I really should stay away from a website for partisan, conservative Democrats like the DailyKos. It's like Free Republic for people who like jackasses better than rogue elephants. However, curiosity got the better of me, and I went there for the first time in over a year tonight.

Shit, it's still really nasty!

I was upset, but not surprised at a really racist blog posting defending Obama's decision to keep slaughtering the Iraqi people.

The first words by "SusanG," the author were particularly disturbing.

Welcome words from President Barack Obama as he laid out his plan before an audience of U.S. Marines at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina this morning, according to his prepared remarks.

The announcement of Obama's decision to keep slaughtering the Iraqi people were "welcome words"????? Never mind the fact that the August 2010 date quoted from Obama earlier in the blog posting that was is a flat out lie. He plans on keeping 50,000 troops in Iraq until at least the end of 2011. All foreign troops in Iraq are combat troops, and all of them will be used to subjugate, oppress, and kill the Iraqi people.

This was indicative of the overall tone of the posting that acted as if it was perfectly OK to slaughter Arabs until 2011, or perhaps forever.

The comments didn't exactly improve my impression of the Daily Kos either. One comment that was less than subtle in its racism, was made by "57andFemale."

I've been annoyed at the left, particularly Rachel Maddow, who made the 50,000 number THE number because she was pissed about the two months' difference.

Criticism is fine. A decent debate on all issues -- great. But when we slant things to the other side, that's where I draw the line. When we make things more difficult than they need to be -- that's just childish. And dangerous. We have enough enemies out there. We can criticize and engage in debate without doing excessive damage to our president and the causes we hold dear.

Two months difference means thousands if not tens of thousands more Iraqis slaughtered. Keeping fifty thousand occupiers in Iraq will result in the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis, perhaps hundreds of thousands. Caring about their lives is "childish"??? Maybe it might seem that way to a particularly anti-Arab, racist pig.

Over 1.3 million Iraqis have been killed in this war, and this bigot acts like it's all one silly game.

Racist wingnuttery wasn't the only bigoted nonsense. Some of the comments went off on misogynistic and heterosexist attacks on Rachel Maddow and the entire queer community. "gwb" was particularly disgusting.

She made it a point to say ,before she had a show,that she wasnt an Obama fan.She raged for a couple weeks as I understand it, after Obama's choice of preacher for the invocation which was personal and unprofessional on her part.Her tone is nasty at times when talking about Obama and she's always trying to get Democrats from congress to critisize him.I think Claire may have finally figured her out but I dont watch anymore so she mat still come on her show.Bringing up Wright was outragous and very telling on her part.Now,I think those of you who think a pundit should tell it as they see it have a huge point but she's being devious and frankly obvious and I believe somewhat dangerous since its possible she could,in the worst case, send voters to a Nader type in 2012.

This is sickening. Rick Warren has devoted much of his life to promoting bigtory, discrimination, and violence against women and queers. His support of the Iraq war is racist genocide. There is nothing "unprofessional" about criticizing Obama's de facto endorsement of Warren's heinous actions. It should also be pointed out that Warren is a totalitarian theocrat who has ordered his flock to emulate the behavior of Hitler and Lenin.

Some commenters did defend Rachel Maddow on other grounds, but no one condemned the hateful and bigoted notion that women and queers should shut up and take it when we experience abusive behavior from Barack Obama.

You might say that the blog shouldn't be blamed for the commenters, but the DailyKos is a highly censored web community. People who speak out too much against rightist Democrats or who express liberal views too often are routinely kicked off. Anybody who is allowed to keep commenting can not stray far from the party line.

It will be a long time before I go back. If I'm sensible, I'll never visit the Daily Kos again. This posting was sadly typical of the bigotry and wingnuttery that used to irritate the heck out of me. It reminds me of the misogynistic attacks against Cindy Sheehan because she ran against Nancy Pelosi, a bloodthristy, rightist, homphobic, transphobic, pro-bankster, war mongering Republican posing as a Democrat.

The Daily Kos is as hopeless as ever. If all Democrats really were like the bigoted, rightist Phonycrats at the Daily Kos, it would be time to vote party line Green.

I am so sick of the corporate media lying and saying that Kos is a "liberal blog." Trying to put these conservatives at the left end of the political spectrum is a typical corporate effort to narrowly limit the range of political debate.

 

I just checked Google Blog Search, and my blog posting was the leading one on Obama's Iraq plan, at least for a fleeting moment. Obama's Iraq plan was the second most prominent story on the blogsearch. As is generally the case with pictures in Blogger, you can click on the image below to see this blog's temporary moment in the spotlight in its full glory.



Of course, the issues in the actual blog posting are more important than this bit of self promotion.

 

Barack Obama has broken his most important campaign promise. He has pushed an even smaller withdrawal out to 20 months, instead of the larger withdrawal promised in 16. Given our economic crises, we need to get all of our troops out of the war on Iraq ASAP. We cannot afford to divert hundreds of billions of dollars to destroying another company's economy and slaughtering its people.

Instead, President Obama wants to keep 50,000 US troops there to oppress and slaughter the Iraqi people, while doing even more damage to their infrastructure and economy. That's just plain crazy. Even worse, he wants very few US troops taken out this year.

This year, our economy is in shambles. We need to boost our economy now by ending the war and getting our troops out in a few weeks. We don't need to continue the costly occupation, especially under these circumstances.

Dennis Kucinich expresses his views on the subject. He's going too easy on Obama, but at least he is saying something. The MSNBC media shill is doing everything she can to protect parent company GE's war profiteering.



We need to do more to oppose the Iraq War. We need the peace movement to get more focused on Iraq, instead of trying to win every issue on its long list in face of a hostile administration. Over 1.3 million Iraqis have been killed. There need to be massive protests.

Obama is taking a huge personal risk to support an illegal war. The facts are that the war on Iraq is a war of aggression and an act of genocide. These are war crimes under international law. If Obama doesn't get all of our troops out of Iraq ASAP, he will be subject to criminal prosecution in any country in the world for the rest of his life, just like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gates, and General Betray Us.

 

It's not Earth shattering, but it's the first pro-lgbt thing the President has done. (From the Left let me know about this, but I think the Gay People's Chronicle writeup is clearer than the UN Watch posting cited.)

The Obama administration supports a United Nations declaration seeking worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality, reversing a position taken by George W. Bush at the end of his term.

...

Homosexuality is banned by law in 80 countries and punishable by death in at least six. Sodomy laws criminalizing gay sex were considered constitutional in the U.S. until 2003.

...

The new administration, however, changed the U.S. position when the same wording was presented again by France at the Durban II Review Conference in Geneva, Switzerland on February 18. The measure condemns “all forms of discrimination and all other human rights violations based on sexual orientation.”

Last week’s meeting was preparation for a larger United Nations conference for world leaders and human rights organizations to evaluate progress on goals set in 2001 to eliminate racism and xenophobia.

United States participation in the conference is, itself, a departure from the foreign policy of the Bush administration. Conservatives in the U.S. and Israel are protesting it.

...

The effort failed, however. Opposing it were the nations that the Bush administration joined with in December, including the Vatican, China, Egypt, Nigeria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Botswana, Iran, Algeria, Syria, and South Africa on behalf of the African Group of nations. They succeeded in keeping any reference to human rights violations on the basis of sexual orientation out of the conference.

South Africa argued that sexual orientation “goes beyond the framework of the 2001 Durban declaration.”

South Africa's position is interesting, given that there are far greater lgbt protections in its constitution than even in statute law here in the US. They must have deferred to the other members of the African group.

This reversal of position by the new administration is nice, though it doesn't make up for Obama's policy of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in Cabinet level appointments. It certainly doesn't come close to making up for involving a dangerous, heterosexist, misogynist, religious extremist like Rick Warren in the inauguration.

We'll have to see which is more representative of Obama's future direction. So far, he gets a C- on queer issues.

 

Cheap Chocolate Day happens a few times a year, but the one after the pagan holiday of Eastre is the best. The bird's nests candies usually have yummy coconut.

Isn't it funny how all the cool things about the holiday (egg hunts, chocolate bunnies, and looking forward to spring) are Pagan?

Happy Cheap Chocolate Day to all!

 

 

You may or may not be aware of the legal troubles facing Joe Bruno, who once was the most powerful Gopper in Albany. (Capital News 9 2/12/09)

It appears former Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno will stand trial this fall on federal corruption charges. A U.S. District Court judge has set a trial date of Nov. 2.

Bruno was indicted last month on eight counts of fraud. The US Attorney's Office said he took advantage of his position to collect millions of dollars from private consulting firms in exchange for his influence and support.

You may not know that he is strongly tied to Sen. Kirsten "Gun Nut" Gillibrand. From TPM Muckraker 1/27/09:

What's the connection? It turns out that, though Bruno and Gillibrand are from different parties, that indictment could end up bringing some unwanted publicity to New York's new senator. That's because, though it's remained largely under the press's radar, a business deal between Bruno and Gillibrand's father, Doug Rutnik, was a partial focus of the federal probe that culminated with Friday's indictment.

Let's back up:

By most accounts, Rutnik, a well-connected Albany Republican lobbyist and power-broker, has been the prime architect and fund-raiser for Gillibrand's political career.

Rutnik is tight with just about every powerful Republican in the state, including former governor George Pataki, and former senator Al D'Amato -- in whose office Gillibrand got her start as an intern, before running for Congress as a Democrat.

Rutnik is also close with Bruno. In fact, as the Albany Times-Union (via Nexis) has reported, in the 1990s, Rutnik and another lobbyist, James Featherstonhaugh, bought hundreds of acres of isolated swampland in New York's Rensselaer County, which they planned to develop. Bruno and his brother ultimately invested in the venture, known as the First Grafton Corporation.

Tom Robbins of the Village Voice wrote an excellent expose back in January on Ms. Gillbrand's father's political machine.

Kirsten Gillibrand has all of two years in elective office. Like Kennedy, she also hails from Democratic royalty. In her case, it's the Albany branch, where self-service precedes public service. Her father is a veteran political fixer and lobbyist. His connections stem from his fabulous mother-in-law, Polly Noonan, longtime "confidante" and presumed mistress to one of the most corrupt mayors in state history. Erastus Corning 2nd ruled Albany for more than 40 years, most of the time enhancing his family's fortunes while dodging grand juries. In 1972, when the state investigation commission looked at how graft and cost-plus contracts had inflated city expenses hundreds of times over, it called Corning's Albany "the worst-run county in America."

"Rastus" Corning loved Douglas Rutnik, Gillibrand's dad, so much that when the mayor died in 1983, he left him a politician's most sentimental and precious assets: his insurance company and his shotgun. "There's no question I was like a substitute son for him," Rutnik told Paul Grondahl, Corning's biographer. The shotgun was from the hours the two spent together shooting small birds. The insurance firm was the result of a lifetime of favor collection: Its clients included all the saloon owners, contractors, and manufacturers who understood that the way to thrive in Albany was to buy your coverage from Corning. When Corning helped Nelson Rockefeller build the capitol's vast South Mall, every tradesman made sure the mayor's firm wrote his insurance. Corning's own wife and children were so outraged when he left the company to Rutnik and the Noonans that they sued to win it back. They lost.

The substitute son embraced the surrogate father's lessons: His law firm became the faithful instrument of the city's political leaders, rising to the occasion for electoral challenges, foreclosures, and any needed influence-peddling. Democrat or Republican, he did not discriminate. He grew close to the GOP's rising star, Alfonse D'Amato, and even closer to D'Amato's tough-talking aide, Zenia Mucha. After D'Amato successfully steered George Pataki into the governor's mansion, Mucha went along as part of the deal. She and Rutnik bought a lovely home together in Colonie, the Albany suburb.

His lobbying clients quickly prospered: Defense giant Lockheed Martin won a $50 million state contract, and another $95 million deal from the MTA. Morgan Stanley paid $10,000 a month for his wisdom on state bond sales. Altria—née Philip Morris—kept him on a $100,000-a-year retainer to help ward off curbs on its cancer-spawning business.

Gillibrand isn't just a bloodthirsty, warmongering gun nut. She is part of a corrupt political machine.

 

The militant, Christian fundamentalists at the so-called "Parents Television Council" (PTC) are in a tizzy. This time, they are upset that a federal court has struck down an unconstitutional California law banning the sale of violent video games to children. From the PTC's press release:

LOS ANGELES (February 23, 2009) – In response to the Ninth Circuit Federal Court ruling that struck down a California law designed to prevent the sale of adult video games to minors, the Parents Television Council™ has called on its members to voice their support for CA State Sen. Leland Yee’s call for the decision to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Sen. Yee was the author of the legislation, which passed the California State legislature in 2005. This law was later shot down due to the video game industry’s lawyers. CA Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appealed, and the Ninth Circuit Court issued its ruling, saying that the law violates the rights of minors under the Constitution’s First and 14th amendments.

“Let’s be clear on what – exactly – is going on here: The video game industry has established a policy to ‘protect’ children from a harmful product, yet they file lawsuit after lawsuit to oppose any enforcement of that same policy. And they base their legal argument on a child’s ‘right’ to purchase the very product that they openly admit should not be purchased by a child. This is the most outrageous example of a non sequitur that I’ve ever seen, and the result is a tragic consequence on America’s children,” said PTC President Tim Winter.

It should surprise no one that the Christian Right considers constitutional rights a "non sequitur." The Christian Taliban hates the constitution and everything else America stands for. Nothing less than a totalitarian theocracy will satisfy them.

What is interesting is the contrast between the fundamentalists' objections to violent video games and their fanatical, uncompromising support of a war on Iraq that has resulted in over 1.3 million Iraqis being slaughtered and additional deaths of more than 4000 US troops. It should raise some serious questions.

It is apparent that the Christian Right doesn't object to the video games in question because they are too violent. They object to the games because they don't see them as violent enough. It's not enough for the Christian Taliban to have people pretending to shoot each other.

The Christian extremists aren't satisfied unless people are actually being shot for real, given the conditions that the slaughtered are not Christian and that they have brown skin.

Fundamentalist hypocrisy is an easy target. It's as ubiquitous as ads trying to get you to switch your cable to FIOS or Rupert Murdoch's Direct TV. Equally common is the violent fanaticism of the Christian Right. That subject has been taboo in the corporate media for far too long.

 

It's so disgusting to see that the European Union has a lot more balls/ovaries in terms of enforcing antitrust laws against Microsoft, a company that should have been broken up years ago. However, this goes way beyond keeping up with people across the Atlantic. Merger mania and too large corporations are a serious economic problem.

I've added a new item for My Economic Recovery Plan:

5) Start busting the trusts: There needs to be far greater enforcement of our antitrust laws and legislation closing loopholes sleazy corporate lawyers and conservative judges have created. Legislation should also give consumer groups and unions standing in court to sue to block mergers. The number of lawyers involved in antitrust work at the Dept. of Justice should be expanded dramatically. Mergers inevitably lead to job losses, job losses our economy cannot afford. Also, when any company is "too big to fail," it is just plain too big and needs to be broken up.

There is another reason for supporting antitrust reform. The original trust busters weren't merely concerned with the lack of consumer and employer choices that monopolies (then known as "trusts") bring. They also had seen a deterioration of our nation's democratic character as a small number of wealthy owners of a smaller number of huge corporations had hugely disproportionate power over our political and cultural life.

Sound familiar?

Good old fashioned trust busting will strengthen our economy while helping to restore our nation's civic life.

Side note: My economic recovery plan also has been altered to include unions taking over management of the automakers. It was an idea I had previously promoted on this blog, but forgot about. Thanks to Tengrain for reminding me about that idea.

 

It's also a ripoff of working Americans.

From an SEIU press release 2/17/09:

WASHINGTON - February 17 - As Congress and the Obama administration look to hold major banks that have received billions in federal bailout funds better accountable for their corporate practices, a report released today by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) on Goldman Sachs and its holdings in Burger King finds that the true total of taxpayer subsidies some of the banks are enjoying extends well beyond the monies they've taken through the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP).

The report finds that one of Goldman Sachs' major investments, Burger King, costs taxpayers more than a quarter billion dollars a year as Burger King employees are forced to rely on public health and income support programs as a result of the lack of affordable employer health coverage and sub-poverty wage levels at Burger King.

Meanwhile, Burger King chief executive John Chidsey took home $5.4 million in 2008 and Goldman Sachs accepted $10 billion in taxpayer bailout money ¾ then paid out $6.5 billion in bonuses. Goldman paid the highest per employee bonus average among top banks reporting so far, and the firm's bonuses were nearly double the average bonus on Wall Street. If Goldman Sachs had used the $6.5 billion it paid in corporate bonuses to help Burger King's 360,000 workers instead, each worker would have received $18,000.

"The misuse of tax dollars we're seeing now by some of the bailed-out banks is no one-shot deal," said SEIU President Andy Stern. "Year in and year out companies that can easily afford to improve health care and wages for workers simply aren't doing so and are making taxpayers pick up the public assistance tab instead. It's drain on our economy we can't afford ignore any longer."

A previous SEIU report on another bailout recipient, Bank of America, found similar evidence of employment costs being shifted to taxpayers ¾ up to $50 million a year because Bank of America workers lack affordable employer health benefits.

Service workers held a protest today outside Burger King headquarters in Miami to call on Burger King and Goldman Sachs to stop opposing efforts to rebuild the economy through improvements for workers while taking billions of dollars from taxpayers and rewarding CEOs and corporate staff. Additional public outreach on the issue will take place throughout the week this week at Burger King restaurants in other cities around the country.

While costing taxpayers billions, both Burger King and Goldman Sachs are fighting legislation in the U.S. Congress that could help all workers and the overall economy by broadly increasing consumer purchasing power. Between 2006 and 2008 Burger King has spent $319,648 on lobbying, including lobbying against the Employee Free Choice Act, a measure that would ensure workers the freedom to form a union for a voice for improved wages, benefits, and working conditions. Burger King also spent $180,000 to hire lobbyists to fight pro-worker legislation, including an increase in the minimum wage in 2006 and 2007.

Goldman Sachs is involved in lobbying against workers' interests as a member of the Business Roundtable, which spent $15,849,000 on lobbying in 2008 according to the Center for Responsive Politics, including lobbying against the Employee Free Choice Act in the third and fourth quarters last year.

With the food service industry, including fast food, expected to add one million new jobs to the economy between 2006 and 2016, the SEIU report "King Size Combo: What Burger King and Goldman Sachs Are Costing Our Country" looks at a wide range of worker and consumer issues at Burger King to gain perspective on the potential import of the growing fast food sector for the broader U.S. economy.

The SEIU report concludes that in addition to assuring sound banking practices on Wall St., Goldman Sachs must take responsibility for its important economic holdings on Main St., such as Burger King. The report recommends that regulators should demand that bailout recipients stimulate the economy by increasing lending and by committing to living wages, affordable health benefits, freedom for workers to choose to form unions (the Employee Free Choice Act), and other consumer and worker protections.

For a copy of the report, please visit http://action.seiu.org/bk. To see Brave New Films' newly released video about business practices at Burger King and the Goldman Sachs connection, please visit http://www.warongreed.org/ .

The more you know about the banksters, the more you realize that our country needs to crack down on them.

 

In my comments on a post on Mock Paper Scissors, I suggested some positive ideas for helping to get us out of the mess we are in. I thought I would elaborate on them here. So many people are in panic mode, when what we need to be in is action mode. I encourage other liberal and progressive bloggers to make their own proposals on how to get us out of this mess.

1) Raise taxes on the rich and use the money for jobs programs, especially ones which would provide long term benefits for the economy. The Stimulus Plan had some public works spending, but nowhere near enough. Two examples include:

- A massive expansion of our nation's public transport systems: Even NYC is underserved by its subway system, and we have it better than most. Expanding mass transit nationwide, especially fuel efficient rail transit, would prevent future economic problems by reducing Global Warming, cutting back on trade deficits, and reducing obesity . (Public transit encourages more physical activity than car culture.)

- The Gulf Coast Civil Works Project: Due to corruption, racism, and incompetence, the Gulf Coast region still hasn't even come close to recovering from Katrina and Rita. The GCCW would fund the reconstruction of this region and employ displaced people to do it. This is the kind of common sense approach that is long overdue. Here's an Action Alert to support it.

2) Pass legislation to fire all the CEOs at the struggling banks and automakers. The legislation also should nullify the golden parachutes. A major reason why these companies are failing is bad management. The CEOs need to be removed in order to improve the idiotic directions they have taken their companies in. In the auto industry, the unions should be put in charge. They have pushed for fuel efficient vehicles for decades and they have more incentive to promote long term sustainability over short term profits.

3) Freeze interest rates on Adjustable Rate Mortgages. Given that interest rates have been low, there is no excuse for the interest rates of so many Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs) to be jumping so astronomically. These predatory lending practices are making people homeless, destroying home equity, and bankrupting the banks led by the idiot banksters responsible for them.

4) Withdraw all troops from Iraq ASAP, ending a diversion of US resources to the destruction of another country’s economy.

5) Start busting the trusts: There needs to be far greater enforcement of our antitrust laws and legislation closing loopholes sleazy corporate lawyers and conservative judges have created. Legislation should also give consumer groups and unions standing in court to sue to block mergers. The number of lawyers involved in antitrust work at the Dept. of Justice should be expanded dramatically. Mergers inevitably lead to job losses, job losses our economy cannot afford. Also, when any company is "too big to fail," it is just plain too big and needs to be broken up.

This also applies to breaking up Microsoft. If not for the corruption of the Bush regime, the Redmond blue screen of death generators would have been broken up into several companies under our antitrust laws. This still needs to happen. Our economy is damaged by Microsoft's use of anticompetitive tactics to make its low quality products market dominant. Our economic productivity is too important to allow Microsoft to get away with this.

I'll be updating this post when I read about other good proposals or think up ones of my own.