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Four Detroit police officers shot inside precinct (Detroit News 1/23/11)
Police: At least 4 people shot outside Walmart in Washington state (CNN 1/23/11)
When is this country going to face reality and ban private gun ownership? How many more people are going to have to be robbed, raped, and murdered before we do?
The corporate media have been working overtime to try to keep the far right from being held accountable for their role in the Arizona shootings. They have used every propaganda trick they can think of to keep people from thinking sensibly and rationally about the facts.
One of my least favorite tricks has been to dismiss the shooter as "mentally ill." This is disturbing on so many levels. The huge majority of mentally ill people inflict no harm on anyone. Yet, corporate media spin doctors want us to believe that mental illness is an automatic explanation for any bizarre act of violence. The goal is that we look no further. Considering the reality of the behavior of mentally ill people in this country, there is something flawed at the core in assuming that mental illness is sufficient to explain any killing, especially a highly political shooting spree primarily intended to assassinate a member of Congress.
There's another obvious problem with this whole narrative. Of the small minority of mentally ill people who have violent tendencies, can it even be reasonably suggested that those people don't have political views? Are politics the exclusive venue of the sane?
Obviously, that's a crock of shit. Someone can be dangerously mentally ill and at the same time be motivated by a far right point of view or the exhortations of a far right politician.
Some on the left have criticized the right for blaming mental illness exclusively at the same time the right continues its crusade to cut government services for the mentally ill. That's reasonable as far as it goes, but it misses the broader analysis that needs to be made.
Swiped mercilessly from From the Left:
Lady Bunny is doing some of the best satire in the country.
Hat Tip: Jesus Fetus Fajita Fishsticks
For the first few seconds of this, I thought it was an SNL parody. I do have one question. Does homophobia make people stupid or does stupidity make people homophobic?
From the CBS Sacramento website 1/21/11:
Santa Ana police were called at 7 a.m. about threatening graffiti on Greenville Street north of Alton Avenue, Santa Ana police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said.
The graffiti read, “We gonna kill Gov. Brown 2 14 11,” Bertagna said.
Between 2:15 p.m. and 2:30 p.m., a Santa Ana police officer saw more threatening graffiti at 1700 W. Segerstrom Ave., Bertagna said.
The vandal spray-painted in red, “27 more days 4 Brown” and included a swastika, Bertagna said, adding someone later painted over the red “7″ with a black “6″ as if it were a countdown.
Instead of doing sensible and productive things to reduce deficits like ending the Iraq and Afghanistan wars or making their wealthy donors pay their fair share in taxes, House Republicans are proposing slashing federal spending that benefits the middle class and the poor.
Desperate to prove just how much they are bought and paid for by Big Oil, the Goppers want to eliminate $1.565 billion in annual Amtrak subsidies. The Goppers, hoping that people are ill informed, I'm sure will claim that Amtrak should be able to survive on its own.
But, they have no interest in making automobile transit pay its way. In addition to direct subsidies to that form of transit, most of our military spending goes to securing oil for the car culture and the Big Oil vultures that benefit financially from it. Those subsidies are in the hundreds of billions of dollars, which make the tiny Amtrak subsidy a mere pittance. None of the military budget subsidy of oil is on the chopping block.
And, Amtrak reduces our CO2 emissions, while Big Oil and the cars they love increase them. The Republicans are mostly Global Warming denialists, but that is hardly surprising. Big campaign checks from Big Oil and Big Coal make sure of that.
The attack on Amtrak is part of the bigger pay for play culture in DC. We need change to public financing of political campaigns. A big first step for that to happen is to have a judiciary honest enough to acknowledge the obvious fact that big money campaign contributions are not "speech."
They are bribes.
Lieberman Will Not Run for Re-election
There is more good news. Get this from the NY Times blog posting referenced above.
But Linda McMahon, the wealthy pro-wrestling tycoon who spent $50 million on an unsuccessful Senate race last year, has already signaled she may run again in 2012.
1. Don't Let Bought Politicians in Congress End EPA's Regulation of CO2 Emissions
Many politicians in the new Congress are threatening to cut EPA funding and to prohibit the EPA from regulating CO2 emissions as required by the Clean Air Act. This shows the pay for play atmosphere in DC, and Big Oil and Big Coal are paying the bills. Friends of the Earth is asking people to do something about this.
Keep the Clean Air Act Intact
The Clean Air Act -- the key existing federal tool to cut the pollution that causes global warming -- is under attack.
Anti-environment, climate-change-denying politicians are aiming to roll back the Clean Air Act as a tool to reduce dangerous climate pollution. We need to remind our representatives that a clean environment should come before the greed of big oil and dirty coal.
Please join us in the fight to save the Clean Air Act by sending your senators a message today.
The Great Bear Rainforest, a global treasure, needs your help now. The Great Bear Rainforest is located on the north coast of British Columbia, Canada and is the largest temperate rainforest left on the planet! It stores the same amount of CO2 produced by 28 million vehicles.
...
Enbridge, the world's largest pipeline company, wants to build a pipeline from the Alberta Tar Sands to the port of Kitimat, B.C., load this crude into huge oil tankers and sail these tankers through the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest and its dangerous waters. Enbridge owns the pipeline that leaked into the Kalamazoo River, Michigan, on June 26, 2010, in which approximately 877,000 gallons (3.4 million litres) ) of crude oil contaminated one of Michigan state's main waterways.
Anybody can Google "Enbridge oil spill history" to see the list of spills already caused by this company. For example,according to the Polaris Institute, an Ottawa advocacy group dedicated to change, Enbridge has a history of oil spills throughout Canada and the U.S.A. In August 2010, Polaris reported that Enbridge has been responsible for 610 oil spills that released more than 5.5 million gallons of oil from 1999 to 2008. Its website states that "The Michigan spill should be a wake up call to those who would allow Enbridge to build 2 pipelines from the Alberta Tar sands to the coast of B.C."
...
People in Canada and around the world, please TAKE ACTION NOW to tell Prime Minister Harper that we want, need and demand legislation to ban oil tankers in the pristine Great Bear Rainforest. Please sign my petition to tell Prime Minister Harper that this legislation is wanted, needed, and demanded to ensure that this Global Treasure, the Great Bear Rainforest, is not threatened by the risk of an oil spill!
I wonder if the corporate media will censor this.
Why isn't Sarah Palin facing a criminal investigation?
This is a national disgrace.
Community Health Systems (CHS) is an incredibly evil corporation that runs for profit hospitals, including Wilkes-Barre General Hospital in Pennsylvania.
(From Labor Notes: 1/12/11)
CHS offers a health care plan that under-insures the individual or family, offering limited coverage and substantial co-pays, deductibles, and coinsurance. This unaffordable plan has already been forced on the non-union employees at the hospital, some of whom have acquired thousands of dollars in health care debt already, even when they are treated in the same hospital in which they work.
This is an example of healthcare cruelty and corruption that permeates our society. We need Medicare for All, not Obama's wealthcare plan for HMOs, health insurers, and Big Pharma. We also need to nationalize all for profit hospitals.
