Dear Citizens:
Many of you have written to me in response to my email yesterday about the voter ID bill. Some of you were very enthusiastic in your support of our efforts to fight back against this assault on our voting rights. But others of you had questions about the bill, and wondered why we oppose requiring qualified voters to show an ID at the polls. "You have to show an ID to rent a video, why not to vote?" someone asked. "With all the voter fraud out there, I think voter ID is a good idea," another person wrote.
I want to address these questions and fully explain why this bill is wrong for Wisconsin.
First of all, the right to vote is guaranteed to citizens of Wisconsin in our state constitution. The right to rent a movie, open a checking account, go to the bar, get on an airplane or any other similar activity is not, and requiring an ID for these types of activities is not a barrier to exercising a constitutionally-protect right. Voter ID is fundamentally different.
There is absolutely no evidence of a widespread conspiracy to commit voter fraud. Wisconsin's Republican Attorney General JB Van Hollen has made prosecuting so-called voter fraud one of his top priorities. However, after a two year investigation into the 2008 election, Van Hollen has found a scant 11 potentially improper ballots out of nearly 3 million total votes cast. http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/86917797.html
Of those, eight involved felons who voted while out in the community on probation or parole, a situation that voter ID would not remedy. That leaves 3 potentially bad votes out of 3,000,000 votes, or about 0.000001% of all votes cast. Voter ID is a solution in search of a problem.
The bill's authors, Republican Rep. Jeff Stone and Sen. Joe Leibham, have modeled their bill after Indiana's Voter ID law, which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. According to the Supreme Court case upholding Indiana’s Voter ID bill, the lower court found “99 percent of Indiana’s voting age population already possesses the necessary photo identification to vote under the requirements.”
Wisconsin’s population is substantially less likely to have a state-issued identification. Those without state-issued photo identification and who would need to obtain one under the Wisconsin Voter ID bill include:
•23 percent of all elderly Wisconsinites over the age of 65
•17 percent of white men and women
•55 percent of all African American males and 49 percent of African American women
•46 percent of Hispanic men and 59% of Hispanic women
•78 percent of African American males age 18-24 and 66 percent of African American women age 18-24
[Driver License Status of the Voting Age Population in Wisconsin, 6/05] http://www.brennancenter.org/page/-/d/download_file_50902.pdf
Yes, the bill as written does have a provision to provide free identification for some Wisconsinites. Each and every one of these people would have to take the time off (in many cases unpaid) from work or family obligations to flock to Wisconsin DMVs. However, access to the DMV is a problem in Wisconsin; Indiana provides its residents exponentially more access to its Department of Motor Vehicles offices to obtain identification.
Wisconsin and Indiana have similar voting age populations (4.35 million vs. 4,8 million), but Wisconsin is 50 percent larger geographically than Indiana (54,314 sq. miles vs. 35,870 sq. miles). Indiana not only provides its residents 50 percent more DMV offices than Wisconsin (140 to 91), but also nearly three times the total hours these facilities are open.
Also consider:
•Twenty-six percent of Wisconsin’s 91 DMVs are open one day a month or less, while none of Indiana’s are open less than 100 days a year and nearly all are open over 250 days a year.
•Wisconsin has only one DMV with weekend hours, while Indiana has 124 offices with weekend hours.
•Three Wisconsin counties have no DMVs, no Indiana county is without a DMV.
•Over half of Wisconsin’s 91 DMVs are open on a part-time basis, while Indiana provides full-time DMVs in every county.
[Wisconsin DMV service centers and hours, by county; Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles, locations and hours] http://dot.wi.gov/about/locate/dmv/scmap.htm
The need to expand the numbers and operational hours of Wisconsin DMVs to provide appropriate access could increase the $70 million biennial Wisconsin DMV budget by as much as 50 percent on top of the current $5 million price tag to provide free identifications.
Requiring eligible voters to produce ID at the polls is an unnecessary hurdle to exercising our right to vote which will prevent many people from voting. The "widespread voter fraud" that this bill is aimed at "fixing" does not exist, and the microscopic number of double votes will be FAR outpaced by the number of people who will be prevented from voting by the voter ID requirement. In a time when Wisconsin faces a $3 billion budget deficit, we simply cannot afford to double the DMV budget. Voter ID is a big-government, budget-busting solution in search of a problem; a solution that will make it more difficult to practice our most fundamental right.
That is why we oppose voter ID. I hope this email helps to answer your questions about this bill. If you're ready to join this fight, please sign up for our Voter Protection Task Force to push back against this assault on our democratic rights.
Sorry for the long email, but thank you, as always, for everything you do.
scot
One Wisconsin Now
One Wisconsin Now is a new-media online network of citizens from across Wisconsin committed to advancing progressive policy, leadership, values and ensuring equal economic opportunity for all.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Sarah Palin’s “blood libel” Sparks Reaction by Jewish Groups
Sarah Palin’s “blood libel” Sparks Reaction by Jewish Groups
The term “blood libel” is not a synonym for “false accusation.”
Monday, January 10, 2011
Thursday, January 06, 2011
Repeal the Republicons!
Further proof, courtesy of the non-partisan CBO, that Republicons really don't care about the deficit (as if extention of the Bu$h tax cuts for the rich weren't proof enough: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/06/AR2011010604419.html
EXCERPT: In a letter to Boehner, budget office director Douglas Elmendorf estimated repeal would increase the deficit by $230 billion from 2012 to 2021, the 10-year estimating period for budget projections. Moreover, Elmendorf said about 32 million more people would be uninsured in 2019 as a consequence.
But Boehner told reporters: "I do not believe that repealing the job-killing health care law will increase the deficit."
EXCERPT: In a letter to Boehner, budget office director Douglas Elmendorf estimated repeal would increase the deficit by $230 billion from 2012 to 2021, the 10-year estimating period for budget projections. Moreover, Elmendorf said about 32 million more people would be uninsured in 2019 as a consequence.
But Boehner told reporters: "I do not believe that repealing the job-killing health care law will increase the deficit."
Boehner's bit is further proof that are complete liars and GOPocrits. You see the House GOPsters instituted a rule that all the cost of all measures must be offset by corresponding cuts elsewhere except for tax cuts (for the rich) and repeal of the Job Saving Obamacare Law. HELLO! They wouldn't need to exempt it from their rule if it wasn't going to SAVE OUR GOVERNMENT MONEY!
Oh and bonus of BONUSES! Their GOPish exemption of tax cuts (for the rich) from their new House rule is blatant admission that tax cuts (for the rich) DO NOT increase government revenue!
Cons Supporting Terrorists (AGAIN!)
Wanted for arrest and prosecution: Rudy Giuliani and Bushites Michael Mukasey, Tom Ridge, and Fran Townsend. For violating U.S. law and providing material support to a U.S. designated terrorist organization: http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-news-section/69-69/4501-leading-conservatives-openly-support-terrorists
EXCERPT: Imagine if a group of leading American liberals met on foreign soil with -- and expressed vocal support for -- supporters of a terrorist group that had (a) a long history of hateful anti-American rhetoric, (b) an active role in both the takeover of a U.S. embassy and Saddam Hussein's brutal 1991 repression of Iraqi Shiites, (c) extensive financial and military support from Saddam, (d) multiple acts of violence aimed at civilians, and (e) years of being designated a "Terrorist organization" by the U.S. under Presidents of both parties, a designation which is ongoing? The ensuing uproar and orgies of denunciation would be deafening. (This will never see the light of day in the "Liberal" Press)
But on December 23, a group of leading conservatives -- including Rudy Giuliani and former Bush officials Michael Mukasey, Tom Ridge, and Fran Townsend -- did exactly that.
GOPocrisy Knows No Bounds!
And remember that in June the SCROTUS Robed Reationary Political Hactivists ruled that the USA (un)PATRIOT ACT superceded the first amendment, criminalizing even speech in support of designated terrorist groups and even when it's done by humanitarian groups trying to get these organizations to use international law to resolve conflicts peacefully: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-affirms-material-support-law-free-speech/story?id=10970249 (Cuz you know the Warrantless-Wire-Tapping-Cons just loves them a bounch O Constitution, hell they're reading it on the floor of the house today!)
Once again we see with the GOPsters that it's not about issues or principals, but about power and control and whose got it and who they want to keep it. The Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK) aren't terrorists anymore, they're Fricken Freedom Fighters!
I just know the FBI is gonna perp walk these creeps any minute now, right? Cuz in America we believe in the rule of law and equal justice under it. Yeah right. Freedom, Justice and Democracy, my ass!
EXCERPT: Imagine if a group of leading American liberals met on foreign soil with -- and expressed vocal support for -- supporters of a terrorist group that had (a) a long history of hateful anti-American rhetoric, (b) an active role in both the takeover of a U.S. embassy and Saddam Hussein's brutal 1991 repression of Iraqi Shiites, (c) extensive financial and military support from Saddam, (d) multiple acts of violence aimed at civilians, and (e) years of being designated a "Terrorist organization" by the U.S. under Presidents of both parties, a designation which is ongoing? The ensuing uproar and orgies of denunciation would be deafening. (This will never see the light of day in the "Liberal" Press)
But on December 23, a group of leading conservatives -- including Rudy Giuliani and former Bush officials Michael Mukasey, Tom Ridge, and Fran Townsend -- did exactly that.
GOPocrisy Knows No Bounds!
And remember that in June the SCROTUS Robed Reationary Political Hactivists ruled that the USA (un)PATRIOT ACT superceded the first amendment, criminalizing even speech in support of designated terrorist groups and even when it's done by humanitarian groups trying to get these organizations to use international law to resolve conflicts peacefully: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-affirms-material-support-law-free-speech/story?id=10970249 (Cuz you know the Warrantless-Wire-Tapping-Cons just loves them a bounch O Constitution, hell they're reading it on the floor of the house today!)
Once again we see with the GOPsters that it's not about issues or principals, but about power and control and whose got it and who they want to keep it. The Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK) aren't terrorists anymore, they're Fricken Freedom Fighters!
I just know the FBI is gonna perp walk these creeps any minute now, right? Cuz in America we believe in the rule of law and equal justice under it. Yeah right. Freedom, Justice and Democracy, my ass!
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
5 Myths About Federal Workers
For those of you misguided enough to buy the GOPmyth that government workers are over paid, are the problem and that we can balance our budgets on their backs:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/03/AR2010120303160.html
Just a little more of the plethora of evidence that the entire modern conservative agenda is fueled by lies. But we know that wingnuts need enemies, so here are your "enemies".
1. Federal employees are overpaid compared with private-sector workers.
Federal employees make on average 24 percent less than their private-sector counterparts. In addition, the average private-sector salary in 2010 for a recent college graduate was $48,661. Entry-level federal workers start at $34,075, or $42,209 for candidates with superior academic achievement.
2. The federal workforce is bigger than ever.
federal government employs 2.1 million people. The workforce is now slightly smaller than it was in 1967, at the height of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, and today there are 100 million more Americans to serve. Even during the Reagan administration, when small government was a political mantra, there were still between 2.1 and 2.2 million federal workers. In fact, there was an increase of about 95,000 federal employees between 1981 and 1989. Today, two out of three federal civilian employees work for the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs or Justice. The vast majority of government hiring since 2003 has been in these four departments.
3. You can't fire a federal worker.
In the 2009 fiscal year, 11,275 federal employees were fired for poor performance or misconduct. In addition, a survey of federal managers by the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board suggests that besides those who are formally terminated, there are a sizable number of employees who voluntarily leave after they are counseled that their performance is unacceptable.
4. Most federal workers are paper-pushing clerks.
The vast majority of federal workers hold white-collar professional, administrative and technical jobs. Approximately 20 percent of federal workers have a master's degree, professional degree or doctorate, vs. 13 percent in the private sector. Fifty-one percent of federal employees have at least a college degree, compared with 35 percent in the private sector. Remarkably, more than 50 current or former federal employees have received Nobel Prizes. In fact, about one in four American Nobel laureates have been federal workers. Their contributions have included the eradication of polio, the mapping of the human genome and the harnessing of atomic energy.
5. Pay or hiring freezes would help slash the federal budget.
History has taught us that arbitrary, broad hiring and pay freezes don't return significant cost savings. How much will the government save by cutting 10 percent of the federal workforce - about 200,000 employees - as recommended by the president's deficit commission? If the work of federal employees is simply contracted to the private sector, the savings could be minimal or the move could even cost us more. If government employees are not replaced and their salaries are returned to the Treasury, the government would save at most $20 billion annually, or roughly 0.5 percent of total budget outlays.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/03/AR2010120303160.html
Just a little more of the plethora of evidence that the entire modern conservative agenda is fueled by lies. But we know that wingnuts need enemies, so here are your "enemies".
1. Federal employees are overpaid compared with private-sector workers.
Federal employees make on average 24 percent less than their private-sector counterparts. In addition, the average private-sector salary in 2010 for a recent college graduate was $48,661. Entry-level federal workers start at $34,075, or $42,209 for candidates with superior academic achievement.
2. The federal workforce is bigger than ever.
federal government employs 2.1 million people. The workforce is now slightly smaller than it was in 1967, at the height of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, and today there are 100 million more Americans to serve. Even during the Reagan administration, when small government was a political mantra, there were still between 2.1 and 2.2 million federal workers. In fact, there was an increase of about 95,000 federal employees between 1981 and 1989. Today, two out of three federal civilian employees work for the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs or Justice. The vast majority of government hiring since 2003 has been in these four departments.
3. You can't fire a federal worker.
In the 2009 fiscal year, 11,275 federal employees were fired for poor performance or misconduct. In addition, a survey of federal managers by the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board suggests that besides those who are formally terminated, there are a sizable number of employees who voluntarily leave after they are counseled that their performance is unacceptable.
4. Most federal workers are paper-pushing clerks.
The vast majority of federal workers hold white-collar professional, administrative and technical jobs. Approximately 20 percent of federal workers have a master's degree, professional degree or doctorate, vs. 13 percent in the private sector. Fifty-one percent of federal employees have at least a college degree, compared with 35 percent in the private sector. Remarkably, more than 50 current or former federal employees have received Nobel Prizes. In fact, about one in four American Nobel laureates have been federal workers. Their contributions have included the eradication of polio, the mapping of the human genome and the harnessing of atomic energy.
5. Pay or hiring freezes would help slash the federal budget.
History has taught us that arbitrary, broad hiring and pay freezes don't return significant cost savings. How much will the government save by cutting 10 percent of the federal workforce - about 200,000 employees - as recommended by the president's deficit commission? If the work of federal employees is simply contracted to the private sector, the savings could be minimal or the move could even cost us more. If government employees are not replaced and their salaries are returned to the Treasury, the government would save at most $20 billion annually, or roughly 0.5 percent of total budget outlays.
Monday, January 03, 2011
A comment (and personal history) on RNC chair front-runner Reince Priebus
A comment (and personal history) on RNC chair front-runner Reince Priebus
Hey fellow BAPers, do you remember his 2004 failed campaign as "fondly" as I do?
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
GOPants On Fire
Since conservatism survives on a series of big lies swallowed by their gulligle minions, it's only fitting that politifact has chosen the adnnauseum repeated GOPsterism "Government take over of healthcare" as the 2010 Lie of the Year: http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2010/dec/16/lie-year-government-takeover-health-care/
Crafted by GOPundit Frnak Luntz, it has no basis in truth, but Republicons don't care about truth they care about messaging, you know GOPropaganda. Under the reform of broken healthcare system:
- Employers still continue to provide health insurance to the majority of Americans.
- More people will get private haelthcare coverage.
- Exchanges are set up for private insurers to compete to provide coverage to those without insurance
- The government does not run the hospitals
- the government does not employ the doctors
- It's all private, there is not government run public option to compete with private insurers
- Tax credits are provided to assist those with difficulty getting insurance to buy it from a private provider.
So "Government take over" and socialism are just plain lies, period.
By the way, the runner up was fruitcake Michelle Bachman's claim that Obama would spend $200,000,000 per day on his trip to India. No basis in fact there either. But that won't stop millions of Fux Snooze morons from gobbling it down and regurgitating it projectile fashion.
Crafted by GOPundit Frnak Luntz, it has no basis in truth, but Republicons don't care about truth they care about messaging, you know GOPropaganda. Under the reform of broken healthcare system:
- Employers still continue to provide health insurance to the majority of Americans.
- More people will get private haelthcare coverage.
- Exchanges are set up for private insurers to compete to provide coverage to those without insurance
- The government does not run the hospitals
- the government does not employ the doctors
- It's all private, there is not government run public option to compete with private insurers
- Tax credits are provided to assist those with difficulty getting insurance to buy it from a private provider.
So "Government take over" and socialism are just plain lies, period.
By the way, the runner up was fruitcake Michelle Bachman's claim that Obama would spend $200,000,000 per day on his trip to India. No basis in fact there either. But that won't stop millions of Fux Snooze morons from gobbling it down and regurgitating it projectile fashion.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Monday, December 13, 2010
U.S. Bonds May Lose AAA Rating
For those who think you can have your cake and eat it too (tax cuts & deficit reduction): http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101213/pl_afp/useconomypoliticstaxdeficit
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Amelica Vely Funny!
Thomas Friedman asks: "What if China had a WikiLeaker and we could see what its embassy in Washington was reporting about America?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/opinion/01friedman.html?_r=1&ref=thomaslfriedman
The answer is pathetically amusing if you're an American and hearteningly hilarious if you're Chinese.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/opinion/01friedman.html?_r=1&ref=thomaslfriedman
The answer is pathetically amusing if you're an American and hearteningly hilarious if you're Chinese.
Monday, December 06, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Why Support High Speed Rail?
Because it create jobs, because it cuts energy use and supports domestic energy, and brings the infrastructure of the future to our state -- all of which will make Wisconsin a better place to live and build a business. Plus, if we don't do it, the federal money for it will leave and go elsewhere. Good for business, good for the environment, good for Wisconsin.
Smarten up Governor-Elect Walker!
Check the video.
Smarten up Governor-Elect Walker!
Check the video.
Monday, November 08, 2010
Bush Back in Rehab
And so the rehabilitation and revisionism of the Bush presidency began tonight with an interview by NBC's Matt Lauer full of cream puff questions and no followup. This will be followed by a media blitz carefully crafted by a high priced beltway PRopaganda firm to spin the aftermath of his decidership.
I see the War Criminal will be in Milwaukee on Wednesday to speak to a Christian group. Because of course, torture, warmongering, lying and concern for the healthy, the wealthy and the unoppressed are the essence of Christ's teachings. http://www.teenchallengeonline.com/
I see the War Criminal will be in Milwaukee on Wednesday to speak to a Christian group. Because of course, torture, warmongering, lying and concern for the healthy, the wealthy and the unoppressed are the essence of Christ's teachings. http://www.teenchallengeonline.com/
WTF Has Obama Done So Far?
http://whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/
Click on the light blue box under the Obama accomplishment and you get another f''ing accomplishment. Pretty impressive list!
Click on the light blue box under the Obama accomplishment and you get another f''ing accomplishment. Pretty impressive list!
Sunday, November 07, 2010
Why the Republicans Will FAIL to Improve the Edonomy
This article from the Washington Monthly hits the nail right on the head.
To summarize, they're plan isn't based on improving the economy, it's based on kowtowing to a political ideology that doesn't care about the economy.
And they're wedded to a series of "solutions" that have been proven not to work.
And they ignore solutions that were proven to work in the past (during FDR's days, among others), because those solutions don't fit in with their ideology.
So, even if they accomplish their spurious goals, it won't help the middle class.
(The upper class, though, will make off like bandits -- as they've been doing ever since the days of Ronald Reagan.)
But read the article and see for yourself. It's not very long.
To summarize, they're plan isn't based on improving the economy, it's based on kowtowing to a political ideology that doesn't care about the economy.
And they're wedded to a series of "solutions" that have been proven not to work.
And they ignore solutions that were proven to work in the past (during FDR's days, among others), because those solutions don't fit in with their ideology.
So, even if they accomplish their spurious goals, it won't help the middle class.
(The upper class, though, will make off like bandits -- as they've been doing ever since the days of Ronald Reagan.)
But read the article and see for yourself. It's not very long.
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Why the Democratic Party Sucks
If you want to know why the Democratic Party sucks give a listen to this week's This American Life episode: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/417/this-party-sucks
The first part of the show is about some Michigan Tea Partiers and how quickly they are co-opted by the Republicans and turned into GOPocrits. It's amusing and worth a listen.
The last twenty minutes is a discussion with Paul Begala, Clinton's political advisor about why the Democrats suck. In short, they're wusses and they always have an excuse to not press their advantage when they get the chance. It'll make you want to tear your hair out.
But like always say, I hate the Republicans for who they are. I hate the Democrats for who they refuse to be.
The first part of the show is about some Michigan Tea Partiers and how quickly they are co-opted by the Republicans and turned into GOPocrits. It's amusing and worth a listen.
The last twenty minutes is a discussion with Paul Begala, Clinton's political advisor about why the Democrats suck. In short, they're wusses and they always have an excuse to not press their advantage when they get the chance. It'll make you want to tear your hair out.
But like always say, I hate the Republicans for who they are. I hate the Democrats for who they refuse to be.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Monday, November 01, 2010
The Nation Report's on GOPster Voter Supression in Racine
Inside the Wisconsin Right's voter-suppression scheme
by Sarah Posner
The Nation
10/29/10
From familiar stories about "illegal" electioneering by ACORN and the Black Panthers [1] to Sharron Angle's recent claim that Harry Reid is trying to steal the election by offering prospective voters free food-the myth of widespread voter fraud is now commonplace among Republicans. In just one example, an unconfirmed assertion [2] that Nevada voting machines already had Reid's name checked off became a national story, with Rush Limbaugh claiming that the "New Black Panther Party," with the "imprimatur of the Justice Department," was "running fraudulent elections" across the country.
In this swirling storm of misinformation and propaganda, a half-dozen Republican activists met in the community room of the Tri City National Bank in Sturtevant, Wisconsin on October 27, to receive training on how to be an election observer. Lou D'Abbraccio, an official with the Racine County Republican Party, laid out a parade of voter fraud horribles to the assembled men, from fraudulent voter registrations to vans organized by "leftists" ferrying people "incentivized" with money or coupons to cast multiple votes at different polling locations.
"There are polling locations where the election workers are largely Republican, and we have less concern," said D'Abbraccio, a member of the Racine Tea Party [3], the local chapter of Koch brothers-funded Americans for Prosperity. "Then there are polling places where, not so much. Historically we have observed things there that are issues."
This year, the Wisconsin GOP, Americans for Prosperity and Wisconsin tea party groups are working together, through the GOP and the tea party-affiliated website We're Watching Wisconsin Elections [4], to combat this alleged scourge on the democratic process.
D'Abbraccio went on to recount "war stories" from previous elections, particularly 2004, which he claimed was "the worst election I've experienced in Racine."
Even though Wisconsin law prohibits photography by anyone but news media inside a polling place, D'Abbraccio counseled his trainees to bring their cell phone cameras just in case. "Theoretically you're not supposed to take pictures," he said, but told the group to do it "surreptitiously" if they needed to document anything-and to "be careful."
The progressive group One Wisconsin Now [5] has asked [6] the US Attorney, the State Attorney General and the state Government Accountability Board to investigate a joint plan by the state Republican Party, Americans for Prosperity and local tea party groups "to engage in voter suppression" during the election, in violation of the Constitution and federal law. In particular, based on documents made available on the We're Watching Wisconsin Elections and other tea party sites, as well as a recording obtained by One Wisconsin
Now at a June meeting at which the coordination was discussed, AFP would pay for mailings to voters so that a list of supposedly ineligible voters could be used by tea party activists to challenge voters at the polls.
The GOP and tea party groups have denied [7] the existence of any plan, in spite of the public documents outlining it. Tim Dake, one of the speakers on the tape One Wisconsin Now obtained and a leading state tea party figure associated with the Wisconsin Grandsons of Liberty, called [8] the charges "ridiculous, reprehensible and could be construed as libel." But the We're Watching Wisconsin Elections site continues to publicize meetings organized by the Wisconsin Republican Party to train election observers and to make the training materials available on their site.
At the Racine County training, there was no discussion of using any lists to challenge the eligibility of voters. While D'Abbraccio urged his trainees to be polite, he nonetheless continually elaborated on and reinforced the impression that rampant fraud by "leftist" groups threatened the integrity of the election and that election observers were necessary to report such fraud to party officials and to challenge the eligibility of voters they suspected of fraud.
Even with appropriate training, said Wendy Weiser, Deputy Director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, "that doesn't diminish our concern about what might happen on Election Day" with election observers. The proliferation of unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud, she said, "cements distrust and hostility and lack of confidence and anger, and it's inaccurate. There's no basis for this, and stoking anger and mistrust around election time is not a good thing."
The unsubstantiated claim that ACORN had engaged in widespread fraud in the 2008 election is a well-worn trope in conservative media, along with the implication, and sometimes explicit claim, that the election of Barack Obama was illegitimate. After the conservative-instigated witch hunt led to ACORN closing its doors, additional bogeymen have been added to the mix.
As D'Abbraccio put it, "An organization running around comprised of all the alphabet soup of evil: AFSCME, SEIU, ACLU-every leftist group you can imagine put together some umbrella group called Election Protection. In the city of Racine, it actually took over polling locations [in 2004]." That year, Racine County was a hotbed of charges of voter fraud by conservatives, but an analysis [9] by the Brennan Center found just seven instances of ineligible voters knowingly casting ballots that were counted-just 0.0002 percent of the total votes cast statewide.
In spite of this lack of evidence, D'Abbraccio claimed to be "concerned with wholesale fraud." He painted a foreboding picture of "knocks and drags," which he described as vans trolling the streets for random people to pick up. He claimed that "leftist" groups give people campaign literature that was really a "coupon" to redeem at a local establishment. He said these vans "drag people from polling place to polling place and have them vote multiple times."
"That is a complete fantasy and fiction," said Scot Ross, executive director of One Wisconsin Now. "There is nothing like that that happened."
Reid Magney, a spokesman for the state Government Accountability Board, which oversees elections, said that there are "fairly rare instances" of people double-voting, citing one case last year in which a couple was convicted of voting in the polling places of both their primary residence and their vacation home. This was detected not due to a citizen complaint, he said, but because the "we [the GAB] proactively run checks after every election to make sure there is no double voting."
As far as other types of double-voting or ballot-stuffing, Magney said, "we haven't seen any kind of evidence of any widespread problem of that."
Ross added that the groups concerned about voter fraud have a "complete and total delusion that minorities are voting more than once. There's absolutely not one shred of evidence, no conviction, no charges, no nothing of that nature in the state of Wisconsin. I am aware of absolutely no activity like that."
About the alleged "knock and drag" efforts, D'Abbraccio said he followed vans around on previous election days and said he would be following vans this Tuesday as well. "We have on occasion followed them from polling place to polling place," he said. "The fact that they're looking for someone following them from polling place to polling place is a good indicator that something fishy is going on. I had one guy start pulling evasive maneuvers."
He speculated-without any basis-that Advancing Wisconsin, a group formed in 2008, may be the culprit this year. "We suspect that if it happens this time," said D'Abbraccio, "it's going to be through a group called Advancing Wisconsin, which was funded by George Soros [as] this kind of umbrella group that's intended to create a permanent election infrastructure for all these groups so they've got the know-how and resources on election day, and some of that know-how is how to cheat."
Meagan Mahaffey, Advancing Wisconsin's executive director, said her group did no voter registration drives in 2010. Of D'Abbraccio's statement, Mahaffey said, "I'm pretty shocked by it. It's a pretty serious allegation he's making. Nothing to back it up and nothing to show we are doing this. It's not true, not rooted in anything. Just a guy in a meeting saying whatever he wants to say."
D'Abbraccio also claimed that there is abuse of the corroboration process for voters who register on election day. Under Wisconsin law, if someone seeking to register on election day lacks the proper verification of their address-either their drivers' license number, the last four digits of their social security number or other acceptable proof for establishing residence, such as a lease or utility bill, they can have someone "corroborate" their residency. Referring to the process as "vouching,"
D'Abbraccio maintained that people are grabbed as they finish voting and asked to "vouch" for a stranger, producing an "endless loop" of people vouching for each other.
Magney, the GAB spokesperson, said that he was not aware of phony corroborations. "I'm not aware of us prosecuting" anyone for that, he said, adding, "I don't think that that's an issue."
"I have never heard such an allegation," said the Brennan Center's Weiser. "That is something that is certainly easily observable and easy to get caught" because "it is so elaborate and visible."
D'Abbraccio also accused the GAB of being derelict in its responsibility to purge 18,000 "invalid" registrations from the voter rolls, based on mail returned as undeliverable to the GAB.
But the reality is quite different. Magney said that as part of a routine check under the Help America Vote Act, the Board sent letters to voters whose details on their voter registrations didn't match other government records, such as the Department of Motor Vehicles database. Frequently, he said, such lack of a match is caused, for example, by one record bearing the person's middle initial only, while the other bears the person's full middle name. What's more, he said, the lack of a match doesn't render the person ineligible to vote; the purpose of the database match, he said, is only "to improve data quality." (The Republican State Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen sued [10] the board in 2008 in an attempt to force it to require a match for a voter to be eligible to vote; the case was dismissed.)
About the 18,000 voters whose letters were returned as undeliverable, and who conservatives are charging should be removed from voter rolls, Magney said, "we didn't feel comfortable removing [from the voter rolls] them based on one letter coming back, especially because there is no requirement in the law that your information has to match in the first place." He said the GAB sent a second letter, and 12,431 have come back as undeliverable a second time, in most cases probably because the voter had moved. "Those are the people who we have marked as inactive. If they show up to vote, their names won't be on the list at their polling place," although they could do a same-day registration as allowed by Wisconsin law.
Election observers can be perfectly innocuous, but the climate of "misinformation or fear, stoking fear of voter fraud" creates risks, said Weiser. While that has been has been occurring for several election cycles, she said, "what's different in this cycle is more mobilization of citizens, party activists and political operatives to police the polling places and to take matters in their own hands if people are overly outraged so they are more likely to cross lines, and that's a problem."
The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute provided support for this article.
Links:
[1] http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/07/megyn-kellys-minstrel-show.html
[2] http://washingtonindependent.com/101801/evolution-of-a-voter-fraud-incident-in-nevada
[3] http://www.teapartypatriots.org/GroupNew/58c4786d-1c18-4553-a167-a20266a44f27/Racine_TEA_Party
[4] http://www.werewatchingwisconsinelections.org/index.html
[5] http://www.onewisconsinnow.org/
[6] http://www.savewisconsinsvote2010.org/
[7] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpCm92ud4SU&feature=player_embedded#!
[8] http://www.wisconsingrandsonsofliberty.com/
[9] http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/case_studies_by_state/wisconsin_2004.html
[10] http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/van_hollen_v_government_accountability_board_et_al/
http://www.thenation.com/article/155688/inside-wisconsin-rights-voter-suppression-scheme
by Sarah Posner
The Nation
10/29/10
From familiar stories about "illegal" electioneering by ACORN and the Black Panthers [1] to Sharron Angle's recent claim that Harry Reid is trying to steal the election by offering prospective voters free food-the myth of widespread voter fraud is now commonplace among Republicans. In just one example, an unconfirmed assertion [2] that Nevada voting machines already had Reid's name checked off became a national story, with Rush Limbaugh claiming that the "New Black Panther Party," with the "imprimatur of the Justice Department," was "running fraudulent elections" across the country.
In this swirling storm of misinformation and propaganda, a half-dozen Republican activists met in the community room of the Tri City National Bank in Sturtevant, Wisconsin on October 27, to receive training on how to be an election observer. Lou D'Abbraccio, an official with the Racine County Republican Party, laid out a parade of voter fraud horribles to the assembled men, from fraudulent voter registrations to vans organized by "leftists" ferrying people "incentivized" with money or coupons to cast multiple votes at different polling locations.
"There are polling locations where the election workers are largely Republican, and we have less concern," said D'Abbraccio, a member of the Racine Tea Party [3], the local chapter of Koch brothers-funded Americans for Prosperity. "Then there are polling places where, not so much. Historically we have observed things there that are issues."
This year, the Wisconsin GOP, Americans for Prosperity and Wisconsin tea party groups are working together, through the GOP and the tea party-affiliated website We're Watching Wisconsin Elections [4], to combat this alleged scourge on the democratic process.
D'Abbraccio went on to recount "war stories" from previous elections, particularly 2004, which he claimed was "the worst election I've experienced in Racine."
Even though Wisconsin law prohibits photography by anyone but news media inside a polling place, D'Abbraccio counseled his trainees to bring their cell phone cameras just in case. "Theoretically you're not supposed to take pictures," he said, but told the group to do it "surreptitiously" if they needed to document anything-and to "be careful."
The progressive group One Wisconsin Now [5] has asked [6] the US Attorney, the State Attorney General and the state Government Accountability Board to investigate a joint plan by the state Republican Party, Americans for Prosperity and local tea party groups "to engage in voter suppression" during the election, in violation of the Constitution and federal law. In particular, based on documents made available on the We're Watching Wisconsin Elections and other tea party sites, as well as a recording obtained by One Wisconsin
Now at a June meeting at which the coordination was discussed, AFP would pay for mailings to voters so that a list of supposedly ineligible voters could be used by tea party activists to challenge voters at the polls.
The GOP and tea party groups have denied [7] the existence of any plan, in spite of the public documents outlining it. Tim Dake, one of the speakers on the tape One Wisconsin Now obtained and a leading state tea party figure associated with the Wisconsin Grandsons of Liberty, called [8] the charges "ridiculous, reprehensible and could be construed as libel." But the We're Watching Wisconsin Elections site continues to publicize meetings organized by the Wisconsin Republican Party to train election observers and to make the training materials available on their site.
At the Racine County training, there was no discussion of using any lists to challenge the eligibility of voters. While D'Abbraccio urged his trainees to be polite, he nonetheless continually elaborated on and reinforced the impression that rampant fraud by "leftist" groups threatened the integrity of the election and that election observers were necessary to report such fraud to party officials and to challenge the eligibility of voters they suspected of fraud.
Even with appropriate training, said Wendy Weiser, Deputy Director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, "that doesn't diminish our concern about what might happen on Election Day" with election observers. The proliferation of unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud, she said, "cements distrust and hostility and lack of confidence and anger, and it's inaccurate. There's no basis for this, and stoking anger and mistrust around election time is not a good thing."
The unsubstantiated claim that ACORN had engaged in widespread fraud in the 2008 election is a well-worn trope in conservative media, along with the implication, and sometimes explicit claim, that the election of Barack Obama was illegitimate. After the conservative-instigated witch hunt led to ACORN closing its doors, additional bogeymen have been added to the mix.
As D'Abbraccio put it, "An organization running around comprised of all the alphabet soup of evil: AFSCME, SEIU, ACLU-every leftist group you can imagine put together some umbrella group called Election Protection. In the city of Racine, it actually took over polling locations [in 2004]." That year, Racine County was a hotbed of charges of voter fraud by conservatives, but an analysis [9] by the Brennan Center found just seven instances of ineligible voters knowingly casting ballots that were counted-just 0.0002 percent of the total votes cast statewide.
In spite of this lack of evidence, D'Abbraccio claimed to be "concerned with wholesale fraud." He painted a foreboding picture of "knocks and drags," which he described as vans trolling the streets for random people to pick up. He claimed that "leftist" groups give people campaign literature that was really a "coupon" to redeem at a local establishment. He said these vans "drag people from polling place to polling place and have them vote multiple times."
"That is a complete fantasy and fiction," said Scot Ross, executive director of One Wisconsin Now. "There is nothing like that that happened."
Reid Magney, a spokesman for the state Government Accountability Board, which oversees elections, said that there are "fairly rare instances" of people double-voting, citing one case last year in which a couple was convicted of voting in the polling places of both their primary residence and their vacation home. This was detected not due to a citizen complaint, he said, but because the "we [the GAB] proactively run checks after every election to make sure there is no double voting."
As far as other types of double-voting or ballot-stuffing, Magney said, "we haven't seen any kind of evidence of any widespread problem of that."
Ross added that the groups concerned about voter fraud have a "complete and total delusion that minorities are voting more than once. There's absolutely not one shred of evidence, no conviction, no charges, no nothing of that nature in the state of Wisconsin. I am aware of absolutely no activity like that."
About the alleged "knock and drag" efforts, D'Abbraccio said he followed vans around on previous election days and said he would be following vans this Tuesday as well. "We have on occasion followed them from polling place to polling place," he said. "The fact that they're looking for someone following them from polling place to polling place is a good indicator that something fishy is going on. I had one guy start pulling evasive maneuvers."
He speculated-without any basis-that Advancing Wisconsin, a group formed in 2008, may be the culprit this year. "We suspect that if it happens this time," said D'Abbraccio, "it's going to be through a group called Advancing Wisconsin, which was funded by George Soros [as] this kind of umbrella group that's intended to create a permanent election infrastructure for all these groups so they've got the know-how and resources on election day, and some of that know-how is how to cheat."
Meagan Mahaffey, Advancing Wisconsin's executive director, said her group did no voter registration drives in 2010. Of D'Abbraccio's statement, Mahaffey said, "I'm pretty shocked by it. It's a pretty serious allegation he's making. Nothing to back it up and nothing to show we are doing this. It's not true, not rooted in anything. Just a guy in a meeting saying whatever he wants to say."
D'Abbraccio also claimed that there is abuse of the corroboration process for voters who register on election day. Under Wisconsin law, if someone seeking to register on election day lacks the proper verification of their address-either their drivers' license number, the last four digits of their social security number or other acceptable proof for establishing residence, such as a lease or utility bill, they can have someone "corroborate" their residency. Referring to the process as "vouching,"
D'Abbraccio maintained that people are grabbed as they finish voting and asked to "vouch" for a stranger, producing an "endless loop" of people vouching for each other.
Magney, the GAB spokesperson, said that he was not aware of phony corroborations. "I'm not aware of us prosecuting" anyone for that, he said, adding, "I don't think that that's an issue."
"I have never heard such an allegation," said the Brennan Center's Weiser. "That is something that is certainly easily observable and easy to get caught" because "it is so elaborate and visible."
D'Abbraccio also accused the GAB of being derelict in its responsibility to purge 18,000 "invalid" registrations from the voter rolls, based on mail returned as undeliverable to the GAB.
But the reality is quite different. Magney said that as part of a routine check under the Help America Vote Act, the Board sent letters to voters whose details on their voter registrations didn't match other government records, such as the Department of Motor Vehicles database. Frequently, he said, such lack of a match is caused, for example, by one record bearing the person's middle initial only, while the other bears the person's full middle name. What's more, he said, the lack of a match doesn't render the person ineligible to vote; the purpose of the database match, he said, is only "to improve data quality." (The Republican State Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen sued [10] the board in 2008 in an attempt to force it to require a match for a voter to be eligible to vote; the case was dismissed.)
About the 18,000 voters whose letters were returned as undeliverable, and who conservatives are charging should be removed from voter rolls, Magney said, "we didn't feel comfortable removing [from the voter rolls] them based on one letter coming back, especially because there is no requirement in the law that your information has to match in the first place." He said the GAB sent a second letter, and 12,431 have come back as undeliverable a second time, in most cases probably because the voter had moved. "Those are the people who we have marked as inactive. If they show up to vote, their names won't be on the list at their polling place," although they could do a same-day registration as allowed by Wisconsin law.
Election observers can be perfectly innocuous, but the climate of "misinformation or fear, stoking fear of voter fraud" creates risks, said Weiser. While that has been has been occurring for several election cycles, she said, "what's different in this cycle is more mobilization of citizens, party activists and political operatives to police the polling places and to take matters in their own hands if people are overly outraged so they are more likely to cross lines, and that's a problem."
The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute provided support for this article.
Links:
[1] http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/07/megyn-kellys-minstrel-show.html
[2] http://washingtonindependent.com/101801/evolution-of-a-voter-fraud-incident-in-nevada
[3] http://www.teapartypatriots.org/GroupNew/58c4786d-1c18-4553-a167-a20266a44f27/Racine_TEA_Party
[4] http://www.werewatchingwisconsinelections.org/index.html
[5] http://www.onewisconsinnow.org/
[6] http://www.savewisconsinsvote2010.org/
[7] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpCm92ud4SU&feature=player_embedded#!
[8] http://www.wisconsingrandsonsofliberty.com/
[9] http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/case_studies_by_state/wisconsin_2004.html
[10] http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/van_hollen_v_government_accountability_board_et_al/
http://www.thenation.com/article/155688/inside-wisconsin-rights-voter-suppression-scheme
Voting rights – know them
Voting rights – know them
I just found this lovely website that lets you find out if you can legally take time off work to vote in your state. It also talks about what employers can do related to your off-work activities, again by state. Check it out and SHARE!
I just found this lovely website that lets you find out if you can legally take time off work to vote in your state. It also talks about what employers can do related to your off-work activities, again by state. Check it out and SHARE!
Sunday, October 31, 2010
I Remember - So I'm Voting for Democrats in 2010
Just a reminder why we ALL need to vote by Tuesday.
Vote Your Progressive Values!
Dear Progressives:
“Extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice.” So said the father of the conservative movement, Barry Goldwater before losing to JFK in 1964. It wasn’t true then and it isn’t true now. Extremism is a vice no matter how you slice it and even Goldwater would be shocked by the off-the-scale positions of his ideological progeny the teabaggers and the rest of the right-wing reactionaries currently all the rage. Heck this crowd would call Reagan a RINO and throw him under the bus!
Their thugs are using handcuffs on journalists and stomping on people’s heads for crying out loud! And that’s not the half of it. Is this what we’re coming to? Are these our values? Are these our leaders!? Is this what they call liberty? These people don’t have any ideas or solutions, only misdirected blind rage, a match and a can of gasoline.
The media is all-abuzz about an “enthusiasm gap” in this election. It’s all the herd can talk about on every channel between oilygarch financed 30 second rovian-gandabytes, designed to suppress and mislead voters. Well if there’s a gap in enthusiasm on the progressive side for going into the streets and town halls as an angry mob, shouting people down, carrying offensive signs, ranting about absurd conspiracies and pushing bizarre extremist positions, then I suppose they’re right. But if they’re referring to our enthusiasm to get out and vote for upstanding progressives like Senator Russ Feingold and preventing a corporatist sponsored wingnut takeover, they’re a class of chattering asses!
A lot of us have been a bit disappointed by the pace and degree of progress that can be made in Washington. But really, a lot of good things have been accomplished despite unrelenting GOPstructionism. Progress and sanity beats brut regression and reaction any day of the week. Tuesday I’ll be at the only poll that matters at 7:00 AM sharp, bursting with enthusiasm and I hope you and your friends and family will join me in voting our progressive values and stuffing extremism back in the bag!
Thank you,
Sean Cranley
“Extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice.” So said the father of the conservative movement, Barry Goldwater before losing to JFK in 1964. It wasn’t true then and it isn’t true now. Extremism is a vice no matter how you slice it and even Goldwater would be shocked by the off-the-scale positions of his ideological progeny the teabaggers and the rest of the right-wing reactionaries currently all the rage. Heck this crowd would call Reagan a RINO and throw him under the bus!
Their thugs are using handcuffs on journalists and stomping on people’s heads for crying out loud! And that’s not the half of it. Is this what we’re coming to? Are these our values? Are these our leaders!? Is this what they call liberty? These people don’t have any ideas or solutions, only misdirected blind rage, a match and a can of gasoline.
The media is all-abuzz about an “enthusiasm gap” in this election. It’s all the herd can talk about on every channel between oilygarch financed 30 second rovian-gandabytes, designed to suppress and mislead voters. Well if there’s a gap in enthusiasm on the progressive side for going into the streets and town halls as an angry mob, shouting people down, carrying offensive signs, ranting about absurd conspiracies and pushing bizarre extremist positions, then I suppose they’re right. But if they’re referring to our enthusiasm to get out and vote for upstanding progressives like Senator Russ Feingold and preventing a corporatist sponsored wingnut takeover, they’re a class of chattering asses!
A lot of us have been a bit disappointed by the pace and degree of progress that can be made in Washington. But really, a lot of good things have been accomplished despite unrelenting GOPstructionism. Progress and sanity beats brut regression and reaction any day of the week. Tuesday I’ll be at the only poll that matters at 7:00 AM sharp, bursting with enthusiasm and I hope you and your friends and family will join me in voting our progressive values and stuffing extremism back in the bag!
Thank you,
Sean Cranley
Friday, October 29, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Liberalism, It's Where We're Going
Over at Real Debased Wisconsin a post entitled Liberalism a Genetic Problem linked this very interesting article: http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/weird/Scientists-May-Have-IDd-Liberal-Gene-105917218.html
Of course liberalism, it's not the problem, it's the solution. All human behaviour is explainable in context of our evolution. It's how we've evolved to live together very successfully as social animals in complex societies. To find that there are genes involved in this is predictable and hardly surprising.
Since liberalism is based on the higher human brain functions of empathy (concern for other individuals) and altruism (concern for the community) that have evolved to allow us the great evolutionary success we've had, I'd say the golden rule that has evolved out of these traits has started to serve us well. And since these are the traits that have the chance of allowing us to live together as a community of humans and preserve the planet, I'd say we're on the right track. With hope, we'll get there before our technology combined with our darker traits of individual and tribal greed and fear bring that evolution to an end.
It's also interesting to note that the expression of this gene is linked to healthy socialization in adolescence, reflected by having a lot of friends which tends to come from having empathy for others and getting along well in group. Thanks Real Debased Wisconsin for bringing this issue to the fore!
Of course liberalism, it's not the problem, it's the solution. All human behaviour is explainable in context of our evolution. It's how we've evolved to live together very successfully as social animals in complex societies. To find that there are genes involved in this is predictable and hardly surprising.
Since liberalism is based on the higher human brain functions of empathy (concern for other individuals) and altruism (concern for the community) that have evolved to allow us the great evolutionary success we've had, I'd say the golden rule that has evolved out of these traits has started to serve us well. And since these are the traits that have the chance of allowing us to live together as a community of humans and preserve the planet, I'd say we're on the right track. With hope, we'll get there before our technology combined with our darker traits of individual and tribal greed and fear bring that evolution to an end.
It's also interesting to note that the expression of this gene is linked to healthy socialization in adolescence, reflected by having a lot of friends which tends to come from having empathy for others and getting along well in group. Thanks Real Debased Wisconsin for bringing this issue to the fore!
Monday, October 25, 2010
Turn off the Hate. Get out the Vote. Tell the Truth.
And a video telling the truth about the economy.
And an article telling the truth the TEA Party doesn't seem to want to know (Eight False Things...), and their corporate masters certainly don't want you to know.
http://institute.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010104222/false-things-public-knows-they-go-vote
And an article telling the truth the TEA Party doesn't seem to want to know (Eight False Things...), and their corporate masters certainly don't want you to know.
http://institute.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010104222/false-things-public-knows-they-go-vote
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Extreme Teabagnorance!
Christine O'Donnell typifies the ignorance of the Teabagger movement as mirror image of Sarah Palincomparison when asked to name a supreme court ruling she objected to. Her response; "Could you give me a specific case?" America, help is on the way to take our country backwards!
This is fricken scarelarious! http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/362219/october-14-2010/transitive-property-of-christine-o-donnell
This is fricken scarelarious! http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/362219/october-14-2010/transitive-property-of-christine-o-donnell
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Wingnut Watch - Beck and Fux Snooze Incitement
Byron Williams engaged in a shootout with California police in July where amazingly no one was killed. Turns out he was heavily armed and armoured and on his way to murder 11 people at the Tides Foundation and the ACLU in retaliation for the gulf oil disaster which was a conspiracy by Goerge Soros, Obama, Tides, a Brazilian oil company, etc. etc. At least that's what he was lead to believe by Fux Snooze's Glenn Beck, the aptly named Michael Savage and Alex Jones: http://mediamatters.org/research/201010110002
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
U.$. Chamber of TRAITOR$!
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/05/foreign-chamber-commerce/
The largest attack campaign against Democrats this fall is being waged by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a trade association organized as a 501(c)(6) that can raise and spend unlimited funds without ever disclosing any of its donors. The Chamber has promised to spend an unprecedented $75 million to defeat candidates like Jack Conway, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Jerry Brown, Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), and Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA). As of Sept. 15th, the Chamber had aired more than 8,000 ads on behalf of GOP Senate candidates alone, according to a study from the Wesleyan Media Project. The Chamber’s spending has dwarfed every other issue group and most political party candidate committee spending. A ThinkProgress investigation has found that the Chamber funds its political attack campaign out of its general account, which solicits foreign funding. And while the Chamber will likely assert it has internal controls, foreign money is fungible, permitting the Chamber to run its unprecedented attack campaign. According to legal experts consulted by ThinkProgress, the Chamber is likely skirting longstanding campaign finance law that bans the involvement of foreign corporations in American elections.
America and its democracy are being sold by the GOPsters to the highest bidders foreign and domestic and there is ZERO transparency.
The largest attack campaign against Democrats this fall is being waged by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a trade association organized as a 501(c)(6) that can raise and spend unlimited funds without ever disclosing any of its donors. The Chamber has promised to spend an unprecedented $75 million to defeat candidates like Jack Conway, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Jerry Brown, Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), and Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA). As of Sept. 15th, the Chamber had aired more than 8,000 ads on behalf of GOP Senate candidates alone, according to a study from the Wesleyan Media Project. The Chamber’s spending has dwarfed every other issue group and most political party candidate committee spending. A ThinkProgress investigation has found that the Chamber funds its political attack campaign out of its general account, which solicits foreign funding. And while the Chamber will likely assert it has internal controls, foreign money is fungible, permitting the Chamber to run its unprecedented attack campaign. According to legal experts consulted by ThinkProgress, the Chamber is likely skirting longstanding campaign finance law that bans the involvement of foreign corporations in American elections.
America and its democracy are being sold by the GOPsters to the highest bidders foreign and domestic and there is ZERO transparency.
White America Has Lost its Mind
From the ussual liars to witches and porn stars and the rest of the batshit crazy woodwork exhiles , this is an excellent chronical of the who and the why of the most extreme political movement in generations.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
The Stimulus Worked
In fact it saved our butts.
The scary part is that this Republicon Regressionary Recession cost us 16% of GDP, whereas the last Deregulatory GOPster Debacle the S&L Crisis only cost us 6% of GDP. Meaning that the Cons have gotten almost three times more effective at fucking things up in the last 30 years. We're listing to starboard now, one more turn at the tiller from these guys and and we'll capsize!
Check this out: http://mydd.com/2010/7/28/the-blinder-zandi-report?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mydd+%28MyDD%29
EXCERPTS:
A paper by economists Alan Blinder, (McCain advisor) an economist at Princeton and a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve , and Mark Zandi, (Clinton advisor) the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, finds that without the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) that bailed out the nation's financial sector, the bank stress tests, the emergency lending and asset purchases by the Federal Reserve, and the Obama Administration’s fiscal stimulus program - the much maligned American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) - the nation’s gross domestic product would be about 6.5 percent lower this year.
Additionally, Dr. Blinder and Dr. Zandi find that the US economy would have lost an additional 8.5 million jobs, on top of the more than 8 million lost so far; and the economy would be in the midst of a deflationary asset spiral, instead of low inflation. Overall, they conclude that the aggregate effects of the TARP and the ARRA "probably averted what could have been called Great Depression 2.0."
Mr. Blinder and Mr. Zandi emphasize the sheer size of the fallout from the financial crisis. They estimate the total direct cost of the recession at $1.6 trillion, and the total budgetary cost, after adding in nearly $750 billion in lost revenue from the weaker economy, at $2.35 trillion, or about 16 percent of G.D.P.
By comparison, the savings and loan crisis cost about $350 billion in today’s dollars: $275 billion in direct cost and an additional $75 billion from the recession of 1990-91 — or about 6 percent of G.D.P. at the time.
The scary part is that this Republicon Regressionary Recession cost us 16% of GDP, whereas the last Deregulatory GOPster Debacle the S&L Crisis only cost us 6% of GDP. Meaning that the Cons have gotten almost three times more effective at fucking things up in the last 30 years. We're listing to starboard now, one more turn at the tiller from these guys and and we'll capsize!
Check this out: http://mydd.com/2010/7/28/the-blinder-zandi-report?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mydd+%28MyDD%29
EXCERPTS:
A paper by economists Alan Blinder, (McCain advisor) an economist at Princeton and a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve , and Mark Zandi, (Clinton advisor) the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, finds that without the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) that bailed out the nation's financial sector, the bank stress tests, the emergency lending and asset purchases by the Federal Reserve, and the Obama Administration’s fiscal stimulus program - the much maligned American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) - the nation’s gross domestic product would be about 6.5 percent lower this year.
Additionally, Dr. Blinder and Dr. Zandi find that the US economy would have lost an additional 8.5 million jobs, on top of the more than 8 million lost so far; and the economy would be in the midst of a deflationary asset spiral, instead of low inflation. Overall, they conclude that the aggregate effects of the TARP and the ARRA "probably averted what could have been called Great Depression 2.0."
Mr. Blinder and Mr. Zandi emphasize the sheer size of the fallout from the financial crisis. They estimate the total direct cost of the recession at $1.6 trillion, and the total budgetary cost, after adding in nearly $750 billion in lost revenue from the weaker economy, at $2.35 trillion, or about 16 percent of G.D.P.
By comparison, the savings and loan crisis cost about $350 billion in today’s dollars: $275 billion in direct cost and an additional $75 billion from the recession of 1990-91 — or about 6 percent of G.D.P. at the time.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Shameless Self-Promotion
WGTD 91.1 FM Kenosha, 101.7 Elkhorn and 103.3 Lake Geneva Gateway Tech's public radio stations) will be featuring the Platte River Yacht Club (PRYC) on their Noon Tunes segments this week. The segment airs at about 12:25 PM each day and features local recording artists. The PRYC is a group of consisting of myself, family and friend who play folk and bluegrass music. Who knows, they might even play one or two of the songs I penned.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Whackidoodles at the Burlington Post Office Yesterday
I'm not sure what the Larouche reference is. Is he still emitting crazy from the grave? Of course ya gotta have Obama with a hitler stache because of all the atrocities he's committed making him Adolph-like, right?
I do have to agree with the restorer Glass-Steagals part, but how it overturning in 1999 is Obama's fault or grounds for impeachment is beyond me. Hell that was GOPster Phil Grahm's misdeed.
Obama's recession, yeah right, funny how it started well before he even took office. How stupid and whacky can these teabaggers get!?
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
I'm Voting Republican!
Hello, I'm a liberal. And of course we all know what that means. According to that unimpeachable font of truth and insight, El Snortbo (Rush Limbaugh), and his GOPunditry bretheren that makes me one of the Hate America First Crowd. And because we know by the quality of the source this MUST be true. And being that I do not have the memory of a gnat nor the grasp of an ameoba, and I understand how we got into the messes we're in and who is responsible for that, I'm VOTING REPUBLICAN. In fact I'm going Teabag all the way this fall!
If the America I hate (according Mr. Snortbo) is to fall then who better to bring that to fruition than the most extreme Republicans we can get? Who else will:
Lead us into expensive foreign misadventures for fun and profit spending blood and treasure, bankrupting us and making us hated and mistrusted by more and more of the rest world, even our allies?
Lead us into free trade where we trade away our jobs, our livelihoods, our know-how and even our sovereignty to benefit the few of us who make their fortunes as CEOs and major shareholders in nationless corporations.
Lead us into free-market fundamentalism, where the wise and all knowing hand of the market place (and those who manipulate it and make the rules) undermine the public interest and the middle class for their narrow selfish interest.
Lead us into deregulatory shangra-la where our money isn’t safe from predators, let alone our workers, environment, food, economy or our consumers.
Lead us into the redistribution of wealth where more and more of the resources generated by our people and our land are concentrated into the hands of fewer and fewer mega-rich who wield their money as political weapon against We The People to control our government and reap even more for themselves.
Lead us into ignorance where public education is destroyed to create a large underclass of insecure, low cost workers and where science that threatens interests of the economic powers that be is twisted and undermined in the short-term interest of the few.
Lead us into fundamentalist religiousity, backward thinking and vile xenophobia that we might emulate the piety of the dark ages once more.
Lead us into hatred, fear division and manipulation by the GOPunditry and their incessant GOPropaganda lies and create an ingorant electorate in capable of informed self governance.
Yes that pinnacle of virtue, El Snortbo has most truthfully proclaimed that as a Liberal, I hate everything about America. And that’s why I’m voting Republican, to take our country back(wards)!
If you hate America like I do, please help add to my list of Republican attributes so that we can convince all good America hating liberals and independants to hand supreme power to the Republican party and end this America once for all!
If the America I hate (according Mr. Snortbo) is to fall then who better to bring that to fruition than the most extreme Republicans we can get? Who else will:
Lead us into expensive foreign misadventures for fun and profit spending blood and treasure, bankrupting us and making us hated and mistrusted by more and more of the rest world, even our allies?
Lead us into free trade where we trade away our jobs, our livelihoods, our know-how and even our sovereignty to benefit the few of us who make their fortunes as CEOs and major shareholders in nationless corporations.
Lead us into free-market fundamentalism, where the wise and all knowing hand of the market place (and those who manipulate it and make the rules) undermine the public interest and the middle class for their narrow selfish interest.
Lead us into deregulatory shangra-la where our money isn’t safe from predators, let alone our workers, environment, food, economy or our consumers.
Lead us into the redistribution of wealth where more and more of the resources generated by our people and our land are concentrated into the hands of fewer and fewer mega-rich who wield their money as political weapon against We The People to control our government and reap even more for themselves.
Lead us into ignorance where public education is destroyed to create a large underclass of insecure, low cost workers and where science that threatens interests of the economic powers that be is twisted and undermined in the short-term interest of the few.
Lead us into fundamentalist religiousity, backward thinking and vile xenophobia that we might emulate the piety of the dark ages once more.
Lead us into hatred, fear division and manipulation by the GOPunditry and their incessant GOPropaganda lies and create an ingorant electorate in capable of informed self governance.
Yes that pinnacle of virtue, El Snortbo has most truthfully proclaimed that as a Liberal, I hate everything about America. And that’s why I’m voting Republican, to take our country back(wards)!
If you hate America like I do, please help add to my list of Republican attributes so that we can convince all good America hating liberals and independants to hand supreme power to the Republican party and end this America once for all!
Monday, August 30, 2010
Bush hands Obama the Deficits
A Con recently asked me; “So if Reagan and Bush spend too much, it is bad. Yet when Obama spends as much and a hell of a lot more, it is stimulus and therefor good? Why isn't the spending of Reagan and Bush considered stimulus and therefor good? Why isn't Obama's spending considered excessive and therefor bad?”
Answer: The Republican S$^% sandwich handed to us all. Obama’s deficits were written in long before he took office. The current deficits are the result of the Republic Wars, the Republican Tax Cuts for the Rich and the of course the Great Republican Recession and resultant Republican reduced tax revenues.
So you see the very question asked is a deception, they are not really Obama's deficits. and yet this is the false mantra of GOPster Party and their GOPunditry. Yeah so the Con movement runs on lies, we all know that right? Wrong too many Americans watch Fux Snooze, have their brain put to sleep and are actually considering handing power back to the jerks that are the cause of it all!
You can read about the REAL sources of the deficits in the link below or in the excerpts I’ve provided. Bon Apetite.
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3036
Whoever won the presidency in 2008 was going to face a grim fiscal situation, a fact already well known as the presidential campaign got underway. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) presented a sobering outlook in its 2008 summer update,[1] and during the autumn, the news got relentlessly worse. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that became embroiled in the housing meltdown, failed in early September; two big financial firms — AIG and Lehman Brothers — collapsed soon thereafter; and others teetered. In December 2008, the National Bureau of Economic Research confirmed that the nation was in recession and pegged the starting date as December 2007. By the time CBO issued its new projections on January 7, 2009 — two weeks before Inauguration Day — it had already put the 2009 deficit at well over $1 trillion.[2]
The government put Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship in September 2008.[4] In October of that year, the Bush Administration and Congress enacted a rescue package to stabilize the financial system by creating the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). Together, TARP and the GSEs accounted for $245 billion (including extra debt-service costs) of fiscal 2009’s record deficit.
Just two policies dating from the Bush Administration — tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — accounted for over $500 billion of the deficit in 2009 and will account for almost $7 trillion in deficits in 2009 through 2019, including the associated debt-service costs. [6] (The prescription drug benefit enacted in 2003 accounts for further substantial increases in deficits and debt, which we are unable to quantify due to data limitations.) These impacts easily dwarf the stimulus and financial rescues. Furthermore, unlike those temporary costs, these inherited policies (especially the tax cuts and the drug benefit) do not fade away as the economy recovers (see Figure 1).
President Obama’s 2011 budget proposes to reduce anticipated deficits over the next ten years, chiefly by letting the Bush tax cuts for high-income taxpayers expire on schedule, closing certain tax loopholes and reforming the international tax system, keeping estate taxes at their 2009 parameters, enacting health care reform, and freezing (in aggregate) most appropriations for non-security domestic programs for the next three years. The President also supports another round of temporary recovery measures that would boost the deficit in 2010 through 2012, a proposal that is appropriate in size and well targeted.[8] Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ analyses have found that in aggregate, the President’s proposals would reduce deficits over the 2011-2020 period by an estimated $1.3 trillion.[9]
The health reform legislation begins that process. It takes important initial steps to restructure the health care payment and delivery systems and to move away from paying providers for more visits or procedures and toward rewarding effective, high-value health care. As we learn more about how to slow health care cost growth without endangering health care quality, strong additional measures will be essential. But restraining health care cost growth will not itself be sufficient to address the long-term fiscal problem. Other actions also will be needed, including steps to raise additional revenue and make changes in other programs.
Answer: The Republican S$^% sandwich handed to us all. Obama’s deficits were written in long before he took office. The current deficits are the result of the Republic Wars, the Republican Tax Cuts for the Rich and the of course the Great Republican Recession and resultant Republican reduced tax revenues.
So you see the very question asked is a deception, they are not really Obama's deficits. and yet this is the false mantra of GOPster Party and their GOPunditry. Yeah so the Con movement runs on lies, we all know that right? Wrong too many Americans watch Fux Snooze, have their brain put to sleep and are actually considering handing power back to the jerks that are the cause of it all!
You can read about the REAL sources of the deficits in the link below or in the excerpts I’ve provided. Bon Apetite.
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3036
Whoever won the presidency in 2008 was going to face a grim fiscal situation, a fact already well known as the presidential campaign got underway. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) presented a sobering outlook in its 2008 summer update,[1] and during the autumn, the news got relentlessly worse. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that became embroiled in the housing meltdown, failed in early September; two big financial firms — AIG and Lehman Brothers — collapsed soon thereafter; and others teetered. In December 2008, the National Bureau of Economic Research confirmed that the nation was in recession and pegged the starting date as December 2007. By the time CBO issued its new projections on January 7, 2009 — two weeks before Inauguration Day — it had already put the 2009 deficit at well over $1 trillion.[2]
The government put Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship in September 2008.[4] In October of that year, the Bush Administration and Congress enacted a rescue package to stabilize the financial system by creating the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). Together, TARP and the GSEs accounted for $245 billion (including extra debt-service costs) of fiscal 2009’s record deficit.
Just two policies dating from the Bush Administration — tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — accounted for over $500 billion of the deficit in 2009 and will account for almost $7 trillion in deficits in 2009 through 2019, including the associated debt-service costs. [6] (The prescription drug benefit enacted in 2003 accounts for further substantial increases in deficits and debt, which we are unable to quantify due to data limitations.) These impacts easily dwarf the stimulus and financial rescues. Furthermore, unlike those temporary costs, these inherited policies (especially the tax cuts and the drug benefit) do not fade away as the economy recovers (see Figure 1).
President Obama’s 2011 budget proposes to reduce anticipated deficits over the next ten years, chiefly by letting the Bush tax cuts for high-income taxpayers expire on schedule, closing certain tax loopholes and reforming the international tax system, keeping estate taxes at their 2009 parameters, enacting health care reform, and freezing (in aggregate) most appropriations for non-security domestic programs for the next three years. The President also supports another round of temporary recovery measures that would boost the deficit in 2010 through 2012, a proposal that is appropriate in size and well targeted.[8] Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ analyses have found that in aggregate, the President’s proposals would reduce deficits over the 2011-2020 period by an estimated $1.3 trillion.[9]
The health reform legislation begins that process. It takes important initial steps to restructure the health care payment and delivery systems and to move away from paying providers for more visits or procedures and toward rewarding effective, high-value health care. As we learn more about how to slow health care cost growth without endangering health care quality, strong additional measures will be essential. But restraining health care cost growth will not itself be sufficient to address the long-term fiscal problem. Other actions also will be needed, including steps to raise additional revenue and make changes in other programs.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Drink to your Health!
I went to a grocery store last weekend and out front there was a group of people who were raising money for a kid who has contracted Type 2 Diabetes, what was once refered to as Adult Onset Diabetes. It was bizzare though because in order to raise the funds they selling candy bars, soda and potato chips. I wonder if they were completely unconscious of the irony or if perhaps they were trying to help share their experience with the friends and families of others.
But what was really disturbing about the scene was their apparently complete lack in understanding of the American health care system. Everyone knows that the appropriate response to a catastrophic or chronic health problem in these United States (even more particularly in Wisconsin!) is to hold a charity fundraiser at a bar. That way everybody can have a great time, raise a completely inadequate sum of money compared to the mounting and on-going medical bills while soothing their consciences with the falacy that they actually accomplished something good and meaningful while swilling thier beer. Why it's a win/lose/win proposition and hell, two outta three ain't bad!
But what was really disturbing about the scene was their apparently complete lack in understanding of the American health care system. Everyone knows that the appropriate response to a catastrophic or chronic health problem in these United States (even more particularly in Wisconsin!) is to hold a charity fundraiser at a bar. That way everybody can have a great time, raise a completely inadequate sum of money compared to the mounting and on-going medical bills while soothing their consciences with the falacy that they actually accomplished something good and meaningful while swilling thier beer. Why it's a win/lose/win proposition and hell, two outta three ain't bad!
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
David Stockman - Republicans Should Declare Bankruptcy
In an a NY Time OpEd piece, Four Deformations of the Apocalypse http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/opinion/01stockman.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1 Reagan's former Director of the Office of Management and Budget, David Stockman blames extreme Republican ideology for the coming American economic apocalypse and states that their current insistence on extending the unaffordable Bush tax cuts so that the weathiest among us don't have to bear a mere 3% more in righting what's wrong is tantamount to the GOP declaring bankruptcy.
Deformation #1: At the urging of Failed Free-Market Fundamentalist Milton Freidman, Nixon takes us off the gold standard resulting fiscal irresponsibility and the rampant printing of money.
Deformation #2: Crushing debt from domestic excesses war mongering and the adoption three decades ago of the Republican religion that deficits don't matter if they result from tax cuts.
Deformation #3: The vast, deadly and unproductive expansion of Wall Street and the too greedy to fail banksters, whome he calls "wards of the state". (Or is it the other way around?)
Deformation #4: A war on the middle class and working families where the
top 1 percent of Americans received two-thirds of the gain in national income from the failing Wall Street casino while the bottom 90 percent got only 12 percent from Main Street. (Don't believe in the redistribution of wealth? There it is!)
Conclusion: The day of reckoning is close at hand and the Republican Party offers an irrelevant platform of ideological, bankrupt policies.
Deformation #1: At the urging of Failed Free-Market Fundamentalist Milton Freidman, Nixon takes us off the gold standard resulting fiscal irresponsibility and the rampant printing of money.
Deformation #2: Crushing debt from domestic excesses war mongering and the adoption three decades ago of the Republican religion that deficits don't matter if they result from tax cuts.
Deformation #3: The vast, deadly and unproductive expansion of Wall Street and the too greedy to fail banksters, whome he calls "wards of the state". (Or is it the other way around?)
Deformation #4: A war on the middle class and working families where the
top 1 percent of Americans received two-thirds of the gain in national income from the failing Wall Street casino while the bottom 90 percent got only 12 percent from Main Street. (Don't believe in the redistribution of wealth? There it is!)
Conclusion: The day of reckoning is close at hand and the Republican Party offers an irrelevant platform of ideological, bankrupt policies.
Friday, August 06, 2010
Mayor Bloomberg Makes Me Proud to be an American!
"We have come here to Governors Island to stand where the earliest settlers first set foot in New Amsterdam, and where the seeds of religious tolerance were first planted. We've come here to see the inspiring symbol of liberty that, more than 250 years later, would greet millions of immigrants in the harbor, and we come here to state as strongly as ever – this is the freest City in the world. That's what makes New York special and different and strong.
"Our doors are open to everyone – everyone with a dream and a willingness to work hard and play by the rules. New York City was built by immigrants, and it is sustained by immigrants – by people from more than a hundred different countries speaking more than two hundred different languages and professing every faith. And whether your parents were born here, or you came yesterday, you are a New Yorker.
"We may not always agree with every one of our neighbors. That's life and it's part of living in such a diverse and dense city. But we also recognize that part of being a New Yorker is living with your neighbors in mutual respect and tolerance. It was exactly that spirit of openness and acceptance that was attacked on 9/11.
"No one should be asked to leave their neighborhood. This is our neighborhood and we've been part of it for 27 years. Our opponents are not from this neighborhood."
"On that day, 3,000 people were killed because some murderous fanatics didn't want us to enjoy the freedom to profess our own faiths, to speak our own minds, to follow our own dreams and to live our own lives.
"Of all our precious freedoms, the most important may be the freedom to worship as we wish. And it is a freedom that, even here in a City that is rooted in Dutch tolerance, was hard-won over many years. In the mid-1650s, the small Jewish community living in Lower Manhattan petitioned Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant for the right to build a synagogue – and they were turned down.
"In 1657, when Stuyvesant also prohibited Quakers from holding meetings, a group of non-Quakers in Queens signed the Flushing Remonstrance, a petition in defense of the right of Quakers and others to freely practice their religion. It was perhaps the first formal, political petition for religious freedom in the American colonies – and the organizer was thrown in jail and then banished from New Amsterdam.
"In the 1700s, even as religious freedom took hold in America, Catholics in New York were effectively prohibited from practicing their religion – and priests could be arrested. Largely as a result, the first Catholic parish in New York City was not established until the 1780's – St. Peter's on Barclay Street, which still stands just one block north of the World Trade Center site and one block south of the proposed mosque and community center.
"This morning, the City's Landmark Preservation Commission unanimously voted not to extend landmark status to the building on Park Place where the mosque and community center are planned. The decision was based solely on the fact that there was little architectural significance to the building. But with or without landmark designation, there is nothing in the law that would prevent the owners from opening a mosque within the existing building. The simple fact is this building is private property, and the owners have a right to use the building as a house of worship.
"The government has no right whatsoever to deny that right – and if it were tried, the courts would almost certainly strike it down as a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question – should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here. This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions, or favor one over another.
"The World Trade Center Site will forever hold a special place in our City, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves – and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans – if we said 'no' to a mosque in Lower Manhattan.
"Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11 and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values – and play into our enemies' hands – if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists – and we should not stand for that.
"For that reason, I believe that this is an important test of the separation of church and state as we may see in our lifetime – as important a test – and it is critically important that we get it right.
"On September 11, 2001, thousands of first responders heroically rushed to the scene and saved tens of thousands of lives. More than 400 of those first responders did not make it out alive. In rushing into those burning buildings, not one of them asked 'What God do you pray to?' 'What beliefs do you hold?'
"The attack was an act of war – and our first responders defended not only our City but also our country and our Constitution. We do not honor their lives by denying the very Constitutional rights they died protecting. We honor their lives by defending those rights – and the freedoms that the terrorists attacked.
"Of course, it is fair to ask the organizers of the mosque to show some special sensitivity to the situation – and in fact, their plan envisions reaching beyond their walls and building an interfaith community. By doing so, it is my hope that the mosque will help to bring our City even closer together and help repudiate the false and repugnant idea that the attacks of 9/11 were in any way consistent with Islam. Muslims are as much a part of our City and our country as the people of any faith and they are as welcome to worship in Lower Manhattan as any other group. In fact, they have been worshipping at the site for the better part of a year, as is their right.
"The local community board in Lower Manhattan voted overwhelming to support the proposal and if it moves forward, I expect the community center and mosque will add to the life and vitality of the neighborhood and the entire City.
"Political controversies come and go, but our values and our traditions endure – and there is no neighborhood in this City that is off limits to God's love and mercy, as the religious leaders here with us today can attest."
"Our doors are open to everyone – everyone with a dream and a willingness to work hard and play by the rules. New York City was built by immigrants, and it is sustained by immigrants – by people from more than a hundred different countries speaking more than two hundred different languages and professing every faith. And whether your parents were born here, or you came yesterday, you are a New Yorker.
"We may not always agree with every one of our neighbors. That's life and it's part of living in such a diverse and dense city. But we also recognize that part of being a New Yorker is living with your neighbors in mutual respect and tolerance. It was exactly that spirit of openness and acceptance that was attacked on 9/11.
"No one should be asked to leave their neighborhood. This is our neighborhood and we've been part of it for 27 years. Our opponents are not from this neighborhood."
"On that day, 3,000 people were killed because some murderous fanatics didn't want us to enjoy the freedom to profess our own faiths, to speak our own minds, to follow our own dreams and to live our own lives.
"Of all our precious freedoms, the most important may be the freedom to worship as we wish. And it is a freedom that, even here in a City that is rooted in Dutch tolerance, was hard-won over many years. In the mid-1650s, the small Jewish community living in Lower Manhattan petitioned Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant for the right to build a synagogue – and they were turned down.
"In 1657, when Stuyvesant also prohibited Quakers from holding meetings, a group of non-Quakers in Queens signed the Flushing Remonstrance, a petition in defense of the right of Quakers and others to freely practice their religion. It was perhaps the first formal, political petition for religious freedom in the American colonies – and the organizer was thrown in jail and then banished from New Amsterdam.
"In the 1700s, even as religious freedom took hold in America, Catholics in New York were effectively prohibited from practicing their religion – and priests could be arrested. Largely as a result, the first Catholic parish in New York City was not established until the 1780's – St. Peter's on Barclay Street, which still stands just one block north of the World Trade Center site and one block south of the proposed mosque and community center.
"This morning, the City's Landmark Preservation Commission unanimously voted not to extend landmark status to the building on Park Place where the mosque and community center are planned. The decision was based solely on the fact that there was little architectural significance to the building. But with or without landmark designation, there is nothing in the law that would prevent the owners from opening a mosque within the existing building. The simple fact is this building is private property, and the owners have a right to use the building as a house of worship.
"The government has no right whatsoever to deny that right – and if it were tried, the courts would almost certainly strike it down as a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question – should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here. This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions, or favor one over another.
"The World Trade Center Site will forever hold a special place in our City, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves – and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans – if we said 'no' to a mosque in Lower Manhattan.
"Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11 and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values – and play into our enemies' hands – if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists – and we should not stand for that.
"For that reason, I believe that this is an important test of the separation of church and state as we may see in our lifetime – as important a test – and it is critically important that we get it right.
"On September 11, 2001, thousands of first responders heroically rushed to the scene and saved tens of thousands of lives. More than 400 of those first responders did not make it out alive. In rushing into those burning buildings, not one of them asked 'What God do you pray to?' 'What beliefs do you hold?'
"The attack was an act of war – and our first responders defended not only our City but also our country and our Constitution. We do not honor their lives by denying the very Constitutional rights they died protecting. We honor their lives by defending those rights – and the freedoms that the terrorists attacked.
"Of course, it is fair to ask the organizers of the mosque to show some special sensitivity to the situation – and in fact, their plan envisions reaching beyond their walls and building an interfaith community. By doing so, it is my hope that the mosque will help to bring our City even closer together and help repudiate the false and repugnant idea that the attacks of 9/11 were in any way consistent with Islam. Muslims are as much a part of our City and our country as the people of any faith and they are as welcome to worship in Lower Manhattan as any other group. In fact, they have been worshipping at the site for the better part of a year, as is their right.
"The local community board in Lower Manhattan voted overwhelming to support the proposal and if it moves forward, I expect the community center and mosque will add to the life and vitality of the neighborhood and the entire City.
"Political controversies come and go, but our values and our traditions endure – and there is no neighborhood in this City that is off limits to God's love and mercy, as the religious leaders here with us today can attest."
Monday, August 02, 2010
La La La La, La La La La Nemo's World!
I've been taking Denis and Nemo to task at http://freeracine.blogspot.com/ for their belief in the twin lies of "failing Public Schools" and "legions of Bad teachers" which of course is GOPropaganda framing to attack public schools and teachers unions for cynical political purposes only. Schools don't fail, students do. And it's obvious that students living in areas of concentrated poverty fail in concentrated numbers. But of course to these two and the rest of the Cons, it's not the concentrated poverty and all the social ills that go with it, it's the schools fault and the teachers fault even though the rest of our public, unionized schools are doing well and have for generations.
Anyway, Nemo asked me a question about a source which I answered and appologized for. I asked him to answer questions I've asked him on this site about his sources (or lack thereof) of global warming denial scientists doing actual research for credible institutions. He declined, saying it would be off topic here and Kay would ban him and then passed along this link: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/07/my-global-warming-skepticism-for-dummies/
So I've elected to give Nemo his legit link so he can explain how this guy is credible when you consider this: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Roy_Spencer#Opposition_to_evolution_and_embrace_of_.22intelligent_design.22
On the site linked by Nemo, the good doctor goes to great links to say that he's never taken a dime from the fossil industries. The only problem is he was employed writing columns for TCS Daily which was owned by DCI Group, a lobbying firm that works for ExxonMobil. He is also a board Member at the George C Marshall Institute, one of the Merchants of Doubt that works for "sound science" on behalf of . . . you guessed it, the fossil and tobacco industries.
He was a speaker (paid? unpaid?) at an anti-global warming conference sponsored by the Heartland Group. The conference was funded largely by the fossil industry. The Heartland Group is a Public Relations (deception) firm that is funded by the fossil and tobaccoo industries.
Best of all Spencer is a religious nut. He works at the University of Alabama Huntsville along with his reality-denial collegue and fellow fundamentalist nut, Prof. John Christy who, by the way believes that man does not have the power to affect the climate. His position is that only God has that power. The absurdity of which is readily apparent with only the breifest consideration of the man-made destructive force held in the American and Russian nuclear arsenals.
Mr. Spencer believes that intelligent design and not evolution should be taught in our schools and advocates that environmental policy should be based on a biblical view (whatever that is) rather than science. And this guy calls himself a scientist?
Like many deniers (Christy for one) and like our own GOPster state rep Jim Ott, whose special skills involve standing in front of a weather map, pointing and talking, Mr. Spencer is a meteorologist NOT a climatologist.
This is the type of source that Nemo always brings to the table to support his belief in a global climate conspiracy. Anyway, one down. Got any more stellar sources Nemo? How's bout another roughly translated Czech blog? That'd be just spiffy.
Anyway, Nemo asked me a question about a source which I answered and appologized for. I asked him to answer questions I've asked him on this site about his sources (or lack thereof) of global warming denial scientists doing actual research for credible institutions. He declined, saying it would be off topic here and Kay would ban him and then passed along this link: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/07/my-global-warming-skepticism-for-dummies/
So I've elected to give Nemo his legit link so he can explain how this guy is credible when you consider this: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Roy_Spencer#Opposition_to_evolution_and_embrace_of_.22intelligent_design.22
On the site linked by Nemo, the good doctor goes to great links to say that he's never taken a dime from the fossil industries. The only problem is he was employed writing columns for TCS Daily which was owned by DCI Group, a lobbying firm that works for ExxonMobil. He is also a board Member at the George C Marshall Institute, one of the Merchants of Doubt that works for "sound science" on behalf of . . . you guessed it, the fossil and tobacco industries.
He was a speaker (paid? unpaid?) at an anti-global warming conference sponsored by the Heartland Group. The conference was funded largely by the fossil industry. The Heartland Group is a Public Relations (deception) firm that is funded by the fossil and tobaccoo industries.
Best of all Spencer is a religious nut. He works at the University of Alabama Huntsville along with his reality-denial collegue and fellow fundamentalist nut, Prof. John Christy who, by the way believes that man does not have the power to affect the climate. His position is that only God has that power. The absurdity of which is readily apparent with only the breifest consideration of the man-made destructive force held in the American and Russian nuclear arsenals.
Mr. Spencer believes that intelligent design and not evolution should be taught in our schools and advocates that environmental policy should be based on a biblical view (whatever that is) rather than science. And this guy calls himself a scientist?
Like many deniers (Christy for one) and like our own GOPster state rep Jim Ott, whose special skills involve standing in front of a weather map, pointing and talking, Mr. Spencer is a meteorologist NOT a climatologist.
This is the type of source that Nemo always brings to the table to support his belief in a global climate conspiracy. Anyway, one down. Got any more stellar sources Nemo? How's bout another roughly translated Czech blog? That'd be just spiffy.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
News for Dumb Fux
Once again Fox, drudge and the rightwing "news" media demonstrate their blatant dishonesty and why only ingoramusi trust these slimers. Honestly, why Obama and dems allow themselves to be spun around by these scumbags instead of telling them all to Fux off is beyond me.
From todays Democracy Now! headlines (emphasis added): http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/21/headlines
USDA Reconsiders Firing of Black Official over NAACP Speech
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said today he is reconsidering his department’s controversial decision to fire a black USDA official over a speech she gave in March at an NAACP function. Shirley Sherrod was pressured to resign Monday after a right-wing website posted a deceptively edited video of the speech that appeared to show Sherrod admitting she withheld help from a white farmer for racial reasons. What the edited video did not show is Sherrod describing how she ended up going to great lengths to help the farmer save his land. After her ouster, the white farmer, Roger Spooner, appeared on CNN praising Sherrod.
Roger Spooner: "I never was treated no better, no nicer, and looked after than Shirley. She done—she done a magnificent job. I don’t have words—I don’t have words to explain it."
Shirley Sherrod said her boss at the Department of Agriculture called her on Monday and demanded she resign right away, "because you are going to be on 'Glenn Beck' tonight." The NAACP also originally supported Sherrod’s ouster, but on Tuesday NAACP President Ben Jealous apologized to Sherrod. Jealous said the NAACP had been “snookered” by Fox News and Tea Party activist Andrew Breitbart into believing she had harmed white farmers because of racial bias. The video was first posted on a website run by Breitbart, a former editor at the Drudge Report. Last year Breitbart played a key role in the distribution of the doctored videos that purported to show ACORN employees giving advice to a pimp and a prostitute. Breitbart said last night he posted the Sherrod video in an effort to get back at the NAACP for passing a resolution calling on the "Tea Party" movement to repudiate racism.
Netanyahu in 2000: U.S. "Won't Get in the Way" of Israeli Exansionism
From Monday's Democracy Now! headlines: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/19/headlines Proof that Isreal is not an honest partner in the peace process, has aggressive expansionist territorial ambitions and routinely manipulates its "ally" the United States for Israel's "national interest".
A newly revealed tape shows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once openly discussed his intent to attack the Palestinian government, undermine the Oslo peace accords, and manipulate the United States to ensure its approval. The 2001 recording shows Netanyahu meeting with Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. Netanyahu was then out of government after serving his first stint in office. Apparently unaware he was being recorded, Netanyahu talks openly of a "broad attack" on the Palestinian government, saying, "The main thing, first of all, is to hit them. Not just one blow, but blows that are so painful that the price will be too heavy to be borne." Netanyahu also outlines how he would undermine the 1993 Oslo accords, he said, which established the basis for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, by declaring any West Bank land that Israel wants to retain as "military" and "security zones." Addressing potential US opposition to Israeli expansionism, Netanyahu says, "I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won’t get in the way."
A newly revealed tape shows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once openly discussed his intent to attack the Palestinian government, undermine the Oslo peace accords, and manipulate the United States to ensure its approval. The 2001 recording shows Netanyahu meeting with Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. Netanyahu was then out of government after serving his first stint in office. Apparently unaware he was being recorded, Netanyahu talks openly of a "broad attack" on the Palestinian government, saying, "The main thing, first of all, is to hit them. Not just one blow, but blows that are so painful that the price will be too heavy to be borne." Netanyahu also outlines how he would undermine the 1993 Oslo accords, he said, which established the basis for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, by declaring any West Bank land that Israel wants to retain as "military" and "security zones." Addressing potential US opposition to Israeli expansionism, Netanyahu says, "I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won’t get in the way."
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
4th Desecrated Again - Strike Two in Waterford
For the second year since the election of a moderate democrat as President who is also half black, the Independence Day parade in Waterford, Wisconsin, has been desecrated by the display of a confederate flag. These two never-before-seen events, the election of a man of color as President of our country by a majority of free Americans and the parading of southern culture on the skids, are of course directly connected. What other purpose could the shameless people responsible possibly intend?
In this clear expression of teabaggy fear and hatred, the disgusting symbol of slavery and oppression was misplaced along side Old Glory, our nation’s symbol of freedom and democracy. It was also misplaced along side the flag of Wisconsin, a union state that fought on the victorious side of freedom 150 years ago. A state whose motto, “Forward” reflects our progressive culture moving toward a better future for our people and away from the dense ignorance of past evils.
Fly your ignorance, fear and hate 364 days a year down Waterford’s main drag, but on the day celebrating the birth American freedom this is an atrocity a kin to donning swastika armbands.
Maybe those who have yet to learn the lessons of freedom from the revolution, the civil war, the civil rights triumph and beyond should go south, to the mess in Texas for example and fulfill their threat to secede. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Then perhaps we won’t have this garbage again next year. Shame on you!
In this clear expression of teabaggy fear and hatred, the disgusting symbol of slavery and oppression was misplaced along side Old Glory, our nation’s symbol of freedom and democracy. It was also misplaced along side the flag of Wisconsin, a union state that fought on the victorious side of freedom 150 years ago. A state whose motto, “Forward” reflects our progressive culture moving toward a better future for our people and away from the dense ignorance of past evils.
Fly your ignorance, fear and hate 364 days a year down Waterford’s main drag, but on the day celebrating the birth American freedom this is an atrocity a kin to donning swastika armbands.
Maybe those who have yet to learn the lessons of freedom from the revolution, the civil war, the civil rights triumph and beyond should go south, to the mess in Texas for example and fulfill their threat to secede. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Then perhaps we won’t have this garbage again next year. Shame on you!
Friday, July 02, 2010
Sign the Declaration of Muff-Independence
http://freedommuffins.com/
When in the course of catastrophic events, it becomes evident that one “corporate person”, English Petroleum has dissolved bands of oil and secret chemical dispersant into the waters which have connected him with real muffin-eating people, and in so doing, he has desecrated the creatures of the earth, air and seas, it becomes necessary to establish the separate and equal station to which the laws of english muffin-nature and muffin-nature’s God entitle them. So a decent respect to the opinions of muffinkind requires that we should declare the causes which he has impel us to this separate muffin status, that of Freedom Muffin!
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that not all muffins are created english, those that are, are endowed by their creators with certain unalienable qualities, that among these are niches, crevices and toastability. That to secure these qualities, muffins are established among men, deriving their just qualities from the consent of the muffin-eaters. That whenever any name of muffinhood becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the muffin-eating people to alter or abolish it and to institute a new muffin name, laying it’s foundation on such principles and organizing it’s properties in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their satiety and happiness. Prudence, indeed will dictate that muffins long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that muffin-eaters are more disposed to suffer while evil muffins are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the muffins to which they are accustomed. But when long trains of oil, abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object of greed evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despoliation, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such muffinhood and to provide new guards for their future muffin security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these muffin-eaters; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of muffinclature. The history of the present “corporate personhood” of English Petroleum, the crumpet eating spiller monkeys, is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the superfluous embellishment of their own muffindom in absolute disregard over the state of our workmen, environs and muffinhood. To prove this, let allegations be submitted to a candid world.
EP has, in 1954, usurped the democratically elected muffidency of Iran leading to the Shah’s mufftatorship and ultimately the mufflamic revolution in 1979 depriving, in the name of profit, an entire people of their right to self-determuffination.
EP did, on the cusp of the new muflennium with full intent dump his waste into the waters off our shores.
EP has pressured our workmen to speak not of his violations of muffin law and did harass and dismiss those that did in good conscience report his transgressions.
EP has withheld from our good workmen knowledge of risks to their safety, the safety of their fellows and to our muffin environs.
EP has willfully permitted his equipment to corrode and fall into disrepair, leading to fiery explosions, the despoiling of our muffins, our tundra and harming the well being of our fellow citizens.
EP has born false witness with respect to inspection of his equipment in its condition, operability and in the case of muffin safety equipment, its very existence.
EP has in the previous five years demonstrated a clear pattern of intentional disregard in transgressing our statutes governing good commerce and protective of our muffin healthiness, safety and environs, has committed fraud, and he has paid a sum of $373 millions of dollars to avoid due process for his corporate personhood.
EP has for three years outpaced his peers thus accounting for a full 97 parts out of 100 of all egregious and willful transgressions of our muffin safety, mounting a full 760 such violations compared to a mere 8 from the closest of his brethren.
EP has caused the demise of one score and ten of our workmen and caused injurious effects to two hundreds of others in two incidents in close order prior to the current conflagration on the high seas which has killed 11 of our countrymen and caused injurious effect to 17 others.
EP prepared a plan of inferior quality for the Keep-Your-Eyes-On oil platform, pronouncing that if by unlikely happenstance there was an accident that due to the well being 48 miles from shore and the high tech response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts would be expected. Such claims are a demonstrable falsehood.
EP did install his Keep-Your-Eyes-On blowout preventer without remote-control or acoustically-activated triggers and did allow his deadman switch to fail to close the pipe.
EP did cut corners to save money on his Keep-Your-Eyes-On well in the design and materials used, in the cementing and drilling mud procedures and the installation of safety devices such as lockdown sleeves and centralizers.
EP did in the current Keep-Your-Eyes-On catastrophe fail to install an alarm in the engine room to shut off power in the presence of methane gas.
EP did in the Keep-Your-Eyes-On disaster allow the failure of a backstop mechanism to prevent the wild running of engines and so too the air-intake valves that were to close if gas trespassed into the engine room.
EP made Keep-Your-Eyes-On workers to understand that they could be fired for raising safety concerns that might delay drilling, yet some workers did protest in vane of the unsafe practices implemented for the object of greed and whence the explosion did finally come as warned one workman was heard to exclaim "Are you fucking happy? Are you fucking happy? The rig's on fire! I told you this was gonna happen."
EP has done all of the above yet he has spent not one day in the stocks at the village square or in the custody of the jailor as one of our citizens would have for the willful and repetitious commission of high muffin crimes and his immunity to just laws is repugnant to us as freemen who live by rule of law.
In every stage of these muffin transgressions our petitions have been answered only by repeated injury to ourselves and our muffins. A body, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define undesirable corporate personhood, is unfit to share common lineage with our muffins.
We, therefore, representatives of the people, fauna, flora, air, lands and waters of the United States of America, in general agreement, appealing to the Supreme Judge of muffins for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good muffin-eaters of these shores, solemnly publish and declare, that our muffins are, and of right ought to be free and independent muffins, that they shall be absolved from all connection to English Petroleum, that as free and independent muffins they have full power to be nooky, cranniful, toastable and in keeping with all other properties which independent muffins may of right possess. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine muffiness, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred muffins that hence forth these baked goods shall be known only as FREEDOM MUFFINS!
When in the course of catastrophic events, it becomes evident that one “corporate person”, English Petroleum has dissolved bands of oil and secret chemical dispersant into the waters which have connected him with real muffin-eating people, and in so doing, he has desecrated the creatures of the earth, air and seas, it becomes necessary to establish the separate and equal station to which the laws of english muffin-nature and muffin-nature’s God entitle them. So a decent respect to the opinions of muffinkind requires that we should declare the causes which he has impel us to this separate muffin status, that of Freedom Muffin!
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that not all muffins are created english, those that are, are endowed by their creators with certain unalienable qualities, that among these are niches, crevices and toastability. That to secure these qualities, muffins are established among men, deriving their just qualities from the consent of the muffin-eaters. That whenever any name of muffinhood becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the muffin-eating people to alter or abolish it and to institute a new muffin name, laying it’s foundation on such principles and organizing it’s properties in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their satiety and happiness. Prudence, indeed will dictate that muffins long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that muffin-eaters are more disposed to suffer while evil muffins are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the muffins to which they are accustomed. But when long trains of oil, abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object of greed evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despoliation, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such muffinhood and to provide new guards for their future muffin security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these muffin-eaters; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of muffinclature. The history of the present “corporate personhood” of English Petroleum, the crumpet eating spiller monkeys, is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the superfluous embellishment of their own muffindom in absolute disregard over the state of our workmen, environs and muffinhood. To prove this, let allegations be submitted to a candid world.
EP has, in 1954, usurped the democratically elected muffidency of Iran leading to the Shah’s mufftatorship and ultimately the mufflamic revolution in 1979 depriving, in the name of profit, an entire people of their right to self-determuffination.
EP did, on the cusp of the new muflennium with full intent dump his waste into the waters off our shores.
EP has pressured our workmen to speak not of his violations of muffin law and did harass and dismiss those that did in good conscience report his transgressions.
EP has withheld from our good workmen knowledge of risks to their safety, the safety of their fellows and to our muffin environs.
EP has willfully permitted his equipment to corrode and fall into disrepair, leading to fiery explosions, the despoiling of our muffins, our tundra and harming the well being of our fellow citizens.
EP has born false witness with respect to inspection of his equipment in its condition, operability and in the case of muffin safety equipment, its very existence.
EP has in the previous five years demonstrated a clear pattern of intentional disregard in transgressing our statutes governing good commerce and protective of our muffin healthiness, safety and environs, has committed fraud, and he has paid a sum of $373 millions of dollars to avoid due process for his corporate personhood.
EP has for three years outpaced his peers thus accounting for a full 97 parts out of 100 of all egregious and willful transgressions of our muffin safety, mounting a full 760 such violations compared to a mere 8 from the closest of his brethren.
EP has caused the demise of one score and ten of our workmen and caused injurious effects to two hundreds of others in two incidents in close order prior to the current conflagration on the high seas which has killed 11 of our countrymen and caused injurious effect to 17 others.
EP prepared a plan of inferior quality for the Keep-Your-Eyes-On oil platform, pronouncing that if by unlikely happenstance there was an accident that due to the well being 48 miles from shore and the high tech response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts would be expected. Such claims are a demonstrable falsehood.
EP did install his Keep-Your-Eyes-On blowout preventer without remote-control or acoustically-activated triggers and did allow his deadman switch to fail to close the pipe.
EP did cut corners to save money on his Keep-Your-Eyes-On well in the design and materials used, in the cementing and drilling mud procedures and the installation of safety devices such as lockdown sleeves and centralizers.
EP did in the current Keep-Your-Eyes-On catastrophe fail to install an alarm in the engine room to shut off power in the presence of methane gas.
EP did in the Keep-Your-Eyes-On disaster allow the failure of a backstop mechanism to prevent the wild running of engines and so too the air-intake valves that were to close if gas trespassed into the engine room.
EP made Keep-Your-Eyes-On workers to understand that they could be fired for raising safety concerns that might delay drilling, yet some workers did protest in vane of the unsafe practices implemented for the object of greed and whence the explosion did finally come as warned one workman was heard to exclaim "Are you fucking happy? Are you fucking happy? The rig's on fire! I told you this was gonna happen."
EP has done all of the above yet he has spent not one day in the stocks at the village square or in the custody of the jailor as one of our citizens would have for the willful and repetitious commission of high muffin crimes and his immunity to just laws is repugnant to us as freemen who live by rule of law.
In every stage of these muffin transgressions our petitions have been answered only by repeated injury to ourselves and our muffins. A body, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define undesirable corporate personhood, is unfit to share common lineage with our muffins.
We, therefore, representatives of the people, fauna, flora, air, lands and waters of the United States of America, in general agreement, appealing to the Supreme Judge of muffins for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good muffin-eaters of these shores, solemnly publish and declare, that our muffins are, and of right ought to be free and independent muffins, that they shall be absolved from all connection to English Petroleum, that as free and independent muffins they have full power to be nooky, cranniful, toastable and in keeping with all other properties which independent muffins may of right possess. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine muffiness, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred muffins that hence forth these baked goods shall be known only as FREEDOM MUFFINS!
Monday, June 28, 2010
Freedom Muffins!
Sign the petition, The Declaration of Muff-Independence and be a part of the Muff Heard 'Round the World! http://www.freedommuffins.com/
Are you outraged at the cataclysmic catastrophe that is unfolding, and will continue to unfold for years in the Gulf of Mexico? Are you disgusted by the long trail of wanton disregard for our lives, the lives of our wildlife, our livelihoods, and the very land, air and waters of our country that has lead directly to this calamitous disaster? Are you heart sick and tired of the outrageous greed and short-term thinking that is the root cause of this devastating tragedy and the other tragedies that have been foisted on our nation in recent times?
Well then show your outrage! Stick it to the slickers! Sign The Declaration of Muff-Independence so that we can deliver one million signatures to the Perps, our President and our Congress on July 4th, Independence Day 2010! Let them know loud and clear that we demand restoration, that this can NEVER be allowed to happen again, that This Will Not Stand, Dude! FREEDOM MUFFINS FOR ALL!
Are you outraged at the cataclysmic catastrophe that is unfolding, and will continue to unfold for years in the Gulf of Mexico? Are you disgusted by the long trail of wanton disregard for our lives, the lives of our wildlife, our livelihoods, and the very land, air and waters of our country that has lead directly to this calamitous disaster? Are you heart sick and tired of the outrageous greed and short-term thinking that is the root cause of this devastating tragedy and the other tragedies that have been foisted on our nation in recent times?
Well then show your outrage! Stick it to the slickers! Sign The Declaration of Muff-Independence so that we can deliver one million signatures to the Perps, our President and our Congress on July 4th, Independence Day 2010! Let them know loud and clear that we demand restoration, that this can NEVER be allowed to happen again, that This Will Not Stand, Dude! FREEDOM MUFFINS FOR ALL!
Friday, June 25, 2010
Why Helen Thomas was Right about Israel
When Helen Thomas dared to criticize Israel, America's sacred cow, her decades-long career as a journalist was summarily brought to an end with the predictable false claims of anti-semetism. To do this she was of course taken out of context when she said “Jews should get the hell out of Palestine.” When asked where they should go she said they should “go home to Poland, Germany, America and everywhere else.”
Obviously she was refering to the tens of thousands of Jews who immigrate to Israel every single year and the implication that has on the single biggest stumbling block to peace, Israel's continuing refusal to stop building settlements on Palestinian land and carving up their country. Helen Thomas dared to put her finger on the problem and got burned.
The Israeli people want peace, but they're held hostage by the ultraorthodox (fundamentalists) who, like all nationalists, believe that they hold claim all the land that was under their rule at any time in history, by god! It appears that the Palestinian people are also held hostage by the fundamentalists in their midst and want to move forward to peace.
From yesterday's Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/24/headlines
(emphasis added)
A new poll shows a majority of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories support reaching a peace agreement with the Israeli government. According to the Norwegian-based group FAFO, 73 percent of Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza say they support negotiations with Israel but that the talks should be preconditioned on a settlement freeze. The poll also shows growing support for nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation, with the number of Palestinians who oppose rocket attacks from Gaza increasing to 61 percent from 53 percent. Israel has refused a settlement freeze while also rejecting any peace agreement that would involve giving up its large settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank.
Obviously she was refering to the tens of thousands of Jews who immigrate to Israel every single year and the implication that has on the single biggest stumbling block to peace, Israel's continuing refusal to stop building settlements on Palestinian land and carving up their country. Helen Thomas dared to put her finger on the problem and got burned.
The Israeli people want peace, but they're held hostage by the ultraorthodox (fundamentalists) who, like all nationalists, believe that they hold claim all the land that was under their rule at any time in history, by god! It appears that the Palestinian people are also held hostage by the fundamentalists in their midst and want to move forward to peace.
From yesterday's Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/24/headlines
(emphasis added)
A new poll shows a majority of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories support reaching a peace agreement with the Israeli government. According to the Norwegian-based group FAFO, 73 percent of Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza say they support negotiations with Israel but that the talks should be preconditioned on a settlement freeze. The poll also shows growing support for nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation, with the number of Palestinians who oppose rocket attacks from Gaza increasing to 61 percent from 53 percent. Israel has refused a settlement freeze while also rejecting any peace agreement that would involve giving up its large settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Commentary on Tea Party shenanigans going on in Florida
So, the Tea Baggers (sorry, Partiers) don't like the flavor of politics? Ha! This is almost too rich to see them implode.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
New blog about Tea Party Hypocrisy!
http://www.teapartypledge.info/
Please share and spread the word, and it is still very much a work in progress (not the pledge so much, but the links and content).
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Climate Change and the Merchants of Doubt
If someone told you cigarettes are safe, would you give them to your children? Why on earth then would you take that exact same person’s word on global warming and the climate you’ll leave for your children!? http://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/
I heard a great show recently (Thursday 6/3 - 8:00) on WPR with Naomi Areskes, a geologist (yeah!) and one of the authors of Merchants of Doubt – How a Handful of Scientists Obscure the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming: http://www.wpr.org/webcasting/audioarchives_display.cfm?Code=jca
It seems that the same three names emerge repeatedly in the denial and sowing of doubt on major subjects where the science has actually been settled for some time, including DDT, Acid Rain, the Ozone Hole, Tobacco Hazards and Global Warming. Seriously? Tobacco and DDT!?
Cold warriors Fred Seitz, Fred Singer and Bill Neirenberg all worked on Starwars, Ronny’s Raygun project in the 1980s and were vehement anticommunists. When the Soviet Union collapsed they needed a new enemy (because that’s an essential conservative component). They were also free-market fundamentalists and believed that any government regulation lead directly to communism. Ironic, since global warming is a very real and concrete example of a failure of the so called free market place, just like the BP spill. In fact the externality of costs from global warming is probably the largest market failure in the history of the planet. So these market fundamentalists went to work for that pillar of corporate virtue RJ Reynolds and the Tobacco Institute. What fool would believe that a wholesome product like cigarettes cause cancer and emphysema?
These ideologues then turned on environmentalists as their new enemy, believing that environmentalists are like watermelons, green on the outside but red on the inside. They founded the George C. Marshall Institute http://www.marshall.org/ and worked closely with Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, American Enterprise Institute, the Advancement of Sound Science Center and the Heartland Group, all rightwing “think tanks” and all funded in large measure by the fossil industries. Unlike actual research scientists these groups carefully study how to change public opinion and then put their funding behind those efforts. And they’ve used an all too compliant media to convince a significant portion of the American public that there are two sides to every issue when there is not, especially in these cases. They even used the Fairness Doctrine (you know how much Cons love that) to threaten PBS into giving the pro-Starwars side equal time when essentially there were three scientist claiming it would work versus thousands who said it wouldn’t work, a fact that George Warcriminal Bush aptly proved 20 years later.
Doubt is their product and they use any minor uncertainty or disagreement and conflate it to convince the public that there are still major question surrounding the science that threatens the profits of their corporate sponsors. They use threats, intimidation, illegitimate lawsuits and lies (like the recent climate change email dust up) to advance their agenda.
One of these lies was that Roger Ravelle, one of the first scientists to study and warn about Global Warming and a mentor of Al Gore, recanted on his death bed. A young grad student, Justin Lancaster who worked with Ravelle and knew it was lie began to speak out, but Fred Singer threatened to sue him and because he had no money he settled out of court and agreed to a 10-year gag order that has now expired. Scientists, including the authors of this book have been threatened and targeted with ad homonym for espousing their anti-fossil views that the industrialists consider to be a threat to their profits for which they are willing to sacrifice future generations.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/books/reviews/2010-06-01-deathmerchants01_ST_N.htm
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/naomi_oreskes_on_merchants_of.php
I heard a great show recently (Thursday 6/3 - 8:00) on WPR with Naomi Areskes, a geologist (yeah!) and one of the authors of Merchants of Doubt – How a Handful of Scientists Obscure the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming: http://www.wpr.org/webcasting/audioarchives_display.cfm?Code=jca
It seems that the same three names emerge repeatedly in the denial and sowing of doubt on major subjects where the science has actually been settled for some time, including DDT, Acid Rain, the Ozone Hole, Tobacco Hazards and Global Warming. Seriously? Tobacco and DDT!?
Cold warriors Fred Seitz, Fred Singer and Bill Neirenberg all worked on Starwars, Ronny’s Raygun project in the 1980s and were vehement anticommunists. When the Soviet Union collapsed they needed a new enemy (because that’s an essential conservative component). They were also free-market fundamentalists and believed that any government regulation lead directly to communism. Ironic, since global warming is a very real and concrete example of a failure of the so called free market place, just like the BP spill. In fact the externality of costs from global warming is probably the largest market failure in the history of the planet. So these market fundamentalists went to work for that pillar of corporate virtue RJ Reynolds and the Tobacco Institute. What fool would believe that a wholesome product like cigarettes cause cancer and emphysema?
These ideologues then turned on environmentalists as their new enemy, believing that environmentalists are like watermelons, green on the outside but red on the inside. They founded the George C. Marshall Institute http://www.marshall.org/ and worked closely with Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, American Enterprise Institute, the Advancement of Sound Science Center and the Heartland Group, all rightwing “think tanks” and all funded in large measure by the fossil industries. Unlike actual research scientists these groups carefully study how to change public opinion and then put their funding behind those efforts. And they’ve used an all too compliant media to convince a significant portion of the American public that there are two sides to every issue when there is not, especially in these cases. They even used the Fairness Doctrine (you know how much Cons love that) to threaten PBS into giving the pro-Starwars side equal time when essentially there were three scientist claiming it would work versus thousands who said it wouldn’t work, a fact that George Warcriminal Bush aptly proved 20 years later.
Doubt is their product and they use any minor uncertainty or disagreement and conflate it to convince the public that there are still major question surrounding the science that threatens the profits of their corporate sponsors. They use threats, intimidation, illegitimate lawsuits and lies (like the recent climate change email dust up) to advance their agenda.
One of these lies was that Roger Ravelle, one of the first scientists to study and warn about Global Warming and a mentor of Al Gore, recanted on his death bed. A young grad student, Justin Lancaster who worked with Ravelle and knew it was lie began to speak out, but Fred Singer threatened to sue him and because he had no money he settled out of court and agreed to a 10-year gag order that has now expired. Scientists, including the authors of this book have been threatened and targeted with ad homonym for espousing their anti-fossil views that the industrialists consider to be a threat to their profits for which they are willing to sacrifice future generations.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/books/reviews/2010-06-01-deathmerchants01_ST_N.htm
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/naomi_oreskes_on_merchants_of.php
Monday, June 14, 2010
Teabagnorance
Saw a car this weekend with a teabagger sticker on one side of the back window and one on the other side that said "Government Sucks, Obama Swallows". So clever.
There's no point trying to fathom what that means other than that the driver is an ignorant moron which is emblematic of the Teabaggers.
There's no point trying to fathom what that means other than that the driver is an ignorant moron which is emblematic of the Teabaggers.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
WTF, This is Obama's NID Nominee!?
From today's Democracy Now!: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/10/headlines
Obama’s Intel Nominee Tied to False Iraq WMD Claim
The Associated Press reports a Senate vote on President Barack Obama’s choice for national intelligence director could be delayed into the fall because of questions about whether the nominee would be too close to the Pentagon. The nominee, James Clapper, is a retired Air Force general who currently serves as undersecretary of defense for intelligence. From 2001 to 2006, Clapper headed the Pentagon’s National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. In that position, Clapper played a key role in promoting the Bush administration’s claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction prior to the 2003 invasion. In October 2003, Clapper said it was unquestionably true that Iraq moved WMDs to Syria ahead of the war. The website ThinkProgress reports former Bush adviser Karl Rove has cited Clapper’s theory to defend claims by the Bush administration that it believed Iraq posed an imminent security threat to the United States.
Obama’s Intel Nominee Tied to False Iraq WMD Claim
The Associated Press reports a Senate vote on President Barack Obama’s choice for national intelligence director could be delayed into the fall because of questions about whether the nominee would be too close to the Pentagon. The nominee, James Clapper, is a retired Air Force general who currently serves as undersecretary of defense for intelligence. From 2001 to 2006, Clapper headed the Pentagon’s National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. In that position, Clapper played a key role in promoting the Bush administration’s claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction prior to the 2003 invasion. In October 2003, Clapper said it was unquestionably true that Iraq moved WMDs to Syria ahead of the war. The website ThinkProgress reports former Bush adviser Karl Rove has cited Clapper’s theory to defend claims by the Bush administration that it believed Iraq posed an imminent security threat to the United States.
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Republicon Professed Beliefs are Lies
Republicons profess to share a set of core beliefs, the strictly orthodox adherence to which is increasingly insisted upon. But if one observes the actual practices of the GOPleadership it becomes more than obvious that these beliefs are a pack of lies, laying bare the GOPocrisy of the their real motivations and agenda as summarily demonstrated below.
Competition: Republicans say they believe in competition, but of course it’s a lie. Their mythical hero Ronald Reagan stopped the enforcement of Republican Teddy Roosevelt’s Anti-Trust laws. This has resulted in wave after wave of corporate mergers as companies have bought up their competition. You know what happens when you buy up the competition? It goes away. And we’re left with fewer and larger companies with a stranglehold on entire sectors of our economy leading collusion, price fixing and the stifling of competition.
Judicial Activism: Republicans love to spout against “judicial activism” and legislating from the bench. But the two most blatant and outrageous examples of judicial activism are the cases of Bush v Gore and Citizens United v FEC which were perpetrated by robed Republican hacks on the Supreme Court overturning decades on legislation in the later case and Constitutional law in the former.
Smaller Government: The government has grown bigger and more intrusive under every Republican Administration. The only parts of government that the GOPsters wish to shrink are those that seek to protect the rights and interests of workers, consumers and average citizens against the predations of their corporate sponsors and the fickle whims of the fantastically mythological free market.
Fiscal Responsibility: The notion that Republicans believe in fiscal responsibility is of course ludicrous on its face. The large deficits that our federal government has run up have been under Republican administrations and under so called conservative policies. Engaging in foreign misadventures for fun and private profit while borrowing the money and running up the public debt sure as hell isn’t responsible, fiscally or otherwise. It’s time banditry, stealing from tomorrow’s generations and paying off today’s cronies.
Local Control: Please! The Republican Party is one of the most top-down organizations around. Their core purpose is the preservation of power and control for those who have it. They insist on strict adherence ideological purity and the party line, not the purpose of the representatives to reflect the interests of their local constituents. If Republicans believed in local control they would insist that elections be decided locally and not based on the influence of money from shadowy sources from far away.
Jobs: Yeah right! Please refer to the item on Competition above. The reduced competition and waves of mergers have destroyed millions of jobs. The only jobs Republicans believe in are their own.
Immigration: The Republican leadership loves illegal immigration and it’s been unwritten federal policy since Ronald Reagan enacted it in the 1980’s. The Republicans have used illegal immigration to weaken unions to drive down labor costs, to undermine the security of workers in their jobs and livelihoods and to fulfill the demand for cheap labor of their corporate sponsors, increase their bottom line and transfer wealth from average Americans to corporate/political contributor class.
Redistribution of Wealth: Republicans scream about it, but they are only against the redistribution of wealth downward. Thirty years of Con policies have very effectively redistributed wealth to the top few percent of Americans by income.
Sovereignty: Republicans love to sing the praises of American sovereignty. That is until it stands in the way of trade or corporate profits. NAFTA, a great Con idea, gave away American sovereignty to a secret three judge panel that can, in secret proceedings overturn any American law if it is seen to restrain the current or even future profits of a foreign corporation. What the Republicans believe in is corporate sovereignty, plain and simple.
Family Values: Republican “family” values are groin centered. But they are against measures that seek to address the real needs of families that extend well beyond the region of the human groin. They oppose efforts to ensure that people filling low skill positions that are necessary for our economy make a family supporting wage and have healthcare for themselves and their children. They oppose affordable housing and public transportation that would allow workers to get to where the jobs are without having to maintain a reliable automobile. Republican family values means valuing one’s own family.
Life: Don’t even get me started!
Competition: Republicans say they believe in competition, but of course it’s a lie. Their mythical hero Ronald Reagan stopped the enforcement of Republican Teddy Roosevelt’s Anti-Trust laws. This has resulted in wave after wave of corporate mergers as companies have bought up their competition. You know what happens when you buy up the competition? It goes away. And we’re left with fewer and larger companies with a stranglehold on entire sectors of our economy leading collusion, price fixing and the stifling of competition.
Judicial Activism: Republicans love to spout against “judicial activism” and legislating from the bench. But the two most blatant and outrageous examples of judicial activism are the cases of Bush v Gore and Citizens United v FEC which were perpetrated by robed Republican hacks on the Supreme Court overturning decades on legislation in the later case and Constitutional law in the former.
Smaller Government: The government has grown bigger and more intrusive under every Republican Administration. The only parts of government that the GOPsters wish to shrink are those that seek to protect the rights and interests of workers, consumers and average citizens against the predations of their corporate sponsors and the fickle whims of the fantastically mythological free market.
Fiscal Responsibility: The notion that Republicans believe in fiscal responsibility is of course ludicrous on its face. The large deficits that our federal government has run up have been under Republican administrations and under so called conservative policies. Engaging in foreign misadventures for fun and private profit while borrowing the money and running up the public debt sure as hell isn’t responsible, fiscally or otherwise. It’s time banditry, stealing from tomorrow’s generations and paying off today’s cronies.
Local Control: Please! The Republican Party is one of the most top-down organizations around. Their core purpose is the preservation of power and control for those who have it. They insist on strict adherence ideological purity and the party line, not the purpose of the representatives to reflect the interests of their local constituents. If Republicans believed in local control they would insist that elections be decided locally and not based on the influence of money from shadowy sources from far away.
Jobs: Yeah right! Please refer to the item on Competition above. The reduced competition and waves of mergers have destroyed millions of jobs. The only jobs Republicans believe in are their own.
Immigration: The Republican leadership loves illegal immigration and it’s been unwritten federal policy since Ronald Reagan enacted it in the 1980’s. The Republicans have used illegal immigration to weaken unions to drive down labor costs, to undermine the security of workers in their jobs and livelihoods and to fulfill the demand for cheap labor of their corporate sponsors, increase their bottom line and transfer wealth from average Americans to corporate/political contributor class.
Redistribution of Wealth: Republicans scream about it, but they are only against the redistribution of wealth downward. Thirty years of Con policies have very effectively redistributed wealth to the top few percent of Americans by income.
Sovereignty: Republicans love to sing the praises of American sovereignty. That is until it stands in the way of trade or corporate profits. NAFTA, a great Con idea, gave away American sovereignty to a secret three judge panel that can, in secret proceedings overturn any American law if it is seen to restrain the current or even future profits of a foreign corporation. What the Republicans believe in is corporate sovereignty, plain and simple.
Family Values: Republican “family” values are groin centered. But they are against measures that seek to address the real needs of families that extend well beyond the region of the human groin. They oppose efforts to ensure that people filling low skill positions that are necessary for our economy make a family supporting wage and have healthcare for themselves and their children. They oppose affordable housing and public transportation that would allow workers to get to where the jobs are without having to maintain a reliable automobile. Republican family values means valuing one’s own family.
Life: Don’t even get me started!
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