The Pony Party is a place to kick back, relax, enjoy some LOLs and have fun. It is an Open Thread: please do not rec. But please DO add your own LOLs, vids, or whatever in the comments.
moar funny pictures
June 2009 archive
Jun 04 2009
Legacy of Wars…………
Special Initiative on Agent Orange/Dioxin
Backround
From 1961 to 1971, U.S. military forces sprayed more than 20 million gallons of Agent Orange and other herbicides on forests and crops in southern and central Vietnam. The campaign had both human and environmental consequences. The immediate effect was to defoliate and destroy vegetation over wide areas. The delayed impact came from dioxin, a highly toxic chemical in Agent Orange that is critically harmful to humans…………….
Jun 04 2009
Government doesn’t provide services to rich people
I’m morphing into a radicalized commie by the minute anymore. The mentality of our public officials regarding their responsibilities to society shows a utterly staggering disregard for the lower classes. The editor of the SF Bay Guardian, Tim Redmond, is equally incredulous at the world view of our ruling elites in the barking-mad basket case that is California:
The absolute most stunning statement of how messed up the state of California is emerged last week from the state director of finance, explaining why the proposed budget cuts fall so heavily on services for the poor. Let me quote directly from The New York Times:
“Government doesn’t provide services to rich people,” Mike Genest, the state’s finance director, said on a conference call with reporters on Friday. “It doesn’t even really provide services to the middle class.
“You have to cut where the money is,” he added.
Um … government doesn’t provide services to rich people? What about, say, the roads they drive on, and the airports they fly in and out of? What about the vast sums the state spends putting out fires that threaten wealthy enclaves in Southern California? What about the public education system, which trains workers for businesses? What about the entire criminal justice system, which exists to a significant extent to prevent poor people from taking rich people’s money?
Do you think Sergey Brin and Larry Page would have become Google billionaires if the Internet – developed and paid for by the government – didn’t exist?
(Emphasis supplied)
Jun 03 2009
Obama Willing to Consider Tax on Employer-Paid Health Benefits
President Obama, in a pivot from some of his harshest campaign rhetoric, told Democratic senators yesterday that he is willing to consider taxing employer-sponsored health benefits to help pay for a broad expansion of coverage.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said Obama expressed a willingness to consider changing the existing tax exclusion. The decision would probably anger liberal supporters such as labor unions, but such a tax change would raise enormous sums of money as Congress and the White House are struggling to find the estimated $1.2 trillion needed to pay for health-care reform over the next decade.
“Yeah, it’s something that he might consider,” Baucus told reporters after the meeting between Obama and Democratic lawmakers. “That was discussed. It’s on the table.” Obama had summoned about two dozen senators to the White House to keep up the pressure to enact a comprehensive health-care overhaul this year. –snip–
What is it that Baucus and his constipated cohorts just don’t get?
Jun 03 2009
Justice and Accountability: Why I Want to Go to NN 09
A Little Bit About Chacounne
My name is Heather and my mission is to stop torture as the law, policy and practice of the United States, and to have those responsible held legally accountable. That mission is in the name and memory of my husband, Dan, who was a US Vietnam vet who survived torture. Dan suffered from his injuries for over thirty years, until his fatal heart attack almost four years ago.
Going to Netroots Nation will help me with my mission. You can help make that happen.
If you’d like to help, please read the highlights of my application for a Netroots Scholarship below and consider signing up to support my application.
http://democracyforamerica.com…
With gratitude,
Hugs,
For Dan,
Heather
Jun 03 2009
Four at Four
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The NY Times reports a U.S. report finds errors in Afghan airstrikes. “A military investigation has concluded that American personnel made significant errors in carrying out some of the airstrikes in western Afghanistan on May 4 that killed dozens of Afghan civilians, according to a senior American military official.”
“Had the rules been followed, at least some of the strikes by American warplanes against half a dozen targets over seven hours would have been aborted. The report represents the clearest American acknowledgment of fault in connection with the attacks.“
Four at Four continues with Cheney oversaw torture Congressional briefings, Iraq halts cleaning up unexploded ordinance, and green energy investment passses fossil fuel investment.
Jun 03 2009
Does Anyone Still Doubt Our Government Has Been Bought?
The Bank and Financial Bailout. Now Health Care. Next Climate Crisis…..and oh yeah, War Crimes.
Over the last couple of days of watching Health Care get sold down the river, I have seen a couple of Senators shake their head and make the following statement…
“We just can’t pass Single Payer.”
Well……why not? What is stopping you? You are the most powerful legislative body in the world right? The People of the United States, your constituency, overwhelmingly wants Single Payer Health Care right? The Democrats have 59 votes, so all they have to do is turn ONE Republican right? So it is not that you “don’t have the votes” because of partisanship. Because it is not about partisanship, is it? All that talk by Democrats about how it was the Republicans who were stopping the Democrats from doing what the People want, what happened to that?
So……why? Why are Senators so convinced, so adamant, that it is simply impossible to give the American people, the people who voted you into office, the people who pay your salary, the people the Constitution SAYS you are there to represent, the people who are protesting….and suffering from…our current Health Care system, what they OVERWHELMINGLY want?
Why?
You have the power to do it, you have the public support to do it, you SHOULD have the votes to do it.
So what is stopping you?
Who is it that is FORCING you to go against the Will of the People, the people who voted you into office, the people who pay your salary, the people the Constitution SAYS you are there to represent?
Isn’t that the way our government is supposed to work? We The People elect you, We The People tell you what we want and you represent US by passing legislation to get what We The People told you to get us? Isn’t that….the deal? Isn’t that the very basis of our representative government? Isn’t that what our entire system of government is supposed to be based on?
You just gave the Banks BILLIONS of The People’s money…..against the Will of The People. You got the votes, somehow, to give money to Corporations.
Now it looks like we won’t even get the compromise of a Public Option, let alone the Single Payer that The People want.
Why, Senators? Why?
By Golly, it appears as if you are NOT working for The People doesn’t it?
In fact it appears that you have stopped even pretending to honor the deal. In fact it appears that you have stopped even pretending to work for The People.
.
In fact it is now blatantly obvious that you are working for the Corporations, not The People.
.
There is no longer any doubt is there, as our government prepares to sell The people out …again….for the umpteenth time, that our government has been bought.
In fact it is no longer OUR government at all. Our government now blatantly and openly is working for the Corporations, not us.
The Insurance Corporations, the Banking Corporations…and coming up the Energy and Pollution Corporations. As the officials WE elected pass legislation that favors the Corporations.
Let’s state this clearly, shall we?
The American Government is passing Legislation that is against the interests of The American People.
It has never been more obvious.
Our Government has been bought.
And is now working against us.
(And in the case of Climate Crisis legislation, against the future of the human race!)
Our Government has been bought.
What are we going to do about it?
.
.
Jun 03 2009
Protect Your First Amendment Rights, Don’t Limit Them
The terrorist assassination of Dr. Tiller there have been calls on the Left for to abhorring the words of people like Bill O’Reilly and Fox News as well as those involved with Operation Rescue and other anti-reproductive freedom groups. It is understandable when such a horrible act is committed to want to react in such a way as to prevent it from ever happening again. This has lead to calls for restricting the ability of those whose words may have encouraged and incited the anti-reproductive freedom terrorist, Mr. Roeder, to do so in the future. This is an understandable desire but one that should be strongly resisted.
“Originally posted at Squarestate.net“
Jun 03 2009
RepubliCons Won’t Be Back ELECTORALLY
I certainly agree with the jist of Something The Dog Said’s currently front-paged essay . . . the grand OLD ?Party? is sucking itself into a black hole of self-immolation, at least on the national level. Their base won’t support anyone who has the slightest chance of getting elected outside of the South and/or the Mormon belt out West; and they despise moderates who might ostensibly have a shot at it.
While in certain way, this of course fills me with glee, I think there’s potential downsides that need to be addressed as well.
Jun 03 2009
Look For The Union Label: Saving Jobs at the Company Making Obama’s Suits
I have some good news. This is a story of how worker activism along with the help of Democratic officeholders can save jobs.
First, my title. It’s title is derived from the fact that one of Workers United’s predecessor unions at Hartmarx was the International Ladies Garment Worker’s Union. Looks like the union label will stay on the President’s suits. (President Obama wore a Hartmarx suit at the Innaugaration, I believe.)
The 1978 ad:
Two weeks ago workers voted to hold a sit-in action at the factores of the company that makes Obama’s suits (Hartmarx) if Well Fargo sold it to a company that would close the plants and send the jobs overseas. This week, the bidder approved as the “stalking horse” bidder in bankruptcy is a good company who will keep jobs in Amerirca and honor the union contracts.
More, after the fold.
Jun 03 2009
A Long Time Ago, We Used to be Friends
Supposedly the universe is expanding at an incredible clip, faster and further than ever before. Well, the scientists are saying so, anyway…and since similar research has recently, and successfully, predicted other improbable things such as the Tampa Bay Rays making it to the World Series, or Barack Obama becoming President of the United States, why not trust the onward March of Science? There is untrammeled growth at every turn, unchecked expansion in every way. From my cushy corner of existence, however, the reality is quite the opposite. You see, my own mental and physical boundaries are most definitely shrinking, and have been for some time now. It isn’t as if I hadn’t seen it coming, either-hell, I aided and abetted the steady retrograde orbit even when I had the chance to do otherwise.
