July 1, 2013

Fire fighters are heroes. A song about 9/11. The spirit is the same:

Prescott's Hot Shot Fire Fighters

July 1, 2013

This is the clear and present danger Libertarians deny. Dividing us lets it happen.

The graphic says what is happening, but media diverts people from the big picture:



I suppose you've seen me ranting about the 14th amendment that Ryan wants to repeal. This is what repealed DOMA. But 14th can be legally done away with as Ryan, Paulites and Libertarians want, by the use of state conventions. Those RED legislatures people seem to think don't matter, unless they live under their thumb. The most important parts of the 14th:

Birthright Citizenship

This was needed as the 13th Amendment wasn't clear enough, despite the Civil War. The Confederacy was built on the belief of white supremacy (check my journal for the public domain, university publication). Their philosophy directly opposed hat of the Founding Fathers who saw black slavery as the end of the America they started but wanted to eventually live up to the core values of equality.

But that was not so for the Confederacy as Jefferson Davis' vice president spells out. They wanted those ideals gone. He actually makes a 'logical' case and invented the idea of those who are liberals and believe in equality are ignorant mentally ill, which is recurring theme from the GOP and their media.

A determined portion of the electorate now funded with billionaire dollars, believe in inequality and is working to dissolve this nations. Thee GOP are still employing the Southern Strategy by Nixon's Lee Atwater. The same arguments have never left. Read it and weep. They don't believe in equal rights and they even bring God into their equationt to silence oppostion. It has worked very well.

The loss of birthright citizenship will kiss voting rights goodbye unless approved by a theocrat, a scion of wealth or by the right kind of birth as decided by Republicans. Sadly, many Americans won't make the list due to the actions of the same Republicans. They have done this in small locales, changing the American political landscape in their favor, leaving future generations without remedy for the loss of that particular civil liberty for the less popular and powerful. Yet all I hear are those darn cicadas. Or is it crickets?

Due Process Clause

Due Process under the law is the right to be treated fairly and to have a fighting chance when facing legal action. It is mentioned twice in the U.S. Constitution. But it needed more to make it clear in a nation built on conquest and slavery. So Amendments Four, Five, Six and Eight were passed, but the Fourteenth is the one that seals the deal:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

This is the clause that fed all liberal and progressive movements since then and works to create a country the Founders most likely dreamed of having. Most Americans have come to rely upon the protections it affords in environmental law, employment, housing, health care and other ways.

It is not just in regards to the legal system and has been sorely abused by the Patriot Act and other legislation passed by the GOP at a time Democrats were mailed anthrax letters and people died. There has since been a media induced collective amnesia is on how this was orchestrated at the time, but media had a huge hand with making it pass. The Goebbels media called for the death of those who opposed it on Constitutional grounds, and the traumatized populace decided it had better pass, or else someone would be hung as a traitor for being soft on terrorism.

Welcome to the landscape we have been living in since September 11th. It can be repealed, but privatization advocates have put in the poison pill every time. Add in any number of stochastic and extremist terrorist acts which have given it a life that has made it acceptable to some, so in general it has been accepted, out of justified fears, others not. Privateers see a gold mine in contracts.

But parts of the Patriot Act have been declared to be unConstitutional, even by that crew of corporatists at the USSC. But it takes a grass roots voting effort to repeal it at its source, the elected officials. And those who make the money will show up at every single election. They aren't going away, so we have to get out and vote,or we will be the ones who allow it.

Equal Protection Clause

Welcome to Animal Farm. Where some animals are more equal than others. All your uteri are belong to us. This is why I see the wailing over the 4th, a particular fetish of the Paulites, to be the most hypocritical, when half the populace have lost their rights under the 4th in the most intrusive manner by the actions of the Kochoctopus. Wait, I think I hear our allies in protecting women's rights rising up in their defense of the violation of privacy for women!

And what is that sound I hear building from those who scream about the Fourth in the distance? Is it cicadas this time? No, it's the same damn crickets. Animal Farm again.

It took a Civil War to get the 14th with more death than any other war the USA has been involved in, percentage wise in population. Other laws like the Voting Rights Act and other amendments are also written in the blood of those who wanted to see this nation become all it could be, and was intended to evolve into.

The original Constitution the Koch funded Tea Party and Libertarians and others want to beat everyone over the head with the sacred relic of their religion, was not what it has been amended to be, as the Founders intended:

As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality. ~ George Washington

The original did not have the right to vote for women, minorities and the young, or those who did own property. It enshrined giving representation in the fraction of 3/5th per slave to slave owners. The very people they held in chains were used to increase their power in government, which was a grievous and mind-shattering depravity. As the GOP seek to deny the right to vote to millions, they likewise intend to use the census numbers of those they deny a voice, to grant them more power. As another Founder said:

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever. ~ Thomas Jefferson

We should be trembling over inequality and unjust treatment of large groups of people from basic rights. Not from being online, or the ones that media wave in front of us as an apocalyptic vision of authoritarian dystopia. Those visions are used to discourage and scatter those who would stop it happening. There are many more millions beyond the myopic scope of the classes of people with enough wealth to truly participate in this venue here online. The invisible ones who talked person to person and showed up to re-elect Obama to the horror of media shills. Their well-paid diversions failed, and no wonder they were in shock. As they believe that dollars equal freedom of speech, as they are paid handsomely, there may have been a bit of anxiety over their incomes.

And back to the original Constitution that some cry about, even going as far back in time to invoke the Magna Carta, that only applied to freedmen, not women or slaves. There are many who state and are working to re-create, the Articles of Confederation to guarantee their liberties, just as they had then. The Constitution was too liberal and godless for them, as they've said. But Democrats like it that way, as they believe in evolution, too.

And Native Americans were only mentioned in the most derogatory terms from the outset of this nation in primary founding documents. No, we have come a long way, but billionaire owned media has been used to destroy us. Our natural love of knowledge and scientific invention, has been used to enslave us.

Ironic, now, that the media owners have created a caste system of the mind, from which they have not spared our bodies either. They have used modern technology to assign segments of the populace to indulge in and masturbate mentally to fantasy, superstition and mind-numbing cultism by appealing to the lowest denominators of human behavior, fear, panic, hate and the love of scandal.

We are in danger from the ground up, and focusing on the head is not what the GOP have done. They have mutated the grass roots and the stolons have multiplied like weeds. We have not choice but to focus on GOTV.

July 1, 2013

From 'Cut the Crap, a common sense look at progressive politics. Truth has a liberal bias. Use it.'

Glenn Greenwald's Anti-Obama Vendetta Continues

May 30, 2013

http://pleasecutthecrap.typepad.com/main/

Mild stuff. I'm not really mad at GG. He's just a tool. Stronger stuff here, even though this is an old story:

Koch Whores

Glenn Greenwald Of The Libertarian Cato Institute Posts His Defense Of Joshua Foust…The Exiled Responds To Greenwald

By Team eXiled, January 3, 2012

A few charges are made about the CATO Institute, which fans have no problem with because XYZ covers all objections? And even though any self-proclaimed should.

Because it was founded and has been used by the Koch brothers for their agenda to slaughter the poor and the civil rights of Americans under the glorious names of liberty and freedom. Animal Farm style.

In the next few paragraphs, GG defends himself. Good defense on drug policy but is that sufficient to give him a pass when so many others support legalization, too? Not unlike a standard liberal. Then the reply:

...Moreover, as Greenwald himself knows better than anyone, his ties to the Cato Institute and the Koch-funded libertarian nomenklatura go deeper than this. For example, Glenn Greenwald was one of the keynote speakers at an elite “Cato Benefit Sponsors” event, featuring Glenn and Cato fellow P.J. O’Rourke and winger Michael Barone. Who among progressives is invited as a top entertainer for the elite Cato Institute Benefit Sponsors event? Glenn Greenwald, that’s who.


Glenn Greenwald, “freelancer,” entertains more than 100 Cato Benefactors

My question is why would anyone want to spend any time with those fuckers? I wouldn't wanna be in the same zipcode. They mean me no fucking good. It's not like they put a gun up to GG's head. No, these are friends and colleagues. And it costs money to gallivant all over the world.

So who's paying the bill? We know who pays a lot of the Kochroaches. We know who pays O'Keefe and Rove and the whole swarm of ratfuckers. Certainly they have the ability to sway the masses, or they wouldn't be in the inner circle. Glib of tongue and able to fashion a tale.

Don't think they are not going to get paid for this. And why would GG stop shilling to get money to pay for his own bills? And who foots his lifestyle? It ain't pennies from heaven and it ain't magic, folks.

Okay, back to the eXiled:

But even if Greenwald’s ties to the Cato Institute didn’t go deeper, the idea that taking money from the Koch brothers for a one-year drug-decriminalization project shouldn’t be disclosed each time Greenwald attacks progressives while defending the Kochs’/libertarians’ pet projects—as when Greenwald defended Citizens United, much to progressives’ confusion, or when Greenwald attacked our article in The Nation about the Koch-funded libertarians leading the anti-TSA union campaign—is plain wrong and ridiculous. Payoffs and influence-peddling usually come in more subtle forms than payments marked “BRIBE.” In Russia, bankers would pay off government ministers not by giving them money earmarked “Vzyatka” but rather by giving them a “book advance” on a completely unrelated, intellectual endeavor. But even in Russia, bribery schemes like that, which clearly tie the recipient of that money to the donor of that money, led to ministers being fired. So when the Koch brothers pay for Greenwald to spend a year on a policy whitepaper, even on something as “benign” as a drug policy whitepaper, we don’t see it as benign when Greenwald simultaneously protects libertarians, defends Citizens United, and attacks journalism critical of Koch-funded libertarians.

We find it disturbing that Greenwald never said a single critical word about his benefactors the Koch brothers until a Weekly Standard interview with Charles Koch in March 2011, which finally elicited a mildly critical column (by Greenwald’s standards) of his Koch benefactors.

We believe that when you take money from the Koch brothers and a notorious corporate-rightwing libertarian outfit like the Cato Institute, that you should disclose your conflict-of-interest when you attack the credibility of journalists who expose Koch-linked libertarians running the TSA media hype, as we did at The Nation, or when Greenwald defends the Citizens United decision against progressives, as Greenwald did in 2010, much to progressives’ confusion.

http://exiledonline.com/glenn-greenwald-of-the-libertarian-cato-institute-posts-his-defense-of-joshua-foust-the-exiled-responds-to-greenwald/

Someone is funding GG. It's not like it's never been done. It's not like they can't afford to pay an infinite variety of stooges to fuck with the minds of the public.

The Koch brothers are a bigger menace to democracy and civil rights than any past or current government program. Anyone who knows what ALEC has done to this nation, is aware that it's the Koch brothers plan.

GG supporting Citizens United supports the Koch brothers. Ratfucking Democrats supports the Koch brothers. GG supported Ron Paul and all the Paulies support Rand, who support the Koch brothers.

You know, Rand, personhood bills, end social security and all those liberal and progressive ideas. That's GG's kindred spirit. Which means GG doesn't give a fuck about me and I take it personally. As Tim Wise said in 2012:

Of Broken Clocks, Presidential Candidates, and the Confusion of Certain White Liberals

...And please, Glenn Greenwald, spare me the tired shtick about how Paul “raises important issues” that no one on the left is raising, and so even though you’re not endorsing him, it is still helpful to a progressive narrative that his voice be heard. Bullshit. The stronger Paul gets the stronger Paul gets, period. And the stronger Paul gets, the stronger libertarianism gets, and thus, the Libertarian Party as a potential third party: not the Greens, mind you, but the Libertarians. And the stronger Paul gets, the stronger become those voices who worship the free market as though it were an invisible fairy godparent, capable of dispensing all good things to all comers — people like Paul Ryan, for instance, or Scott Walker. In a nation where the dominant narrative has long been anti-tax, anti-regulation, poor-people-bashing and God-bless-capitalism, it would be precisely those aspects of Paul’s ideological grab bag that would become more prominent. And if you don’t know that, you are a fool of such Herculean proportions as to suggest that Salon might wish to consider administering some kind of political-movement-related-cognitive skills test for its columnists, and the setting of a minimum cutoff score, below which you would, for this one stroke of asininity alone, most assuredly fall.

I mean, seriously, if “raising important issues” is all it takes to get some kind words from liberal authors, bloggers and activists, and maybe even votes from some progressives, just so as to “shake things up,” then why not support David Duke? With the exception of his views on the drug war, David shares every single view of Paul’s that can be considered progressive or left in orientation. Every single one. So where do you draw the line? Must one have actually donned a Klan hood and lit a cross before his handful of liberal stands prove to be insufficient? Must one actually, as Duke has been known to do, light candles on a birthday cake for Hitler on April 20, before it no longer proves adequate to want to limit the overzealous reach of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms? Exactly when does one become too much of an evil fuck even for you? Inquiring minds seriously want to know.

Meanwhile, at what point do you stop being so concerned about whether a presidential candidate is pushing the issues Paul raises (so many of which do need raising and attention), and realize what every actual leftist in history has realized, but which apparently some liberals and progressives don’t: namely, that the real battles are in the streets, and in the neighborhoods, and in movement activism? It isn’t a president, whether his name is Ron Paul or Barack Obama who gets good things done. It is us, demanding change and threatening to literally shut the system down (whether we mean Wall Street, the Port of Oakland, the Wisconsin state capitol, Columbia University, a Woolworth’s lunch counter, or the Montgomery, Alabama bus system) who force presidents and lawmakers to bend to the public will.

In short, if you’re still disappointed in Barack Obama, it’s only because you never understood whose job it was to produce change in the first place. But don’t take out your own failings in this regard on the rest of us, by giving ideological cover and assorted journalistic love taps to a guy who believes the poor should rely on the charitable impulses of doctors to provide for their medical needs, including, one presumes, chemotherapy; or that America was meant to be a “robustly Christian” nation, but is being currently undermined by “secularists;” or who puts the term gay rights in quotation marks when he writes it, and believes states should be free to criminalize homosexual intercourse, and who is such a homophobe that he won’t even use the bathroom in a gay man’s house; or who has all but said that he would like to take America back to the early 1800s, in terms of the scope of government: a truly glorious time to be sure, if you were white, male and owned property.

Ya know, like some of the liberal “thinkers” who have, as of late, decided to praise Ron Paul.

http://www.timwise.org/2012/01/of-broken-clocks-presidential-candidates-and-the-confusion-of-certain-white-liberals/

A case can be made that the powerful have associations that don't match up to their highest ideals when they get in office. They have to face the beast in the face to get things done for others. But that's not what's going on between these media figures and the Koch brothers. And you can't run from the deadly stench that comes from hopping in bed with the Koch brothers. No, that doesn't wash off.



I want the Koch brothers and their enablers in media to quit fucking with my life and those of the people I love. They stop doing it and they'll get off my shit list.

July 1, 2013

But, but, Infowars says Putin is a patriot! And Cuba is the last refuge of freedom! No shit!

July 1, 2013

Or are Democratic Senators Leahy, Blumenthal, Tester, Udall and Wyden not acceptable here?

Anyone know where I can find and discuss Democratic lawmakers and officials and actions that match the Democratic Party platform?



http://www.democrats.org/democratic-national-platform

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/03/democratic-party-platform_n_1853120.html

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=101962

Uh, yeah, that old thing. I found a few websites. I need to find a person to talk to about this stuff!

http://www.politicususa.com/

https://www.dscc.org/

http://democratsforprogress.com/forum/

https://www.dscc.org/-/support-obama?action_KEY=727&track=SEM_GS_Evergreen13-S_Party_31970035892

http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Organizations/Political+Bodies/Democratic+Party

http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/politics/parties-movements/democratic-party-ORGOV0000005.topic

If another party is bigger on equality and can get the job done, somone needs to post a link for that. To show which politicans and political parties are acceptable.