"Al Quada is short on cash. Do you know what an insurance premium costs for a suicide bomber?"
Jay Leno, WH Correspondents Dinner last night.
----------------------
Look, it was a joke.
Except for perhaps Mayor Bloomberg, nobody was aware of the lethal car bomb left in Times Square.
It was going to happen, and it likely will happen again.
Security will be increased;ore public cameras will besetup; and N residents will lose some freedom.
The balance between freedom and security is alwasy delicate
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Saturday, May 1, 2010
conspiracies there, conspiracies here, conspiracies everywhere
I recently watched three DVDs from the History channel:
Conspiracies?
This stuff is cool..somewhat eyepopping..always stimulating.
The show covered alleged conspiracy theories re the JFK,RFK,MLK JR. murders...all conspiracies methinks involving the secret state within a state.
Others covered are ufos,Princess Diana,FDR and Pearl Harbor,the Okla.fed. building bombing and others.
How about a current conspiracy?
How about the national Chamber of Commerce?
It is the most powerful lobby in DC, and is a major part of our invisible government.
As Marvin Gaye asks: "What's going on".
Below is a summary of the C of C shenagians.
"Washington, D.C.--StopTheChamber.com, a network of national organizations dedicated to corporate accountability, has been calling for months for a full criminal investigation into the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its top staff, including CEO Tom Donohue, for racketeering, fraud, false reporting, and campaign finance violations. Now the network is adding obstruction of justice to that list. In the past two weeks, the United States has been hit with three major disasters, all tied to the polices and practices of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. First, 29 miners were killed in a Massey Energy coal mine explosion, second, 11 oil workers were killed in an British Petroleum oil rig fire, and third, Goldman Sachs was charged with a massive billion dollar fraud enterprise. Each of these companies uses the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, with its army of lobbyists and lawyers, as its first line of defense, corruptly influencing politicians and judges to protect corporations and thwart investigations, and spinning public relations to justify criminal conduct...
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/51903
Conspiracies?
This stuff is cool..somewhat eyepopping..always stimulating.
The show covered alleged conspiracy theories re the JFK,RFK,MLK JR. murders...all conspiracies methinks involving the secret state within a state.
Others covered are ufos,Princess Diana,FDR and Pearl Harbor,the Okla.fed. building bombing and others.
How about a current conspiracy?
How about the national Chamber of Commerce?
It is the most powerful lobby in DC, and is a major part of our invisible government.
As Marvin Gaye asks: "What's going on".
Below is a summary of the C of C shenagians.
"Washington, D.C.--StopTheChamber.com, a network of national organizations dedicated to corporate accountability, has been calling for months for a full criminal investigation into the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its top staff, including CEO Tom Donohue, for racketeering, fraud, false reporting, and campaign finance violations. Now the network is adding obstruction of justice to that list. In the past two weeks, the United States has been hit with three major disasters, all tied to the polices and practices of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. First, 29 miners were killed in a Massey Energy coal mine explosion, second, 11 oil workers were killed in an British Petroleum oil rig fire, and third, Goldman Sachs was charged with a massive billion dollar fraud enterprise. Each of these companies uses the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, with its army of lobbyists and lawyers, as its first line of defense, corruptly influencing politicians and judges to protect corporations and thwart investigations, and spinning public relations to justify criminal conduct...
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/51903
Jim Hightower quotes
A couple of quotes from Jim Hightower on last night's Moyers Journal:
"As Hightower's fond of saying, the water won't clear up until we get the hogs out of the creek. "I see the central issue in politics to be the rise of corporate power," he reiterated. "Overwhelming, overweening corporate power that is running roughshod over the workaday people of the country. They think they're the top dogs, and we're a bunch of fire hydrants, you know?"
Of President Obama he said, "It's odd to me that we've got a president who ran from the outside and won, and now is trying to govern from the inside. You can't do progressive government from the inside. You have to rally those outsiders and make them a force... Our heavyweight is the people themselves. They've got the fat cats, but we've got the alley cats..."
"As Hightower's fond of saying, the water won't clear up until we get the hogs out of the creek. "I see the central issue in politics to be the rise of corporate power," he reiterated. "Overwhelming, overweening corporate power that is running roughshod over the workaday people of the country. They think they're the top dogs, and we're a bunch of fire hydrants, you know?"
Of President Obama he said, "It's odd to me that we've got a president who ran from the outside and won, and now is trying to govern from the inside. You can't do progressive government from the inside. You have to rally those outsiders and make them a force... Our heavyweight is the people themselves. They've got the fat cats, but we've got the alley cats..."
White House Correspondents Dinner, Jay Leno, and Bill Maher
The White House correspondents dinner is this evening.
I will likely catch it on YouTube, rather than live on CSpan.
Jay Leno will be the laugh meister.
He is safe...no insults to the Establishment.
Actually, I'd like to see Bill Maher as the laugh host.
It won't happen, but one can dream the impossible dream.
Maher, on his HBO show last night, suggests that the teabaggers,including Sarah Palin, should wear their "drill,baby,drill" shirts down to the Gulf, and help clean the oil off the birds from the BP disaster.
I will likely catch it on YouTube, rather than live on CSpan.
Jay Leno will be the laugh meister.
He is safe...no insults to the Establishment.
Actually, I'd like to see Bill Maher as the laugh host.
It won't happen, but one can dream the impossible dream.
Maher, on his HBO show last night, suggests that the teabaggers,including Sarah Palin, should wear their "drill,baby,drill" shirts down to the Gulf, and help clean the oil off the birds from the BP disaster.
Andrew Cuomo and Albany dysfunction
“We have to clean up the gridlock. We have to clean up the dysfunction. We have to clean up the waste. We have to clean up the delay. Enough is enough, my friends. The state government works for the people, and the people have been failed by this state government.”
Andrew Cuomo at Dem. Rural Conference last night.
*****
Nobody can disagree with the AG on this.
But it does sound like Eliot Spitzer in 2006.
There is a system problem in Albany.
There is a need for a transforming leader on the Capitol's 2nd floor.
Mario Cuomo was (is) a New Deal liberal, but governed as a pragmatic triangular. As he often said, campaigning is poetry, and governing is prose.
There are some basic reforms that are doable.
Make a June 1st budget the legal Constitutional (if required) norm. It is, unofficially, now.
Make it a two year budget cycle, with a new budget required in off-election years.
Deal with Medicaid...it is the monster eating New York.
At least two commissions have recommended that the local school property tax be replaced by a real progressive state income tax.
Lazio's mantra will be less government, low taxes.
It's not less government that is needed, but rather making the existing government responsive and transparent.
It is tax reform that is needed, including the above change in the local property taxes.
Andrew Cuomo at Dem. Rural Conference last night.
*****
Nobody can disagree with the AG on this.
But it does sound like Eliot Spitzer in 2006.
There is a system problem in Albany.
There is a need for a transforming leader on the Capitol's 2nd floor.
Mario Cuomo was (is) a New Deal liberal, but governed as a pragmatic triangular. As he often said, campaigning is poetry, and governing is prose.
There are some basic reforms that are doable.
Make a June 1st budget the legal Constitutional (if required) norm. It is, unofficially, now.
Make it a two year budget cycle, with a new budget required in off-election years.
Deal with Medicaid...it is the monster eating New York.
At least two commissions have recommended that the local school property tax be replaced by a real progressive state income tax.
Lazio's mantra will be less government, low taxes.
It's not less government that is needed, but rather making the existing government responsive and transparent.
It is tax reform that is needed, including the above change in the local property taxes.
Goodby, Bill Moyers
(plutocracy and oligarchy is called “plutarchy” …)
_________________________________________
Goodby, Bill Moyers
___________________
The PBS’s Moyers Journal ended last night. It was a good run, almost always stimulating, and will be missed.
Moyers admonished listeners that he was forced off the schedule, but that it was his decision. At 76 years, he still has mountains to climb.
Last night, he described his approach on the Journal. He sees a US that has evolved into a plutocracy..rule by the very wealthy and Wall Street. For almost 5 yrs., his goal was to give voice to the other 95% of the people, and main street.
Last night, he had Jim Hightower, the funny populist blogger,writer and critic of the plutocracy. Hightower is a populist who sees the large corporations occupying most of our public realm. To him, liberals want to regulate these corporations. Populists want to give power back to main street.
I’m an old liberal. Large corporations will not be eliminated. But there needs to be a three-legged stool for stablity..one leg is the corporations,one is the public main street, and one is government. It is the government and main street legs that have been cut off by the corporate leg. The stool needs to re-stablized.
_________________________________________
Goodby, Bill Moyers
___________________
The PBS’s Moyers Journal ended last night. It was a good run, almost always stimulating, and will be missed.
Moyers admonished listeners that he was forced off the schedule, but that it was his decision. At 76 years, he still has mountains to climb.
Last night, he described his approach on the Journal. He sees a US that has evolved into a plutocracy..rule by the very wealthy and Wall Street. For almost 5 yrs., his goal was to give voice to the other 95% of the people, and main street.
Last night, he had Jim Hightower, the funny populist blogger,writer and critic of the plutocracy. Hightower is a populist who sees the large corporations occupying most of our public realm. To him, liberals want to regulate these corporations. Populists want to give power back to main street.
I’m an old liberal. Large corporations will not be eliminated. But there needs to be a three-legged stool for stablity..one leg is the corporations,one is the public main street, and one is government. It is the government and main street legs that have been cut off by the corporate leg. The stool needs to re-stablized.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Arizona and apartied
Earlier this week, Pat Bertroche, an Iowa Republican congressional candidate also compared illegal immigrants to animals and suggested capturing them and embedding them with microchips.
"I think we should catch 'em, we should document 'em, make sure we know where they are and where they are going," Bertroche said. "I actually support microchipping them. I can microchip my dog so I can find it. Why can't I microchip an illegal?"
*****
"Abominations such as apartheid do not start with an entire population suddenly becoming inhumane....
However, when you strip a man or a woman of their basic human rights, you strip them of their dignity in the eyes of their family and their community, and even in their own eyes. An immigrant who is charged with the crime of trespassing for simply being in a community without his papers on him is being told he is committing a crime by simply being. He or she feels degraded and feels they are of less worth than others of a different color skin. These are the seeds of resentment, hostilities and in extreme cases, conflict...."
Desmond Tutu1984 Nobel Peace Prize winner
*****
Boycott Arizona.
"I think we should catch 'em, we should document 'em, make sure we know where they are and where they are going," Bertroche said. "I actually support microchipping them. I can microchip my dog so I can find it. Why can't I microchip an illegal?"
*****
"Abominations such as apartheid do not start with an entire population suddenly becoming inhumane....
However, when you strip a man or a woman of their basic human rights, you strip them of their dignity in the eyes of their family and their community, and even in their own eyes. An immigrant who is charged with the crime of trespassing for simply being in a community without his papers on him is being told he is committing a crime by simply being. He or she feels degraded and feels they are of less worth than others of a different color skin. These are the seeds of resentment, hostilities and in extreme cases, conflict...."
Desmond Tutu1984 Nobel Peace Prize winner
*****
Boycott Arizona.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
