My love for all things Bernie is exactly why I’m voting for Hillary (now). DNC has approved the MOST PROGRESSIVE platform in their history (80% of Bernie’s platform was adopted by them). You still get to vote for Bernie’s platform, and get to have him keeping those clowns in check in Congress. You can PROMOTE Bernie to Majority Leader in the Senate. You can still vote for Bernie’s ideas, via the DNC platform.
If you live in an influential state, you have a moral obligation to vote for Bernie.
This is not directed to you Green Party members, those of you who have supported 3rd party candidates in the past. This is to the ‘Bernie or Bust’ congregation. Those that have the luxury of throwing a tantrum, because their lives won’t substantially change if Trump gets elected. Those that have not faced racism or oppression.
If you are a 3rd party member, especially if you live in Texas, then by all means, vote for your 3rd party candidate. Make some noise for the 3rd parties. Let America know that we deserve more than a 2-party system.
You know how people get all worked up about “press 1 for English”? I see it all the time, posts on facebook complaining about this. Well, most of these posts express anger at those who’d rather hear a different language in their IVR interaction.
A couple of things about that. These are people who likely speak more than one language, and most of the people angry about it only speak English. Is it like some type of envy? That they’re jealous that they don’t have other options because they never learned another language? But instead it’s coming out like displaced anger?
The other thought I had is that they shouldn’t get mad at these people. They should be mad at the companies. It’s the companies that put the recording on. If they don’t think companies should be putting “press one for English”, they need to express that to the company doing it.
Actually, their thought is probably that “American companies shouldn’t be doing this”, or that “This is America, we speak English here”.
But guess what? There is a trend of profiting American companies that are moving their base overseas to avoid American taxes. Why aren’t more people mad at them?
List of companies incorporating overseas after the jump. Continue reading →
You know how much I respect my POTUS. I did live tweet the State of the Union address tonight, which can be seen to the right for the time being. As I’ve done in the past, I like to have my own personal transcript of his speech so I can come back to it in the future.
I was in TX last month visiting my new favorite person in the world! My sister just had a baby, y’all!!
Anyway, in TX, I saw something on the news about a 16-yr old boy who was driving drunk & killed 4 people. So, when I came back home, I looked it up to see what came of it. Apparently, it was a little while ago, and this is what I found:
“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” ~ Wayne LaPierre, NRA’s executive vice president (Dec. 2012, right after Newtown shooting).
“We think it’s reasonable to provide mandatory instant criminal background checks for every sale at every gun show. No loopholes anywhere for anyone…. That means closing the Hinckley loophole so the records of those adjudicated mentally ill are in the system. This isn’t new, or a change of position, or a concession. I’ve been on record on this point consistently, from our national meeting in Denver, to paid national ads and position papers, to news interviews and press appearances.” ~ LaPierre’s statements in front of the House Judiciary Committee in 1999
He also spoke in favor of preventing juvenile felons from ever owning guns, setting up instant background checks at gun shows and keeping schools gun-free.
If you’re reading this, you’re obviously are social on the internet, and noticed that fb “went red” on Tuesday. There was a social solidarity to wear red on Tuesday, as SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the US) was hearing arguments against Prop 8 in California on Tuesday, and against DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) on Wednesday. HRC (the Human Rights Campaign) changed their logo to red in support of marriage equality.
I did wear red on Tuesday, but I didn’t really change my profile picture on fb. I don’t know why. I didn’t really feel like it. It’s kinda interesting to see everyone “as one” kinda. Maybe it’s partly narcissism, but I don’t think so, b/c I’ve changed my profile picture to that “I’m w/ Coco” image when Conan O’Brien had his show taken away. Maybe it’s b/c I’m searching for a job, and I have gone through & only kept “non-political” pictures as viewable by everyone… I honestly don’t know why I didn’t change it. I just didn’t feel like fb is the place. I sign petitions, I make phone calls, and send emails. All my friends know my stance. Changing my picture on fb is not going to be my “voice”, I guess is what I’m thinking.
Here’s the thing. There’s so much going on right now. Our elected officials are acting like punks. Mississippi passing laws so that clinics that service uninsured, urban ppl can’t stay open. Arkansas passing unconstitutional laws that their own state officials asked them NOT to pass, b/c they WILL be sued and they can’t afford to pay out for lawsuits that will win b/c they already know they’re unconstitutional. What a WASTE. So much GOVERNMENT WASTE. It’s so sad 😦
Ok, so back to this SCOTUS thing. They will strike down Prop 8. If they don’t, so much of California is against it now (remember when it passed, it was b/c all those Mormons (LDS Church) paid to pass it through back then). California is easily influenced by ads (like the GMO labeling law that didn’t pass this past Nov). Anyway, California can undo that law now; unlike Ohio, the majority of ppl there are against a ban on same-sex marriage. And DOMA – they DEFINITELY will strike down DOMA. If, in the unlikely event that they don’t, Congress WILL. There are enough liberals AND conservatives in Congress against it that they will def repeal it if SCOTUS doesn’t strike it down first.
At any rate, we’ll hear about both these in June. JUNE, ppl.
In the meantime, like NOW, can we talk about our stupid, bull-headed Congressmen? I know I need to be specific about what exactly I’m mad w/ them about right now, but it’s the whole stupid sequester. What they had written up last year, “knowing” that they’d NEVER want to accept it, so it was their own ultimatum to themselves. But it DID happen, b/c of their stubbornness.
They now have to pass through appropriations for every little thing that they want exempted from the sequester.
Um, why don’t you just work on a budget that BOTH sides of Congress will pass?
So, as a result of our Congress being SO BULL-HEADED, we have to have them pass through bills for any part of government spending that we don’t want SHUT DOWN.
Thus HR 933, Congress’s temporary 6-month appropriations bill will allow agriculture in the US to continue, with federal funding. Shortly before this Agriculture Appropriations bill got pushed through for the President to sign into law, a rider was “anonymously” attached to it. This is section 735, aka the “Monsanto Protection Act”. It basically deregulated the farming industry so that farmers can grow crops without the “burden” of the government watchdog.
[sidenote: what’s kind of interesting here is that Republicans, who are AGAINST govt regulation are also upset with Obama for DE-regulating the agriculture industry. Do you see the hypocrisy?]
Let’s discuss what just happened. [Or, “break it down, y’all”]
– there was a govt shutdown looming.
– the agriculture industry was in jeopardy. [which would lead to food shortages, and thus a sharp rise in groc costs in an very vulnerable economy just beginning to re-emerge]
– there was a bill to help farmers.
Now, here’s the thing about this bill, WITH THIS RIDER attached:
– the President does NOT have a “line item veto”.
– – this means, he must pass the bill into law, or shut down the WHOLE thing, which means NO govt. funding for farms.
– it’s a temporary 6-month funding bill
– if he DID VETO the entire thing (which he could do), Congress had enough votes (2/3s) to over-ride his veto, and it would still pass.
Do I like the “Monsanto Protection Act”*? No.
Do I understand how it passed through? Yes.
* in quotes, b/c it’s not a real act/bill/law on its own, it was a section of a bill.
I hope you do too now. And, more than anything, I urge you, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS. Please let them know how you feel, and YOU DO VOTE.
What we’ve learned in Nov. 2012 national election is that while Super paks spent BILLIONS of dollars, they learned that we won’t necessarily vote their ppl into Congress (or the White House). Remember, Karl Rove’s super PAC spent $103 million on ads; they got 1% return on their investment. Remind your Congress ppl that lobbyists can fund their campaign, but only YOU can give them their job.
And here’s an interesting article I found a few years ago: Are Homosexual Civil Unions A 600-year-old Tradition?
It mentions how in medieval France, they had a term “affrerement” (like brotherment) that served as a legal contract. They “pledged to live together sharing ‘un pain, un vin, et une bourse’ — one bread, one wine, and one purse.”
Am I the only 1 who thinks that sending former US President Bill Clinton to motivate a treaty & peace between Israel & Palestine, is a likely solution?
He almost had them at the cusp of something back in 2000. No one has come close to what he’s been able to do in extreme foreign circumstances.
UPDATE (Nov. 21, 2012): I knew it! Well, I knew it’d take a Clinton! I just had the wrong Clinton pegged! I saw Hillary Clinton do her whirlwind tour yesterday, from Myanmar/Burma to Israel, Egypt, & the West Bank. AND NOW LOOK! CEASE FIRE. THANK YOU, Sec. Clinton.
I’m all for political infographics, as an easy-to-digest way of spreading what’s going on, or someone’s agenda. But this graphic is just all kinds of wrong.
First of all, gas should NOT have been less than a dollar a gallon AT ALL, throughout the 80s, let alone 90s. Remember Reagan? Oliver North? Arms trading to the middle east? Yeah, that’s why gas was so cheap in the 80s. We should have been paying $2.50 a gallon for gas in the 80s. Then, US car companies would have focused efforts on creating more gas-onomical cars then, & wouldn’t have bottomed out when gas did skyrocket. Ppl would have automatically already have budgeted gas money as well, so it would not have made such a grave diff to them & their households.
Let’s stop & take that all in.
Then, secondly, b/c I couldn’t really care less since I don’t think gas prices should be less than $2.50 a gallon, EVER. But, secondly, they’re showing an extreme low during the Clinton administration, and then an extreme high during the Bush administration. I can’t get down with that. I think Clinton is the best Pres. I’ve ever seen in my lifetime, but I just can’t get down w/ feeding poo to the masses, most of which can’t remember enough to question what they see even though they lived it. The majority of ppl lack common sense.
I saw this today & it reminded me of Elizabeth Warren’s quote.
I realize I’ve never shared her quote anywhere (here, twitter, or fb), so thought I’d take a moment to add it.
There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there — good for you!
But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that maurauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea — God bless. Keep a big hunk of it.
But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along. – Elizabeth Warren
From her Wikipedia page: Elizabeth Warren (born June 22, 1949) is an American bankruptcy law expert, policy advocate, Harvard Law School professor, and Democratic Party candidate in the 2012 United States Senate election in Massachusetts. She has written several academic and popular books concerning the American economy and personal finance. She contributed to the oversight of the 2008 U.S. bailout program, and also led the conception and establishment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Sweet Sunshower 