Category Archives: taxes

Allen Dulles and his brother

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Elliott at firedoglake has this preview of a book salon today at 5:00 p.m. EST.  Wow.  Just listening to the short video just sends the mind reeling….if there were any reason for limiting the power of the defense dept, and especially defense contractors, this is IT.  Dulles had entirely too much power to manipulate situations towards his own personal goals instead of what was best.  And his warped view of what freedom means is just stunning….it’s all about the money.

A wiki entry on JFK and Allen Dulles here.

I’ve read a couple of blogs on JFK and the CIA theories, and Huffpost mentions Senator Hart, who was on the Church Committee to investigate. He put it on the press’ failure to follow up on the witnesses being shot and other leads.  He also states that nobody wants to put this out there because whomever did it is still “out there”.  Well, I don’t know about that particular person or persons, since it was 50 years ago….but yeah, there are still mercenaries born every minute who would just as soon shoot you as look at you.  It’s called courage, Gary, when you speak out even though you’re scared.

Another Presbyterian, Maggie Kuhn, spoke the phrase:  “Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes.”

Funny that she and Allen Dulles could be of the same faith with such opposing views…

Choice-i-fication

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Edushyster has another amusing blog up on the fiasco of schools-as-profit-driven-edumucation-centers for Choice-i-fication. (hat tip Diane Ravitch)

From the Reuters link:

Ahead of elections next year, politicians of all stripes are questioning the role of such firms, accused of putting profits first with practices like letting students decide when they have learned enough and keeping no record of their grades.

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Letting students decide when they’ve learned enough??  Seriously??   They should be hanging their heads in shame for their irresponsibility.   I would have quit my sophomore year in high school if it would have been allowed…things were not going well and it would have been easier to give in.  This is especially true for the young–who don’t have enough experience to determine what is best for them.  For me, I will always regret that I didn’t take the college prep courses in high school.  I could not see that my circumstances might change in the future and I would be able to go to college.  Allowing these young folks to decide when they’ve learned enough is criminal, in my view.

And then there’s the unintended consequence:

Sweden replaced one of the world’s most tightly regulated school systems with one of the most deregulated, leading to scandals like the 2011 case of the convicted paedophile who set up several schools quite legally.

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I have no words.

What I don’t understand is near the end of the article, they say they don’t want to go back to the old way, which left parents with no choice.  WTH?  Given the choice between the new way and the old….I personally would take the old.  For-profit schools are not schools…they are centers for making kids look busy with a poor imitation of knowledge.

Mother Jones: Hypocrisy of Bill and Melinda Gates

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Diane Ravitch has a blog up with a link to Mother Jones article on the hypocrisy of Bill (and Melinda) Gates.   It’s a really great read on how slick Billy operates.

Washington State Judge rules against Charters

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Well, this is welcome news–a judge has ruled that public funds cannot be used for charters under private management.  Yes!!  A win for public schools!

The History of Land Grabs

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This post by Gene Logsdon is powerful.  It’s personal, too, as I thought of losing my home and how devastating that was…

Logsdon mentions the Deserted Village by Oliver Goldsmith; I couldn’t find the exact author Logsdon mentions for the Highland Clearances, but I found this and this that seem to be the same subject.

It was stunning to read Logsdon’s piece on it and how often this has been used as a tool for the wealthy to grab even more for themselves.  I thought back to the years I was growing up and how farmers were portrayed as backwards, slow, less sophisticated…and now I wonder at this being planned..

Feminist scholars made  a connection between the Puritan Salem witch hunts and wealth.  They stated that the women who were hanged were either poor which means low regard in the community, or they were single wealthy women whom owned land.  This was significant then because women could not outright own land–they had to inherit it from their fathers or husbands.  So the women owning land were a huge threat to the status quo.  Land means power…and it came with rights not afforded to the ones without land.

Also, there was a prejudice against the single status of the wealthy women, because women who were married and wealthy were able to escape the noose….while the single ones were not.

The portrayal of farmers as hayseeds, something to look down upon reminded me of what they did with the women after World War II. (as a side note~ I found this amusing blog on the war propaganda.)  It’s really stunning how much public opinion can be swayed against our better instincts and interests.  One of the things I have read from the Depression survivors is that they didn’t go hungry because many were still in the country and could raise their own food.  Now we’re “citified” and don’t have the resources to raise our own food….thereby more dependent on the food stamp program.  Ironic, isn’t it??

In addition, I have to wonder at the web of how much this has contributed to climate change–not only adding more toxins to the environment by industry, but by cutting us off from the land–harder to see how we are destroying the environment when we don’t feel as connected to it, eh?

What they really think of the old

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Fred Klonsky has a Chicago Tribune cartoon depicting retirees as dogs that need to be muzzled.

Kind of says it all, doesn’t it?

Klonsky also has a blog up on Moral Mondays.  Update here.

This from Diane Ravitch on how to starve people so they’ll accept whatever crumbs you feel like giving them…

And in my corner of the world, Glenda Ritz continues to fight for her publicly elected position that received more votes than Pence.

Charter Schools:  it’s all in the family.

…and you want to frack this…?

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Only a heartless person would want to ruin this by fracking….

Reign of Error; Kochs, et al, planning assault on Ed.

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Patrick Walsh has a report up on Reign of Error, by Diane Ravitch.

Oh, and have you heard?  It’s open season on teachers.  The climate that No Child Left a Mind and Race to the Bottom have created—to punish students for not being perfect students and their teachers, who are under tremendous pressures to not have any stupid kids (said facetiously)–has now come to fruition.  I’m sure Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Michelle Rhee, et al, are laughing themselves silly.

Jan Ressenger put up a link to this report from the Guardian on just how far the Kochs and their comrades are willing to go….not only to destroy public education, but continue attacks on working folks and unions…

SPN’s president, Tracie Sharp, told the Guardian that “as a pro-freedom network of thinktanks, we focus on issues like workplace freedom, education reform, and individual choice in healthcare: backbone issues of a free people and a free society.”

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I wonder if she could get the word “free” in there any more…was she wrapped in a flag, too??  Because that would *definitely* mean that this program was patriotic and would strengthen democracy…

...by destroying it…

“it’s for your own good” has to be the biggest lie ever told!

Side note~ someone in the comments section linked to the Yes Men video. Enjoy. (Be sure to click on Part 2–with Surviva-balls.  Hilarious.)

Someone also kindly posted a link to a list of Kraft foods.  Again…where are the antitrust laws?  Why is one food manufacturer able to control so much of the market share?  Not that junk food, which is the majority of crap that Kraft makes, is something healthy..what if folks were able to afford healthy made-from-scratch food…?  We could do some serious damage to Kraft’s bottom line if we refused to buy their junk food and bought only fresh….and we’d be healthier, too.

Center for Media and Democracy has the scoop on SPN.  (As a side note~ I haven’t been getting regular emails of the CMD for a few months now–it’s been spotty at best…interesting.  I’ll have to make a note to keep checking their website for updates.)

True to nature, they hide their lobbying disguised to avoid paying taxes.  Good Grief, these people know how to play the game of getting someone else to pay while they reap the benefits.

The mention of the Goldwater Institute raises huge red flags–Hillary Clinton was a Goldwater Girl.  An excellent blog here on her history…er, her trying to re-write her history…and Bill’s.

The Clintons LOVE poor black people on welfare

• The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) that was dreamt up by past Republican administrations, was actually passed by Congress and signed by Clinton. This act was filled with vindictive measures aimed at the poor. Among other things, it set a five-year lifetime limit for cash assistance and gave the states power to adopt stringent restrictions in several other areas. Another key part of the Act, was the imposition for the first time of lifetime limits on welfare. Once a welfare mother uses up this lifetime limit, set at five years by the federal government, she and her children can never again receive federal cash benefits, no matter how desperate their condition and no matter what happens to the overall economy.
Bill Clinton has certainly laid his Mack game down heavy in the black community. Maybe that’s why the African-American community has been so thoroughly duped by lip service, prominent public appearances and appointments, and an office on Harlem’s 125th (although Clinton certainly hasn’t used it much).

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Ahem.   There are white people on food stamps, as well.  The Clintons, along with the Kochs, et al, don’t like POOR people.  Period.

We can’t talk about Bill Clinton’s love for his “black race” without mentioning Rwanda. You remember what happened in Rwanda? If you don’t, then I suggest you rent the movie “Hotel Rwanda” and be prepared to be thoroughly disgusted. Bill Clinton not only refused to intervene to save over one million people from being hacked to death, but he even declined to convene his Cabinet to discuss the crisis.

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I highly recommend Hotel Rwanda.  Just don’t watch it and Schindler’s List on the same weekend.  I actually had to call my son after watching them both one weekend….I needed to talk to a sane human being…

And let’s not forget this piece on the secretive group Hillary Clinton belongs to.  As I’ve said on many occasions…it never ceases to amaze me how people who call themselves Christian act nothing like Christ.  Who would Jesus bomb, Hillary?

I’ve read this piece before, but this sentence just packed a punch:

It emerged, he [Reverend Don Jones] says, as a third way, a reaction against both separatist fundamentalism and the New Deal’s labor-based liberalism.

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…a reaction against….the New Deal’s labor-based liberalism.  In other words:   unions….working folks….public education…social security…medicaid…..livable wages…(and the environment, too, but that would come later).

…and if you listen carefully to conservative media, you’ll hear subtle and outwardly snide attacks on Roosevelt’s New Deal.  Get it, now?

And this:

Niebuhr and Tillich’s combination of aggressiveness in foreign affairs and limited domestic ambition naturally led Clinton toward the gop. She was a Goldwater Girl who, under the tutelage of her high school history teacher Paul Carlson (whom Jones describes as “to the right of the John Birchers”), attended biweekly anticommunist meetings and later served as president of Wellesley’s Young Republicans chapter.

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…she attended biweekly anticommunist meetings.  Wellesley…if the movie “Mona Lisa Smile” is any indication, is a conservative’s utopia…so Young Republicans chapter there?  Pretty hard to swallow that this was a fluke -a flash in the pan….especially when one turns a critical eye to Hillary’s record.  I mean, if they call themselves Democrats, but act as Republicans…

“Mind conservative but a heart liberal” tells me that she is like so many guys who say they’re “socially liberal, but fiscally conservative”.  What this means is:  I’m selfish and self-absorbed.  And I don’t follow my heart.  I let my purse strings do the thinking for me.   In other words, I choose money over God.  (Jesus said that we could only serve one Master–money or God.  Not both.)

Okay, there is more to write, but I’m really tired from the day and need to call it quits.