(click to enlarge it)
Mi amigo Anthony Freda sent this stunning recent artwork a few days ago with this message:
“Peace is a lonely business these days. Why did the anti-war movement end? Did the wars, war crimes and slaughter of innocents end?”
(the last one is here.)
‘Alabama Voids Birmingham’s Minimum Wage Ordinance’, Feb. 27, thevillagesuntimes.com
“The Alabama Senate passed the bill today by a vote of 23-10.
Alabama now has no minimum wage of its own, so Birmingham’s largely black low-wage workforce, many of whom work for fast-food outlets, can continue to be paid $7.25 an hour, the federal minimum.” [snip]
“In just the past two months, at least seven states in addition to Alabama have introduced laws to bar cities from setting their own minimum wage, according to Huizar, including Arizona, New Mexico, Idaho, Washington, Illinois, Kansas, and Missouri. If a lawsuit is filed, I will post an update.”
‘Birmingham Raises Minimum Wage and Alabama Takes it Away’, nbcnews.com
“Alabama passed a bill Thursday, largely along party lines, that bars cities and counties from raising the minimum wage or requiring employers to provide leave or other benefits. Because the law applies retroactively, it wipes out Birmingham’s raise.
Republican legislative leaders fast-tracked the bill in order to pass it before Birmingham’s raise was set to take effect March 1. The GOP enjoys super-majorities in both houses. Within an hour or so of the bill’s passage, Gov. Robert Bentley, a Republican, announced he had signed it.
The Alabama bill is the latest effort by a Republican-controlled state to preempt progressive legislation passed by cities. Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, and Indiana have already banned local minimum wage increases, and other red states are considering proposals to do so. Wisconsin and other states have banned cities from requiring paid sick leave. After residents of Denton, Texas, voted to ban fracking in the city, the state, pushed by industry lobbyists, banned a broad range of efforts to regulate the oil and gas industry.”
Via the Scribes to the Plutocrats cnbc.com: ‘Hiking minimum wage won’t stop poverty: Fed paper’. Dec. 2015
It won’t end poverty, but it sure would be a step in the right direction, jackasses.
Forget the #FightforFifteen; the SEIU is cool with $10.10 and is down with Hillary (it’s all about ‘having a seat at the table, see?); Trumka’s got nothin’. No calls for strikes, oh, no. ‘Creating Jobs and Moar!’ is it. Period. But then he was on Obama’s job council, and his membership campaigned for ObamaCare. I laughed when they discovered they’d been pwned.
‘US Senate Approves New Drug Regulator with Ties to Big Pharma’
“Robert Califf, confirmed by a vote of 89 to 4, was a paid consultant for Merck, GlaxoSmithKline and Eli Lilly.
The Senate confirmed President Barack Obama’s nominee to lead the Food and Drug Administration, despite concerns from civil society groups that his previous ties to the pharmaceutical industry would create a conflict of interest. Califf was officially confirmed to the position in an 89 to 4 vote on Wednesday.”
Let’s put our hands together and give them all the clap…but then, the Revolving Door is efficient, isn’t it?
In honor of Vanna at her big board over on the front left in Anthony’s piece:
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
so much for local control.were lenin & trotsky & marx right, there is not another option than international revolution?
nice piece of art. the co. name in the lower left is Vornado (vno.com), a commercial property managment co. tied in with construction firm Charles E. Smith. they are %$$(*#* everywhere here in metro d.c. building worthless crap & then being the managing agent. the business model around here seems to be commercial real estate speculation. and that’s it. didn’t one of the main prezzy candidates cut his vampire teeth in commercial real estate speculation? what’s his name again?
being peacenik=a terrorist collaborator in the war on terror discourse. in all the glossy signage there’s probably an assassin, a sniper, ready to take out that hippie freedom dislker carrying the peace sign
yep, alec/koch-heads seem to rule state politics. can’t even get votes to enforce labeling gmo food without massive advertising blitzes beforehand. ach, my guess is that anything else than global revolution will just nibble at the edges, if even that.
i’m so pissed at the big unions i can’t see straight. small wonder union membership is down soooo loooooow. afl-cio picked the right guy in trumka, knowing what his job is on a more international scale now. pffffft.
thanks for the info on vornado; i wondered what that sign was about. i wish i could make out the waterboarding words under the upside-down golden arches. ‘over 7 billion sold’ or something? thanks for not saying that man’s name though. media gives him a hella lot of ink, eh?
good fun on the sniper; maybe anthony actually put one in. ;-) it was nice of DHS to finally let us know what they call us hippie dissidents, though. do they already have a drone kill list for amerikans on ‘the homeland soil’ ready to implement?
WaterBoarding – WINNING Hearts and Minds
Was looking for the, “Over 10 Billion Rolled.”
Only time for some bits and pieces of reading at the moment. Be back later. Another Scott Walker Blacklist coming from his perpetual project DNR, Decimation of Natural Resources.
http://malcontends.blogspot.com/2016/02/wisconsin-admin-blacklists-clean-water.html
clean water mccarthyism, eh? hope someone slides a DNR order into walker’s medical files.
wait until he makes a bit to be able to sell any federal land or privatize it: coming to a theater near us all (especially colorado).
So much for the “The Republicans won’t confirm conservatives trope.”
Analysis of South Carolina primary points to Obama’s subtle endorsement of Clinton in primary among African-American voters and Rep. Jim Clyburn’s turnout machine (that somehow can’t turn out enough for general elections in midterms.)
Spin now is for Bernie to concede to Ms. Inevitable.
Meanwhile the resignation of Vice-Chair Tulsi Gabbard of the DNC points to cracks opening in the Democratic Party even as McConnell hints at denying nomination to Trump.
Watch this trend. If it doesn’t close over by the conventions, it could be very interesting between August and November.
Some fundamental shift in US politics (and likely in European politics as well) is going to come by the end of the year. Or we will limp forward into the next spiral downward. The organizational side is having a more difficult time holding it together.
arrgh, salon via alternet did a little bit of digging into califf. he’ll be the pharm fast-tracker obama has long suggested and supported. jayzus and brrrrr.
mot of the electoral trends are news to me, including the resignation, save that i read more than broad hints about O’flim-flam convincing old-guard black leaders to endorse clinton (at least headlines saying that).
i’m not getting your final paragraph, amigo. you seem to be separating the fundamental shift and limping forward into the next downward spiral. why not both at once; do you believe they’re exclusive of each other?
i’d meant to ask about your comment about ‘dividing up the spoils in syria’? is this about kerry’s plan B partitioning?
There is little love lost with the WI Dem leadership (DPW) and there insistence on controlling from the top down.
http://www.thedailycall.org/?p=85064
1.2M Walker recall signatures (2012) and only about 13K paid up Dems in the state and they need to listen more than they speak. Down ticket actual progressives will suffer at the polls. One of the, “blacklisted 16” in the link I brought up thread will be announcing for a state assembly seat tomorrow and I’ve tried to convince this person to run party unaffiliated. Chances are about equal to having the DPW behind you here.
Enjoy reading your comments always THD.
Not exclusive of each other.
Kerry’s Plan B partitioning is only one of the proposals of the spoilers. Turkey has its agenda. Saudis and Gulf States have their agenda. So intent are they on anticipating the end game with DAESH that they might let DAESH slip the noose. And Libya is waiting should the “allies” tighten the noose.
i confess that i’m not seeing what lies ahead for the US politically or socially, and it may be that i just can’t afford to care, i dunno. it may be that i spend too much time reading more global newsletters, including the hellacious struggles that indigenous are facing, and even the wee temporary victories that happen now and again.
but what i thought i’d known about Daesh/isil…was that those groups were spawned in libya during the west’s support of ‘provisional govts’ that were actually al qaeda/muslimist radical offshoots, then migrated w/ all the west’s supplied weapons to iraq, syria, and tra la la. you seem to be saying that libya is where they have traveled…to greener fields or close, or am i missing your meaning?
the west, including the US and france, seem to operating there sorta out in the open, both with bombings and on the ground, if what i’m reading is close to right.
but as far as who occupies the white house next? from headlines, the largest danger would seem to be (that hairdo ish-man) and brown people of any sort. beyond that, i can’t even afford to know what he says he believes, i guess. but again tonight, i’ll go out an look at the milky way again for some…needed perspective. i suppose i’d say that right now i’m living in a bit of a cocoon of magical realism, knowing a bit of what’s afoot (i’ve been working on a new police state post), and what might be…possible. ah, pay no mind to the crazy crone in the corner….
on edit: i have difficulty trying to peer into your mind, as well, to decode what possible futures you’re seeing.
Hey WD and Babylonians!
Just wanted to check in–we’re traveling quite a bit for the next 2-4 weeks; so, for a while, I’ll have to mostly lurk.
Thanks for the post about DeRay McKesson–what a con artist he is–to borrow Rubio’s latest slam against Trump.
Also, gonna drop back by and watch your critter and flower slideshows. I always look forward to seeing your ‘heading’ photos, so I’m sure that your slideshows will be a treat.
May see you guys late tomorrow evening, after the returns are in. I think that we may finally see ‘where Senator Sanders is coming from,’ if he is blown away in the majority of the Super Tuesday races, but chooses to carry on.
(IOW, if there is clearly no way that he can get enough regular delegates to win. According to some pundits, that could be decided as early as tomorrow evening.)
In fairness, Sanders has never made any bones about his revolution being about bringing more people into the Democratic Party to make demands on their elected representatives–not about deposing the Dem Party Establishment.
Several talking heads have speculated that he may stay in to help Clinton, acting as a foil so that she doesn’t have to sustain (alone) withering attacks from Trump and Christie for almost nine months. Also, that he (Sanders) may function as her attack dog, since her theme is the same as O’s–let’s all hold hands and sing the technocratic corporatist neoliberal’s version of Kumbaya.
;-)
Guess we’ll see . . .
Blue
‘allo, blue, and happy leap day to you. oooof, deray is a real pip, as they say; glad you read it. i’d even thunk of sending it to you, but you now how it goes with me and email. ;-)
i do think you’ll like the slide shows, and i hope to put together one on ‘skies” the la platas put on such magical shows, as does meneffee mountain just to our east.
it’s really hard for me not to be envious of your traveling so often, so…i won’t try not to be. i’d been thinking i might take my current police state visit over yonder to joe’s ‘evening blues’ in case folks are interested.
oh, jeez, yes; tomorrows Super Dooper Scooper Tuesday, isn’t it? that must be what thd had meant by ‘hints that the bern should concede to miss inevitable’, although mebbe those hints preceded tomorrow’s doings. but shhhh; we don’t say the name of that man…who must no be named here. ;-)
To continue the speculative cast of dream big politics, I was at least heartened by this from Consortium via The Real News – seems to me Mr. Parry has it right on this one (pushes a lot of my buttons, anyway). Sad thing is Sanders has got it wrong.
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/02/24/sanders-the-realist-hillary-the-neocon/
i keep being blow away by so many ‘leftists’ putting words in sander’s mouth, and yes, i’ll pull out his own words on his personal militarism when required. but oh, my, ww, look at B at MoA’s thinking about “right now” signing up “Tulsi Gabbard (for) The VP Slot (!) yes, someone put in her ode to bernies ‘wiser militarism’ or whatever, but ‘less bug splat’, ‘unless genocide’ tra la la…is who he is. but what a hellish lot of sexist bullshit there: “she’s SO pretty”; never mind the swimsuit crap…
and thank you for once again trying to tell folks (at MoA) what you saw in the never changing Green/Stein vote on election night. i reckon that was the vote to…fool with in the diebold machines. as in: “third parties, especially greens, socialists, need not apply EVER”.
Hey, no sweat about not sending me the post, WD–I read your posts and the comments, daily, unless I don’t get to blog due to travel, ‘having company,’ or some other hindrance. ;-) I’m just glad that you keep up with McKesson. I’ve always found him to be appalling, and was rather puzzled when Senator Sanders (or his campaign staff) met with him.
Just saw that you posted a link to your most recent diary/post at ‘EB’–great idea! I do my best to read Joe’s weekday news & blues compositions, since he does a really nice job (IMO). From time to time, I post links and excerpts from news and/or human interest articles at EB. (A lot of people do so.) I think that Joe appreciates it when readers add news blurbs/pieces to his weeknight series. I read as many posts as I can (over there), but if I’m very limited in time, I normally start with Joe’s series first, since I’m more of a news hound, than an opinion reader.
BTW, our travels aren’t exactly exciting, since the trips are to take care of family business/affairs. OTOH, now that the weather is moderating, I have to admit, it’s pretty pleasant and enjoyable.
Can’t wait until this time tomorrow evening, when we’ll know which candidates have won the plurality/majority of the Republican and Democratic Party contests. If I can get a Wi-Fi signal, I’ll probably drop by with a few ‘sage’ pronouncements. (snark intended!) ;-)
Have a nice evening. Later . . .
Blue
i actually liked deRay and enjoyed that he was attempting to be the philosopher of the movement. i cut him some slack now and again, of course, but when he started some of his ‘selfies with stars’ rubbish, and noted the TFA was ‘just like the panthers’ free breakfast program’,and worse…ugh. it’s weird how liberal media darlings can end up prostituting themselves…or is it? well, and his kinship w/ mz packyetti, then campaign zero or whatever: just white house ‘prescriptions’.
from what i’ve read even $15/hr is barely a living wage, but hell, blue: do you want your mcDogfood burger to cost more than it does now??? yep, the koch bro’s influence is gaining lots of traction in state g’s.
on edit: of course bernie met with deray; he’s oddly struggling for black votes, no matter how queer it is that most blacks ♥ both clintons and obama, who have authored their immisseration immensely.
One more thing, found the Oregon legislation (regarding shielding law enforcement officers’ identities for 90-days, with the possibility of an extension) to be very worrisome. And, I totally agree with the lawmaker who thinks that this new statute may be a matter of a camel’s nose under the proverbial tent!
Also, sickened by the various state legislations’ attempts to block city and county efforts to raise their minimum wages. Especially, feel for those folks in Birmingham who were looking forward to a raise tomorrow, 1 March.
How could anyone think that $7.25 is a sufficient, or ‘living’ wage in 2016?
Blue
I think you will like this, wendye; I did:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=15753
without your recommnedation, ww, i wouldn’t have listened/read the transcript given that my antipathy of hedges is epic. yes, he’s attempting to make himself relevant again, and his guests, especially mz. whiteface, are working hard not to point out his abject ignorance of events in inun country. you can tell that he’s totally ignorant of the events that prompted peter matthiessen to write ;in the spirit of cray horse’ for instance.
but yes, they are very serene and patient with him…these events have been going on for hundreds of years for them, especially the lakota. they still haven’t accepted the federal government’s ‘payment’ for their stolen black hills, for instance, although one might wonder if the next generation might not ‘settle’ the claim for reasons that might make sense to them.
as long as i’ve blogged for first americans, i’ve tried to say exactly that they are the canaries in the coal mine, but not with those words, but more along the lines that soon…we, the rabble class, will be the third worlders living in a banana republic that we are NOW. buffy said it right so many years ago.
sleep well, ww. i wish this super tuesday pageant were the end of this grotesque prez electoral cycle. but no; it will go on…and on…
Indeed it will, and that’s why I think that lady – she’s a scientist! – was a balm to my soul. How fondly she spoke of the little sacred mountain that was saved by not drawing attention to it; how refined must be the tactics of the oppressed native peoples setting targets and then enlisting the help and moving on to something else, with a strategy that obliges numerous small glitches in corporate plans to move in quick and make a killing, until they run out of money. She seemed to have the confidence of having won many small victories such as these, while at the same time facing unalterably the hellfire destruction of her culture. It reminded me very much of the Dali Llama – the ability still to have joy in small victories, remaining centered on the task.
Very, very different from the political scene, which I am determined to ignore for sanity’s sake. The only speeches I have listened to have been those of Jill Stein. Plan to keep it that way.
It’s late; sleep well yourself. Here’s something else I found today – maybe not a lullaby but for a shoreside native like myself it was just plain wonderful.
lovely film footage to accompany the paganini; thank you. yes, miz white face is a warrior woman of much patience and wisdom.
yes, the four corners is one large sacrifice area, and uranium mining permits have been granted for the uravan area in western colorado, for grand canyon environs, and probably a hella lot others. fracking in eastern utah, tra la la. but some of those corporations seem to be having so much trouble servicing their debts that some may indeed…go under. and as above, states are pre-empting justice and fairness with koch-sponsored legislation, much like in WI, michigan.
i’m not sure i was aware how much uranium is in those coal pits, mercury was the bio-toxin i was most familiar with.
censored news follows a lot of eco-oppression/poisoning pushback news. canadian aboriginals are of course winning small battles in the Long War, although not enough yet. and now young rock-star trudeau. who will he turn out to be?
but as i was musing about first nations indominability, i recalled a west wing episode: ‘indians in the lobby’. on thanksgiving, the white house staff were all flummoxed about rumor that there were indeed indians in the lobby. no one would see them without an appointment. for hours the two stood in determined silence…conferences on the fly were held about ‘what to do?’. this is what the deedee meyers character did in the end; i could’ve just kissed both of them, but especially gary farmer (wide grin):
on edit: i’d meant to leave intercontinental cry magazine, as well. almost on cue, i’d run into a new coalition of indigenous land rights, 300 strong, but one of the names…left me cold. let me poke around a bit.
Point of clarification: what I like, love, is the serenity and wisdom of the two native peoples Chris Hedges is interviewing. He mispronounces ‘Acoma’ at the start of the interview but never mind. The composure of each is awe-inspiring.
#bpswalkout
Boston public school students walk out to protest budget cuts. Per Twitter, this was organized completely by the students.
On the move, I think to protest the mayor who refused to meet them at the State House, but is holding some kind of meeting with Forbes and young white collar hopefuls [supposedly job creator blah blah blah]. If that’s accurate, the hopefuls should join the students!
https://twitter.com/landahhs/status/706904913083813888
Mayor and Governor inside. Public school students outside.
thanks, marym. i have a boatload of school strike news, transitional heads of systems, but it all looked so hard to weave together. but good on the students, woot!
this also: ‘Detroit high school students stage walkouts to support teachers’, 27 January 2016
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/01/27/walk-j27.html
in the center column are several recent essays and news on public education issues.
Yes, Chicago students have been demonstrating too – catch bits and pieces on twitter. It’s inspiring too to see students in different cities making the connections to other local issues – gentrification, charter schools, reparations, etc.
it is indeed, and i liked the LA teachers’ ‘sick-out’ small victory. i’m also waiting with baited breath to see if SCOTUS will go ahead and vote on friedrichs v. CA teachers or re-hear the case when there are nine justices. so far, they see a 4-4 tie but the Lousiania case ruling may have indicated…that may not be quite so.
“Days after thousands of Boston students walked out of class to protest millions of dollars in proposed budget cuts, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said officials have found a way to avoid reductions at the city’s high schools.”
http://boston.cbslocal.com/2016/03/11/boston-school-budget-cuts-spared-mayor-marty-walsh-student-walkout/
“Ever since thousands of high schoolers marched through the streets of Boston on Monday to protest impending public school budget cuts, some city officials — including Mayor Marty Walsh — have claimed that such a massive form of social unrest couldn’t possibly have been organized by a bunch of kids. Some officials have even claimed the protest was actually organized by unions working behind the scenes. But the students are adamant: It was their idea, and their idea alone.”
http://www.boston.com/news/education/2016/03/11/how-group-boston-teenagers-organized-massive-district-wide-protest/MorhkS0a2mcLJOD1sz9hxJ/story.html
as, later walsh backed down from earlier comments. ;-) but now i see they will indeed be watch-doggin’ the budget, and this helped my understanding…a little:
“An early document released by Boston Public Schools said the decline in state aid for education “is in part because the public charter tuition reimbursements required by law are being increasingly under-funded.” The document said this disparity translated into a $18.6 million shortfall in 2016.”
bless them for seeing/knowing how important the arts and extra-curricular activities can be to keepin’ kids out of gangs, eh? although…i do remember well the same claims for mainly keeping huge sports budgets (especially football) in at the expense of other arts, and i did disagree w/ that.
how do the kid prove a negative? the facebook organizing seems all they have except for their word, and that they speak so well for themselves.
well, m goodness, they must be rockin’ and rollin’! loved all walsh’s caveats, though. is it me, or does he look a hella lot like arne duncan?
i got a bit confused on the globe’s account of how the extra $ would be restored, or reallocated, though. i’d expect that folks will be watching to see that it’s not just obfuscation in the end.
$5 million pay-back (i forget the actual term) from a charter school or schools? cancel a seventh period, fire teachers, check; but cancel advanced work for elementary kids? ooof, i’d just read some op-eds objecting to homework in elementary school as very counter-productive. i agree to the Nth degree, but that must be part of the ‘teach to the test’ mantra.
my caution should not minimize student power. woot!
Yes, many ways for this apparent victory to be reversed directly or by harm to some other part of the commons, but young people seem to be connecting the dots.
the kids are alright. ;-)
(for april fools day) and by union members and allies:
atlanta black star:
‘What’s Going On in Detroit? Drowning in Debt and Running Out of Money, Detroit Public Schools Can’t Make Payroll’, March 10, 2016
alarming story and photos.
The Politics of America’s “drug war”
In April’s edition of Harper’s Magazine, the cover story is somewhat shocking, when the politics is appropriately addressed and consequently, the disgrace of political operatives and Elected Officials, as well as the Appointed Officials, started in the Oval Office and was equivalent to the noxious-Nixson’s attention to the Southern Strategy.
And in his article and titled, “Legalize It All,” writer Dan Baum, takes us to his interview with John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s chief lieutenant, and what follows, speaks to the unassailable assessment that we, the racial and ethnics, knew in “real time” the construct of the War on Drugs and where “minorities” were both the targets and the victims of America’s political shenanigans and perpetrated onto the general public.
From Ehrlichman:
“You want to know what this was really all about?” …“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
And given the large scope of this article consisting of five pages, is quite an accomplishment for any writer, and especially when a major publication is willing to engage in a subject that has serious consequence to our United States, as well as a consequence for Europe and the Latin America region. As such, here is the internet link:
https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/2/
Of course, the old program known infamously as COINTELPRO speaks volumes to us all, and yet, having this available to us, would add much to this War on Drugs, since the FBI’s “mormon” recruits were segregated into managing and operating this Program, and done with very little supervision. Thus, creating files willy-nilly on political activists served its purpose as well.
Jaango
thanks, jaango. funding both sides of the ‘war on drugs’ was, and still is, also very profitable, from the industrial prison complex and ‘warriors’, including salaries, weapons, and plenty of bribery by the usual suspects. and one would guess by seeing GIs guardian opium fields in afghanistan, that the story gary webb unearthed back in the day is not unique.
“LOS ANGELES — With the public in the U.S. and Latin America becoming increasingly skeptical of the war on drugs, key figures in a scandal that once rocked the Central Intelligence Agency are coming forward to tell their stories in a new documentary and in a series of interviews with The Huffington Post.
More than 18 years have passed since Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb stunned the world with his “Dark Alliance” newspaper series investigating the connections between the CIA, a crack cocaine explosion in the predominantly African-American neighborhoods of South Los Angeles, and the Nicaraguan Contra fighters — scandalous implications that outraged LA’s black community, severely damaged the intelligence agency’s reputation and launched a number of federal investigations.”
it’s very long, and covers lots of history, including the successful and dirty campaign to discredit webb. the official story is that he finally committed suicide in 2004, may he rest in power.
also, tarheeldem put up a couple links about electoral politics on this diary at the bottom of the page you might be interested in. the comment url doesn’t seem to take one there….
“LOS ANGELES — With the public in the U.S. and Latin America becoming increasingly skeptical of the war on drugs, key figures in a scandal that once rocked the Central Intelligence Agency are coming forward to tell their stories in a new documentary and in a series of interviews with The Huffington Post.
More than 18 years have passed since Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb stunned the world with his “Dark Alliance” newspaper series investigating the connections between the CIA, a crack cocaine explosion in the predominantly African-American neighborhoods of South Los Angeles, and the Nicaraguan Contra fighters — scandalous implications that outraged LA’s black community, severely damaged the intelligence agency’s reputation and launched a number of federal investigations.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/10/gary-webb-dark-alliance_n_5961748.html
on edit 3/26: my thd comment link hadn’t taken; sorry, jaango.
Arizona Voting?
When the State’s Secretary of State approved of the political shenanigans implemented by the Maricopa County’s Election Director and which reduced 360 voting sites down to just 60, and done by claiming that the financial ‘COSTS’ were the single determinant, voter disenfranchisement was concretized.
To wit, when the Election’s Director explained to the full County Board of Supervisors, only one Elected Official disapproved, and the overwhelming majority voted in favor of reducing the number of voting locations. As such, the dominance of this Republican majority, was not lost on us, the Hispanic and Native American voters. Long story short, the Republicans voted in favor of their Ideology for the Republic, and yet, intentionally refused to err on the side of Democracy.
Consequently, Republicans don’t do “decency.”
Jaango
pretty fascist state is AZ. no D complicity? well, dunno where is twill go, if anywhere, because: loretta lynch, but:
“Calls to investigate reports of voter suppression and disenfranchisement in the Arizona primary are gaining in strength and urgency, as Governor Doug Ducey and Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton have now both spoken out against the horrid election conditions, which Bernie Sanders called a “disgrace” in a press conference earlier today.”
good luck, seriously.
Here is the co-option clicking into place with a great big click. A guy who couldn’t bother when @Deray was reporting about people in the streets.
Message: Sorry, guy, you’re going to lose this one until you change your priorities, but we like your style and think you have promise if you play along.
This is the point at which the young man’s head spins and he envisions the payoff from his Bates College education. Elijah Cummings, watch out. Here’s who’s being slotted for your retirement replacement by the big boys.
ha. (even though it might be the third or fourth co-optation.) and yes, i’m thinking about TFA and charter schools, and the fact that deray said as mayor he wouldn’t have any control about closing schools, nor the metric used, iirc.
i assume axelrod is team hillary? but what priorities does he need to change, thd? i’ve lost track of them. but i did howl w/ laughter when i saw this at the guardian (i just had to go hunt it down):
‘Celebrity and tech donations fuel DeRay Mckesson’s run for Baltimore mayor’; Susan Sarandon and Twitter executives are among the Black Lives Matter activist’s donors, but opponents still polling higher with Baltimore residents
at the end:
“We need a mayor that is not beholden to establishment politics, receiving money from developers & other companies,” Mckesson tweeted on Tuesday.
reminds me of the times he’d maintained: ‘Twitter IS the revolution!’ (and wore the shirt to prove it…)
hope you’re well. but argh, i just began following the n. carolina #hb2 law enshrining ‘no protections for lgbt’ hate law. gonna do a storify on it, bless all those resisting.