Dustlawyer
Dustlawyer's JournalWhy won't our media talk about WHY the Russians wanted Trump and Republican House members?
They talk about his damn tweets incessantly. They talk about his denial of Russian involvement and the intelligence agency's proof, but NEVER WHY?
Could it have been they know how damaging he and the Republicans will be for our country? How their full on Free Market with no regulations will crash our economy and weaken us severely?
I believe these had more to do with it than Putin was mad at Hillary which is what they have said!
Reason why the Russians/Putin hacked our election:
Why are there large number of Americans who believe we should not have regulations?
I was just reading about the Portland, Maine columnist who was killed when the loaded gun he handed a 16 year old kid at his house accidentally discharged, killing him. He had written numerous articles opposing even mandatory gun safety training. Had that been required he may still be alive today.
This is one example of the benefits of regulations. I live close to numerous refineries and chemical plants on the Gulf coast. One of the items on the Republican agenda is to get rid of the EPA. Can you imagine how bad things will be here if this happens? They want us to live in smog and chemicals like China currently has.
We have regulations to protect our air, water and land so we do not live in a toxic soup. Corporations and industry want bigger and bigger profits and do not care what happens to our environment.
So why do many Americans agree we need to get rid of these regulations and the agencies that enforce them? It goes back to our media who had their own regulations loosened to the point that they can legally lie to us because they no longer have "news" departments, they are "entertainment." That is at least the decision of a court of appeals in Florida in overturning a judgment against Fox News. These corporations through the media have convinced a large segment of our population that regulations are unnecessary and just cost money.
In my day (old fart speech) the networks kept the business side (advertising) completely separate from the news side. You did not have major advertisers dictating to the network whether to run a story or not. Now the opposite is true, the networks, cable news, news papers, and magazines will not run a story if one of their big advertisers objects.
BP for example, was able to kill any stories about what was happening to the victims of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. They ran commercials day and night on every channel and every medium, but made it clear that the ad dollars would stop for any outlet that wrote about what was really going on. They had them writing and doing stories about claim fraud and "greedy" plaintiff attorneys way out of proportion to any of these problems. The real problems were that BP violated 100's of regulations to cause the spill, regulations that would have kept those 11 men from dying and turning our Gulf of Mexico in to a toxic deep fryer.
Trump and the Republicans are about to eliminate the protections we Americans have enjoyed, from environmental to financial. When the crap hits the fan we need to be there to remind other Americans that those evil regulations would have prevented the harm to come!!!
Thom Hartman interviews Mark Manning, the force behind the BP documentary, The Rising.
http://www.thomhartmann.com/bigpicture/sick-dying-victims-bp-speak-outMark Manning, The Rising/The Road to Fallujah/Conception Media joins Thom. The BP oil spill was the worst industrial disaster in American history. But could the cleanup have been just as bad? A new documentary says yes - and we'll speak with the director.
Many people here know that my firm represents several thousand victims of the BP oil spill. This documentary focuses on the health effects of the Corexit/oil on Gulf Coast residents. I would add to this clip that BP used the Corexit because it actually doesn't disperse the oil, it condenses it into hard tarballs and tar mats that sink the oil to the bottom, out of sight. BP sunk the oil to avoid fines based on per barrel of oil. By doing this they can still play hide the oil and lie about how much was released. It also helps on a PR standpoint because they say it all evaporated.
The other big story not being told is what is happening in the civil litigation for the economic harm caused by the spill. I cannot speak about most of it if that tells you anything. I can and will say that this litigation has been corrupted by a huge $700,000,000 conflict of interest that should have never been allowed. Suffice it to say that a really good investigative reporter could bring in the story of the decade that no one else is reporting on!
I will add my thanks to Thom and Mark Manning for putting some light on a story not being told by any other media. BP spent a great deal of advertising money to buy off the local Gulf Coast media so they would not report stories about what was really happening down here. They also bought off the national media the same way, gotta love that "Free Market!" Ed Schultz did a story a week a couple of months before he was cut loose by MSNBC, but that is mostly it on reporting. Most people around the country believe there was a $20 billion dollar fund for the victims and they were paid years ago. That would be another yet another lie, there was never $20 billion in an account to pay the victims.
Just like in criminal trials where a wealthy and powerful defendant can get off even when guilty, they can now do it in civil cases too!
67 dogs and cats dead at our local Humane Society, need some DU help!
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-03-16/beaumont-texas-animal-shelter-fire-kills-67-dogsI posted about our client's $100,000.00 donation which was negotiated as part of her settlement with DuPont for the death of her mother, a huge animal lover/rescuer at the end of February.
Here is their website as well.
http://www.humanesocietyofsoutheasttexas.org/
As you can see at the link above, a fire happened last night caused by a faulty dryer. Almost all of the shelter's animals were killed. Their immediate need for space, kennels, etc., is dire and their Board is meeting tonight to come up with a plan. They tell me money is what they need most as locals are dropping off food and supplies and they are running out of storage. With all of the flooding recently in this area they expect a lot more animals coming soon. I-10 is closed nearby due to the flooding as we received 15-20 inches of rain less than a week ago with more on the way the next couple of days
The new facility already has land donated, but not all of the money raised. Ground has not yet been broken on the new facility. What is coming in now is for immediate needs. They are truly at a loss right now and in shock. I just left there and the picture of all of the crying volunteers who knew these animals by name will be hard to get out of my head.
Any help you can give would be much appreciated!
Good news unrelated to the election! Animal lovers celebrate!
On Friday our firm was able to hand one of those giant checks to our local Humane society for $100,000!!!
March 23 2005, when BP blew up their plant killing 15 people and injuring 6,000, we represented a young lady who lost her mother and father in the blast. Neither she nor my boss wanted to settle, she believed that BP murdered her parents. BP was very desperate to settle rather than have it come out that they budgeted for their worker's lives and intentionally made decisions based on profit at the cost of what they thought might be only "1 or 2 workers." The case did settle and the documents could not be confidential. In addition to a very large sum of money for her, we made BP donate $30,000,000 to charities of her choice and a matching amount up to 6 million. We raised 6 million they had to match.
DuPont killed 4 people about a year and a half ago due to the same type of cost and safety cutting BP was guilty of. Our client, another daughter who lost her mother felt the same way about DuPont. Her mother spent most of her income rescuing strays and paying vet bills. As part of the settlement, DuPont agreed to a minute of silence every year for 10 years at all of their facilities to remind everyone of the mistakes of the past and remembrance of the victims. They also agreed to donate the hundred grand to the Humane societies of her choice. Our local Humane Society has some donated land and another million dollar donation from a local attorney and are building a new facility. While the building will be named after the attorney, the adjacent 100 acre public dog park will be named after our client's mother! The Humane Society even gave my disabled brother a dog (he recently lost his dog to old age) for my lobbying our client to donate here instead of where she lives (her mom was local and worked with the HS here)!
Now back to our regularly scheduled Primary debates!
Regardless of the outcome of this election, we must continue the fight post election!
We have discovered that our Representative Democracy has been stolen by big Donors who now control government through the politicians that they bought. The monied interests have played the long game on us because they never stop whittling away at our rights. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce started spending big money in state and local elections to win from the bottom up. Those elections were cheap to buy and eventually resulted in control of many of the state's by Republicans.
We on the other hand have been going to sleep and wake up only for Presidential elections, and even then seem half asleep as to what was going on behind the scenes. This has to stop! We have to remain committed to continuing the fight, forcing coverage of events by the networks and staying very active on social media. We need to keep pointing out the politicians who sell us out in exchange for more money. We need to support media outlets who do fairly cover the situation and let them know they can count on us to keep them afloat since they will not get the big ad dollars that corrupt the system and cause the media to go right
We need a long game too if we ever want to end the corporate control!
If Hillary wins the Primary on the strength of her bought of Super Delegates alone, what will you do
Morning Joe just had a really bad segment, even for them!
My elderly mom watches this every morning and I usually catch 10 minutes or so. Today they had a segment where they talked about Bernie and said socialist about 50 times, never once led by the word, "Democratic." They talked about how how the taxes will go crazy and the other usual stuff. No real mention of income inequality or anything that Bernie stands for. Some guy from Romney's campaign was on there, but he didn't get to say much. What little he did say was the usual RW BS.
Publicly Funded Elections, Bernie's solution to the root problem of campaign bribes.
In the MSNBC debate the other night, Bernie was asked if he would tackle first if elected. Immigration was suggested as a possibility by the moderator to trap him into either committing to that issue first, or pissing off the Latino vote by suggesting another issue first. Bernie avoided this trap by explaining that immigration and a whole host of other important issues would not go anywhere unless we first deal with the corruption in Washington caused by campaign contributions (bribes).
For his plan to work he has said all along that the people will have to pressure Washington into doing what we need and eliminating campaign contributions and Super PAC's. What he is fighting for is a return of Representative Democracy. Currently, we have politicians who only represent Donors, not "We the People." Hillary is the perfect example of what Bernie is talking about. This is what makes this the most important Presidential election for many decades. It will determine if we can throw off the yoke of the shadow government that controls our politics and regain control over our Democracy, or be subjected to more corporate control over our lives and our future. The stakes couldn't be higher!
Despite Hillary's denial that the huge personal fortune she and Bill amassed by speaking to these power brokers, and all of the campaign and Super Pac contributions would have an effect on her policy positions, it does have an effect, on both her, and all of the Republican and Democratic politicians who are lining up to endorse her and receive money from her massive list of wealthy donors.
We have been ranking candidates by how much in bribes they can amass each quarter, that's how ingrained this crap is! This has to end and Bernie is our best chance at doing it! I no longer choose to live under corporate rule!
Feel the Bern!!!!!!!
I think we can put to bed the "We have to vote for Hillary or the Republicans win" argument.
While I think either Bernie or Hillary could beat Trump or whoever from the clown car, Bernie does it much more convincingly. Hillary would mobilize the Republican base to vote, even from a death bed and have a tougher time of it. Trump would be able to use the "insider" argument against her, which in the 2016 election is a no no. People of both Parties are sick of the corruption. I still think she would prevail because the Republican field is just so bad.
If either Democratic candidate would win the General, it should just come down to who has the better policies and be able to help down ticket races. Hillary would be a drag here, again because of extra Republican animus towards her that Bernie doesn't generate. Bernie definitely has the better policies for Democrats and is a LOT more trustworthy in doing what he says. Not many trust Hillary to keep her campaign promises.
As far as getting their policies enacted, the down ticket races are extremely important, especially since Republican incumbents are up for re-election something like two-to-one to Democrats. Bernie also plans on directing and mobilizing his supporters to pressure Congress to do the right thing. Things like Publicly Funded Elections (PFE's)! Politicians are learning that Americans across the board are tired of being sold out since the popularity of Bernie and Trump would indicate. Since the object of taking the campaign contributions (bribes), is to keep their ass in their seats, PFE's will seem more reasonable. Plus Bernie will be on the Bully Pulpit banging away!
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