Category: politics

Dana Blankenhorn:

Regulation is not anti-business. Regulation is crime prevention.

A properly-regulated market does not stifle innovation. It is not socialism.

Imagine Las Vegas without casino regulation. That’s today’s Wall Street.

That’s the reality of our time. We are ruled by a new criminal class, one surrounded by lawyers, flacks, and accountants, who not only believe they have a right to rape our land, kill our people and destroy our Constitution, but consider it a positive economic boon, necessary for economic growth.

There is nothing new here. If Mexico’s government can be mastered by drug dealers, then it’s the drug dealers who rule Mexico. If America’s government can be mastered by Wall Street or big business, then we are ruled by Wall Street and big business.

Opining in a white pointy hat, Rush Limbaugh fuels that Winfrey and other African-Americans owe their success to their skin color. Urinating on his white robe, the pied piper flames:

“If Obama weren’t black, he’d be a tour guide in Honolulu or he’d be teaching Saul Alinsky Constitutional law or lecturing on it in Chicago.

“He wouldn’t have been voted president if he weren’t black.

“Somebody asked me over the — oh, I need to remember. Somebody asked me over the weekend, why does somebody earn a lot of money, have a lot of money. I said it’s because he`s black.  It was Oprah. No, it can’t be. Yes, it is.

“There’s a lot of guilt out there. To show we’re not racist, we’ll make this person wealthy and big and famous and so forth.”

“Black people in this country never had a fair shake.

“It’s payback time… There’s no question that payback is what this administration is all about, presiding over the decline of the United States of America, and doing so happily.

Rush Limbaugh said July 2 that Obama tanked the economy on purpose as ‘payback’ for 230 years of racial oppression and because Obama simply doesn’t like America.

“Who is Obama? Why is he doing this? Why? Why is he doing it? Is he stupid? Is it an accident? Is he doing it on purpose or what have you?

“I think we face something we’ve never faced before in the country — and that is, we’re now governed by people who do not like the country, who do not have the same reverence for it that we do.

“Our greatest threat (and this is saying something) is internal.”

Limbaugh went on to compare Obama to the Black Panthers.

As of July 1, TSA employees will no longer be allowed to access five categories of websites that have been deemed inappropriate for government access.

1. chat or messaging,
2. controversial opinion,
3. criminal activity,
4. extreme violence including cartoons, and
5. gaming.

The TSA does not specify how to determine a controversial opinion.

Gin & Tacos:

This is how I feel about the American public, and specifically the American voter.

I don’t want to see them because doing so will serve no purpose other than to make me nervous. I don’t want to see their Confederate flag bumper stickers, Palin 2012 t-shirts, Left Behind books, and Insane Clown Posse tattoos. I don’t want to hear them regurgitating Glenn Beck monologues, talking about what Jesus told them the other day, or punctuating their speech with “done gonna” and “nuh-uhh.”

In short, I do not enjoy seeing the level of ignorance that we all understand is pervasive in our society

The etymology of the name Thomas began in the Greek word Θωμας. As I looked at Θωμας, I couldn’t help noticing ‘OW’ and thought of pain. I then thought of Thomas Paine and then wondered what odd circumstance fused ‘OW’ to both his first and last name.

Thomas Paine was wanted dead or alive for writing ‘Common Sense’ and ‘The Age of Reason’ which sparked both the American and French revolutions. I wonder what common sense and reason will deliver us from pain these days?

‘The truth has become all too painfully obvious, says Mick Arran. We are locked down, locked into a system which gives rights to the rich, the powerful, and the corporate.’

‘And it doesn’t seem to matter to anyone that this only makes things worse and worse. Believing that giving the rich control of the society will lead to economic prosperity for everyone is now dogma for the religion of $$$.  We’ve decided to take that on faith because the rich told us to.’

What The Hell Am I Supposed To Do With All These Constitutional Rights?

“Too much of one thing can cause a person a lot of stress, and you know what’s stressing me out? All these rights guaranteed to me by the U.S. Constitution. There’s like—how many—a couple dozen?

“And they keep adding more! Isn’t that a bit much? Did anyone even ask me if I wanted all these rights? No, they did not.

“And, to be honest, I’m a little chafed about it. It’s hard enough keeping up with the bills in my mailbox without some huge Bill of Rights hanging over my head.

“People are always talking about rights, or protecting them, or trying to get me to exercise them. Enough already!”

Three years. One mayor.

• Built 100 pre-schools with permanent funding.
• Built 52 schools, refurbished 150, added 14,000 computers and increased enrollment 34 percent.
• Established or refurbished 1200 parks and playgrounds.
• Built three large and 10 neighborhood libraries.
• Reduced traffic by 40 percent.
• Created a bus system for 500,000.
• Brought water to 100 percent of households
• Bought land to prevent speculation and ensure affordable housing, schools, power, water, telephone, parks and greenbelt.
• Established 185 miles of bikeways.
• Created the world’s longest pedestrian street, 10 miles, with 30 miles of pathway.
• Inaugurated an annual car-free day for everyone from CEOs to janitor.
• Planted 100,000 trees.
• Saw the murder rate fall by two-thirds.

From Paul Revere to Sarah Palin, we do not know our country.

One quarter of Americans do not know which country we fought for independence. Look at this survey! One-third of women and 40% under 30 do not know.  Many answered France, Germany, Mexico or China.

Marist Institute Poll of USA Residents Great Britain Unsure Other country Total 74% 20% 6% Region Northeast 84% 10% 6% Midwest 74% 21% 5% South 68% 26% 6% West 75% 18% 7% Income Under $50,000 63% 30% 7% Over $50,000 86% 9% 5% Race White 82% 13% 5% Non-white 56% 35% 9% Age 18 to 29 60% 33% 7% 30 to 44 75% 15% 10% 45 to 59 79% 17% 4% 60 or older 76% 19% 4% Age Under 45 67% 24% 9% 45 or older 78% 18% 4% Gender Men 81% 12% 7% Women 67% 28% 5%

Journalists in this country suffer from a profound confusion about who they’re supposed to be working for.

Matt Taibbi:

True, the Pentagon does have perhaps the single largest public relations apparatus on earth – spending $4.7 billion on P.R. in 2009 alone and employing 27,000 people, a staff nearly as large as the 30,000-person State Department – but is that really enough to ensure positive coverage in a society armed with a constitutionally-guaranteed free press?

And true, most of the major TV outlets are completely in the bag for the Pentagon, with two of them (NBC/GE and Logan’s own CBS, until recently owned by Westinghouse, one of the world’s largest nuclear weapons manufacturers) having operated for years as leaders in both the broadcast media and weapons-making businesses.

…

They don’t need your help, and you’re giving it to them anyway, because you just want to be part of the club so so badly. Disgustingly, that’s really what it comes down to.

Most of these reporters just want to be inside the ropeline so badly, they want to be able to say they had that beer with Hillary Clinton in a bowling alley in Scranton or whatever, that it colors their whole worldview. God forbid some important person think you’re not playing for the right team!

Her Majesty’s Government is seeking public input to remove silly and burdensome laws that have accumulated over the years. What a task!

We’re working to create a more open and less intrusive society. We want to restore Britain’s traditions of freedom and fairness, and free our society of unnecessary laws and regulations – both for individuals and businesses.

Nigel Powell puts it well: “So the new UK government has set up a site called Your Freedom asking for public votes on which laws to repeal and which to keep.

“It’s just about the most unreal thing you could ever imagine a government doing….

“Still it’s a noble exercise and an unbelievably bold attempt to move the antiquated, broken, discredited and inefficient art of government and politics into a new century.”

A figure very hard to reconcile: Revenue for the more than 11,000 federal lobbyists rose 5 percent last year, to more than $3.5 billion! I’m stunned. A year of nightly 60 Minutes couldn’t explain this culture nor reveal the players.

We live in two Americas.

One America, now the minority, functions in a literate world. It can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other America, which is the majority, exists in a non-reality-based belief system. This America, dependent on skillfully manipulated images for information, has severed itself from the literate culture. It cannot differentiate between lies and truth.

Chris Hedges:

Political propaganda now masquerades as ideology. Political campaigns have become an experience. They do not require cognitive or self-critical skills. They are designed to ignite pseudo-religious feelings of euphoria, empowerment and collective salvation.

Campaigns that succeed are carefully constructed psychological instruments that manipulate fickle public moods, emotions and impulses, many of which are subliminal. They create a public ecstasy that annuls individuality and fosters a state of mindlessness.

Drew Curtis, founder of crowd aggregator Fark.com:

The ‘wisdom of the crowds’ is the most ridiculous statement I’ve heard in my life.

Crowds are dumb. It takes people to move crowds in the right direction, crowds by themselves just stand around and mutter. Only one percent of web comments have any value and the rest are ‘garbage’.

Curtis pointed to the America Speaking Out website launched by House Republicans to “allow the public to weigh in” on the issues. Curtis called the site an absolute train wreck. “It’s an absolute disaster. It’s impossible to tell who was kidding and who wasn’t.”

Ensuring there’s enough money to pay for the war will require reforming the country’s entitlement system, said House Minority Leader John Boehner, adding that the retirement age must be raised to 70.

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Ephesians 6:12

After transferring trillions of dollars of bad debt or toxic assets from the books of financial speculators to those of governments, global financial moguls, their representatives in the State apparatus and corporate media are now blaming social spending (in effect, the people) as responsible for debt and deficit!

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer says most illegal immigrants are drug mules:

“Well, we all know that the majority of the people that are coming to Arizona and trespassing are now becoming drug mules.

“They’re coming across our borders in huge numbers. The drug cartels have taken control of the immigration.”

Although it is common knowledge that Mexican drug cartels have merged human smuggling with drug trafficking, 20,000 border patrol agents and staff  have formally disputed her claims pointing out that drug smugglers are typically transporting much larger quantities of drugs!

Republican Senator Orin Hatch introduces drug testing for the unemployed!

Counter comment:

Politics can stay irrational longer than the unemployed can stay solvent.

Austerity is in full political swing, and unlikely to improve, except in the improbable scenario that Congress remains Democratic in the midterm elections.

The easiest way to lead people by the nose is through their morality.

“Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.”—Herman Melville

Seth Godin:

The easiest way to make noise within a community is to divide the tribe.

Modernism, classicism, realism, impressionism–dividing things into schools of thought–or even warring camps–makes it easy to create tension and thus attention.

I’m running out of patience for people who would further their personal or media goals by dividing us in exchange for a cheap point or a few votes.

If members of a tribe encourage schisms and cheer on the battles, is it any wonder that it’s hard to create forward motion? When we’re not in sync, power is dissipated.

Thoughtful conversation, dissent and disagreement are an essential part of growth. Intentionally pitting people against one another to make a few bucks is dangerous self-indulgence. The hardest part of being patriotic to your cause is rooting on the whole even when it’s easier to be a cynical critic.

A prostitute is more likely to have sex with a police officer than to get officially arrested by one.

via An Empirical Analysis of Street-Level Prostitution

A majority of scientists who dispute global warming lack the climatological expertise to do so.

In the unconvinced camp of climate change, 908 researchers publishing in scientific journals from around the world are less expert in the field and also less likely to be trained in climate science.

Scientific American; June 21, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Today, the federal government is considering a second revolution in energy. The issues are more abstract than those of the 1930s. We no longer have insufficient energy infrastructure. We have the wrong infrastructure.

Wallace C. Turbeville:

In the 1930s, a great many Southerners had no access to electricity. The Roosevelt administration perceived an enormous opportunity to restructure the region’s economy. By building facilities to bring power to the rural South, jobs would be created from thin air to mitigate the unemployment of the Great Depression. More importantly for the long run, commercially vibrant communities would replace subsistence farms. For the people directly affected, lives of toil and sweat would be a thing of the past; for the nation, large populations would be integrated into the economy for the first time, helping to assure sustainable and diverse growth in the post-depression era.

The political effects were dramatic. Robert Caro, in his epic biography of Lyndon Johnson, described the brutal life of West Texas before the creation of the Lower Colorado River Authority. He pointed out that the dramatic life-changing effect of rural electrification spawned a fierce loyalty to New Dealers like Johnson. This persisted throughout the South for three decades until, ironically, Johnson’s Civil Rights legislation snuffed it out.

For those 30 years, electrification and other tangible benefits of the New Deal drove political discourse in this country.

For the next three decades (and still), the Civil Rights legislation animated politics. The issue morphed from overt racism to resentment of the federal government telling people what to do. We must remember to thank Rand Paul for reminding us of the connection between race and the radical right.

72% of telco lobbyists are former government officials,
100s plucked from the federal government, 
including eighteen former members of Congress.

Not in the news via Mike ‘They Took Our Spectrum’ Masnick

White House bumps lobbyists from advisory boards and commissions – of which there are thousands throughout the executive branch.

For too long, lobbyists have wielded disproportionate influence in Washington.

It’s one thing for lobbyists to represent their clients’ interests in petitions to the government, but it’s quite another, and not appropriate, for lobbyists to hold privileged positions that enables them to advocate for their clients from within the government.

To this day, children are born grotesquely disfigured with webbed hands and feet, weak immune systems, stunted growth, and congenital disorders.

A lethal plume of gas escaped in the early hours of December 3, 1984 killing thousands instantly as they choked to death.

“Mr. Warren Anderson, today you are known only for your role in the disaster, your name is met only with hatred by hundreds of thousands of Bhopalis, and people all over the world.

“The only way that you can change that, to clear your name, is to make a moral statement for justice in Bhopal.

“And then, you can live the rest of your life in peace, with your head held high, knowing that you made a difference.”

A child activist group “Kids For A Better Future” led a siege on Dow Chemical in New York challenging its top executive Warren Anderson who was arrested in India after the accident but fled the country.

Haiti Rewired:

Were there any things that you weren’t expecting that turned out to be problems or learning experiences? Is there anything that you wish you had to move things along in ways that you’re not able to now?

Emergency Shelter Coordinator:

I had not expected so many layers in decision-making.

Coordination, support cells. There are military coordination meetings. There are presidential meetings. There are inter-cluster meetings. Humanitarian camp committee meetings — all on the national level.

Some layers in decision making could be avoided. We could cut down that to some kind of major meeting where we do these major decisions. If you have the President of the country in there and the main UN bodies, the cluster coordinators of the different sectors, that would be sufficient. But to have another one with military another one with the UN another one with the President, another one with ministers, that’s a bit tricky.

You know, I just came from one meeting where half of the meeting contained with reporting what happened in the other meetings.