…were the words of Kelly Thomas as he was harassed and beaten by two police officers. He died of his injuries in the hospital. I couldn’t watch the video –had to stop it at 3:12 .
They were so far out of line up to that point it is mindboggling how they could NOT be found guilty of violating this man’s Fourth Amendment rights. Never mind that he was mentally challenged. And homeless.
The war on the poor continues….
Reclaim Reform (Ken Previti) has this up on the Chicago Teachers Union’s new IPO….the solution isn’t with those wearing Democrat or Republican Masks whom are in reality corporate employees…but with us.
God bless Karen Lewis and the CTU.
In what could be called the Billionaires’ News Service, Ariana Huffington and Bill Gates, amongst other billionaires, want to control even more of the media message….er, I mean, news…
…and this, my friends, is why we need the Fairness Doctrine. This is why we need a break up of the monopoly of the press and media by the 1%–they already have their voices heard, over and over. They were able to sell the Iraq War through their monopoly of the news outlets–radio, paper, TV–as we saw in the previous blog on Iraq Veterans against the War. It was scripted without so much as one critical media reporter…oh, wait, Phil Donahue was critical…and he was fired. The more that media is concentrated, the less independent voices are heard. If we had the media we had in the 60s and 70s, there would have been more investigating of WMD’s, and less cheerleading by the talking heads.
The Guardian link, has a little more detail. Keep in mind that the Guardian has also joined forces with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation… further concentrating Gates’ media messaging…
A side note~~A commenter on the commondreams site has this link up**. Wow. If this is true, it opens up yet another can of worms of falsifying evidence to get us into yet another war….
And the questions begin: Why did Scahill and Jones refuse to share a stage with Mother Marian? If Scahill is as good as investigative reporter that he is reported to be, then why would he not investigate the accusations against Mother Marian? Why did he not seek her out to get her side of the story? This is all just mindboggling.
**also note that the author writes articles published in Huffington Post.
…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….
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.
The women of Idle No More tried to hold a Native American dance in the Mall of America, which promptly had them arrested. I kid you not.
123 years after Wounded Knee, and they’re still objecting to the Native Americans dancing.
What is the harm in that? I thought it was quite moving.
They won’t even give her the respect of telling her a valid reason why they can’t be there….because they don’t have one…
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.
I’ve always loved the Youngbloods’ Get Together. Fred Klonsky has it up on his post for the continuing fight against raiding pensions.
The nuns flashing the peace sign is priceless. 🙂
Warrior Publications has this up on the curious fact that people opposing the Enbridge pipeline are not the radicals that the Oil industry and the politicos would like you to think.
Like I’ve said before, there are a lot more people in favor of protecting the environment but are afraid to be categorized as terrorists or radicals, so they remain silent. It really came home to me when I wrote an op-ed for my local paper talking about environmental concerns, including GMO labeling. I had people call me and talk to me in person (in a low voice, no doubt so no one else could hear the conversation) about how they agreed with me. But they didn’t take that next step and write their own op-ed on how they, too, wanted to protect the environment.
The oil industry and others have done a bang up job of portraying *all* environmentalists as radical, violent people….when only a small number of people have done things that are disagreeable to the rest. And I’m sure there were agent provocateurs amongst the violent ones.
The following isn’t related to the environmental protests, but it is helpful in understanding that it isn’t paranoia on the part of protestors:
The opening quote is an understatement. (love the mural, too)
Of course, the people want peace–it’s the politicians and war profiteers who want war. Most of the people in the world just want to live in peace…raise their families…earn a living…follow their own paths….
…but then you get to the end of the article…<sigh>….well, baby steps towards Peace…but I’ll take it.
Eagle 
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