Please consider--PLEASE read

I know times are hard, they are hard for so many including yours truly.  STILL the election in Wisconsin to recall its Republican Governor Scott Walker is vitally important to us all.  He has ruined Wisconsin by driving up unemployment to Tower of Babel heights. Walker and so many other Republican politicos in our nation have fired thousands of firemen, police, teachers and other public employees so necessary for a functioning nation and he will do more destructive things if he is not defeated.  Many other Republican governors have ruined their states too taking tyrannical control of towns especially towns that vote Democratic.  These Republicans are an assault on our democratic way of life.


Millions of signatures were collected from all strata of Wisconsin voters to call Walker back.  The recall vote will be taken June 5 so there is little time to spare.  If you are politically savvy at all you know this has HUGE ramifications for those of us who call ourselves progressive, Democratic, Independent and many others who know the Republican Party is toxic for our nation.  It will send shock waves across the nation if Walker is defeated.

We ALL have a vested interest in seeing Walker recalled.  I ask IF YOU CAN PLEASE make a contribution through the sites below as I have felt compelled to do.  It does not have to be much at all.  It can be as little or as much as you can afford.


If Walker is recalled by electing the Democratic candidate Barrett it will send a chilling message to Republicans that reverberates for ALL of us.  Republicans are doing things not seen since post Reconstruction.  They are using all means illegal and legal to cut the vote of the poor the disabled, the sick, and the elderly through voter suppression techniques and voter ID laws.  The money Walker has raised from outside groups is STAGGERING.  We can beat them at their ugly game because we have the REAL force -- PEOPLE POWER. 


Please consider no matter how small (or large) making a donation to this worthy cause! Recall Walker NOW, ask me how by scrolling below or merely Google Tom Barrett Wisconsin Recall.


Best,
Nat

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Tate, Recall Walker HQ
To: Natalie Rosen
Sent: Wed, May 9, 2012 12:16 am
Subject: FWD: 28 days to defeat Walker

Natalie --

I wanted to pass along this message from our next governor, Tom Barrett.

After months of historic division, job loss, criminal corruption and partisan power grabs at the hands of Scott Walker, Tom Barrett will offer Wisconsin a new start at healing our great state and beginning the long job of repairing the devastation wrought by 17 months of irresponsible rule.

Please help Tom bring a new start to Wisconsin by making a $12 donation right now so we can defeat Scott Walker on June 5.

In solidarity,

Mike Tate, Chair

Democratic Party of Wisconsin

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: Tom Barrett

Date: Tue, May 8, 2012 at 10:15 PM

Subject: 28 days to defeat Walker

To: Mike Tate

Mike --

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Tonight, I am humbled by and grateful for the support of Wisconsinites across our great state.

Since we began our campaign, I've traveled all across Wisconsin -- never once leaving our state -- to listen to the people.

What I've heard from Wisconsinites is that they want an end to the political turmoil caused by Scott Walker, and they want their needs placed first.

With you standing with me, that's what I plan to do. In the next 28 days, I'll work overtime fighting for the interests of Wisconsinites, but to do so, I need your urgent help right now to kick-start our neighbor-to-neighbor program.

Can I count on you to make a $12 donation right now so we can defeat Scott Walker on June 5?

Defeating Scott Walker and his entrenched, out-of-state special interest allies will not be an easy task. Right now our campaign is up 47% to 46% in the polls, but we know that Walker and the Koch brothers are ready to unload everything in their right-wing arsenal in a desperate attempt to bring us down.

Scott Walker's failed agenda has led to unprecedented political turmoil and a sputtering Wisconsin economy that leads the entire nation in job loss.

But while we've been campaigning across Wisconsin, Walker has been flying all over the country raising a record $25 million from right-wing billionaires and lobbyists who want their interests placed ahead of working people in our state.

Big money isn't going to win this fight. You are.

To win on June 5, we will need everyone who participated in this improbable, people-powered movement to band together and work double time talking to their friends, family and neighbors about the choice in this historic election.

With your contribution of $12 right now, you'll help us defeat Scott Walker and his corporate cash with an unparalleled neighbor-to-neighbor program of people talking to people in their front lawns, in their kitchens, and in their living rooms about the future of our state.

It's time to put Wisconsin first so we can focus on jobs, on education, and on restoring our tradition of open, honest government.

In the last 15 months, you've proved that winning this fight for working people is possible, and I can't wait to see what you'll do in the next 28 days to lead us to victory.

Thank you,

Tom Barrett

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Authorized and Paid for by The Democratic Party of Wisconsin. Michael J. Tate, Chair We don't want to send you email that you don't want: unsubscribe from this list.

Bomber in Plot on U.S. Airliner Is Said to Be a Double Agent

My Comment in relation to  NYT article and post are here

If this proves to be true, the ever so capable president Obama adds another feather to his cap. I cannot think of one other president Democrat or certainly Republican who has been so foreign policy effective and right on the mark. From taking out of the Somali pirates, retrieval of two innocent women from N. Korea, to the killing of Alawaki, and the mother of all terrorists bin Laden I trust the president with my life and can EASILY vote for him another term. This is how foreign policy is conducted when you have BRILLIANCE at the helm.

On the economy too CLEARLY it is improving naturally not fast enough for the McDonald's generation American public. IF we had not had such a cruel, mean, and often racist Republican controlled House our economy would be in even better recovery. If not for one of the worst conservative five on the Supreme Court to possibly strike down the president's necessary and crown achievement health care the president's election would be assured. Defeat of any these things, however, will not matter because defeat will be hung around conservatives' necks.

My Point: The president is a STAR and the Republican party of old white men and some white women cannot admit this is so. But it does not matter what they admit. The US knows when it has elected a sterling example of leadership.

Good luck, Mr. President, this white woman's Jewish heart and my prayers are with you. My bet is on YOU to prevail!

Foreign Affair -- Mitt Romney's Waterloo

I send the following quote from Huffington Post to our friends and allies who desperately want the re-election of the president.  This is, I believe, one of Romney’s most damning indictments and in my mind HIS Waterloo. HP said as follows:

 At a town hall-style meeting Monday in Cleveland, the GOP presidential candidate got this pointed question about his investments: In this age of tough foreign competition, could Romney explain the "over $1.5 million in foreign tax credits" he received since 2000?

"I'm not familiar with that," Romney told the man who asked. The crowd booed. "I didn't think I paid any foreign income taxes, but I'll be happy to take a look at it."

In fact, Romney and his wife, Ann, paid more than $1.2 million in foreign taxes on so-called passive investments from 2000 through 2010, and paid about $800,000 in taxes on general income to unspecified countries. That's according to the couple's own tax returns.

Their foreign tax bills entitled them to more than $1.5 million in tax credits in the United States since 2000, thanks to Internal Revenue Service rules that prevent businesses and investors from being doubly taxed on money they earn abroad.

This tax avoidance scheme is yet another in the hundred perhaps thousands of ways corporations and the mega rich, with their sophisticated tax attorneys, snake around paying their fair share to our government and then tax the middle class here to pay for their avoidance over there.  This issue, I believe, should be the most important attack against this valueless empty suit, Romney and his Republican Party.  The flip-flopper-in-chief times 10, is worse than any other candidate by far through his own economic slither to avoid paying taxes in our country. 

Receiving a tax credit in our country and paying taxes to foreign countries is without a doubt revolting.   If these know nothing Republicans want to talk about treason insulting the president (including Romney’s assent to it by his silence) then they should look to Romney, a presidential candidate, giving money to foreign countries but depriving the US, the country he SAYS he loves, of its rightful share.  It is an abomination!  He did not have to set up his investments that way.  It would not have made him significantly poorer but would have helped OUR country in its effort to emerge from the GREATEST RECESSION/DEPRESSION EVER, CREATED BY MOSTLY REPUBLICANS.   The fact that he CAN do this and Romney, et al would never change it, is testament as to just how skewed the tax system is to the ultra rich.   Republicans have a vested interest to keep it that way while we the 99% go without jobs, without health care and some day, if the Ryan bill Romney loves so much becomes the law of the land, with deep cuts to social safety net programs like Medicare, Medicaid and even ultimately Social Security.

The Democratic Party and many others who want the president re-elected should get the message out, take advantage of savvy liaisons they may have with the press and crush Romney’s candidacy for the presidency in pertinent part because of the taxes he paid or more precisely DID NOT pay to our country!

For Better or Worse--Football's Concussive Reality

I am one of the growing number of female football fans. Why do I love it? I love it because I see men doing things my body never could do even when I was 20! I love the bodily contortions, I love the long forward pass, I love the surprise break-aways; moves one did not expect and cannot believe.

Man has always loved sport (Romans throwing others to the lions comes to mind) and most especially we love a bruising sport like football where one sits in the safety of the room, behind the TV or in a seat at the stadium while others take the bashing and we safely watch it.

Someone -- maybe some lefty of the 60's -- said "The personal is political" so excuse me if I wax so. We are a country made up of policy which ROUTINELY goes to war -- read Rachel Maddow's book "Drift" and you will get MY drift. We have gone to war in ALL venues nearly at ALL times in our history. Man has always gone to war, I know, but it is different now. Not only can we watch from our living room but the perpetrators of war can conduct it with drones in depersonalized safety close to home 6000 miles away from the front. We love war most especially when we are so removed from it. 

War is on the evening news or even on a TV set-up at work shown as entertainment for those who do not have to physically suffer its consequences. War is nasty and brutal. We sit in the comfort of our living room while newscasters describe the shock, awe and mayhem of battle. It looks like the 4th of July BUT it's not. The camera rarely goes behind the scenes to show just who the bombs hit, the family's limbs exploding or its many dead. Rarely are we shown wars' aftermath or if we are we often do not look. It is the way of war doncha know. War is hell; as if we could not have figured that out.

Football IS a type of war. We watch, cheer and feel good in the safety of our home, seats in a barroom or at the game. We gorge on food and drink and merriment while our fellow man has his body crushed, his brain compressed, his bones ruined and sometimes the grim reaper pays a visit. It is the way of the world. War and often sport, especially football, are brutal. 

I am not exactly sure how after thousands of years of evolution we can change man's hard wired drive but we ought to try. We watch war and sport on the HDTV screen while we swig the next beer or swallow the next piece of pizza. It's in our DNA and it's the way we have been for millennia for better and, I believe, mostly for worse!

Smelling the thrill of victory--a stream of consciousness

If you heard the  president as I did today in Ohio, he was MAGNIFICENT.  He spoke to a HUGE crowd.  He was the Barack Obama I knew and loved.  I STILL know and love him.  The second term will be even better than the first IF the rotten red congressional House turns blue.  We MUST help throw the Republican wingnuts OUT.  Get the president some support.  I am feeling better every day, more positive by the moment.  Romney no matter how much money it will not matter.  He is an empty suit and throwing overboard this guy Grennell was his first BIG error.  It shows you how horrendous Romney is.  He threw a long time loyal Republican supposedly expert (well I challenge that but just saying) in foreign policy overboard Grennell who was gay because some two bit racist bigot religious fanatics scared the *&^% out of him shows you what this guy is and what the party has become.  It is OVER for Republicans.  This is their last gasp. The complexion of the country is changing and they will all too soon be irrelevant.  Cannot happen fast enough for me.

Romney has got to be the worst of the worst Republican candidates EVER. I never thought I would say that after the McCain debacle of 2008 but the Republicans outdid themselves this time with the bottom of the barrel candidate. He is just AWFUL. He could have God as his running mate and it would not help. WOW Romney is so out of touch, he is so UNPRINCIPLED, and it is almost painful to watch him squirm in his own skin.  He is just a shill for the out on a limb extremists who have taken over the soon to be dead Republican Party. What will be left of it?  NOTHING I HOPE!  They will NEVER EVER be able to win national elections with an extremist not only base but entirety...EVER. Throwing overboard Grennell was just a metaphor for how much of an empty suit Romney is. There is NO comparison between Obama and him. Obama is SO SO SO far superior it's not even funny. How does a party do that to itself? It's committing suicide right before our eyes and Rubio or ANYONE will NOT help!

We must be buoyed up by the HUGE crowd today in Ohio. Polls I am reading are looking so far good for all the swing states except Florida which is neck and neck.  I have a feeling it will turn to us...I hope.  BUT in NO WAY be smug just be ENTHUSIASTIC again.  Our lives and your children's lives are at stake. 

Obama 2012 -- work for his re-election

p.s.  Pray and help Scott Walker's DEMISE in Wisconsin.  I feel he is going down.  One by one we take the nation back.  Brick by brick we build a new nation from the bottom up!

Forward
Natalie

Religious orthodoxy the Hemlock of our time--Hassids throw off your chains!

A HIGH FIVE to this brave woman.  Kudos times many.  This is a wonderful and in my opinion a GREAT story. As I have said many times I am adamantly opposed to all religion which requires one to lock up one's brain and throw away the key. 

http://www.aol.com/video/youve-got-deborah-feldman/517355132/?ncid=wsc-video-cards-image

Homosexual Hate -- The Republican Party and the true new Nazis

I dislike throwing the word Nazi around like a game of Wonder Ball.  If every political group and person to whom one objects is labeled Nazi then no one truly is.  Yet there are unique times where the comparison is apt. 

Last evening MSNBC'S Larry O'Donnell carried a segment about the despicable anti-homosexual hate-filled violence infused “sermon” preached last Sunday by a North Carolina Baptist pastor.  It stunned me into catatonic incredulity so much so that I had to decompress from the poison circulating my system.  I post the segment here and below for your review. If you view it please view both "Pastor" Sean Harris's sermon and Larry O'Donnel's well crafted response. 

Harris's loathsome violent-to-children-who-appear-to-be-gay rant spewed his venom to a sparse congregation in North Carolina.  It included such sweet suggestions as breaking a child's "limp" wrist if that “limp” wrist belonged to a male.  Nonetheless, many cheered and clapped. I do not know from under what rock these intellectually mind-frozen inhumane malcontents emerge but this is why the plethora of allies in and of the LBGT community are so important. 


Time and again I give kudos to Rachel Maddow for her work, her honesty about her own life and her representation of it which does more, in my opinion, than all the gay rights marches of yesteryear one could attend.  I believe all those who publicly stand up to defend the innocent other save lives.  Everything, though, is important to fight this systemic true evil that courses through the life blood of our nation.  The Republican Party has morphed into something unrecognizable to those who were the true respectable Republican intellects of their time.  The Republican Party, now the party of hate, is infused with right wing extremists no Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Nelson Rockefeller, Gerald Ford and even the Republican idol Ronald Reagan could understand.

The firing of homosexual Richard Grennell, Romney's adviser on foreign policy, shouts loud and clear where the Republican Party has taken itself and how its soon-to-be-leader and Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, once a supporter of gay rights, now melts into a pile of putty in the face of opposition from the party's most extreme base.  He acquiesced to the utterly hateful Bryan J. Fisher the Director of Issues Analysis and to Tony Perkins president of the malodorous anti-gay American Family Association.  Romney hurts a man who was loyal to the Republican Party for years.  This is the stuff of which the noxious chameleon Willard Mitt Romney is made.  I hope this gives Grennell pause to realize the morphed Republican Party to which he has associated himself is the pure and unadulterated party of hate which will make no room for him or other so-called Log Cabin Republicans who are gay.

There is sad simile to the German Nazi Party's rise to power, which would ultimately murder millions in modern time.  The German party of 20th century history would plunge the world into one of its greatest war killing machines human kind has ever known.  Many Jews during the anti-Semitic Nazi Party's assent were told to get out of Germany because the words and essence of the Nazi party's leadership put the handwriting on the wall for them to read.  But many did not read them and most did not leave.  Many thought it only a phase.  It will end, some thought.  It was only a transitory minority element within the party that will fade with time.  But it never did fade with time until it was too late and the other everywhere was ground into dust by an element in a movement many thought was merely going through harmless growing pains.

The rise of the Nazi Party began with a simple speech, a book, a movie, a burning, a purge but it ended with the slaughter, the purging and the burning of millions.  It is why I make the comparison between its rise and the rise of our own disloyal opposition.  In truth, this Republican Party of hate includes in its ranks the most extreme right wing virulence that party has ever known which is too close for comfort to the appellation of Nazi for me.

http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/lawrence-odonnell-takes-on-pastor-who-advocated-gay-child-beating/politics/2012/05/03/38955

A PATHETIC PRESS: FAILURE TO COVER ELIZABETH WARREN

Elizabeth Warren was in Marlboro, Massachusetts last Sunday.  Did you see it reported by television, cable and local news organizations?  If you answered no I will say I did not see her either.  The media coverage of Elizabeth Warren is a DISGRACE.

This is the biggest and I aver one of the most important senate races in the country.  If Elizabeth wins it will be HUGE and right now the polls show a close race.  Hopefully once Massachusetts gets to see and hear her they will fall in love with her candidacy as I did.  My hope is that she will win and have as positive impact on the state as Teddy Kennedy did for decades but she cannot do it if she does not get press coverage while her opponent simply has to drive up in his truck and brown jacket and a camera is in his face!  It is simply unfair.

The press does a disservice to the State of Massachusetts and a disservice to the nation with its pathetic lack of coverage of this price-above-rubies candidate, Elizabeth Warren.  We live in crucial electoral times calling for crucial votes for the 99%.  Elizabeth will be on our side as her opponent will be for the top 1% richest.

A large segment of the press has been accused of being in the pockets of big corporate everything skewing the election red and buying up power with Karl Rove's deep pocket bucks making our nation into the oligarchy that many say it is.  When the press does NOT cover someone like Elizabeth Warren then I can surely see what they mean!

A Dignified Death

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The link here is to the Boston Sunday Globe article "Dying Wishes" which is about a little discussed topic of death with dignity.  In addition to explaining what Death with Dignity means it offers the reader the ability to vote yea or nay to this procedure if it were put to a vote. Very few want to discuss this but I believe in speaking truth and looking reality in the face.

I vote a resounding yes to death with dignity or assisted suicide for TERMINALLY ILL patients.  Both from tortured personal experience and the experience of many friends and relatives it is UNBELIEVABLE how horrendous it is for the patient to endure debilitating and freedom depriving terminal illness and how easy it is for others to deny themselves that freedom of choice.  Moreover, by doing so they deny it to everyone else as well.  It is an understatement to say a terminal illness is a horror of the greatest magnitude to endure and that it should be up to the person suffering it to make the ultimate decision for him or herself either by a health care proxy or, if possible, by oneself to either endure the suffering or end it.  One's body is one's own.  The suffering major religions require a human being to endure is  unconscionable.  I would even aver that religion is in the business of suffering and it is in its own vested and monetary interest to encourage one to endure unspeakable pain because then one goes to it for relief. I do not believe anyone can make that life or death decision for me but me.

I never want to give my hard earned bucks to a disgusting nursing home. The nursing home business is a multi-million buck scam as is the cancer pharmaceuticals business.  The drug companies do not want cures for cancer by funding stem cell research, DNA research or environmental contributors to the cancer albatross around everyone's neck to once and for all end that multifaceted malodorous malady.  Slashing, burning or poisoning is the still, after decades, the treatment de jour for cancer.  The so called "war on cancer" is over thirty years old and there is, as in other wars our nation fights, no end in site. The so called "walk for the cure" of Komens does not want a cure they want people to give money to Komens for Komens.  It's a big business and it translates in to BILLIONS for the cancer industry while it sucks dry those who are unlucky enough to get the disease or have a close family member that does. Even if they can buy some time if treatment is available they are often not rich enough to treat it effectively and insurance companies, naturally, will not pay for much of it and most especially will not pay for experimental treatment.

If our culture euthanizes beloved pets because it is the humane thing to do is it no less so for a human being?  I will vote yes for a death with dignity bill if it appears on the Massachusetts ballot in November!  You can accept this difficult decision or reject it as you choose but leave that choice up to me.

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2012/04/29/death_with_dignity_act/

My Namesake on Meet the Press

My namesake Hillary Rosen and Rachel Maddow were on Meet the Press this morning.  Both are blessings to progressives everywhere.  Rachel in particular was her usual perfect defending our cause against two Republican heavy weights, Vice Chair of the House Republican Conference Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), and Republican strategist Alex Castellanos.  

Rachel was wonderful, passionate and absolutely 100% correct.  I thought she and Hillary Rosen knocked it out of the park and the Republicans on their behinds.  I was particularly thrilled Rosen had the opportunity to better explain her views which were originally, I believe, misinterpreted.  She was NOT against Ann Romney or stay-at-home mothers.  Who could be?  BUT those in the 1% cannot in ANY way be compared to those in the 99%. How middle class mothers and poor mothers juggle a job and children is infinitely different.  Ann Romney probably has NO idea what a head of lettuce or even a gallon of gasoline costs.  Why should she?  She doesn't HAVE to.  Her husband’s Republican policy reflects just that point when he wants to take away the earned income tax credit but cut taxes for the top 1%.  Fairness is not in the Republican vocabulary.

Rachel is right when she said state legislatures that turned Republican in the 2010 election catastrophe show EXACTLY what happens when Republicans rule -- high unemployment, the emasculation of unions, no health care and no jobs.  Who are Republicans kidding?

Republicans indicting Democrats as the dividers is a joke.  Republicans are the ones who will NOT compromise, Republicans are the ones who are virulently anti choice, anti birth control and thereby anti women.   Republicans are the ones to introduce religious beliefs which should be separate and apart from the big government Republicans CLAIM they loathe so much. I don't say it, Rachel doesn't say it, Hillary doesn't say it but the CONSTITUTION says it and Republicans are blind to that too.

Rarely does Rachel Maddow say anything in error and if does she apologizes and corrects it immediately.  That is infinitely more than Republicans do unless their arm is twisted into an unnatural position!

My channel in the evening is stuck on MSNBC!

If you are interested in Meet the Press and did not see it Sunday, April 29 I link it below.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/

Frontline "Money, Power and Wall Street (Part One)."

If you have not seen it I enclose here the link to the PBS Frontline program aired yesterday, April 25, 2012 entitled "Money, Power and Wall Street (Part One)."  It is wonderful.  In case our economic near collapse in 2007 is not inscribed permanently in your synaptic cerebral connections and you have forgotten many of the reasons for it, or if the subject is downright mind numbing, shattering, and boring I link the segment to it below as well.   Frontline reduces the explanation of highly complex economic realities to a very understandable narrative.  It is, as usual, entertaining as well.

If you have time to view it I highly suggest you do lest we all forget why our country is so far into the economic hole that we are and who the real sowers of this utter catastrophe and near world economic collapse were.  The fault lay NOT with President Obama but those who obstruct policies he would enact which offer the faster cure for this lethal malady.  You will be able to see how far he has had to crawl into the mostly Republican (but not all) sewer to rescue and resuscitate this nation and how difficult a process it is. 

Put the blame where it should be NOT on the 99% but on the 1% wealthiest of this nation.  Do NOT elect Willard Mitt Romney yet another member in good standing of the 1% who did not give a damn about you, about me, and about the nation they claim to love so much!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/view/

You Have Got to Be Kidding Me!

The editorial by Jeff Jacoby in the Sunday April 22, 2012 Boston Sunday Globe entitled “Obama a unifying force? Hardly” raised my ire.  I wrote a response to it.  “Conservative” that Jeff Jacoby allegedly is indicting the president for being the reason for the nation’s division and that he unlike his charismatic speeches in Grant Park or during the 2004 Democratic convention proved him to be the opposite –  a divider of the nation he promised to unite.  He even compared him to Richard Nixon who vowed he would "bring us together" and did anything but.  You may see why I saw three shades of deep red!  I stated the following to him.  His article that demanded a response is here if you care and can stand to read it and linked below as well.

You know, Jeff, I haven't read your editorials in quite some time because frankly I thought you were not worth enough to raise my blood pressure to Plutonian heights.  So why did I read your utterly heart attack inducing article, "Obama a unifying force? Hardly"?  I have no idea.  I know I came to the end wanting to scream YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!   

What planet to you live on, Jeff?   You are proclaiming to your readers it's Obama fault for not uniting us?  After ALL the compromising that man has tried to do you have the unmitigated gall to say that?  After the pretzel the president has turned himself into to TRY to negotiate with and placate Republicans who ultimately would give him NOTHING you can utter such a lie?  After Republicans insulted him on numerous occasions and even courted world economic collapse rather than raise a debt ceiling something universally done by all former presidents you can say such things?

The president WANTED to live out what he said in his Grant Park Speech and the myriad of speeches he has given advocating unification of the body politic but sickening Republican Tea Bag politics racist, uncompromising and extreme would not give this black man an inch.  God forbid what he wanted to do would work and show them up for the charlatans most in the Republican Party are.

This well meaning man will reign supreme over the race baiters, the Wall Street banksters and those who would not give him credit for even killing bin Laden.  You say things are that are not, you say things are black when they are white, you dismember history’s truth, and have no memory of what actually in reality occurred.

The fault for the irretrievably divided broken down Washington politics dear Brutus is NOT in the president but in the Republican Party for which you seem to advocate.  McConnell admitted the Republican Party's ONLY goal was to tear Obama down.  The president could ask for the cherry blossoms to bloom longer and your Republican Party would say some non sequitur like see I told you he was a Muslim, see I told you he was not born here, see I told you he is a socialist, a Nazi, a Communist. The political spectrum ignorance of people in the Republican Party is astounding.

The president can merely say he could have a son who looked like Trayvon and oh my god how racist that is they proclaim. Or gee maybe the Cambridge police reacted too hastily when they handcuffed Professor Gates at his own home.  Guess what?  THEY DID act too hastily but President Obama being the conciliator he is scheduled a beer summit to reach out to both sides for which he was naturally criticized for that as well.  The man cannot even cross a street without receiving criticism from the racist right who cannot STAND a black man and his black family inhabiting the heretofore oh so historically consistent very White House.

The reason Richard Nixon could not bring us together was he was corrupt, did NOT bring Vietnam to an end but rather invaded Cambodia AND he WAS a CROOK.   You and your party are excrementally putrefied because of the cockeyed way you view your country, utterly distort history, lie, and, in fact, most especially because of Republican’s racist core.

It is people like you who will be held accountable if the life of this president is threatened. He has received more threats than any president in US history and it’s NOT from Democrats.  Imagine if Rev. Wright said the same things as the sick malcontent Ted Nugent the hard rock know nothing Romney supporter.  It is he and so called “conservatives” like you who are the DESPICABLE dividers.  It is most certainly NOT the president.  Hopefully, in November we will see that you have reaped the discord and division you and your fellow Republicans have sown.  The defeat of your lies and your historical inaccuracies cannot come quickly enough for me.

http://bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/04/21/obama-unifying-force-hardly-obama-unifying-force-hardly/tkxrTNhW1bJocwIBqlX8YP/story.html

Another Letter to the Hispanic Community

Mitt Romney knows and was caught off guard saying that if he does not capture the Hispanic vote they will lose and he is correct they will.  We MUST emphasize to the Hispanic community that those Republicans saying they are for them are certainly not. This is the same man who said on tape Arizona's "Paper's Please" anti civil liberties anti immigrant policy in Arizona is a model for the nation and is what he would do if elected president.  He is NOT kidding.  Now he's trying to figure out a way to persuade Hispanics that he was merely referring to computer job look up (e-verify) of citizenship.  DO NOT be duped as I feel certain you will not be. 

Romney, as he is SO adept at doing, will flip flop and turn himself into a salamander to make his ideology of the day (because it changes EVERY day) into that which he thinks will get him elected.  Once in office he will NEVER be the immigrant's friend, will NEVER support the Hispanic community but will do the opposite. 

The president in a second term and IF the obstructionist Congress is thrown out, I am confident WILL try to enact infinitely more immigrant friendly policies, will craft sensible immigration law and NOT leave Hispanics out of the American Dream.  He cannot, however, do this alone.  He needs our help and he needs our vote. 

Republicans, if they gain power, will capture and/or even kill undocumented workers en masse.   As I said in an earlier email the Republican Party advocates for border vigilantism.  Moreover, they gerrymander districts as well as enact voter ID suppression laws to diminish the impact of the minority vote because they KNOW that vote is usually cast for Democrats.

Therefore, I ask you, no I plead with you, NOT to fall for the Republican Trojan Horse.  Mitt Romney and Republicans are NOT for the elderly, not for the disabled, NOT for the poor, NOT for health care and NOT for you. Do NOT be FOOLED--No se deje enganar. The Republican Party is NOT about you.  They merely want you to THINK they are.  

Flip Flopper in Chief

Click here to see how much Willard Mitt Romney has flipped his positions.  He has COMPLETELY changed his views on every single issue of import in the modern era.  Click where it says "here" on link to see his positions in 1994 when he was running against Ted Kennedy and now when he needs the wingnut religious fanatics and the Tea Party to win the Republican nomination this chameleon morphs into something unrecognizable. Or you can click on the link below.

AMAZING!

http://www.republicansforobama.org/node/10060

Meet the Chicken Hawks

VERY interesting link.  You would be AMAZED (or maybe you wouldn't) how many of those Republicans who sound the drum beat of war, love war, support war AS LONG AS THEY do not serve.  Click here (or on the link below) if you want to see who has served and who has not.  I think I am correct when I say more -- many more -- Republicans hid from the draft, got deferments or did not serve while they did and still do their damnedest to make sure other less powerful people's children fight and die on the battlefield.  It is scandalous to say the least.

Oh yes, where was our CLASSLESS candidate Romney during the Vietnam War?  Mitt Romney Spent the Vietnam War in a French Palace!  Click here (or on the link below) for that web site.


http://liberalslikechrist.org/about/chickenhawks.html

http://www.nationalmemo.com/strange-true-mitt-romney-spent-vietnam-war-french-palace/

Contemplating the Alternative

Make NO mistake about it electing racist Know Nothing religious extremist irrational science deniers will mean a country will be reduced to near third world status where the rights of women, minorities, the disabled and the poor are reactionarily eviscerated.  It will mean the steady decline and obliteration of the environment.  It will mean a right wing extremist Supreme Court the likes of which our country has not seen since the 1857 Justice Taney Dred Scott Supreme Court decision ruling the black man was property and not a person.  This time the court will overturn a woman’s right to choose.  It will keep corporations as people and will ensure the oligarchy that exists today will remain in place for God knows how many generations.  It will mean the 99% will not overcome the economic forces of the richest 1% evil that smother them by keeping a larger and larger piece of the economic pie through nefarious, illegal and immoral means while the majority eat cake, develop diseases we cannot afford with no health care to treat them and no one TO care.  Only death will await.

This is the most important election I have ever witnessed in my decades of witnessing many.  Defeat of the president is NOT an option.  The Republican opposition MUST be defeated by all means necessary for you, for me, for your children and for their children!  There is, indeed, too much at stake to even contemplate the alternative.

Dastardly Speech: The violent, ugly, and filthy comments of the disgusting hard rocker right wing extremist, Ted Nugent, were WORSE than anything that was said by Rev. Wright in his sermon for which the right wing screamed critical of then candidate Obama. Wright's speech was mild in comparison to the THREATENING vitriolic speech of Nugent, a man Mr. Romney gleefully accepted as a supporter and, indeed, went to him for support.

At least the president, good human being that he is, addressed Wright's unacceptable comments, gave a speech about it and eschewed the vitriol of it.  Mitt Romney sends a message of so called "civility" through an emissary.  He did not even have the COURAGE not to mention courtesy to disavow what that violent, profane and repellent Nugent had to say.

I am happy that the Secret Service is investigating Nugent.  They should but that a presidential contender with gravitas and class merely had an aid craft a mild note is UNFORGIVABLE and insulting to the country itself including the presidency that represents it.   One should think twice before supporting this candidate-for-president, Mitt Romney.  He is an unprincipled man based on how Mitt Romney handled this potentially criminal threat directed at the president of the United States by someone Romney not only accepted but his sons waxed effusive in accepting the scurrilous Nugent endorsement.

Romney is an EMBARRASSMENT to this country he says he loves.  He would not know a principled thought if it stood directly in front of him.  He says ONLY that which is politically expedient and changes his views more often than a chameleon sheds its skin.  SHAME ON HIM for not personally and strongly rejecting Nugent's dastardly threatening comments.  It shows one who the significantly better candidate is; one who hides under the table in the face of a challenging event or one who addresses it head on like the intellectually and principally superior person President Obama is.

Mitt Romney, if anything God forbid happens to our president YOU and your Republican Party of mean, racist intrinsic evil WILL be held accountable at least by the God you profess to believe in so much!

The UNRELATABLE ANN ROMNEY

A stream of conscious: The Hillary Rosen controversy was the NO controversy controversy. Why didn't Hillary Rosen speak UP for herself?   Ann Romney knows about sacrifice like Lloyd Blankfein's wife knows about sacrifice -- NOT. Ann Romney did not have to sleep in motel rooms because her house was foreclosed on by a bankster. Ann Romeny could pick and choose ANYTHING she wanted. She was not a single mother she was the MULTI hundreds of million dollar wife of a 1% er. She knows NOTHING about sacrifice. She could have had 20 children and she could not be compared to an economically disadvantaged woman with two.

The economically disadvantaged jobless woman and family have issues with the rearing of children Ann Romney could NOT even think about. Moreover, Ann Romney did not HAVE to work. Economically disadvantaged women even WITH a husband need TWO ... let me say that again for these RepublicRAT know nothings ... TWO jobs to put food on the table.

When did Ann unrelatable Romney ever fear she could not feed her family? When you are a haus frau married to a 1% er you economically worry about NOTHING.

Lower socio economic women have to worry about EVERYTHING related to survival: Food, clothing, shelter and MOST importantly HEALTH CARE. I bet Ann Romeny, who is said to have MS, did not worry ONE second as to how she could medically afford treatment.

Hillary Rosen, STAND UP FOR YOURSELF AND DO NOT GIVE IN TO THESE REPUBLICAN HYPOCRITES and Mr. President, I love you BUT why grovel at Republican's feet. They simply kick you in the face anyway. APPEAL TO THE HILLARY ROSEN'S and people like me YOUR BASE who have your back and ARE at your feet!

Bending Toward Justice

When the special prosecutor in the Trayvon Martin homicide case, Angela B. Corey, brought second degree murder charges against George Zimmerman I felt as I did when Barack Obama won the presidency.  I felt proud to be an American.  Ms. Corey’s press conference announcing her decision and George Zimmerman’s turning himself in to face these charges was almost miraculous.  Ms. Corey is an honorable special prosecutor who by the strength of her words, it appears, is dedicated to the justice all those who wept for Trayvon desired.  Even Mr. Zimmerman's new defense attorney extended his condolences to the Martin family.  It was civilized man at his best.   

In Trayvon’s memory we turn another corner yet again in the nation's Herculean struggle against racism and its fight for human justice. It is a never ending fight as one generation passes the baton of legal jurisprudence to another safeguarding Lady Liberty's flame.

Well over two hundred years ago a group of 18^th century men steeped in Europe’s Enlightenment crafted a document -- the Constitution of the United States -- that has withstood the test of time. It is resilient, it is flexible and it is brilliant.  It is clear, though, the charging of Mr. Zimmerman for the killing of an unarmed black teen would not have taken place had there not been a volcanic push from the bottom up. 

We are in a new age.  No longer will a historically besieged people not stand THEIR ground and allow others to run roughshod over their fundamental Constitutional rights.  When I think of the years -- hundreds of them -- it took for the black man in this nation to disembark the slave ship and cross over the bridge to freedom, I wax incredulous.  The bridge needs constant repair.   The bridge over this river of tears was forged by many.  It was forged by Frederick Douglas, John Brown, Harriet Tubman, Abraham Lincoln, William Lloyd Garrison and a Civil War that killed more human beings, often brother against brother, than any war in the history of this country’s plethora of human conflict.

It was forged by Emmett Till, a young black man slaughtered brutally by vicious racists for the crime of merely flirting with a white woman.  It was forged by Malcom X who said “I am non violent BUT I am not nonviolent with people who are violent to me.”  He instilled a sense of pride and power in a people who had little of either.  And, of course, by Dr. Martin Luther King who said that this nation delivered a promissory note returned and marked insufficient funds; that this nation will live out the promise of its creed and honor that note where its people of color were concerned. 

The Watts section of Los Angeles burned, Bedford Stuyvesant section in New York burned, Detroit burned, Chicago burned and the post Civil War struggle for the rights of African Americans continued.  Human beings with other human beings said NO.  The black sanitation workers of Tennessee said NO, Rosa Parks said NO to the back of the bus.  They said NO to segregation at lunch counters, in schools, in bathrooms, in swimming pools, at water fountains and a thousand other different venues of every day life.  I AM A MAN their signs read because so many whites treated them as if they were something less. 

There is a long road to travel before the Zimmerman case has ended but whatever the outcome the history of Trayvon Martin’s death is inscribed indelibly onto the American historical heart. It hangs as a picture of the American historical landscape as does the hanged civil rights workers, Goodman, Cheney and Schwerner for as long as this country lives. 

The president has a rug in his oval office which reads: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." According to the September 4, 2010 Jamie Stiehm Washington Post article “... those words belong to a long-gone Bostonian champion of social progress. His roots in the republic ran so deep that his grandfather commanded the Minutemen at the Battle of Lexington. For the record, Theodore Parker antebellum American reformers, lyrically gifted abolitionist, Unitarian minister and Transcendentalist thinker who foresaw the end of slavery, though he did not live to see emancipation. He died at age 49 in 1860, on the eve of the Civil War.”

Indeed, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice in this nation once again.  It feels good to be an American today!

A Price Above Rubies (Proverbs 31:10)  -- A Gem: Every time I see an article about Elizabeth Warren (link here ) I am going to say the same thing. IF the people of Massachusetts do not elect her they will be missing out on one of the GREATEST minds, ethical humans, a candidate of IMMENSE ability especially in economics that could not only be good for our state but great for the nation as well. She is a DIAMOND and we simply cannot pass this utterly excellent woman up. 

PLEASE, people of Mass. listen to her speak, listen to her discuss issues. Go wherever she is and listen to her wisdom anyone would be convinced that she is LIGHT YEARS more excellent than Brown and really more superior to even the best in the Senate and there are a few -- JUST A FEW -- but she could be added to them. Please IF you can, contribute to her campaign. Take advantage of this fabulous opportunity to elect someone SO great to represent Massachusetts. 

You MUST realize how lucky Massachusetts is to have her. Once again she is a price above rubies. Elect this gem while you can!

 

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/10/massachusetts-senate-poll_n_1416174.html

Damned if I Know: Sorry for the title's light profanity but I was just reviewing some past articles of Matt Taibbi the brilliant, creative writer for Rolling Stone who makes the explanation of the economic catastrophe of 2007 actually entertaining to read. 

This is a wonderful February 16, 2011 article entitled "Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?"  Truthfully, it's fun, read it and either weep, be enraged or both.  Whatever you choose you should choose never to forget who REALLY landed us in this kettle of soup.  You can click here or on the link below!

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-isnt-wall-street-in-jail-20110216

I post the link to his articles which appear in Rolling Stone so that unlike most Americans your memory and my aging one are not short about the single most damaging historical rip off this country or the world has ever seen, in my opinion, worse than the Great Depression.  At least in the Great Depression of 1929 remedies were legislated to prevent another catastrophe only to be reversed 70 years later by a Congress in love with greed and Ayn Rand -- Alan Greenspan's secret love.  I wonder what Andrea Mitchell sees in that guy anyway.  I doubt she wed him for his looks!  Did I make that looksist comment?  I did.  Apologies but he reminds me of a Basset Hound.  I digress.

Our current economic kettle of rancid fish the "bipartisan" "American Jobs Act" about which Taibbi writes here is just another segment of the saga that goes on and on and on and on.  Most who read my posts and I who write them may not be around to see the utter catastrophe this brings on but your children, if you have them, probably will.  Ah, the good ole USof A what the hell happened to it?  Damned if I know.  I keep trying to figure it out. 

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/why-obamas-jobs-act-couldnt-suck-worse-20120409

"Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?" -- By Matt Taibbi -- February 16, 2011

Companies like AIG, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley. Most of these firms were directly involved in elaborate fraud and theft. Lehman Brothers hid billions in loans from its investors. Bank of America lied about billions in bonuses. Goldman Sachs failed to tell clients how it put together the born-to-lose toxic mortgage deals it was selling. What's more, many of these companies had corporate chieftains whose actions cost investors billions — from AIG derivatives chief Joe Cassano, who assured investors they would not lose even "one dollar" just months before his unit imploded, to the $263 million in compensation that former Lehman chief Dick "The Gorilla" Fuld conveniently failed to disclose. Yet not one of them has faced time behind bars."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-isnt-wall-street-in-jail-20110216#ixzz1rf5Jl411

Tulsa, Trayvon and Me -- I AM elated local authorities along with the FBI and the US Marshall’s office caught two suspects in the random shooting, killing and wounding of five African Americans as they walked on a street in Tulsa, Oklahoma. On the heels of the Trayvon Martin murder, handled SO incompetently by Florida officials, this latest act of mayhem if not handled promptly could result in more violence and rioting of people who are fed up being the main component of this nation’s indelible stain. I NEVER advocate for violence but who in their right mind could not understand a historically besieged people’s fury when they are the recipients of racist violence which knows no end?

Unlike the people they killed who will never see justice, the perpetrators of these heinous acts will get their day in court. Trayvon Martin’s murderer SHOULD get the same day in court and while they are at it in Florida repeal or amend significantly the damn “stand your ground law.”

One Tulsa news blogger said "there are always mitigating circumstances." Oh really? In this case it surely does not seem so. But I will not, like the victims’ killers would, rush to judgment. The blogger sounded like a neo-Nazi. Perhaps he is and perhaps he is not but what kind of a sadistic statement is that when two white men go around shooting numbers of black people at random, victims they did not know and who, as reported, were out for a walk. It is clear on which part of the political spectrum this right wingnut extremist lies when he makes a statement like that. Unfortunately too many in this nation feel the same as he or simply do not care. I care.

I only wish Trayvon Martin received the same care. Alas the infection and putrification of our nation which has not overthrown its Civil War past still poisons its sinew. How is it that our Founders, men of the Enlightenment and its birth of liberalism could live with the hypocrisy they created? A nation built on that liberalism seemed to forget or did not think that human beings dragged here against their will might one day rise up against the injustice viciously perpetrated against them. Our Founders sadly did not understand that the chains they placed around African American necks, the whip lashes they inflicted upon African American’s backs, the rapes they viciously perpetrated upon African American women would be revenged and that those chains would one day be thrown off, the whips stopped, the scars healed and a people would seek the full measure of the justice they so belatedly deserved.

And yet, there are still white apologists for a system so rancid it inflicts, even until this hour, mind numbing illness. Our nation is torn apart by the disease at its cancerous core eating away at the body politic which cannot live because of it. Tulsa and Trayvon have many things in common but if nothing else what they do not have in common is the Tulsa killings will NOT go unavenged like so many other black killing by whites historically have.

I believe Iowa has the death penalty for crimes such as this. I am usually against the death penalty BUT in this case IF found guilty I want that Shakespearean pound of flesh. Yes, I am angry. Any person of conscience SHOULD be angry when innocents’ lives are taken from them merely because of an accident of birth. A hate crime murder is worse than other murders because it threatens not merely the victims but ALL the members of the group to which the victim belonged. This country's war against people of color MUST and WILL stop as Malcolm X so rightly said “by any means necessary.”

The Tulsa victims, Trayvon's ghost and I want the long arc of the moral universe to bend toward the justice the Founders promised this nation. That promissory note about which, Dr. King so eloquently spoke, is STILL not satisfied and the moral arc of justice is not yet bending far enough for me.

Two Great Men: Interview by Bill Moyers of Andrew Bachevich, BU Prof. of History

I sent an email to Professor Andrew Bachevich, a well known professor of history at BU. He also is a retired career officer in the US Army, served in Vietnam and lost a son in Iraq. He knows from whence he speaks.

Dear Prof. Bachevich: Just a quick note because the night grows late but I wanted to tell you that I taped your appearance on the great Bill Moyers and watched it this evening. You were, of course, brilliant. Hard to believe that the president is touting Robert Kagan's book "The World America Made" and not yours, "The Short American Century a Post Mortem." Clearly hindsight is 20/20 but in that hindsight we surely can see the grievous error of our foreign policy ways.

This progressive who believed so fervently in the election of our president, has on her Kindle your earlier book "Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War." I will, after I finish that and few others including Rachel Maddow's "Drift" (absolutely superbly written), purchase "The Short American Century a Post Mortem."

I wonder if I can convince the man I thought would be another FDR to tilt his course a little more to the left? I still love our president, but I remain disappointed in his attempt to win over those who consistently when they hit him on one cheek hit him on the other also. He needs to know his base, people like me, want America's penchant for permanent war to come to a close. My years attending BU and knowing Howard Zinn gave me hope after Vietnam that it would happen. So far it does not appear to be the case. Maybe next year, if god willing, he wins again it will. I surely hope it does not take another century, which I will never see, to do so.

Excellent interview as usual. What else would I expect of two great men!

The Hispanic Vote 2012--No se deje engañar (Do NOT be fooled)--a letter to the Hispanic Community: It is no secret that Republicans are talking about capturing a good percentage of the Hispanic vote in the general 2012 presidential election. Some say if they do not secure at least 33% of the Hispanic vote they will lose in November against the president. Obviously, Republicans are working furiously in an effort to determine exactly how to do this. It is a difficult task when the party who claims it WANTS to secure the Hispanic vote promotes policies which clearly identify it AGAINST the Hispanic vote. One need only listen to what the Republican leadership and its base are saying.

I will not enumerate all the myriad of ways it says it will seek to, in actuality, diminish the Hispanic population in the US by advocating draconian anti-immigration practices in states such as Arizona with its "papers please" law signed by one of the most right wing extremist Republican governors in that state's history to Republicans in red states like Alabama and Mississippi which have attempted to create an immigration barrier and codify into law undocumented worker round-ups to keep small businesses from hiring them. Businesses in those states are suffering from those policies and some are in bankruptcy. Many Republicans want to ramp up efforts on the US borders to seize and kill, if necessary, those who are attempting to cross. They relegate human beings to less-than-human status. It is shameful. The Republican Party is the new Nativitist Party of this century. There are even efforts by right wingnuts to stop the teaching of Hispanic history in public schools. The list of anti-Hispanic policies by the Republican Party goes on and on. All one has to do is Google the facts.

Therefore, I ask you NOT to fall for the Trojan Horse of Republican politics that sounds so nice when its candidates tell you how much they love Hispanics and speak in Spanish for one purpose only and that is to secure the Hispanic vote. The Republican Party in reality does everything from border vigilantism to gerrymandering districts as well as enacting voter ID suppression laws to diminish the impact of the minority vote because they KNOW that vote is usually cast for Democrats.

As a last point and one which I hope you convey to the Hispanic community: DO NOT FALL for Republican attempts to place the Cuban-American Senator from Florida, Marco Rubio, as the Romney vice-presidential pick in order to lasso the Hispanic vote. This is a feeble attempt to take the Hispanic population as fools. Marco Rubio is NOT a Cuban refugee. He will no more be an advocate for Hispanic people than a white racist sheriff in a southwestern state, who wants to round up Latino people by any means necessary in an effort to deport them, is.

The Republican Party is NOT about Hispanic people. It is about white people trying to cement their power which they perceive is slipping away. Do NOT be FOOLED--No se deje enganar. The Republican Party is NOT about you or any who are among the 99%. They merely want you to THINK that they are to win power at your expense. Securing your vote for that purpose is too steep a price for any of us to pay.

The Olbermann Saga: For those of you who are interested in the fate of progressive commentator Keith Olbermann as I am I was just informed that Keith will be on David Letterman tonight and will perhaps explain his side of the story relating related to his firing. This story has transfixed me because I consider Keith Olbermann to be the king of commentary -- progressive commentary. When he was on MSNBC after Rachel Maddow they delivered, in my opinion, a one two knock out punch to the wingnut know-nothing extremists of Fox News and other so called "conservative" stations on the right.

When he left MSNBC under not the best of circumstances and took a major interest along with Al Gore and Joel Hyatt in forming the new progressive cable network Current TV channel 192 on FIOS, I was hopeful that this would provide him the latitude the other stations he was employed by over the years did not. Alas, it was not to be the case. My king of commentary was summarily fired last Friday by the co-owners Al Gore and Joel Hyatt. Very little was said except for a my-side-of-the-story statement by Al Gore on the Current web page. Keith has yet to say much except that Gore/Hyatt will have one whopper of a lawsuit headache for breach of contract in the ensuing months. I'm sure there will be counterclaims as well.

I have blogged as others have on the Current web page. Many of his supporters feel as dedicated to him and as sick about this situation as I. I am hoping he will explain his side of the story tonight on Letterman and hoping he will part of another progressive format shortly. I consider Keith one of the most important vehicles for presenting a fantastically charismatic, brilliant and significantly progressive viewpoint which is hard find in lamestream -- oops I mean mainstream -- corporate media today. I am hoping Keith will not be out of earshot long as I believe we need him now more than ever before.

Sarah Palin cohost of the Today Show: I just heard your advertisement for a ratings push to have Sarah Palin on co-hosting the Today Show next week. I am sending all I know an email and posting on my Facebook page and your Facebook page that I am canceling my regular series programming for the Today Show.

I think it is despicable to have a clearly right wingnut know nothing biased politico on the Today Show to co-host. I urge all those who agree with my political positions or even some of my political opinions to do the same and boycott the Today Show for at least a week.

If you want to have her on that is, of course, your right but the Today Show always taped every day in my house will be erased!

The Least of These: The questions of the Court regarding the Affordable Health Care Act appear ominous from the four died-in-the-wool right wingers and the one right of center moderate Anthony Kennedy as I originally thought. It is exactly why I am so nervous about this. Why are we being dangled on a string when this life or death decision is, it seems, already decided if one can count to five? It is so hugely sad.

Last night Keith Olbermann demanded Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law scholar and expert on various progressive and libertarian legal issues, "cut to the chase." I thought that a bit rude to demand of such a distinguished man like Jonathan Turley. Now I rather know what Olbermann meant. I personally think the conclusion of the Supreme Court has already been made. None of the so called conservative justices would dare offend their compatriots by siding with an administration that passes Democratic legislation to actually lend a helping hand to people in desperate need and in health crises across this country.

So I ask now, Justices, respectfully, do not make me wait until June to see you bit by bit take an administration down to further your own alliance with HUGE corporate power as you did in Citizen United. Yes, please cut to the chase and do what as Macbeth said when contemplating the killing of King Duncan:

"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly" because by your decision, Justices, on this issue you are committing as Christ is alleged to have talked about "the least of these" your brethren to an early grave.

This cannot and MUST not be allowed to derail the Obama presidency. The destruction an extremist right wing presidency could bring is inexplicable. We will be a doomed nation for decades if this is allowed to happen and for the least of these our brethren we should NEVER let it.

A Progressive Oasis: I have just purchased Rachel Maddow's new book "Drift -- The Unmooring of American Military Power." I am reading reviews that it is a wonderful book and an easy read. It was reviewed well by Glenn Greenwald. Frankly, that was good enough for me. Rachel is OUR powerhouse of progressive action. She has and I hope will for many many years be a progressive oasis in a conservative desert.

I humbly suggest you purchase her book if you can. I put the link below to link you to it.

I know you and I will enjoy it!

http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=drift+rachel+maddow&tag=googhydr-20&index=stripbooks&hvadid=18083526810&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=978488657393727352&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&ref=pd_sl_5itsnm0cq2_b

Masochists in our Midst: A quote from an MSNBC article which sums up my fear: "Some argue that Congress, for one, is likely to refuse to make changes to the law to develop alternatives to the mandate. “It isn’t going to get fixed,” said Robert Laszewski, who runs a consulting firm, Health Policy and Strategy Associates, in Alexandria, Va. “Republicans want to blow it up. They’re going to be happy that the Supreme Court threw a grenade in it.”

IN OTHER WORDS THE SUPREME COURT MUST NOT NEGATE THE MANDATE IN THE AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE ACT AKA OBAMACARE FOR IT TO WORK.

YOU MUST PRESSURE EVERYONE BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY THAT THE SUPREME COURT DOES NOT NEGATE THE MANDATE. THIS IS SIGNATURE LEGISLATION FOR THE PRESIDENT AND REPUBLICANS ARE SALIVATING BECAUSE THEY THINK IF THE COURT NEGATES IT WILL SINK THE PRESIDENT AND HIS REELECTION LOST. DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN!

I DO NOT CARE HOW YOU APPLY THE PRESSURE WHETHER IN WRITTEN WORD, CALLS TO THE SUPREME COURT AND ELSEWHERE OR GOING TO WASHINGTON TO PICKET WITH OUR GROUP BUT DO IT. YOU and YOUR CHILDREN'S LIVES DEPEND UPON IT. NOTHING SHORT OF LIVES ARE IN THE BALANCE!

WHY ANYONE ON PLANET EARTH WOULD OPPOSE SOMETHING THAT CAN AT LEAST HELP TO FIX OUR INSURANCE BLOATED HEATH CARE EMPLOYER-BASED INSANITY IS BEYOND ME. THERE ARE MASOCHISTS IN OUR MIDST WHO LOVE PAIN AND SADISTS WHO LOVE TO SEE IT INFLICTED ON OTHERS!

Not that Mad about Mad Men—Season Five: I LOVED Mad Men from the beginning. It was set in an era in which I worked for a large corporation and remember those times well. There was not a segment of Mad Men I missed. Just in case I had forgotten something I reviewed the prior episodes.

Having said that and respecting ALL the actors' craft (I love them all) the new episode left me cold. I simply do not know what it is trying to do. It seemed like it was a line up of great actors in search of a story. It was not coming through to me. Don Draper's hook up with his secretary left me head scratching. She is a younger woman who is so adept handling his children but clueless about the private nature of the man and throws him a surprise 40th birthday party -- oh yes we all love those turning of decades celebrations so much -- dances seductively in front of his co-workers in their own home and she thinks he will be thrilled at that? It stumped me. It was good to see the inclusion of the black experience in America but the rest of it seemed pointless.

I am a faithful viewer so I will go on no matter what but from first view of this new season I wonder if the writers can ever duplicate that which it was before.

My Week with Marilyn -- A Film Review: Rented the Academy Award nominated film for best actress, "My Week with Marilyn" and since I lived during the Marilyn Monroe era but never knew this particular episode of her life it interested me. She was the film sensation of the 1950's and reflected much about the crushing superficiality of that time. As a child I could not appreciate her artistry because I WAS a child and because she was used mercilessly by Hollywood and the public who sold her as a piece of ornament or satisfaction for the lust of men and as an object of envy of women for Hollywood to make a buck. She was, in the final analysis, only human; the product of her childhood which was empty of love and absent parental care.

Looking as an adult at the artistry of Marilyn Monroe I see something quite different and lament the fact, as I do about all film and theater genus who die before their time, that we are deprived from enjoying more of their excellence. Other films Marilyn made outside of the ones of fluff had substance. Her roles in "Niagara," "The Misfits" and "Some Like it Hot" reflected her once-in-a-lifetime talent.

I walk away from this non-fiction film sad because Marilyn Monroe WAS sad. She was intrinsically sad. I thought the film quite accurately showed that sadness. The role of Marilyn was played, I thought, as perfectly as it could by Michelle Williams. It is difficult to play larger-than-life figures.

Some of the other characters were to me forgettable because Marilyn absorbs one's attention whether in real life or fantasy like a sponge. Marilyn oozed beauty and vulnerability. It is only natural that men and some women too must have desired to rescue this damsel in distress. Alas, maturity tells us only we can be the rescuer of us.

There was no Oprah show then to show us how to overcome the impossible obstacles placed before us in life. I wonder what Marilyn would have been like if she could have experienced the social revolution of our time. We will never know. The child in Marilyn never got to become an adult and we as the adults never get to see her morph into one.

Of Supreme Importance: I happened to catch the news tonight. The Supreme Court is on the verge of a major decision on the president's Affordable Health Care Act. It looks like our obstructionist opposition is getting out to protest as they insultingly call it "Obamacare." They SHOULD have some company. There should be MANY Democrats and like minded people who realize the importance of the president's health care act. There SHOULD be MORE in number show up of those who SUPPORT the president as those who obstruct our president.

This bill WILL provide needed changes, bring down health care costs as stated by the CBO and ensure EVERYONE access to health care. Most especially it will mean that NO ONE, NO ONE be without health care again or kicked out because of preexisting conditions as minor as allergies. It WILL save lives.

We know the mean-spirited rancid nature of our opposition. We must NEVER let the forces of regression, racism and obstructionist interposition prevail nullifying that which we as a people so desperately need.

PLEASE tell those whom you may know to organize especially in Washington in front of the Supreme Court, to uphold our president's Affordable Health Care Act, hammered out tooth and nail over years. Pull people from ALL those who support the president's cause to STAND UP against these forces of Medieval torture. FIGHT BACK and show them there are MORE of us then there are of them!

Rejoice: The death of evil and the killing of the Anti-Semite murderer of Jews in France: Who takes pleasure in a death? When it is the killer of two Jewish children and their rabbi father in France I DO! The headline, although I have not read the entire story yet, made me cheer and I am NOT ashamed to say it. I have always said I am left of center in my political views BUT my eyes see what they see and it is because of what my eyes see I am a supporter of the Jewish people, in general the State of Israel and the west. I have to be. I see free states as opposed to religious fanatical tyrannies. Yes, there are fanatics everywhere BUT USUALLY orthodox and other religious Jews keep to themselves and do not export religion. Children, any children, everywhere hurt NO ONE.

I did wonder why it took so long for the French government to perfect the killing but I do not care because we do not know how difficult this was to do and how hard it must have been to make the innocent secure as they secure members of their own French force. The murderer was a mind saturated with violence and well armed to take down any Jew or any French authority walking.

I say KUDOS to the French government. There is one more dead anti-Semite. That is a good thing. In the Vichy years of the Nazi period they NEVER would have investigated the death of Jews but rather, France, replete with anti-Semitism, contributed to it. THINGS change. They better well have changed. NO ONE anymore can wage war on Jews and think Jews will not fight back. If the French did not get him the Israelis probably would have.

The Holocaust has taught Jews everywhere we need to know about who cares about Jews. Jews do and some righteous others who see the longest hatred for what it is. The anti-Semitism that was centuries old in Europe can be seen now as its baton has been passed all over the Middle East.

The Jewish people LIVE and will NEVER submit EVER again to the disgusting anti-Semitism that was rife in France and ALL of Europe for centuries. The death of the murderous anti-Semite does not bring back the dead children and their father BUT they killed evil today in France and I am rejoicing!

Crooked: If you read nothing else read Matt Taibbi's "Too Crooked to Fail" which appeared in Rolling Stone. It will tell you in language anyone can understand (including me who is math challenged to put it mildly.) It is funny, it is brilliant and written so you are guaranteed to laugh before you cry knowing EXACTLY what the Great Mortgage Fraud of 2007 was and its attendant Great Global Recession. Click here if you want to read the most entertaining rendition of an economic swindle you will ever read about this usually arid dry subject. If you cannot click on that I post the link below. 1000 pardons if I sent this before. I may have since it has taken me quite some time to direct my efforts!

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/bank-of-america-too-crooked-to-fail-20120314