Quote of the day--making things clear

 

 

 

Happy birthday, Shirley Chisholm

"My God, what do we want? What does any human being want? Take away an accident of pigmentation of a thin layer of our outer skin and there is no difference between me and anyone else. All we want is for that trivial difference to make no difference."

--Shirley Chisholm, November 30, 1924 – January 1, 2005, First Black Congresswoman

 

Links:  Shirley Chisholm - Wikipedia

 

Shirley Chisholm Biography

 

The New York Times > Obituaries

 

Black Americans in Congress

 

Shirley Chisholm Quotes

Timely enterntainment overnight

Maybe only symbolic, but it's something we can do to get this going

A post on Bill Moyers' Facebook page today gives us something we can do to get this whole "party" started to begin an end to campaign contributions in our election system and so, our government:

Stamp Out Campaign Cash Corruption in Our Lifetime

A bit of the article:

Ice cream isn’t the only thing worth screaming about — although it’s right up there at the top of our list. Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, has taken his frustration with the corruption of money in politics and channeled it into an ingenious campaign for a constitutional amendment that would overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

Since he left his job as CEO of the Vermont-based ice cream company in 1996, Cohen has taken his marketing know-how into progressive politics and in 2012 began Stamp Stampede — the manufacture and sale (at cost) of rubber stamps to be used on paper currency — all perfectly legal — to spread the word to rid government and politics of outside corporate and anonymous cash. There’s a wide assortment of stamps — “Not to Be Used for Bribing Politicians” reads one message, “The System Isn’t Broken, It’s Fixed” is another. 

“Every stamped bill will be seen by an average of 875 people,” Cohen claims “and will help grow the movement to #GetMoneyOut of politics. Stamp 5 bills a day for a year and that’s a million eyeballs.”

So this can be where it starts, where we start.

 

Christmas gift?  Stocking stuffer?



Seriously, we have to get the money, the big money, from the wealthy and corporations, out of our election system and government, once and for all.  We all know this. We all recognize it, whatever political party we're in--or not in, as the case may be.  It's the only way we'll get our government back for the people. 

Europe did it, decades ago.

We can do this.

So go here--  StampStampede.  Buy a stamp.

Then use it.

Something we'd all be extremely thankful for, for years.





 

Entertainment overnight

Happy holidays

Even Republicans are getting the message

Hell must be freezing over or something.  From Bill Moyers today:

Republicans — Yes, Republicans — Are Joining the Battle Against Big Money Politics

 

A bit from the article:

Last week, Rep. Tom Petri (R-WI) introduced a bill called the Citizens Involvement in Campaigns, or CIVIC Act, with the hope of spurring more small-dollar donations to political campaigns by reviving a pair of tax incentives. Petri’s bill would offer small donors two options. They could receive a tax credit of up to $200 (or up to $400 on a joint tax return) for donations made to a campaign or national political party. Or that same donor could claim a tax deduction of up to $600 (up to $1,200 for a joint return) for political donations. The intent is obvious: entice many more small donations to candidates.

When he unveiled his bill, Petri lamented both the cost of running for federal office and the growing clout of very wealthy donors in the political process. “Campaigns are becoming more and more expensive with no signs of slowing down,” he said. “And most would agree that the ideal way to finance a campaign is through a broad base of donors. Unfortunately, most Americans aren’t in the position to donate hundreds or thousands of dollars — but they want to get involved. We should be encouraging political participation.”

So it's great that someone from the Republican Party is seeing where this is taking and has taken us and is putting forth some action but unfortunately, instead of proposing getting the money OUT of our election system and so, our government, he proposed getting STILL MORE money in the system, this time from small donors.

What we need to do is get the money out, once and for all, at long last. We have to end having our politicians--at both the state and federal levels--from being bought.

It's doable.  We can do this.

But we have to demand it. It has to come from us. We have to fight for it.

Until we end campaign contributions, our elections and so, our government will continue to be bought and sold for the wealthy and corporations first, and the people and nation second, if even then.

Let's get started.

Link:  http://robinhoodtax.org/


 

Quote of the day--on Capitalism

 

There goes the Republican platform.

 

Links:

 

Pope Francis calls unfettered capitalism 'tyranny' and urges rich to share wealth

 

Pope Francis Calls Unfettered Capitalism 'A New Tyranny

 

 

 

Kansas children this year at Thanksgiving

 

With thanks to the Kansas Democratic Party and their Facebook page today.

 

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.

 

 

 

 

Smart kid

 

Fight to end campaign contributions.

 

Let's get the big, ugly, corrupting influence of money from the wealthy and corporations out of our elections and so, our government.

 

It's the only way we'll get our government back for the people.

 

ALL the people.

 

 

 

Let's get the big, ugly money out of our elections

And so, out of our government.

 

Fight to end campaign contributions.

 

 

Entertainment overnight

Let's put a few very recent weather events in perspective

Naturally, we are all likely extremely aware of what has been reported to be the largest typhoon ever, hitting the Philippines so recently:

Philippines Disaster Leaves Millions Without Homes

And the estimates of those killed in this historic weather disaster are still being tallied, it's so bad.

And we're certainly aware of this weekend's tornados all over the Eastern one-third of the country, sure.  But did you know this?

Not to be done there, are you aware of this natural disaster, just now unfolding?

Deadly 'apocalyptic' storm floods Sardinia

So there you are.  Three really large weather events--catastrophes, really--all within what? 2 weeks?

At what point do we start doing something about all this?

At what point do we all accept that the way we all live, collectively, isn't sustainable?

And that it's likely killing fairly large numbers of us?



 

America's problems

As we just did in the farm bill by cutting 40 million dollars to the poor, in food stamp funding.

But "Big Oil"?

They still get theirs, you bet.

Link: From Quotable Liberals on Facebook.

That noise you just heard was any new airport being killed

First, Representative Sam Graves has made it clear, time and again, that tearing down our existing airport only to throw it away and build a new one is absurd. Here is his website from last August:

Congressman Sam Graves : Latest News : ICYMI: No new KCI

Then, last week, Southwest Airlines--our biggest tenant at the airport right now--came out squarely, publicly against the costs of the new debacle airport:

Southwest Airlines wants a bigger voice on KCI's future

Apparently, according to a report on KCPT, Southwest had told public officials for some time that they were against this whole idea. It's only just now they decided to go public.

Then, today, I saw this little YouTube video from our own one-and-the-same KCPT and their Kansas City Week in Review  show. It's loaded with not just cautions but good to great reasons Kansas City shouldn't--and even likely won't--tear down our current airport, only to build a new, extremely expensive new one:



God, I loved that.

Seems as though common sense and fiscal responsibility is going to prevail after all.

But stay tuned.


 

We need to stop the revolving door from government to business and back (guest post)

It was announced yesterday that Tim Geithner, President Obama's first Treasury secretary, will become president of Warburg Pincus, a private-equity firm. Before joining the Obama administration, Geithner had been president of the New York Fed, and before that worked for Bob Rubin in the Clinton Treasury Department. (Rubin, co-chairman of Goldman Sachs before becoming Treasury secretary, advised Clinton to repeal Glass-Steagall and nixed the regulation of derivatives. After leaving the administration Rubin became chairman of Citigroup's executive committee, and was there when Wall Street nearly melted down in 2008; he is now a counselor at investment bank Centerview Partners LLC.) Geithner's move to Wall Street follows Peter Orszag, Obama's first director of the Office of Management and the Budget, also a Rubin protégée, who is now vice chairman of Citigroup's corporate and investment banking group.

I don't begrudge those public servants who, after leaving office, take high-paying jobs in the private sector. But when someone who has been in charge of bailing out Wall Street and then shepherding through Congress regulations designed to prevent another near collapse, one can't help but worry. The public is already so cynical about both government and Wall Street that even the mere possibility that Geithner knew where he'd be heading afterward, and therefore pulled his punches, can only deepen the cynicism.

Wall Street's political power is a direct result of both the money it pours into political campaigns and the revolving door between it and Washington. So far, Wall Street's biggest banks have fought back tighter regulation (eviscerating much of the Dodd-Frank Act). Private equity has proven even more potent: It has preserved the "carried interest" loophole that allows the pay of private-equity executives to be taxed at low capital-gains rates even though these executives don't risk their own capital. (They buy and sell companies with funds from investors and with debt, typically charging an annual management fee of 2 percent of the funds and keeping 20 percent of the profits as a "carried interest.") During his time at Treasury, Geithner argued for “eliminating the carried interest loophole that allows some to pay capital gains tax rates on what is essentially compensation for services," as he told the Senate budget committee in 2012. One wonders whether he will stand ready to say the same thing again.

--Robert Reich, American political economist, professor, author, and political commentator

Links:  

Robert Reich - Wikipedia

Robert Reich | Facebook

Business-Managed Democracy -- a blog

LL

Quote of the day -- on the real parasites

Breaking: Clark Hunt makes big Chiefs move

Breaking sports news:

In an effort to both win more games and cut team expenses, Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt announced today he would be cutting the team in half, firing the entire offensive team.

Mr. Hunt was quoted, saying "It's our defense that's winning the games anyway so we figured this was an excellent move all around.

More at 6 and 10 tonight.

Entertainment overnight

Some timely entertainment:

We're beginning to win some small battles

Yes, we "Populists" and "Progressives" and just the middle and lower classes seem to be beginning to win some battles.  Documented here, today in The New York Times:

Plutocrats vs. Populists

TORONTO — HERE’S the puzzle of America today: the plutocrats have never been richer, and their economic power continues to grow, but the populists, the wilder the better, are taking over. The rise of the political extremes is most evident, of course, in the domination of the Republican Party by the Tea Party and in the astonishing ability of this small group to shut down the American government. But the centrists are losing out in more genteel political battles on the left, too — that is the story of Bill de Blasio’s dark-horse surge to the mayoralty in New York, and of the Democratic president’s inability to push through his choice to run the Federal Reserve, Lawrence H. Summers. 
      

All of these are triumphs of populists over plutocrats: Mr. de Blasio is winning because he is offering New Yorkers a chance to reject the plutocratic politics of Michael R. Bloomberg. The left wing of the Democratic Party opposed the appointment of Mr. Summers as part of a wider backlash against the so-called Rubin Democrats (as in Robert E. Rubin, who preceded Mr. Summers as Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration) and their sympathy for Wall Street. Even the Tea Party, which in its initial phase was to some extent the creation of plutocrats like Charles and David Koch, has slipped the leash of its very conservative backers and alienated more centrist corporate bosses and organizations.

 

As proof, here is but one additional example of how we've won lately:

 

A Victory Against Dark Money

 

A group of wealthy donors wanted to give millions to two right-wing California political campaigns last year, but didn’t want anyone to know their identities. They came up with a scheme that any money-launderer would be proud of, funneling the cash through a convoluted series of independent spending groups that were allowed to collect unlimited dollars. By the time the donations had been used to buy advertising, the original money trail had been erased. 

      

Or so they thought. California has one of the best laws in the country requiring disclosure of political donations, and officials at the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission suspected that the bulk contributions were obscuring the true donor groups. A yearlong investigation revealed the nature of the scheme, and the groups were accused of violating state law.

      

A few days ago, as part of a civil settlement, the state imposed $16 million in penalties and fines on the groups, a record in a campaign finance case. Though it’s not clear how much of those penalties will ever be collected, or even who many of the original donors were, the effort demonstrates the importance of state disclosure laws and aggressive enforcement, particularly since Congress has refused to pay attention to abuses on a national level.

      

The California commission, in fact, has done the political world a favor by exposing the secretive network of conservative groups that have aggressively taken advantage of the unlimited donations allowed by the Supreme Court, as well as the ability to hide donors that is permitted by the Federal Election Commission and lower courts. The network centers on groups with close ties to the Koch brothers, whose huge donations have played such a large role in electing Tea Party candidates around the country.

 

The commission suspected something fishy was going on when an Arizona group called Americans for Responsible Leadership donated $11 million to a California effort to pass a ballot measure limiting the political power of unions. Some of the money was also spent in opposition to another measure to raise state taxes. The group had no history of political activity in California, and the commission sued last October to find the hidden money source. Just before the November election, the group announced that it had received the money from the Center to Protect Patient Rights, which in turn had gotten it from Americans for Job Security.

      

The “patient rights” group actually has nothing to do with patient rights, and was described by the commission as “the key nonprofit in the Koch Brothers’ dark money network.” The job security group spent more than $15 million attempting to defeat President Obama last year, much of which came from the patient rights group. The patient rights group itself made a $4 million contribution to the California campaign, funneled through another intermediary. The Koch brothers deny contributing to the effort, and the full list of donors to the groups has not been made public, largely because Congressional Republicans have refused to pass the Disclose Act, which would require disclosure of the names of all donors giving more than $10,000 to independent groups. That makes state enforcement all the more important. Currently only 13 states have laws as strong as California’s; the success of this investigation should encourage others to take a stronger stance against secret money.

Finally, there's this:

Spending on Lobbying Keeps Slipping

The overall amount spent by various interests on federal lobbying declined yet again in the third quarter of the year, a new analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics shows -- a continuation of the trend that's been going on for several years.

Organizations filing federal lobbying disclosure forms reported spending $760.3 million between July 1 and Sept. 30, the lowest amount in a single quarter going back to at least 2010. Additionally, the reports listed 10,048 active registered lobbyists, the lowest number in at least as long, and far below the 10,878 active registered lobbyists in the third quarter of 2012.

(Pharmaceutical companies, in this report, still gave an increase in lobbying payouts, not surprising, given our current controversey with "Obamacare.")
 

So there are successes for us out there, for "we the people", for the working man and woman of America, thank goodness.

 

But the fact is, the facts are, we haven't "won" nearly enough, first, and second, we aren't winning quickly enough. As we know, the wealthy and corporations keep piling on more and more wealth while the rest of America, that same middle- and lower-class---most of us, most of America---are losing.

 

So once again, I go back to the other fact that we need to fight to end campaign contributions so we can take back America, so we can get back our representatives and government for the people.

 

Do what you can to help the fight. Write your State and Federal representatives in both the respective Houses of Representatives and Senates and tell them to support the elimination of campaign contributions.

 

As I keep saying, we need to get the big, ugly, corrupting influence of the money from the wealthy and corporations out of our government, once and for all.

 

And the sooner the better.

 

Local man's lawsuit against David Glass and his Royals hits the interwebs

It's one thing for this story to once again hit the local Star, it's quite another to go out on Yahoo!:

Fan injured by hot dog suing Kan. City Royals

And here, too:

Why injured fan's lawsuit may stand a chance

The story:

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- If it had been a foul ball or broken bat that struck John Coomer in the eye as he watched a Kansas City Royals game, the courts likely wouldn't force the team to pay for his surgeries and suffering.

But because it was a hot dog thrown by the team mascot - behind the back, no less - he just may have a case.

The Missouri Supreme Court is weighing whether the ''baseball rule'' - a legal standard that protects teams from being sued over fan injuries caused by events on the field, court or rink - should also apply to injuries caused by mascots or the other personnel that teams employ to engage fans. Because the case could set a legal precedent, it could change how teams in other cities and sports approach interacting with fans at their games.

Coomer, of Overland Park, Kan., says he was injured at a September 2009 Royals game when the team's lion mascot, Sluggerrr, threw a 4-ounce, foil-wrapped wiener into the stands that struck his eye. He had to have two surgeries - one to repair a detached retina and the other to remove a cataract that developed and implant an artificial lens. Coomer's vision is worse now than before he was hurt and he has paid roughly $4,800 in medical costs, said his attorney, Robert Tormohlen.

But the fact is, Sluggerr didn't "throw" the hot dog, folks.  At the time this happened, Sluggerr was shooting these things from a cannon, of sorts. Unfortunately for Mr. Coomer--and Sluggerr and the team, frankly--it hit him in eye.

The thing is, I know John Coomer. John Coomer is a friend of mine. And I happen to know he originally merely asked the team to pay for his surgery and medical bills.

Mr. Glass and the team said no, solidly.

It was only then that Mr. C. then had to file suit, merely to cover the costs of said medical bills.

I'd have thought--and most people would, I think--that the team and virtually any other company would merely pay the bills, likely out of their insurance coverage, do the right thing, mark it up to good PR and call it a day.

Not the skin flint that David Glass is, apparently, sadly.

So now, not only has it gone to court but it's now going to the Missouri State Supreme Court.

Pitiful.

It just doesn't seem as though a few thousand dollars, to cover some medical bills for a fan who was injured at the stadium, by the team mascot, would much to ask or expect, given the millions upon millions the team makes each and every year, from all the other fans.

Shameful.

It's bad enough they don't win enough baseball, enough years, down through time.

They also have to first injure and then punish their own fans in the stands.

Ewing Kauffman must surely be--once again--spinning in his grave.

Entertainment overnight

Great old flashback

It's one or the other, folks

Which will it be?

It just makes sense.

It's also the decent thing to do.

And human.

And humane.

And "Christian."

Quote of the day --here's your "wealth distribution" for you