March 23, 2014

Infowars fans want him to take over parts of the USA, too. 'Cuz he's a real 'Patriot,' sez Alex.

Not only that...

Sarah Palin explains Vladimir Putin's manly qualities

by Laura Clawson - 03-04-2014



(Also, too, wrestling a bear and putting a tracking collar on a tranquilized bear accompanied by a large group of scientists are two different things.)

Sarah Palin demonstrates the dangers of only talking to people who share your world view: "People are looking at Putin as one who wrestles bears and drills for oil," Palin said to Fox News’s Sean Hannity on Monday night. "They look at our president as one who wears mom jeans and equivocates and bloviates."

"People" are looking at Putin and Obama this way? Like, a majority of them? Or the ones in Palin's own Facebook feed? Because in my Facebook feed, things look a little different—but, apparently unlike Palin, I'm aware that the views of people connected with me personally are not necessarily representative of all the people everywhere.

Also, as little as I want to play into dated Cold War views, since when do muscle-flexing Republican nationalists like Palin drool over the Russian president's macho media stunts? Since when do they think the world takes said media stunts seriously as evidence of badassery rather than regarding them as largely staged photo ops? I mean, really, next is she going to tell us that because Putin's been photographed topless, people see him as the next Playboy playmate?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/04/1282005/-Sarah-Palin-explains-Vladimir-Putin-s-manly-qualities

Sarah must have grown weary of making eyes at him from her back porch. Her 2008 slogan 'Drill, baby, drill!' may have had a deeper meaning.

The campaign posters have already been made up for 2016:



See the mutual wink there? You tell me what that means...

March 23, 2014

I don't believe 'teh gubermint' did it, either. Certain elements like Nuland and McCain are part of

private groups that go about making deals and stoking up trouble.

It's ironic that the finger of blame always goes to the government, of the people, trying to destroy it and seldom goes after the libertarian and neo-con think tanks and highly profitable outfits that profit from the wars. The NRA is one such organization that actually has international associations to affect legislation and deny oversight for profit which fuel small conflicts and stoke dissensions that will eventually build up to be so dangerous that nations and their pockets are required to stop wholesale slaughter.

Two sides of a game, with the traditional winners, none of whom are government but the private forces that seek to starve the governments that are created by millions of people trying to improve their lives, which doesn't benefit said private groups. So they demonize it and blame it for being forced to bailout the misadventures they instigate not at the peak of crisis, but on a daily basis in their pursuit of profit and power.

Those are the ones that need to be taken to the woodshed, not every leader or government that ends up cleaning up their mess. Patrice did a good job of documenting the links on DU and someone recently posted on the group that Nuland and others are associated with. I wish I could find that link.

These are rogue agents who do not work for the American people or our government, but a cabal of oligarchical interests that push governments into doing things they would not choose to do by generating crisis. Since they also own the means of information, they are free to point the finger of blame away from themselves.

And people fall for it and want all institutions generations fought to preserve to protect their rights, their environment and future generations disempowered, and which will give even more power to the oligarchs. Because those institutions don't have the ability to run from one nation to another to escape accountability. They are the agency that ends up having to deal with consequence, as they are nation based.

May be a bit off topic to the purpose of your post, but that's what I'm coming to think now. I get tired of the knee jerk reactionary reflex of blaming the slow target of government, and democratic institutions always are, as the pirate nature of these rogue actors can act quickly, and our leaders who were not elected to deal with the additional burden of combating their mischief as they are already overburdened just trying to take of the people.

March 23, 2014

They're just jealous!

Don't hate on Number 23 just because she's fabulous!

March 23, 2014

Yes, that's a good one! You can post this about you:

And this about the issue at hand:

March 23, 2014

My favorite is this one:

And for those who just can't get over Number 23's fabulous life that exceeds their wildest fantasy, here's one:



I know they're both white cats, but just run with it anyway.

March 22, 2014

+1,000. Also, work to turn their states into single payer like VT. It's in the ACA.

But it's up to us to do it.

Misery is easy to create. It's the tool of the maliciously lazy.~ Anon.

March 22, 2014

Love the Protect Women's Health! It's right in our party platform:

DEMOCRATIC PARTY PLATFORM

Women.

President Obama—the son of a single mother and the father of two daughters—understands that women aren't a special interest group. They are more than half of this country, and issues that affect women also affect families. That is why the first bill he signed into law was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which helps women fight back when they are paid less than men, and why we continue to fight to overcome Republican opposition and pass the Paycheck Fairness Act to help stop gender discrimination in pay before it starts.

And that is why the Justice Department and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, led by President Obama's appointees, have investigated and prosecuted numerous violations of the nation's civil rights laws, and obtained more than $140 million in relief for victims of gender discrimination.

We Democrats will continue to support efforts to ensure that workers can combat gender discrimination in the workplace and to protect women against pregnancy discrimination. And that's why we support passing the Healthy Families Act, broadening the Family and Medical Leave Act, and partnering with states to move toward paid leave.

We understand that economic issues are women's issues, and the challenges of supporting and raising a family are often primarily a woman's responsibility. That's why putting Americans back to work is Job One. That's why the Affordable Care Act especially helps women by guaranteeing they and their families won't become uninsured when they lose their jobs.

That's why this administration strengthened Medicare and Medicaid for millions of women and families. And that's why the Affordable Care Act is ending health insurance discrimination against women, and provides women with free access to preventive care, including prenatal screenings, mammograms, cervical cancer screening, breast-feeding supports, and contraception.

We understand that women's rights are civil rights. That's why we reaffirm our support for the ERA, recommit to enforcing Title IX, and will urge ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. That's why we are committed to ending violence against women, why Vice President Joe Biden originally wrote and championed the Violence Against Women Act during his time in the Senate, and why we support reauthorizing and strengthening it now.

The President and the Democratic Party believe that women have a right to control their reproductive choices. Democrats support access to affordable family planning services, and President Obama and Democrats will continue to stand up to Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood health centers. The Affordable Care Act ensures that women have access to contraception in their health insurance plans, and the President has respected the principle of religious liberty. Democrats support evidence-based and age-appropriate sex education.

Protecting A Woman's Right to Choose.

The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy, including a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay. We oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right. Abortion is an intensely personal decision between a woman, her family, her doctor, and her clergy; there is no place for politicians or government to get in the way. We also recognize that health care and education help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for abortions.

We strongly and unequivocally support a woman's decision to have a child by providing affordable health care and ensuring the availability of and access to programs that help women during pregnancy and after the birth of a child, including caring adoption programs.

These are the issues that affect half our population. The GOP is trying to eliminate all of this. And much, much more. This is URGENT. Our rights are at stake, as are those of future generations of women. If someone doesn't agree with these, they may be im the wrong party. If they think it's not worth talking about, they are dismissed.

March 22, 2014

Sanctions won't undo Crimea; Sanctions won't stop more; NATO will. Ukraine isn't a member, so they

never had the military force protecting them that NATO affords its members.

Suggestions that Russian minorities in other countries such as Estonia will be used as pretext for Russia to move in there will never happen. NATO is there and it's obligated to protect any of its members:

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO; /ˈneɪtoʊ/ NAY-toh; French: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique Nord (OTAN)), also called the (North) Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. NATO's headquarters are in Brussels, Belgium, one of the 28 member states across North America and Europe, the newest of which, Albania and Croatia, joined in April 2009. An additional 22 countries participate in NATO's Partnership for Peace program, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the world's defence spending.

NATO was little more than a political association until the Korean War galvanized the organization's member states, and an integrated military structure was built up under the direction of two U.S. supreme commanders. The course of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the Warsaw Pact, which formed in 1955. Doubts over the strength of the relationship between the European states and the United States ebbed and flowed, along with doubts over the credibility of the NATO defence against a prospective Soviet invasion—doubts that led to the development of the independent French nuclear deterrent and the withdrawal of the French from NATO's military structure in 1966 for 30 years. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the organization was drawn into the breakup of Yugoslavia, and conducted its first military interventions in Bosnia from 1992 to 1995 and later Yugoslavia in 1999. Politically, the organization sought better relations with former Warsaw Pact countries, several of which joined the alliance in 1999 and 2004.

Article 5 of the North Atlantic treaty, requiring member states to come to the aid of any member state subject to an armed attack, was invoked for the first and only time after the 11 September 2001 attacks,[5] after which troops were deployed to Afghanistan under the NATO-led ISAF. The organization has operated a range of additional roles since then, including sending trainers to Iraq, assisting in counter-piracy operations[6] and in 2011 enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya in accordance with U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973. The less potent Article 4, which merely invokes consultation among NATO members, has been invoked four times: by Turkey in 2003 over the Iraq War, twice in 2012 by Turkey over the Syrian Civil War after the downing of an unarmed Turkish F-4 reconnaissance jet and after a mortar was fired at Turkey from Syria[7] and by Poland in 2014 following the Russian intervention in Crimea.[8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO

What I emboldened there is why Obama has done what he has in recent years. It is his duty as POTUS to follow up on treaties our nation has signed. It's not like the man wakes up on the wrong side of the bed and does stuff 'just because.'

NATO's role has evolved over the years. They use American forces for certain functions (such as Navy Seals) world wide and other nations provide other functions as part of their membership. It's not just an American organization. And IIRC, Europe supplies 30% of the funding for NATO and they expect it (and us) to show up.

Ukraine (and Crimea) had no protection under NATO and I doubt Russia or Putin will do anything more. As awful as it sounds, perhaps the safest solution for ethnic Russians in those countries where they feel themselves (and not whatever someone else says) that they are being discriminated against or even threatened, should move to Russia, despite the hardship.

I say that because reports in the weeks since the overthrow in Kiev said a half million ethnic Russian Ukrainians crossed the border to Russia. So they saw no other solution. Some ethnic Russians in the Baltic states have claimed they were being mistreated for years and there is fresh anti-Russian sentiment per reports. But all reports from the region are disputed. We don't know.

I expect we are approaching the end of this situation, and Putin will not give up Crimea, and no one can force it no matter what they feel. Crimea has had an election and the residents there seem to accept the situation. I could be all wrong, and hope they won't start killing each other there.

JMHO.

March 21, 2014

Yes. And have killed a lot of Christians, including children:

16th Street Baptist Church bombing



The 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed on Sunday, September 15, 1963 as an act of white supremacist terrorism. The explosion at the African-American church, which killed four girls, marked a turning point in the United States 1960s Civil Rights Movement and contributed to support for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Although city leaders had reached a settlement in May with demonstrators and started to integrate public places, not everyone agreed with ending racial segregation. Bombings and other acts of violence followed the settlement, and the church had become an obvious target. The three-story 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama had been a rallying point for civil rights activities through the spring of 1963, and was where the students who were arrested during the 1963 Birmingham campaign's Children's Crusade were trained. The church was used as a meeting-place for civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph David Abernathy and Fred Shuttlesworth. Tensions were escalated when the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) became involved in a campaign to register African Americans to vote in Birmingham.

Still, the campaign was successful. The demonstrations led to an agreement in May between the city's business leaders and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to integrate public facilities in the city.

In the early morning of Sunday, September 15, 1963, Bobby Frank Cherry, Thomas Blanton,[1] Herman Frank Cash, and Robert Chambliss, members of United Klans of America, a Ku Klux Klan group, planted a box of dynamite with a time delay under the steps of the church, near the basement.[2] At about 10:22 a.m., twenty-six children were walking into the basement assembly room to prepare for the sermon entitled “The Love That Forgives,” when the bomb exploded.[3][4] Four girls, Addie Mae Collins (age 14), Denise McNair (age 11), Carole Robertson (age 14), and Cynthia Wesley (age 14), were killed in the attack,[5] and 22 additional people were injured, one of whom was Addie Mae Collins' younger sister, Sarah.[6] The explosion blew a hole in the church's rear wall, destroyed the back steps and all but one stained-glass window, which showed Christ leading a group of little children.[7]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16th_Street_Baptist_Church_bombing

No words adequate for those loving girls slaughtered for the color of their skin.

March 21, 2014

Ain't buying it. I've met Klansmen in real life. No rogue ones, either. SPLC description:

The Ku Klux Klan, with its long history of violence, is the most infamous - and oldest - of American hate groups. Although black Americans have typically been the Klan's primary target, it also has attacked Jews, immigrants, gays and lesbians and, until recently, Catholics. Over the years since it was formed in December 1865, the Klan has typically seen itself as a Christian organization, although in modern times Klan groups are motivated by a variety of theological and political ideologies.

Started during Reconstruction at the end of the Civil War, the Klan quickly mobilized as a vigilante group to intimidate Southern blacks - and any whites who would help them - and to prevent them from enjoying basic civil rights. Outlandish titles (like imperial wizard and exalted cyclops), hooded costumes, violent "night rides," and the notion that the group comprised an "invisible empire" conferred a mystique that only added to the Klan's popularity. Lynchings, tar-and-featherings, rapes and other violent attacks on those challenging white supremacy became a hallmark of the Klan.

After a short but violent period, the "first era" Klan disbanded after Jim Crow laws secured the domination of Southern whites. But the Klan enjoyed a huge revival in the 1920s when it opposed (mainly Catholic and Jewish) immigration. By 1925, when its followers staged a huge Washington, D.C., march, the Klan had as many as 4 million members and, in some states, considerable political power. But a series of sex scandals, internal battles over power and newspaper exposés quickly reduced its influence.

The Klan arose a third time during the 1960s to oppose the civil rights movement and to preserve segregation in the face of unfavorable court rulings. The Klan's bombings, murders and other attacks took a great many lives, including, among others, four young girls killed while preparing for Sunday services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala.

Since the 1970s the Klan has been greatly weakened by internal conflicts, court cases, a seemingly endless series of splits and government infiltration. While some factions have preserved an openly racist and militant approach, others have tried to enter the mainstream, cloaking their racism as mere "civil rights for whites." Today, the Center estimates that there are between 5,000 and 8,000 Klan members, split among dozens of different - and often warring - organizations that use the Klan name.

Klan glossary

AKIA: A password meaning "A Klansman I Am", often seen on decals and bumper stickers.

Alien: A person who does not belong to the Klan.

AYAK?: A password meaning "Are You a Klansman?"

CA BARK: A password meaning "Constantly Applied By All Real Klansmen."

CLASP: A password meaning "Clannish Loyalty A Sacred Principle."

Genii: The collective name for the national officers. Also known as the Kloncilium, or the advisory board to the Imperial Wizard.

Hydras: The Real officers, with the exception of the Grand Dragon.

Imperial Giant: Former Imperial Wizard.

Imperial Wizard: The overall, or national, head of a Klan, which it sometimes compares to the president of the United States.

Inner Circle: Small group of four or five members who plan and carry out "action." Its members and activities are not disclosed to the general membership.

Invisible Empire: A Ku Klux Klan's overall geographical jurisdiction, which it compares to the United States although none exist in every state.

Kalendar: Klan calendar, which dates events from both the origin and its 1915 rebirth Anno Klan, and means "in the year of the Klan," and is usually written "AK."

Kardinal Kullors: White, crimson, gold and black. Secondary Kullors are grey, green and blue. The Imperial Wizard's Kullor is Skipper Blue.

K.B.I.: Klan Bureau of Investigation.

KIGY!: A password meaning "Klansman, I greet you!"

Klankfraft: The practices and beliefs of the Klan.

Klanton: The jurisdiction of a Klavern.

Klavern: A local unit or club; also called "den."

Kleagle: An organizer whose main function is to recruit new members. In some Klans, he gets a percentage of the initiation fees.

Klectokon: Initiation fee.

Klepeer: Delegate elected to Imperial Klonvokation.

Klonkave: Secret Klavern meeting.

Klonverse: Province convention.

Kloran: Official book of Klan rituals.

Klorero: Realm convention.

SAN BOG: A password meaning "Strangers Are Near, Be On Guard."

Terrors: The Exalted Cyclops' officers.

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/ideology/ku-klux-klan

Most of these Klowns are now wearing business suits or working clothes in the day. It's at night time they show what they are all about. Here are some videos posted by Segami on them in 2012:

ABC Nightline: Inside the New Ku Klux Klan

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101772450