More Attacks On Freedom By The Far Right

The far-right backlash against our civil rights progress reaches the U.S. Supreme Court this week with two critically important cases that could dramatically set back efforts to achieve racial equality in our nation.  

In Evenwel v. Abbott, heard by the Court yesterday, the plaintiffs are seeking to demolish our longstanding “one person, one vote” standard, so that only voters, not all people, are counted when legislative districts are drawn.

  This is nothing less than a power grab and a frontal assault on the core of the 14th Amendment, which was enacted after the Civil War to give equal representation and protection to all people.

Voting rights experts say that by not counting everyone – including children, unnaturalized immigrants and others who can’t vote – our political system inevitably will become even more skewed toward the political right, because urban areas will lose representation.

In Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, being heard today, the plaintiffs hope to strip our universities of the right to consider racial diversity as a compelling factor when making individual admissions decisions.

You and I understand that diversity in our institutions of higher learning enriches all of us. It expands opportunity to talented minority students who face so many barriers in life. It reduces racial isolation, which helps us overcome prejudice. And, the exposure of all students to the perspectives of others is critical to our future in an increasingly complex and globalized world.

That’s why we filed a briefsupporting this affirmative action policy. To foster diversity, universities must have the ability to help level the playing field for disadvantaged or marginalized young people.

We’ve made so much progress. But I’m concerned about the erosion of rights that have made us a more just nation.

It’s particularly worrisome that both cases are part of a systematic legal campaign by the same right-wing legal organization – called, ironically, the Project on Fair Representation – that earlier succeeded in gutting the Voting Rights Act.

In Evenwel, the lead plaintiff is a Texas Tea Party activist who has promoted far-right conspiracy theories about President Obama. Her co-plaintiff says that “[t]he Jew is the enemy of the Cross” and has characterized the Holocaust as a “miracle.”

I hope you’ll take the time to read more about these casesand make your voice heard.

And, if you’re in Washington on Wednesday, please join others who will be gathering on the Supreme Court steps at 8 a.m. to show support for diversity in our universities.

A Veteran's "Thanks"

I think it's kinda stupid to whip out your patriotism, wave your flag, and thank veterans one day a year. I appreciate where your heart is in it. But I, as a veteran, would much rather you wrote your legislators and held them accountable for the contract they broke with so many than to watch an endless stream of meaningless "Thank You's" scrolling across a meaningless social media feed. But thanks anyway.

Why The 2nd And Not The 1st?

I've been seeing a lot of posts on Facebook and Twitter by conservative fundamentalists proclaiming the supreme authority and untouchability of the Second Amendment:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

In each case, they claim that this amendment protects their right as individuals to own and possess, and in many cases carry anywhere they wish, firearms.

I'm not debating the validity of their claim here. I am, however, pointing out their abject hypocrisy when those very same people post demands for ill conceived calls banning Islam and any practice associated with it.

The First Amendment reads:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

One can't help but wonder from what depth of ignorance comes the idea that number two is untouchable, not open to interpretation in any way, and taken in its most literal sense but number one is taken to mean that only that which applies to them, only Christianity is intended for protection.

These fascist minded reactionaries can't conceive in their pea brains the notion that banning any religion or their practices is the beginning of the end for the exercise of their own.

I'm not suggesting that some schools of Islamic thought don't call for banning the practice of religion's other than theirs. Indeed, some do! I'm simply suggesting that We are suppose to be better than that.

Or are we?

And The Difference is...

Beats the hell out of me.

Demand that presidential candidates commit to restoring government by the people

The problem’s gotten too big to ignore. Our political system is too dominated by special interests to listen to the rest of us -- and even politicians are taking notice.

Nearly every candidate in the 2016 presidential race, from Jeb Bush to Hillary Clinton, says they’re on our side in the fight to take our democracy back from wealthy donors -- while their Super PACs accept seven-figure checks behind the scenes.

Even Donald Trump, who gave huge sums to politicians before becoming one himself, has admitted that billionaires like him have too much influence.

We all know it’s a problem -- and we’re paying the price in policies that favor corporate interests at our expense. Now, it’s time for candidates get on board with the solutions.

Demand that presidential candidates commit to restoring government by the people and endorse "Fighting Big Money, Empowering People: A 21st Century Democracy Agenda."

When John Gardner founded Common Cause 45 years ago this week, he saw a democracy in name only -- wealthy donors buying political influence with impunity and drowning out everyone else’s voices. And it’s only gotten worse.
It’s easy to talk a big game about cleaning up Washington -- which is why so many candidates are doing it. But truly taking on the special interests and building a 21st century democracy that addresses every American’s needs means committing to specific policies:

• Amplifying every voice with small-donor public financing so candidates can win without selling out to the highest bidder
  
• Reining in big donors by making their identities public, overturning Citizens United so we can pass laws that limit campaign spending, and enforcing the laws we already have
  
  
• Protecting voters’ rights with proactive reforms, including restoring the Voting Rights Act’s protections, to ensure that no American’s voice is silenced or obstructed

Fixing our democracy should be a top priority for every presidential candidate, and this election is our best chance yet to make it happen -- if we stand up and speak out together.

Become a citizen co-signer of “Fighting Big Money, Empowering People” to let candidates know what you expect -- then tell them to do the same!

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Hiroshima

I had the privilege of visiting ground zero and the museum at Peace Park in 1979. It was truly one of the most memorable experiences of my entire life. And not just because of the horrific devastation memorialized there. It was also the dignity, compassion, and forgiveness of the Japanese people that I experienced first hand there.

You see, as I made my way from exhibit to exhibit there a deep sense of sadness, guilt and shame slowly swept over me. I found myself choking back tears.

However, when I came upon one framed image I couldn't hold it back anymore. I stood alone in front of that image in a crowded museum and openly wept for a tragedy that was perpetrated by my country before I was even born.

The image was of the shadow of a child bouncing a ball with a dog by their side, ball mid air, cast on one of the few walls left standing in the city... vaporized in the blast leaving only that shadow as evidence of their existence.

It was simply too much for me as I wept aloud in public.

Separated by our language barrier, but united in our humanity, total strangers came to comfort me, a Marine - an instrument of the machine responsible for the atrocity memorialized there.

I could not imagine that a people could be so compassionate with such a person as me that represented what I did under such circumstances. But they were. I didn't understand much Japanese but did recognize one phrase they were all repeating as they hugged and comforted me -"It's okay."

But it's not okay. It never was and never will be.

Reliving the Past

A trip down memory lane: Twice my comments have been read on "The Cafferty File" on CNN.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Cafferty: Buying a gun?

At long last Jack Cafferty of CNN read one of my responses on his segment of the Situation Room, the Cafferty File. The question is regarding a proposed Maryland State initiative which would require potential gun purchasers to sign a release of information for their mental health records in a knee jerk reaction by lawmakers to the VA Tech massacre.
.
Jack's question: What kind of restrictions should there be on gun purchases?
My response:Jack,
I thought the free market premise is that if I have the money to buy something then it is good for everyone! After all, we as a nation have sold weapons to bin Laden, Norieaga, the Suni's, the Shia, Saddam, and a never ending list of criminals.I fail to see the free market rational for prohibiting sales to someone who merely had a bad 'month'.

I am proud that Jack and/or his team thought my comment worthy of reading on the air. I just hope that my sarcasm and criticism for free market ideas was not lost in translation.

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Cafferty File

Jack Cafferty read another of my comments on his CNN Feature: The Cafferty File.
The Question:
What's the single most important task Congress must complete before adjourning for the holidays?
My response:
Accountability. Impeachment and prosecution of criminals for war crimes and deception of the public.
"Not on the table", I know. But then, my priorities and those of my legislators are rarely the same.
Call me cynical.

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My Home, My Country, My World

I'm so very tired. I started this blog to protest the illegal wars the Right started and the virtual police state they created.

Nearly ten years on and with the American Left running things, the wars and police state have only grown and expanded. I have discovered the the Left is also Right.

And even more amazingly considerinng the Right and Left are virtually the same, people hate each other more than I have witnessed in over a half century. It is truly disheartening. Granted, the Right is more openly insane spouting their theocratic desires for the world (just as our Islamic Fundamentalists do), they both appear to be completely content with fascist encroachment into American politics. I could show examples for weeks without running out of material but I'm tired. So, here...

Surrounded By Idiots

I have some friends who I love dearly and who have questionable television viewing preferences. They have over 200 channels plus premium packages. Yet, every time I go there and the kids aren't watching cartoons or other programming geared toward kids, I walk in on them watching Jerry Springer or, worse yet, The 700 Club! These friends, so far, are tolerant with my radical world view. They even often agree with me, if they aren't lying about it. I sometimes agree with them about things. But our differences are often so glaring that I wonder how we are even friends. But that is because I am their kids' foster grandparent. There is a complicated story as to how this came to be. But I often feel that this factor and my seniority in years that causes them to defer to and tolerate me. They are also the kind of "Christians" who wear Christ on their sleeve but absolutely refuse to set foot in a church. They hate America because, well, Obama. I am genuinely saddened to see America's youth squander their energies away with the kind of misinformation and delusions that I see in them. I can only hope that I can casually open their eyes to some of the fallacies they so gleefully embrace.

Anti-Semitic, Anti-Shemitic. No, just anti-stupid.

There seems to be a great deal of misunderstanding and controversy over a piece of real estate in the middle east commonly referred to Israel. To be clear, Israel was a man and his descendants a "people". Their "promised land" was inhabited by people before they arrived there several thousand years ago. Namely, the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.

In Genesis 15:18-21 the boundary of the promised land is clarified in terms of the territory of various ancient peoples, as follows:

    On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, "To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates - the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites."

Said land has been under various occupation and rule over the many centuries since and said people have been literally exiled and banished multiple times. The ones that remained were indeed a minority. The rest were scattered around the known world, presumably by God (if you believe in divine intervention, which is the basis for their own claim to the land).

Israel as a nation state has only been in existence since 1948 and only recognized as such by anyone else a year later. They, and the allies, violated agreements, treaties, and promises in the process of installing the state and have continued to do so ever since. For 60 years their presence there has been marked by violence and military action. Even though Palestinians are descendants of Abraham, through Esau, and the land was given to ALL of the descendants of Abraham, the Israel has oppressed and slaughtered their cousins ever since.

I have no intention of defending myself from claims that I am anti-Semitic. I am not. Those are just base, slanderous attacks by people with poor debate skills and a poor understanding of history. I am anti-Zionist and anti-war. I'm also a bit "anti-mythology as a doctrine" (well, actually a lot).

I personally believe that everyone should just step back and let the state of Israel do what it is going to do and see for ourselves who in this world is the greatest threat of using nuclear weapons (after the US, of course). We have ALL known that Israel possessed these weapons for decades while the world collectively, officially denied it. However, the Pentagon admitted the fact recently while the media distracted us with other things.

The greatest threat to world security is not a nation but an ideology. Anyone anywhere who believes that "God is on their side" in their quest for world dominance and extraction of material wealth cloaked in the guise of "security" or "self-defense" and are willing to commit genocide or bring about mass extinction is not only delusional, but THEY are the threat. Christian, Jew, Muslim,... I really don't care. If you believe that your imaginary friend makes you special, you are right - but not in the way that you think.

People would do well to read a book and check Google once in a while before they start spouting nationalist, racist, fascist shit. You are turning in to the thing that killed millions of Jews 7-8 decades ago. Hell, Israel is turning into what they hate the most!

And if you shout hateful shit at me or any other minority, I will cut you with my tongue like a knife and I will defend them and myself to the last breath.

And anyone who believes that their god wants them to destroy other people or the planet has a pretty shitty god and needs to be put down for the benefit of the herd, lest they harm others or infect others with their delusions.

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Is a New Political System Emerging in This Country? | OpEdNews

Let me make my case, however minimally, based on five areas in
which at least the faint outlines of that new system seem to be
emerging: political campaigns and elections; the privatization of
Washington through the marriage of the corporation and the state; the
de-legitimization of our traditional system of governance; the
empowerment of the national security state as an untouchable fourth
branch of government; and the demobilization of "we the people."



Whatever this may add up to, it seems to be based, at
least in part, on the increasing concentration of wealth and power in a
new plutocratic class and in that ever-expanding national security
state. Certainly, something out of the ordinary is underway, and yet its
birth pangs, while widely reported, are generally categorized as
aspects of an exceedingly familiar American system somewhat in disarray.

Are you a Socialist?

Check out politicalcompass.org for more scientific test on your political orientation.

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PROOF God Exists

These times are too progressive

These times are too progressive. Everything has changed too fast. Railroads and telegraphs and kerosene and coal stoves -- they're good to have but the trouble is, folks get to depend on 'em.
~Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Long Winter (Little House, #6)

March Against Monsanto

I had to unfollow March Against Monsanto just now on Facebook. They're posting antivaxxer tripe which actually has absolutely nothing to do with Monsanto nor GMO's. And this kind of anti-science nonsense gets people, CHILDREN, killed!

I can no longer support March Against Monsanto.

Boehner's Boner

Who needs a good laugh? ….

Israel just threw Boehner under the diplomatic bus!

"JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A senior Israeli official suggested on Friday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been misled into thinking an invitation to address the U.S. Congress on Iran next month was fully supported by the Democrats.

"Netanyahu was invited by the Republican speaker of the house, John Boehner, to address Congress on March 3, an invitation Boehner originally described as bipartisan.

"The move angered the White House, which is upset about the event coming two weeks before Israeli elections and that Netanyahu, who has a testy relationship with Democratic President Barack Obama, is expected to be critical of U.S. policy on Iran.

""It appears that the speaker of Congress made a move, in which we trusted, but which it ultimately became clear was a one sided move and not a move by both sides," Deputy Israeli Foreign Minister Tzachi Hanegbi told 102 FM Tel Aviv Radio on Friday."

Not Free Speech- It's terroristic threatening

Central Bucks West High School counselor threatened to "personally shoot" protesters staging a "die-in" outside Lincoln Financial Field if they stopped her son from getting to the Eagles game.

http://crooksandliars.com/2015/01/guidance-counselor-fired-over-facebook Sent through Android app for RSS Feed reading available by: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.news.rssfeedreader

Rape: the way of the uber religious

An Oregon pastor is set to stand trial 18 years after women first brought allegations of rape and sexual abuse to authorities

http://crooksandliars.com/2015/01/18-years-after-seven-women-report-rapes Sent through Android app for RSS Feed reading available by: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.news.rssfeedreader

Silly Religious Beliefs Past and Present

What bothers me is just how silly it all is. By focusing on the literal truth of the Bible, people seem to lose sight of any of its spiritual teachings. It isn’t so important what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, but that it is literally true that he said it. Like in Life of Brian: “Judea AD 33. Saturday Afternoon. About Tea Time.” I just don’t see many Christians living as though they actually believed, “Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.” In fact, some of them have threatened me with violence for suggesting that the Bible wasn’t literally true.

http://franklycurious.com/wp/2015/01/03/silly-religious-beliefs-past-and-present/

Bristol Palin Decries Separation of Church and State

And the hits just keep coming:

A week doesn’t go by without Sarah Palin saying something shockingly stupid about the U.S. government. This week we learned that the apple does not fall far from the tree, when Palin’s daughter Bristol decried the separation of church and state in her blog.

“I just get so sick of hearing about the ‘separation of church and state.’ Because it usually means the state is pushing Christians around,” complained the younger Palin. To make her case, Bristol cited an example of what she deemed to be the government bullying Christians:

"Answers in Genesis is building a life-sized Noah’s Ark in Kentucky and a theme park to go with it. […] The state has a program to encourage tourism that refunds sales tax to big parks like this for the first 10 years they’re open. The plans for 'Ark Encounter' were approved by the state in 2011 along with the tax credits.

"But now, out of the blue, Kentucky officials say they’ve changed their mind! Answers in Genesis won’t be approved for the program unless they agree to hire people who aren’t Christians and unless the exhibit doesn’t talk about Christianity."

But poor Bristol fails to realize the controversy in the Commonwealth of Kentucky has nothing to do with Christianity and everything to do with the park's documented discriminatory hiring practices. Palin tries to suggest that the park's message was “too religious,” but when the park is a Noah’s Ark theme park, it stands to reason there is no confusion about how religious this park is.

http://www.alternet.org/belief/fundamentalists-remain-denial?akid=12648.1722.dvmOAh&rd=1&src=newsletter1029671&t=20