Kudos to Hillary and Happy Birthday America

Hillary Clinton, in the "Humans of New York" Facebook Post, reassured a sad and frightened gay youth. See link below. Hillary's response to him was beautiful and true. It is SO much better now for gays than any could ever have hoped it would be. For this young person who wrote to her, it will be even better.

He should seek out those who are on his side, who will love him for who he is and there are a bazillion of them. Hillary, our next president's, response to him was dazzling and true. She will be our first woman president and despite those who would politically bash her she is one incredible woman. She is smart beyond words and endlessly capable. That young person already has millions of friends plus the next president of the United States. Add one more -- ME!
 
For those who think this nation is not amazing think again. No nation is perfect and our mostly conservative court just handed millions of human beings rights they deserved. Ask a gay person who knew what it was like before Stonewall.

Happy Birthday America. I thank my grandparents for having the brilliance and fortitude at the turn of the 20th century to make the arduous trip here. This nation gave us a happier life as it has now given happiness to many gays. It will do that for that young person too.

Thank you, Hillary, for your magnificent words of support to him. I hope the young man listens and will see all the friends he has acquired; among them is the next first woman president of this nation.



http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/hillary-clinton-comments-humans-new-york-post-reassures-gay-youth-n386891

FOURTH OF JULY BANG

Our President is going out with a Fourth of July Bang.  Think about all the wonderful things that have occurred in the last month of his term of office alone.  He will, I believe, be remembered for that including the upholding of his Affordable Care Act offering health and life to millions who never had health insurance before; gay marriage one of the biggest and, in my opinion, one of the greatest civil rights decisions since the uprooting of Jim Crow in the nation's history granting marriage and happiness to millions who should have had the opportunity before.  Without the President's support this never would have occurred; and the upholding of the Fair Housing Act for which his administration argued.

There is more on the list during his eight years -- much more -- but I do not have the time to list the many other humane and good things this President has done for our nation in the face of virulent obstructionist and racist opposition who were dedicated to the ruination of his presidency and said exactly that.

The next great thing will be granting clemency to many jailed for non-violent offenses.  It will be the most granted clemency ever.  I am pasting the article from the NYT in its entirety below.   I wish he had four more years and a Democrat controlled Congress. 

Wishing cannot make it so.  My fervent prayer is that this nation with the help of millions upon millions of Hispanic voters, voters of color, women, the disabled,  the elderly and the intelligent who make up the Democratic and Progressive base, will kick extremist RepuGlican thug racists, corporate bought K Street legislative puppets, tea baggers and corrupt politicians from here to kingdom come OUT. 

Republicans, other right wing gun nut extremist fanatics and the extremist religious right are the know nothing anti-science cancer of hate in our nation.  They are killing us and they MUST be stopped!

ELECTIONS MATTER.  VOTE AND WORK FOR DEMOCRATS WHO CAN WIN!  GOD BLESS AMERICA AND GOD BLESS THIS PRESIDENT.  BECAUSE OF HIM IT IS FOR ME A HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY INDEED. I HOPE IT IS FOR YOU! 

Here is what the President is doing next: Obama Plans Broader Use of Clemency to Free Nonviolent Drug Offenders

By PETER BAKERJULY 3, 2015

Photo

Even though President Obama is expected to commute dozens of sentences, he will barely make a dent in clemency applications. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Sometime in the next few weeks, aides expect President Obama to issue orders freeing dozens of federal prisoners locked up on nonviolent drug offenses. With the stroke of his pen, he will probably commute more sentences at one time than any president has in nearly half a century.

The expansive use of his clemency power is part of a broader effort by Mr. Obama to correct what he sees as the excesses of the past, when politicians eager to be tough on crime threw away the key even for minor criminals. With many Republicans and Democrats now agreeing that the nation went too far, Mr. Obama holds the power to unlock that prison door, especially for young African-American and Hispanic men disproportionately affected.

But even as he exercises authority more assertively than any of his modern predecessors, Mr. Obama has only begun to tackle the problem he has identified. In the next weeks, the total number of commutations for Mr. Obama’s presidency may surpass 80, but more than 30,000 federal inmates have come forward in response to his administration’s call for clemency applications. A cumbersome review process has advanced only a small fraction of them. And just a small fraction of those have reached the president’s desk for a signature.

“I think they honestly want to address some of the people who have been oversentenced in the last 30 years,” said Julie Stewart, the founder and president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a group advocating changes in sentencing. “I’m not sure they envisioned that it would be as complicated as it is, but it has become more complicated, whether it needs to be or not, and that’s what has bogged down the process.”

Overhauling the criminal justice system has become a bipartisan venture. Like Mr. Obama, Republicans running for his job are calling for systemic changes. Lawmakers from both parties are collaborating on legislation. And the United States Sentencing Commission has revised guidelines for drug offenders, so far retroactively reducing sentences for more than 9,500 inmates, nearly three-quarters of them black or Hispanic.

The drive to recalibrate the system has brought together groups from across the political spectrum. The Center for American Progress, a liberal advocacy organization with close ties to the White House and Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton, has teamed up with Koch Industries, the conglomerate owned by the conservative brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch, who finance Republican candidates, to press for reducing prison populations and overhauling sentencing.

“It’s a time when conservatives and liberals and libertarians and lots of different people on the political spectrum” have “come together in order to focus attention on excessive sentences, the costs and the like, and the need to correct some of those excesses,” said Neil Eggleston, the White House counsel who recommends clemency petitions to Mr. Obama. “So I think the president sees the commutations as a piece of that entire process.”

The challenge has been finding a way to use Mr. Obama’s clemency power in the face of bureaucratic and legal hurdles without making a mistake that would be devastating to the effort’s political viability. The White House has not forgotten the legacy of Willie Horton, a convicted murderer who raped a woman while furloughed from prison and became a powerful political symbol that helped doom the presidential candidacy of Gov. Michael S. Dukakis of Massachusetts in 1988.

But with time running short in Mr. Obama’s presidency, the White House has pushed the Justice Department to send more applicants more quickly. Mr. Eggleston told the department not to interpret guidelines too narrowly because it is up to the president to decide, according to officials. If it seems like a close case, he told the department to send it over.

Deborah Leff, the department’s pardon attorney, has likewise pressed lawyers representing candidates for clemency to hurry up and send more cases her way. “If there is one message I want you to take away today, it’s this: Sooner is better,” she told lawyers in a video seminar obtained by USA Today. “Delaying is not helpful.”

Under the Constitution, the president has the power to grant “pardons for offenses against the United States” or to commute federal sentences. A pardon is an act of presidential forgiveness and wipes away any remaining legal liabilities from a conviction. A commutation reduces a sentence but does not eliminate a conviction or restore civil rights lost as a result of the conviction.

In recent times, attention has focused on presidential pardons because they have become politically controversial, such as Gerald R. Ford’s pardon of Richard M. Nixon, the elder George Bush’s pardons of Iran-contra figures and Bill Clinton’s pardons of the financier Marc Rich and scores of others.

Modern presidents have been far less likely to commute sentences. Lyndon B. Johnson commuted the sentences of 80 convicted criminals in the 1966 fiscal year, and no president since then has matched that in his entire administration, much less in a single year. Ronald Reagan commuted only 13 sentences in eight years in office, while George W. Bush commuted just 11 in the same amount of time. The elder Mr. Bush commuted three sentences in his four years.

Mr. Obama started out much like the others, commuting just one sentence in his first five years in office. But in his first term he signed a law easing sentencing for new inmates by reducing the disparity between crack and powder cocaine, while his attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., issued new guidelines to prosecutors to avoid charges requiring excessive prison terms.

In his second term, Mr. Obama embarked on an effort to use clemency and has raised his total commutations to 43, a number he may double this month. The initiative was begun last year by James M. Cole, then the deputy attorney general, who set criteria for who might qualify: generally nonviolent inmates who have served more than 10 years in prison, have behaved well while incarcerated and would not have received as lengthy a sentence under today’s revised rules.

“It’s a touchy situation,” Mr. Cole said in an interview. “You don’t want to just supplant a judge’s determination of sentence.” But after reviewing many clemency petitions, he said, “I’d seen a number of them where the sentences seemed very high for the conduct and it noted that the judge at the time of sentencing thought the sentence was too high. We looked at that and thought this really isn’t supplanting the judge.”

To respond to Mr. Cole’s call, several groups formed a consortium of lawyers to prepare applications for inmates, including the American Bar Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and Ms. Stewart’s advocacy group. The more than 30,000 inmates who applied inundated the effort.

The consortium, called Clemency Project 2014, now has more than 50 law firms, more than 20 law schools and more than 1,500 lawyers participating. But the process is burdensome as the volunteer lawyers try to dig out documents from more than a decade ago to satisfy the criteria. So far, they have screened out 13,000 inmates who did not meet the guidelines and sent just over 50 applications to the Justice Department.

Cynthia W. Roseberry, who left her job as a top federal public defender in Georgia to lead the project, said it took a while to set up a process but it has now been streamlined. “The lawyers will be able to do the analysis a lot quicker and we’ll be able to move them faster,” she said.

Aside from the Clemency Project, the Justice Department has received more than 6,600 applications for commutations since Mr. Cole outlined the criteria, more than twice the rate over a similar period earlier in Mr. Obama’s presidency. Ms. Leff, the pardon attorney, has solicited volunteers from around the department to give a day or more a week to help out, but her office is taxed. The White House has asked Congress to increase funding for the office from $3.9 million this year to $5.9 million next year.

Margaret Love, who served as pardon attorney under the first Mr. Bush and Mr. Clinton and now represents prisoners applying for clemency, said the process had become a mess. “It’s really poor management,” she said. “These are people who don’t have any history with sentence reduction. They’ve been putting people in prison all their lives. They don’t know how to get them out.”

Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has expressed concern that the Justice Department has essentially outsourced a government function to the Clemency Project 2014. Department officials dispute that, saying the project does the same thing lawyers have always done in helping candidates for clemency prepare applications.

The department noted that it still reviews the cases and makes it own judgments before sending recommendations to the White House. Officials acknowledged that it was slow in starting the effort. “There was a start-up time, but now we’re really in it,” said Emily Pierce, a department spokeswoman. “We feel we’re moving at a good pace.”

In December, Mr. Obama commuted the sentences of eight drug offenders, and in March he followed up with 22 more. If he accepts most of the latest applications sent to the White House, some officials said it would probably double that last batch of 22, exceeding the 36 commutations Mr. Clinton issued at one time on his last day in office.

Among those Mr. Obama granted clemency in March were eight prisoners serving life sentences for crimes like possession with intent to distribute cocaine, growing more than 1,000 marijuana plants or possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

Mr. Obama signed letters to the recipients explaining that they had demonstrated the potential to turn their lives around. “By doing so, you will affect not only your own life, but those close to you,” he wrote. “You will also influence, through your example, the possibility that others in your circumstances get their own second chance in the future.

“I believe in your ability to prove the doubters wrong,” he added. “So good luck, and Godspeed.”

The End of European Democracy?--The Law of Man

Does Greece mark the end of European Democracy? Read the link here or below.

Austerity is a horror in Greece and everywhere else. It is done for the rich and by the rich. They make out like bandits while the little guy pays the freight and croaks doing it.

WAKE UP, MIDDLE AMERICA. The Republicon Party sold you a CON and 1/2 the nation bought it voting even against their own interests. Blind nationalism and a hatred of Obama made them ruin themselves. We are lucky so far we have avoided another Great Recession and even Depression. What happened in Greece is proof of all of it. Austerity "conservatives" love so much does not work. When a Democrat is at the helm here he thinks about the middle class and that means you!

What would have happened if our president had not been choked by an obstructionist, nullifying, racist Republican Party and the increased stimulus he wanted was given? Our roads would have been fixed, our rails would be in shape, we would have improved our national grid, combated climate change, our transit system would have been developed and our infrastructure -- ALL of it -- repaired. All of that creates jobs and jobs brings in money to the treasury. As complex as economics is to me, I believe, it is that simple. The job figures are much better but the middle class is still losing and the gap between the rich and the poor grows deeper every day and eternal war ratchets up trillions in debt.

The repair that comes does so in the form of an Obama Democrat but his luck to get a Democratic Congress to work with him failed because the voters failed themselves and elected Congressional Republican science denying nincompoops. It is amazing we are in as decent shape as we are and can thank Obama's hard fought internal wars for that. Let's hope it stays that way.

The country needs a DEMOCRATIC president to remain in the oval so our nation will not and cannot fail. While we are at it in the 2016 elections, Republican control of Congress must be stopped. A Republicon, any Republicon, will NOT -- I repeat NOT -- be about most of you.

FDR, Krugman, Progressive Politics win the day and if you who are among the middle classes do not see that then in survival-of-the-fittest mode you, your posterity and their posterity ultimately will not survive. This is the law of the jungle but should NOT be the law of man!

Elect a Democrat who can WIN!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/02/european-democracy-greece_n_7717658.html#comments

Read and Heed--Important to Know

A short political lesson is in order for those who do not know the difference between the political left and the political right. Then read the story below the italics explaining what is happening in Europe and all around the globe entitled "From Greece to France and China Nationalism is Back in a Big Way."

Nationalism means right wing extremist nationalism the kind that resembles Nazi Germany of old but not that old. Le Pen of France is a very extremist right nationalist and anti-Semite to boot as are most of the European nationalists i.e. Fascists. There is an extremist right party nearly everywhere in Europe. On the extreme left are the Communists.

The two extremes hate each other as the right in Hitlerian Germany pulled up a chair beside major industrialists from which they derived big money to support their war machine. They fueled the military machine and the human eradication concentration camps of Germany at that time. Some major banks and industrialists even in the US contributed to the rise of European Fascism for the bucks it would bring to them. Capitalism knows little morality except the morality of making cash. Allegedly, Prescott Bush, the father of George H. W. Bush, during his tenure at the industrialist firm of Harriman & Sons, was among them. He was soft on Hitler as many industrialists of that era were. Big money LOVES the nationalists no matter which group they want to annihilate. Humanitarian politics is NOT in the right wing nationalists' lexicon. Read "Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government and the Hidden History of the last Fifty Years" by Russ Baker.

Beware and be afraid of extremes be very afraid as it can come to a homeland near you! Read and heed the news story by Howard Fineman below. It is important to know.

Then go out and work your posterior off for the Democratic Party unless you want uber nationalism with its sidecar of racist and religious hatred to overtake the day and IF Republicans gain the power of the presidency they will ruin a nation. GET OUT THE VOTE BIG TIME FROM NOW UNTIL NOVEMBER, 2016. You do NOT want the presidency in the power grip of any Republican. Your life, your children's lives, and their children's lives depend upon it. Simply look at what W. Bush unleashed like the god Hades, King of the Underworld and the god of death.

ELECT THE ONLY DEMOCRAT THAT IS ELECTABLE -- HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON.

"From Greece To France To China, Nationalism Is Back In A Big Way"

By: Howard Fineman

WASHINGTON -- In China, a military parade this year will commemorate not the triumph of communism, but, rather, the 70th anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II. Chinese nationalism (and historical hatred of Japan) will trump Marxist ideology.

In France, right-wing ultra-nationalists support the referendum that Greek's leftist government called to determine whether the indebted country should accept the latest debt-deal proposal from its international creditors. Why? Because National Front party leader Marine Le Pen wants to use the same mechanism -- a referendum -- to vote France out of the European Union.

In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron leads a Conservative Party majority, but is hobbled by Scots who want to split from England and by a splinter party that wants England out of the EU. The whole United Kingdom is consumed by questions of who it is and where it belongs.

And of course, in Greece and Germany, the name-calling between the two countries over the Greek bailout issue has become intense and is sure to worsen -- even while some observers suggested that Germany, if you count Prussia before it, has gone though more bankruptcies than Greece.

It turns out that “globalization” hasn’t doused, let alone put out, the embers of nationalism. It has inflamed them.

Global and regional frameworks -- from the EU to the UN to seemingly stable balance-of-power standoffs –-- are under assault amid a renewed obsession with national identity.

For a while, it appeared otherwise. Some public surveys, for instance, showed substantial support for the idea of a United Europe.  But it seems that support was for the idea, not the reality.

Many of the forces that once made a one-world future appealing -- global investment, migration, travel, communications -- can now make the planet seem crowded and cruel.

Global capital flows have brought rapacious profits to corporations while allowing generous welfare and pension spending in poorer countries, often resulting in “austerity” programs that are awakening and unleashing a nationalistic backlash.

“The ravages of globalization have made national identity that much more important,” said Jeremy Shapiro of the Brookings Institution, who previously worked in the Obama State Department. “Since World War II people have searched, nobly, for structures that would bring peace and prosperity to the world. In some ways they succeeded."

“But nationalism is the most powerful force in modern human affairs," Shapiro continued. "And that is clear in Europe and elsewhere once again.”

Greece may be just the beginning for Europe. Italy, Portugal and Spain face similar financial challenges and are also seeing growing nationalist resentment against big global lenders.

Immigration and travel have brought creative new cultural mixes and profits from tourism. Yet there are also 60 million refugees worldwide, “boat people” shunned and adrift in open seas from Asia to the Mediterranean, and rising us-versus-them resentment in countries where sluggish economies have stoked local resentment for immigrant labor.

Instant and ubiquitous global communications are another mixed blessing. The same system that spreads Taylor Swift videos and "Game of Thrones" allows the Islamic State, or ISIS, to recruit worldwide, creating another reason for nations to fear the rest of the world.

“Nations exist ultimately to protect their citizens against ‘outside’ influences,” said Shapiro. “That’s in terms of economics, culture and physical security.” In other words, the more threatening the planet becomes, the more people hold on to their national identity.

“Even ISIS wants to be a ‘state,” he said. “In fact, they claim to be one. And the reason is the same: protection for their people.”

For some nations, the best defense is a good nationalistic offense.

That is what President Vladimir Putin is doing in Russia, feeding an endless cycle of distracting nationalism by attacking Crimea and Ukraine and by threatening the Baltic States and Poland -– which respond in nationalistic ways of their own.

Russia, essentially kicked out of the G-7, has become something akin to a trolling hacker of the West's orderly network, setting one nation against another whenever it can, which is increasingly often.

And China, having adopted capitalism but not freedom, is growing so powerful that other Asian countries worry about their identity and respond to China’s might with fear.

Much of these countries' behavior is justified by history as well as by the behavior of China, which tends to treat its neighbors as nettlesome but ultimately weak.

“China doesn’t believe in a ‘balance of power,’” Henry Kissinger recently said during a speech in Washington. “The idea is incomprehensible to them, and that will not change.”

This means increasing nationalistic conflict, even as President Barack Obama tries to forge a new 11-nation Pacific trade organization that notably does not include the People’s Republic.

Congress voted last week to give Obama amplified powers to negotiate such a deal, but even if the Trans-Pacific Partnership comes into being, no one should expect nationalistic fervor to disappear from the shores of the Pacific.

It just means that China will stage another, even bigger parade.

Greece -- A Slippery Slope?

The following paragraphs below were made by bloggers whose points I thought salient and worthy of consideration about the present economic disaster in Greece. Are they accurate? Truthfully, I do not know. I do know I loathe "austerity" for nation states as remedies for the payment of debt because the national economic debt cannot and should not be paid on the backs of the poor! Is the bankruptcy of Greece but a slippery slope for other western nations whose currency is the Euro? I do not know that either. I surely hope not as another Bush years Great Recession I cannot take as our global economies are so intertwined; pull one knot and we all fall down.

Blogger No. 1 states

The destruction of countries on Europe's south and east are biggest reasons for all these economic problems. Libya, Syria and Ukraine, all countries destroyed in the past four years were created by western interference. Libya bombed by the west, rebels from Libya took arms from Libya to Syria through Turkey and instant civil war in Syria. Lots of refugees from both these countries and countries south or east of t hem coming to Europe in boats in the thousands every week. Ukraine was destroyed by US backed coup d'état. Refugees mostly going to Russia. Ukraine is destroying itself with it's civil war and the Ukrainian government's reckless policies. Yet, the IMF is willing to help Ukraine and not Greece.

All of southern Europe and not only Greece are being destroyed by the policy of austerity on the backs of the common people. The common people do not have money to pay back these loans by their governments.

Greece should do what Iceland did. Jail the banksters. Start over. Iceland is doing great. Austerity on the common people will never repay the banksters in a million years. It is a fantasy that the IMF has imposed on southern Europe for the past five years . It is not working and will never work.

Blogger No. 2 affirmed: Excellent points. I don't know what European powers were thinking when they decided to intervene in Libya and later Syria. I mean, I can understand national interests -ahem, oil- and why they, like the U.S., made such moves, but didn't these countries, specially Italy and France not expect influx of refugees as a aftermath? Even the Ukrainian disaster could have been avoided and now war goes on and the sanctions are hurting EU countries as much as Russia. 


Eurozone failure should not come as a surprise. Establishing a common currency introduces mutual dependence but maintaining individual states sovereignty precluded making effective/efficient fiscal policy amongst polities that were still mutually competitive. 

The following paragraphs below were made by bloggers whose points I thought salient and worthy of consideration about the present economic disaster in Greece.  Are they accurate?  Truthfully, I do not know.  I do know I loathe "austerity" for nation states as remedies for the payment of debt because the national economic debt cannot and should not be paid on the backs of the poor!  Is the bankruptcy of Greece but a slippery slope for other western nations whose currency is the Euro?  I do not know that either.  I surely hope not as another Bush years Great Recession I cannot take as our global economies are so intertwined; pull one knot and we all fall down.

Blogger No. 1 states

The destruction of countries on Europe's south and east are biggest reasons for all these economic problems. Libya, Syria and Ukraine, all countries destroyed in the past four years were created by western interference. Libya bombed by the west, rebels from Libya took arms from Libya to Syria through Turkey and instant civil war in Syria. Lots of refugees from both these countries and countries south or east of t hem coming to Europe in boats in the thousands every week. Ukraine was destroyed by US backed coup d'état. Refugees mostly going to Russia. Ukraine is destroying itself with it's civil war and the Ukrainian government's reckless policies. Yet, the IMF is willing to help Ukraine and not Greece.

All of southern Europe and not only Greece are being destroyed by the policy of austerity on the backs of the common people. The common people do not have money to pay back these loans by their governments.

Greece should do what Iceland did. Jail the banksters. Start over. Iceland is doing great. Austerity on the common people will never repay the banksters in a million years. It is a fantasy that the IMF has imposed on southern Europe for the past five years . It is not working and will never work.

Blogger No. 2 affirmed:  Excellent points. I don't know what European powers were thinking when they decided to intervene in Libya and later Syria. I mean, I can understand national interests -ahem, oil- and why they, like the U.S., made such moves, but didn't these countries, specially Italy and France not expect influx of refugees as a aftermath? Even the Ukrainian disaster could have been avoided and now war goes on and the sanctions are hurting EU countries as much as Russia.

Eurozone failure should not come as a surprise. Establishing a common currency introduces mutual dependence but maintaining individual states sovereignty precluded making effective/efficient fiscal policy amongst polities that were still mutually competitive.

REPUGLICONS USE ECONOMIC AUSTERITY AS A WAY TO SCREW THE POOR AND ENRICH THE ALREADY RICH TO GET OUT OF STATE AND NATIONAL DEBT.  YET ANOTHER REASON AMONG ALL THE OTHER CONFEDERATE FLAG AND ANTI-IMMIGRANT LOATHSOME CONTENT OF REPUBLICAN CHARACTER AND WHY A DEMOCRAT MUST MUST MUST KEEP THE WHITE HOUSE, TAKE THE SENATE AND IN MY WILDEST DREAMS I HOPE FOR A DEMOCRATIC TAKEOVER OF THE HOUSE. 

ALL THE GOOD THINGS ACHIEVED LAST WEEK AND WEEKEND COULD BE DESTROYED IN A HEART BEAT SECOND.  REPUBLICANS DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU BUT WILL DUPE THOSE LIKE US AS THEY IDEOLOGICALLY RAPE GAYS, THE POOR, WOMEN AND THE POWERLESS OF ALL THEY HAVE ACHIEVED!

Realty Check

Leave it to Glenn Greenwald to give a reality check refresher course on the equal marriage issue.  It is on the "Intercept."  and is beyond brilliant.  I post the link here and below.  Then scroll down and read my email to Glenn about his historical analysis of gay rights in the US.  I have some amendment to his analysis with respect to the president that I wrote on the "Intercept" blog.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/26/todays-supreme-court-ruling-though-expected-still-shocking/#respond

Your article is a BRILLIANT historical analysis and one of the best I have read.   Your historically dazzling article brought me back to reality.   But I will say, Glenn, I did on the "Intercept" blog an Obama supporting small dissent to what you said about him which I do not see on the blog yet. 

Still no one can argue your academically spellbinding analysis of why so  many felt as you said did during those mind crushing decades.  I hope you will be on the Rachel Maddow Show, or any of the other more progressive shows as well as Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now" if you haven't already discussed this on her show.

Kudos, you have written an award worthy editorial.  No one can argue with that!

ScotUS -- Frank Bruni -- New York Times "Our Weddings, Our Worth"

Here or below is an article by the editorialist Frank Bruni in the New York Times that a political ally and friend sent to me.  It's wonderful and beautifully written.  It is entitled "Our Weddings, Our Worth" and it characterizes so much so well on this contentious issue of our time.  It is entitled SCOTUS with the US rainbow colored (best I could do was pink and blue!)

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-same-sex-marriage-supreme-court-our-weddings-our-worth.html?referrer=&_r=0

Glenn Greenwald again is dazzling--LGBT history lesson

I wrote Glenn: BRILLIANT historical analysis here or below by Glenn Greenwald.  It is one of the best I have read.   Your historically dazzling article brought us back to reality.   But I will say, Glenn, I did on the Intercept blog write an Obama supporting small dissent to what you said about him which I do not see on the blog yet.  Perhaps I will.

Still no one can argue your academically spellbinding analysis of why we felt as we did during those mind crushing decades.  I hope you will be on the Rachel Maddow Show, or any of the other more progressive shows as well as Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now" if you haven't already discussed this on her show.

Kudos, you have written an award worthy editorial.  No one can argue with that!




https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/26/todays-supreme-court-ruling-though-expected-still-shocking/#respond












N. Rosen

For All Time

I cannot thank Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy, the two more conservative justices, enough for doing the right thing handing down a 6/3 decision to uphold the ACA a/k/a Obamacare.   It is not an easy thing to step outside of one’s zone of political comfort.   I laud them for that.  

 

I have been critical, I admit, of what I saw as the conservative bent to the court that made it, in my opinion, an advocate for the very very rich.   I thought it did a great disservice to our nation’s humanity and had its worst effects on the poorest among us.  I have changed my opinion of the Court somewhat today and, indeed, apologize for any less than judicious comments I have made on a variety of issues in the past through the technological miracle of our time, the Internet , that sent my opinion many times to SCOTUS itself.

 

I still feel the same about the issues but because of the bravery, ethical purpose and humanity of most especially Justice Kennedy and Chief Justice Roberts, I can say that my views of the Court have been , to a degree, altered this day.   All the Justices who voted to uphold the ACA have made me proud to be American, proud of a system that can get it right on issues that can help those who, through no fault of their own, cannot help themselves to get the healthcare they so desperately need.   The Justices’ decision today upholding Obamacare will save many liv es.

Our system, one of checks and balances, our Founders got right centuries ago works.  From Marbury v. Madison in 1803 to King v. Burwell in 2015, a span of more than two centuries, our Founders gave the third branch of our system, the Court, permission to decide our most contentious issues. 

Societies change and the Court can change too ensuring our nation become fairer and more just.  That it can do this is the beauty of our nation that shines in Lady Liberty's lamp as an example it sets for all nations for all time.

DELIROUSLY HAPPY

OBAMACARE UPHELD ... HERE TO STAY!!!!!! 6 to 3


Fair Housing Act Upheld


Please God just one more to go.





I'm crying out of happiness!!!!!!

The Admission

The Admission: I know very little about trade. It's important to know it and yet it is so boring to me that my brain shuts off. However, on the Huffington blog I found an explanation by one whom I think is an astute blogger. It sounds credible. I post it for you to, in part, understand this vital issue. If you think it in error please advise! THEN IN 2016 VOTE THESE LOW LIFE REPUGLICANS OUT OF OFFICE. THEY ARE NOT ABOUT YOU OR ME!

Debra Knox Tillman The original trade agreement is APEC. TPP is an upgrade of that. It began under Bush in 2002. Obama is renegotiating it. He has said that he wants to correct some of the mistakes of previous agreements and added TAA as part of that. TPP is unfinished and is still being negotiated. What has been "leaked" may be parts of Bush's version. ALL trade agreements are considered a part of foreign policy, therefore, they are classified. There are trade advisers of all strata although the majority of them are corporate. Obama doesn't need TPA authority from congress, but by granting him fast track it makes the finished agreement available for us to see for 2 months, then congress has another month to debate it, but can't amend it, and they DONT have to vote yes... they can still reject it and vote no.

Trade agreements don't control corporations..where they invest or move jobs. Corporations bribe governments for access to do business, trade agreements set the terms for doing business between the governments, by establishing rules and regulations to establish accountability. The rules and regs have been lax in enforcement in past agreements, and corporations have moved jobs away, exploiting those workers with low wages, poor working conditions, creating a situation where we're unable to compete. Many of us were used to train our replacements instead of refusing to do so.

Obama submitted a jobs bill over 3 years ago that congress refuses to pass and we've allowed them to get away with that..we're all hyped up about losing jobs to a trade deal, but ok with congress not passing a jobs bill..we're ready to throw Obama under the bus as betrayer-in-chief, but not turn out to vote in the midterms and allow congress to DO NOTHING? I like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. I don't want a lousy trade deal, but I also want the truth to be revealed. Our manufacturing jobs have been slowly leaving since Reagan was president due to corporate greed. We've allowed them to corrupt congress and change the tax code to benefit them, create loopholes for them, and deregulate all our protections so they can extract our tax dollars then tell congress to destroy our public sector through policy changes, to pay for the lost revenue. Think about that while you're busy being upset about this trade deal and the misguided hype.

Science Rules--If you care about your children's lives you will read this link

Ignore this to your peril. Science wins every time see link here or below. Those who do not believe in it will face the same fate as all the other species that will be extinct in a very short time!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/22/earth-extinction-phase_n_7629330.html

Why voting Democrat is SO VERY IMPORTANT. It is the only Party that gives credence to science as opposed to the Republicon Party of know nothing junk which feeds at the corporate trough and feeds you lies!

Follow the Money – the Confederate Flag Justification Examined

One writer said that no one is talking about simple mental illness as the reason for the brutal murders of 9 black people praying in a Bible study class one evening.

No one is diverting discussion of mental illness.  We realize the mental pathology in some humans especially in a nation that includes a culture of gun worship and a proliferation of drugs.  We understand DNA errors that naturally occur to create that pathology.  That does not take away from the cultural emblem of what the Confederate flag means and the message is sends.

 

Just what were the Confederate soldiers fighting for that is so culturally worthy to so many today who want to keep the Confederate flag as a symbol of their heritage?  Confederate soldiers were fighting to keep in place an economic system for the growth of cotton when cotton was economic king, grown best in the South, through a system of free labor.  It was a boon to those whites -- ones of money and position few though they were -- who owned plantations and could afford slaves.  Slaves were expensive to buy and expensive to maintain.  If one could afford it then one had a lot to lose by President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.  Follow the money!

 

The slave system was an institutional economic one that captured Africans by slave traders working for corporations like the East India Company. The white lower classes here were enlisted as well but did not have plantations and could not have afforded slaves. As low class as many whites were they were in a higher position than the black man whom they, too, could control with force if necessary and slave owners employed them to do just that. 

 

Justifications were used for the obvious brutality, cruelty, and inhumanity of slavery to keep it in place while keeping the black man oppressed.  The system is justified by God Himself through their interpretation of God’s Biblical edicts contained in a 5000 year old text. 5000 years of Biblical mandates and a plethora of Biblically condoned law that commands man do what is seemingly ridiculous to do in our time.  Slavery, the subjugation of women and even animal sacrifice are examples extraordinaire of Biblical anachronism.  Religion can justify an odious anything if one looks to justify it hard enough in the Bible.  All manner of cruelty can be explained away to soothe the consciences of those who perpetrate that cruelty.  It is how those of wealth and class control the masses and even themselves to feel complacent even good about the heinous things they do to other men.  It is as old as man himself.

 

The Confederate flag symbolically justified that cruelty and it kept an entire social order in place to do so.  There is NOTHING -- I repeat NOTHING -- that is humane and good about the symbol of the Confederate flag.  There is NOTHING for anyone to be proud about States’ Rights, a cerebral euphemism, giving a permission slip to a state to do anything inhuman and uncivilized it wants while providing the coverlet of law protecting it to do so.

 

TAKE DOWN THE CONFEDERATE FLAG NEAR THE SOUTH CAROLINA STATE HOUSE STEPS AND STAND FOR SOMETHING MORALLY GOOD AND HUMANE FOR ONCE INSTEAD OF OPPRESSIVE, MEAN AND CRUSHING AS JUSTIFICATION TO LORD OVER ONE POWERLESS GROUP OR ANOTHER.

 

Then turn the tables on the Party of White, the Republican Party and defeat them by kicking them out of office everywhere.  Oh, yes, while you are doing that elect Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton sending the first woman to the Oval Office!

 

Remove the Confederate Flag

The Confederate flag is a symbol of TREASON against our nation's union. It is like raising a Nazi flag where there are Jews. Sure, the flag may be a symbol of southern culture, a fact of which I personally would not be proud, and somebody's granddaddy might have died under that flag but it is a flag symbolic of oppression, slavery, hate and murder. It is emblematic of a group of people who want to return to an age where people of color are crushed under its yoke. Remove it.

NOT FAST ENOUGH FOR ME

John Cornyn, Republican Senator from Texas, Michael Steele, former RNC Chairman, Nikki Haley, Republican governor of S. Carolina and other Republicans all decry the senseless murders of 9 black innocents yesterday during a Bible study meeting in South Carolina at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.

 

The Republican Party, if one looks closely or not so closely, at it one will see few black faces among its ranks.  There is a reason for this.  The Republican Party courts the white racist vote, a vestige of our sad Anti-Bellum Civil War South this time in the state of South Carolina which has the dubious distinction of being the first to secede from the Union in that era.

 

The Republican Party is happy to welcome disaffected white racists who think the election of a half black president gives them license to appeal to those Confederate flag wavers north AND south to send a message that the nation is being taken over by persons of color and that something must be done to stop it.  The Party of interposition and nullification then is the party of it now as they block and gum-up-the-works of everything the half black president wants to pass.  The president, to his detriment, tries to play in their neighborhood but they do not want him.  They have kicked dirt in his face by rejecting or stalling nearly everything he wants.  

 

The racism they protest for the shootings and killing of innocent church goers and their minister is the protest of hypocrites.  Steven Scalise, the new House majority whip of the GOP-dominated Congress, spoke at a gathering hosted by white supremacist leaders in 2002 but, no matter, he was kept on as Republican majority whip in Congress.   Republicans who protest what happened at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church yesterday are hypocrites. White supremacy is alive and well in this nation and is given a place of honor in the larger Republican Party.

 

What message does this send to persons of color in our nation?  It sends the message that the Republican Party does not want them in it except a few, of course, for television image. The media and others will bloviate non-stop about how this hate must change.  They are the mendacious bloviations of showmen and other charlatans who do not mean a word of it. 

 

The Republican Party salt and peppers in a few persons of color when its candidates speak in front of a TV camera but the true change of ideological systemic belief that is needed to right this morally putrefied Party would make an already compromised Party useless and that cannot happen fast enough for me.

DESPICABLE

"Nine Killed at Historic Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina"

Oh sure, we are a "post-racial" society, another moronic statement from a "conservative" skewed court!"


If you do not see it day after day after day the racist Republcrat Party, then I give up. You -- ALL OF YOU -- need to vote the ONLY Democrat who can carry the day -- Hillary Rodham Clinton. I love Sanders BUT he cannot win. Do NOT give the murderous Bush KLAN another Nader-like win!

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/charleston-church-shooting/nine-killed-historic-emanuel-church-charleston-south-carolina-n377436

Jon Stewart on Trump!

If you do not watch anything else in your life watch Jon Stewart's June 16 segment on Trump's entrance into the Republican race for president!!!!!!! The best comedy I have ever seen.

It has some off color things so if you are squeamish it's not for you but if you want a laugh of all laughs, tears rolling down your face, the sight of brilliance Google it!

Then make Hillary the next President of the United States!

The Blog of Bush

A Top Commenter has written a VERY insightful and historical blog about the Bush political dynasty and the nation's albatross. It states as follows:

By: Benjamin Dover

Not a single Bush ever did this country right. They have all been HORRIBLE. The trail to the wealth of the Bush family has been paved with the millions they have killed.

The Patriarch Prescott Bush

As a US Senator he collaborated with the Nazis during WWII. He was also part of a plot to over throw the US government to put a fascist dictator in charge. The oil that Prescott sold the Nazi helped them start WWII and also prolonged the war resulting 10's of millions of people killing including Americans.

GH Walker Bush

As head of the CIA he created Osama Bin Laden. He was responsible for training and arming him and his men. As President gave Saddam Hussein the impression that he could invade Kuwait which started the Persian Gulf War.

GW Bush

Cook the intelligence reports to trick Congress and the American people into an illegal invasion into Iraq which cost over $7 Trillion, completely mismanaged both wars resulting it the US defeat in both and wrecked the US economy. ISIS is the direct result of the mess GW created in Iraq along with 100's of thousands of people needlessly killed. During his reign oil prices more than doubled which was good fore the Bush family bank accounts.

Jeb Bush

As Gov. of Florida he obstructed the vote count to get his brother GW into the White House and we all know what a disaster that was. Jeb was also the man who came up with idea on how to stop people from voting in order the steal elections. Not too long ago Jeb was asked about the Iraq war which his brother lied about his response was and I quote, "it was just one of life's mistakes." I guess compared to his granddaddy Prescott 10's of millions that he was responsible for makes his brothers 100's of thousands seem minor.

Neil Bush

Banker who was deeply involved in the S&L Banking disaster back in the 1980's an 90's. He basically gave away the depositors money to his friends and family (GH, GW & Jeb) and then had the American Tax Payers pay for all the millions he gave away.

I REST MY CASE AS TO WHY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON WILL BE PRESIDENT AND SHOULD! GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE in 2016 AS IF YOUR LIFE DEPENDED UPON IT WHICH IT DOES!!

Black Like Me -- As Simple as That

Rachel Dolezal considers herself black even though her white birth parents “outed” her as 100% white. The responses to this phenomenon have been varied – some project a “who cares” attitude and some, well, frankly, both black and white, show a hostile response to her choice. Why is this white woman wanting to give up the power and dominant privilege of being white for an ethnic identification of black the status of which means historically a never-ending struggle for equality, justice, fair play and often for the privilege of living life itself? Others ask why is this white woman taking money and position away from a person of color who needs it more than she.

This motif is not unheard of in film. Gregory Peck in the 1947 movie “Gentlemen’s Agreement” takes on the persona of a Jew giving up, for the time it took him to write a newspaper article, the privilege of being Christian in a culture that judged Christian as superior and in a culture where the price for being Jewish was often rejection, exclusion, shame, even assault and even in America. The difference in the treatment of others toward him was profound including his own son beaten up because other boys found out he was a Jew or being denied – albeit politely – a hotel room when the clerk discovers he is Jewish. Signs of that era saying “No Jews or Dogs Allowed” in the swimming pool were not uncommon as were signs “No Jews or Irish Need Apply” for a job.

“Black Like Me,” a 1964 film found on IDMB, linked below is “the true account of John Griffin's experiences when he passed as a black man. In the film, John Horton takes treatments to darken his skin and leaves his home in Texas to travel throughout the South at the height of the civil-rights movement, so that he could experience the realities of a black man's life in the segregated South.”

I cannot comment as to why Ms. Dolezal awkwardly attested to her black origin nor can I armchair psychoanalyze her motivations but I can comment on my own. It may surprise some as it did when in the late 1960’s I revealed to my parents, relatives and friends that if reincarnation existed I would like to return black. Some, sadly, thought I had temporarily lost my mind. Why should I want to be black when I could be immersed in the luck and the birthright of being white in America? Few understood my reason. One can be assured that my desire to be black had nothing to do with gaining advantage either for an occupational position or for “affirmative action” entrance into a selective university but it was because my sheltered life of suburban white that said “all men are created equal” was replaced by the reality I discovered in college that only some in this country were. It was the first time I became aware of social injustices so cruel, so marginalizing and so debilitating against persons of color that I wanted to be a personal part of a movement making a colossal wrong right.

Two black women resided on my dorm room floor with whom many of us enjoyed a friendship. My heart ached that these lovely women had to suffer the cruel injustices about which I could only read but never truly experience. I wanted them to know I was part of their struggle. I told my white Jewish friend, with whom I talked radical left-wing politics incessantly, of my yearning. She said “Forget about it." "You can never, will never know what it is like to be black and they will never accept you as IF you were black because you are not." I will never forget that time.

Perhaps, if I may speculate (even if I said I would not) Rachel Donzel raised in a house with adopted black siblings and marrying a black man merely wants the same thing as I did those many years ago and that is to say I am with you, I am a part of your struggle and to prove it I will become black. Maybe it is as simple as that.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057889/plotsummary

WORK for Hillary Rodham Clinton who shares our progressive ideals although she must work in a system where money must unfortunately secure for Democrats high office OR any office! GET OUT THE 2016 VOTE for HRC! I love Sanders BUT he cannot win!

Favorite Songs

Adele: Sky Fall

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xusp2s_adele-skyfall-official-video-lyrics_music

Eva Cassidy "Autumn Leaves" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXBNlApwh0c
("Autumn Leaves" My mother's favorite song)

K.D. Lang: "Constant Craving

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXqPjx94YMg