#Mizzou is this enough proof ? pic.twitter.com/wPJRXZzFf5
— blackHAZE (@Zaaaym_SheBLACK) November 11, 2015
No one should fear for their lives because they chose to speak up about injustice. https://t.co/2wg8qzbQTu
— ColorOfChange.org (@ColorOfChange) November 11, 2015
The Story Of The Tulsa Race Riots Will Disgust You Posted by Cenk Uygur on Friday, May 1, 2015
Children of war are collateral damage.
I think of candles for Caylee and segue to the candlelight vigils in which I’ve participated to honor the dead, not just for our own servicemen and women but also civilians. Then I transition to another acknowledgment, a graveyard of empty boots and shoes, representing troops who’ve died and civilians killed. This exhibit is fall-to-the-ground painful—especially the small pieces of canvas or leather, the children’s shoes.
I remember former U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright’s frigid response when questioned about the deaths of 576,000 Iraqi children (from sanctions in Iraq): “This is a very hard choice, but we think the price is worth it.” Yes, 576,000 children. Really, five hundred and seventy-six thousand Caylee Anthonys.
Formal research shows a link between U.S. armed service members deployed six months or more in Iraq and Afghanistan and increased mental illness in their children—problems significant enough to require hospitalization. No surprise. But extend this further, to the places our military personnel deploy, and imagine the psychic damage inflicted on children who endure war's savagery.
A site, Iraq: the Human Costs (http://web.mit.edu/humancostiraq/) provides a glimpse into what is neglected in mainstream political discourse, war's effect on those who live in the countries we invade. Read it, weep, and understand that Iraq is also Afghanistan, Pakistan, or any country ours chooses to devastate.
On Wednesday morning June 29, 2011 a delegation of mostly black Georgia residents and others from the Diaspora met in front of the downtown Atlanta office of Congressman John Lewis. Some of them, including former Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney, had recently returned from Libya. They came --- I should say we came, since I was one of them, though I was not among those returning from abroad --- to take Congressman Lewis to task for his inexcusable vote to fund the US armed intervention in Libya.
Near the end of his long career, the Atlanta congressman enjoys a reputation as a man of peace and nonviolence, a reputation somewhat tarnished by his occasional votes during the Bush years and perhaps afterward, to fund unjust wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But it was the latest stain upon the Lewis legacy, his vote to fund the so-called humanitarian bombing of African people in Libya that provoked this visit.
The main problem with responding to the September 11 attacks by proclaiming a "War on Terror" is that terrorism is a tactic. Bush had a better approach before his national security team got together and decided to conquer the Middle East and Central Asia.
We’ve all done it and lived to regret it. Last night I went down the rabbit hole of comments posted in response to the news about our filing suit against North Carolina for singling out Planned Parenthood and banning us from doing business with the state.
Aside from the nut jobs that refuse to admit Planned Parenthood provides health care, there were two strands of comments that made me a bit crazy. Several people seemed genuinely baffled as to why we were shocked to have been cut. Let me say for the record, we wouldn’t have been shocked had we simply been cut. I mean, we’re all aware of the devastating cuts wreaked on education by the new legislative majority.
So, no, we’re not suing because our funding was reduced. We’re suing because we were BANNED from doing business with the state in a purely political move by the new legislative majority despite a gubernatorial veto.
The day after the King Holiday, House republicans will make good on their promise to vote to repeal health care reform, hoping their followers don't know the difference between voting to repeal health care reform and actually repealing health care reform. The gop is actually doing something I wish the democratic party would do, which is take a stand on principle, sending a signal to their base they are willing to fight even if they loose.They’ve been gunned down in Tucson, shot to death at the Pentagon, and blown away at the Holocaust Museum, as well as in Wichita, Knoxville, Pittsburgh, Brockton, and Okaloosa County, Florida.
Total body count for these incidents: 19 dead, 26 wounded
Republicans effectively have three choices when it comes to health care. First, they could simply give up on repealing the entirety of the law, and will instead focus on incremental, fiscally-responsible changes. Second, Republicans could simply argue that they find the Affordable Care Act so offensive, they just don't care about the effects repeal would have on the deficit.
Third, GOP officials could just start making stuff up, and hope that reporters and voters can't tell the difference. As Krugman explains in his piece, this is the preferred avenue for the new House majority.
The first thing I want to address is the lie the media is pushing that this now makes congressmen and politicians afraid to appear in public. BULLSHIT! This only makes DEMOCRATS fear to appear in public. Selling ads to the Tea Party is more important than the truth. It has gone too far.
Also Mr. Media, which of you will be first to use the correct term "TERRORISM" regarding this?
It's the same with shooting doctors in the back or one of our drones blowing up a wedding party. Americans are incapable of terrorism. Are we going to send Loughner to Gitmo and try him by military tribunal? Yeah right...
Here at JJP, we’ve been warning about the violent rhetoric of the right wing for sometime. We ain’t been sleeping on this because we continue to believe in the threat to our nation that inflammatory, anti-government, anti-Obama, unpatriotic, birther and secessionist language is creating for all Americans. Both the rhetoric and the violence it has inspired has ramped up considerably with the ascension of America’s first black president. Earlier this year, I shared with you that membership in right wing extremist groups went up by 244% in one year.
Riddle me this: Why would Jared Loughner be issued a 9mm automatic rifle if he were mentally disturbed?
These folks the media are pulling off the shelves are now coming forward and saying high deranged, strange loughner behaved, how scared they were of him, yet didn't come forward until now. They didn't report his behaviors to authorities if they felt so threatened, why not?
How dumb does the media think we are, watching them parade all these folks out to qualify that murderer as mentally ill is SICKENING.
A nine year old child is dead along with a Federal Judge and other innocent people. Congresswoman Gifford is fighting for her life and all because there are some folks like Palin, Beck, Bachmann, and Rush who like to stir up negative divisive BS. Whether they deny it or not they all have blood on their hands.
Watching the politicians on the cable news channels is an exercise in disgust. Thy are posturing and voicing their sadness with their droopy eyes and all their bullshit but not one has talked about the fact that this nut case was instigated to do what he did by the angry and nasty political rhetoric that has been getting worse and worse over the past decade.
Let's call it like it is. . . the right uses violent and condemning rhetoric to polarize, scare and generally intimidate the voters. The left lets them get away with it instead of standing up to them and pointing out their recreant behavior by taking the high road.
The dominant theme amongst the wingnut bloggers is that the shooting in Tucson should not be politicized (not sure how you discuss a political assassination attempt apolitically but...) and if we must politicize it, let's make sure to paint Jared Lee Loughner as a liberal. It's a desperate scramble.
In the aftermath of the Arizona shooting spree, House Republican leaders have cleared the legislative calendar for next week, which means that for the most part U.S. politics will slow to a crawl. Instead, members -- Democrats and Republicans -- will participate in a joint caucus meeting Wednesday, to be briefed on security precautions in the wake of the shooting.
Politicians claimed ownership of 9/11 almost from the get-go to advance their goals. Within five hours of the strike, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld was plotting ways to harness it as an excuse to attack Iraq. The Bush administration and Congress invoked 9/11 as they rushed into law in six weeks an act comprised largely of a police- and surveillance-powers wish list they had been keeping on a shelf, which they dubbed the USA PATRIOT Act. And, of course, the Bush administration repeatedly conjured images of 9/11 over the next 20 months to successfully campaign for the Iraq invasion.
We the people, in order to:
1. form a more perfect union
2. establish justice
3. ensure domestic tranquility
4. provide for the common defense
5. promote the general welfare, and
6. secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our prosperity
do ordain and establish the constitution for the United States of America.
How are we doing?
I think we took a wrong turn somewhere in the recent past. Clear signs that we're moving in the wrong direction:
1. People tampering with the gas lines at what they thought to be a Congressman's house. It was really his brother's house. T...he worst part, both the Congressman and his brother have young children. When this was pointed out to the two nutcases that posted the address online and encouraged people to go to the Congressman's home, their response? The Congressman should have taken that into consideration when he didn't do what the American people wanted him to do [his "crime" was voting in favor of health care reform], that they have no reason to believe that it is really not the Congressman's home and that they will continue until the Congressman gives them his correct address for them to post online.
2. People carrying weapons to events where the President is speaking.
3. People throwing around hate speech and racial and ethnic and religious slurs about one billion people because a couple of dozen committed horrific acts back in 2001. Vandalized the playgrounds of mosques and religious schools, protesting their right to have a place to worship and more. This one is a huge slap in the face of freedom of religion and separation of church & state. My favorite of this group (favorite is meant sarcastically) is the guy who wrote an article trying to justify this and arguing against everyone trying to remind people that a majority of Muslims do not subscribe to a violent ideology. His argument was an uncited "statistic" that 7% of Muslims were in favor of the 9/11 attacks. Really? Because that would mean that 93% weren't. That basically supports what the people you're arguing against have been saying all along.
4. A guy, who admitted in a deposition that he does not know anything about Islam except for things he learned on YouTube causing an international uproar, probably putting our troops in danger, and just generally being a hateful person by deciding to burn 200 copies of the holy book of the world's largest religion. Then, when everyone from the other clergy in his community up to the President point out that it will probably incite people to retaliate against troops and citizens abroad the guy says basically, don't blame me, blame them and tell them they had better not retaliate or we will beat them up. I thought this guy was stuck back in the grammar school playground until I saw his picture and realized that he's really stuck back in pre-Revolution days. Then, Colonel Burn-a-Book, in the same sentence, condemns Islam as a hateful ideology then says that he hates Islam. Sounds like YOU have the hateful ideology, Colonel!
I'd say these violate at least numbers 2, 3, 5 and 6 up there. Sadly, there are many, many, many more examples.
"I think I've been pretty clear on my position here," he said. "And that is, is that this country stands for the proposition that all men and women are created equal, that they have certain inalienable rights; one of those inalienable rights is to practice their religion freely. And what that means is that if you could build a church on a site, you could build a synagogue on a site, if you could build a Hindu temple on a site, then you should be able to build a mosque on the site."
"During an appearance on the progressive talk-radio 'Stephanie Miller Show” on Thursday — part of a regular segment called 'Face the Grayson'...Miller: 'The Glenn Beck thing — is that going to have an effect in November?...Grayson: 'These are people who were wearing sheets over their heads 25 years ago.'” If only we had more Democrats in Washington, D.C. like Alan Grayson. If only we had more men like Alan Grayson who never hesitates to tell the truth, more Democrats who would stand up and tell it like it is,