Category Archives: defense contractors

Gov. Pence wants to give $1 billion to businesses

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…in the form of a tax break…by eliminating property taxes for businesses.

From the article:

An analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency determined that if the tax were eliminated, schools and cities in Lake County would lose $74.2 million, Porter County $14 million and LaPorte County $7.2 million. That’s about the same annual impact as property tax caps, which have decimated government services in all three counties.

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I can smell ALEC all over this push to eliminate taxes for the wealthiest while putting more of the burden on the middle class and poor, if they try to make it up through sales tax.

And then there’s the continued assault on Glenda Ritz’ authority as a duly elected official who got more votes than Pence.  (Indeed, they were practically begging people to attend his inauguration.  A website reported that 1500 people attended his inauguration….I’m betting that 1,000 were homeless people given $20 to be there. Or perhaps state workers threatened with their jobs if they didn’t attend. /snark)  I also tried to access the site that lists Pence’s contributors for his inauguration day–the website was listed as suspicious!  Nope, not going to risk that.

Anyway, here we are still under the death grip of the Koch brothers and neocon toadies….

Slave Labor to fight fires

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So now the prison system is using prisoners to fight wildfires…for $1 an hour, and that’s if they’re lucky.  Others have received only 50 cents an hour.  This is just wrong on so many levels.

And, as someone noted in the comments, it fits right in with for-profit schools, for-profit security state, for-profit healthcare, etc., with forcing people to work for slave wages, so the 1% can make even more profits.  Disgusting.

This is what was happening with the mental health system before reform–they were forcing folks to work without pay.  While I do think that having something to do and learning a trade is valuable, it must be fair and paid with decent wages.

 

 

Label the FDA

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Occupy Monsanto has this up on the ongoing efforts to get GMO food labeled.  A shareholder has proposed labeling, but the board has rejected that.  (no surprise there)

They are having an event this week to bring attention to the FDA ignoring the public’s wishes for labeling.

No More

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Jeff Nguyen has a blog up featuring Eddie Vedder’s song “No More”.

God bless Phil Donahue— still fighting the good fight.  I grew up watching Donahue and he opened my world.  He talked about subjects that were taboo.  He asked intelligent questions.  I loved the “live” aspect of his shows where callers could call in to add to the story.

It was a sad day when his show was no more.  And even sadder that he was fired from MSNBC for speaking out against the Iraq war.

 

NSA: It’s worse than we thought

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I hope you’re sitting down, because this is going to blow you away.

An interactive graphic from Der Spiegel explains that this tool is a part of NSA’s ANT division that the agency developed so it can see and hear what is happening in a room “without having to actually install radio-signal-emitting bugging devices in them.”

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…and you thought that mercury poisoned folk like myself were crazy for saying that EMF’s bothered us greatly.  When I was sicker, I could not talk on a cell phone for an hour, or I would become ill with a migraine.  EMF’s from the classroom smartboard/computer/wand make me ill.

And as far as the radiated beams causing cancer…well, that is a stone in the gravel pit.  The NSA is running amok with nobody reining them in or following anything that looks like our Constitution…

Oh, and in case you missed it–they’re also intercepting laptops bought online and installing spyware on them. Yep.

….because we got to get the boogeyman.

We got to get the boogeyman.

I wonder about this and those birds falling out of the sky.  More here.

Education News and the postal service

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Raginghorseblog has a good riddance message to “if-you’re-poor-blame-God” Mayor Bloomberg.

Mercedes Schneider has a post up here on New Years and here on AFT Myths–really good blog on the myths and debunking them with pointed questions.

As I thought about the profiteers circling around public education, the postal service popped into my head.  They actually made a profit last year, but you wouldn’t know it by theBush Administration’s demanding they pay into retirement funds for people not even born yet…

…it suddenly occurred to me that not only are the profiteers going after public education and other social programs, the postal service is also a target for a couple of reasons:  a) strong union–gotta break those unions; and  b) public service efficiently run but could be run more *cough* efficiently.  Or, in other words ::damn, look at the golden opportunity to make some bucks while delivering crappy service…::  and, finally, c) postal workers make pretty good money….so they gotta get rid of them!

See…they can’t portray the postal carriers like teachers and say that they are not doing their job because, well, the mail gets delivered in a reasonable time with good rates through wind and rain and dark of night. They had to come up with some other way to bankrupt them and make it look like it was their fault, see?  Hence, we have the nonsense of paying for people that aren’t even born….making it look like they can’t make a profit or be self-sufficient…then the neocons/neolibs cry foul and trot out the overused sob story that the postal service is costing taxpayers money!  Not exactly.  They are funded by Congress for $100 million to deliver service to the blind and Americans overseas.  Otherwise, they are funded by stamps and other services the public pays for.

Even more astounding is that the postal service made a profit in this economy.  Now that’s impressive!

Preppers versus Tradition

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Granny Miller has a post up on the curious phenomenon of preppers.

 

I am positively revolted by the survivalist perception and belief that somehow there will not be enough food, water, clothing, shelter and goodness and humanity to go around when “the collapse” comes.

…wisdom from the elders….

( TEOTWAWKI = The end of the world as we know it.  TSHTF= the sh*t hits the fan.)

 

123 years after Wounded Knee massacre

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Warrior Publications has a blog up on the massacre at Wounded Knee.

As I look at the photo of the mass grave, it is a shocking picture too similar to the Jews in Nazi Germany camps.

Something that is really important to know—these Native Americans had laid down their guns.  They had given all their weaponry to the calvary in what they thought was a truce…

…and then they were fired upon…

Unarmed men, women, and children gunned down…

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Warrior Publications also has this up on Carter Camp, of the 1973 Wounded Knee siege.   Treaty after treaty had been broken, and the Native Americans were asserting their right to exist, their right to practice their spirituality–which had been outlawed–and their right to their land.  They were protesting the war-like atmosphere created by Dick Wilson, whom thought of the traditional American Indians as “communists” .  He terrorized the traditionals.

The movie Thunderheart is loosely based on the events at Wounded Knee.  (Pay close attention to the bartender in one of the scenes–Crosby, Stills, and Nash fans will see a familiar face. 🙂

On the message board under portrayal of elders, a commenter talks about Grandpa Reaches being their favorite character in the movie–he was a medicine man, but not full of himself, not holier-than-thou.  He was the genuine deal.

Another commenter was commenting on the scene where Grandpa’s TV and ancient sacred turtle rattle are destroyed–they were trying to explain to someone why Grandpa would be upset about them breaking his TV, but not the sacred rattle.

It struck me odd, too, but trying to think as the Native Americans do about possessions, perhaps it was supposed to be a “letting go” of possessions such as the rattle, because it, too, could be replaced?  Or perhaps Grandpa Reaches thought that the rattle represented connection with the Creator, but he didn’t need an object because he was always connected?  I don’t know the answer, but it’s a good question.

They also talked about what Grandpa Reaches gave Ray Levoi for his sunglasses.  I thought it was probably a stone that Grandpa had blessed?

Anyway, I hope I haven’t given too much away to anyone who hasn’t seen it but wishes to–a really good movie full of twists and historical value.

An Educator for Chancellor…what a concept…

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Bill de Blasio better check with ole’ slick Willy and Hilly to rethink his choice for Chancellor.   He must be mistaken, because Bill, Hillary, Michelle Rhee, Eli Broad, and Bill Gates don’t approve of actual educators being involved in…you know…education administration.  De Blasio obviously didn’t get the memo that he needs to appoint an investment banker, technology terrorist, or some other profiteer to run the schools.  /very snarky