Have I told you how much I hate these people? - Mike Malloy. It is every thinking person’s responsibility not to side with his or her executioners. - Albert Camus. Popular democracy anywhere threatens fascism everywhere. - The Scallion. A fascist junta of neocons using George W. Bush as its shill has taken over America by bloodless coup. What will it take for us to stage a revolution and take our country back? - Dot Calm. Drive a hybrid. Leave a lighter footprint on the planet. - Dot Calm.
Like Granny D, I have watched my own beloved country change, and I am angry beyond words about what I see. I grew up seeing America as the equivalent of the movie good guy, the hero in the white hat who came to the rescue of those in need around the world. I have watched in silent horror as the corporations, the captains and the kings of industry, used a comparatively small outlay of cash to buy the Republicans to use as their shills. George W. Bush is the puppet cowboy-king of shills, the proverbial emperor with no clothes. Every day, I watch these evil men legalize, legitimize, and institutionalize robbing the poor to pay the rich. They are carving up America like a giant carcass and doling out choice chunks of its meat to themselves and their cronies. Since the Democrats have been sipping at the same corporate teat where the Republicans have been gorging for the past generation, the fascists are free to do their worst; there is no longer any opposition. There is no one left to stand up for the rights of the American people, the Constitution, or the democracy, which I fear will be replaced by a fascist dictatorship in my lifetime. Wake up, America: we need a REVOLUTION NOW!
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) officially launched his presidential campaign
today, making him the first contender in either party to officially
enter the race.
At midnight Monday morning, Cruz tweeted, "I'm running
for President and I hope to earn your support!"
He made a more formal
announcement later in the morning at Liberty University in Virginia, the
Christian university founded by Jerry Falwell—where he drew loud
applause when he told the crowd about his father finding Jesus Christ.
His speech was, not surprisingly, designed for social conservatives: He
blasted gay marriage, gun safety laws, and Common Core education
standards.
And he bemoaned the fact that half of born-again Christians
do not vote.
"Imagine millions of people of faith coming out to the
polls and voting our values," he declared.
So far, the young 2016 GOP contest has been dominated by former
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.
Thanks to his
early announcement, the spotlight will be on Cruz.
Here's the best of Mother Jones'coverage on the combative Texas senator:
Really? And what makes Cruz think he can run for president when he's clearly Canadian?
As a high-priced private lawyer, Cruz defended huge jury awards against corporate wrongdoers, but as a tea party politician he calls for tort reform that would prohibit such accountability.
As a politician, he has championed the death penalty, but while he was in private practice, he argued in a Supreme Court case that the criminal-justice system could not be trusted to implement capital punishment.
So, if you find you have nothing to do on one of the dates shown below, why not take a walk for MS? Some of the nicest folks are living with it.
Dear DotCalm:
Walk MS is SPRINGING up all across North
and South Carolina, and we need your help!
We would like to extend a
special invitation to you and your family to connect with others and
join us virtually or personally at a Walk MS location.
Modern Automotive is the title sponsor and Biogen Idec is the presenting sponsor.
Walk MS is about gathering those most passionate about multiple
sclerosis for a day to celebrate the hope we all have for a world free
of MS. 90% of Walk MS participants have a connection to MS.
Strides have been made in MS research, but it remains the most common
neurological disease leading to disability in young adults.
More than
2.3 million people live with MS worldwide.
We need YOUR HELP to continue
to make progress.
Events like Walk MS are vital to funding research,
programs and services to addresss the challenges of MS today and provide
hope for tomorrow.
Come be a part of a movement of people in
your community who want to do something about MS NOW by fundraising,
volunteering or walking at Walk MS.
Together, we can make a difference.
United, we are making a statement that one day there will be a world free of MS.
Ask others to join the cause.
Forward this email and invite others to
participate the MS movement by walking, raising funds or volunteering.
Thank you for your commitment to the cause!
If you have any
questions, please call 1-800-344-4867.
We hope to see you this spring!
The Greater Carolinas Chapter Walk MS Team
Walk MS: Modern Automotive presented by Biogen Idec 2015 locations
Mourners pack funeral for Madison teen killed by police
Madison, Wisconsin--Hundreds of mourners packed a Wisconsin high school field house and spilled into a secondary gym on Saturday to remember 19 year old, biracial, Tony Robinson fatally shot last weekend by a white officer.
Robinson is the latest killing in a string of killings by police nationwide that have stirred racial passions.
The 19-year old, whose mother is white and father black, died March 6 after what Madison police said was a confrontation in which he assaulted the officer.
Tony Robinson, 19, shot by police officer in Madison
The
autopsy did not say if he was facing or turned away from the officer,
who was identified as a 45-year-old veteran of the force, Matt Kenny.
Under
a new Wisconsin law that requires an outside agency to look into fatal
police shootings, a state agency has stepped in to investigate.
So
many people arrived for Robinson's visitation and funeral Saturday that
the overflow was directed to a secondary gym.
Slides of Robinson's life
showed him as a child with his family, playing basketball and with high
school friends.
A few mourners wore t-shirts saying "Black Lives
Matter," the motto of a protest movement which grew after the Ferguson
killing.
People who brought signs to the funeral were politely told to
put them away at the request of Robinson's family.
"While we appreciate the support in the form of peaceful protests, and justified anger about the manner in which his life was taken away
from us too soon, this is not the venue to express that," the family
said in a statement before the funeral.
"Tony is not a victim.
He's our own martyr, a champion of change.
And for you I will always
stand," Robinson's aunt Lorien Carter said in a eulogy.
Carter also recited a poem for her sister, Robinson's mother.
Elijah
Carter struggled to talk about his friend, telling the crowd Robinson
was like a brother to him and that his family was Carter's second
family.
Craig Spaulding, whose son was one of Robinson's close
friends, said adults in Madison now have a responsibility to take care
of the community's youth.
"Tremendous things are going to happen.
Tremendous things have already happened," Spaulding said.
Multiple
people who spoke quoted Robinson as saying, "You ever have that feeling
you're going to live forever?
I'm going to change the world."
Robinson's grandfather Tyrone Henry urged kids in the audience to get an education and take action in Robinson's memory.
Johanna
Valdez, a senior at Sun Prairie High School where Robinson graduated,
said she used to play one-on-one basketball with him after school and
remembered him as goofy and fun.
"He was always listening if you needed someone to talk to," Valdez said.
Police
said they responded to a call last Friday night that Robinson was
running in traffic on the street and had assaulted someone.
According to
police, Kenny heard a disturbance inside an apartment and pushed open
the door, where he encountered the unarmed Robinson.
Robinson's death followed sometimes violent protests in Ferguson after an unarmed black man was fatally shot there last August.
This week, two policemen were injured bu gunfire during one of the demonstrations, which have continued for months in front of the Ferguson Police Department.
While
protests have been peaceful in Madison, they have highlighted local
concerns.
Only about seven percent of the 240,000 population are black
and demonstrators have complained about unequal policing of poor, black
neighborhoods.
Madison police have tried to be more conciliatory
than their counterparts in Ferguson since the shooting.
Police Chief
Mike Koval rushed to the home of Robinson's family on the night of the
killing and prayed with the man's grandmother in the driveway.
He said
he understands the community's anger and has emphasized the right of
protesters to march peacefully.
"One day...I hope everybody in this room can respect that I don't want to be defined by this," Koval said Friday, during a forum organized by Madison's black churches.
"We do a lot of
good.
For a lot of people.
I hope at some point there can be some
forgiveness.
I desperately seek that."
But some people at the funeral said they thought the shooting was an overreaction by police.
"What I personally don't understand is why they have to resort to shooting first," Valdez said.
Rachel Carson, writer, scientist, and ecologist, grew up simply in the rural river
town of Springdale, Pennsylvania.
Her mother bequeathed to her a life-long love
of nature and the living world that Rachel expressed first as a writer and later
as a student of marine biology.
Carson graduated from Pennsylvania College for Women
(now Chatham College) in 1929, studied at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory,
and received her MA in zoology from Johns Hopkins University in 1932.
She was hired by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries to write radio scripts during the
Depression and supplemented her income writing feature articles on natural history
for the Baltimore Sun.
She began a fifteen-year career in the federal service as
a scientist and editor in 1936 and rose to become Editor-in-Chief of all publications
for the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
She wrote pamphlets on conservation and natural resources
and edited scientific articles, but in her free time turned her government research
into lyric prose, first as an article "Undersea" (1937, for the Atlantic Monthly),
and then in a book, Under the Sea-wind (1941).
In 1952 she published her
prize-winning study of the ocean, The Sea Around Us, which was followed
by The Edge of the Sea in 1955.
These books constituted a biography of
the ocean and made Carson famous as a naturalist and science writer for the public.
Carson resigned from government service in 1952 to devote herself to her writing.
She wrote several other articles designed to teach people about the wonder and beauty
of the living world, including "Help Your Child to Wonder," (1956) and "Our Ever-Changing
Shore" (1957), and planned another book on the ecology of life.
Embedded within
all of Carson's writing was the view that human beings were but one part of nature
distinguished primarily by their power to alter it, in some cases irreversibly.
Disturbed by the profligate use of synthetic chemical pesticides after World War
II, Carson reluctantly changed her focus in order to warn the public about the long
term effects of misusing pesticides.
In Silent Spring (1962) she challenged
the practices of agricultural scientists and the government, and called for a change
in the way humankind viewed the natural world.
Carson was attacked by the chemical industry and some in government as an alarmist,
but courageously spoke out to remind us that we are a vulnerable part of the natural
world subject to the same damage as the rest of the ecosystem.
Testifying before
Congress in 1963, Carson called for new policies to protect human health and the
environment.
Rachel Carson died in 1964 after a long battle against breast cancer.
Her witness for the beauty and integrity of life continues to inspire new generations
to protect the living world and all its creatures.
Asked
about the open letter of 47 US Senators to Iranian leaders, the Iranian
Foreign Minister, Dr. Javad Zarif, responded that "in our view, this
letter has no legal value and is mostly a propaganda ploy.
It is very
interesting that while negotiations are still in progress and while no
agreement has been reached, some political pressure groups are so afraid
even of the prospect of an agreement that they resort to unconventional
methods, unprecedented in diplomatic history.
This indicates that like
Netanyahu, who considers peace as an existential threat, some are
opposed to any agreement, regardless of its content.
Zarif expressed astonishment that some
members of US Congress find it appropriate to write to leaders of
another country against their own President and administration.
He
pointed out that from reading the open letter, it seems that the authors
not only do not understand international law, but are not fully
cognizant of the nuances of their own Constitution when it comes to
presidential powers in the conduct of foreign policy.
Foreign Minister Zarif added that "I
should bring one important point to the attention of the authors and
that is, the world is not the United States, and the conduct of
inter-state relations is governed by international law, and not by US
domestic law.
The authors may not fully understand that in international
law, governments represent the entirety of their respective states, are
responsible for the conduct of foreign affairs, are required to fulfil
the obligations they undertake with other states and may not invoke
their internal law as justification for failure to perform their
international obligations.
The Iranian Foreign Minister added that
"Change of administration does not in any way relieve the next
administration from international obligations undertaken by its
predecessor in a possible agreement about Iran`s peaceful nuclear
program."
He continued "I wish to enlighten the authors that if the next
administration revokes any agreement with the stroke of a pen, as they
boast, it will have simply committed a blatant violation of
international law.
He emphasized that if the current
negotiation with P5+1 result in a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, it
will not be a bilateral agreement between Iran and the US, but rather
one that will be concluded with the participation of five other
countries, including all permanent members of the Security Council, and
will also be endorsed by a Security Council resolution.
Zarif expressed the hope that his
comments "may enrich the knowledge of the authors to recognize that
according to international law, Congress may not modify the terms of the
agreement at any time as they claim, and if Congress adopts any measure
to impede its implementation, it will have committed a material breach
of US obligations.
The Foreign Minister also informed the
authors that majority of US international agreements in recent decades
are in fact what the signatories describe as "mere executive agreements"
and not treaties ratified by the Senate.
He reminded them that "their letter in
fact undermines the credibility of thousands of such mere executive
agreements that have been or will be entered into by the US with various
other governments.
Zarif concluded by stating that "the
Islamic Republic of Iran has entered these negotiations in good faith
and with the political will to reach an agreement, and it is imperative
for our counterparts to prove similar good faith and political will in
order to make an agreement possible."
Thank you 47 Senators for embarrassing yourselves for what you are: a bunch of immature, out-of-control sycophants. You have demonstrated your ignorance for all to see not appreciating many Iranians have been educated in the United States and have retained a better understanding of our government.
