The world's biggest excuse is dead.

We still don't know who was responsible for 911. There never has been a credible, legitimate, and politically independent investigation of 911. However, our political and media elites have insisted that the 911 attacks were orchestrated by Osama bin Laden and have tried to marginalize and demonize anyone who questions any aspect of the officially sanctioned conspiracy theory to explain those horrific attacks.

We still are in an illegal and insane war in Iraq. There are roughly 47,000 of our troops still stuck in Iraq, occupying that country. There are over 60,000 mercenaries still in Iraq. That's right. Occupying forces are at over 100,000 in a war that the corporate media pretend isn't even going on.

We are in a war in Afghanistan that is primarily focused on establishing a natural gas pipeline going through that country. The natural gas will end up being used in India to outsource US jobs and to switch US jobs that had been outsourced to China over to India, where labor costs have not increased as they have in China.

Osama bin Laden has been used as a pretext to keep us in hugely expensive and murderous wars that have even killed more Americans than were killed in the 911 attacks. That excuse is dead.

It's time to push harder to end these deadly and costly wars that create profits for evil corporations and the rich, but screw the rest of us over.

 

Liberation News: Anti-War March NYC Sat April 9th from PSLweb.org on Vimeo.

I've been busy with things in my personal life, but I thought people might be interested in some voices of the underrepresented from last weekend's big anti war protest in NYC.

 

Demonstrating the same fanatical misogyny that he proudly proclaimed when he involved the neo Nazi fundamentalist Rick Warren in his campaign and inauguration, President Obama is actually blocking entry of a women's rights activist from Afghanistan on a pretext that is so flimsy it insults the intelligence of anyone with an IQ over 60. (From the Afghan Women's Mission's 3/17/11 Press Release - Hat Tip: Peace Action West)

The United States has denied a travel visa to Malalai Joya, an acclaimed women’s rights activist and former member of Afghanistan’s parliament. Ms. Joya, who was named one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2010, was set to begin a three-week US tour to promote an updated edition of her memoir, A Woman Among Warlords, published by Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

Joya’s publisher at Scribner, Alexis Gargagliano, said, “We had the privilege to publish Ms. Joya, and her earlier 2009 book tour met with wide acclaim. The right of authors to travel and promote their work is central to freedom of expression and the full exchange of ideas.” Joya’s memoir has been translated into over a dozen languages, and she has toured widely including Australia, the UK, Canada, Norway, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, and the Netherlands in support of the book over the past two years.

Colleagues of Ms. Joya’s report that when she presented herself as scheduled at the U.S. embassy, she was told she was being denied because she was “unemployed” and “lives underground.” Then 27, Joya was the youngest woman elected to Afghanistan’s parliament in 2005. Because of her harsh criticism of warlords and fundamentalists in Afghanistan, she has been the target of at least five assassination attempts. “The reason Joya lives underground is because she faces the constant threat of death for having had the courage to speak up for women’s rights – it’s obscene that the U.S. government would deny her entry,” said Sonali Kolhatkar of the Afghan Women’s Mission, a U.S. based organization that has hosted Joya for speaking tours in the past and is a sponsor of this year’s national tour.

This is ironic, given how both George W. Bush and Barack Bush both used women's rights violations by the Taliban as a justification for war. Yet, neither has lifted a finger to stop human rights violations against women by their puppet regime. Outside of Kabul, the situation for women is the same as it was under the Taliban.

Also, let's not forget the role of Hillary Clinton in this outrage. She may pretend to be a feminist when it is politically convenient to do so, but she is, in fact, a militant, Christian fundamentalist who gleefully embraces the misogyny of the Christian Right. (Ms. Clinton is so extreme in her fundamentalism that she is deeply involved in the dangerous, secretive cult known as "The Family" which, among other things, runs the C Street apartments for horny Republicans.)

In her short tenure in the Senate, Ms. Clinton demonstrated her militant fundamentalism by voting for the Iraq War and making her highest legislative priority trying to get us into war with Iran. As Secretary of State, Ms. Clinton has worked tirelessly to trigger a US-Iran war and to encourage Israel to provoke an Arab-Israeli war that Clinton and other fundamentalists believe is predicted by the nonsense in "Revelations."

Obama's action also is a subtle insult against writers and other artists. Treating creative people as "unemployed" is typical of the anti intellectualism of the right. Barack Bush is acting just like George W. Bush this time.

As Ronald Reagan's eighth term drags on, I still want real change. The bigotry and war mongering keep dragging on.

Hillary Clinton Photo: World Economic Forum

 

Details have emerged on the upcoming protest against the seemingly endless wars. The protests, organized by the United National Antiwar Committee UNAC. You can download the protest flyers.

NYC · SF

Here are the demands from the flyers:

WE DEMAND Bring U.S. Troops, Mercenaries and War Contractors Home Now: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan! End the sanctions and stop the threats of war against the people of Iran, North Korea and Yemen. No to war and plunder of the people of Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa! End U.S. Aid to Israel! End U.S. Support to the Israeli Occupation of Palestine and the Siege of Gaza! End support of dictators in North Africa!

WE DEMAND an end to FBI raids on antiwar, social justice, and international solidarity activists, an end to the racist persecution and prosecutions that ravage Muslim communities, an end to police terror
in Black and Latino communities, full rights and legality for immigrants and an end to all efforts to repress and punish Wikileaks and its contributors and founders.

WE DEMAND the immediate end to torture, rendition, secret trials, drone bombings and death squads.

WE DEMAND trillions for jobs, education, social services, an end to all foreclosures, quality single-payer healthcare for all, a
massive conversion to sustainable and planet-saving energy systems and public transportation and reparations to the victims of U.S. terror at home and abroad.

I especially am fond of the mention of public transportation, since it prevents Global Warming. Also, our dependency on automobiles puts us in Big Oil's pockets, which results in a lot of wars and military bases.

Here are the whens and wheres.

NYC:
Saturday, April 9th Noon
March & Rally
Union Square
14 St & Broadway

...

SF:
SUNDAY, APRIL 10TH
ASSEMBLE AT DOLORES PARK AT 11AM · NOON RALLY · MARCH AT 1:30PM

I hope a lot of people in those areas can turn out. These wars are horrific by themselves, but then you have to add the budgetary pressure they create, which is used as an excuse to cut desperately needed government programs and desperately needed government jobs.

 

codepinkhq

The new Republican majority in Congress keeps talking about cutting wasteful spending, yet the most wasteful spending imaginable: the Iraq War, the Afghanistan War, and the hugely bloated military budget are exempt because corporate and wealthy donors make money off of that spending.

Here's a chance to turn the GOP's faux deficit hawk bs against them. CODEPINK is asking people to contact their congresscritters and tell them to go after the real wasteful spending. From their Action Alert's Sample Letter:

Your position as my Congressperson at this time in history is a mighty responsibility. That responsibility includes finding a way out of the financial crisis we are in. As you well know, the number one issue on the minds of the American people is our ailing economy. We know that there is heavy pressure on you to slash government spending.

But where should that money come from? Not from social security, Medicare and programs shielding people from the ravages of the economic crisis. The only logical sector to cut is the military budget, which now consumes over 50% of our discretionary spending. Funding for war has created a financial drain that this congressional district and this nation cannot, and should not, pay any longer.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—and the expanding attacks in Pakistan—helped plunge us into this financial crisis and have not made us any safer at home. The U.S. will spend more on the war in Afghanistan this year, adjusting for inflation, than we spent on the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War and the Spanish-American War combined. The United States also spends nearly as much on military power as every other country in the world combined, plus we maintain troops at more than 800 bases around the world—often antagonizing the local people and making us targets for terrorist attacks.

We can’t afford these wars, we can’t win these wars, and they no longer have the support of the American people. We can’t afford to have military bases sprawled all over the world. We can’t afford to keep producing Cold War weapons that we don’t need and merely benefit a handful of weapons manufacturers. It’s time to end these unwinnable, unjustifiable wars and bring our war dollars home to tackle the most strategic task for our national security, rebuilding America.

I also urge you, as my Congressperson, to vote NO on any further war funding appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan, whether in the FY2011 budget or in "supplemental" bills, in order to redirect this nation‘s resources toward improving our education system, infrastructure, and health care programs.

Please help us make our economy more robust and our nation more secure by bringing our war dollars home and taking a serious look at cutting other parts of our bloated Pentagon budget. We want a military that defends us here at home, not one that makes war overseas. And we want an economy that serves the people, not private military contractors.

Photo: madhavaji

As is the case for any suggested letter in an Action Alert form, it is a good idea for you to rewrite and personalize the letter so the congressmember's office doesn't get the same email over, and over, and over again. I definitely rewrote mine.

Please Take Action!

 

Save the Date!

From the United National Antiwar Committee:

Call to Action

April 9, 2011

New York & San Francisco

from the United National Antiwar Committee

Here's the intent behind this protest:

Bi-coastal mass spring mobilizations in New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles on April 9, 2011. These will be accompanied by distinct and separate non-violent direct actions on the same day. A prime component of these mobilizations will be major efforts to include broad new forces from youth to veterans to trade unionists to civil and human rights groups to the Arab, Muslim and other oppressed communities to environmental organizations, social justice and faith-based groups. Veterans and military families will be key to these mobilizations with special efforts to organize this community to be the lead contingent.

Stay tuned. We need to get back into the streets as part of a larger movement to stop the wars. We can not rely on Barack Obama or any other politician to stop the wars for us.

They also are looking for organizations to endorse the marches.

 

131 Arrested at Veteran-led Civil Resistance Against Wars Dec. 16

The organizers wrote about their action, but corporate media hacks largely ignored it. Here's what they had to say.

After a 10 am rally in Lafeyette Park featuring Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame, retired CIA officer Ray McGovern, Dr. Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Program, and others, activists formed a solemn single-file process to the White House, silent except for a drum beat. There, they encountered police barricades. Some veterans began climbing over the barricades, until the police opened them up, allowing people to approach the fence in front of the White House.

As the light snow increased to heavy and began accumulating, activists kept warm by singing and chanting. At about 12:30, police began arresting protesters who remained along the fence, while supporters who did not want to risk arrest were moved across the broad street. Some of the demonstrators stood in the snow and freezing temperatures for nearly four hours before being taken to Anacostia processing center and released. They have all since been released. Some have elected to pay a fine, while others, including Ellsberg and McGovern, will go to trial on the charge of disobeying a lawful order.

Video from the protest is available on YouTube:



Democracy Now, to its credit, did report on this. Here's a particularly interesting quote they ran from an Iraq War veteran.

Mike Prysner: "They’re not going to end the wars. And they’re not going to do it, because it’s not our government. It’s their government. It’s the government of the rich. It’s the government of Wall Street, of the oil giants, of the defense contractors. It’s their government. And the only language that they understand is shutting down business as usual. And that’s what we’re doing here today, and we’re going to continue to do until these wars are over. We’re going to fight until there’s not one more bomb dropped, not one more bullet fired, not one more soldier coming home in a wheelchair, not one more family slaughtered, not one more day of U.S. imperialism."

He's absolutely correct when he points out that our government is owned by wealthy and corporate interests. They are looting America to the point we may not be able to recover.

 

This video is from a protest that was launched at the location of the sign by Broome County Peace Action.

The Iraq and Afghanistan wars are two of the biggest causes of the federal deficit, yet the Cat Food Commission and other "deficit reduction" groups have left ending the wars off the table. As bad as the financial and physical costs of this war are for Americans, things are much worse than Iraqis, Afghans, and Pakistanis.

Cost of War Sign - Binghamton, NY from bvideo on Vimeo.

Last I heard, the sign was on loan to other cities.

 

Now that President Obama's Cat Food Commission's initial draft of draconian social service cuts has come out, it is getting a lot more attention. The goals of the Cat Food Commission seemed initially to be focused on a jihad against Social Security and Medicare. That crusade is definitely part of the agenda, but the Cat Food Commission has a broader goal.

The Cat Food Commission is a broad based attempt to transfer income and wealth from the elderly, the middle class, and the poor to the rich.

Here are some of the specific recommendations from the Commission's draft report:

From CommonDreams.org 11/10/10 (bolding mine):

• 75% of the solutions in the co-chair mark are spending reductions, 25% are tax increases.

• They want to add co-pays to the Veterans’ Administration and TRICARE, as well as pushing individuals covered by TRICARE into an employer policy. They also want to freeze noncombat military pay for three years. And, they want to end schools for families on military bases, instead reintegrating soldier’s kids into the public school system (because that’s so easy for a military family that moves every other year).

• They would cut the federal workforce by 10%, freeze all salary increases and bonuses for three years, and reduce Congressional and White House budgets by 15%. Surely this is the way to a better and more efficient federal workforce.

• They would eliminate all funding for commercial space flight, as well as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and increase fees at national parks and the Smithsonian museums.

• Increase co-pays in Medicaid and cost sharing in Medicare. In addition, the plan would cap Medicaid/Medicare growth, so that the government would have to either increase premiums and co-pays or raise the Medicare eligibility age if the cost grows above the baseline.

• Massively overhaul the tax code. They have a couple different options on this. In the first, there would only be three brackets: at 8%, 14% and 23% for the top bracket. All tax expenditures – $1.1 trillion, including the Earned Income Tax Credit and the child tax credit, would be eliminated. The corporate tax rate would go down from 35% to 26% as well. Option 2 borrows from the Wyden-Gregg tax reform, establishing rates at 15%, 25% and 35%, increasing the standard deduction, capping the mortgage interest deduction (and eliminating it for second homes), limiting the charitable deduction, eliminating other tax expenditures, and capping the employer deduction for health care. Corporate rates would also go down, with loopholes removed.

• They would increase the gas tax by 15 cents a gallon beginning in 2013, to pay for transportation projects.

• They would pay for the “doctor’s fix” by cutting other reimbursements to hospitals and drug companies, as well as through tort reform (yeah, that’ll do it). They would also speed up a lot of the cost controls in the health care law. They also ask, if health care costs are still rising after the implementation of the exchanges, for Congress to consider a variety of options, including this:

Add a robust public option and/or all-payer system in the exchange

• Reduce farm subsidies by $3 billion per year.

• On Social Security, gradually increase the retirement age to 69 by 2075. They would also institute progressive price indexing to cut scheduled benefits for middle and high-income earners. They would index cost of living increases to inflation and not wages. They would also increase the payroll tax to capture 90% of wages, rather than the current 86%. Social Security savings would stay inside the program to keep it solvent, not be used for deficit reduction.

I've read from multiple sources that they also want to eliminate the home mortgage deduction for all homes.

Here are some things that are not included in the agenda of this alleged "deficit commission."

- Cutting off all funding to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

- Closing the majority of military bases abroad.

- Getting rid of the Bush tax cuts for the rich.

- Getting rid of the Clinton and Reagan tax cuts for the rich.

- Raising corporate taxes.

- Instituting luxury taxes.

- Instituting an SUV tax.

- Repealing all corporate controlled trade agreements and withdrawing from the World Trade Organization, making it possible for our government to expand revenue from tariffs, traditionally one of its major funding sources.

- Initiating a tax on all short term stock, bond, mutual fund, commodities, hedge fund, derivative, and other transactions involving financial instruments. (Call it the Bubble Prevention Tax.)

- Cut back on wasteful and unconstitutional homeland security spending

- An end to covert operations in Iran

- End of all aid to Israel

- End of aid and support for the fascist dictatorship in Colombia

- Legalization of Marijuana

- Sentencing crack like other cocaine

- Legalizing other victimless crimes such as gambling and prostitution.

- Taxing capital gains (other than primary home sales) like income actually earned by working

A "deficit commission" that proposes cutting taxes for the rich and corporations is not a deficit commission. Many have pointed out that wealthy and corporate interests are turning the same Shock Doctrine tactics that were used on non Western countries onto Europe and North America. We need to do more to fight back.

Photo: Sunfox

The corporate media usually don't give much coverage to stories which suggest that politicians should move towards the left. That's why this item on one of ABC News' blogs was quite refreshing. (bolding mine)

Here’s how: Current estimate is that 90 million people voted. Exit poll says 45 percent were Obama voters in 2008. That’s 40.5 million voters.

In 2008, Obama won 69.5 million votes. So about 29 million Obama voters did not show up in 2010.

Exit poll also says 45 percent of people who voted yesterday were McCain voters in 2008, again 40.5 million. That, vs. his nearly 60 million in 2008, means about 19.5 million McCain voters did not show up.

So Obama had nearly 10 million more no-shows.

Does this surprise anyone? Let's look at some things Obama did which discouraged Democrats and Democratic leaning independents from showing up to vote.

1) Continuing to practice torture at Guantanamo and throughout the world.

2) Dragging out the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.

3) Fighting for the military ban and for DOMA in court, even to the point of making appeals that the Administration was under no legal or ethical obligation to make.

4) Comparing homosexuality to bestiality and necrophilia in court briefs defending DOMA.

5) Making banksters a much higher priority than jobs.

6) Refusing to prosecute criminals merely because they were rich and well connected (e.g., Bush Regime war criminals, banksters, brokesters).

7) Siding with British Petroleum against the environment and the people in the Gulf Coast.

8) Pushing through the same brutal wealthcare plan that the GOP would have passed if they were in control of Congress and the White House.

9) Doing nothing to protect the right to choose on abortion.

10) Expanding Bush's unconstitutional office of hate based initiatives.

11) Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in Cabinet level appointments.

12) Participating in the National Hate Breakfast and pandering to fundamentalist hate mongers like Rick Warren.

13) Sabre rattling with Iran and Venezuela.

14) Putting Global Warming on the backburner and making roads a higher priority than rail in the stimulus plan.

I could go on endlessly about the GOP policies that the President has continued or expanded on, but you get the point. Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and the rest of the DC "Democrats" did everything they could to send a message to Democratic voters and liberal independents that voting makes absolutely no difference.

Roughly 29,000,000 Obama voters got that message.

 

Now that Barack Bush is setting the groundwork to break his promise to get out of Afghanistan next year, it is becoming clear that Democratic politicians are just as pro war as Republican politicians. The people in the peace movement who trusted Obama and held back on protest made an enormous mistake.

Obama also is dragging out the Iraqtastrophe so corporations can keep making money off of it. Meanwhile, the Iraqis killed by "our" government's greed and corruption continue to add up. Meanwhile, more and more Americans in our military due to the economic draft are adding to the numbers of war veterans, facing the horrible physical and psychological scars of it.

At least the veterans who make it home have VA benefits, as weak as those are. The enormous numbers of mercenaries won't even have that. Considering that Obama has roughly 100,000 mercenaries in Iraq, that's a huge social problem for our country.

More war veterans mean increased competition for services that the GOP as well as Obama's Cat Food commission want to cut so they can cut taxes for the rich even more. Our veterans are treated in an extreme example of the shitty way the politicians treat everyone who isn't rich in this country.

Our veterans deserve better. We all do.

 

Photo: Derek Bridges

John McCain is the most corrupt politician to ever hold a US Senate seat. He also is a pathological liar and a reprehensible hypocrite. One of the most blatant examples of "Keating Five" McCain's dishonesty and hypocrisy can be found on the subject of government spending. Here's some particularly offensive nonsense from his website.

For years, John McCain has fought against wasteful and excessive spending — and leadership is needed now more than ever to curb such waste. With an agenda of bigger government and higher taxes, the current Administration and its allies in Congress have more than quadrupled the budget deficit in this year alone. In 2009, the federal government spent more than $1.4 trillion more than it actually had — growing our national debt to more than $12 trillion, much of which is owed to foreign nations. What happens when countries like China stop financing our debt? John McCain believes America’s destiny is too promising to be squandered by placing our economic wherewithal in the hands of foreign governments.

The two biggest sources of wasteful government spending are the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Yet, John McCain supports both rabidly, showing just how bought and paid for he is by Big Oil, mercenary corporations, and arms merchants. Even worse, this spectacular liar pushed for a huge and expensive escalation in Iraq instead of the vastly superior option of a full and immediate withdrawal.

No one can honestly say they are against wasteful government spending and then turn around and support and expand two wasteful and murderous wars.

McCain also has shown his utter lack of concern about budget deficits by fighting to continue Bush's tax cuts for the rich. That might make him a dutiful kept man who wants to keep Cindy happy so she won't throw him out of more houses than he can remember, but it isn't the action of someone who is against budget deficits.

"Keating Five" McCain is another big deficit, big war Republican who spews nonsense about being against deficits when he is running for reelection. Yet, he insists on policies that balloon deficits without providing even the slightest benefit to society. McCain represents everything that is hypocritical, extreme, and stupid about the GOP. Most of all, he represents everything that is corrupt in DC.

McCain may think he has distracted people with his jihad against legislation that might possibly lift the military ban against queers if Robert Gates, a homophobic Bush crime family crony, consents to it. I'm not distracted in the slightest. I know that he is just as corrupt as he is heterosexist, and I have no respect whatsoever for that piece of walking garbage.



 

Think what we could have done with all the money we wasted.

 

Our society is reticent about discussing suicide in general. However, there are two specific forms of suicide which have gotten very little discussion in corporate media outlets, being blocked out even more than suicide in general. One of them is the high suicide rates of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. This censorship is due to corporate media outlets trying to keep as many people supporting these pointless wars as possible and to keep potential military recruits from finding out what they might be getting themselves into.

The other form of suicide that is especially censored is queer teen suicide. This has been motivated by prejudice. That may be changing.

A Rutgers student was outed sensationally by having video of him having sex with a man posted on the Internet. He killed himself. This story was so bizarre and extreme that it broke a media taboo. Other news stories of teenagers killing themselves after being bullied in school have surfaced.

This is long overdue. Ellen DeGeneres has eloquently responded to this. What she said is more than worth listening too.



The Trevor Project has been working on the issue of queer teen suicide for over a decade. Hopefully, the recent publicity on this concern will cause more people to take note and take action.

Hopefully, the coverage and interest of suicides and bullying of queer youth in the corporate media will not be a "flavor of the month" story to be dropped when the next trend comes along. I also hope that suicide among veterans gets the attention that issue deserves too.

 

Photo: ryanjreilly

I am so sick of politicians and pundits attacking Wikileaks. As an American citizen and voter, I have an inalienable right to know about the war crimes and actual military status of the Afghanistan war. I am sick of politicians in both major political parties fraudulently classifying data that should be public in order to cover up their criminality and incompetence.

Pro torture Sen. Chuck Schumer, who represents Xe, Halliburton, and Big Oil in the Senate, really has gone off the deep end this time. He actually is going on a jihad against the courageous people at Wikileaks who are exposing the lies and the war crimes that are being committed in the Afghanistan war. Schumer's morally bankrupt and unAmerican press release includes all sorts of disturbing and unconscionable statements.

After last week’s controversial leaking of sensitive documents related to the U.S. war in Afghanistan, U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) announced Wednesday that Wikileaks would never qualify for any protection under the media shield legislation that awaits action in the Senate, adding he is already drafting new language to incorporate into the bill to make that explicit.

Schumer, the Senate’s lead author of the measure, said two parts of the existing bill already ensured that Wikileaks could never assert the privilege created by the legislation. First, the site does not fit the bill’s definition of a journalist, which requires that the covered party regularly engage in legitimate newsgathering activities. Second, the bill allows a judge to waive the privilege altogether if critical national security concerns are at stake.

But Schumer said he would be working with Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), the Senate Intelligence Chairman, anyway on language that could serve as a further safeguard against the possibility of Wikileaks ever seeking protection from the bill.

“Neither WikiLeaks, nor its original source for these materials, should be spared in any way from the fullest prosecution possible under the law,” Schumer said. “Although the bill in no way shields anyone who broke the law from prosecution, we are going the extra mile to remove even a scintilla of doubt.”

Schumer was perfectly aware of the indisputable fact that Wikileaks was engaging in completely legitimate news gathering activities. Exposing government lies and corruption is the most important function of a free press.

Schumer's provision allowing "a judge to waive the privilege altogether if critical national security concerns are at stake" is an enormous loophole designed to promote government coverups. The Obama Administration and most members of the House and Senate already have brazenly lied and said that the Wikileaks revelations pose a threat to our national security, demonstrating that the loophole is so enormous that it effectively nullifies the shield law he is pushing.

If Schumer had the slightest integrity he would be denouncing the Obama administration's efforts to retaliate against whistleblowers on both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. But, Schumer is so murderously racist, he will support any deception and misuse of the classification of government data in order to feed his bloodlust. Schumer is so beholden to moneyed interests that he won't do his job as a Senator to expose and fight corruption. I refuse to ever vote for that bought bigot again. The culture of corruption in DC is rampant among both the Democrats and the Republicans.

I am so sick of the corporate media lying and saying Schumer is a liberal when he has proven himself to be a Bush/Cheney/Obama/Clinton/Palin/Beck far right Republican. Corporate newspapers constantly whine about losing circulation. Yet, they keep expecting newspaper readers, the vast majority of whom are liberal, to pay for a constant barrage of rightist propaganda and lies.

Chuck Schumer and Feinstein should resign in disgrace. Neither of them is fit to hold public office.

 

I'm often behind on my email, and this was no exception. I thought people should be informed about the events anyway, even though the meeting was last night.

Because of the state budget crisis, Queens Pride House has lost over $80,000 in funding, and we've been forced to lay off 5 of our 8 staff members and reduce the number of hours the center is open. If we can't recoup that funding through contributions from LGBT community members and other sources, we may well be forced to close our doors. Come to Pride House at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, July 27 to help us strategize on how to save the only LGBT community center serving the borough of Queens.

Queens Pride House is a noble start in efforts to provide local services to people in Queens. It has so much promise. It would be a shame to see it fade away.

One of the things that is so frustrating about this is that the "budget crisis" in New York is as fake as the budget crises in other states. If the rich were made to pay their fair share in state and local taxes, deficits throughout the country would be replaced by surpluses. We could also rescue the states by stopping the Iraq or Afghanistan wars and redirecting the money.

America is experiencing the Shock Doctrine, and queers are not exempt.

 

The corporate media never thought much of Cindy Sheehan. And, when she started criticizing pro war Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in 2007 and 2008, partisan Democrats on the blogs often either attacked her or ignored her for holding the same opinions and values they praised her for when Republicans controlled all three branches of government.

It's really an embarrassment. Sheehan is still one of the brightest and most committed activists for peace and social justice issues. She should be a leader in liberal thought and action, yet liberals too tethered to the Democrats are ignoring her or resenting her for speaking out against politicians like President Obama who go against the values and policies supported by grassroots Democrats.

In a recent blog posting of hers, Sheehan makes numerous points. Here are some of the most telling.

To some of us, the problem is not so much that Obama has proven to be a dismal failure—because we know that he has been a huge success to the ruling class and corporations--but that partisan politics always overshadows common sense and true peace. We lost a lot of time giving Obama a “chance,” and thousands have lost their lives and their ways of life.

I was outraged when, after three days in office, Obama authorized a drone strike into Northern Pakistan that killed dozens of civilians, but I was excoriated for being outraged. I was devastated when he announced an increase in troops (3 times so far) to Afghanistan, and attacked for not caring about Afghan women (the ones our Empire are “protecting” by killing them and their children). I was laughed out of town when I was infuriated that Obama had declared himself “Judge, jury and executioner” of American citizens. People who formerly supported me told me to “shut up and go away, you have had your 15 minutes of fame.”

In some ways, its similar to the way that Jane Hamsher of Firedog Lake has been the target of a smear campaign by the HMOs, the health insurers, and their Democratic enablers. She has been attacked by the notoriously misogynistic, racist, homophobic, and rightist DailyKos and by other "A List" Democratic bloggers for sticking to the same positions that they advocated on healthcare before Obama, Pelosi, and Reid demanded that everyone go along with a wealthcare bill that robs the vast majority of the country and hands the booty over to the super rich. Some blogs featured wild and unsubstantiated headlines claiming that Hamsher was part of the teabagger movement even though the position of the Democratic politicians on healthcare was far closer to those of the teabaggers than Hamsher's. The body of the postings didn't live up to the salacious headlines, but it created a partisan feeding frenzy among naive left bloggers who wanted so much to believe in a party apparatus that had abandoned them.

Meanwhile, the brunt of suffering under the healthcare system and the crap economy is being inflicted on the middle class and the poor. The rich are doing fabulously well. The Democratic politicians are doing precious little change this.

It's worse abroad. Things for the Iraqi and Afghan people keep deteriorating. The reconstruction still isn't being done, but more destruction piles up. Obama hasn't been withdrawing from Iraq. He's been replacing regular troops with mercenaries who commit more atrocities while costing the US Treasury far more money. He's been hugely ramping up the US presence in Afghanistan, using a strategy of killing civilians because our troops are so overburdened and burnt out by far too many deployments in south and southwest Asia they can do little else at this point.

Really, where are the peaceniks? Where are the liberals with enough common sense and human decency to fight back against "Democrats" like Obama, Reid, and Pelosi who keep treating us like shit?

Photo: D.C.Atty

 

WTF?!?!?!?!?!

From the Globe and Mail 3/12/09:

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- The Afghanistan Supreme Court has secretly upheld a 20-year sentence imposed on a young journalism student who allegedly questioned Muslims' treatment of women.

The lawyer for Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh said he was stunned to find that the ruling had been made without his knowledge.

"On Saturday, I went to the Supreme Court asking for the date of the hearing and also to submit my defence," said Mohammad Afzal Nooristani, who has acted for Mr. Kambakhsh in the case that has drawn international attention.

"They told me they already decided about the case a month ago behind closed doors."

This is really disturbing. One of the rationales for this war is that it was supposed to end religious extremism.

It gets worse. Here's the "blasphemy."

In late 2007, Mr. Kambakhsh, 24, was charged with blasphemy after he allegedly disrupted classes with questions about women's rights in Islamic society. He was also said to have illegally distributed an article he printed from the Internet, asking why Islam does not give women equal rights, and to have added three paragraphs to the article himself, one of which read: "This is the real face of Islam. ... The prophet Mohammed wrote verses of the holy [Koran] just for his own benefit."

Another rationale for the war in Afghanistan was improving the situation for women. From what I've read, that only has happened in Kabul.

This is absolutely offensive. It is morally reprehensible to make a victimless action like blasphemy into a "crime."

What are we doing in Afghanistan? What are the goals for the expanded number of US troops being sent there? What will be done about the corruption and religious extremism in Afghanistan? Is there going to be any serious effort to rebuild Afghanistan after decades of war? (There hasn't been any real rebuilding in Iraq in spite of all the money being sent to war profiteers for "rebuilding projects.")