Posts
Thankfully, Kansas City Cameron Lamb Riots Never Happened
31 minutes ago
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Betty Bowers has outdone even herself, God love her
In case you're not familiar with her:
Mrs. Betty Bowers, America's Best Christian!
She's the best. Enjoy.
America's heath care system
We Americans aren't very bright, allowing our health care and health care system to be tied to profit.
No other country in the world does this.
The result? The runaway most expensive health care system in the world, bar none.
Important National Anniversary
I learned today, out here on the interwebs, that today is the nation's 13th anniversary of going into Afghanistan. I was reminded by some military veterans and their call:
A Repubican who got it
Yet another Republican, of course from the past, who understood we couldn't let campaign contributions run amuck in this country:
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
How campaign contributions actually work and why we need to end them
I post here and on Facebook and everywhere I can, really, about how campaign contributions and all that big money are ruining our country. They're ruining our Democracy, our democracy, our government representatives and so, their---our---legislation, our laws and our government and nation.
Proof of it? Look no further than this article from the online magazine "Cracked":
And it's here, under item number four:
#4. Legal Bribery Happens All the Time
ceazars/iStock/Getty Images
You probably hear a lot of people complaining about "lobbyists" -- the shady types who go to Washington on behalf of some corporation or special interest and grease the palms of Congress to make sure the vote goes their way. Maybe the most famous/infamous lobbyist of all time is Jack Abramoff, a name you may know from a massive scandal that was in the news a few years ago. He was one of the most successful lobbyists in Washington until, like Icarus, he flew too close to the sun and wound up spending four years in prison. To learn more about the dark side of lobbying, we spoke to someone with inside knowledge of how Abramoff worked. That is, Abramoff himself.
Alex Wong/Getty Images News/Getty ImagesSome call him the Jack Abramoff of Jack Abramoffs.
Right off, he told us it's not as simple as walking up to a senator with a hundred-dollar bill in your palm and saying, "Soooo ... about these new oil-drilling regulations, could my friend Ben Franklin get you to change your mind?" There are actual laws against that. But don't worry, there are lots of other ways to buy influence:
"You need a quid pro quo for it to be statutory bribery [i.e.: I vote this way, you pay me]. Few in Washington would want to cross that line. Instead, they bribe in a far more palatable and legal way. They provide a stream of benefits over time. They take Congress to ball games, dinner, golf, and concerts. They provide thousands of dollars in campaign contributions. The congressman, in turn, being grateful for all this bounty, lends an ear or hand to the lobbyist when needed. You scratch my back and I scratch yours. Welcome to Washington."
"Once we needed a letter from Majority Leader Harry Reid, opposing the approval of a casino in Louisiana for a tribe that was encroaching our client's market. I had on my staff one of Reid's former staff members, and he served as the conduit to Reid's office. Typically, our requests were matched by Reid's folks with requests for money. As I recall, in this case, they wanted a $50,000 contribution to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, though they never would have been so crass as to be direct about it. They made sure we understood, though. We complied and got our letter. That's how things worked, I am sorry to say."
OK, but ultimately don't all of these people answer to the voters? You can't stay in office supporting unpopular positions, and if you lose your next election you'll have to actually pay money for your Wizards tickets like some kind of asshole. Luckily, lobbyists can take their lobbying right to the public:
"When we had ideological fights and issues linked to our lobbying campaigns -- which was most of the time -- I'd find a think tank scholar or activist who shared our approach and pay them to pen a piece supporting our position. This was just one small part of a multi-million-dollar lobbying effort, and usually only involved small payments, but it was one of those things that I look back on now and blanch."
So, how much cash are we talking about here? Well, the 2012 election was the most expensive political election in history. You probably heard no end of pundits complaining about that. But in the same year, lobbyists spent $6.7 billion bribing their way through D.C. -- $500 million more than Romney, Obama, and all their PACs spent combined. And it gets worse ...
And then it goes on:
And then it goes on:
#3. Lobbyists Are Everywhere, Operating Without Rules
I write this because first, Americans need to know what's happening in Washington and our government and then second, so we know what we need to do.
I think, deep down, and maybe even not that deeply, we know the money needs to get out of our government. Certainly we can all agree on that. The only thing that's left after that is how we do it.
And the truth is, the only way it can be done is to overturn the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision to begin and then follow that up with fighting to end campaign contributions entirely.
It can be done.
It's huge, it will take time and demand a huge fight from the people but it can be done. And it will have to come from us, from the people.
The fact is, the UK made their campaigns for government office only one month long and they did it years ago. We can do that same thing, surely.
It's the only way we'll end the big money that's buying our government. We have to get the money out.
And we have to get started.
Kansas vs Missouri reaction to Supreme Court ruling on (marriage) equality
The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that states must accept other states recognition of marriages, including those of same-sex couples.
You'd that would settle it, right?
Well, naturally not, given some "red" or Republican states legislators and governors.
What's interesting, however, is the difference between the way Kansas and Missouri will apparently be approaching this issue. Check it out:
Kansas is ignoring the Supreme Court too — the governor is GOP former congressional neanderthal Sam Brownback:
“You can’t do that in the state of Kansas,” said Nancy Escalante, supervisor for marriage licenses at the court. “Our application says ‘man and woman.’ The Legislature has not changed it.”
In contrast, here’s how a Democratic governor handled today’s move by the Supreme Court, even though none of the decisions in question even applied to Missouri:
Attorney General Chris Koster today released the following statement:“The circuit court’s judgment in Barrier v. Vasterling held that Missouri must recognize marriages lawfully entered into in other states. We will not appeal that judgment. Our national government is founded upon principles of federalism – a system that empowers Missouri to set policy for itself, but also obligates us to honor contracts entered into in other states.A consequence of this morning’s ruling by the United States Supreme Court is that gay marriage will soon be legal in as many as 30 states. At a time when Missouri is competing to attract the nation’s premier businesses and most talented employees, we should not demand that certain individuals surrender their marriage licenses in order to live and work among us.Missouri’s future will be one of inclusion, not exclusion.”
Kudos to Chris Koster and the entire state of Missouri.
Imagine that. People wanting equality. In America.
Monday, October 6, 2014
Good moon rising
The exact time of the next full moon is:
Wednesday * 8th October 2014 * 12:50:36 pm
Central European Summer Time (CEST)
Moon sign: Aries 15° 05'
Quote--and question--of the day
The “democracy movement” in Hong Kong is garnering headlines, but what about America? With Congress gridlocked and dysfunctional, the real work of the nation has quietly shifted to three agencies beyond its direct reach -- the Supreme Court (which returns to work tomorrow, and is dictating much of America’s social policy), the Federal Reserve Board (now handling the nation’s economic policy), and the Pentagon (now dictating much of our foreign policy).
The will of the American people is being supplanted by the views of five right-wing Republican jurists, a committee of economists and bankers, and several generals. We could use a democracy movement in America.
--
Robert Reich
I couldn't agree more. It just shouldn't/can't be run by the Republicans, the very wrong Right Wing or the Tea Party.
What too many Americans--not just Right Wingers--don't get about race. And America
There is a terrific article out yesterday on Why the GOP hates U.S. history: Inconvenient truths that freak out American conservatives.
It's a good to great read.
Full of those pesky facts, it tells of a few fairly incredible instances of where people on the Right (I like to call it "The Wrong") and in the Republican Party, specifically, keep either rewriting or trying to rewrite American history to fit their own ideas or preferences.
I think a lot of Kansas Citians suffer from this same mentality, clearly, especially regarding race as evidenced by people I've met or whom I know--some even in my own family, frankly--as well as the commenters of some blogs in town.
All that said, I think the best part of the article, for me, is this about that Right Wing rewrite of America's racial history, especially concerning blacks, African-Americans in the US, slavery and where we all are now, mostly economically and financially:
Recently convicted felon and conservative columnist Dinesh D’Souza’s book, “The End of Racism,” provides some great examples of rewriting race. D’Souza says of slavery, “No free workers enjoyed a comparable social security system from birth until death.” Later, he writes, “Masters … encouraged the family unit which basically remained intact.” In a particularly appalling passage, he writes, “slavery appears such a relatively mild business that one begins to wonder why Frederick Douglass and so many other ever tried to escape.” And concludes, “In summary, the American slave was treated like property, which is to say, pretty well.”
The Problem: Conservatives in the U.S. have a race problem, specifically that many of them believe that blacks are “primarily responsible for their own success or failure” and that government programs only get in the way. And conservative politicians tend to racialize welfare programs to decrease support for them. To believe that black Americans would have been better off without government intervention, you have to pretend history doesn’t matter.
As Marx notes, people, “The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.” There simply is little mobility for black Americans today because the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and housing segregation still weighs heavily. A recent study finds that counties with higher concentrations of slave ownership in 1870 had higher levels of poverty and racial inequality in 2000. Further, white people in these counties harbor more racial resentment.
That’s because when slavery permeated society — the legal structure, culture, science — nothing was left untouched by racism and racial hierarchy. The conservative “I built this myself” mentality denies that most wealth is passed from generation to generation, and so is privilege. Erasing the memory of racial hierarchy allows conservatives and Americans to pretend that individual effort, rather than structural racism, is keeping black people down.
So what was slavery really like? Jennifer Hallam writes, “Economic benefit almost always outweighed considerations of family ties for planters, even those who were advocates of long-lasting relationships between slaves.” Rather than being “relatively mild,” slavery relied on brutality and violence, the horrors of which are described in Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s “Bury Me in a Free Land”:
I could not sleep if I saw the lash
Drinking her blood with each fearful gash,
And I saw her babes torn from her breast,
Like trembling doves from their parent nest.I’d shudder and start if I heard the bay
Of bloodhounds seizing their human prey,
And I heard the captive plead in vain
As they bound afresh his galling chain.If I saw young girls from their mother’s arms
Bartered and sold for their youthful charms,
My eye would flash with a mournful flame,
My death-paled cheek grow red with shame.
And, of course, racism and racial hierarchy didn’t end when slavery was formally abolished, but rather continued through local policies, terrorism and violence. This violence was often orchestrated at the highest levels of government. Consider, for example, the FBI’s attempts to discredit MLK or the assassination of Black Panther Fred Hampton.
In his response to Phil Robertson’s sentimentalism about the Jim Crow era last year, Ta-Nehisi Coates cites Freddie Moore:
“The corpse of 16-year-old Freddie Moore, his face showing signs of a severe beating, hands bound, remained hanging for at least 24 hours from a metal girder on the old, hand-cranked swing bridge spanning Bayou Lafourche. Hanged by the neck the night of Oct. 11, 1933, in a mob lynching, the black youth had been accused in the death of a neighbor, a white girl.”
And racial violence didn’t end in the ’30s, but continued until through the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s and, well, two months ago.
_____________________________
It's sad to even troubling so many don't know and understand this.
It's even more so that so many will not just debate it but deny it all.
Sunday, October 5, 2014
Thursday, October 2, 2014
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Entertainment Overnight --- The Cure does McCartney
I just learned this evening that there is a CD coming out soon--"The Art of McCartney."
That would be Paul McCartney, of course, of "The Beatles" fame as well as his own, solo career, with and now without his wife Linda. (She passed April 17, 1998).
I listened to some of the other pieces and found them pretty unremarkable. I found I didn't need to hear Alice Cooper sing "Eleanor Rigby", for instance. I'd hoped Willie Nelson singing "Yesterday" would be a revelation or fun or touching but it just wasn't there for me.
This one, however, The Cure singing "Hello Goodbye" was true to their own style as well as the song. I enjoyed it. Perhaps you will, too.
It is to be released November 18 but can, of course, be pre-ordered now. Google it, you'll find where you do that.
Link for more info here: The Art of McCartney: Home
Take it easy this morning, Kansas City
If you go into a service organization or company this morning, Kansas City, of any kind and the service isn't up to par, isn't what it should be, somehow lacking, give them a break. Let's give them all a break this morning.
It was a late night for a lot of us.
The Royals' game last night against the A's went late. Really late.
Thousands of us, from those at the stadium to lots and lots of us in our homes, in front of our TV sets, were all waiting for the Royals to win that game.
So let's be patient.
Take a deep breath. Step back. Chill.
It was worth it.
It was definitely worth it.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Monday, September 29, 2014
Go KC!
The Kansas City Chiefs and Kansas City Royals and Kansas City, really, getting some kudos and attention, what with handling the Patriots tonight and the Royals in the playoffs.
Go KC!
(Suck on that, Tony).
Our Obscene, Huge, Immoral Defense Spending
Think our government spends too much?
Sure you do.
So let's cut the spending that is the biggest, most wasteful, most irresponsible segment of all that spending.
Fight to cut funding for the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). It's absurdly bloated, it's immoral, it's obscene, it isn't even accounted for, they get so much money. They cannot and do not even account for all they get and spend.
The Blatant Immorality of America's Economic System (guest post)
When Republicans talk about morality, they talk about God and redemption. But they don't mention the immorality of one in five of American children being impoverished, of cuts in food stamps that are causing many to go hungry, and of reduced education funding that’s condemning them to lousy schools. They don't talk about the immorality of declining worker incomes when corporations are making record profits and CEOs are taking home record pay. They leave out the immorality of billionaires flooding our democracy with money to elect candidates that will make them even richer. We are in a moral crisis but it has nothing to do with private redemption. It is a crisis of public morality, and the redemption of America.
--Robert Reich, American political economist, professor, author, and political commentator
Quote of the day -- on the job creators
The real job creators are not CEOs or corporations or even entrepreneurs. The job creators are the middle class and the poor, whose purchases cause businesses to expand. If the middle and poor don't have enough purchasing power, businesses won't hire. Which explains why America's job picture continues to be so bad, with the lowest share of the working-age population now employed than in over three decades. Almost nothing has been trickling down to the middle class and poor.
We don't need tax cuts for the wealthy or for corporations. We need a higher minimum wage, an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit, and stronger unions.
--Robert Reich, American political economist, professor, author, and political commentator
Saturday, September 27, 2014
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