"How will you live your life so that it doesn't make a mockery of your values?"
-Bill Ayers
Inside Outside
Revolution and Beer, Sept. 22, 2015
Many of us make the same mistake, depending upon political orientation, that the media is either too liberal or too conservative.. It is neither. It is a function, a tool, the messaging component of a much larger system comprised of many people who have no idea they are actually part of that system. That system survives and thrives on maintaining the illusion of the team sport of Right and Left politics. The consumer is necessary to maintain that system. Understanding the function of the media is critical to understanding what is befalling electoral politics in America,"
National
Inside the Koch Brothers Toxic Empire-
Rolling Stone, Sept 24, 2015
"Koch's hunger for growth is insatiable: Since 1960, the company brags, the value of Koch Industries has grown 4,200-fold, outpacing the Standard & Poor's index by nearly 30 times. On average, Koch projects to double its revenue every six years. Koch is now a key player in the fracking boom that's vaulting the United States past Saudi Arabia as the world's top oil producer, even as it's endangering America's groundwater. In 2012, a Koch subsidiary opened a pipeline capable of carrying 250,000 barrels a day of fracked crude from South Texas to Corpus Christi, where the company owns a refinery complex, and it has announced plans to further expand its Texas pipeline operations. In a recent acquisition, Koch bought Frac-Chem, a top provider of hydraulic fracturing chemicals to drillers. Thanks to the Bush administration's anti-regulatory agenda – which Koch Industries helped craft – Frac-Chem's chemical cocktails, injected deep under the nation's aquifers, are almost entirely exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act."
Revoke the GOP’s “God Card” Now: Why the Right Wing’s Pope Francis Temper Tantrum is So Despicable-
Salon, Sept. 23, 2015
"The irony here is pretty obvious. People like Gosar, Inhofe, Santorum and Bush have been playing the God card for years. They have been happy to use Christian religion in general, and Catholicism in particular, as a recruiting device and a campaigning platform for a variety of conservative political issues. Now they want the Pope to mind his own business and stick to morality and religion."
Issue of the Week...
Prison for Profit
How For-profit Prisons Have Become the Biggest Lobby No One is Talking About-
Washington Post, Sept. 17, 2015
In its 2014 annual report, Correctional Corporation of America wrote:
"The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them. … Legislation has been proposed in numerous jurisdictions that could lower minimum sentences for some non-violent crimes and make more inmates eligible for early release based on good behavior."
Public-Private Partnerships from Hell-
Counterpunch, March 14, 2014
"The private prison industry has an appalling record. In 2010 the American Civil Liberties Union sued Corrections Corporation of America in Boise District Court claiming that violence was so rampant at the Idaho Correctional Center that it was known as “gladiator school” among inmates. The lawsuit said that guards deliberately ordered brutal beatings of inmates from other prisoners as a systematic management tool. The group contends the prison then denied injured inmates medical care to save money and hide the extent of injuries. After settling in 2011, the ACLU in June 2013 filed a motion seeking to hold CCA and ICC’s warden, Timothy Wengler, in civil contempt of court. The court found that CCA failed to fill thousands of hours of guard posts required by the CCA-IDOC contract leading to abuses of prisoners. The company is now under investigation by the FBI."
Marco Rubio is Being Funded by the Prison-for-Profit Lobby-
Antimedia, May 7, 2015
"Marco Rubio, the US Senator from the state of Florida and current presidential candidate, is a direct benificiary of the racket that is the private prison system in the United States. In fact, Rubio is the US Senate’s top career recipient of contributions from previously mentioned GEO, the country’s second-largest for-profit prison company. GEO has put nearly $40,000 in Rubio’s campaign fund and given another $2 million to the Republican Party of Florida, Rubio’s home state. The prison company and current Senator have been in bed together going all the way back to when Rubio served as the speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. While leading the House, GEO was awarded a state government contract for a $110 million facility. It was not long after that when Rubio hired an economic consultant who just so happened to be a former trustee of a GEO real estate trust."
Private Prison Lobbyists Are Raising Cash For Hillary Clinton-
The Intercept, July 23, 2015
"Hillary Clinton has a complicated history with incarceration. As first lady, she championed efforts to get tough on crime. “We need more police, we need more and tougher prison sentences for repeat offenders,” Clinton said in 1994. “The ‘three strikes and you’re out’ for violent offenders has to be part of the plan. We need more prisons to keep violent offenders for as long as it takes to keep them off the streets,” she added."
Sanders Declares War on the Prison/Industrial Complex with Major New Bill-
Salon, Sept. 17, 2015
"Bernie Sanders just made good on an early campaign promise and introduced a bill in the Senate to outlaw what he called the “morally repugnant” practice of incarcerating Americans in private prisons and called for the reduction in the nation’s prison population."
Bernie Sanders and the Corporate Democrats
Counterpunch, July 15, 2015
“Bernie Sanders wants to break up the New York banks, he wants to impose a Wall Street transaction tax, he wants to regulate drug prices, he’s for full Medicare for all — everybody in, nobody out, free choice of doctor and hospital — he wants to get rid of these corporate tax havens, he’s pushing for a $15 dollar an hour minimum wage, he wants to stronger labor unions. What’s not to like?” Nader asked Hedges.
“Because he did it within the Democratic establishment,” Hedges said. “He’s lending credibility to a party that is completely corporatized. He has agreed that he will endorse the candidate, which, unless there is some miracle, will probably be Hillary Clinton.”
WC Turck
Welfare Queens: Who Really Wears the Ctown-
Revolution and Beer, Sept. 24, 2015
"Numbers have a liberal bias, which is why the Right has taken to simply inventing numbers. The issue of who is on Welfare, and who is actually lying about what Welfare actually entails is a case in point. The number currently being floated by the Rightwing of Americans on Welfare is an astounding 109, 631,000 number. That’s a lot of lazy and out of work people helping to make the case as to why you are paying too much in taxes. Just one problem, the number isn’t accurate. Well, it is and it isn’t. Here’s what I mean."
The $8.5 Trillion the Pentagon Can't account For-
Yahoo Finance, November, 2013
Special Enterprise Reporter Scot Paltrow unearthed the high cost of the Pentagons Bad bookkeeping in a Reuters investigation. It amounts to $8.5 trillion in taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon since 1996 that has never been accounted for. (The year 1996 was the first that the Pentagon should have been audited under a law requiring audits of all government departments. Oh, and by the way, the Pentagon is the only federal agency that has not complied with this law.)
What Was Really Going On During the Debate About a Woman on the $10 Bill-
Vox, Sept. 17, 2015
"Mike Huckabee chose his own wife, and Ben Carson his own mother, both arguing that the women should be honored for being such excellent caretakers. In their minds, apparently, the highest contribution an American woman can make to her country is to lovingly care for a male Republican.
Chris Christie made a similar argument on behalf of his choice, Abigail Adams: "Our country wouldn't be here without John Adams," he said, "and he wouldn't have been able to do it without Abigail Adams. So I would put Abigail Adams on the $10 bill." In other words, he was honoring her for service to her husband, not service to her country."
The Importance of Donald Trump-
New York, Sept. 20, 2015
"In the short time since Trump declared his candidacy, he has performed a public service by exposing, however crudely and at times inadvertently, the posturings of both the Republicans and the Democrats and the foolishness and obsolescence of much of the political culture they share. He is, as many say, making a mockery of the entire political process with his bull-in-a-china-shop antics. But the mockery in this case may be overdue, highly warranted, and ultimately a spur to reform rather than the crime against civic order that has scandalized those who see him, in the words of the former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, as “dangerous to democracy.”
International
Iran's Parchin Nuclear Myth Begins to Unravel-
Middle East Eye, Sept. 22, 2015
"For well over three years, heavy doses of propaganda have created a myth about a purported steel cylinder for testing explosives located on a site at Iran’s Parchin military testing reservation. Iran was refusing to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect the site while it sought to hide its past nuclear weapons-related work, according to that storyline.
Now Iran has agreed to allow the IAEA to visit the site at Parchin and environmental samples have already been collected at the site. However, the politically charged tale of the bomb test chamber of Parchin is beginning to unravel. IAEA director general Yukiya Amano entered the building in which the explosives chamber had supposedly been located on Monday and announced afterward that he found “no equipment” in the building."
The Intercept, Sept. 23, 2015
"Last week’s announcement that Saudi Arabia – easily one of the world’s most brutally repressive regimes – was chosen to head a U.N. Human Rights Council panel provoked indignation around the world. That reaction was triggered for obvious reasons. Not only has Saudi Arabia executed more than 100 people already this year mostly by beheading (a rate of one execution every two days and not only is it serially flogging dissidents, but it is reaching new levels of tyrannical depravity as it is about to behead then crucify the 21-year-old son of a prominent regime critic, Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, who was convicted at the age of 17 of engaging in demonstrations against the government."
The Unholy Alliance of Wahhabism and Zionism-
Falastin News Palatine, December, 2014
"What do Wahhabism and Zionism have in common? Both hide their repulsive ideologies behind Abrahamic religions. Saudi Arabia is not Islamic the same way that Israel is not Jewish. Saudi Arabia not only pays interest but also charges interest. Economist Greg Palast explained in Armed Madhouse (chapter 3 The Network) that the American Federal Reserve hiked interest twelve times between June 2004 and November 2005 in order for the Bush regime to pay interest to King Abdullah. Israel shows similar disdain with Halachic law (Jewish law) as the Saudis show with Sharia. Israel regularly imperils the lives of Jews as neither conventional nor non conventional weapons discriminate between Jews or Gentiles. Also according to Halachic the state of Israel should not exist until there is a Jewish messiah and there is no such messiah. Israel is not even legal under Jewish law."
Jeremy Corbyn's Victory Has Already Transformed Politics-
The Guardian, Sept. 16, 2015
"By any reckoning, Corbyn’s election and the movement that delivered it represent a political eruption of historic proportions. Whatever now happens, such a fundamental shift cannot simply be reversed. Eight years after economic crisis took hold of the western world, the anti-austerity revolt has found it's voice in Britain in an entirely unexpected way. The political conformity entrenched during the years of unchallenged neoliberalism has been broken. For the first time in decades, an unapologetic socialist is at the head of one of Britain’s two main parties.
Local
Emanuel Seeking $588M Property Tax hike, More Fees to Chart 'New Course'-
Chicago Tribune, Sept.22, 2015
"Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday will call for property tax increases totaling $588 million over the next four years, part of an unprecedented series of tax and fee hikes he wants to shore up police and fire pension funds and balance the budget.
Five months after voters gave him a second chance, Emanuel will deliver the biggest budget speech of his tenure. He'll try to sell Chicagoans — and at least 26 aldermen — on the notion that digging deep into their wallets is the right move to reset the city's financial course."
The Truth and Fiction in Mayor Rahm's Budget Speech-
Chicago Reader, Sept. 24, 2015
Sorry, Mr. Mayor, but I'm going to have to call you out on that baby."
Ald. Scott Waguespack
Aldermen Want City Deposits Used to Leverage Investment in Chicago Neighborhoods-
Chicago Sun-Times, Sept. 17, 2015
"Eight aldermen on Wednesday joined forces with National Black Wall Street, a group dedicated to promoting black businesses and their access to capital, to demand City Council approval of a plan to use up to $1 billion in city assets as leverage to spur investment in Chicago neighborhoods."
ThinkProgress, Sept. 22, 2015
"Every year, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) gives out $1.9 billion in grants to local Continuums of Care, public-private partnerships that tackle homelessness in a specific area. These grants are doled out in a competitive process whereby applicants must fill out a lengthy questionnaire about how they plan to use the money, as well as their current policies.
Last week, though, HUD announced that it would begin asking applicants to describe the steps they are taking to reduce the criminalization of homelessness. Ordinances that criminalize homelessness, also known as “anti-vagrancy” or “quality of life” laws, include making it illegal to sit down on a sidewalk, ask passersby for spare change, or sleep in a public place. Applicants for the federal money will have to show they are engaging with local policymakers or law enforcement about criminalization policies, as well as implementing new community plans to ensure homelessness is not criminalized. Failing to combat such ordinances will hurt a Continuum of Care’s chances of winning new funds."
"FWGs protesting the presence in their sacred neighborhoods of SWGs are jagoffs of the first order. How dare the SWGs do to the FWGs what the FWGs did to the neighborhood in the first place?"
"For decades since their inception in the 1960s, members of the liberation group known as the Black Panthers were labeled thugs and hateful extremists who set out to ruin the U.S. They were considered the antithesis to Martin Luther King Jr. — armed and dangerous. And that’s how many people still remember them today.
But a new documentary, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, dives into the rise and fall of the Panthers’ political agenda, offering a counter-narrative that’s more timely than ever.
Combining interviews with former members of the party with archival footage of Panther activity, Stanley Nelson’s documentary explores the white supremacy and state-sanctioned police violence that inspired a revolutionary movement — and how that movement redefined black power and pride."
"There are famous Yankee players whose public images bear little relation to the kind of men they actually are—Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle, to name three."
Last week, though, HUD announced that it would begin asking applicants to describe the steps they are taking to reduce the criminalization of homelessness. Ordinances that criminalize homelessness, also known as “anti-vagrancy” or “quality of life” laws, include making it illegal to sit down on a sidewalk, ask passersby for spare change, or sleep in a public place. Applicants for the federal money will have to show they are engaging with local policymakers or law enforcement about criminalization policies, as well as implementing new community plans to ensure homelessness is not criminalized. Failing to combat such ordinances will hurt a Continuum of Care’s chances of winning new funds."
Lumpen, Sept. 22, 2015
Thought
Think Progress, Sept. 23, 2015
But a new documentary, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, dives into the rise and fall of the Panthers’ political agenda, offering a counter-narrative that’s more timely than ever.
Combining interviews with former members of the party with archival footage of Panther activity, Stanley Nelson’s documentary explores the white supremacy and state-sanctioned police violence that inspired a revolutionary movement — and how that movement redefined black power and pride."
Sports
The Stacks, July 1, 2013
Correspondence
Andrew L. Seidel
Kim Davis, Christian persecution mythology, and the Values Voters Summit
Persecution of Christians does, sadly, exist in some parts of the globe. And, if you were to listen to people like Mat Staver and Mike Huckabee, you’d think it existed in Kentucky. It doesn’t. Christian persecution does not happen in America. And when reality doesn’t reflect the persecution narrative that Christians seem desperate to fulfill, their need for martyrdom can lead them to revere persecutors instead of the persecuted.
JFK has a message for Kim Davis. Those with the courage of their religious convictions bend their own lives to fit their religion, not other people’s lives or government offices. National Archives and Records Admin. photo by Robert Knudsen.
This weekend’s Values Voters Summit exhibits the dichotomy nicely. The VVS is a who’s who of the religious right wing and an echo chamber for Christian persecution myths. Last year though, the VVS gave an award to Meriam Ibrahim. Ibrahim faced very real and very serious persecution in Sudan. Simply for marrying a Christian, the Sudanese government sentenced Ibrahim to death for apostasy. She was eventually released and lives in New Hampshire.
