Recently in Politics Category

Bloomberg reports today that, astoundingly, Iraq is now opening its doors to BP, Exxon Mobile, and Shell for the first time since 1972, when the country, under the leadership of the now executed Saddam Hussein, nationalized all of its oil fields. Astoundingly, this will open the 3rd largest oil reserves in the world directly to western countries.

And, um... why are we complaining about the bank bailouts? How much money did the citizens of this country spend on (and will continue to spend on) making this happen for the oil corporations? (Not to mention the number of people that were killed!)  If there is a hell, unfettered capitalist greed needs to rot in it.

Obama is just so smart! Even numerous conservatives admit he didn't just take the Republicans to task, he decimated them!

Image via Wikipedia

Allow me to introduce Senator Jones (R) from AIG and Senator Smith (D) from United Healthcare and Representative Tung from China... This is so bad. So very, very bad.

The Campaign to Legalize Democracy is circulating a petition in response to yesterday's ruling that legalized unlimited political bribery by corporations in the USA. Signatories include Bill Moyer, Howard Zinn, Jim Hightower, Bill McKibben, and Tom Hayden.

We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United, and move to amend our Constitution to:

* Firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.

* Guarantee the right to vote and to participate, and to have our votes and participation count.

* Protect local communities, their economies, and democracies against illegitimate "preemption" actions by global, national, and state governments."

[Source: Constitutional amendment petition: run government for people, not monied interests.]

... as Republican Justice John Paul Stevens put it:  

"Under today's decision, multinational corporations controlled by foreign governments" would have the same rights as Americans to spend money to tilt U.S. elections ..."

[Source: Our Charming Corporatist State.]

Government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations. Today the Supreme Court (5-4) just handed the Republicans (and a lot of Democrats too) a huge bonus: unfettered access to corporate funding, effectively making a broken political system completely unaccountable the to will of the people.

The legacy of George W. Bush lives on to feast on the soul of democracy for profit.

At least Larry Lessig has a more reasoned view. Me, I'm just disgusted.

I've actually been thinking more and more about leaving the US. I mean: for good. I find myself so disillusioned with what is happening in my native land.

My country forces education reform that is destroying creativity, problem solving, deep thinking, and analysis of knowledge to inform carefully considered long term solution-making for the immediacy of factionalized curriculum memorization. My country will not move beyond prejudice and discrimination. My country is squandering our national (as well as international) resources. My country is flinging privacy and personal freedom as fast as it escalates fear. My country cares more about greed, money, and possessing things than it does about people and their basic wellbeing. My country is removing the separation of church and state and forcing people to live by tenets of religion in which they may not personally believe. My country allows business, built on greed and outsourcing, to become so large they can not fail and must receive tax payer's money to keep the executes rolling in fat bonuses with shameless abandon. My nation's government is bought and sold by transglobal corporations and makes divisiveness its core ethic.

I can do little of nothing to stop or change any of this.

I wonder if this is a natural part of getting older--seeing the world through more jaded eyes. But I see other nations, not without their faults to be sure, at least maintaining some more moderate and productive sense of balance. I just think the US government is fundamentally broken and inept.

I shared last night at dinner that I actually don't think the US will be able to move to a better place within my lifetime. This saddens me greatly.

I've supported Lawrence Lessig's work for some time. I've had his "Change Congress" link on my site for some time. In this video he sums up things, and, unlike my dismal state of disillusion, offers a ray of hope. He doesn't frame the problem as conservative versus liberal or Republican versus Democrat. He is insightful and brilliant.

Ah, The Heritage Foundation... They share their wise and timely advice on what President Obama should do in response to the suffering in Haiti: call on a senior Republican to lead the Haitian response efforts. And what senior Republican official do they suggest? Yes, the only one with a proven track record in such matters: George W. Bush!

I'm serious. That's who they suggested.

No, really...

That frames the quality of thinking from the Heritage Foundation rather adequately now, doesn't it! Did they forget already, or are they just stupid?!

We all know Sarah is now an employee of Rupert Murdoch. What we didn't know, until the book and the recent 60 Minutes episode, was the astounding level of her lack of qualification for being being a heartbeat away from the presidency. But that didn't matter to her at all, because "It was God's will" for her to be the Vice President, she said.

This interview is as enlightening as it is frightening. It's worth the attention of the nation.

Well, hopefully she will continue to show how lackluster she is as she stars on FOX not-News. Maybe she will go rogue. But probably, she will just quit--you know, like she did as governor of Alaska.

Shouldn't this guy, of all guys, be aware that his statement is beyond simply untrue; it is absurd to the extreme!

I was ambivalent about the former mayor. Now I think Rudy Giuliani is crazy. Or, maybe he's very, very smart: the Republicans are trying to rewrite the history of their unspeakable failures. If you say it enough times, people will believe you!

Click the image to see him say it firsthand and to hear the words come out of his mouth. It's incredulous!

Politico has named its political lie of the year, a dubious distinction. And, of course, it would follow, this then names the liar of the year as well--the person espousing the lie of the year.

"Death Panels"

According to CNN, when confronted about her lie of the year, Sarah Palin acknowledged she knew her lie wasn't a true statement, stated she said it to get everyone's attention, and said she would do it again.

When will she ever just go away?!

Funny guy. How dare he slap people in the face with their own hypocrisy. He supposedly was going to interview people in front of WalMart about defending traditional marriage and then, when they blubbered on about their support, ask them to sign his petition banning divorce. He says he's confident they will support his bill because it's not about taking their rights away. It's about defending traditional marriage. Hysterical. I wonder how things are going.

Rob Cockerham interviewed John Marcotte, a Sacramento man who filed a petition with the California Secretary of State to get a voter's initiative onto the 2010 ballot in California that would make it ban divorce"

(Via Interview with John Marcotte, author of bill to ban divorce - Boing Boing.)

OK, so this post is only being written for 2 people... :o)

Most people who only quasi-know me, mistakenly assume I'm a just a liberal. In some ways I am. But most mistake my strong libertarian views for liberalism. And on most social issues, I tend to be very libertarian and sometimes liberal as well--and proud of it too might I add. However, I have a few notable exceptions.

On crime and punishment I tend to be rather conservative. I'm all for compassion and mercy, but when I hit the wall, I hit it hard.

When Mike Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist minister then serving as governor of Arkansas, granted clemency to Maurice Clemmons nine years ago, he cited his age: Mr. Clemmons was 16 when he began the crime spree for which he was sentenced to more than 100 years in prison.

link: Old Clemency May Be Issue for Huckabee - NYTimes.com

From where I sit, if a 16 year old is sentenced to over 100 years in prison, I suspect the little @*&! should never see the light of day again. Period. His/her only redemption is to remain in prison. Period.

Huckabee's clemency wasn't just a lapse of good judgement. 

In my humble opinion, anytime an official grants clemency or parole to a convicted criminal who then goes on to commit further crimes, s/he isn't just exercising bad judgement, s/he is complicit in their criminal conduct and should be treated as such. In so doing, we would have fewer horrible decisions made for political gain, financial reasons, and social ruin.

Huckabee has the blood of 4 officers on his hands. He too is responsible for this act.

And let's set the record straight: George W. Bush and the Republican Party spent this nation into oblivion and bankruptcy by cutting taxes and spending the budget surplus and vast amounts of money on a needless, pointless war to make their buddies at Halliburton wealthy beyond belief. Nancy Pelosi had nothing to do with it at all. Those who say otherwise are ignorant and/or liars!

And these people didn't want their children to hear President Obama challenge children to do their best in school? These religious extremists are dangerous! They are the radicals that have already ruined the country! I feel so bad for their children.

A new conservative children's book titled Help! Mom! The Radicals Are Ruining My Country! prominently features Nancy Pelosi as an evil villain. Author Katharine DeBrecht, whom you may have seen on Fox News, explains:

"When Nancy Pelosi was elected Speaker of the House all we heard was how wonderful it was that a mother and grandmother rose through the ranks to such a position. In reality, that mother and grandmother has played an enormous role in ensuring that our children and grandchildren are shackled with debt for decades to come."

link: Conservative children's book vilifies Nancy Pelosi - Boing Boing

I took my money out of WaMu when it bellied up and was taken over by a bank that then had to receive bailout money. I wasn't fearful I would lose my money; I was outraged at banking mismanagement, abuse, greed, and more! Years ago I went to a single credit card with no fees that automatically pays itself off every month without my doing anything. More and more I avoid big box corporations for local businesses. I blog non-stop about this disgusting mess we're in. And I walk or cycle along the ocean every chance I get to stay sane.

But Michael's right. There are other things on this list I need to start doing--regularly!

FIVE THINGS WE DEMAND THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS DO IMMEDIATELY:

1. Declare a moratorium on all home evictions.
2. Congress must join the civilized world and expand Medicare For All Americans.
3. Demand publicly-funded elections and a prohibition on elected officials leaving office and becoming lobbyists.
4. Each of the 50 states must create a state-owned public bank like they have in North Dakota.
5. Save this fragile planet and declare that all the energy resources above and beneath the ground are owned collectively by all of us--just like they do it in Sarah Palin's socialist Alaska*.

FIVE THINGS WE CAN DO TO MAKE CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT LISTEN TO US:

1. Each of us must get into the daily habit of taking 5 minutes to make four brief calls: One to the President (202-456-1414), one to your Congressperson (202-224-3121) and one to each of your two Senators (202-224-3121). To find out who represents you, click here. Take just one minute on each of these calls to let them know how you expect them to vote on a particular issue. ... Trust me, they will listen. If you have another five minutes, click here to send them each an email.
2. Take over your local Democratic Party.
3. Recruit someone to run for office who can win in your local elections next year -- or, better yet, consider running for office yourself!
4. Show up. Picket the local branch of a big bank that took the bailout money. Hold vigils and marches. Consider civil disobedience. Those town hall meetings are open to you, too (and there's more of us than there are of them!). Make some noise, have some fun, get on the local news. Place "Capitalism Did This" signs on empty foreclosed homes, closed down businesses, crumbling schools and infrastructure. (You can download them from my website.)
5. Start your own media. You.

FIVE THINGS WE SHOULD DO TO PROTECT OURSELVES AND OUR LOVED ONES UNTIL WE GET THROUGH THIS MESS:

1. Take your money out of your bank if it took bailout money and place it in a locally-owned bank or, preferably, a credit union.
2. Get rid of all your credit cards but one -- the kind where you have to pay up at the end of the month or you lose your card.
3. Do not invest in the stock market.
4. Unionize your workplace so that you and your coworkers have a say in how your business is run.
5. Take care of yourself and your family.

Yours, Michael Moore

link: Michael Moore: My Action Plan: 15 Things Every American Can Do Right Now

* Yeah, isn't it ironic that Alaska really is the most socialist state in the union!!! (For those that don't know, in Alaska you have no taxes and the state sends every resident a check every year from the oil revenue!)

For some time now I've thought the insurance industry was a corrupt monopoly that needed to go to the woodshed. Maybe that time has come!

Democrats launched a drive at both ends of the Capitol on Wednesday to strip the insurance industry of its decades-old exemption from federal antitrust laws, part of an increasingly bare-knuckled struggle over landmark health care legislation sought by President Barack Obama.

If enacted, the change would put an end to "price-fixing, bid-rigging and market allocation in the health and medical malpractice" insurance areas, said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Leahy said he would seek a vote on the plan when the Senate debates health care legislation in the next few weeks.

Leahy made his comments at the same time the House Judiciary Committee voted 20-9 to end an industry exemption that dates to 1945. Three Republicans supported the move.

Senior Democratic officials said the leadership was inclined to incorporate the measure into the broader health care bill expected to be brought to the floor for a vote within a few weeks. No final decision has been made, they added.

together, the actions reflect the fury Democrats have shown in response to recent insurance industry attempts to influence the shape of legislation. The events occurred less than a week after the insurers' trade association issued a report saying a measure that cleared the Senate Finance Committee would produce sharp increases in premiums for millions who currently have insurance. end of excerpt Source: MSNBC

link: Dems aim to strip insurers' antitrust protections // Current

He just needs to stand up to these thieves, bullies, and greedy thugs more often!

"This is the unsustainable path we're on, and it's the path the insurers want to keep us on. In fact, the insurance industry is rolling out the big guns and breaking open their massive war chest - to marshal their forces for one last fight to save the status quo. They're filling the airwaves with deceptive and dishonest ads. They're flooding Capitol Hill with lobbyists and campaign contributions. And they're funding studies designed to mislead the American people. [...]

"It's smoke and mirrors. It's bogus. And it's all too familiar. Every time we get close to passing reform, the insurance companies produce these phony studies as a prescription and say, "Take one of these, and call us in a decade." Well, not this time. The fact is, the insurance industry is making this last-ditch effort to stop reform even as costs continue to rise and our health care dollars continue to be poured into their profits, bonuses, and administrative costs that do nothing to make us healthy - that often actually go toward figuring out how to avoid covering people. And they're earning these profits and bonuses while enjoying a privileged exception from our anti-trust laws, a matter that Congress is rightfully reviewing."

link: Obama rips health insurance lobby as 'deceptive,' 'dishonest,' 'bogus.' // Current

Today religious mania has infected the political bloodstream and America has become corrosively isolationist, he says. "Ask an American what they know about Sweden and they'd say 'They live well but they're all alcoholics'. In fact a Scandinavian system could have benefited us many times over." Instead, America has "no intellectual class" and is "rotting away at a funereal pace. We'll have a military dictatorship fairly soon, on the basis that nobody else can hold everything together. Obama would have been better off focusing on educating the American people. His problem is being over-educated. He doesn't realise how dim-witted and ignorant his audience is. Benjamin Franklin said that the system would fail because of the corruption of the people and that happened under Bush."

Source: Gore Vidal predicts US Military Dictatorship // Current

Great. So I'll get to live longer to suffer the buffoonery of Dubyuh! I'm elated.

New findings show that the Great Depression was actually good for U.S. health. Annual death rates declined during years of downturn and increased in years of expansion.

The findings could offer a silver lining to today's financial crisis.

The results reinforce earlier research showing recessions reduce mortality, but researchers didn't know whether the effect would hold through a full blown economic meltdown like the Great Depression.

link: Are recessions good for our health? // Current

I turned red just listening to it! I think I'll start eating kittens for breakfast.

We live in an interesting time, a time where imaginary images, pixels of light that dance on the screen but for a moment accompanied by surround sound have actually replaced the real thing. Marshal was right: the medium today is absolutely the message. Our images are simply hollow, empty icons that stand in for a vacuous reality that only exists in our minds and hearts. These images conjure up warm feelings for an often fabled past America and regrettably do nothing to inform our behavior in the present America. But that's OK because these images and sounds make us feel better in the moment.

For the better part of a decade, we have had our souls choked and throttled with fear, with threat, with terror. We have had our damaged psyches comforted with the images of faith and patriotism. This constant back and forth has shaped a nation now addicted to and made ineffectual by anger.

Our words and our icons have become devoid of meaning in the present, disconnected from any reality lived here and now. Adequate are merely the good feelings the words and the nostalgic images bring us. Needless and discarded is the disciplined reality these now empty containers of once precious value we only pretend to cherish demanded of previous, principled generations who framed their contributions through character, hard work, deep thought, public discourse, and actually living the fullness of their values.

God forbid that our values actually demand anything of significance of us, require we conduct ourselves in a principled way. Living what we claim to value would be much more difficult than just screaming ludicrous soundbites at town hall meetings, keeping our kids out of school when the President speaks to them, toting AK47s in public.

The author of the quotation below should also have included in his list "governors who flirt with secession."

... for people whose Christianity has nothing to do with the bible; whose compassion has nothing to do with those less fortunate; whose fight for "life" has nothing to do with the already living, breathing and walking whatsoever. No, for these people, it is the map of the country they defend, not the actual country. It is the flag they defend, not the Constitution. It is pointless, costly wars that they defend, but not the soldiers who return from them.

I think it is clear that people who continue to defend and protect those involved in torture, kidnappings, and indefinite detention should be called out for what they are on a regular basis: collaborators. They need to be labeled openly and shamed often.

link: at-Largely: Bush/Cheney knew it was a crime when they kidnapped and held detainees ....

California's Real Death Panels: Insurers Deny 21% of Claims PacifiCare's Denials 40%, Cigna's 33% in First Half of 2009

More than one of every five requests for medical claims for insured patients, even when recommended by a patient's physician, are rejected by California's largest private insurers, amounting to very real death panels in practice daily in the nation's biggest state, according to data released today by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee.

link: California Nurses Association

Your enormous plan to redistribute the wealth in this country, back to the already wealthy, seems to have been a resounding success.

2 out of 5 Californians are out of work right now thanks to you. Source: California Budget Project Press Release PDF

The average person in the US is mad as hell. They are powerless to affect change so they vent their anger any time and on anything they can: killing rampages, Tea Parties, pulling kids from schools because of the Nazi presidential speech, shouting and screaming over rational discussion in town hall meetings, blubbering about make-believe death panels, praying the president will die...

They're angry because they can't afford to live here any longer and there's nothing they can do about it. We're on our way to becoming the largest 3rd world nation on earth.

Why? Because millions of people are dropping out of the middle class every month and have to displace their sense of betrayal and distrust of corrupt, ineffectual government incapable of change because the greedy corporate talons run very, very deep.

Thanks Dubyuh. I'm not sure our nation will ever recover from the damage you and your administration did!

The puppeteers of the wacko, extremist conservatives that get trotted out in the media every time they want to brainwash Americans don't really fear Obama.

They fear education. They fear enlightenment. They fear a citizenry that is more difficult to manipulate for profiteering because, well... they think critically.

Yes, their favorite word is "fear!" It's what they do best.

Image Source: The Times Tribune

The corporate influence is certainly the worst--that whole greed thing, win at all costs. Take what you demand. Add to this mix the religious extremists that accept whatever their religious leaders tell them without any question or soul searching--one of whom, Anderson in AZ, is publicly espousing praying that Obama will die of brain cancer and the righteous need to kill gay people. Now, push the NRA's demand for the freedom to tote your AK47 to political rallies, with Anderson's encouragement. Get people worked up and then send them to yell words, like "Nazi" and "socialist," designed to incite fear and panic at "town hall" meetings. Have some prominently featured political leaders, like the governor of Texas, trot out the "secede from the union" phrase a time or two. But, I think the corporate dominance is the most insidious.

The Republican fear machinery is working a new angle: make Americans fear the physical violence of America's baddest bullies.

The main difference between left and right wing extremism is that corporate interests ally with the right. Right wing extremists might be crazy, but the corporate interests are not, and they know how to manipulate the crazies on the right.

So the idea that what we're seeing now isn't as bad as what we saw in the sixties and seventies on the left might be true on one level, but it's not on another. Left-wing extremists were always fringe and never accomplished much of anythiing; right-wing extremists might be fringe in their psychology, but they are not fringe politically, and they have been fairly effective in getting their agenda recognized and implemented. The left never had a major cable news station, and it never had major funding. You don't have to be a majority to dominate in the political and economic spheres. You just need to have a lot of money and most of the power and an effective media megaphone.

[From After the Future: Whither America?]

The simple truth of the matter is this: We can no longer afford to be the police force for the world. The amount of money we have wasted in military spending for the past 8+ years has accomplished nothing but the bankrupting of the nation.

Once we can take care of our own people's basic human needs for housing, food, and medical care, then we can think about beating up on little nations like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Our priorities are totally screwed up, and too many people are being duped into the corporate mind games that will continue to enslave us as a nation purported to be of the people, by the people, and for the people.

I get to meet and have engaging conversations with a number of amazingly bright people around the world as a result of my work. Today, on the way to the airport with Wayne was another such opportunity. Some noteworthy points from the conversation:

American society is built on three pillars: representative government (democracy), capitalism, and the Judeo-Christian ethic. After World War II perhaps the strongest pillar was democracy with an emphasis on civic responsibility.

Subsequently, democracy and civic responsibility has been overshadowed by capitalism, which has been elevated to the point of a religion focused on short term material gain in our modern culture. (He also added that the ultimate end of unfettered capitalism is one surviving corporation that has endured the fight of "survival of the fittest." Is that what we really want?)

Couple this with a significant shift in the original basis of the Judeo-Christian ethic: a move away from service to others, the golden rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you), and love/compassion to a new emphasis on the self, personal gain in both power over others and materialism.

I recently heard a minister at a wedding say that if you will put your trust in God, "he will bless you with material gain beyond your wildest imagination." A couple of days ago I read an article in the NY Times about a thriving religious empire that profits (at staggering levels) from prodding people's superstitions with the notion that the more you give to their ministry, the more God will give to you in these difficult financial times; therefore, you should sacrifice and do without to give to them. (What charlatans! I'm delighted their "ministry" is under investigation for fraud and tax evasion.)

Hopefully (but doubtfully) we have seen the end result of the horrific marriage of this distorted view of the Judeo-Christian ethic and unfettered capitalism--the collapse of the entire financial system in the United States with significant collateral damage to the financial infrastructure of the entire world. Interesting to me that the nations that all along controlled the greedy capitalist machinery of their economy have already seen economic recovery!

In the process of a small number of people in this nation becoming exceedingly rich, we have done long term damage to the financial health of the nation our children will inherit.

Are we really that selfish and evil as a people? I suspect so, as we continue to allow the same greed and selfishness to dominate the health industry rather than caring about the health and physical well being of the people in our nation.

But my favorite quotation from our conversation: "Challenge the status quo every chance you get."

and you are making them fabulously rich!

The ugly fact is that every year we fail to reform the existing system, that failure condemns tens of thousands of people to die—either because they have no insurance or because their insurance companies deny coverage or benefits when they become ill.

via Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines

I've had a wonderful few days visiting with my family in Pensacola, Florida. I had forgotten several things about my home town that I love: August is hotter than hell itself, and Pensacola has more than its fair share of extreme conservatism and ugly, ugly racism--interesting to me that the two often seem to go hand in hand.

What brings this up? I got a good look at the most unattractive faces of two racists during my visit. We had a birthday dinner for my sister's upcoming (big!) birthday. As we were leaving the restaurant, two elderly people got into their car. Their bumper sticker read:

I Haven't SeenThe Birth Certificate

OK, so they want to be victimized by and spread unfounded, ignorant, propaganda. Regrettably, in this country, ignorance thrives. People can be easily victimized by ignorance to help others achieve their ambitions. People can profit from the ignorance of others: I'm sure they bought the bumper sticker, probably through a contribution.

But then I became outraged when I saw the two stuffed monkeys in the back window, one on each side, one eating a banana. This older couple isn't just ignorant, they are filled with and wish to share their hatred, their bigotry, their racism, the evil that has infected their hearts.

I sincerely wish I had been able to get to my camera fast enough to take their picture and include it in this post. I want people every where to know what racism and hatred looks like. It's very deceptive.

A great expose of what senators and congressmen are bought and owned by the healthcare industry to stop helping the American people get better healthcare. As I have written before, we need return to government by, for, and of the people, not the corporations!

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