Category Archives: politics

Dept. of Defense…against Zombies…

by

(A side note~ Hello! to my Russian reader. Glad you’re back and apparently able to access the ‘net again.)

…well, here we go again with the “plan” that won’t die. Pun intended.

You might recall this is an old scenario bordering on ridiculous.  I can’t believe the money spent.

 

The report is short on details–who were the sponsors that paid for this?  If the attendees only paid $1,000 to go, who paid for their hotel rooms? Meals? Flight tickets? Rental cars? Lots of questions here, not a lot of answers.

Nor can I believe the concept that one can kill the undead…how does one do that, anyway?

What they really need are un – brain -dead Dept. of Defense employees who quit looking at life as one big disaster waiting to happen.  And that the American public is the enemy–guilty until proven innocent.

 

Take Action against National Restaurant Association

by

The Mafia, in another form…

Tuesday, May 13, 2014
CONTACT: Nikolina Lazic, nikolina@prwatch.org

TAKE ACTION! TELL CONGRESS TO REJECT THE NRA’S WAGE-CRUSHING AGENDA
   
The National Restaurant Association or the “Other NRA” is a lobbing powerhouse doing the dirty work of many Fortune 500 restaurant corporations like McDonald’s, Darden, and Taco Bell.

NRA is a leader in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) where it has pushed a measure to ban paid leave ordinances at the local level. (they don’t want to give those restaurant workers a day off when they have the flu!) It is a leading opponent of raising the minimum wage in states, helping Oklahoma’s governor ban local paid sick days and minimum wage hikes in one fell swoop! Plus, the NRA has successfully kept the tipped minimum wage at $2.13 since 1991!

Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist, Mark Fiore, takes the Other NRA’s corporate agenda of profits over people to task in his new video, check it at: https://www.youtube.com/embed/hr_crQuzWL4 and then take action below!

Tell your elected officials that you find the NRA’s wage-crushing agenda hard to stomach! http://org2.salsalabs.com/o/7326/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=17255

Take action at: http://org2.salsalabs.com/o/7326/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=17255

———-

CONTACT CMD:

Center for Media and Democracy
409 East Main Street, Suite 100
Madison, Wisconsin 53703-4929
Phone: 608-260-9713
Email: editor@prwatch.org

DONATE: https://org.salsalabs.com/o/632/p/salsa/donation/common/public/?donate_page_KEY=9668

SUBSCRIBE TO THE SPIN: http://www.prwatch.org/sub

Google and the NSA

by

Yasha Levine at Pando Daily has a report on the alarmingly close relationship between Google and the Dept. of Defense.

At first glance, you wonder what all the fuss is about, since Google is a tech company…but as the report flows along, there is a link to this piece by Consumer Watchdog.

From the report:

When   a   deal   between  NASA   and   top   Google   executives   to   use   the   base   was  first  disclosed  in  2007,  it  called  for  only  four  jets  to  use the  base.  
But  newly  released  government  records  show  that  the  Google  executive  0leet  has  now  grown  to  six  jets  and  two   helicopters,   while   at   least   40   Google   employees  hold  security  badges  at  the  base  and  all  of  the  planes  are  supplied  with  Department  of  Defense  jet  fuel.
~~~~~~~~~~
[Italics mine.]
Wow, if ever there were a quid pro quo…supplying Google with expensive jet fuel?  Giving employees security clearance?  And all Google has to do is cooperate with divulging private information in contradiction of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits agencies from intruding into people’s privacy without a court warrant…
…but Google execs are too busy jetsetting to Cannes, Tahiti, and other places of interest…on the taxpayer dime…
Keyhole?  What an apt name for the company…funded by the CIA…that was to become Google Earth.  There’s just something unnerving to see one’s home on the internet for anyone to see.  Keyhole, indeed.
I do find it ironic and slightly amusing that the emails going back and forth from the Google execs and the various gov’t. agencies are being used against them…they seem to forget that their own privacy is abused by the system they created.
As I am reading this, I’m wondering why they would have to use Google at all?  Why is there such a push for privatization, when these services should be from government employees/agencies?  Not that I’m advocating invasion of privacy, mind you, but questioning the privatization movement that gets short term $$ gains by selling off public interests in land and intellectual property that was paid for by public funds.  And, of course, the lack of sunlight when something goes from public to private.
~~~~~As a side note…when I saw Eric Schmidt’s bespectacled face…I got a chill down my spine. Perhaps it’s because he just looks like a Nazi…and not a true evaluation of him…but there it is.

 

Eating the weeds…

by

…continuing to explore the weeds-are-a-figment-of-your-upbringing theme…

I found this podcast of EarthEats on public radio talking about the redbuds.  It has special significance being here in Indiana.

Who knew that the redbuds were edible?  Not I.

Also, Trader’s Point Creamery of Indiana, sells excellent milk products with their grassfed cows.  Good stuff.

~~~~~

Also, I subscribe to a farmer’s forum and one of the members talked about the “weeds” they harvest.

One of them is plantain.  When I first read that, I thought of the banana-like fruit.  Nope.  It’s that weed that you can’t seem to kill that sprouts all over the place…and after reading this, one wonders what are we thinking–spraying them with poison to eradicate them?

The writer makes a good point about our lack of knowledge and how folks lining up for food banks had an abundance of good food that was free in the form of plantains scattered about.  It’s depressing that we have been brainwashed against the natural world and good nutrition is available at no cost.  The only problem is that unless they know if the plant has been sprayed with chemicals, they could make themselves ill.  In poor neighborhoods, it’s probably a safe bet that those “weeds” have not been sprayed, as keeping up with the Joneses with manicured lawns is not on the top of their list of survival.  But it’s always good to ask if you wish to eat the plant.

On a positive note~it’s also highly likely that they are GMO free, as Monsanto, Dow, et al, would not have a $$ profit incentive since they grow like…weeds.  Heh.

 

Mom pays off Every student’s lunch bill after son denied lunch

by

What kind of cruel person would throw a student’s lunch in the trash because they didn’t have the money to pay?

Does anyone believe Mark Daniel, the superintendent, that there are “policies in place to avoid instances such as these…”?  Me, neither.  Somebody has given permission to that minimum wage cafeteria worker that it is perfectly okay to waste good food to punish a child for the parents’ mistakes.  I don’t know if you can even call it a mistake when this parent is a single Mom working two jobs to take care of her family.  What is missing from this picture, besides compassion…?  The father, who is probably paying very little in support or nothing at all.  My ex only paid one-fifth of his $100k income to support three children.  And he begrudged even that little amount…

There is more to this story, folks, than is being written about here.

And God Bless the mother for her compassion and generosity.  God Bless the son for he learned something through his pain of humiliation.

Diet and Health, via Weston Price **edited

by

A member of the mercury support group posted this link to the Spring Caustic Commentary on the Weston Price Foundation website.

It’s pretty informative for those who are unfamiliar with Weston Price’s work.  He was a dentist who traveled the world, observing the indigenous tribes.  He discovered that they had perfect teeth–no dental decay.  When they became industrialized, and ate a more Western diet, their dental health began to suffer.  Price also observed the changes in mouth structure–before the Western diet, the parents had bright, wide smiles….but the generations afterward had more narrow smiles and misshapened teeth by overcrowding the mouth.  And yet, Western doctors refuse to see the connection between diet and overall health and wellbeing.

**edited to add the link. Geesh.

Leaving children behind…by ignorance…

by

(hat tip to Diane Ravitch and Mercedes Schneider)

This puts a light on the mindset of No Child Left  a Mind…only a politician would say such stupid things like they “don’t want to leave any child behind…” while ignoring the fact that it is child abuse to expect ALL children to be at 100%.  It shows how little they know about education, about children’s individual development, and about humanity in general.

We are not machines.

We are not here to make profits for them.

There is more to education (and life) than remembering facts and spewing them out.  A rich culture and thriving democracy require people with all kinds of creative expression–whether that be through intellect, arts, music, sewing, other crafts.   The marketplace of ideas is a concept for the media, but is true of democracy, as well.  If we all learn the same way with the same information spewed out–we gain very little when in contact with others…we don’t enrich ourselves nor they enrich themselves when we are not encouraged to express ourselves in positive creative ways without constraint.

For politicians to look at No Child Left a Mind as some sort of feather in their cap…shortsighted and delusional is how I would characterize that…

They are closing public schools in poor and minority neighborhoods…just the opposite of what these politicians say they want.  Children are stressed out and crying about testing that requires them to know things that are above their intellectual growth.

…not to mention the $$$ profiteering of Gates, Michael Milken, and the hedge fund managers involved in the scheme of trying to profit off our children.

 

Native Americans burial mounds illegally altered

by

In a glaring passing of the buck, Phyllis Ewing refuses to take responsibility for this.

It’s her subordinates fault, you see…they were just doing things illegally–although she was their boss and had the ultimate responsibility for it.  And the most egregious is even after it was noted that something had gone wrong…this went on for years afterwards.  How dense or unethical can you be?

 

The words of third grader…

by

….only they’re uttered by a leader of a country…or I should say, the state-controlled media…

Actually, the title is an insult to all third graders.  My apologies.

I mean, really…your lack of intellect is showing.  Not only that, but the ad hominem attack only shows that you have nothing of substance against the person you’re attacking.

Classless.

 

Freedom of the Press and Democracy

by

David Swanson has a post up at FDL on James Risen being targeted with threats of jail time if he doesn’t reveal his sources.  Journalists have relied on sources to get information out to the pubic that they would not see otherwise.  It has been the backbone of our press.  Sunlight is the best defense against the dark ones who wish to move about without detection.  Good reporters need their sources and must have the ability to keep their identities secret.  Otherwise, they will not come forward with information that is imperative for a robust democracy.

What is happening to James Risen goes against the intentions of the First Amendment.

I hope you will sign the petition.

 

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

~~~~~~~~

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

From this link.