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Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Bernie Sanders blows Wolf Blitzer's mind with a simple idea ( guess it doesn't take much)

"On a May 19 CNN broadcast with Blitzer, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders unveiled a plan to eliminate college tuition by taxing Wall Street speculation.
Sounds pretty simple and straight forward doesn't it?  Yet, Blitzer just couldn't wrap his mind around it.....  watch......https://www.youtube.com/...

Blitzer asked time and again, " you mean you are going to tax Wall Street? as if he just heard that aliens had landed on the White House lawn.  Yes Sanders replied over and over again.  A small tax on transference of money that will in all likelihood raise about 300 billion dollars, more than enough to keep our college grads from starting out life deep in debt."

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Restoring Memoriam to Memorial Day - NYTimes.com

"As David W. Blight, a professor of history and the director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale wrote in The New York Times in 2011, during the final year of the Civil War, a racetrack was converted to an outdoor prison for Union captives; “at least 257 died of disease and were hastily buried in a mass grave behind the grandstand.”

Blight wrote: “After the Confederate evacuation of Charleston, black workmen went to the site, reburied the Union dead properly, and built a high fence around the cemetery” and the freed people, “in cooperation with white missionaries and teachers, staged a parade of 10,000 on the track.”

He continued: “After the dedication, the crowd dispersed into the infield and did what many of us do on Memorial Day: enjoyed picnics, listened to speeches and watched soldiers drill.”

Blight concluded: “The war was over, and Memorial Day had been founded by African-Americans in a ritual of remembrance and consecration. The war, they had boldly announced, had been about the triumph of their emancipation over a slaveholders’ republic. They were themselves the true patriots.”

This is the history from which this holiday springs: honoring sacrifice. And honoring sacrifices can exist apart from endorsing missions. Many of our veterans have given life, and increasingly, limb for this country, and that must be saluted."

Thursday, May 21, 2015

Senate Debate Reveals Absurd Level Of Trade Pact Secrecy

"However, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) objected to bringing the bill forward. In response, Manchin and Warren made a few telling observations about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the vast trade agreement the U.S. is currently negotiating with 11 other nations.

The pair noted that although legislators are allowed to look at the text of the TPP in a secure room, they are only allowed to do so under restrictions that make it nearly impossible to understand what they are reading.

First, they can't bring expert staffers with them unless they have the right clearances, and the aides who have expertise in various relevant areas -- for instance on the impacts on the environment or labor law -- generally are not cleared.

Second, lawmakers can't record anything, or take any notes from the room.

"They'll give you a piece of paper if you want to take notes, but then you have to give them back the piece of paper," Warren said.

The legislators can't talk to anyone about what they've read, either."

Monday, May 18, 2015

WARREN COMES OUT SWINGINGOn On Broken Trade Promises

"Of the 20 countries the U.S. currently has trade agreements with, 11 have documented reliance on child labor, forced labor or other human rights abuses related to labor, according to the report. The violations are not confined to exploitation. Since Obama finalized a labor action plan with the government of Colombia in 2011, 105 union activists have been murdered. Obama called the Colombian deal "a win-win for workers" at the time.

Despite these trade violations, none of these countries has faced significant consequences from the United States government.

Shell Oil Caught Planning for Deadly 4 to 6 Degree Rise in Global Temperature

"Royal Dutch Shell has been accused of pursuing a strategy that would lead to potentially catastrophic climate change after an internal document acknowledged a global temperature rise of 4C, twice the level considered safe for the planet.

A paper used for guiding future business planning at the Anglo-Dutch multinational assumes that carbon dioxide emissions will fail to limit temperature increases to 2C, the internationally agreed threshold to prevent widespread flooding, famine and desertification.

Instead, the New Lens Scenarios document refers to a forecast by the independent International Energy Agency (IEA) that points to a temperature rise of up to 4C in the short term, rising later to 6C.

...

The Shell document says: “Both our (oceans and mountains) scenarios and the IEA New Policies scenario (and our base case energy demand and outlook) do not limit emissions to be consistent with the back-calculated 450 parts per million (Co2 in the atmosphere) 2 degrees C.”

It adds: “We also do not see governments taking steps now that are consistent with 2 degrees C scenario.”

Sunday, May 17, 2015

61 YEARS LATER: Schools Still Separate And Unequal

"Decades after the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education ruling declared segregated schooling of black students unconstitutional, many American schools with high minority populations continue to receive fewer resources and provide an education that's inferior to schools with large white populations.

For Sunday's 61st anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, which proclaimed "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal," The Huffington Post takes a look at the state of education for black students in 2015.

In many states, there continues to be stark disparities in resources provided to black students and white students. In Nevada, for example, high-minority school districts receive significantly less state and local funding per pupil than low-minority districts."

Saturday, May 16, 2015

The Chicago Public Library and Chicago Urban League partner to present a lecture in commemoration of the life and legacy of Mayor Harold Washington. The lecture will be delivered by bestselling author Charles M. Blow, who is also widely known as a New York Times columnist and CNN commentator. http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/des-plaines/community/chi-ugc-article-charles-blow-to-commemorate-life-and-legacy-o-2015-05-11-story.html

"LibrariesChicago Public LibraryMichael Chabon

"The Chicago Public Library and Chicago Urban League partner to present a lecture in commemoration of the life and legacy of Mayor Harold Washington. The lecture will be delivered by bestselling author Charles M. Blow, who is also widely known as a New York Times columnist and CNN commentator.

In his presentation titled Mechanisms and Mythologies Conspiring against the Marginalized, Blow speaks about the misconceptions and policies that work against the interests of marginalized people and contribute to maintaining their marginalized status.

The free lecture, which supports Chicago Public Library's continuing commitment to Strengthen Communities, Nurture Learning and Support Economic Advancement, takes place on Tuesday, May 26 at 6 p.m. in the Cindy Pritzker Auditorium at the Harold Washington Library Center,
400 S. State St. The event is open to the public."

Jon Stewart Shreds Fox ‘Bullsh*t’: Obama’s Right, You Have Such ‘Contemp...

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

US Christians numbers 'decline sharply', poll finds - BBC News

"Pew Research Center found that 71% of Americans identified as Christian in 2014 - down from 78% in 2007.
In the same period, Americans identifying as having no religion grew from 16% to 23%.
Fifty-six million Americans do not observe any religion, the second largest community after Evangelicals.
The United States still remains home to more Christians than any other nation, with roughly seven-in-ten continuing to identify with some branch of Christianity."

Wednesday, May 06, 2015

How Jeb Bush Alienated African American Voters by Ending Affirmative Action | Mother Jones

"As he courts conservatives skeptical of his right-wing bona fides, Jeb Bush, an all-but-announced GOP presidential candidate, has cited one of his most controversial moves as Florida's governor to illustrate his record of standing firm on principle in the face of widespread opposition: his decision to unilaterally end affirmative action in Florida. "Trust me, there were a lot of people upset by this," he boasted to activists at the Conservative Political Action Conference earlier this year. But Bush's effort to dismantle affirmative action in state college admissions and government contracting and hiring—which the Sun Sentineldubbed the "most grievous blunder" of his tenure and a "prime example of Bush's shoot-first, take-no-advice method of governing"—illustrates more than his executive style. At a time when racial tensions from Baltimore to Ferguson, Missouri, are a national issue, Bush's fight against affirmative action, which led to a confrontation with the state's black community, remains a significant episode in his political history."

Saturday, May 02, 2015

A Culture Of Racism: The Staten Island PD And The Tea Party Congressman

"Saturday, May 2, 2015

Rep Grimm and NYPD Captain Peter DeBlasio

I grew up in New York in a neighborhoodthat was largely Italian. New York, likeAnytown, USA, has its own version ofracism.  It is not the kind you hear in thepost-Jim Crow South; it is more “ethnic.”  Conversation amongst high school friendsincluded racial epithets in Italian, veryoffensive to African Americans, thrownaround casually.   It almost seemed normalto hear the word “ moolignan,” Italian foreggplant (technically Mulignane; could becombination of Moolie and hooligan) or“spic” for a Hispanic person."

If You're Born Poor, You'll Probably Stay That Way | Mother Jones