Farmers protests

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I missed this when it was first published.  The family farm is in danger of being run over by not only Monsanto, but the Too Big To Fail corporate farms.  God help us.

The rightwing radio nooz casters mentioned the Indiana farmer with the case before the Supreme Court against Monsanto.  Vernon Bowman was portrayed as a greedy farmer who tried to get away with “stealing” Monsanto technology without paying for it.  I was just stunned.

More farmer protests here.

And British farmers’ action.

Protests in Poland.

And in India–farmers protesting pipelines.

In Canada.

Taiwan.

And here is a piece of history--farmers protesting the 1977 Food Bill–when the blizzard struck.

From the last link:

The protesters stayed, camped out on the Washington Mall. During that time a blizzard hit the city with 20-inches of snow. Farmers used their tractors to help dig out the city. Some tractors transported doctors and nurses to hospitals. AAM women even cooked and cleaned in hospitals when other staff couldn’t make it in.

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This from Occupy Monsanto. Stone Soup Day April 8, 2013.

 

Capital Gains

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Once again, the rightwingers are trying to confuse the public about capital gains tax and how the poor widdle rich guys like Mitt Romney are being unfairly “double” taxed….Ha.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I used to have money and paid Capital Gains taxes.

Capital gains is an investment profit.  Let’s say you put $20,000 in stocks.  You make a profit of $10,000.  You’re only taxed on the profit, NOT the entire $30,000!! Here’s the IRS guidelines on Capital Gains.

Here’s a break down of who will be paying what as far as Capital Gains taxes.  Note that you don’t pay anything if you’re in the 10-15% tax brackets.  Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

It’s only when you’re comfortably wealthy that you have to start paying your fair share.

I don’t have time to read other than the first page, but if I read something later that intrigues me, I’ll be back.

 

Israel stroking the ego

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They’re awarding President Obama a Medal of Distinction for supporting Israel….

…this comes after President Obama awarded the Medal of Freedom to Shimon Peres last June.

What can I say?

Most of the medals and trophies my kids won are…um, well, let’s see…they’re here somewhere…I just saw them last week sometime…

A medal does not capture what truly occurred at the moment that an outstanding athletic or political action took place.

One cannot replace that moment with a piece of metal.  If it is given under the false disguise of making someone bigger than they are, everyone who is aware will see right through it.  If it is given to stroke the ego, even if that person made an outstanding effort, it puts them into a “better than” category that, as we see over and over, puts them on a pedestal where they don’t belong….as none of us belong on a pedestal.  It feeds into the Meritocracy mindset….you must earn your right to breathe air….to occupy your space….to live on Earth….

 

Selling of the war

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Rachel Maddow has a special out on the selling of the Iraq War.  Unfortunately, I’m at a computer with no sound today, so I can’t listen to this piece.  I hope that she holds Hillary Rodham Clinton accountable, and the other dems who were all too happy to go along with the charade.

The big eye in the sky

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common dreams has this up on the move by the FAA to allow drones to spy on your every move. (Note that this is a Friday news dump–they save the most worrisome news for Fridays, hoping that it will, ahem, fly under the radar.

How detached does an engineer have to be to joke about the ability to spy on people in their backyards?  What the hell gives them the right?

 

Krugman vs. LaPierre?

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They seriously want us to think that Paul Krugman is as extreme as LaPierre? As he states: How many times does he have to be right and the others wrong?

Along these lines are the discussions on raising the minimum wage and tying it to inflation.

From the NY Times.

I’m hearing over and over from the conservatives that we can’t raise the minimum wage because it will mean there will be massive layoffs, hours cut, blah, blah blah.  People can.not.live. on minimum wage! They cannot meet even their basic needs.  But that doesn’t seem to bother these people…all that matters is that the profits keep rolling in.

And, as always, they make exceptions for “their” folks–some of them need a pay increase, but entry-level folks, well, they’re just SOL.

This is an old piece, but bears repeating.  It’s always amazing to me that members of Congress tell the American public that we cannot afford to raise the minimum wage, while stating that they cannot afford to live on the measily $100k that they earn under false pretenses.

Here’s an updated version.  Note how they have increased their wages by $20,000 in a short time period.  The raises alone cost the American public $2 million!

The latest here.

And yet these people will browbeat the American public for holding out their hands and asking for the same treatment–wage increases to a point that they could actually afford to live more than just week to week.

Finally, the perks that we thought were gone…well, not so much…