Where have we been?
I don't know what this is, but it sure is funny.
I am taking a vacation from politics.
The recent events in Wisconsin and Libya and our glorious leaders’ (all of them) responses to these things (none) have been causing me a great deal of anger and anxiety lately.
Luckily, the message seems to be getting out and the working people of this country are getting PISSED. I will be back in a week or two when the Xanax and Vodka have done their jobs…
Selena
THANK YOU Scott Walker. I am NOT crazy!
FINALLY, after feeling like podcasting and sounding like a crazy conspiracy nut yelling about how the rich own the government and are trying to purposely destroy the middle class, Wisconsin Douchebag Supreme, Scott Walker, decides to dismantle the teachers’ unions sparking a massive revolt by America’s workers. With moveon.org working on plans to march on state capitals in all 50 states this weekend, I cannot help but to feel THANKFUL that I was not just imagining things.
Then I see this:
February 23, 2011 07:00 PM
Jeffrey Sachs: This is the Billionaires Final Deed of Crushing Workers to the Maximum Extent
This is the transcript:
Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs sat down with Lawrence O’Donnell to discuss the coordinated efforts by Republican governors to help billionaires like the Koch brothers deal a final blow to unions and the working class in America. I guess if we can thank Scott Walker for anything, it’s reigniting the labor movement in America and for being the reason we’re seeing conversations like this one take place on television. They’re long past due.
O’DONNELL: You hear in that phone call the governor saying, I’m talking to John Kasich every day. This is what we’ve been suggesting here, that it feels to us like this is a national Republican governors movement. This is not just one state trying to get control of its budget. It seems that phone call shows us that this is, the hope is that this governor will be able to spread something nationwide.
SACHS: Well this is absolutely coordinated. There’s no doubt about it and it’s not an accident that one Republican governor after another is trying to crush the unions and crush workers in general. And what’s astounding is we have the greatest inequality in income and wealth in the history of this country and you have the billionaires going out to absolutely do the final deed of crushing workers to the maximum extent. It’s amazing what’s going on.
O’DONNELL: George Will’s column has what I thought was the smoking gun on this even before the phone call where he praised, of course George Will loves what the governor’s doing and the governor says to him that he’s hoping that if his bill succeeds, that eventually union members will look at their unions and say “Why do we need this”?
SACHS: The reason they need it is that the wages have been going down while the income at the top has been soaring. And what these billionaires have been doing is buying up the whole Congress, now buying up the governors to make sure they never have to pay taxes again. And then we have these huge budget deficits because they don’t pay taxes any more. And what do they want to do? Cut the benefits for the poor, cut the education, stipends, cut the wages of the teachers.
This is, it’s unbelievable, the game that’s going on in this country. A little bit of it was exposed today, but this is absolutely vile, given what’s been happening in the last twenty years. We’ve got workers going down, we’ve got billionaires soaring and they’re doing everything they can to put in that final twist.
O’DONNELL: And why would the Kochs care about a little union question in a state like Wisconsin?
SACHS: Well what they’re doing, they have business in Wisconsin. They have polluting industries all over this country. They have bought up all the Congress on the Energy Committees in the House and the Senate on the Republican side to make sure we never do anything about the coal industry, about oil, about our dependence on imported oil, on climate.
They have bought everything they can in politics. They’re making sure they never have to pay a tax, they never have to do any environmental control.
O’DONNELL: Would Ronald Reagan look at what’s happening today and say “Yes!” Governor Walker is the inheritor of my spirit? This is the lesson I was trying to teach by firing air traffic controllers?
SACHS: He might. It is true that Reagan got a lot of this started, of this unbelievable surge of income wealth and inequality. We’ve never lived like we do right now with the middle class disappearing in this country and the rich in a contagion of greed trying to crush the bottom and I think Reagan did get that started. People revere him to this day in this country, but the fact of the matter is that when you look at how the middle class started this decline in America, it was in the 1980’s when the tax cuts on the top were given, the budget deficits opened up, they started to squeeze education, social spending. They were breaking this country in two. That’s what’s happening.
O’DONNELL: Now in a lot of the discussion that I’ve listened to over the last year about public education in this country, there seems to be a rather relentless, conscious and sometimes subconscious attack on teachers’ unions. Teachers are the problems. The scores aren’t going up because of the teachers. It seems like they’ve isolated the teachers as the reason why the schools are the way they are. It seems to me that we’ve got some kind of political spillover from that dialog into the anti-union talk that we hear now.
SACHS: Well that dialog itself is a gimmick. It’s trying to find a cheap way to take a social crisis that we have in this country and find someone to blame. You have poor kids that can’t make it right now and so blame the teachers, not blame the poverty, not blame the neighborhoods, not blame the inability of mothers to provide a decent day care for their children, that their children get decent preschool.
So this is part of the same story actually which is we’re crushing the middle class in the country and then the rich who want to pay no taxes are doing everything they can to blame the poor and it’s out of control. It’s spiraling out of control. And where is President Obama right now frankly when we need him to be defending the basic values of this country? We need to hear his voice.
Related Articles
- Duped! In Wisconsin, who effectively communicated their message: Gov. Scott Walker or the Democrats? (thornecommunications.wordpress.com)
- Koch Whore: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (iflizwerequeen.com)
- Scott Walker’s Prank Caller: I Was Going To Pretend To Be Mubarak First (huffingtonpost.com)
- Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s History of Union Busting VIDEO (nowpublic.com)
DIVIDE AND CONQUER: The truth about Wisconson
From Progressive.org
Walker Tells Wisconsinites: Nobody Should Get Decent Benefits.
By Ruth Conniff, February 23, 2011
Governor Scott Walker held what he called a “fireside chat” with Wisconsinites yesterday, in which he told citizens of the state that he would not budge on his so- called “budget repair” bill and its provision depriving public sector unions of the right to bargain.
In the ten-minute address, the governor used anecdotes about an out- of-work autoworker in Janesville, a substitute teacher sidelined in the walk-out last week, and his own brother, a banquet manager and occasional bartender, who has to pay $800 a month for health insurance.
The point of these anecdotes–about Wisconsin citizens struggling to scrape by in tough economic times–was not to offer a plan to help people find desperately needed health insurance, or help fund their retirement or college savings.
Just the opposite.
The point of Walker’s anecdotes was to say that public sector employees, who enjoy decent health care and retirement benefits, have it too good. In other words–everyone should be like struggling, non- union private sector workers who can’t get to a doctor or save for college or retirement.
No more promises of good economic times, of “trickle down” wealth spilling over the majority of citizens.
This is the true message of Walker and the whole Koch brothers- funded right-wing assault on unions: sowing resentment among workers who are not unionized in order to make the argument that working families who have made it into the middle class should be dragged down and lose their purchase on a decent life. (italics are mine)
The brazenness of the attack on ordinary, working folks is amazing.
The pension and health care contribution hikes Walker is asking for have already been agreed to by Wisconsin’s public sector unions. “Reforming” collective bargaining is the real point of his “budget repair” bill. (As well as the provisions that allow him to sell off Wisconsin’s public utilities to his cronies in no-bid contracts, and concentrating power over regulation and rule-making in his office, overthrowing democratic governance in the state.)
The irony of stealing the title “fireside chat” to stick it to the citizens of Wisconsin is overwhelming. FDR used his fireside chats to calm a nation riven by economic hard times and war. Walker used his pulpit to bash workers and tell them he fully intends to take away their benefits and their right to bargain–no matter how divisive the issue becomes with citizens.
As Walker told a crank caller posing as David Koch from the Buffalo Beast “I don’t budge.”
He outlined his next moves in the same call: forcing Democratic lawmakers to come to the floor of the state senate to pick up their paychecks, and pursuing legal action against them for not showing up to work. He has already threatened massive state worker layoffs.
In only a few weeks, Walker has become a national rightwing star and the most unpopular governor in Wisconsin history. If he wins this round and sticks it to state workers, there is a good chance there will be a general strike.
Now is the time for progressives around the country to come together, as the right wing has done so effectively to break unions.
NEW PODCAST POSTED
I felt compelled to record a random podcast to talk about the fucking Federal Budget because it’s a bunch of bullshit. You can find it at Talkshoe.com at Because Politics Sucks, or you can go to the “Podcast” tab at the upper right to listen to it. Also you will find links to some of the items I referenced in the podcast. This is the stuff I read that makes my head steam.
-Selena
I just LOVE this guy. Seriously.
Is Kucinich worried about not being able to fund his re-election?
This article was posted on Overlawyered.com. I am truly shocked that he is suing for so much when obviously, his GOVERNMENT HEALTH INSURANCE covered his medical and dental costs and I am also sure that the congressional cafeteria is publicly funded…. I’m just saying…
Rep. Dennis Kucinich sues House cafeteria over olive pit in sandwich
by Walter Olson on January 26, 2011
He bit into a sandwich wrap in 2008 and encountered an olive pit, and now he wants $150,000. [Cleveland Plain Dealer, Wonkette, Memeorandum]
P.S. Gawker finds video taken five days later on the House floor in which the Ohio representative “looks fine and talks normal” notwithstanding the “serious and permanent dental and oral injuries requiring multiple oral and dental surgeries.” And Daniel Fisher at Forbes:
No indication why Kucinich mulled this lawsuit for three years before filing it. Or how he plans to get around the District of Columbia statute of limitations on personal injury claims, which could mean he was SOL after only a year.* The lawsuit alleges negligence and breach of implied warranty.
*Commenter “Mattie” says the SOL in DC for this type of suit is indeed three years, though it would be one year for some other torts.
Who besides the People’s Congressman would be willing to name America’s olive pit safety crisis and call out the Big Pit interests responsible.
Here’s the link to the original article:
(Source: http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4758)
Q: Geoff, is it true that prosecutors have not been able to tie Private [Bradley] Manning to Julian Assange and essentially make a link between the two in the case?
MR. MORRELL: Well, what I would say on this is, as much as I’d like to weigh into this, this is, as you know, an ongoing criminal investigation. So it would be inappropriate for me to speak to any — with any specificity to these issues.
But I would avail myself of this opportunity to admonish or warn you all to be extraordinarily careful about how you report on this story, because one thing I can — I do feel comfortable in telling you is that this case is being taken extremely seriously by the investigators both here in the Defense Department and, of course, at the Department of Justice. They are hard at work at on building a case here.
So any pronouncements about a connection or lack of connection, those that have been found or are yet to be found, are just premature at this point. So I’d urge everybody to proceed with caution on this, and probably most stories, for that matter.
So I’m not in a position, unfortunately, to tackle that as directly as I’d like to. But that’s my admonition to you all, including Mr. [Jim “Mik”] Miklaszewski in the front row.
Q: Well, why is he being held in solitary confinement?
MR. MORRELL: He’s not being held in solitary confinement. That’s a misnomer, among many in the reporting of this case. What I — let me describe how Private First Class Manning is being held. He is not in solitary confinement. He is not in isolation. He is in max — he is a maximum-custody detainee in a prevention-of-injury status. He is not on suicide watch. He is being held in the same quarter section with other pretrial detainees. He’s allowed to watch television. He’s allowed to read newspapers. He’s allowed one hour per day of exercise.
He is in a cell by himself, but that is like every single other pretrial detainee at the brig. It just so happens that the configuration of the brig is that every individual is confined to his or her own cell. He’s being provided well-balanced, nutritious meals three times a day. He receives visitors and mail, and can write letters. He routinely meets with doctors, as well as his attorney. He’s allowed to make telephone calls. And he is being treated just like every other detainee in the brig.
So assertions by liberal bloggers, or network reporters or others that he is being mistreated, or somehow treated differently than others, in isolation, are just not accurate. And I’m glad you asked the question, so I had the opportunity, hopefully, to clear that matter up once and for all.
Yes.
Q: Could I just follow up on that? I mean, all of that being said, he still does spend 23 out of every 24 hours in that cell by himself. He’s not allowed to exercise in the cell. He’s not allowed to arbitrarily just write letters. He has to specifically ask for anything more than, say, one book at a time. Are — is there any concern that — because from what we’ve heard, even the forensic psychologist who spoke with him and examined him recommended that he not be on this protective order. I think that there’s a — there’s a question out there as to exactly how the brig commander — what criteria is being used to keep him under this order for such a long period of time, considering he’s still in a pre-trial status.
MR. MORRELL: Just as though he is not being treated any worse than any other detainee, he is not being treated any better than any other detainee. He is not going to receive special privileges, which is essentially what you are asking him to receive. He is being treated exactly like everyone else in the brig is being treated. That’s what’s appropriate. We treat them all equally. And I don’t understand why there would be a need for an exception to those rules to be made for Private Manning — or anyone else, for that matter.
Q: Well, are there other prisoners who have been under this protective order for the length of time that Private Manning has?
MR. MORRELL: That’s probably a question that’s best addressed to my colleagues at Quantico, in terms of the population at the brig there, how long some have been there versus others. I don’t believe that this is an unusually long period of time. A case is being built to prosecute him on the charges that were — again, to correct another mis-report yesterday that — you know, there were cable news reports yesterday that somehow Private Manning was being held without charge — not just that he was being held in conditions that the media thought were inappropriate, but that he was being held without charge — and how un-American that is.
As you all know who work in this building, who received the charge sheet back in July, he most certainly has been charged. And he has not only been charged with illegally downloading classified information, but he has been charged with disseminating classified information to people unauthorized to receive it. So those are very serious charges levied against him, related to a very discrete incident involving mostly the downloading of Apache gunship video from Iraq, but also some cables as well were mentioned in the charging sheet back in July. He is, as we mentioned a person of interest in the much larger leak by WikiLeaks of additional classified documents, cables and tactical field reports and so forth. But I think the manner in which he is being held is completely appropriate and completely consistent with how any and all detainees at the brig are treated.
Q: One last question —
MR. MORRELL: Yeah, I’ll get — Mik, I promise you I will give you a chance.
Here.
Q: The protective order is not designed to punish him for being charged with those crimes. It’s supposed to protect him. I guess we’re trying to —
MR. MORRELL: The protective order — I would — I would imagine that one — when one is confined in the brig, it is not just for their protection that we are worried. We are always worried about our protection. He is charged with very serious crimes. That’s why you isolate someone behind bars. That’s why you confine someone, so that they cannot escape, cannot possibly commit the crimes that they are alleged to have done again.
So it’s not — he is — I think you have it a little backwards. I think you have it that he is being held for his own protection in the manner which he’s being held. That may be, that there — there are reasons that they think that it is for his own benefit that he be held so. But it can also be that he’s being held behind bars because he is a — deemed a threat, that he has been alleged to have committed a very serious crime that potentially undermines our nation’s security, and therefore he needs to be confined during the course of a trial.
But I would just — what I come back to time and time again, Chris, is the notion that the manner of his confinement is not in the least different from the manner in which anyone else at the brig is being held.
Q: But not everybody’s under that protective order.
MR. MORRELL: I’m — I — you keep coming back to this protective order. I’m not so sure I know what you’re talking about. I described conditions to you, the manner in which he’s being held. And my understanding is that is consistent with how every other person in the brig is being held.
Now, the one exception to that could be this suicide-watch issue. He was placed on suicide watch, as I understand it, for two days. So that can be a difference between how others in the brig are being held. But my understanding is that the manner in which he is being held is not punishment for any behavior, but this is the standard protocol for how people at the brig are held, especially people with the gravity of the charges he is facing.
Mik.
Q: Well, since you mentioned me by name and, through implication, tied me to incorrect reporting, which would be incorrect, I do have a couple of questions.
MR. MORRELL: Fire away.
Q: Was the brig commander at Quantico in error in putting Private Manning on suicide watch for two days last week? Did he violate protocol?
MR. MORRELL: My understanding is that he did not and that, despite your reporting, which suggests that only doctors at the facility can make a call of that nature, what I’ve been told is that the brig commander is ultimately responsible for the well-being and confinement of everyone in his charge. And so he has the wherewithal to make decisions based upon input from others, including doctors, about how it is best to treat people given the current circumstances.
He made a judgment call. It sounds like that he put him under suicide watch for a period of two days. But as I understand it, he was well within his rights to do so as the commander of the brig.
Q: And is it within his authority to put somebody on suicide watch for a disciplinary purpose?
MR. MORRELL: I frankly am not aware of all the regulations that he operates under. But I would imagine that, as the brig commander, he has extraordinary discretion in terms of how best to run that facility, how best to protect the well-being of the people he — who he’s charged with safekeeping. And I don’t know all that goes into, frankly, Mik, making a decision about one — about when one needs to be watched more carefully in the event they may be considering doing harm to themselves.
Q: And was Manning taken off suicide watch at the urging of Army lawyers?
MR. MORRELL: I don’t know. I don’t know. But even if it were at the urging of Army lawyers, it would ultimately have to be a — the judgment of the brig commander that that was the appropriate course of action. And he would not have done it unless he thought that was the best way to proceed, both for his facility and the well-being of people there and, of course, for Private Manning’s well-being.
Okay? What else?
Q: Yeah — no, I wanted to —
MR. MORRELL: Okay.
Q: Can you tell us today if, in fact, there is evidence that Private Manning was ever in direct contact with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange?
MR. MORRELL: I think I’ve answered this question when it was put to me by Jennifer. And I’m happy to repeat it if you like. But as much as I would like to answer that more directly, I’m not in a position to.
And I’m not going to elaborate on why I’m not in a position to other than to say that it would be inappropriate, given the fact that this is an ongoing investigation, for me to answer that with the specificity that I’d like to.
And I’d once again urge you and all to be very careful, given the fact that this is an ongoing investigation. It’s being — you know, this has — this has received the highest-level attention in this department, in the Department of Justice. There are many, many resources devoted to investigating this and also bringing a case against those responsible for this breach of national security. So I think it is way too soon to make pronouncements with the kind of definitiveness that I’ve seen in some of the reporting, given where we still are in this investigation.
Q: Are you implying that you have information that, in fact, Manning was in direct contact with Julian Assange? Because —
MR. MORRELL: I am not — Mik, Mik, I am not implying — Mik, I’m not —
Q: (Inaudible) — you don’t want to reveal the specifics?
MR. MORRELL: I’m not implying —
Q: That’s the — that’s the implication you made.
MR. MORRELL: You can infer what you — Mik —
Q: You said you’d like to respond with the specificity.
MR. MORRELL: Mik, you can infer what you like, but I am not implying anything other than what I said, which was very clear. I’m not going to wade into the ongoing investigation. But I urge you all to be very careful, because it is still very much in progress. And it would be premature to draw any definitive conclusions about where we are vis-à-visdirect connections, a web of connections, found, not found, any of that. We’re not and you are not — no one is in a position yet to draw those conclusions.
Q: Are there third-parties being investigated?
MR. MORRELL: This investigation is broad. I think the best — the best question — it’s best directed at the Justice Department. But my understanding is that this is a very broad, very robust investigation that will look any and every place to find all those who may or may not have been involved in the leak of this classified information.
Q: A follow up, Geoff?
MR. MORRELL: Are you on this?
Q: (Inaudible)
MR. MORRELL: Okay. Let me — let me finish this up, and then we’ll come over to you.
Q: All right. Thank you. First of all, we’re meeting first time: Happy New Year.
MR. MORRELL: Happy New Year.
Q: My question is that because of WikiLeaks, as far as this connection and he is behind bars, one, many high-level Indian military officials are under investigation but they are in jail now because of WikiLeaks. And now what my question is, as far as WikiLeaks is concerned, this man is behind bars here. Have you stopped, as far as WikiLeaks is concerned, for the future? What have you done? Because many other countries also involved as far as WikiLeaks and U.S. defense and —
MR. MORRELL: For the future of what?
Q: Have you stopped the WikiLeaks in the — for the future? And no more WikiLeaks are coming? Or have you done something —
MR. MORRELL: Listen, you’d have to — you’d have to talk to Mr. Assange and his cronies. I don’t know what they have still up their sleeve. You’d have to — you’d have to talk to them.
Q: (Inaudible) — really, as far as U.S. and international, global military-to-military relations are concerned, especially with India now because of this WikiLeaks, many high-level military officers are in — behind bars or under investigation. Do you have any — if anybody has approached this building in connection with WikiLeaks with the U.S. and India, military to military?
MR. MORRELL: I am — I am not aware of any specific engagements with regards to or conversations with regards to fallout from anything that’s been disclosed by WikiLeaks in the U.S.-India military-to-military relationship. We have gone to great lengths in all of our bilateral relationships to give advanced warning to our friends and allies around the world about what were potentially in these documents. I know our colleagues at State have done the same thing on a diplomatic basis. So we’ve been very forthright about this, and obviously it’s been an embarrassing — and I think — I think people have lost sight a little bit about how damaging this has been in terms of diplomatic relations, in terms of potential harm to those named in these documents and in terms of the fallout in terms of intelligence-sharing relationships. These are very real consequences that have not received probably as much attention as they deserve to receive.
Sarah Palin is an asshole. End of Story.
Can we please stop giving Sarah Palin ANY credit for ANYTHING? She is a former beauty queen who quit her one real job after half of her term. Sure, she’s a good-looking MILF who likes to shoot off a few rounds for sport. Sure, she was thrown into the public eye by a John McCain, who never bothered to vet her to see if she had damaging personal issues in her family before they grabbed her up. Sure, she is a best selling “author” and a reality tv show star. But that’s IT. She has no other credentials that would make her an expert or even remotely powerful in any way.
This asshole should not determine the National debate.
Can we please stop giving her the publicity she so obviously craves and get back to talking about the real issues?
P.I.L.F. (Politicians I’d Like to F**k)
Are there incoming Congressmen (or women) who are worth shagging? Are there any fresh new political faces you’d hook up with to get universal healthcare put back on the table? THe Huffington Post asks these questions and more.
Because Politics Suck 