YOU of all people, Mr. McCain, are angry at Senator Hagel since he ideologically split with your party because of a PHONY TRUMPED UP war killing THOUSANDS and creating unbelievable instability in that neck of the woods? SHAME ON YOU, Mr. McCain. Once you were thought to have a mind of your own now you fault Mr. Hagel for having one himself and on moral grounds objecting to a disastrous war. HE WAS RIGHT about it maybe that's what gets you. SHAME ON YOU!
IF we EVER on planet earth thought Republicans would be willing to compromise with this president we can see now finally what a mistake it was to think that. Lindsay Graham and YOU, who professed your adoration for your war compatriot Hagel, NOW stab him in the back to hold up the process. This is DESPICABLE. This obstruction has NEVER been done before to a president's choice for Secretary of Defense.
First Susan Rice with your mendacious FAUX charges on Benghazi because of words she said on a talk show when it first happened. Rice had NOTHING to do with Benghazi and YOU knew it. Republicans did that to poke a stick in the eye of the president and for nothing more. Hagel is eminently qualified.
If the president is guilty of Benghazi which he was NOT then how come Republican HYPOCRITES did not indict George Bush for taking us to a PHONY Iraq war killing THOUSANDS. One can see how SICKENING the minority racist bastard extremists who control the Republican Party are and YOU are controlled by them. Yes, I believe much if not most of the opposition Tea Baggers will do anything in their power to defeat this sterling African American president. This fuels their animus and you go where the power is despite your own one time singularity.
ONCE you were a moral man but NO more. If we do nothing else for our Democratic humanitarian cause we WILL remember this -- Our lives, OUR children's lives and ALL those who come after them WILL be cut short because of your party's vicious bastards' attempts at pulling Medicare and Social Security out from under them. Republicans have wanted to do that since FDR. If the nation keeps electing Republican mendacious vipers like you never were BUT are now we are in BIG trouble. Republicans are gunning for our money and everyone else's money to give to Wall Street to invest, then have the market fail like it did in 2007 and the Wall Street BUMS will take it all. Hagel is just a symbol of what the obstruction is about. How could YOU do that to your good friend for George Bush, a little despicable man who killed thousands for a lie? If allowed these inanimate object Republicans will see to it that they, their corporations, the pigs they feed at the trough and their racist cronies will take it all.
You are forewarned. We WILL do anything one can that is legal to tell these monster Republicans we KNOW what they are up to and that we the Democrats, Independents and even fair minded Republicans of humane thought WILL do everything in our power to defeat these know nothings come 2014 and beyond. YOU a war hero, are compromising national security by not confirming the multi-qualified Hagel. Tell your cronies in no uncertain terms Republicans WILL pay the electoral price in the not to distant future. We WILL not forget and say NEVER AGAIN!
Friday, February 15, 2013
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
A PROGRAM NOTE OF GREAT INTEREST: Rachel Maddow Monday, Feb. 18 -- Hubris 9:00 p.m. Selling the Iraq War
As stated on the TRMS web site – "Join Rachel Maddow for the step by step true story of how the American people were sold on the Iraq War – Premiers February 18, 2013 at 9:00 p.m. on MSNBC.”
If one cares about whether or not a president takes a nation to war, the most solemn decision he can ever make, then this is, I think, a MUST see. Rachel Maddow is to me an American treasure. She is brilliant, she is thoughtful, and she is an MSNBC star of progressive political commentary. She makes astute and correct assessments of political history made in our nation.
In my experience over decades watching the news from Cronkite to the present, Rachel Maddow is one of the BEST that news commentary has to offer. My world is influenced in the best way possible by this extraordinary host. I am thrilled she is on our side. What did our country do without her? I can tell you. It was led into useless wars killing hundreds of thousands of human beings no questions asked by a feckless media.
Rachel saves lives and influences politics in a humane and compassionate way. Long may she do this, for me, for our country and, indeed, for the world.
A Title for the President's Administration
I had a thought (only one). Maybe it's been said before I do not know but John Kennedy had the New Frontier, LBJ had the Great Society and Franklin Roosevelt had the New Deal. I think this presidency should be perfectly characterized as
THE FAIR DEAL
I like it 
I am sure that most have heard because of the difficult time Republicans are giving the president on the Hagel nomination as they did for Susan Rice they will need now 60 votes for cloture. Send a message to ESPECIALLY the senate Republicans that this is unacceptable and they are slowly but surely ruining their chances for 2014.
I am sure Republicans will try to block a plethora of additional presidential cabinet posts. How much does that frost me? A LOT. They will not let this president breathe. I want them electorally DEMOLISHED in 2014!
REPUBLICANS LIE, THEY STEAL AND THEY SUPPRESS THE MINORITY VOTE. THERE IS MORE THAN ENOUGH REASON WHY WE NEED TO CRUSH THOSE REPUGLICAN RACIST TROJAN HORSES IN 2014 AND BEYOND.
ONWARD
Rubio's Burried Headline.
Very poignant email by Arshad Hasan scroll down. She gets to the crux of the Republican agenda of cuts to benefits which are the foundation for 98% of our country. Republicans would DECIMATE the middle class of our nation, kick the poor in the teeth, eat all of it and leave the bones to be buried ... literally. DO NOT BE DUPED by how nice Republicans sound. They are NOT nice.
In practice what the Republicans want to do would be devastating! Remember 2007 when the Republicans brought this country to its knees and nearly into the abyss. They are in pertinent part responsible for why our nation has tragically for the middle class economically nose dived. We are coming back but Congress must act and give an assist to a Democratic economic agenda which, if not fought tooth and nail by the Republican Party of division, hate and discord, would heal our wounds.
DO NOT LET IT. 2014 is the year of the CRUSH. Crush the Republican -- split down the middle composed of know nothings -- Party before we have no country left!
-----Original Message-----
From: Arshad Hasan
Sent: Wed, Feb 13, 2013 12:22 am
Subject: Marco Rubio buried the headline
Natalie -
Republicans just launched a new attack on Social Security.
Marco Rubio's response to the President's State of the Union buried the headline: Republicans want to make devastating cuts to Social Security benefits. Maybe you missed it because Rubio awkwardly took a sip of water and then tried to sell those cuts to the American people as a plan to reduce the deficit and "save" Social Security.
The Republican plan to "save" Social Security? It's just another scheme to push down working families and prop up subsidies for big corporations.
That's why we're joining Rep. Alan Grayson and our friends at the PCCC in telling Democrats to take any and all benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid off the table and pass a jobs bill that will put Americans back to work.
Tell Democrats in Congress: Vote against any cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
Republicans can't cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid on their own -- they'll try to use the next budget showdown to force Democrats to join them in passing these cuts.
We can't let that happen. We need to get Democrats on the record right now -- we need them to pledge to vote no on any benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. We get enough Democrats to do that, and we win.
Join Rep. Alan Grayson and tell Democrats in Congress to take Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid off the table.
Thank you for all that you do.
-Arshad
Arshad Hasan, Executive Director
Democracy for America
Democracy for America relies on you and the people-power of more than one million members to fund the grassroots organizing and training that delivers progressive change on the issues that matter. Please Contribute Today and support our mission.
In practice what the Republicans want to do would be devastating! Remember 2007 when the Republicans brought this country to its knees and nearly into the abyss. They are in pertinent part responsible for why our nation has tragically for the middle class economically nose dived. We are coming back but Congress must act and give an assist to a Democratic economic agenda which, if not fought tooth and nail by the Republican Party of division, hate and discord, would heal our wounds.
DO NOT LET IT. 2014 is the year of the CRUSH. Crush the Republican -- split down the middle composed of know nothings -- Party before we have no country left!
-----Original Message-----
From: Arshad Hasan
Sent: Wed, Feb 13, 2013 12:22 am
Subject: Marco Rubio buried the headline
Natalie -
Republicans just launched a new attack on Social Security.
Marco Rubio's response to the President's State of the Union buried the headline: Republicans want to make devastating cuts to Social Security benefits. Maybe you missed it because Rubio awkwardly took a sip of water and then tried to sell those cuts to the American people as a plan to reduce the deficit and "save" Social Security.
The Republican plan to "save" Social Security? It's just another scheme to push down working families and prop up subsidies for big corporations.
That's why we're joining Rep. Alan Grayson and our friends at the PCCC in telling Democrats to take any and all benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid off the table and pass a jobs bill that will put Americans back to work.
Tell Democrats in Congress: Vote against any cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
Republicans can't cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid on their own -- they'll try to use the next budget showdown to force Democrats to join them in passing these cuts.
We can't let that happen. We need to get Democrats on the record right now -- we need them to pledge to vote no on any benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. We get enough Democrats to do that, and we win.
Join Rep. Alan Grayson and tell Democrats in Congress to take Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid off the table.
Thank you for all that you do.
-Arshad
Arshad Hasan, Executive Director
Democracy for America
Democracy for America relies on you and the people-power of more than one million members to fund the grassroots organizing and training that delivers progressive change on the issues that matter. Please Contribute Today and support our mission.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
[NOVA] "Earth from Space" -- a suggestion to watch -- with a caveat below
This program looks utterly fabulous. We will be taping it and watching it all. This is television at its most profound and a force for good. It is a force for intellectual curiosity and instruction as to who we are and what transpires on our beautiful beautiful planet. It makes one want desperately to be a steward of this one earth on which we miraculously reside and especially to stop earth's killer -- polluting and climate changing fossil fuels!
A Caveat must be mentioned: PBS is now funded and its programming perhaps overseen by the Koch Brothers, who are right wing funders of right wing extremism and the Republican Party. Their fortune is in oil and many other things. Still, that does not mean all programming is tainted and it means some programming has worth. BUT one should always know that this right wing slant has taken over what USED to be one of the best public stations on earth and, in my opinion, because of that fact, it no longer is. I no longer give money to support its broadcasting but I will watch certain things I deem have merit.
It is a sad fact and reality of the world in which we live that money buys it all and NOT for humane purposes. It extends far and wide even to the media. Beware and if you give to PBS I suggest you stop and tell them exactly why. The Koch Brothers are major funders of the Tea Baggies, are major deniers of global climate change going against 98% of scientific expertise in the subject. Beware of ALL things bearing their name! --WHY WE MUST ELECT DEMOCRATS IN 2014 AND BEYOND!
-----Original Message-----
From: NOVA <novanewsletter@wgbh.org>
To: natalierosen <natalierosen@aol.com>
Sent: Tue, Feb 12, 2013 7:21 am
Subject: [NOVA] "Earth from Space"
From: NOVA <novanewsletter@wgbh.org>
To: natalierosen <natalierosen@aol.com>
Sent: Tue, Feb 12, 2013 7:21 am
Subject: [NOVA] "Earth from Space"
"Earth from Space” is now available on DVD from 
Monday, February 11, 2013
Skyfall -- Adele -- Beautiful
I was never a music groupie I loved the music of my youth and even the music of my mother's youth but, in modern times, that love of contemporary music left me -- too much sex, too much violence, too loud and often too vulgar. That is not who I am. Consequently, I tune out award shows like the Grammy's because generally speaking -- very generally speaking -- I do not like much contemporary sound -- UNTIL I decided to see what all the hype was about Adele. Below is the Youtube of her song, "Skyfall" that has won her much acclaim including a Golden Globe and a Grammy. Her voice is gorgeous and haunting, the words profound. No wonder everyone loves her there is much to love.
Enjoy here or below!
The POOPED Pope? -- "Out out damn spot"
Pope Benedict XVI is too tired and must resign, he says. It is the first resignation of a pope in 700 years. Why does this even matter to me? Mostly, it does not as it surely has no influence in MY life BUT in a way it does because this institution directs its clergy in hypocritical fashion from the pulpit in our country and around the world to advocate for political issues that suppress and most importantly oppress human beings spending money against policy it does not like. It has influence on voters.
The Austrian born Pope Benedict XVI I thought was ugliness incarnate from the time he was selected Pope. Charles Dickens could not have given him a better name – The former Cardinal Ratzinger. He had a childhood in the Nazi Youth and I believe continued to hold some of the ideological and anti-Semitic views with which he was infused at a young age. It was evidenced by certain tolerances by him of priests who would conduct in Latin the inclusion of century’s old anti-Semitic passages in the mass which had been long erased from its liturgy. He apologized to the Jewish people more than once.
As an adult in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, he was in control of the hidden sex scandals and other corruptions which saturated the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, aka the Inquisition, a morphed institution he once led. The church has tortured and slaughtered in its history many -- many Jews and others it considered heretics. Now while it does not physically slaughter it emotionally still does. It stands silent in the face of a great sin against humanity with the massive sexual abuse of children by hundreds of its priests around the world and then actively for decades covered those unthinkable crimes up.
I recently viewed "Mea Culpa: Silence in the House of God" an HBO documentary by the great Alex Gibney. Its synopsis in part says:
[Mea Culpa] investigates the secret crimes of Father Lawrence Murphy, a charismatic Milwaukee priest who abused more than 200 Deaf children in a school under his control. The film documents the first known public protest against clerical sex abuse in the U.S., which led to a case that spanned three decades and ultimately resulted in a lawsuit against the pontiff himself. The investigation helped uncover documents from the secret Vatican archives that show the Pope, who must operate within the mysterious rules of the Roman Curia, as both responsible and helpless in the face of evil.
Many popes, including this present one, ignored these crimes. The church tries to keep this evidence and its silence behind its walls while they move those accused priests around the world like pawns on a checkerboard and do nothing for its victims. This corrupt and disordered celibate institution will probably conduct business as usual and its great perversion against children will go on. Since we are not living in the Middle Ages (or at least I THINK we are not) resignation of this pope will make no difference to most but the church in its infinite odious wisdom will continue to advocate for policies against women and advocate against, in mind numbing hypocrisy, ALL forms of gay rights even though the institution of the church contains many adult innocent homosexual priests within it. It did nothing about the TRUE crimes it perpetrated and would still be doing nothing, hiding in the dark to this day if not for the press blowing the scandal sky high to see the light of day.
The church could finally, now, have an opportunity to remake itself, ultimately reopen churches to their faithful and in so doing fill its coffers with the gold it lost. I am sure, however, it will not remake much.
I submit the Pope is NOT too pooped although the church will surely take advantage of his age in its explanation of his resignation. No, I suspect the Pope is NOT too pooped but rather has soaked his own hands in blood by the acquiescence of his Church’s own sexual abuse of children. This damn spot, like Lady Macbeth's, cannot be washed out.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Block the Block
This appeared on Huffington in response to the article stating Graham of S. Carolina to block two top Obama pics for Sec. of Defense and CIA -- Hagel and Brennan respectively, two eminently qualified men. This person hit the nail on the proverbial head and did it more succinctly than I! Both of us are adamantly committed to Republicans losing their shirt in 2014! I cannot wait.
Graham Cracker Block
Huff Post Headline: Lindsey Graham Plans To
Block Chuck Hagel, John Brennan To Get Answers On Benghazi
These Republicans are simply just bastards. Forgive
the profanity but that is the ONLY epithet I can manage to use to aptly describe
them. They are utterly sickening racist slime. The president could say he
is giving everyone a box of chocolates with his own money and the Lindsey
Grahams of the RepublicRAT Party would call for his overthrow.
I wonder if Graham opposed Brennan when Brennan was in the
Bush administration. I suspect he did not. It simply makes
Democrats all the more FURIOUS and all the more determined to give them a FINAL
electoral smashing in 2014.
We are waiting patiently as justice WILL work its magic.
We WILL take back the House, secure the Senate even more and, of
course, the executive is ours to kick sand in their ugly faces.
Hopefully, the presidency will be in our hands beyond
2016as the president will pass his baton to the next Democrat (hoping for
Hillary.) They are DESPICABLE!
WHY WE MUST BE
DETERMINED TO WIN IT ALL.
ONWARD TO 2014!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/10/lindsey-graham-chuck-hagel_n_2657802.html#comments
Friday, February 08, 2013
Science Rules -- A Raging Planet
I feel bad for NYC and Staten Island. It is deja vu all over again for them as it seems like Hurricane Sandy is repeating itself if that is possible. Extend that through Boston on to Portland, Maine and beyond, the inconvenient truth that Al Gore talked about in his famous presentation, is coming truer beyond anyone's predication that it would so soon.
I am a science worshiper and kneel at its alter. Either you believe in science or you don't and why one would not staggers the rational mind at the ignorance that is reflected in so much of our population.
Science rules. Its truth as reflected in physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics cannot be denied. Science is NOT faith because it is provable and repeatable. Climate change is accepted by at least 98% (or more now) of the best scientists and I believe them!
When one considers collectively ALL the disasters in recent time it shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Al Gore knew what he was talking about when he produced "An Inconvenient Truth." He knew it was true because he was talking TO scientists. As far back as the 1970's he with the scientists that influenced him could see the remarkable change in weather patterns in coincidence with the Industrial Age and its burning of filthy fossil fuels that polluted the atmosphere, dramatically increased global warming that produces the explosive weather events we are now experiencing. An increase in temperature from the burning of fossil fuels and its deadly pollutive influence on the earth's atmosphere are robbing us of billions, ruining our beautiful planet and ultimately will, I fear, kill us all.
The floods, the fires, the intense hurricanes, cyclones, tsunamis, droughts, crushing record breaking heat in the summer, tornadoes, mud slides from saturating rain and now the snow hurricanes in winter are more than enough to prove the point. Al Gore's inconvenient truth was 100% correct but this country does little to ameliorate the effects of its massive contribution to climate change.
Instead of fixing infrastructure, the national electric grid, burying electric and telephone lines, developing alternative energies of wind and solar we have IDIOTS wanting a dastardly uber dirty pipe line dug from Canada to Louisiana to feed the pig's insatiable appetite for more filthy polluting oil. The pipeline will carry one of the world's dirtiest fuels tar sands oil warming the planet further. Why attempt to fix climate change for generations to come when we can spend trillions on trumped up wars to feed the military industrial complex beast and kill a lot of people in the process?
In addition, we now proudly can attest this country has more natural gas to be gleaned from fracking shale than Saudi Arabia has oil. The corporatists say it will make us energy self sufficient. The problem is we will not live to tell this dirty story. The innocent, duped by the corporations that frack their land, try to drink the fire water from their taps lit up by chemicals used to frack that gas out of the earth sickening them with cancer and other insufferable diseases that fracking causes.
Moreover, superstitious, ridiculous and extreme religious wackoism will kill us all through the ignorance it spreads. This country could lead the way BUT it must destroy the power of the stupids that occupy a large part of the Republican political spectrum.
The earth is NOT flat, a god's will does NOT cause disease but bacteria, viruses and DNA do. Evolution is truth and it should not be debated with those who want to believe in comforting fairy tale myths of sky gods, seas parting, virgins giving birth and men rising from the dead.
Moses played by Charlton Heston in the absurd film "The Ten Commandments" did get one thing right however. He said "If man does not live by the law he will die by the law." It is, though, the law of science and not man's law that has the last word. There is NO question now that we are living on a raging planet and that the planet's explosive weather is due to one animal -- MAN. If he does not obey the laws of science he WILL die by its laws that will sentence him to extinction sooner than he ever thought possible.
Thursday, February 07, 2013
A Republic if you can keep it. A Liberal’s Conundrum—The Fourth Amendment in the Age of Terror
The Fourth Amendment
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
What could be more sacred in extremis to a liberal than the Fourth Amendment? Answer: Nothing – usually. If anyone told me forty years ago that I would be in debate with myself over our most valued civil libertarian guarantee I would have thought them ... well … nuts.
The very foundation of this nation’s oft touted superiority to other nations of less democratic inclinations lies embedded in the Fourth Amendment. It is a near sacred text brilliant in its conception so much so other nations emulate it. There is no more evidence of our Founders genius than their construct of the Fourth Amendment, an insurance policy to a democratic republic that mandates no one is above the law. No dictator, no potentate, no tyrant and, yes, even no democratic leader can think himself superior to its edict.
Recently, though, it has come under a challenge that heretofore would have been thought ridiculous to contemplate. The president is alleged to have bent the long arc of justice not toward justice but away from it. There is incredulity of a commander-in-chief who was a Constitutional Law professor in a prestigious academic institution to possess a so called “kill list.” Yes, Barack Obama, has, in this age of terror, in Star Trek fashion, allegedly gone where no man has gone before. The president has ordered drone killings abroad on his orders even to American citizens without evidence, without warrant and without those things mandated by the crystal clear Fourth Amendment.
He has been given a permission slip by his Office of Legal Counsel that drone strikes are legal even at home if he and others under his tutelage deem someone an existential threat to the republic. Not only can individuals be targeted by the president simply issuing the order but others who are seen merely walking or being in that person’s vicinity perhaps on the wrong side of sidewalk near the offender can be killed. This is unprecedented.
As I am writing this I cannot believe that this is by liberals debated AND YET it is debated by me. Glenn Greenwald, civil libertarian lawyer supreme, has been writing against this policy for months and indicting the Obama administration as being worse than the administration of George Bush.
Glenn Greenwald says: "… due process is guaranteed in the Constitution and judicial review of government accusations has been a staple of western justice since the Magna Carta"
But the people at the time of the Magna Carta, as pure as their motives may have been, did NOT face a world of nuclear dirty bombs or worse the total annihilation of western civilization.
I am a liberal and a staunch Democrat. Why do I not care if the president is going after treasonous vipers who have said, by their own words that they are in a holy war against the west and will stop at nothing, even if it takes generations to do so, to destroy the United States and all of its western allies?
Glenn Greenwald, when you are dying from leukemia because a dirty bomb exploded within the area you happen to be, then tell me how much you care about the Fourth Amendment for those terrorists who would, if they could, commit this dastardly act. The thought of living under a religious fascist state, ANY religious fascist state is to me more repugnant than the suspension of the Fourth Amendment for the cause of defeating our most virulent foes who would if they could eradicate us all. Yes, I address you my friends, you my relatives, ALL of you who read my opinions, nothing one could say or nothing one could do would change the mind of an Anwar al-Alawaki or the minions he represents and the Obama administration has targeted them for elimination.
Until I see otherwise, until I see the president and his underlings who enforce his decree are in error, I continue to say IF ANYONE, ANYONE at all says they support the religious fascism that is an Al Qaeda world then I do NOT care what the president must do to stop them.
Moreover, I do NOT feel the least bit frightened, or the least bit constrained and you, Glenn Greenwald, by the very fact that you are writing the strong opposition to the president you do have the freedom to do it. No one that I know of is targeting you for observation or elimination. BUT if you said you would be willing to work for a world according to Al Qaeda -- one in which people are put to death or severely hurt for the MOST trivial reasons – the beautiful child Malala who merely wanted girls to be educated was severely shot being an example – then I say the president MUST do everything in his power to STOP that from happening. If YOU, Glenn Greenwald, an admitted homosexual, were living in an Al Qaeda world you would NOT be living long.
Why the left allows these bestial acts done by extremists to go uncriticized, I have no idea. Rather it goes after those states in which people really do, for the most part live free! The left makes me question my own affiliation with it. I do not know where I fit but I do know that the west is infinitely superior to any religious fundamentalist state.
One must open one's eyes and deal with political realities not idealistic fantasy. This is NOT a game and this is not the same world that our Founders knew. As much as we want it to be probably, since 9/11, it never will be again!
As stated by David W. Johnson – writing for Salem Newsnet:
“225 years ago, as an aged Benjamin Franklin departed from the Constitutional Convention of 1787, a woman in the street called out: "Well Doctor Franklin, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" Franklin replied back: "a republic if you can keep it”
Until it is proven otherwise, I believe that is just what the president is trying to do!
Wednesday, February 06, 2013
Why Ed Markey is the one! A big opportunity to tackle climate change
This is why Ed Markey is the ONLY choice for US Senator (see below.) He is NOT a science denier. He is intellectually stellar and has massive experience (36 years!) in the House. He has been a lion on climate change as well as 100% progressive on every other issue!
If you are not from Mass. please tell those you know who are or Google Ed Markey's web page to see how you can help to keep the Senate OUT of the opposition's hands and keep the majority Democrat for you, for me, and for all those who will come after us.
Dear Natalie,
Superstorm Sandy and unprecedented extreme weather. The worst drought middle America has seen in half a century. Global temperatures and sea levels rising fast.
NASA calls weather patterns “vital signs of the planet” -- and Earth’s vital signs are alarming.
I’ve been proud to lead the fight against climate change -- and I’m committed to continuing that fight in the Senate. President Obama’s inaugural address highlighted the need to take action on this critical issue and we must continue to move this debate forward.
The State of the Union is coming up, and I’m hoping you’ll join me in sending a message to the President:
With its strongest champion John Kerry now gone, I want to be the passionate voice in the Senate for taking action on climate change.
We can’t let obstructionist Republicans who deny the science of global warming stop us from taking action. We have to commit to action before it’s too late to combat the most dire consequences of climate change.
President Obama has a chance to take a huge step forward in the State of the Union address. But he needs to know that we will stand with him.
I’m sending a message to the President: Give us a bold plan to address climate change, and I’ll stand with you.
We can already see the devastating impacts of the warming of our planet. Massachusetts’s economy, infrastructure and natural resources are already at risk. We can’t let this opportunity for action slip through our fingers.
Now is the time for action. Let’s urge President Obama to include a bold plan of action for tackling climate change in his State of the Union Address.
Thank you.
Ed
Paid for by The Markey Committee
Dear Natalie,Superstorm Sandy and unprecedented extreme weather. The worst drought middle America has seen in half a century. Global temperatures and sea levels rising fast.
NASA calls weather patterns “vital signs of the planet” -- and Earth’s vital signs are alarming.
I’ve been proud to lead the fight against climate change -- and I’m committed to continuing that fight in the Senate. President Obama’s inaugural address highlighted the need to take action on this critical issue and we must continue to move this debate forward.
The State of the Union is coming up, and I’m hoping you’ll join me in sending a message to the President:
With its strongest champion John Kerry now gone, I want to be the passionate voice in the Senate for taking action on climate change.
We can’t let obstructionist Republicans who deny the science of global warming stop us from taking action. We have to commit to action before it’s too late to combat the most dire consequences of climate change.
President Obama has a chance to take a huge step forward in the State of the Union address. But he needs to know that we will stand with him.
I’m sending a message to the President: Give us a bold plan to address climate change, and I’ll stand with you.
We can already see the devastating impacts of the warming of our planet. Massachusetts’s economy, infrastructure and natural resources are already at risk. We can’t let this opportunity for action slip through our fingers.
Now is the time for action. Let’s urge President Obama to include a bold plan of action for tackling climate change in his State of the Union Address.
Thank you.
Ed
Paid for by The Markey Committee
Monday, February 04, 2013
Woe is US -- Re: Tomgram: Noam Chomsky, Why It's "Legal" When the U.S. Does It
I enclose pasted below, if you are interested, a take on US power that is, I think, most interesting, in Tom Dispatch Noam Chomsky's recent article entitled. "The Paranoia of the Superrich and Superpowerful Washington’s Dilemma on a “Lost” Planet."
I have, in my pedestrian way, been saying for a long time that the US is STUCK in a 1945 WWII time warp psychological miasma. If nothing else WWII was a necessary war. Finally, the good war, (I DO think WWII was a "good" war) if there can be a good war but its rearrangement of Allied power is over. It birthed us lathering in love us, praise us the saviors of Europe and the entire world from the worst kind of fascist dictator, love us we along with our allies did a wondrous thing (and I think they did do that.)
To use George Bush's infamous words we had capital political capital and we surely did spend it PROFUSELY but in the long term I have suspected MOST unwisely. The problem is the world is NOT WWII Europe or Japan anymore and has not been for quite some time. It has changed so significantly that the US seems to me not to know what to do. We are losing control of the power we always had and worse the US speaking softly with grand philosophical democratic ideals but carrying the biggest war stick of all is failing to create sound policy. After World War II the US supported right wing, often religious tyrannies or any tyranny, for that matter, all over the world -- as long, of course, as that tyrant suited US interests since we called the shots (pardon the pun.)
Now with a changing world we are -- in a word -- flummoxed. It worries me frankly because if one truly looks at religious prone-to-civil-war fascism one feels, at least I do, lightheaded and rather nauseated but those of us who have seen US power as significant contributing factors behind the now Arab Spring realignment of the Middle East, it comes as no surprise. Emerging secular and Islamic nationalism along with even anarchy is scary indeed. It is not exactly what the doctor ordered for US hegemony, empire and the maintenance of its brand of global power.
Middle Eastern Islamic countries know they have what the west wants only they are not playing by OUR rules anymore. When the US was the only rule maker after the Soviet collapse it comes as a cold water shower on a 25 degree day when we lose the power we enjoyed for a VERY long time spending LOTS of blood and LOTS of money to secure it. Loss of hegemony is intolerable but more intolerable is the loss of our blood and treasure for oil the real reason we are in such a mess anyway.
How will it all play out? Who the hell knows? My grandmother used to say some day the living will envy the dead. This is a pretty bleak thought, I know, but conceivable with the utter explosive fragmentation and perpetual war in the Middle East and a future for some Middle Eastern states of anarchy combined with loose nukes. Add to the toxic blend blinding hatred for the US with its Iraq War based on lies destabilizing that neck of the woods along with the sworn enemy of the Middle Eastern many -- Israel ready to pounce at any moment when the US fires the starting gun to bomb Iran -- and things look rather bleak in Bleak House USA doncha think?
The next big fear promulgated by the war makers in the US is what to do if Iran acquires nuclear weapons. How can we stop them when we, Israel, the west and Pakistan have many? I do NOT have the foggiest idea and worst of all, I think, neither does the Pentagon, the State Department, the Defense Department, the CIA and certainly not this president nor ANY president. In fact, in my view, things would be much scarier with a right wing ideologue like an Etch-A-Sketch Romney salivating over the power to push that nuclear button with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing "Handel's Messiah" in the background. Thank God (or something) for the small favor of Romney's political demise. I digress.
To quote the great William Bendex those of us who remember the 1950's "The Life of Riley", "what a revoltin (sic) development this is!" Perhaps someone(s) else will figure out how to deal with this most complex (to say the least) conundrum. I am damned if I know. Let me know if anyone figures it out and wake me up in 25 years if I or anyone is around to do so!
Please read Tom Dispatch with Noam Chomsky's article below.
Subject: Tomgram: Noam Chomsky, Why It's "Legal" When the U.S. Does It
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| February 3, 2013 Tomgram: Noam Chomsky, Why It's "Legal" When the U.S. Does It
Credit the Arab Spring and what’s followed in the Greater Middle East to many things, but don’t overlook American “unilateralism.” After all, if you want to see destabilization at work, there’s nothing like having a heavily armed crew dreaming about eternal global empires stomp through your neighborhood, and it’s clear enough now that whatever was let loose early in the twenty-first century won’t end soon.
If, from Tunisia and Egypt to Syria and Libya, the Arab Spring was a series of popular uprisings, it was also a series of unravelings. Two decades late, the Cold War system of great power control in the Middle East, in which the U.S. was the dominant partner and the Soviet Union the lesser one, is finally disintegrating. The abattoir that is now Syria could be considered the Russian contribution to the present chaos; Egypt, with its besieged fundamentalist president, its irate soccer fans in the streets of its Suez-Canal-bordering cities, and its army chief talking about a possible “collapse” of the state, should be considered part of the far greater and more devastating American contribution. (Along with Israel, Egypt was one of the three pillars of the American system in the region; the other, still standing in all its fundamentalist glory, its vast oil reserves pumping away, remains Saudi Arabia.) In any case, when you see what’s happening these days, first thank the American unilateralists of the 1990s, our own financial jihadis. They dreamed of organizing a planet subservient to American financial power and ended up, in 2008, blowing a hole in it instead. A decade later came George W. Bush and his neocon followers, dreaming of doing the same thing in military terms, with similarly disastrous results. If the neoliberals helped create the 1% world of Middle Eastern oppression that a young Tunisian with a lighter set afire, Bush’s visionary militarists, with their catastrophic invasion and occupation of Iraq, did even greater damage. They punched a hole directly in the oil heartlands of the planet and set what they already liked to call “the arc of instability” -- little did they know -- aflame. Between them, they drove us through what, in 2004, Amr Moussa, then head of the Arab League, called “the gates of hell,” imagining they were the gates to an imperial paradise. Now, from Pakistan and Yemen to Mali and Niger, Washington's drones, special ops, and cyber warriors are now blindly pushing that process of destabilization forward, even as they further undermine American power in the region. This post-Arab Spring world and the state of U.S. power are the subjects that TomDispatch regular Noam Chomsky takes up in the following excerpt adapted from his wide-ranging new interview book with David Barsamian, Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire. (It’s another Chomsky must-read.) Tom
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Both words begin with "B" and end in unceasing GOPTea shenanigans.
How many times must President Obama publish his Hawaiian Birth Certificate to no avail?
How many meetings must Senators have over Benghazi, culminating in that stellar meeting with former Sec. of State and future President Hillary Clinton, before they’ll believe the facts?
But the GOPTea has anathema to FACTS. Their 24/7 propaganda Fox-machine eschews them and pays pundits to ignore polls and believe instead their own faux-polling that predicts Romney landslides (although one of the Fox pundits was lately let go, hello.)
If the GOPTea had actually done ANYTHING for our country and the American people since 2008 I might listen to what they had to say. But they’ve done NOTHING except obstruct and filibuster year after year all legislation and cabinet and judicial appointments.
The MAJORITY of Americans want to move FORWARD. The MAJORITY of Americans voted TWICE for President Obama, giving him more than 51% of the popular vote, a feat that hadn’t been accomplished since Eisenhower. We the people want President Obama’s agenda and appointees. But the GOPTea is deaf to the will of we the people that pay them and keep paying them to do nothingfor our country or us.
The 2014 elections cannot come fast enough and they will not be a repeat of 2010. They will mark an even greater victory for Democrats than 2012. Count on it, Senator Graham.”