Benghazi Shuffle

Instead of talking about what was said after the consulate attacks in Benghazi, shouldn't we be talking about why they happened? Aren't  the lives of the people who were killed more important than making political points? Shouldn't we be talking about who were the legislators who voted down the State Department's request for additional funds for security?

Money is Free Speech

While the world is struggling, China has a 1 trillion dollar surplus.
 After the Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United, any country can open a business in the United States and give as much money as they want to Political Action Committees. So China could spend more than all the money spent on all elections in the United States with under one per cent of it's surplus.

Stop Ads Showing Cars as Toys

More of a threat than Al-Qaeda ever was, the automobile kills 40,000 a year and injures nearly 3 million. Yet, car companies are able to show cars being used as playthings and racing machines. Driving an automobile is a serious, dangerous business. Just ask the people and families whose lives have been changed forever due to a traffic accident.  We know the power of the media in influencing people. What is the difference between showing a child cigarette smoking and misusing a vehicle for fun? Marketing the use of an automobile in any way that is dangerous should be outlawed.

Tear Down That Joe Pa Statue

What happened at Penn State has no heroes.
Tear down that Joe Pa statue now.

Why Obama May Lose the Election

As I was leaving the UIC Pavilion in Chicago where I went to hear Obama announce his candidacy in 2007, a woman said to me  "He says all the right thins, but what has he done?". After 3 years of the Obama presidency these words ring truer than ever.

Obama is in serious trouble of losing his base of progressive supporters. Among the progressive failures of Obama administration are the following: The escalation of the Afghanistan war which no one can prove is making us any safer. The failure to address the massive bloat of the defense budget. The endorsement of continuing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. The failure to hold Wall Street accountable for the fraud that led to an economic depression and keeping the same Wall Street foxes in charge of the economic hen house. The failure to hold those accountable for illegal wiretapping. The failure to demand a single-payer option for healthcare as we are the only industrialized country that continues to watch the poor sicken and die without adequate health coverage. The attack on state approved medical marijuana clinics, leaving marijuana sales untaxed and making money for the vicious cartels. The failure to lift the sanctions on Cuba - after all, our number one trading partner is a totalitarian communist state. The failure to demand that these so-called fair trade agreements include protections for worker's safety and rights. The failure to prosecute those in the Bush administration who ADMITTED PUBLICLY that they committed torture, kidnapping, and war crimes. The failure to close Guantanamo. The refusal to join the International Criminal Court. And the list goes on.

Do I think Romney would be a better president? Absolutely not. The tired, old Republican talking points of less taxes for the rich and less government regulation is what got us into this mess. We have seen that when Wall Street is unregulated, they will commit fraud in their greed and the rest of us end up paying for it. Trickle down economics? For the last 30 years the rich have gotten richer while the rest of us have gotten poorer. Like the joke goes, the problem is that it is only a trickle. The solution to our economic problems are much different than these failed talking points. When 50,000 factories leave your country for places like Bangladesh where workers make 21 cents an hour, less taxes and government regulation won't bring those jobs back.

In a lot of ways, Obama was more disappointing than Bush. We knew what we were going to get when the son of a Texas billionaire took office. But, we had so much hope for the rhetoric of Barack Obama and it feels like we were lied to.

Our broken political system that is controlled by money and back room deals leaves us again with the choice of wanting neither of the candidates. Do I decide that I have to walk the 1/2 block to the polling place to keep Mitt Romney from being the president of the rich, for the rich, and by the rich?

Unfortunately, the Obama presidency has been so disappointing that I don't think it is worth the trouble.

Approve Statehood for Palestine

How can the United States government deny the application for statehood to the U.N. by Palestine? It has been 45 years of occupation and apartheid by Israel over these people. The United States has been calling for a two state solution forever. The U.N. approval for statehood for the Republic of South Sudan happened swiftly. What is the difference?

GOP Presidential Candidates Should Be Ashamed About Family Size

It was appalling to hear the Republican presidential candidates beaming about the sizes of their families in the debate the other night. Overpopulation is causing our planet to be pushed past the limits of sustainability. Our oceans are overfished and dying. Our air is polluted and causing climate change. We are depleting our aquifers and polluting our water supply. Our forests are being destroyed for farmland as we destroy the earth's biodiversity. One in seven inhabitants of planet earth are without adequate food. A large family is no longer a source of pride but a sign of ignorance and selfishness and a cause for shame.

Recrut Somewhere Else

Obama said in the state of the union that college campuses should open themselves to military recruiters and ROTC. So we can attack the next Iraq that was not a threat? So we can trust the next corporate elected face man to lead us into a soulless slaughter? The Nobel Prize for Peace? Really? With due respect Mr. President, letting gays into the military does not solve the needless horrors of Iraq, that your administration chose not to investigate. Until you investigate and hold those accountable that committed war crimes, you have sent a message to the world that U.S politicians are immune from prosecution. And you want us to open up to military recruiters?

Dopes Reject Medical Dope

The recent Illinois house vote to reject the legalization of medical marijuana is a travesty. The use of this drug to relieve pain, nausea, and other symptoms has been shown to be safe and effective in the treatment of cancer, multiple sclerosis, AIDS, and other illnesses. If the legislators who voted against this or their families had a medical condition that could be treated with this drug, they might change their tune. The idea put forward that this is just a first step in legalization should note that the legalization of cocaine, opiates, and other drugs for medical use has not led to the drugs being legalized. Shame on those representatives who deny people the ability to alleviate their pain and suffering.

Fighting Them There

So far this year, 63 Americans have been charged with terrorist acts. I thought Bush and Cheney told us we were fighting them there so we wouldn't have to fight them here. So much for that theory. The reality is that fighting them there is a recruiting tool for terrorism here.

Burn, Baby, Burn

To the pastor who wants to burn the Quran: Why not burn the Christian Bible, the Torah, the LDS Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, and all the other religious texts that criminals have used as justification for war, murder, rape, genital mutilation, slavery, subjugation, ethnic cleansing, and terror? Isn't it time in the evolution of humanity to abandon the tribal behavior of our ancestors and realize that we are in the end one tribe on this spaceship Earth? Let's put aside the superstition and magical thinking of religion and begin using rational thought to guide us into the future.

Stop the UN bicycle conspiracy!!!!!

Colo. gov. hopeful Maes says bike share threatens ‘personal freedoms’

By Associated Press
Wednesday, August 4, 2010 - Added 1 day ago

DENVER - Colorado Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes says a Denver bike-sharing program could threaten residents’ "personal freedoms" because it is part of an attempt to control U.S. cities.

Maes said last week that an international environmental group that promotes Denver’s B-Cycle program is part of a "greater strategy to rein in American cities under a United Nations treaty."

The group to which Maes was referring, the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, is an association with more than 1,200 communities as members, half of which are in the United States. Denver became a member in 1992.

Maes made the comments at a rally where he criticized Democratic Mayor John Hickenlooper’s initiative to increase bicycling in the Denver through the bike-sharing program. B-Cycle allows people to use about 400 bicycles at dozens of stations around the city for a daily or monthly fee.

"This is bigger than it looks like on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms," Maes said in comments that were first reported Wednesday by the Denver Post.

Maes’ campaign said the candidate was illustrating the "larger picture of what this organization represents" and its "extreme" views on global warming.

Nate Strauch told The Associated Press that Maes was trying to say that the biking initiative is a "gateway program" being pushed by ECLEI on cities that eventually lead to extreme measures, such as the promotion of abortions and population control.

Maes is facing a primary challenge Aug. 10 against Republican Scott McInnis. The winner will face Hickenlooper in November.

Hickenlooper’s spokesman, Eric Brown, said Denver joined the group long before Hickenlooper became mayor and that the city has limited contact with ECLEI.

Maes said he thought promoting more bicycling was pretty harmless at first, but he realized later "that’s exactly the attitude they want you to have."

"It’s all part of this population control mentality that we as humans are the disease," Strauch said, adding: "He never said that biking is inherently wrong."

Bicyclists who gathered outside the state Capitol on Wednesday to ride with cycling champion Lance Armstrong weren’t impressed with Maes’ view.

"It’s sad that they play politics with something that’s good and healthy and pro-environment," said Ron Beall, 48, of Denver. "Isn’t there enough issues that we can talk about instead of stereotyping bicyclists? It’s crazy."

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Man Up and Pray

Your home's in foreclosure,

Your son's in Iraq,

You've got no insurance

for your gout attack.

Your job's gone to China,

Your wife's run away,

So why don't you man up and pray?

Man up and pray

Man up and pray

Jesus is gonna be comin' today.

He'll pay all your bills

and make war go away.

So why don't you man up and pray?

Throw the Bum Out

Senator Jim Bunning, a wonderful baseball player, has aspired to a place far below any steroid or black Sox player could even imagine. Cutting off health care for the unemployed is immoral. I wonder who bought off or is blackmailing Jim to make him so cold hearted. If you keep the steroid users and gamblers out of the Hall, maybe you should consider kicking out the heartless.

Lynne Stewart in her own words

The following is excerpted from an interview that Lynne Stewart did with Pacifica’s Democracy Now just prior to her imprisonment. She explains key features of her case.

LYNNE STEWART: I represented Sheikh Omar at trial—that was in 1995—along with Ramsey Clark and Abdeen Jabara. I was lead trial counsel. He was convicted in September of ’95, sentenced to a life prison plus a hundred years, or some sort—one of the usual outlandish sentences. We continued, all three of us, to visit him while he was in jail—he was a political client; that means that he is targeted by the government—and because it is so important to prisoners to be able to have access to their lawyers.

Sometime in 1998, I think maybe it was, they imposed severe restrictions on him. That is, his ability to communicate with the outside world, to have interviews, to be able to even call his family, was limited by something called special administrative measures. The lawyers were asked to sign on for these special administrative measures and warned that if these measures were not adhered to, they could indeed lose contact with their client—in other words, be removed from his case.

In 2000, I visited the sheikh, and he asked me to make a press release. This press release had to do with the current status of an organization that at that point was basically defunct, the Gama’a al-Islamiyya. And I agreed to do that. In May of—maybe it was later than that. Sometime in 2000, I made the press release.

Interestingly enough, we found out later that the Clinton administration, under Janet Reno, had the option to prosecute me, and they declined to do so, based on the notion that without lawyers like me or the late Bill Kunstler or many that I could name, the cause of justice is not well served. They need the gadflies.

So, at any rate, they made me sign onto the agreement again not to do this. They did not stop me from representing him. I continued to represent him.

And it was only after 9/11, in April of 2002, that John Ashcroft came to New York, announced the indictment of me, my paralegal and the interpreter for the case, on grounds of materially aiding a terrorist organization. One of the footnotes to the case, of course, is that Ashcroft also appeared on nationwide television with Letterman that night ballyhooing the great work of Bush’s Justice Department in indicting and making the world safe from terrorism.

The course of the case followed. We tried the case in 2005 to a jury, of course sitting not ten blocks from the World Trade Center, and an anonymous jury, I might add, which I think went a long way to contribute to our convictions. And all three of us were convicted. Since that time, the appeals process has followed. The appeal was argued almost two years ago, and the opinion just came like a—actually like a thunderclap yesterday. And to just put it in perspective, I think, it comes hard on the heels of Holder’s announcement that they are bringing the men from Guantanamo to New York to be tried.

Government Death Panels

Trillions for war, trillions for Wall Street, trillions in corporate profits - but money for the aged poor is off the table. The government is cutting Social Security increases for the elderly. Yes we do have death panels Mrs. Palin. As the aged poor will choose between food and medication. Welcome to change you can believe in.

Time to Spread the Pain

It is criminal that we have let a few bear the burden for our wars. These broken soldiers who have been deployed three, four, and five times to the wars are suffering from stress disorders, brain injuries, wounds, and death. If these wars are truly legitimate and are making our country safer, we should all be required to bear the burden. The politicians are fearful that a draft would put the war into all our lives and finally bring the people to judge whether they believe these wars are worth the cost. No deferments for the wealthy. Maybe when rich children start coming back in body bags, things will change.

The Hypocrisy of "Right to Life"

The people who claim that all human life is sacred and focus on abortion rights really don't care that much about human life. They choose the abortion issue because it is convenient and easy to pretend to have the moral high ground on human life. Where is their commitment to those who die from not having health insurance, lack of food, lack of medical research, or war.

What about the estimated 22,000 (Institute of Medicine 2006) Americans who die annually because they do not have health care? The "right to life" people could easily afford to provide health insurance for these 22,000 for pennies a day. But, they do not.

We live in a world where 1 in 6 people - 1.2 billion - do not have enough to eat. An estimated 80,000 people a day worldwide die of starvation from hunger, lack of clean water, and easily treatable diseases. Yet, they are allowed to die, day after day, year after year. The "right to life" people have the financial ability to end this massive die-off. The UN estimates that it would cost 195 billion a year to feed the hungry. Conservatively assuming there are 30 million people in the U.S. who profess right to life, it would cost $6,500 per person. But, they turn their backs. If they were really committed to life, they would donate this money instead of pursuing their materialistic lifestyles.

Stem cell research is another area of hypocrisy. What about the people who would be kept alive by the results of this research? Don't they have a right to life? If a fertilized embryo in a fertility clinic is going to be discarded, wouldn't it be better for humanity to make use of this genetic material? This issue, as are many, is not black and white but gray. Stem cell research may destroy life in a way but also save it.

Wouldn't we all like to live in a world where all children are born, able to be fed, and cared for. But, we do not.All of us would agree that abortion is not an acceptable method of birth control and that the frequency of abortions should be reduced. Yet, the "right to life" sector refuses to back methods that have been proven to reduce abortion - education and access to birth control. The Bush administration's edict to fund only abstinence programs, in order to appease this group, caused more unwanted pregnancies. Abstinence programs do not work. Education and access to birth control programs do. It doesn't cost a penny to say stop abortion. But, it would really show your commitment to life by shelling out thousands for education and birth control programs. If you believe in life, then why not?

Where were the right to life people when the Bush administration attacked the country of Iraq? His devastating decision has caused the deaths, injuries, and displacement of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis. And yet, these are the people who voted to elect Bush. Sure, they were manipulated by the issues of gay marriage and abortion. But, how do they reconcile the killings of an attack on a country that did not attack us? Aren't the Iraqis human? Isn't their life sacred?

If the people who read this truly believe life is sacred, they can demonstrate this by confronting these issues. Protest and vote against a candidate who would espouse an illegal and immoral attack on a country. Fight and vote for a national healthcare system that covers all. Contribute and advocate for programs that end world hunger and teach and distribute birth control. Yes, these issues are costly and difficult. But, if you believe life is sacred, you can find a way.

Kirk plays stupid politics

Mark Kirk's (R-IL) political game to cement right wing voters is both foolish and expensive. Kirk's plan for stiffer penalties for high potency pot would throw more resources into the failed war on drugs. Dear Rep Kirk, if you have not been paying attention, stiffer sentences will not solve the problem. The United States has a higher percentage of it's citizens in prison than any other nation on earth. Putting more people in jail for a longer period will not solve the problem. Should we have made stiffer penalties for more potent moonshine during prohibition? Right. Marijuana should be legalized, regulated and taxed. Problems with children and drugs are more complicated than longer sentences. Poverty, abuse, and neglect are the fuels of the fire. Address these issues, Mr. Kirk, and you will have done something.

The Blood of Dead Americans

The recent health care hearings run by senator Baucus were a sham that showed our Congress is really owned by corporations like big pharma and not the people. The failure to not have even one voice for single-payer health care on the panel shows that the Senator and his cabal are in the hip pocket of corporate health. Those of us who support single-payer were reduced to being represented by brave members of the audience who spoke out against this omission. They were duly arrested. All of the other industrialized nations of the world have a nationalized system of health care. It is estimated that 22,000 people die each year due to lack of health insurance (Institute of Medicine 2006). Senator Baucus, you have the blood of dead Americans on your hands.