Tuesday, January 14, 2014

The costs of war

The cost of war - Another week:

6758 - Number of Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn casualties as confirmed by U.S. Central Command.

4 more dead since Dec 17th.
- Marine Sgt. Daniel M. Vasselian, December 23, 2013 - 27, of Abington, MA.
- Air Force Capt. David I. Lyon, December 27, 2013 - 28, of Sandpoint, ID
- Marine Sgt. Jacob M. Hess, January 1, 2014 - 22, of Spokane, WA
- Army Sgt. First Class William K. Lacey, January 4, 2014 - 38, of Laurel Hill, FL

Another $2 Billion spent in Afghanistan. Total bill to U.S. Taxpayers = $1,505,178,618,274

How long are you going to tolerate this, America? How long are WE going to tolerate this?

We've been at war in Afghanistan 12 years.

This is crazy. Insane.

They don't want us there and we don't want to be there.

Let's get out. Let's end this nightmare.

Stop the endless wars.

Did you know this about the NFL?

Does any of this make any sense? Well, does it make any sense except to the very wealthy owners of these teams?

Keep in mind, too, each team is a monopoly.

On top of this obscenity, when they want their stadiums updated, first they go to each area with their respective hats out, asking their city/state/county for money to do so, followed closely by threatening the area with leaving.

And all the owners are billionaires in their own right.

This is crazy.

Let's not let them do this to us any longer.

Let's get THIS party started.

Write your government representative now:

Contacting the Congress: A Citizen's Congressional Directory

Thank you, in advance.

"Small government" Republicans?

Oh, sure they are. Well, until it comes to bringing home the bacon for their own district.

I got this email last evening from none other than Kansas Senator Jerry Moran:

NBAF Funded in Omnibus Bill
Today, we received good news — the Omnibus appropriations bill includes $404 million for construction of the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) in Manhattan. For those who have questioned whether NBAF will be built in Kansas, the passage of this funding bill will provide a clear answer: yes. This investment means Kansas will become a research epicenter, and the construction of this modern, world-class facility will ultimately create jobs for Kansans in the fields of engineering, science and technology. The talented young men and women who grow up here will have the opportunities they need to stay in Kansas.

As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I have worked to make certain NBAF remains a top priority for the Department of Homeland Security, the Administration and among Congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle. I am grateful to Governor Brownback, the Kansas legislature and Kansas State University President Kirk Schulz for their leadership and support as this process continues.

A January 2012 economic impact report found the NBAF will employ approximately 326 permanent employees and support some 757 construction jobs. The facility is expected to have a $3.5 billion economic impact on Kansas in the first 20 years alone. In addition to creating an economic boom for Kansas, NBAF will protect our national economy by researching foreign animal disease threats, which are very real with devastating impacts. The cost of an outbreak far outweighs the NBAF construction cost, not only in the loss of human life but also its damage to the animal and agricultural industry.

The state-of-the-art biosecurity lab is to be built adjacent to Kansas State University. The main laboratory will boast safety and security features recommended by the National Academies of Sciences. The state of Kansas showed its commitment to this project by contributing $202 million. A funding commitment was also made to provide infrastructure repairs at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center to guarantee a smooth transition of research from Plum Island, N.Y., to Manhattan, Kan.

And of course, that wasn't enough pork, oh, no. He's not done yet:

Basing Tanker at McConnell AFB Funded in Omnibus Bill
The Omnibus appropriations bill also includes $219 million in military construction funding for upgrades to McConnell Air Force Base (AFB) to accommodate the new KC-46A tankers. The KC-46A tanker fleet will begin arriving at McConnell in 2016, bringing more than 200 airmen to the base. The economic impact in Wichita and around the state will be felt before their arrival, as military construction of the infrastructure necessary to safeguard and house the new, larger tankers begins.

The various McConnell facility projects include: installation of the weapon system trainers to be ready for the aircraft arrival in 2016; construction of fuel cell and corrosion control hangars; construction of a parking space and hydrant fuel system; and, construction of a squadron operations and aircraft maintenance unit building. This investment is great news for our state and the city of Wichita, which is and will remain the air capital of the world. The Omnibus appropriations bill is expected to be voted on in the U.S. House and Senate this week.

Oh, yeah, they're "small government" all right. As long as it's the other government representative that isn't getting money in HIS or her district, sure, they are.

In the meantime, this is the political party that wants to cut your, our Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, folks.

Small spending, my eye.

He goes on to say, in his email about "Discussing the Best Ways to Create Jobs and Opportunity."

Never once in the following information did he say anything of, say, a jobs/infrastructure bill he or his fellow Republicans might propose.

So much for growth in our economy, eh?

Monday, January 13, 2014

Entertainment overnight

Congratulations, West Virginia!

We've all heard the news the last few days, out of West Virginia:

West Virginia chemical spill frustrates residents for fourth day

And what else can you say to the people of that state except a hearty congratulations?

Congratulations for voting against your own, best, self interests. Congratulations for voting Republican. Congratulations for voting for "small government" that doesn't regulate---oh, I don't know---chemical companies?

Now, could lessons be learned? Would you join us over here on the side of sanity and reason and good sense?

Please?

For your sake and ours, both?

From the "Things We Allow Corporations to Get Away With" file

Perhaps you saw some of these headlines in the last few days?

West Virginians to be without water for days because of chemical spill

Tap water fix in West Virginia still days away, official says

Thousands Without Water After Spill in West Virginia

West Virginia chemical spill frustrates residents for fourth day

Which brings up this thought I saw yesterday on Facebook:

"If a foreign terrorist group poisoned the water of an entire region in the U.S. we'd likely be going into another war, but since it's just an improperly regulated company, well, that's just the cost of doing business."

--From a post on Http://Fb.com/TheMarmelPage

Additional link: The Steve Marmel Page

Americans polarized politically? Follow the money

As a nation, plenty have wondered aloud why we Americans are so polarized, politically. Why so far Right Wing? Why so far Left?

There was a terrific, even important, if lengthy, article in The New York Times yesterday, describing at least in part precisely why it happened and is happening. As usual, as I've written here and elsewhere before, it's a case of money--and political parties--buying us. And votes. And even legislatures:

A National Strategy Funds State Political Monopolies

By his third year as chairman of the Alabama Republican organization, Mike Hubbard believed his party had just about everything it needed to win control of the State Legislature.

He had a plan: an 88-page playbook for the 2010 campaign, with detailed, district-by-district budgets and precise voter turnout targets. He had candidates: doctors, lawyers and small-business owners, most of them political novices recruited with an eye toward the anti-establishment fervor roiling the country.

What Mr. Hubbard did not have was enough money. Alabama law barred corporations, deep-pocketed natural allies for state Republicans, from giving more than $500 to candidates and parties — a limit that did not apply to the state’s unions.

So began a nationwide quest for cash that would take Mr. Hubbard, plan in hand, to the Republican Parties in states like Florida and Ohio, to a wealthy Texan who was one of the country’s biggest Republican givers and to a Washington organization that would provide checks from dozens of out-of-state corporations, among them ExxonMobil, Google, Facebook and Altria.

Exploiting a loophole in the state law and a network of political action committees in Alabama and Washington, Mr. Hubbard shuffled hundreds of thousands of out-of-state dollars into the Republican organization in Alabama, vastly outraising the state Democratic Party. On Election Day, Republicans won majorities in both the State Senate and House of Representatives for the first time since Reconstruction — and Alabama joined the rapidly growing fraternity of states where government is controlled by a single political party, now the largest it has been in more than half a century.

Further proof positive, folks. We are being bought and sold. The wealthy and corporations, as shown here, are buying and selling us.

We have to fight to end this.

We need to fight to end campaign contributions.

We need to fight to get bills making this kind of out-of-state contributions illegal.

We need to make political campaigns--what?--one or two months long, total, on both the state and federal levels, as England did years ago so our legislators don't need or shill for this money.

And it's not just a Republican Party problem, by any means. It's both parties and any and every other political party that has any power whatever.

It's only then we'll get our country back, our government back, for the people.

Additional, great information on this very topic, too, from local blogger

Radioman Kansas City:

Leaked Republican Tape reveals they Manufacture Scandals

We're being bought and sold, folks. You know it, I know it, we all know it. We need to stand up and demand an end to it. We can do this.

In the meantime, these are just some of the results we're getting here in America, as we also know:

Doesn't this go against everything America and Americans are supposed to be about?

The great American health care system

--The most expensive health care system in the world.

--The worst results from that health care, per person, compared to all other of the 17 industrialized nations of the world.

--More bankruptcies caused in the nation due to health care costs than any other source--approximately 40% of all bankruptcies in the country are due to health care expenses.

These three reasons alone show why we need health care reform. And badly. We need to get control of health insurance costs and rules, as the ACA, "Obamacare" does.

It's not rocket science.

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Entertainment overnight

A great combination---this singing group, their acapella style singing and Whitney Houston songs:

Yeehaw and Yahoo! Kansas and gunz! in the news today

Wichita City Hall, which already had metal detectors and security, is one of the few public buildings in the city where concealed weapons will still be banned.

Yessirree, Bob! Good old wild, wild West Kansas is in none other than the New York Times today and if it isn't on slashing education funding, well then, it must be on gunz in that state and what a good idea they are:

Keeping Public Buildings Free of Guns Proves Too Costly for Kansas Towns

It seems the Kansas Republican legislature screwed over their own populace by making it EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE to NOT allow guns in public spaces, all the time, everywhere:

WICHITA, Kan. — Reasoning that more guns mean greater safety, Kansas lawmakers voted last year to require cities and counties to make public buildings accessible to people legally carrying concealed weapons.

But for communities that remained wary of such open access to city halls, libraries, museums and courthouses, the Legislature provided an exemption: Guns can be banned as long as local governments pay for protections like metal detectors and security guards, ensuring the safety of those they have disarmed.

It turns out that in Wichita, the state’s most populous city, and in some other towns, the cost of opting out before the Jan. 1 deadline was just too high.

“It was essentially being foisted upon us,” said Janet Miller, a City Council member in Wichita. The city applied over the summer for a six month exemption but voted last month not to extend it after the police estimated that it would cost $14 million a year to restrict guns in all 107 city-owned buildings.

While Republican-majority legislatures across the country are easing restrictions on gun owners, few states are putting more pressure on municipalities right now than Kansas. The new law has forced some local leaders to weigh policy conviction against fiscal pragmatism in a choice that critics say was flawed from the start: Open vulnerable locations to concealed side arms or stretch meager budgets to cover the extra security
measures.

The ignorance, callousness and even stupidity of this is nearly mind-numbing for anyone who cares more about lives than the presence and/or ownership of weapons. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why, as we all intuitively know:

More Guns = More Killing

It only stands to reason. It's logic. Well, it's logic to everyone except weapons-all-the-time-and-everywhere supporters. Statistics and research (you know, that scientific stuff?) show it, time and again, across the world, yes, but even in studies in the US, from state to state:

Link between rates of gun ownership and homicides

Homicide - Harvard School of Public Health

And get this, even Kansans are against this lunacy:

According to a poll last year by Fort Hays State University, about 56 percent of Kansans strongly or somewhat opposed allowing concealed firearms in schools, hospitals and government buildings.

So to heck with what Kansans even think or feel or want, the Republican legislature is going to shove guns on them everywhere, for everyone, representative government be damned.

I fully expected their own--I mean, our own--Kansas state capitol building to be exempt from this ban but no, they took their commitments to insanity there, as well, I found:

Kansas Lawmakers Vote To Allow Guns In State Capitol

What they lack in common sense and intelligence, at least they try to make up for with consistency. Consistently stupid and irresponsible.

So thank you, very Republican Governor Sam "Slasher" Brownback and the very Republican statehouse. Once again, foisting things on the Kansas public Kansans don't even want, like additional tax breaks for the already-wealthy and corporations, heavy and copious tax increases for and on the backs of the middle- and lower-classes and--again, yahoo!--deep cuts to the education system.

Yeehaw, indeed, Kansas. Giddyup. The new state slogan: Kansas, forward! Into the 19th Century!

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Entertainment overnight

The NRA hits a new, if predictable, low

NRA NEWS DEFENDS ACCIDENTAL SHOOTINGS OF CHILDREN

In the past week, 26 children have been shot in accidents involving guns yet NRA News host Cam Edwards criticizes Moms Demand Action’s call for child access prevention laws, saying adults should not be held accountable for negligence in these cases. He argues against laws regarding safe gun storage, citing that there are no “knife storage laws,” and adds that children die in many kinds of accidents. Read about it here: http://bit.ly/1epiDoD.

If we CAN make this world safer for our kids, we SHOULD. Period. Join us as we work for child access prevention laws:http://momsdemandaction.org/join-us/

Links:

Accidental child shootings twice as common as statistics show

Children and Guns - The Hidden Toll

Your religion? Geographic

Aren't you special? (click on picture for easier reading)

There's a high likelihood that the god(s) you believe to exist was determined by when and where you were born.
-@Ryan-

Thus also explaining far too many Kansas Citians' opinions

When I read comments in newspapers and especially on blogs (one local blog in particular, ahem), I am frequently stunned to read how some white people think they're oppressed by some racism because of, of all things, black people especially but minorities in general. Today, on the interweb, I found out why:

Study Finds White Americans Believe They Experience More Racism Than African Americans

Pretty stunning stuff, however wrong:

There’s a saying that “the new racism is to deny that racism exists.” If that is the case, it may explain a study conducted by researchers from Tufts University’s School of Arts and Sciences and Harvard Business School. Their findings claim that self-described white Americans believe they have “replaced blacks” as the primary victims of racial discrimination in contemporary America.

The authors say that their study highlights how the expectations of a “post-racial” society, predicted or imagined in the wake of Barack Obama’s presidency, has far from been achieved.

The study finds that while both Caucasian and African Americans agree that anti-black racism has decreased over the last 60 years, whites believe that anti-white racism has increased.

And that's all pretty bizarre--and, of course, wrong, deeply wrong--but here's the really big kicker:

...the study finds that the majority of Caucasians believe that anti-white racism is a “bigger problem” than what African Americans face.

Right. Got it. Sure it is. Whatever. Whatever you say, honkie.

”It’s a pretty surprising finding when you think of the wide range of disparities that still exist in society, most of which show black Americans with worse outcomes than whites in areas such as income, home ownership, health and employment.” --Tufts Associate Professor of Psychology Samuel Sommers, PhD

Yes, it's "pretty surprising", all right.

Freaking wow.

"Pity party on aisle five!"

If people who are losing their jobs or getting their pay cut or whatever, would realize who's doing that to them---the boss or the corporations, you know, the wealthy people---maybe they'd realize who the real problem is.

But no. Just like with our current president.

Blame the black guy.

Links:

Whites See Racism as a Zero-Sum Game That They Are Now Los

Perspectives on Psychological Science.

Whites Believe They Are Victims of Racism More Often Than Blacks

Quote of the day--on America

Friday, January 10, 2014

Entertainment overnight---birthday edition

Happy birthday to Pat Benatar, rocker par excellence

America's priorities

Congratulations, America, you screwed up Iraq

The Iraq War then and Iraq now and what we don't want to know, as Americans who did it:

"We wrecked Iraq.

We caused the deaths of as many as a million people and displaced internally and externally, another 4.7 million. Today there are still more than a million Iraqis lost in their own country — internally displaced — mostly in Baghdad, according to unembedded journalist Dahr Jamail.

"Most of them have fled from sectarian cleansings," Jamail said when he was interviewed on Democracy Now! last year, on the 10-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. "They're living in horrible situations" — without government help, without hope for the future, surrounded by garbage, anticipating only more sectarian violence.

Our invasion wreaked havoc on the physical and social infrastructure of the country. And the weapons we used, including depleted uranium munitions and white phosphorous, shattered its health. In 2010, for instance, The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health published an epidemiological study, "Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005-2009," which found that Fallujah — the city we "cleared of terrorists" with two bloody assaults in 2004 — is experiencing higher rates of cancer, leukemia and infant mortality than Hiroshima and Nagasaki did in 1945.

The country as a whole, according to Jamail, has seen an enormous jump in cancer rates since the U.S. began dismantling it. In 1991, before the first Gulf War, there were 40 registered cases of cancer per 100,000 Iraqis, he noted. By 2005, "we saw 1,600 Iraqis with cancer out of 100,000."

And Fallujah, in particular, has been devastated by an increase in birth defects since 2004 — 14 times higher than the rate measured in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after they were bombed, according to Jamail.

It's common in Fallujah, he said, citing Iraqi Dr. Samira Alani, "for newborns to come out with massive multiple systemic defects, immune problems, massive central nervous system problems, massive heart problems, skeletal disorders, babies being born with two heads, babies being born with half of their internal organs outside of their bodies, cyclops babies literally with one eye — really, really, really horrific nightmarish types of birth defects. And it is ongoing."

This is the context in which war talk and the "vital interests" of empire must be placed. Such a context is unacceptable to the corporate and political status quo, of course; so the media it controls have begun to perform cosmetic surgery on recent U.S. history, resurrecting the goodness and purity of our intentions and the simplistic evil of "the terrorists." All they need to be successful is complete denial of reality.

But the invasion of Iraq, Jamail said, "is a crime against peace, according to the Nuremberg Principles." And that makes it, and all future wars, a crime against our own, and the planet's, vital interests.

Link to original post: Lies, Stupidity, Waste and War Crimes: Iraq and the Ongoing Calamity of America's "Vital Interests"

Quote of the day---on Conservatives

We must take back our elections and so, our government

Why we must fight to get the big money out of our government

Why we must fight to end campaign contributions in elections in America.

Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave who wrote "I prayed for 20 years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs" went on to become a leader of the abolitionist movement, author, statesman, and orator of great influence. He was the first black man to be nominated for Vice President of the United States, on the tiny Equal RIghts Party ticket (and apparently without his consent, interestingly enough) and also wrote "The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion."

Your opinion voters? Who needs that?

KC mayor calls airport vote petition drive a 'wasted effort'

Citizens of Kansas City and the area? Who needs your opinion?

You're just going to be the ones paying for any new airport at KCI with higher fees to fly in and out of town.

Your vote? Bah.

Democracy?

Fuggedaboudit!

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Entertainment overnight

Entertainment overnight--birthday edition

With very happy birthday wishes for and to Joan Baez

From the "betcha' didn't know" file

In 1913 it was legal to mail children. With stamps attached to their clothing, children rode trains to their destinations, accompanied by letter carriers. One newspaper reported it cost fifty-three cents for parents to mail their daughter to her grandparents for a family visit. As news stories and photos popped up around the country, it didn't take long to get a law on the books making it illegal to send children through the mail.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Why blacks don't trust police

To white people and people of more money who don't understand why some, at least, black people don't or even can't trust police, this little beauty just happened recently, up the road, in Omaha:

More from the original, fuller article:

Caught On Tape: Minor Parking Violation Ends In Police Brutality

Watch it all the way to the end. It's nearly unbelievable. you keep thinking the police won't escalate the situation--or the stupidity--any further. You almost can't count how many officers show up, just to arrest two men. And the second truly was just exerting his rights and was in no way breaking any law. Even then, that's not enough, they call in a helicopter. It must have been a slow day in Omaha. The police needed entertainment.

If you look at the end of the video when the person sweeps up and down, back and forth on the street, you'll see that 12 police cars and all those police responded to two law-abiding men, minding their own business. Nice, huh?

Never let it be said it doesn't suck to be either black or poor in the United States of America, even now, as late as the year 2014.

If I'm either of the two men who were arrested, I'd immediately file civil and criminal lawsuits against each and every one of the officers who responded, with damages. Lots and lots of damages. Then I'd sue the police department and city.

Thank goodness for cellphones and video. It's becoming the minority's and poor's best defense.

Against the police.

Don't like our government?

What a question, right? I mean, who does like our government of late? Well, other than the wealthy and corporations who can and do get whatever they want because they can buy our legislators, their legislation, our laws and so, our government. They love it, sure. They're lining their pockets.

But us?

And the thing is, so many say they don't know what they or we should do to fix it, to fix the mess that is Washington, DC.

Well, the one thing I think we can all agree on, no matter if we're from the Left or Right or Middle or whatever.

That is, get the money out.

Get the big, ugly, corrupting influence of the money from the wealthy and corporations out of the government.

And to do that, it has to get out of our elections.

To that end, I propose five uncomplicated, clear, intelligent, straight-forward ways we could do just that--get the money out of our government.

First, legislate an end to the earlier ruling by the Supreme Court that is Citizens United .

To say that corporations can and should be able to unload untold millions and billions of dollars of their money into our elections is insanity. It weakens, badly, each of our own opinions and votes. Corporations only exist for themselves and for their own existence and continued, ever-increasing profits. People exist for people and the nation exists for the betterment of the people. Those different needs and goals are all we need to know about why we need to work and legislate for us and not for corporations.

Second, Make it illegal to go to and from government positions and private companies. We have to kill the very famous "revolving door" from government to corporations and back. Once again, it puts the corporations first and people second, if even there.

Third, pass The American Anti-Corruption Act.

If a legislator is considering legislation that would effect a company, that same legislator shouldn't be able to take money or any remuneration of any sort from them. It makes sense. Again, it's not complicated.

Fourth, we have to fight to end campaign contributions, period, in the country. We have to get the money out of our election system so we consequently, get it also out of our government. We have to eliminate the legal ability for companies and the wealthy to give our representatives these bribes, these "contributions", this money sjust so they can buy whatever legislation they want, country--and people--be damned. Note: we also need to get this accomplished on the state level, state by state, so we, the people, win there, too.

Finally, in order to make the need for the money go away, we need to shorten our elections. This is doable, eminently doable. England wisely did it years ago. We just need to legislate that campaigns are--what?--one month, two months long? By law. It only goes against what we're used to, that's all. It doesn't make sense any longer.

And none of these take away anyone's right to free speech. They may still speak all they'd like. There would just be parameters to the money and the length of the campaigns, that's it.

So let's get started. Let's make 2014 the year we begin this big, smart, necessary work.

Here's to us.

Link: Citizens United : Dedicated to restoring our government to citizen