feder of the World Congress of Families, and Robert Knight, a draftsman of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Feder in 2011 likened the Democratic Party, and Obama especially, to Hitler’s Nazi Party, and the Occupy Wall Street Movement to Hitler Youth in an op-ed, ”Top 10 Ways Democrats Are Like Nazis.”

http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/author/davidbadash

[DMW]

http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/10/22/cheney-extremist-washington-barack-obama

Faux news.
Cheney went and wrote a book about the heart. He still doesn't have an honest one after his transplant. Maybe he figured writing a book with " heart" in the title would help him. Anyhow, the spin continues. "Obama is the extremist", Cheney claims in this clip. In addition, Cheney said, Obama " is the guy who has done enormous damage to America's standing in the world".

Wow.
Reminder Fox News is outlawed in Canada because they don't allow broadcasters to lie.

[Sparkle]

The Supreme Court handed down it's decision in McCutcheon vrs. the Federal Election Committee (FEC) today. As expected, aggregate campaign contributions were eliminated, significantly increasing the influence of a tiny fraction of the public on American policy.

AND I AM SO BLOODY ANGRY!

I genuinely believe that the undue influence of a few uber-rich donors corrupts our democratic systems and block progress on almost every issue I care about: healthcare, education, jobs, the environment, immigration reform.

I work for an organization that is trying to do undo the damage rulings like McCutcheon and Citizen's United have done to our democratic systems by curbing the influence of corporations and uber-donors like the Koch Brothers, and closing the loopholes that lobbyists exploit.

I know... zzzzzz.... campaign finance reform isn't a very 'sexy' subject, people's eyes usually glaze over about 20 seconds after I start ranting about this. I think most people just tune out and write it off as another example of our deeply corrupt political system.
'they're ALL corrupt' rolls eyes - throws hands in the air

But that's part of the problem... overcoming the disillusionment and cynicism of the American public as concerns political corruption is an enormous hurdle. People need to get ANGRY about this, and they need to stand up say "FUCK THAT - WE DEMAND A HIGHER STANDARD FROM OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS"

Today we (the team I work with) launched our McCutcheon satire video, you can see it on our microsite: www.unlimitedcorruption.com (www.unlimitedcorruption.com)

Or on our youtube channel
faip5RwMEvU

Here's a non-tongue-in-cheek analysis from our Comms Director, featured on HuffPo today
http://huff.to/1ktpU7R (http://huff.to/1ktpU7R)

If you're politically inclined and you care about this issue have a look around our campaign site www.represent.us (www.represent.us) and consider volunteering in your Congressional District, or if you're short on time and energy - just sign on as a Citizen Co-Sponsor to the American Anti-Corruption Act.

[LeftWriteFemme]

Tea Party Candidate Says It's OK To Stone Gays To Death


http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1849191/thumbs/s-SCOTT-ESK-small.jpg

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/scott-esk-stoning-gays_n_5486678.html

[Jess]

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xaf1/t1.0-9/10376172_728795497181266_1275969723161092604_n.jpg

an article taken from the Institute for Southern Studies newsletter "Facing South"

NC fracking bill orders prison time for disclosing chemicals, ignores health risks
North Carolina's legislature convened last week, and lawmakers introduced a bill that brings the state one step closer to allowing oil and gas drilling.

One aspect of the Energy Modernization Act (SB 786) that's gotten considerable attention is the provision that would make it a Class I felony for someone to intentionally disclose chemicals in fracking fluids that are classified as trade secrets. A conviction of this lowest-level felony could bring civil fines and several months in prison.

The bill requires the state geologist in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to serve as the custodian of trade secrets, including ingredients in fracking fluid. It allows information about such secrets to be disclosed only to emergency responders, health care providers dealing with emergencies, and federal and state agencies that need the information to carry out their functions.

Hannah Wiseman, a Florida State University assistant law professor who studies fracking regulations, told Mother Jones that North Carolina's proposed law "is far stricter than most states' provisions in terms of the penalty for violating trade secrets." She said that the bill was "so poorly worded" that it's unclear whether emergency responders would be charged with a felony for disclosing the information they obtain legally.

But while the bill is careful to protect what corporations claim are trade secrets, it fails to address some of the biggest risks fracking poses for the environment, public health and landowners, according to an analysis by the N.C. Conservation Network.

Among the concerns the legislation does not address are compulsory pooling, whereby drillers can drill on land without the owners' permission; disposal of toxic fracking wastewater; toxic air emissions from fracking operations; long-term contamination that comes to light after a drilling operation is finished; and how to protect landowners and the environment from the lines that move gas from wells to processing facilities. In addition, the bill shrinks the zone of liability for drillers who cause drinking well contamination from 5,000 feet to 2,640 feet, and it prohibits local bans on fracking or the siting of wells.

The bill's primary sponsors are Republican Sens. Robert Rucho of Mecklenburg County, E.S. "Buck" Newton of Wilson, and Andrew Brock of Mocksville. It also has six co-sponsors, all of them Republicans. The GOP holds supermajorities in both the North Carolina House and Senate.

The legislation was introduced as new revelations surfaced about the outsized role industry interests have played in shaping the state's proposed approach to chemical disclosure.

Greenpeace recently obtained a cache of emails and meeting schedules from members of the N.C. Mining and Energy Commission (MEC), a 15-person body in charge of crafting fracking regulations for state lawmakers. The documents show what the environmental advocacy group calls a "cozy relationship" between the industry and the MEC -- including Chairman George Howard drinking beer and spending evenings with D. Bowen "Bo" Heath, a lobbyist with the law firm McGuireWoods who represents fracking giants Halliburton and Koch Industries. Howard is the CEO of Restoration Systems, an environmental remediation company; his former business partner is DENR Secretary John Skvarla.

An earlier version of the chemical disclosure rule crafted by the MEC was pulled from consideration last year after Halliburton complained it went too far. Instead, Greenpeace reports, Heath promoted a weaker chemical disclosure bill from Colorado that was based on model legislation from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a group that promotes corporate interests in state legislatures. Heath has ties to ALEC, having attended the group's annual meetings.

The legislation introduced last week in North Carolina would disband the MEC next year and replace it with an Oil and Gas Commission that would administer civil penalties and adopt new rules as needed. The bill also creates a Mining Commission within DENR to issue fracking permits.