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Even though 3Chics Politico is written and curated by three women: Ametia, Rikyrah, and SouthernGirl2, I must nominate this as one of the most engaging blogs I've found. Devoted to politics and culture, these three shine a light on contemporary life with humor and spirit.
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Hey SG2~ I saw your comment over at that other spot! Thank you for the support. I dumped as much information there as I could. Hopefully, people who have open minds will re-evaluate their opinions about the President since they now have information they may not have had before. I’m not holding my breath on that though but at least I tried…
You did an excellent job! Keep on bringing it!
September 11, 2011 9:20 AM The lesson of the Sherman Minton Bridge
By Steve Benen
We talked yesterday about the desperate need for public investments in infrastructure, and evidence from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics that suggest Republican leaders — for the sake of their own constituents — should drop their opposition to these investments.
As several commenters noted, the timing of this story in Mitch McConnell’s home state helps drive the point home.
The Sherman Minton Bridge was closed late Friday afternoon and will remain shut down indefinitely after officials discovered cracks in the span.
Will Wingfield, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Transportation, said officials “do not have an estimate” on how long it will take to repair and reopen the bridge, which carries Interstate 64 traffic across the Ohio River.
Wingfield said the cracks were found in two steel support beams below the lower deck closer to the Kentucky side.
For safety reasons, Indiana officials felt it necessary to shut down the bridge immediately and indefinitely. I’m not especially familiar with this area, but this apparently caused some rush-hour chaos on Friday night, as locals in Kentucky and Indiana scrambled to find alternate routes.
Kerry Stemler, co-chairman of the Ohio River Bridges Authority, called this a “wake-up call,” adding, “This shows how important these bridges are to the community and the region.”
Complicating matters, it appears much of the traffic that will be diverted to another nearby bridge, and as local official noted, that other bridge “already handles more traffic than what it was designed for.”
For every Republican in Congress who’s already arguing we can’t afford to invest in infrastructure, I think the evidence is pretty clear we can’t afford not to.
And just to expand a little more on a point we touched on briefly yesterday, it’s important to remember that now is the perfect time to make these investments — not only because the economy would benefit and because our infrastructure demands are so great, but also because it’d be cheaper to spend the money now rather than later.
Because borrowing rates are so remarkably low right now, we have a unique opportunity that we won’t see again for a very long time. Indeed, policymakers should be pinching themselves with the good fortune — they know the nation has important investments to make; they know they’d prefer to keep borrowing costs to a minimum; and they know they’re effectively being offered free money. Washington can use that free money to create jobs and improve crumbling infrastructure, with the satisfaction of knowing it’s never been more cost effective to do so.
I’ll leave it to Republicans to once again explain why they don’t care.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_09/the_lesson_of_the_sherman_mint032121.php
September 11, 2011 8:00 AM
Luntz’s tired 9/11 talking points
By Steve Benen
Frank Luntz chatted with Fox’s Neil Cavuto the other day about the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The Republican pollster briefly touched on whether the anniversary was a “positive” or a “negative.”
“You are correct, Neil. We do prioritize the economy first. And those presidential candidates who only talk about the economy without national security — they’re not going to connect to a lot of voters.
“But in the end, it is about who we are as a country and who we are as a people. I have to tell you, this essence of America being safe and secure is so important to our culture. It is important to American exceptional. It plays into our psyche.
“And when you don’t — I don’t think that this date that’s coming up in 48 hours — I actually think this is a negative, not a positive. Yes, it allows us to look back and say we haven’t been hit. Yes, it allows us to appreciate George Bush and Dick Cheney for keeping us safe.
“But in this end, it reminds us that we are vulnerable and that hurts our confidence.”
I’ll gladly leave it to others to evaluate the effect of the anniversary on the national psyche, but the notion that the day offers us an opportunity to “appreciate” the previous administration “for keeping us safe” strikes me as woefully misguided.
Indeed, such a claim should come with a series of pretty important caveats. Except for the catastrophic events of 9/11, and the anthrax attacks, and terrorist attacks against U.S. allies, and the terrorist attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Bush’s inability to capture those responsible for 9/11, and waging an unnecessary war that inspired more terrorists, and the success terrorists had in exploiting Bush’s international unpopularity, the former president’s record on counter-terrorism was awesome.
A variety of words come to mind when it comes to responses to the Bush/Cheney record, but “appreciation” isn’t one of them.
As Matt Yglesias noted a while back, “The overwhelming majority of Americans to ever be killed by foreign terrorists were killed during Bush’s presidency. And even if you give him a pass on 9/11 itself it’s still the case that his conduct of the ‘war on terror’ led to the deaths of thousands more Americans.”
I realize Frank Luntz gets paid very well to identify how best to mislead and manipulate public perceptions, but this tired “keeping us safe” talking point is easily dismissed by anyone who actually remembers the Bush era.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_09/luntzs_tired_911_talking_point032119.php
the President is on C-Span at the Kennedy Center Concert right now.
yes; we have guest visiting from Togo, and are watching. they LOVE PBO!
Walberg doesn’t want to hear from you about JOBS!
Tags: GOPocrisy, Hypocrisy, Jobs, MI-07, Tim Walberg
When this year’s crop of Republicans got elected, I went to their fledgling websites and looked for a section about “Jobs”. I didn’t find any which was pretty shocking. But, at that point, most of them were using the same basic boilerplate site, probably provided to them by the party or the government or something. So, I thought I should wait awhile for them to personalize their sites and most of them have done that.
I went to my Congressman’s site this morning, the site of Tim Walberg. I wanted to ask him to pass the job plan President Obama talked about last night (I know, I know, I’m wasting precious bandwidth on Quixotic ventures…) Here’s what I saw on his email contact page:
Notice something weird about my choices for “Topic”? Take a closer look:
Can you find anything related to jobs in that list? Me neither. I had to choose “Other”.
Given that they basically ran on a JOBS! JOBS! JOBS! mantra and beat up the President daily about the lack of job creation, this strikes me as GOPocrisy at its highest.
I just gotta ask, Congressman Walberg, where ARE the jobs? And why don’t you want to hear from me about that topic?
I also find it extremely telling that one of the topics is “Education/Labor”. The only possible reason I could think of for combining the two is that they are targets for being dismantled, kneecapped or otherwise harmed by Republican efforts. Otherwise, they are almost entirely unrelated.
Color me disgusted at the shameful hypocrisy of all of this.
http://www.eclectablog.com/2011/09/tim-walberg-doesnt-want-to-hear-from.html
Thank you, Gotta Laff, and The Political Carnival! Enjoy the rest of your day 3Chics, and friends.~
“Time to leave 9/11 behind” – Posted on Sunday, September 11, 2011, 11:19 am by GottaLaff
~snip~
Now take a quick look at Time to leave 9/11 behind by E. J Dionne in today’s Washington Post:
In the flood of anniversary commentary, notice how often the term “the lost decade” has been invoked. We know now, as we should have known all along, that American strength always depends first on our strength at home — on a vibrant, innovative and sensibly regulated economy, on levelheaded fiscal policies, on the ability of our citizens to find useful work, on the justice of our social arrangements.
This is not “isolationism.” It is a common sense that was pushed aside by the talk of “glory” and “honor,” by utopian schemes to transform the world by abruptly reordering the Middle East — and by our fears. While we worried that we would be destroyed by terrorists, we ignored the larger danger of weakening ourselves by forgetting what made us great.
We have no alternative from now on but to look forward and not back. This does not dishonor the fallen heroes, and Lincoln explained why at Gettysburg. “We can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow this ground,” he said. “The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.” The best we could do, Lincoln declared, was to commit ourselves to “a new birth of freedom.” This is still our calling.
Just two perspectives that I wanted to share with you that I found to have merit. We mourn, we cry, but we also must move forward.
http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2011/09/11/time-to-leave-911-behind/
Five alternative policies the U.S. could’ve pursued with money that has been spent on wars
Posted on Sunday, September 11, 2011, by GottaLaff
As we’re (sort of) winding down our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as we argue about how much money could be saved if our troops weren’t stationed all over the globe, as we find ourselves in very scary economic times, “using NPP metrics, ThinkProgress has assembled ten alternative policies that the United States could’ve pursued instead with this money that has been spent on the wars so far.” I’ll give you five of them, but then you have to link over to Think Progress for the rest of the list and their post:
– Give 23.6 Million People Access To Low-Income Healthcare Every Year For Ten Years
– Provide 20.68 Million Students With Pell Grants Worth $5,500 Every Year For Ten Years
– Provide Veterans Administration Care For 14.7 Million Military Veterans Every Year For Ten Years
– Hire 2.01 Million Firefighters Every Year For Ten Years
– Hire 1.73 Million Police Officers Every Year For Ten Years […]
The human costs are much more difficult to calculate…
http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2011/09/11/five-alternative-policies-the-u-s-could%E2%80%99ve-pursued-with-money-that-has-been-spent-on-wars/
NJ Governor Christie’s Secret Meeting With Koch Brothers Causes Political Firestorm – By Brad Friedman
~snip~
As I described in my BRAD BLOG piece linking to Part 2 at MoJo on Wednesday morning, the good citizens of the Garden State (and the whole of the mainstream media along with them) learned only yesterday that their Republican Governor had snuck out of state on June 26th, right after appearing on Meet the Press, jetted across the country to deliver the keynote address at the super-secret, ultra-exclusive gathering of rightwing corporate barons and billionaires — otherwise known as the Koch Brothers 2011 Summer Seminar — at a resort near Vail, Colorado, before he then flew back home to NJ that night, and went on to appear on three cable news shows, in studio in Manhattan, the next morning. Nobody ever knew he was gone — at least until my story broke at MoJo yesterday morning.
Since then, local media and politicos have been combing through our report — and Tuesday’s Part 1 before it, as described later that night. They’ve apparently, been digging through the full transcript of Christie’s remarks, and David Koch’s introduction to it, as transcribed from a secret audio recording of the goings on at the Koch fete, which we obtained from an insider source.
More on the Part 2 fallout, including new details, confirmations from officials, ignited firestorms and opened hornets’ nests below. But first, I wanted to front page these nice comments from an NPR report by Frank James, which helps to put this entire flurry of Koch muckraking in perspective:
The reports are well worth taking time to read not just for the secret thrill you’ll get from glimpsing something never intended for the public eye…It’s a look behind the curtain of how big money is raised in conservative circles that’s a worthwhile addition to our sum of knowledge about how American politics is practiced in the early 21st Century.
~snip~
Read more: http://www.alternet.org/news/152348/nj_governor_christie's_secret_meeting_with_koch_brothers_causes_political_fire
While McConnell Opposes Infrastructure Investment, Major Kentucky Bridge Shuts Down Over Safety Concerns By Travis Waldron on Sep 10, 2011 at 2:32 pm
Yesterday, ThinkProgress published a report detailing Republican Congressional leadership’s opposition to infrastructure investments even as structural deficiencies in bridges and roadways persist in their home states. Among those is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, where 34 percent of bridges are considered structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. The Sherman Minton Bridge, one of three major bridges spanning the Ohio River between Louisville, KY and southern Indiana, was among the Kentucky bridges listed as deficient. And last night, the Sherman Minton Bridge was closed after further deficiencies, including cracks, were found in a load-bearing part of its structure. The Louisville Courier-Journal reports:
The Sherman Minton Bridge was closed late Friday afternoon and will remain shut down indefinitely after officials discovered cracks in the span. Will Wingfield, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Transportation, said officials “do not have an estimate” on how long it will take to repair and reopen the bridge, which carries Interstate 64 traffic across the Ohio River.
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) ordered the closure of the bridge, as the state of Indiana maintains and operates the bridge. But the 49-year-old bridge serves as a major thoroughfare for Louisville, McConnell’s hometown and Kentucky’s largest city, carrying 50,000 people a day into or out of the city, according to Chuck Wolfe, spokesman for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. The state of Kentucky assists in maintenance and evaluation of the bridge’s structure. While the Sherman Minton Bridge is closed, much of its regular daily traffic will be re-routed over another bridge that was already slated to be inspected for structural damage Monday.
The closure came just a day after President Obama renewed his call for Congress to invest in infrastructure improvements to stimulate the economy and address the nation’s crumbling bridges and roads, as studies have shown the nation needs $2 trillion in investment just to bring its infrastructure up to date. McConnell criticized Obama’s plan, saying it was “a re-election plan.”
~snip~
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/09/10/316190/while-mcconnell-opposes-infrastructure-investment-major-kentucky-bridge-shuts-down-over-safety-concerns/
Local Radio Hosts School Maine’s Hapless GOP Chair on College Students’ Right to Vote
By Ernest A. Canning on 9/9/2011 4:59pm (With additional reporting and snark by Brad Friedman)
Maine’s GOP Chairman, Charlie Webster, displayed a remarkable level of ignorance about the right of college students to register and vote in the Pine Tree State during a recent appearance on local radio, weeks after virtually everyone in the state has been trying to explain to him that he is off his nut. Earlier this summer, Webster raised eyebrows (and more than a few laughs) when he brought the names of some 200 out-of-state college students to the ME Secretary of State, seeking an investigation for “voter fraud.”
“I am convinced that my research proves that [voter] fraud is a problem, and I’ve only found the tip of the iceberg,” Webster said during a press conference at the State House at the time, though he shared no evidence of any of the students having voted twice, or otherwise having illegally registered.
Webster’s “research” began after a petition effort was launched seeking a “voter veto” ballot initiative to reverse a law recently passed by the Republican-led state legislature ending the state’s 38-year-old practice of allowing for same-day voter registration. The new Maine law is just one of many new voter suppression efforts enacted by the GOP under the wholly unsupported guise of combating “voter fraud” in states across the nation over the past several months since the GOP took over many statehouses in the 2010 election. The state’s GOP chair has apparently never heard the old axiom about once you’re in a hole, stop digging…
~snip~
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8716
Thank you, Democrats.Org!
The Real Cost of Voter ID Laws
Across the country, Republican governors and legislators are pushing unnecessary and suppressive photo identification laws that would require all voters to produce a specific current government-issued photo ID before casting a ballot. Read the DNC Voting Rights Institute report on these proposals here:
The suppressive effects of these bills are well-documented: 11 percent of Americans—approximately 23 million citizens of voting age—lack proper photo ID and, as a result, could be turned away from the polls on Election Day. Those without photo ID are disproportionately low-income, disabled, minority, young, and older voters. Numerous non-partisan organizations have debunked claims of widespread voter fraud, the purported basis for these laws.
The Voting Rights Institute has studied the impact of photo ID laws using the actual costs incurred in Indiana and Georgia—the two states that have implemented photo ID laws—and considered the cost estimates from 17 states where photo ID laws were introduced this year.
In 2011, Republicans have advanced photo ID legislation in at least 35 states. The report concluded that if these 35 states enact a photo ID law, they collectively will spend at least $274 million, and possibly as much as $821 million, in the first four years alone. At a time when states are experiencing huge budget shortfalls, it would be an enormous waste to spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to disenfranchise voters.
[Click on link to view graphics.]
http://www.democrats.org/the-real-cost-of-photo-id-laws?source=DSH
Poor Michele! She’s pretty much out of the running after having been pushed to the sidelines by Romney and Perry but this snapshot of her “mindset” is still pretty…interesting.
Michele Bachmann Pledges To Openly Defy The Supreme Court On Reproductive Freedom
By Ian Millhiser on Sep 6, 2011 at 12:25 pm
At yesterday’s GOP candidate’s forum in South Carolina, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) told Princeton professor and anti-gay activist Robert George that she would support an unconstitutional bill attempting to reverse the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade:
GEORGE: Would you as president propose to Congress appropriate legislation pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment to protect human life in all stages and conditions? […] Given the clear mandate of the Fourteenth Amendment empowering Congress to enforce the guarantee of Equal Protection shouldn’t Congress act on that now?
BACHMANN: Yes, I believe that they should. […]
GEORGE: And if it meant a confrontation with the Supreme Court are you prepared for that?
BACHMANN: Most assuredly.
~snip~
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/09/06/312155/bachmann-will-openly-defy-supreme-court/
Obama Administration Finalizes LGBT-Friendly Hospital Policy
By Zack Ford on Sep 7, 2011 at 10:45 am
The Department of Health & Human Services has finalized new policy on hospital visitation rights for same-sex couples. According to a memo released today, hospitals that receive Medicare and Medicaid funds must allow patients to designate their own visitors as well as who can make emergency medical decisions, including same-sex partners. The Health Resources & Services Administration will also announce a $248,000 grant to help train community health centers on how to better serve LGBT populations.
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2011/09/07/313230/obama-administration-finalizes-lgbt-friendly-hospital-policy/
Holding liars accountable
Posted by Amanda Marcotte on 03:54 PM
If you’re anything like me, you probably spend a lot of your time fretting because right wingers have grown incredibly bold about bald-faced lying, and so far it seems there’s literally nothing that can be done about it. We have extensive freedom of speech protections, which is a good thing of course, but leaves us with few options to stem the ever-growing tide of lies emanating from a right wing that knows that it can’t make an honest argument. The mainstream media has basically abandoned its mission to correct lies with the truth. Some publications continue to fact check claims made by pundits, activists, and politicians, but it’s just not enough to counter the endless stream of lies and misinformation coming from the right. That’s why Fox News hates Media Matters so much—they have a machine-like approach to the lies, just debunking them in real time. Media Matters can’t get ’em all—that’s a super-human feat—but they’re the only people out there even approaching success with this.
Well, there is one door that is available, but not used especially often: lawsuits. Part of that is that it’s difficult to show damages with some of the lies that right wingers float, but not always. Some lies are actionable. Which is why I’m glad someone fought back against the aneurysm-causing lie that was in non-stop rotation during the health care debate, which is that health care reform somehow meant taxpayer-funded abortions.
A judge is allowing former Ohio congressman Steve Driehaus to sue the anti-choice Susan B. Anthony List for defamation, because as he sensibly pointed out, they were lying about whether abortion is “taxpayer-funded” under the Affordable Care Act. The irony is that Driehaus is anti-choice. He did, however, vote for health insurance reform, which meant that SBA decided to run the above billboards against him. Despite the fact that abortion is never paid for by federal funds (except extremely limited cases of rape and incest victims on Medicaid) and the ACA didn’t change the status quo, anti-choicers have been obsessed with insisting that it does by focusing on federal subsidies to private plans. In fact, after the fight over Stupak-Pitts and abortion nearly derailed the entire proceedings, pro-choicers were the ones wringing their hands over what Planned Parenthood called “unacceptable provisions on abortion.” Those were the ones outlined in an executive order affirming the Hyde Amendment and emphasizing enforcement of existing separation of federal funds and abortion services.
~snip~
http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/holding_liars_accountable
Rick Perry: The EPA ‘Won’t Know What Hit ‘Em’
By Stephen Lacey on Sep 6, 2011 at 10:34 am
Speaking at a campaign stop in his home state yesterday, Texas Governor and Republican Presidential Candidate Rick Perry announced his intentions to make the Environmental Protection Agency unapologetically pro-pollution. His remarks were reported by the Houston Chronicle:
“I’ll tell you one thing: The EPA officials we have an opportunity to put in place, they’re going to be pro-business, and there’s not going to be any apologies to anybody about it,” he said. “Those agencies won’t know what hit ‘em.”
It’s not hard to see why Perry would want environmental regulations to be crafted by polluters, considering that he’s taken $11 million from the oil and gas industry since 1998. Meanwhile, Perry has stepped up his attacks on climate science by falsely claiming that researchers manipulated data for money. Perry attended the town hall meeting shortly before surveying the damage from a catastrophic wildfire in central Texas. The fire was strengthened by winds from Tropical Storm Lee and a record-shattering drought in the state – two factors that climatologists agree will get worse as the world continues to warm. Wildfires have already burned a land area the size of Connecticut in state this year.
~snip~
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/09/06/312161/rick-perry-the-epa-won%E2%80%99t-know-what-hit-%E2%80%98em/
China Losing Low-Wage Apparel Jobs To Bangladesh And Southeast Asia
By Matthew Yglesias on Sep 7, 2011 at 11:30 am
For whatever reason, commodity apparel manufacturing represents the very lowest-end of the industrial food chain. These are the worst-paid, most labor-intensive jobs out there. They were the jobs that powered the original Industrial Revolution in the United Kingdom, they were the first jobs to start fleeing western countries, they were key to the early stages of catch-up growth in places like Korea and Taiwan, and after China’s “opening up” to commerce and trade they moved en masse to take advantage of the PRC’s vast pool of low-wage labor. But after fifteen years of gangbusters growth combined with a rapidly aging population, Chinese wages are rising and apparel jobs are moving on once again just as they have so many times in the past:
Last week, Jonathan Anderson, a UBS economist, released a report after crunching the numbers of the US and European Union’s import data for the first half of 2011. He found China’s light manufacturing share is starting to decline from more than 50 per cent to about 48 per cent. The beneficiaries include Bangladesh (up 19 per cent in exports to the US) and Vietnam (16 per cent). The first half of 2011 “looks a pretty convincing turning point”, says Mr Anderson of a shift in labour-intensive manufacturing to south-east Asia. India and the Philippines, by contrast, which should be “natural destinations” for labour-intensive investment, appear to be sitting out the action, he says.
When contemplating the post-industrial blues it is worth recalling that nobody feels wistful about the “good jobs” in the apparel sweatshops of yore. We remember instead the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. Relative to an extremely low level of economic development associated with widespread subsistence agriculture this sort of work is a step forward and hopefully the rise of light manufacturing in Bangladesh and Vietnam will power those countries on to better things in the future. But the goal is always to do what Japan, and then Korea and Taiwan, and now China are doing—move up to the next rung on the wage/skill ladder, not desperately try to find some way freeze the jobs of yore in place.
Our problem in America isn’t that the economy is transforming. It’s that the economy isn’t transforming fast enough to create rising wages in the face of an expanding global labor pool.
http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/09/07/313227/china-losing-low-wage-apparel-jobs-to-bangladesh-and-southeast-asia/
Newly-Confirmed Judge’s Nomination Was Almost Killed By A Transcript Error
By Ian Millhiser on Sep 7, 2011 at 5:40 pm
Last night, the Senate finally confirmed Judge Bernice Donald to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. During her confirmations process, however, three Republican senators questioned whether she should be elevated to the appellate bench after they uncovered a newsletter stating that Donald once suggested that her own experience as a racial minority may give her a different perspective on discrimination cases. These senators were forced to call off the hounds, however, after Donald conclusively proved that she never even made the statement in the first place.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/09/07/313823/this-is-how-messed-up-our-confirmations-process-is/
Republicans Blame Health Care Reform For Their Refusal To Create Jobs
September 7, 2011
By Rmuse
As a scientific discipline within biology, genetics is a relatively new field of study that is slightly over 150 years old, and through technological advances has enabled scientists to make predictions and develop treatments for myriad disorders. In genetics, a feature of a living thing is called a trait and they can be overt or unseen features that are controlled by heredity and environment. There is a trait among conservatives that may or may not be genetic, but regardless of the source, spreading misinformation and outright lies is endemic and a requisite feature of Republicans, corporatists, and right-wing media-types that is as predictable as the sun rising in the East. This vile trait is spreading to all media, but none more troubling than local newspapers that often provide the only political news residents ever see.
In an opinion piece carried in newspapers around the country yesterday, the president and founder of the Galen Institute, Grace-Marie Turner, argued that the Affordable Care Act was hampering economic recovery and that repealing the legislation was key to job creation. Now, whether Turner is predisposed to lying or not is irrelevant, because she is a liar here and now, and whether she learned or inherited the character flaw doesn’t change the fact that nothing in her article was remotely true. She proffered lame arguments rife with misinformation culled from the Koch brothers, Heritage Foundation, and the pharmaceutical industry that funds her work. Turner’s screed has her name attached to it, but the wording and phraseology was straight out of the Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, and Koch brothers manifestos that blame much of the nation’s economic ills on the yet-to-be fully-implemented health law. Turner started off with a bang-up line that said, “The best thing that Congress can do to unleash jobs creation is to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”
It is not coincidence that Turner, like Eric Cantor, has blamed Democratic legislation for killing jobs, and she followed Cantor’s lead by blaming job losses on laws that are not enacted yet. It follows then, that her specific numbers and reasoning are suspect from the start. She began citing a recent U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey that said 39% of small businesses say the law is either their first or second obstacle to new hiring. She also claimed that a bank president said “We’ve frequently heard strong comments to the effect of” my company won’t hire until we know what health insurance costs are going to be. But wait, Republicans have been claiming it was the cost of regulations, or corporate tax rates, or fuel costs that are the reason companies are not hiring new workers. The truth is that companies are not hiring because Americans are not spending because there are no jobs. Businesses of all sizes are sitting on large inventories and until Americans begin purchasing again, of course they will not expand and create jobs.
~snip~
Read more: http://www.politicususa.com/en/health-care-reform-gop-jobs
The GOP Wants To Raise Your Taxes By 25% – By Ray Medeiros
If you had any doubt about who the Republicans stand with and who they do not stand with, this quote from a Republican lawmaker says it all, “It’s always a net positive to let taxpayers keep more of what they earn,” says Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), “but not all tax relief is created equal for the purposes of helping to get the economy moving again.” Representative Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) wants the tax cut President Obama championed to expire. This is the payroll tax cut that reduces the taxes employees pay into Medicare and Social Security. It is also a targeted tax cut that ONLY effects those earning $106,800 dollars and less.
President Obama wants to extend this tax cut to spur the economy and increase consumer demand which is what many CEO’s say is stopping them from hiring more employees. This tax cut is saving a married couple each making $40,000, which is the average approximate wage in America, $1,600 dollars. Why would the Republicans NOT want to extend this tax cut? Let’s allow Republican leader, Eric Cantor’s spokesman Brad Dayspring explain, “All tax relief is not created equal. If the goal is job creation, Leader Cantor has long believed that there are better ways to grow the economy and create jobs than temporary payroll tax relief.”
The Republicans think that reducing taxes SPECIFICALLY for working families is a waste. They would obviously only want the wealthiest Americans and corporations to get a tax cut. The CBO did an analysis and found that cutting payroll taxes on the employer side could spur hiring faster than the tax cut on the employee side. President Obama is championing both tax cuts right now. This isn’t even part of the debate right now though. The GOP wants to cut income taxes NOT employer payroll taxes. There is ABSOLUTELY no difference in cutting the FICA payroll tax by 25% and cutting income taxes by 25%.
Why would the GOP want to raise YOUR TAXES by 25%? Well, there may be two reasons: The first reason the GOP might want to raise your taxes is the Social Security fund has become the way tax cuts for the wealthy have been paid for, since the days of President Reagan. (Read Greenspan Fraud for more into that issue). They bridged the gap of federal revenue created by tax cuts for the wealthy by dipping their hands into the social security fund. The second reason could be that they just DO NOT want to help the poor and middle class worker.
~snip~
http://www.politicususa.com/en/gop-tax-hike
I’m re-posting this video because it provides food for thought about the current issues we’re facing in this country. Something for us to think about… long and hard~
Thank you, Addicting Info~
43 Congressmen Join Effort To End Ethics Immunity For Supreme Court
September 10, 2011
By Stephen D. Foster Jr.
Forty-three Members of Congress have now joined Chris Murphy’s call to end the Supreme Court’s ethics immunity.Democratic Representative Chris Murphy of Connecticut issued a letter calling upon the House Judiciary Committee’s leadership to hold a hearing in an effort to pass his bill which ends the Supreme Court’s immunity to key judicial ethics laws. Murphy wrote the bill after numerous recent ethics scandals involving the Court’s most conservative members.
The letter reads as follows:
There have been alarming reports of justices – most notably Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito – attending political events and using their position to fundraise for organizations. These activities would be prohibited if the justices were required to abide by the Judicial Conference Code of Conduct, which currently applies to all other federal judges.
Recent revelations about Justice Thomas accepting tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of gifts from individuals and organizations who often have an interest in matters before the courts calls into question the Court’s impartiality. Canon 4D of the Code of Conduct incorporates regulations providing that “[a] judicial officer or employee shall not accept a gift from anyone who is seeking official action from or doing business with the court.” Yet Justice Thomas received a gift valued at $15,000 from an organization that had a brief pending before his Court at the very moment they gave him the gift. Incidents such as these undermine the integrity of the entire judiciary, and they should not be allowed to continue.
As stated above, 43 Congressmen have added their voice of approval to Murphy’s bill which adds a lot of weight to the effort to extend the code of conduct to the nation’s highest court. It also puts pressure on the Justices in question. Supreme Court Justices are appointed for life so it’s only fair that there be a code of ethics for them to adhere to, as well as consequences for violating it.
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/09/10/43-congressmen-join-effort-to-end-ethics-immunity-for-supreme-court/
Thank you, Fierce Advocate!
Facing The Black Dog-September 11, 2001 Ten Years Later
~snip~
September 11th 2001 did change this country, and I don’t think it changed it for the better. I was reading an excerpt from Michael Moore’s new book last night, and in it, he recounts the reaction to his Oscar speech in 2003. He talks about being threatened by email, phone and even personal attacks. He talks about being verbally abused by passerby in the street. He had to go and hire bodyguards-something he had never done before. Sure, some of what Mike talks about might be enhanced, so to speak. But, just the fact that he even got threatened (and he’s not the only one-the Dixie Chicks got death threats and such from mentally unbalanced assholes, too) should make every American pause and think. People being attacked and threatened with physical harm for DISAGREEING with a President over something he had done? Isn’t that in the 1st Amendment? Just because we got attacked does not mean we throw the Constitution in the circular file and tell the Founding Fathers they were being unrealistic when they wrote it.
This is a dark and angry period like no other in this country’s history. I fear that we may be heading for another civil war-complete with guns-in my lifetime. The Tea Baggers seem to be itching to kill anyone they see as “liberal faggot, dyke, pinko, commies”, pardon my language-and they state that openly. And don’t think they don’t mean it-they sure as hell do. You may think I’m engaging in hyperbole, but I’m not. I’ve been around people like the Tea Baggers-I lived in Orange County, CA-a well known Republican stronghold-for 15 years. I know very well how much they hate anyone different from them, and it doesn’t matter if the object of their disdain is gay, lesbian, black, hispanic, female, male or transgender. It doesn’t matter if we’re Atheist or a believer. It also doesn’t matter if we’re Republican or Democrat. Any intelligent, rational thinking person is a target for their anger and hatred. We’re not fellow Americans to them-we are all enemies because we don’t see things THEIR way. And, if they have their way, we’ll be a target for their “Second Amendment solutions”.
And then, there’s the Petulant Left. The ones who foam at the mouth when the President does something. It doesn’t matter if they agree with what he does or not. It’s never good enough for them. Now, if the Petulant Right just stuck with their hatred of the Petulant Left, that wouldn’t be wonderful, but that would be better than the pragmatic middle being their target, and that’s the real problem. The Tea Party thinks we are ALL the Petulant Left. They think we’re the same as those “fucking liberal hippies”. However, we are not, and they do not understand this. And the PL hates us just as much as the Tea Baggers because we’re not foaming at the mouth and screaming four letter words to the police and other authority figures. Most of us don’t smoke weed and “hate the Establishment”. We’re responsible people who understand parliamentary democracy, and understand that you get more flies with honey than vinegar. The PL will never accept compromise with those THEY see as “the enemy” and we’re not just talking about Tea Baggers. We’re also talking about the adults in this country. In other words, they never grew up.
This country is in a bad state, folks. We are as divided as we have ever been before. It’s an “us vs. them” situation-and them are the extremists that want to turn this country into something like Rwanda or South Africa during Apartheid, OR Cuba and Venezuela right now. If we do not take both the Petulant Left and the Crazy Right on and defeat them at the polls in 2012, this country just may be headed for a breakup of major proportions. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t change the situation the way it stands right now. We have a better President in the White House. Someone who isn’t an overgrown frat boy who had everything handed to him by his rich Daddy. We have someone who is highly intelligent and articulate, someone who understands both history and our Cons[t]itution. And, someone who has closed the book on September 11th 2001 by taking out Osama Bin Laden. It doesn’t mean we can stop being watchful. It doesn’t mean we can retreat to our own borders and not take an interest in the world. It means that even though we took an awful blow, we are now beginning to get back up. I have hope that we can weather our own storms, just as Churchill had to look the Black Dog of depression in the eye and carry on through Dunkirk and the Blitz. Yes. We. Can.
http://thefierceadvocate.com/?p=359
FedEx and Pepsi Are Top Defense Contractors? 5 Corporate Brands Making a Killing on America’s Wars – By Nick Turse
Chances are, if you’ve ever sent a package overnight, bought a PC or a can of soda, you’ve paid your hard-earned money to a major Pentagon contractor. While large defense corporations that make fighter jets and armored vehicles garner the most attention, tens of thousands of “civilian” companies, from multi-national corporations hawking toothpaste and shampoo to big oil behemoths and even local restaurants scattered across the United States, all supply the Pentagon with the necessities used to carry on day-to-day operations and wage America’s wars. And they’ve made a killing doing it since 9/11.
~snip~
America’s recent wars have obviously been good to these companies. On September 10, 2001, Lockheed’s share price was $38.32. Today, it tops $70 per share. In 2001, the company’s net sales reached $24 billion. Last year, they were almost $46 billion. Likewise, Northrop Grumman’s net income has more than quadrupled in the last decade, according to the investment analysis website, Seeking Alpha. Still, these corporations are just a fraction of the story when it comes to the massive sums of money made by the military contractors since September 11, 2001.
Chris Hellman of the National Priorities Project, writing recently at TomDispatch.com, noted that since the 9/11 attacks, the United States has spent about $8 trillion on national security. Even accounting for all the funds paid out for troop salaries, overseas base construction and the training and equipping indigenous allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, among many other costs, it’s clear that vast sums of Pentagon money are flowing somewhere other than to the top weapons-makers. Unknown to most U.S. taxpayers and even many Pentagon-watchers, some of the largest and most recognizable corporations in the world have also been getting rich on America’s wars. Below are five examples of “civilian” companies that have reaped major rewards from the Pentagon during its last decade at war:
~snip~
Read more: http://www.alternet.org/world/152295/fedex_and_pepsi_are_top_defense_contractors_5_corporate_brands_making_a_killing_on_america%E2%80%99s_wars/
The Private Prison Industry Makes Crime Profitable
Submitted by mark karlin on Wed, 09/07/2011 – 7:22pm.
If you want to make crime a growth industry to create more jobs, just privatize prisons. It’s happening across the nation. Heck, crime has been an institutional engine for a huge work force even in the public sector. Think of the hundreds of thousands of lawyers, judges, clerks, prison guards, police, parole officers, social workers etc. depending upon keeping people incarcerated.
And then there’s the construction industry that is hot footin’ it to build new maximum security facilities. And the small towns now depleted of jobs that compete to “host” prisons to bring jobs to the community.
But the real institutionalization of crime as a job creator is emerging full force with the privatization of jails. A corporation can’t make a profit – let alone the issue of their accountability for how they treat prisoners – unless they have sufficient volume. In short, a privatized criminal incarceration system de facto creates the need for an ongoing source of criminals to meet the need for generating a profit based on economies of scale. It’s no surprise that Rick Perry, then, has jumped on the prison privatization bandwagon, as detailed in a Mother Jones article, “Flush With Prison Industry Dollars, Rick Perry Pushed Privatized Prisoner Care.”
Of course, a lot of crime is based on multi-generational poverty, a condition which is exacerbated by our current severe economic downturn. That is why the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. It would be interesting to see what would result if we offered more jobs in the highest crime rate areas. But that’s not bound to happen now or anytime soon. There’s a lot of money to be made in crime by the many professions that depend upon the revolving door of “offenders” continuing at a nice pace, and much of that profit is increasingly being made by the growing for-profit prison industry.
http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12994
If you haven’t done so already, it may be time to move your money to a local credit union…
Bank of America discussing up to 40,000 job cuts: report
By Reuters
BANGALORE (Reuters) – Bank of America Corp officials have discussed slashing roughly 40,000 jobs during the first wave of a restructuring, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the plans.
The number of job cuts are not final and could change. The restructuring aims to reduce the bank’s workforce of 280,000 over a period of years, the Journal said. BofA could not immediately be reached for comment by Reuters outside regular U.S. business hours.
The Journal said BofA executives met Thursday at Charlotte, North Carolina, where the bank is headquartered, and will gather again Friday to make final decisions on the reductions, putting the finishing touches on five months of work. Investors are pressing BofA to improve its performance after it lost money in four of the last six quarters and its stock has fallen by half this year. The Journal said the proposed job cuts may exceed BofA’s last big cutback in 2008 when it called for 30,000 to 35,000 job cuts over three years. That move was triggered by an economic slowdown and the planned takeover of securities firm Merrill Lynch & Co.
Earlier this month, the Charlotte Observer reported that BofA executives were discussing plans to potentially shed 25,000 to 30,000 jobs over the next several years. BofA had earlier planned to cut 3,500 jobs, its Chief Executive Brian Moynihan had said in a memo to staff on August 18, as it tries to come to grips with $1 trillion of problem home mortgages. BofA announced a far-reaching reorganization of its senior management team on Tuesday, which included the departure of consumer bank chief Joe Price and wealth management head Sallie Krawcheck. Banks are shedding jobs worldwide as stricter regulations and a tough second quarter for trading income take their toll on investment banking units in particular.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/09/09/bank-of-america-discussing-up-to-40000-job-cuts-report/
Thanks for this, CC.
My pleasure, Lady~
GOP Voted For $50 Billion To Rebuild Iraq Without Cuts, Now Insist On Cuts To Offset Funding To Rebuild America – By Tanya Somanader
The recent unprecedented onslaught of natural disasters has left already cash-strapped states with a record $36 billion in damages. Ten different natural disasters have struck in 2011. According to FEMA, damages from Hurricane Irene alone will cost at least $1.5 billion in disaster relief — and the hurricane season isn’t over. This disastrous year is also the year that many Republican lawmakers have also decided to break precedent and demand that much-needed disaster relief be offset with cuts elsewhere in the federal budget. Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) vowed to quickly usher $6 billion in emergency disaster relief for states through the Senate.
However, even as wildfires obliterate more than 1,000 homes in his state, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) insisted that those funds be offset because “we can’t keep spending money we don’t have.” Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), whose state has suffered “millions and millions of dollars” in wind and flood damage from Hurricane Irene, simply demanded that “we’ve got to offset everything“: “We can’t keep spending money we don’t have,” said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, where deadly wildfires have charred tens of thousands of acres and destroyed more than 1,000 homes. […]
“I think we’ve got to offset everything; anything that’s not allocated has got to be offset these days. It shouldn’t delay it,” Burr told POLITICO. “There’s hundreds of billions of dollars of waste, fraud and abuse that could be accessed like that.”
This purist principle did not stop both Cornyn and Burr for voting to fund rebuilding efforts in Iraq without a single offset. Indeed, Cornyn voted against delaying $20.3 billion in Iraq infrastructure funds even though the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) noted that such a payment would increase the budget deficit. Overall, the U.S. has spent $44.6 billion in taxpayer funds on rebuilding Iraq through emergency supplemental bills — and not a penny was cut from elsewhere in the budget.
~snip~
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/09/08/314467/gop-voted-for-50-billion-to-rebuild-iraq-without-cuts-now-insist-on-cuts-to-offset-f
The GOP want to rebuild Iraq and not America. More money garned from Iraq, doncha know! Loathesome bastards!
Well, they said they would create jobs; they just had no intention of creating them here!
National security emerges as Obama strong point
By Peter Wallsten, Published: September 10
Barack Obama was always vulnerable to charges that he would be weak on national security.
He was a relative political newcomer with no history of military service. He opposed the war in Iraq and pledged to roll back many of the George W. Bush administration’s toughest anti-terrorism policies.
At one politically perilous moment just months into Obama’s presidency, the young commander in chief appeared at the National Archives to declare a “new direction” in fighting terrorism, only to be scolded as “naive” by former vice president Dick Cheney, the graying architect of aggressive post-9/11 policies.
But as the country observes the 10th anniversary of the 2001 attacks, something once unthinkable has shown up in the polls: National security has gone from being Obama’s big political weakness to his only area of policy strength.
Now potential Republican presidential nominees who eviscerate him on the economy offer grudging credit on terrorism. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, for example, said in last week’s GOP debate that Obama “maintained the chase” to find Osama bin Laden. “I tip my hat to him,” Perry said.
And even the stern-faced Cheney throws out a compliment now and then.
“Guantanamo is still open, they still have military commissions for trying terrorism suspects,” he said recently on Fox News. “And I think you’ve got to give him credit for the operation to get Osama bin Laden.”
The challenge for Obama is to figure out whether his record on security might help reassure voters who are turning their backs on him because of doubts about his ability to fix the economy.
So far, that hasn’t happened. Instead, the president who bagged the world’s most-wanted man is perceived as a weakling who was rolled by Republicans in the debt-ceiling debate and whose hopes for a prime-time address to Congress were foiled by GOP opposition and then the start time of a football game.
The contrast has proved frustrating to the president’s team.
“I don’t think the remaining al-Qaeda leadership that’s on the run would think of [Obama] as a weak leader,” said David Axelrod, Obama’s senior campaign strategist. “I think they think of him as a very determined and relentless person.”
A Washington Post/ABC News poll published last week found that 62 percent of Americans — including nearly six in 10 independents and four in 10 Republicans — approve of the job he has done in combating terrorism.
In the same survey, Obama’s overall approval rating stood at a new low of 43 percent. A little more than a third of Americans approved of his handling of the economy, the poll found. Other surveys found that he is increasingly seen as a weak leader.
The dynamic presents difficulties both for Obama and his potential Republican foes, all of whom are trying to gauge the role that national security will play in an election otherwise dominated by the economy. And it creates the unusual prospect of a Democratic president playing the toughness card against a Republican challenger such as Perry or former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney with few if any foreign-policy credentials.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/national-security-emerges-as-obama-strong-point/2011/09/09/gIQAqa7OIK_story.html
WE GOT YOUR NATIONAL SECURITY RIGHT CHERE!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-N3dJvhgPg
How Markos Moulitsas Taught Me To Call Them The Tea Party
Editor’s note: Hi everyone, please welcome Adept2u, the newest addition to our fantastic contributor team. For many of you who came here from Daily Kos, adept2u is not a stranger. After the recent punishing and banning spree that Markos, the owner of Daily Kos went on that from everything I heard disproportionately affected people of color, women and President Obama’s supporters, adept2u reached out to me and decided to make his new blog home here. – Deaniac83
HELLO, THE PEOPLES VIEW. I AM ADEPT2U.
You know it had been my intention to not really discuss the place I learned to love to blog: The Daily Kos. It is no secret I was part of the great 2011 purge of Black contributors there that also caught up my fellow blogger and really good friend at The People’s View ThisisMyTime. The last I heard over 30% of the Black participants of the Daily Kos were either disciplined or banned outright. I’m a salesperson by trade and I know that one doesn’t routinely talk about organizations you consider your competition. However over the last few days something that was so easy for me I could produce as many as 3 recommended posts a day for Mr. Moulitsas has become difficult, my muse is pissed. She and I have a very nice relationship normally. I don’t try and constrict her and she flows, so as the words are flowing pretty easily I have to apologize acknowledge her and let her out.
I suppose I might have also been actually concerned about the ability to return to that place. However, I’ve been told in order to do that, and I have been invited, I would have to request hat in hand re-instatement from Markos, so going back is not really an option because before I’d do that I would first lie in the gutter and suck off goats for a quarter.
“If you accuse someone of being racist just because they criticize Obama? Zap! If you actually say something that is even borderline racist? Zap! If you advocate for third party? Zap! This is a Democratic site. Advocating primaries is okay. Advocating third party is not. If I see ratings pack behavior or messed up uprates or hides, I won’t zap, but I’ll pull ratings abilities. Hell, depending on my mood at that moment, I may zap anyway. My dev team is putting together cool reports that identify patterns, so my job will get easier, and I won’t be shy in exercising them.I can’t begin to care who started what.”
Please excuse the lack of a link. It will be my policy to never link to that site. They say the greatest lie the Devil ever told was that he did not exist, and the most pernicious lie that The Republican Party has been able to tell, and one that apparently has no party or ideology, but instead has a basic structure in superiority which has had 350 years of domination in our society is that this:
As this will be one of the few times I personally defend myself in public, as Markos has already judged me without having actually conversed with me, let me declare my innocence of even the gross outline of the charges above. He also described those he banned as dicks, but I’ll not stoop to defend myself against such an accusation.
I learned long ago before the internet was invented that calling people racist in a country that elects people to the Senate who have said the only thing wrong with the Ku Klux Klan is that they smoke pot is a very losing proposition. It is normally my inclination to discuss issues like that with people of good will in terms of the privileges we all operate under. I actually believe I had 2 or so recommended and highly thought of posts on his site discussing the subject. However what Markos apparently believes and has been communicated to me before by other management of that site is that “progressives” the people who inhabit his website do not have racial animosity.
Interestingly, one of the last conversations I had on that site in the post that supposedly sealed my fate had been with a gentleman was who felt all Black supporters of the President were Uncle Toms. If I were to say that kind of thing was rare I would have to lie to you, it happened all the time. Despite years of complaints the only answer I ever got from the moderation of that place was basically deal with it.
Daily Kos allowed and incubated a dedicated group of people to routinely troll and attack the voice of any person who announced they both supported the President and were Black. Another of my diaries which was “recommended” called “Why Adept2u will no longer participate on this site politically” outlined and explained the exact MO supplied links and was again trolled by the dedicated group. However yet again the response from management was deal with it yourself.
Allen West of all people said something a few weeks ago that literally made me shake in my boots. He described a meme where he was Harriet Tubman leading the slaves away from a plantation society. Now if he were to have used that meme against a site like the Daily Kos and or politicians who use it rather than Maxine Waters, he would have a very dangerous weapon, because it is true.
The leaders of Progressive space do not appear to be able to respect the words of Black people or accept their leadership, intelligence or even their honesty. After banning me the owner of the above website sent me an e-mail calling me a liar, again without ever having bothered to have a conversation with me. Ironically he later also asked me for a list of who I might think was a racist to assist in his purge. For those from the Kos reading this shaking in fear their Daddy (he described his participants as his children who he would discipline similarly with both innocent and guilty getting punished, or as their future psychiatrist says to his wife “honey go get that mink coat”) I did not assist the HUAC, I was born with integrity which I have since nurtured.
Never was a link provided where I called anyone a racist on his site even for calling me an Uncle Tom for being a defender of Barack Obama’s, or for saying things like my concern for racial equality in this country is just a schtick, and the legitimate aspirations of Black people and respect for Black people is off the rails. Those demands have nothing to do with Barack Obama, but they just don’t listen to us, they throw us out instead.
So how did Markos Moulitsas get you to never refer to the Tea Party as Teabaggers again you ask? In the three years I’ve spent in “progressive” space as a contributor I have seen examples of racism and words and memes openly expressed on that site so vile as to make Lester Maddox blush. I have been hounded, attacked persecuted and vilified as badly as any poor sharecropper family with the night riders at the door. Why even today I’m sure the dedicated band that collected my scalp is giggling with glee. They don’t feel they have a stitch of racial animosity in their bones, well you know what? Neither does the Tea Party. From my perspective both groups, liberal far left and conservative far right, probably have about the same percentage of participants who actually are troglodyte racist as does America, and the so called leadership of the 97% White netroots shows the same myopia and self assured ignorance that was the hallmark of what I used to call the teabagger. I used to cast them that disrespect because I thought they were a thoroughly racist organization, and that the other side was on my side. Markos Moulitsas taught me something different.
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2011/09/how-markos-moulitsas-taught-me-to-call.html
Great that Adept2U has learned his lessons and decided to move forward. 3 Chics wishes him much success.
I have posted many times from pmcarpenter’s blog.
His wife, who had been battling cancer, lost her battle.
If you wish, give him condolences.
http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2011/09/a-personal-note.html
thanks for letting us know, rikyrah. Will do.
Thanks, Rikyrah!
Posted at 04:27 PM ET, 09/09/2011
Civil rights icon Robert Moses promotes middle school algebra
By Bill Turque
There were more than three-dozen witnesses at this week’s D.C. Council roundtable on middle schools, but one appearance carried a special historic resonance. Robert Moses, the legendary SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) organizer, came to town for the cause that has taken up much of his last 30 years: algebra as a civil right for middle school kids.
Moses is founder of The Algebra Project, a non-profit that works with schools to make algebra more available to middle schoolers as a way of fostering careers in math, science and engineering. Algebra I and II are offered in high school in DCPS.
Moses, who risked his life organizing voter registration drives in Mississippi for SNCC in the early 1960s, became interested in math literacy as an engine for social change through his daughter Maisha. In 1982, she was entering the eighth grade when he discovered that her school did not offer algebra at that level. He used a MacArthur Fellowship to help set up The Algebra Project to train teachers across the country. Moses and his group also do community organizing around education issues.
Moses said there is a direct line connecting his work with disenfranchised sharecroppers for SNCC and with teachers and students for The Algebra Project.
“What is our problem?” he told the council Wednesday. “We run failing schools for the poor and rescue some of them by lottery and other education devices….The horizon of black sharecroppers’ education was to be no higher than the station of the work assigned them. We now run sharecropper education for the poor and the nation continues to wink and blink.”
Moses, who lives in Boston, came to D.C. to discuss bringing The Algebra Project to some city schools. His appearance reunited him with another former SNCC organizer, Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8). who praised him as “singularly responsible for the massive change in attitudes in Mississippi.”
“People have missed the significance of what you did,” said Barry, wants to see Moses and his organization active in Ward 8 schools.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-schools-insider/post/civil-rights-icon-robert-moses-promotes-middle-school-algebra/2011/09/08/gIQAxbndFK_blog.html
Now that’s what I’m talkin ’bout. Kudos to you, Mr. Moses!
No Blacks Pictured in 9/11 Commemorative
September 10, 2011 at 8:34 PM
Time magazine this week published “Beyond 9/11: Portraits of Resilience,” a photo-rich commemorative edition dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. No identifiable African Americans are pictured in its 64 pages.
Asked about the omission, Time spokesman Kerri Chyka said by email: “TIME is declining to comment at this time.”
The issue is published at a time in its history when the magazine apparently has no African American editors.
“There certainly are African Americans on Time’s masthead,” spokeswoman Ali Zelenko told Journal-isms by email. However, she did not respond when asked to name them. The masthead lists other staffers in addition to editors.
“I will reiterate that diversity has been, and remains, an important priority at Time,” Zelenko said.
A Time announcement said, “To create this special edition, award-winning photographer Marco Grob worked with the editors of TIME to produce an astonishing set of forty portraits coupled with dramatic oral histories from survivors and leaders including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, General David Petraeus], George Pataki, Rudolph Giuliani, Valerie Plame Wilson, Tom Brokaw, Daisy Khan, Howard Lutnick, James Yee, and many more. Additionally, for the very first time, the only four survivors of the attack on Tower Two of the World Trade Center who were above the point of impact tell their stories.”
Despite their absence in Time, African Americans’ involvement in the story of Sept. 11 has been chronicled in other media outlets.
Of the 343 firefighters killed on Sept. 11, about a dozen were black and a dozen were Hispanic, according to department estimates, the New York Times reported in 2002, when a controversy arose over a decision to create an ethnically and racially diverse statue honoring the firefighters who died. The photograph on which it was based featured three white men.
Jason Thomas, a former U.S. Marine, helped to rescue a pair of Port Authority police officers in the rubble, the Associated Press reported in 2006. He was portrayed by a white actor in the film “World Trade Center.”
Sunday’s Parade magazine includes an interview with Melodie Homer, whose husband, LeRoy Homer Jr., was the first officer on United Flight 93, which crashed into a Pennsylvania field after passengers and crew members fought back against terrorists who’d seized the plane’s controls.
The Los Angeles Times has reported that a substantial number of American Muslims — whose lives changed measurably after the attack — are black.
Some media outlets went this year to Madeleine V. Leckie Elementary School in Washington, which lost a student, a teacher and two parents when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, killing 184 people.
“Hilda E. Taylor, the teacher killed in the attack, was from Sierra Leone and had often lamented that Americans cared little about history and geography,” Lynette Clemetson wrote in the New York Times in 2006, on the event’s fifth anniversary. “Active with the National Geographic Society, Ms. Taylor took students on field trips sponsored by the organization.
“In 2001, Ms. Taylor selected Ms. Brown’s son, Bernard Brown II, a sixth grader with a magnetic personality and a permanent grin. Bernard, 11, was a good student, and Ms. Taylor thought a trip to the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary off California would motivate him to work even harder. Along on the trip were students and teachers from two other Washington schools, who were among those who died in the crash.”
Rebecca Blatt, of Washington’s WAMU-FM, visited John Milton Wesley, who lost his fiancée, Sarah Clark, a 65-year-old teacher from Columbia, Md., who was on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.
Sharon Pendana of theRoot.com wrote about Clark and two other victims, Michael Richards and Peggie Hurt.
Albor Ruiz, a columnist at the New York Daily News, told readers about Denise Allen, a highly regarded needlework and folk artist, whose memory quilt depicting the terrorist attacks is to hang at the World Trade Center National 9/11 Memorial and Museum as part of its opening exhibition.
And the Indianapolis Star published photos by its late African American photojournalist, Mpozi Mshale Tolbert, who spent 11 days documenting rescue work in New York by the Indiana Task Force One. Tolbert died at age 34 in 2006, collapsing in the newsroom.
In the broader view, African Americans might offer a different view of the last 10 years.
In December 2001, Madison Shockley wrote on SFGate.com, the San Francisco Chronicle’s website:
“While we share the majority’s view of Sept. 11, African Americans have a different perspective on Sept. 12 and thereafter. We are not nearly as anxious to go bombing around the world in a macho attempt to restore our pride as the biggest, baddest player on the planet.
http://www.theroot.com/blogs/white-house/no-blacks-pictured-911-commemorative
What? OMG! The disrespect continues!
Don’t buy another magazine from Time! They’re mean & hateful asses to the 10th power! How disgusting, Time Magazine!
Fuck TIME magazine. It’s been run out of TIME, as far as I’m concerned. Remember Mark Halperin is editor of this RAG. halperin, the dick who bolding called President Barack Obama a dick on national tv. Fuck ’em all. THE. END.
Good Morning, 3 Chics, Friends, & Visitors!
Happy Sunday, everyone!
Good Morning, SG2 & Everyone! I’m getting a slow start today, but IT’S ALL GOOD.
Enjoy your day.
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good Morning, rikyrah. Have a Blessed day.