So I didn't blog yesterday...
...and it feels like all heck broke loose
in the meantime.
With that, I bring you a smattering of this week's steaming pile of bad news.
Ugh.
Erm...happy new year...?
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Authorities in a major city stand accused of rough handling of thugs they take into custody.
Authorities in a major city stand accused of rough handling of thugs they take into custody.
The city has been forced to give hand-outs of free money to settle decades-old accusations that authorities freedom-tickled
thugs already in custody.
thugs already in custody.
Outraged Democrats
scream for the mayor to resign.
scream for the mayor to resign.
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OK, boys and girls--get out your decoder rings, and let's translate newspeak into English.
"Authorities" = "police"
"Rough handling" = "unnecessary brutality"
"Thug" = Black person, usually male and usually unarmed
"Freedom-tickling" = "torture," including tazing genitals (as heard on the radio; I'll post a reference if I have time to find one)
Does it matter who committed the crime?
YES. NO ONE should be above the law.
Does it matter who the victim is?
It shouldn't, but, too often, I hear Republicans blame the victims. "He was a thug." "He was no angel." "He had it coming." "He deserved to die." "It was a good death." I'm sorry, but none of those "reasons" justifies capital punishment for non-capital offenses--we are still a nation of "innocent until PROVEN guilty." And the police and the justice system make mistakes--it is unrealistic to assume that every single person apprehended or imprisoned is guilty as charged. I remember hearing some years ago that one of the states abolished its death penalty as soon as officials realized that on the order of 20% of prisoners had ben exonerated by DNA evidence after their executions.
Does it matter which political party condoned it?
Apparently, it doesn't matter to Democrats calling for Emanuel to step down. To them, wrong is wrong. To me, Rahm Emanuel has one of the most punchable faces in politics (although Ted Cruz has him beat).
Rahm Emanuel and Debbie Wasserman Schultz both need to resign. NOW. They are a disgrace to the Democratic party.
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Christian morality is not concerned
with WHAT is done.
Christian morality is not concerned
with WHAT is done.
It is concerned with WHO does it.
If you call yourself a Christian, you can make Hitler look like Pope Francis, and other Christians will jump through their own assholes to ignore or minimize your atrocities.
You can serially rape little boys, grope your younger sisters and cheat on your wife, bilk millions from the gullible, lie through your teeth, and grift your way into the lifestyle of the rich and famous...and "it's all good" to Christians as long as you're one of them.
"Don't persecute the priests...the bishops...the Duggars...they just made a teensy weensy little harmless oopsie! You are attacking Christianity if you're outraged by the saintly actions of these Godly good people."
If you're a Black man, you're a "thug"
...and "no angel."
...and "no angel."
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Like
an overwhelming majority of Americans, I’m frustrated by Washington’s
inaction on common sense reforms to our gun laws. Last year alone, 2,939
people were shot in Chicago — and an estimated 30,000 people were
killed by firearms nationwide. It’s an epidemic. We’ve got to do something.
For
that very reason, I applaud the actions President Obama has taken today
to reduce gun violence. They won’t solve all the problems we’re facing,
but they will help keep guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals.
Can you add your name to my petition today thanking President Obama for taking action to reform our nation’s broken gun laws?
Before
the gun lobby, and sadly my Republican colleagues, have a chance to
twist the facts about the President’s executive actions, I want you to
know the truth. These actions do not take away the rights of anyone to
own a gun. In fact, these actions ensure our Second Amendment rights are
protected as we keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.
What these actions actually do:
-
Clarify
existing laws to ensure all gun dealers — including those who sell
online — obtain a dealer license and conduct background checks.
-
Hire
more personnel to process background checks in a timely manner. This
could have prevented, for example, the tragic Charleston mass shooting
last year.
-
Direct government officials to conduct research about how to prevent gun violence.
-
Encourage
more domestic violence prosecutions. This way, fewer domestic abusers
will be able to hurt their partners with guns and other dangerous
weapons.
-
Make
it easier for states to provide mental health information to the
background check system, which would prevent unstable individuals from
purchasing guns.
- Make sure that guns that are lost or stolen while being shipped are promptly reported to law enforcement.
Like
I said, these reforms will not prevent every shooting — but they are a
big step forward in the fight to fix our broken gun laws and save
lives. I am encouraged by these actions and hope that we can add to them in the next year with congressional action. Let’s come together in the next year and work to build on the progress President Obama has made here today.
Best wishes,
Dick Durbin
U.S. Senator
U.S. Senator
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One day, my Tea Party Christian friend loudly claimed that humans are not animals.
One day, my Tea Party Christian friend loudly claimed that humans are not animals.
"What are we then," I asked,
"vegetable or mineral?"
"vegetable or mineral?"
An animal is an organism (living thing) that is composed of eukaryotic cells (cells that have nuclei bounded by membranes) and that has an internal digestive system.
Last time I checked, humans fit that description.
Next, he'll be claiming that we are not primates.
Or mammals.
Or vertebrates.
Or some such bullshit.
As Mr. Handy from The Tick would say, "You're making us look like jerks...READ A BOOK!"
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“I like to give on a scale where I can see impact...” - David Koch
Earlier this year, a number of Republicans flew to California to make
fundraising pitches to more than four hundred wealthy conservative
donors attending a private conference hosted by the Koch brothers.
It’s worth taking a moment to ask the question, who are the Koch brothers, and what do they want?
The Koch brothers are the second-wealthiest family in America worth $82
billion. For the Koch brothers, $82 billion in wealth apparently is not
good enough. Owning the second-largest private company in America is
apparently not good enough. It doesn’t appear that they will be
satisfied until they are able to control the entire political process.
This issue isn't personal for me. I don't know the Koch brothers, but I
do know this. They have advocated for destroying the federal programs
that are critical to the financial and personal health of middle class
Americans.
Now, most Americans know that the Koch brothers are the primary source
of funding for the Tea Party, and that’s fine. They know that they favor
the outright repeal of the Affordable Care Act, and that’s their
opinion. It’s wrong, but that’s fine as well.
But it is not widely known that David Koch once ran for Vice President
of the United States of America on the Libertarian Party ticket because
he believed Ronald Reagan was much too liberal. And he ran on a platform
that included the following:
- “We favor the repeal of the fraudulent, virtually bankrupt and increasingly oppressive Social Security system.”
- “We favor the abolition of Medicare and Medicaid programs.”
- “We support repeal of all laws which impede the ability of any person to find employment, such as minimum wage laws…”
- “We support the eventual repeal of all taxation.”
In 1980, David Koch’s presidential ticket received one percent of the
vote from the American people. And rightly so. His views were so extreme
they were rejected completely out of hand by the American people.
But fast forward almost thirty-six years, and one of the most
significant realities of modern politics is just how successful David
Koch and the like-minded billionaires attending his retreat have been at
moving the Republican Party to the extreme right. The ideas above that
were dismissed as downright crazy in 1980 are now part of today’s
mainstream Republican thinking.
The Koch brothers, and billionaires like them, have bought up
the private sector and now they’re buying up the government. It’s up to
us to put a stop to them, but it will require all of us standing
together with one voice on this issue.
Your donation to our campaign today is a contribution towards the
dismantling of a corrupt system of campaign finance held in place by the
Koch brothers and their billionaire friends:
If you've saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately:
Here’s the truth: The economic and political systems of this country
are stacked against ordinary Americans. The rich get richer and use
their wealth to buy elections, and I believe that we cannot change this
corrupt system by taking its money. If we’re serious about creating
jobs, health care for all, climate change, and the needs of our children
and the elderly, we must be serious about campaign finance reform.
So far in this election, less than four hundred families have
contributed the majority of all the money raised by all the candidates
and super PACs combined. According to media reports, one family will
spend more money in this election than either the Democratic or
Republican Parties.
This is not democracy. This is oligarchy.
Our job is not to think small in this moment. The current system of
campaign finance in this country is utterly corrupt. That is one of the
reasons I am so proud of how we have funded our campaign — over 2.5
million contributions from working Americans giving less than $30 at a
time. But our campaign is unique.
We must pass a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United,
and I will not nominate any justice to the Supreme Court who does not
make it abundantly clear that she or he will overturn that decision. We
need legislation that requires wealthy individuals and corporations who
make large campaign contributions to disclose where their money is
going. And more importantly, I believe we need to move towards the
public funding of elections.
Our vision for American democracy should be a nation in which all
people, regardless of their income, can participate in the political
process, can run for office without begging for contributions from the
wealthy and the powerful.
Tomorrow
afternoon I’ll be in New York City to deliver a major speech about our
need to create a financial system that works for all Americans, not just
the few. I’ll be in touch shortly after. I hope that you’ll keep an eye
on your inbox for my message.
In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders
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If they weren't white, they'd be dead by now.
If they weren't white, they'd be dead by now.
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Greed, fraud, dishonesty, and arrogance: these are the words that best describe the reality of Wall Street today.
We can no longer tolerate an economy and a political system that have
been rigged by Wall Street to benefit the wealthiest Americans in this
country at the expense of everyone else. While President Obama deserves
credit for getting this economy back on track after the Wall Street
crash, the reality is there is a lot of unfinished business.
That's why today in New York City I announced my plan for taking on Wall Street. We
must break up the banks, end their casino-style gambling, and
fundamentally change the approach of the financial industry to focus on
helping the American people.
To those on Wall Street, let me be very clear. Greed is not good. In
fact, the greed of Wall Street and corporate America is destroying the
fabric of our nation. And here is a promise I will make as president: If
Wall Street does not end its greed, we will end it for them.
As most people know, in the 1990s and later, financial interests spent
billions of dollars in lobbying and campaign contributions to force
through Congress the deregulation of Wall Street, the repeal of the
Glass-Steagall Act, and the weakening of consumer protection laws.
They paid this money to show the American people all that they could do
with that freedom. Well, they sure showed the American people. In 2008,
the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior on Wall Street nearly
destroyed the U.S. and global economy. Millions of Americans lost their
jobs, their homes, and their life savings.
Meanwhile, the American middle class continues to disappear, poverty is
increasing, and the gap between the very rich and everyone else is
growing wider and wider by the day. But the American people are catching
on. They also know that a handful of people on Wall Street have
extraordinary power over the economic and political life of our country.
We must act now to change that. Our goal must be to create a financial
system and an economy that works for all Americans, not just a handful
of billionaires.
There are eight points to my plan, and I want to go through each of
them here because I think it's important for our campaign to discuss
specific policies with our supporters. Some of this may seem a little in
the weeds, but I trust our supporters to be able to handle this kind of
policy discussion.
Here's my plan for what I will do with Wall Street when I am president:
Break up huge financial institutions in the first year of my administration. Within the first 100 days of my administration, I will require the Secretary of the Treasury to establish a “Too Big to Fail” list of commercial banks, shadow banks, and insurance companies whose failure would pose a catastrophic risk to the U.S. economy without a taxpayer bailout. Within one year, my administration will break these institutions up so that they no longer pose a grave threat to the economy.
Reinstate a 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act to clearly separate traditional banking from risky investment banking and insurance services. It is not enough to tell Wall Street to "cut it out," propose a few new rules and slap on some fines. Under my administration, financial institutions will no longer be too big to fail or too big to manage. Wall Street cannot continue to be an island unto itself, gambling trillions in risky financial instruments. If an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.
End too-big-to-jail. We live in a country today that has an economy that is rigged, a campaign finance system which is corrupt, and a criminal justice system which often does not dispense justice. The average American sees kids being arrested and sometimes even jailed for possessing marijuana. But when it comes to Wall Street executives — some of the most wealthy and powerful people in this country whose illegal behavior hurt millions of Americans — somehow nothing happens to them. No jail time. No police record. No justice.
Not one major Wall Street executive has been prosecuted for causing the near collapse of our entire economy. That will change under my administration. “Equal Justice Under Law” will not just be words engraved on the entrance of the Supreme Court. It will be the standard that applies to Wall Street and all Americans.
Establish a tax on Wall Street to discourage reckless gambling and encourage productive investments in the job-creating economy. We will use the revenue from this tax to make public colleges and universities tuition free. During the financial crisis, the middle class of this country bailed out Wall Street. Now, it’s Wall Street’s turn to help the middle class.
Cap Credit Card Interest Rates and ATM Fees. We have got to stop financial institutions from ripping off the American people by charging sky-high interest rates and outrageous fees. In my view, it is unacceptable that Americans are paying a $4 or $5 fee each time they go to the ATM. And it is unacceptable that millions of Americans are paying credit card interest rates of 20 or 30 percent.
The Bible has a term for this practice. It's called usury. And in The Divine Comedy, Dante reserved a special place in the Seventh Circle of Hell for sinners who charged people usurious interest rates. Today, we don't need the hellfire and the pitchforks, we don't need the rivers of boiling blood, but we do need a national usury law.
We need to cap interest rates on credit cards and consumer loans at 15 percent. I would also cap ATM fees at $2.
Allow Post Offices to Offer Banking Services. We also need to give Americans affordable banking options. The reality is that, unbelievably, millions of low-income Americans live in communities where there are no normal banking services. Today, if you live in a low-income community and you need to cash a check or get a loan to pay for a car repair or a medical emergency, where do you go? You go to a payday lender who could charge an interest rate of over 300 percent and trap you into a vicious cycle of debt. That is unacceptable.
We need to stop payday lenders from ripping off millions of Americans. Post offices exist in almost every community in our country. One important way to provide decent banking opportunities for low-income communities is to allow the U.S. Postal Service to engage in basic banking services, and that's what I will fight for.
Reform Credit Rating Agencies. We cannot have a safe and sound financial system if we cannot trust the credit agencies to accurately rate financial products. The only way we can restore that trust is to make sure credit rating agencies cannot make a profit from Wall Street. Under my administration, we will turn for-profit credit rating agencies into non-profit institutions, independent from Wall Street. No longer will Wall Street be able to pick and choose which credit agency will rate their products.
Reform the Federal Reserve. We need to structurally reform the Federal Reserve to make it a more democratic institution responsive to the needs of ordinary Americans, not just the billionaires on Wall Street. It is unacceptable that the Federal Reserve has been hijacked by the very bankers it is in charge of regulating. When Wall Street was on the verge of collapse, the Federal Reserve acted with a fierce sense of urgency to save the financial system. We need the Fed to act with the same boldness to combat the unemployment crisis and fulfill its full employment mandate.
So my message to you is straightforward: I’ll rein in Wall Street's reckless behavior so they can’t crash our economy again.
Will Wall Street like me? No. Will they begin to play by the rules if I’m president? You better believe it.
No president alone, not Bernie Sanders or anyone else, can effectively
address the crises facing the working families of this country without a
powerful grassroots movement. When we stand together, there is nothing
we cannot accomplish.
Thank you for standing with me.
In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders
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Militia Rancher “Heroes” Accused Of Horrific Abuse, Torture Of A Child
Militia Rancher “Heroes” Accused Of Horrific Abuse, Torture Of A Child
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From Democracy Now!
2015,
the hottest on record, was also the year ExxonMobil was caught in a
more than three-decade lie. Internal documents revealed Exxon knew that
fossil fuels cause ... Read More →
From Daily Kos
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If Obama came out in favor of breathing, Republicans would suffocate.
If Obama came out in favor of breathing, Republicans would suffocate.
If Obama said, "Don't eat yellow snow," FOX News would start blaring 24/7 that yellow snow is healthful and delicious.
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posted by Dot Calm @ 7:53 PM
