August 6, 2009 archive

August 6; what does that remind me of?

64 years ago, the United States blew up Hiroshima, killing over 110,000 people.

Many of our favorite ‘left’ wen sites have nothing about this at all, in their effort to not piss off any potential web traffic.

But still there’s a few interesting items:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

http://www.politics.co.uk/news…

http://www.truthdig.com/report…

Four at Four

  1. Sure good to see President Obama looking out for corporate America. The NY Times reports White House acknowledges it will protect Big Pharma.

    Pressed by industry lobbyists, White House officials on Wednesday assured drug makers that the administration stood by a behind-the-scenes deal to block any Congressional effort to extract cost savings from them beyond an agreed-upon $80 billion.

    Drug industry lobbyists reacted with alarm this week to a House health care overhaul measure that would allow the government to negotiate drug prices and demand additional rebates from drug manufacturers.

    In response, the industry successfully demanded that the White House explicitly acknowledge for the first time that it had committed to protect drug makers from bearing further costs in the overhaul.

    Meanwhile, Congress seeks $1 trillion to cover the the health legislation.

  2. ABC News reports Environmental groups say Obama’s mining pick is an industry stooge. President Obama’s nominee to oversee the American coal mining industry is Joseph Pizarchik, Pennsylvania’s top environmental official for mining since 2002.

    “Pizarchik’s office, the Bureau of Mining and Reclamation for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, has drawn fire in the past for taking steps that activists and others said limited public input on controversial mining projects… Activists also object to Pizarchik’s support of disposing toxic ash from burned coal into Pennsylvania mines, which they say leads to poisoned streams and drinking water.”

    “The consensus among several current and former Office of Surface Mining employees was that Pizarchik was likely to speed approval for mining projects, not address environmental concerns, said Jeff Ruch of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.”

  3. McClatchy reports Older workers hang on to jobs longer because they have to.

    “Everyone is seeing huge increases in unemployment – people dropping out of the labor force across the board – but older workers have seen a big increase in labor-force participation since the start of the recession. And I think it has a lot to do with declining retirement security,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research group.

    A close look at work force data reveals that when the recession began in December 2007, workers 55 and older constituted 18 percent of the labor market. Today, they make up more than 19 percent. That means more Americans are working well into what would have been retirement, by choice and, increasingly, by necessity…

    “For older people right now, the crisis is not jobs, it is wealth,” Shierholz said. “They thought they had money tied up in their homes, and that’s gone or halved. If they have a 401(k), they’ve also seen a decline there … they are simply not leaving the labor force. In fact, they are still coming in.”

  4. The Hill reports Harry Reid opposes democratic elections for senate vacancies. “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Thursday that he will oppose an effort to require that Senate vacancies be filled by election instead of gubernatorial appointment… Earlier in the day, the Senate Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee advanced a proposed constitutional amendment sponsored by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) to require that Senate vacancies be filled by direct elections.”

    “I’m not in favor of our dictating to a state what it should do,” Reid told reporters. “We have a system now where some states have special elections and some have governors appoint.

Hush little baby, don’t you cry ……

Yup, things can’t be that bad in America if we continue to kill innocent foreign children in faraway countries.

That means the war machine is working well.  Ratcheting up the demonic hatred, guranteeing that America will have more “enemies” to slaughter in the future, so we can keep the trillion dollar war machine moving right along.  God knows that employs a lot of people!  

The only problem I’m having with this is remembering when Afghanistan attacked us?  When did the Afghan people attack the United States of America?   I’m drawing a blank here.  Somebody help me out.


‘What was the fault of my innocent children? They were not Taliban,’ Rahim said. “Did they come here to build our country or kill our innocent children?’

Oh, Rahim, Rahim.  You just don’t understand.  We can’t withdraw from your country and we cannot quit killing your children because that would make our dear El Presidente look like a “failure!”  Or worse, a wimp!   So you and your children will continue to be sacrificed as part of the President’s PR machine.  And it’s okay, really, because most Americans will never see these photos, or hear about your kids, or anything.  Even the well-intentioned “liberal” of them will be more concerned with the rantings of an actor named Glenn Beck, or doing the bidding of their corporate leaders to keep themselves from having health care, than they will be with your dead children.

It’s all about the PR, baby.  It’s all about “image”.  We can’t have the President look like a failure, now, can we?  And he can only be a “success” if “you people” quit being terrorists!  Oh wait, you’re not terrorists?  Well, somebody there must be, or we wouldn’t be bombing you, right?  Right!

The Pathetic Wails of a Dying Paradigm

TomP has a great post up at Dkos…White Racists Want Their America Back. and many others in the blogoshpere and even the TradMed! are commenting on the Screamer/Birther/Racists. Me too!

Becuase in my view, it is MUCH bigger than “just” racism that is driving all of this. Though racism is a huge component, and as Tom points out, it is the goad that is driving these folks.

Electing an African-American was the most progressive thing we could do.  Until we deal with race in this nation, until the racism of white privilege is extinguished, progressive outcomes will always be difficult to obtain.  And electing Obama is beginning of the end of white racism as way of life in this nation.

But this phenomenon is far bigge than “just” racism. It is about the very paradigm that has defined our world for the past 500 years or more. It is about Manifest Destiny. It is about Race, Religion, Money/Calvinism….it is about power.

It is about who rules the world and how they rule it. And I am not talking about ruling it physically, militarily, or even politically. It is about whose ideas rule the world.

It is about the paradigm that rules the world…and has ruled the world since Eurpean explorers set out in their tiny little ships with their muskets and crude cannon to conquer the world.  

Fight back against health insurance Lies

POWERFUL

News Corpse: Rupert Murdoch Attempts Suicide

Murdoch’s paywall is a gift to the competition

The UK Telegraph, Shane Richmond, August 06, 2009

They’ll be doing the conga round the office at The Daily Mirror today following news that Rupert Murdoch plans to charge for the online versions of The Sun and The News of the World by next summer.

It’s not clear exactly what the plan is but based on Murdoch’s comments it sounds like a paywall. He said: “The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive distribution channels but it has not made content free. We intend to charge for all our news websites.”

Ok, now repeat after me:

We have never charged for news.

We have never charged for news.

We have never charged for news.

Back to Murdoch: “Quality journalism is not cheap.”

I’m sorry, I thought we were talking about The Sun.

This is a great opportunity for the Mirror, The Daily Star and, I suppose, producers of pictures of topless women, to hoover up those Sun readers who aren’t sure whether they want to pay.

UPDATE: Beck to nutjobs: “It is not time to blow anything up” (with comment by Keith Olbermann!)

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    “When will someone stand up and say traitor!?”

~snip~

   “The American way of life is being systematically dismantled and destroyed. The Republic is in danger. We are tired of everyone in the U.S. Congress, Democrats, Republicans, everyone, and they don’t care, but believe me, they better start. Otherwise, as I said on O’Reilly last night, we are entering the most dangerous time in American history.”

                 – Glenn Beck

   “It is not time to pick up guns . . . It is not time to blow anything up”

    I call bullshit on Beck’s pre-emptive Cover Your Ass job.

    Glenn Beck and his insane on air ravings are brought to you by billionaire Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation.

     

On Making Money, Or, Art Can Help New Orleans

The long, lazy days of summer are upon us, and it’s time to have a little fun-but it’s also a great opportunity to volunteer a bit of spare time for a good cause.

So imagine how cool it would be if you could combine the two…and even better, do it in a way that doesn’t take a bite out of your wallet…and even better yet, if it was something you and the kids could do together.

Imagine no more, because it has been done; which is why today we are going to be talking about lead in the soil of New Orleans, Operation Paydirt…and Fundred Dollar Bills.

Docudharma Times Thursday August 6

U.S. Considers Remaking Mortgage Giants

‘Bad Bank’ Would Wipe the Slate Clean for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac by Taking Their Toxic Loans

By Zachary A. Goldfarb and David Cho

Washington Post Staff Writers

Thursday, August 6, 2009


The Obama administration is considering an overhaul of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that would strip the mortgage finance giants of hundreds of billions of dollars in troubled loans and create a new structure to support the home-loan market, government officials said.

The bad debts the firms own would be placed in new government-backed financial institutions — so-called bad banks — that would take responsibility for collecting as much of the outstanding balance as possible. What would be left would be two healthy financial companies with a clean slate.

The moves would represent one of the most dramatic reorderings of the badly shattered housing finance system since District-based Fannie Mae was created by Congress to support mortgage lending during the Great Depression. Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, based in McLean, have government charters to buy home loans from banks, which they then repackage and sell to investors. The banks can then use the proceeds to offer more loans to home buyers.

Blackwater accused of murder in ‘crusade to eliminate Muslims’

From The Times

August 6, 2009


Tim Reid in Washington

A series of allegations including murder, weapons smuggling and the deliberate slaughter of civilians have been levelled against the founder of Blackwater, the security company being investigated for shooting deaths in Iraq.

The accusations, including a claim that the company founder Erik Prince either murdered or had killed former employees co-operating with federal investigators, are contained in sworn affidavits lodged at a Virginia court on Monday night.

The company was the most prominent of an army of private security companies employed by the Pentagon and State Department to protect military convoys and guard US diplomats in Iraq.

The accusations against Mr Prince are being made by two former employees, including a former Marine, who have sworn them anonymously as John Doe No 1 and John Doe No 2, because they said they feared for their lives if their identities were revealed.

Muse in the Morning

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Muse in the Morning

2009 Poems


Contact

Compare and Contrast

This space is vast

with room for all of us

to try to live

fulfill our dreams

yearn for love

pursue happiness

The difference

between us

is that some

hate the others

and it is not us

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–July 10, 2009

Late Night Karaoke

Open Thread

Media neglects to mention gym shooter was right-winger and racist

Found this over at Rawstory.com:

How many people realize that the fitness club killer in Pittsburgh was a right-winger and a racist?

I’ll bet almost nobody.

That’s because the media isn’t telling you.    


George Sodini, the man who took the lives of four women, and then his own, at a Pittsburgh-area fitness club Wednesday, leaves behind a long history of right-wing anti-government militancy.

In political rants on the Internet, going back to the early days of the Web, Sodini showed a consistently anti-government attitude. As first reported by Greg Mitchell at his Huffington Post blog, in the mid-1990s Sodini posted to a newsgroup titled misc.activism.militia, where right-wing libertarians and survivalists compared notes on the state of politics, and made plans for upending the “socialist” policies of the Clinton White House. Sodini appeared to support a violent overthrow of the US government in order to return the country to its “Constitutional order.”

(snip)

The Associated Press and other news outlets have omitted references to President Barack Obama, the election of “The Black Man” and remarks that black men have “their choice of the best white” women when republishing excerpts of the diary by a Pittsburgh-area man who killed three women and himself at an LA Fitness gym Tuesday evening.

In fact, the Associated Press’ primary story contains no reference to Obama at all, even though the first entry of the killer’s diary came the day after Obama was elected and references Obama’s election directly.

The omission was noted by the blog of Editor and Publisher.

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