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I consider this a Radical Gumbo, with many varied ingredients making more than the sum of its parts. We are no-holds barred, passionate and not overly PC here. Yes, Liberals can have Fangs. Jump in and be part of the cutting edge!
All new posts can be posted there, or crossposted to both for now. This site will remain active for use until we migrate all the content to the new blog. When that happens, this blog will close to new material, and remain as archive.
We'll just run both until we see what this all entails.
I'm totally excited that we can now take new users and have our content backed up, as well as have better tech support.
Come on, check it out and join in!
I added the admins, but hurry and get a LOW USER ID while they still last!
The entire tribe, elders and children included, is going to be removed by force from their land with no place to go. They are forced to barricade themselves in the tribal office. Using filing cabinets and anything else they can use to secure the building in hopes to protect their culture, their people, and basically everything they have.
We ask that Miwok tribe be allowed to stay in the land they have lived on for 7 years and be given the chance to dialogue with the appropriate legislatures and/or officials about the matter.
There will be a "hcr" bill. There is NO DOUBT about it. It does not matter whether or not it is a piece of shit (which it will be), or that it helps the insurance industry FAR more that it will be of any assistance to anybody truly NEEDING it (which it does), or if it betrays the hopes and aspirations of the myraid Obaman-aid drinkers (which it will).
The Obamanable Sno-Job MUST have a bill to sign, and the Dims all know it. He cannot have spent this amount of time and this amount of political capital, and this amount of prestige, and come away with nothing.
So, they also know he'll sign ANYFUCKINTHING as long as it is so dense and complicated that it will be hard to deny that ANYTHING is in it.
If Obmanable DOESN'T have a bill to sign BEFORE the SOTU--where it would be the centerpiece of the torrents of self-congratulatory adulation he will heap on himself and the Dims--he will begin the first week of the second year of his only term as a lame-duck--which would be some kind of record. But it won't happen, he'll have his bill.
That's because the Owners need him to administer the coup de gras to Social Security and the last vestiges of the New Deal, so they can't let him become irrelevant yet. He has more chores to do. A bright, young man, I'm sure he'll do them very well...
No, I don't believe in this shit, but I find them endlessly amusing to read. Mine for today:
Aquarius
(Jan 20 - Feb 18)
It may feel as if you are nearing the end of the road you are traveling, but you don't have a new path to take yet. Instead of reacting with fear and impulsively doing something you might later regret, try to see your life from a wider point of view. Don't worry about the details of what's happening today; instead, make a long-term plan that is based upon your vision of the future.
Why, yessssssss. Me needing impulse control? Say it ain't so! Tomorrow's is fairly like me too.
Here's a question. The new blog I've had for a week, but as of yet been unable to access, will be new. Right? The first thing I have to do is get my new password and create user me. Numero uno. Or dos, because soapblox takes uno.
Now, when NP & TBD import the stuff, will the Users come with it, or do they need to re-join? If they have to rejoin, will their work still link to them?
Will I be able to sell low UID's on the black market? Will I again have to ban a bunch of pink trolls? Does your horoscope match you today or tomorrow?
First, let me state up front that I was an ardent supporter of the DREAM Act from the beginning--and I still am. As a Latino student, this is an issue close to my heart.
The Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security and Prosperity (CIR ASAP) Act of 2009 makes a few desperately-needed changes to US immigration policy. I won't list them since you can read the 600+ page bill for yourself (or a summary of it at Vivir Latino). However, this legislation has several problems--and one fatal flaw in particular--that cannot be ignored. Sadly, the DREAM Act became intertwined with the CIR ASAP Act and is only one of may provisions in the bill. Perhaps I am too much of a cynic, but it seems to me that the DREAM Act was attached to the CIR ASAP Act as a Trojan horse of sorts to garner the Latino/a community's support for a bill laden with draconian provisions that we'd otherwise be in the streets protesting. Please allow me to explain.
I will not discuss all of the provisions that were included in the bill to assuage the rabid nativist pendejos. They are pretty obvious (e.g., the emphasis on LEARNING ENGLISH because... dear god in heaven the earth will spin off its axis if a person can become a US citizen without having to take tests to prove they can speak English well enough so that the poor oppressed white folks across America won't have heart attacks and die whenever they are forced to hear a Spanish word--and there are many other examples).
Here is my main concern. The CIR ASAP Act increases the militarization of the US-Mexico border, even though the politicians tried to be slick and trick everyone by stating that the "military" generally will not be allowed to patrol the border. But if you read the bill carefully, it actually ratchets up "border security" to historically unprecedented levels--some of the crap they are proposing sounds like something out of Star Wars. Now, this increased border militarization will have one inevitable disastrous consequence...and a second terrifying one if you are Lou Dobbs.
Princeton professor of sociology and public policy Douglas Massey is perhaps THE authority on the intersection of US immigration law and the demography of Mexican migration to the US. For years--probably decades--he has been the principal investigator of the Mexican Migration Project. What Dr. Massey and other prominent researchers have found--consistently and unambiguously--is that throughout US history, two things happen each time a federal or state law increased the militarization of the US-Mexico border (i.e., "enhancing border patrol") and/or included increasingly punitive measures against undocumented immigrants:
(1) These laws, designed to serve as a deterrent to keep all those brown people out, resulted in a swift and dramatic increase in the number of undocumented Mexican immigrants living in the US...these xenophobic nativist laws actually caused what idiots in groups like the Minutemen fear the most: an explosion in the population of "illegal aliens" who can't speak no gosh-darned English and who apparently spread leprosy. So these fucked up laws had the opposite of the intended effect. It actually makes sense when you think about it, and I'll gladly explain if anyone wants to know why this paradox takes place, but it is a verifiable fact, not mere speculation [see Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Era of Economic Integration by Massey, Durand and Malone (2003); and Immigrant America: A Portrait by Alejandro Portes and Rubén Rumbaut (2006)--from Princeton and UC Irvine, respectively--if you want to fact check my statements. I can also recommend scientific journal articles to anyone who is interested in this phenomenon]. Pero this isn't what concerns me the most.
Unbelievable. Et tu Sherrod Brown? Why would any reality-based person reconfirm such a catastrophically terrible economic manager? I mean, look at that unemployment rate, the flatulent economy, or just read about his and other conventional thinkers' gigantic MISS on the real estate bubble. The whole corrupt financial sector takeover of the political system is responsible for our deep recession, of course, but why shouldn't Bernanke take a fall for his ostrichy lack of foresight? Why shouldn't somebody take a fall for the catastrophically bad economic forecasting, the record-breaking giveaway to incompetent financial institutions? And then there is pwoggieland's utter silence (except for David Sirota and, I guess, Jane Hamsher) and worse (see Dean Baker below on 'liberal' NPR 'reporters' openly ridiculing Senator Jim Bunning, a Republican Senator willing to criticize Bernanke, giving him an F- on his management of and responsibility for the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression). This is why common sense people say there is no left in the U.S., and why we so desperately need one. Here's Merkley:
Tomorrow, I will vote against confirming Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. The reason, in short, is that as Chairman, Dr. Bernanke failed to recognize or remedy the factors that paved the road to this dark and difficult recession. Following our economic collapse, it is also apparent that he has not changed his overall approach to prioritizing Wall Street over American families. . . .
Our nation is just beginning to emerge from the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression, and there is no guarantee we will continue on the road to recovery over the long or short terms. Unemployment remains far too high, credit is unavailable to too many businesses, and families are plagued by falling home prices and high foreclosure rates. Even as we move forward with our efforts to get our economy back on track, it is critical we carefully examine what led us to this point.
For too many years, federal regulators turned a blind eye to signs of an impending financial crisis. Tricks and traps proliferated in the credit card and consumer lending industries. Predatory mortgage loans exploded, fueling an unsustainable housing bubble. Regulators lifted rules requiring banks to keep adequate capital, and a laissez-faire approach to securitization, derivatives, and proprietary trading encouraged excessive risk-taking on Wall Street. As a member of the Board of Governors, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, and then ultimately as Chairman of the Board of Governors, Dr. Bernanke supported each of these decisions, failing to take the necessary precautionary steps that could have averted or mitigated financial collapse.
After exiting a meeting with the Senate Democratic caucus, President Obama approached the microphone and proceeded to tell a bald-faced lie about health care reform:
You talk to every health care economist out there, they will tell you that what ever ideas exist in terms of bending the cost curve and starting to reduce cost for families, businesses, and government, those elements are in this bill.
This statement is 100% false-and Obama knows that. This bill does not contain anywhere near most ideas for controlling health care costs. This bill does not even contain most of the cost-reducing ideas that were part of Obama's health care plan during last year's presidential campaign.
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Mr. President, If you are going to cut secret deals that will force Americans to spend billions more on their prescription drugs, at least have the decency to not publicly lie about how your "health care reform" bill will do everything it can to reduce costs for American families. You know it is a lie, the PhRMA lobbyists you cut the secret deal with know it is a lie, health care reform experts knows it is a lie, and the American people should know it is a lie.
Consider, first of all, this fact. The bill, if it became law, would legally require a portion of Americans to pay more than 20% of the fruits of their labor to a private corporation in exchange for 70% of their health care costs.
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It's one thing to require a citizen to pay taxes-to pay into the commons. It's another thing to require taxpayers to pay a private corporation, and to have up to 25% of that go to paying for luxuries like private jets and gyms for the company CEOs.
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They will, at a minimum, be asked to pay 9.8% of their income to the insurance company. And if they have a significant medical event, they'll pay 22%...
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But for those who think we can fix it, consider this, too. If the Senate bill passes, in its current form, it will mean that the health care industry was able to dictate-through their Senators Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson-what they wanted the US Congress to do. They will have succeeded in dictating the precise terms of legislation.
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When this passes, it will become clear that Congress is no longer the sovereign of this nation. Rather, the corporations dictating the laws will be.
I understand the temptation to offer 30 million people health care. What I don't understand is the nonchalance with which we're about to fundamentally shift the relationships of governance in doing so.
We've seen our Constitution and means of government under attack in the last 8 years. This does so in a different-but every bit as significant way. We don't mandate tithing corporations in this country-at least not yet. And it troubles me that so many Democrats are rushing to do so, without considering the logical consequences.
I was taking a look at the "EnergyBulletin" site, and I noticed a title something to the effect of "Tiny Tim predicts climate change. 1967. Melting ice caps".
It was too early in the morning. I glossed over the "1967" piece of information, thinking that maybe some passage in Dickens alluded to coal smoke, and deteriorating climate, and "God Bless us Everyone".
Twasn't THAT Tiny Tim. It was the "Laugh-In" era Tiny Tim.
I hit the bold title line which takes you into the article, and hit the "play" button.
Ladies and gentlemen, that was too much/too fast. Rushing right into the song is a bizarre, frightening experience, and I felt rather uncomfortable.
So, we're going to take this in steps. First, the lyrics. Then, if you feel up to it, hit the play button.
Life is short. Short-short. From family dropping like flies all around me my whole life, to befriending the dark angel looming endlessly for me over my left shoulder, I live with urgency. My own life is destined to be a short one. I feel rushed.
Shhh, be still. Wait. God, I suck at waiting.
The new blog has been created and I can't even access it yet. Can't even FIND it. Still, the site problems have been problems for MONTHS now, so what is one more day? An eternity to me. Worse, because I am helpless to be proactive to DO anything myself to make it work. I guess even the dot com connection part is not simple.
Of course.
It wouldn't be.
Usually, if I TRY to make something work, that I have no control over or useful knowledge how to fix it, I only make it worse. So I can do nothing.
Now I worry about if even the easiest part seems not do-able, whats going to happen when we get to the hard part?
Shhhh. Calm. Worst case scenario is that I fail at it. Then I am right where I am now, where I've been the last couple years, and it sufficed this long. Obstacles are only obstacles. Take a deep breath.
Christmas is coming and it will be a sad occasion in the tent cities and other homeless shelters that are a result of the mammoth, sans lube ass fucking delivered by the American oligarchy and it's whores like that corrupt little bastard Joe Lieberman in D.C. Barack Hussein Obama has delivered a veritable sleighful of same old shit instead of the change that was promised, the worn and threadbare stockings are going to be as empty as his campaign promises and the souls of Wall Street bankers. In yet another of the craven cave-ins by the Vichy DemocRAT party the shit pit Senate commanded by one former Nevada Gaming Commissioner Harry Reid has gutted any sort of health care 'reform' short of arming the insurance parasites and empowering them to force the financially doomed to buy protection money, considering Harry's rumored affiliation with organized crime is it really any surprise that it came to this? Yesterday it was Lansky Lieberman's baseball bat strike to the kneecaps that killed the new 55 year old age lowering for Medicare eligibility (which would satisfy my personal needs - fuck everyone else and the public option too...I am going native in the land of 'fuck you I got mine) and today it's smacking down the importation of pharmaceuticals from Canada. Bring out the leeches! Oh, don't bother, they're already here.
The Wind Up: "Crash the economy, embroil us in war and shred the constitution."
The Pitch: "Run babbling Idiots against a great Orator, and the historic figure of a Black man or a Woman."
The Hit!: I cried tears of joy, when Obama was inaugurated. My son would grow up in a World when it was just "given" and "totally normal" for a Black Man to be his Leader. Even while knowing he was a centrist, a hard pill for a hippy-commie-pinko-chick. I was ELATED, proud. Ready for the white fucking power structure to become one of humanity, not goddamned WHITE EXCEPTIONALISM. They counted on that, hoping people like me wouldn't criticize him. But, I judge by the MAN. Period.
The Fielding: Place the Rabid forefront and Blame Liberals for the Wind up. (SET UP)
The Catch: Patronize the previous admin's followers and policies, thus alienate your own base.
The Out: They are already predicting a landslide for R's in 2010, and 2012.
Look at Evo, man. He unionized his workers, legitimized his industry. He started with way the hell less than you. Tomorrow, tomorrow, you could have your people go to any satellite town nearby this Wealthy city built on the backs of those who now have nothing, you could go and have them fix the roads, and build one free clinic. You could employ a staff of doctors. You could put your name on it. You wouldn't even miss a penny.
From there, you could gladly employ people with the best wages, and twist those whom you have influence over to raise their worker's standards. People would flock to work for you, abandon your political opponents, you would be seen as a King among men, not just another in a long line of powerful abusers they have suffered. The money would flow back into your coffers as everyone started to afford your expanding services.
With those people, you could seize from your enemies those who hold back things the people need to survive, you could make the water, the utilities theirs, and run off all the foreign competition. Do that, man and nothing would get in your way, as your people move from hopeless despair into believing you have made them safe and prosperous. You would be the one that delivered them, a modern day Moses.
You could move from Power to Leadership. From Deference borne of Fear to Revered.
You are standing in a place of supreme power right now, and probably enjoying its benefits beyond belief, but in the end yours will just be another grave they spit upon. This power, while real is empty. Are you really happy, looking over your shoulder? Even while entertaining the other power brokers who drink from your champagne fountains, walk your gilded halls, lust after the beautiful people surrounding you, when you know your cartel is a temporary empire.
You have it within your reach to change the very fabric of existence for your people.
He coulda been a Contender.
He could have been Legacy. Now he is just another Failed Presidency in his 1st year. And the rabid will rise.
Monday's White House meeting/public relations spectacle with the recalcitrant greedheads and other assorted banking miscreants was a mockery. As the orgy of American capitalist excess that is Christmas nears and millions of children won't be visited by Santa Clause unless of course he is bearing a foreclosure notice on Daddy and Mommie's overpriced, underwater shitbox the banksters are back in business big time thanks to Obama and Raht Emanuel. At some point last year when the financial services parasites were holding a gun to our collective heads and loudly threatening to 'blow the roof' like in Die Hard unless their bad bets were covered by taxpayer dough the overly cunning new administration, already funded by Wall Street looters made a calculated political decision to crucify the schmucks on a cross of Goldman Sachs. Hell, it's no surprise, that is the way that it always works in an oligarchy and any O-Bots who are out there still defending this lying sack of shit administration are as clueless and morally challenged as those who swore on a stack of bibles that George W. Bush was the second coming of Jesus Fucking Christ and anyone who dared to question him was a terrorist sympathizer or traitor.
