“This is the world the gun lobby is creating for us. Feardom, not freedom.”
Did you hear of the latest Obama scandal? Apparently the President had two marines hold umbrellas over his and the PM of Turkey’s head at a press conference….
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This just goes to show how utterly asinine both the GOP and the military is in this country. Apparently it is prohibited under the Marine Corps Uniform Regulations for a male Marine to hold an umbrella during inclement weather; however, a female Marine is allowed to hold an umbrella, provided she do so only with her left hand.
So the scandal here, according to the GOP, is that Obama let a male Marine rather than a female Marine hold an umbrella over his head …
America, you so dumb.
So apparently there’s a town in Northwest, CT, where high school students have taken to creating something called “White Power Wednesdays,” where all of the white students (ya know, 99% of them) wear white t-shirts to school and make “n———” jokes all day. I was told this by someone who has first-hand knowledge that this phenomenon exists …
African-Americans are not merely another maltreated minority on the scale of non-WASPs. They are a community whose advancement was specifically and actively retarded by American policy and private action. The antebellum South passed laws against teaching black people to read. In the postbellum South, black communities were the targets of a long-running campaign of terror. The terrorists took very specific aim at the institutions of African-American advancement. They targeted churches. They targeted businesses. And they targeted schools. In the mid-20th century, as we have been documenting, it was the policy of this country to deny African-Americans access to the same methods of wealth-building, that it was making available to whites.
This alone would be bad enough, but what makes it much worse is segregation. In his book American Apartheid, Douglass Massey looks at the dissimilarity indexes among African-Americans in various cities across the country in the mid to late 20th century. To summarize (and I can talk more about this) the lowest levels of dissimilarity in black communities are higher than the highest levels of dissimilarity among “white” immigrants.
… This is not merely a problem for your local diversity and sensitivity workshop. It is a problem of wealth and power. When you create a situation in which a community has a disproportionate number of poor people, and then you hyper-segregate that community, you multiply the problems of poverty for the entire community—poor or not. That is to say that black individuals are not simply poorer and less wealthier than white individuals. Because of segregation, black individuals and white individuals of the same income and same wealth, do not live in communities of equal wealth.
The Navy wants to conduct training and testing with sonar and explosives that could kill 1,000 whales. (13835 signatures on petition)
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Hopefully, if we can stop the Navy from testing its weaponry on whales, we can stop them from using that weaponry on humans, too.
Angelina Jolie had a double mastectomy, in case you hadn’t heard. How dare she remove those ticking time bombs from her chest, amiright? Like, hasn’t she learned by now that her body is public domain and we all get to vote on what she does with it? Sheesh, how selfish can ya get.
That the Obama administration is now repeatedly declaring that the ‘war on terror’ will last at least another decade (or two) is vastly more significant than all three of this week’s big media controversies (Benghazi, IRS, and AP/DOJ) combined. The military historian Andrew Bacevich has spent years warning that US policy planners have adopted an explicit doctrine of ‘endless war’. Obama officials, despite repeatedly boasting that they have delivered permanently crippling blows to al-Qaida, are now, as clearly as the English language permits, openly declaring this to be so. It is hard to resist the conclusion that this war has no purpose other than its own eternal perpetuation. This war is not a means to any end but rather is the end in itself. Not only is it the end itself, but it is also its own fuel: it is precisely this endless war - justified in the name of stopping the threat of terrorism - that is the single greatest cause of that threat.
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| — | Washington gets explicit: its ‘war on terror’ is permanent | Glenn Greenwald (via theamericanbear) |
If you think abortions ok, remember what Horton says.
Awkward. Dr. Seuss and his wife were really liberal and pro-choice. They’ve even threatened to sue pro-life organizations for using this quote the wrong way (the way you’re doing it actually). I guess you didn’t already know that Horton Hears a Who is about the American occupation of Japan post-WWII. He even dedicated it to his dear Japanese friend.
Mrs. Geisel (Mrs. Seuss) continued donating to Planned Parenthood and advocating for reproductive health and rights after her husband died.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico—The Puerto Rican Senate on Thursday approved a sweeping bill that would ban anti-LGBT discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations and government services in the U.S. territory.
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Awesomeeee!! Too bad the US government still hasn’t gotten the memo. Hoping these victories can inspire activists here to keep pushing for more. Yes, I want marriage equality, but I ALSO want full protection & non-discrimination laws in employment, housing, education and everything else!
The results show that praire dogs aren’t only extremely effective communicators, they also pay close attention to detail.
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In a million years, if we still have sentient life on this planet, I imagine us humans actually being able to translate and directly communicate (albeit in a limited but nonetheless substantive way) with other animals using their own “languages”.
I repost here my response to CounterPunch’s idiocies: Jeffrey St Clair, thank you for clarifying CP’s editorial policy: whatever titillating headline gets the most click-throughs. So might I suggest this nifty title for your post after Angelina Jolie has her ovaries removed: “Rich Cunt Mutilates Pussy”—that should get you lots more readers! As for the rest, where to begin? The Earth is round. That is to say, this is not now, nor has it ever been, a debate about “bad words” like tits and boobs. Sharon Smith’s article and my comments have been about your website’s reactionary response to an op-ed by a woman held up by this society as the physical female ideal who—self-admitted privilege and all—confronted the female equivalent of chopping her dick off to save her life (I’m trying to speak in language you’ll grasp). Perhaps it is of no concern to you that millions of women face their annual mammograms with dread. Clearly, it is of even less concern that millions are trapped not only in a health care nightmare, but in a societal clusterfuck whereby their womanhood and desirability have been reduced to their appearance and so someone like Jolie coming out and writing what she did can be a relief. A public announcement by someone respected and adored—fucked up as that is—in the newspaper of record, no less, saying I am no less a woman and neither are you for having to do this. And then, to boot, acknowledging the class inequalities of her decision. We Marxists have a special term for men who are incapable of engaging in a serious political exchange with women. We call them colossally sexist assholes—I am sorry to hear you’ve embraced this identity. Now I’m off to work, where men get paid 6 figures to dismiss my ideas, but at least they have the decency to pay me for my time.
A Michigan school district won’t let two pregnant students show their baby bumps in the high school yearbook because it would promote teen pregnancy and thereby contradict the state’s abstinence-only sex ed approach. We can’t make this shit up.
Americans Who Battle Cancer Are Twice As Likely To Go Bankrupt, Even If They Have Health Insurance »
One 2006 study found that more than 60 percent of bankruptcies in the United States are due to high medical bills, and in those cases, three-quarters of those Americans had insurance when they got sick.
Mandating that all Americans buy private health insurance on the free market IS NOT the same as universal health care.
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Cancer patients are much more likely to go bankrupt than Americans who aren’t faced with a cancer diagnosis, a new study finds. Even the Americans who have access to health insurance aren’t necessarily safe from bankruptcy, since the high cost of treating cancer can still put an untenable strain their finances. A team of researchers […]
The State Department, still with “egg on its face” from its statement that Keystone XL would have little impact on climate change, sunk a little lower today as the most respected elders, and chiefs of 10 sovereign nations turned their backs on State Department representatives and walked out during a meeting.
The statement released by the tribal elders is below:
On this historic day of May 16, 2013, ten sovereign Indigenous nations maintain that the proposed TransCanada/Keystone XL pipeline does not serve the national interest and in fact would be detrimental not only to the collected sovereigns but all future generations on planet earth. This morning the following sovereigns informed the Department of State Tribal Consultation effort at the Hilton Garden Inn in Rapid City, SD, that the gathering was not recognized as a valid consultation on a “nation to nation” level:Southern Ponca
Pawnee Nation
Nez Perce NationAnd the following Oceti Sakowin (Seven Council Fires People):
Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate
Ihanktonwan Dakota (Yankton Sioux)
Rosebud Sioux Tribe
Oglala Sioux Tribe
Standing Rock Tribe
Lower Brule Sioux Tribe
Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe
Crow Creek Sioux TribeThe Great Plains Tribal Chairmans Association supports this position, which is in solidarity with elected leaders, Treaty Councils and the grassroots community, and is guided by spiritual leaders. On Saturday, May 18, the Sacred Pipe Bundle of the Oceti Sakowin will be brought out to pray with the people to stop the KXL pipeline, and other tribal nation prayer circles will gather to do the same.
Pursuant to Executive Order 13175, the above sovereigns directed the DOS to invite President Obama to engage in “true Nation to Nation” consultation with them at the nearest date, at a designated location to be communicated by each of the above sovereigns. After delivering that message, the large contingent of tribal people walked out of the DOS meeting and asked the other tribal people present to support this effort and to leave the meeting. Eventually all remaining tribal representatives and Tribal Historic Preservation Officers left the meeting at the direct urging of the grassroots organization Owe Aku. Owe Aku, Moccasins on the Ground, and Protect the Sacred are preparing communities to resist the Keystone XL pipeline through Keystone Blockade Training.
This unprecedented unity of tribes against the desecration of Ina Maka (Mother Earth) was motivated by the signing on January 25, 2013, of the historic International Treaty to Protect the Sacred Against the Tar Sands. Signatories were the Pawnee Nation, the Ponca Nation, the Ihanktonwan Dakota and the Oglala Lakota. Since then ten First Nations Chiefs in Canada have signed the Treaty to protect themselves against tar sands development in Canada.
The above sovereigns notify President Obama to consult with each of them because of the following:
The nations have had no direct role in identifying and evaluating cultural resources.
The nations question the status of the programmatic agreement and how it may or may not be amended.
The nations are deeply concerned about potential pipeline impacts on natural resources, especially our water: potential spills and leaks, groundwater and surface water contamination.
The nations have no desire to contribute to climate change, to which the pipeline will directly contribute.
The nations recognize that the pipeline will increase environmental injustice, disproportionately impacting native communities.
The nations deplore the environmental impacts of tar sands mining being endured by tribes in Canada. The pipeline would service the tar sands extractive industry.
The nations insist that their treaty rights be respected⎯the pipeline would violate them.
The nations support an energy policy that promotes renewables and efficiency instead of one that features fossil fuels.
The nations regard the consultation process as flawed in favor of corporate interests.
The sovereigns of these nations contend that it is not in America’s interest to facilitate and contribute to environmental devastation on the scale caused by the extraction of tar sands in Canada. America would be better served by a comprehensive program to reduce its reliance on oil, and to invest in the development and deployment of sustainable energy technologies, such as electric vehicles that are charged using solar and wind power.If the Keystone XL pipeline is allowed to be built, TransCanada, a Canadian corporation, would be occupying sacred treaty lands as reserved in the 1851 and 1868 Fort Laramie Treaties. It will be stopped by unified resistance.
