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Segami
Segami's Journal
Segami's Journal
July 15, 2014
The Christian Conservative movement is well known for evacuating its children to special “camps” should they show the slightest inclination of defying the family traditions, over things like their sexuality. A whiff of rebellion and they are disappeared for anything from a semester to a year. Newsweek has this week covered the story behind Escuela Caribe, a Christian reform school in the Dominican Republic that’s the subject of a forthcoming documentary called Kidnapped for Christ -which reveals an epidemic of child abuse at these camps.
Like so many of these ‘schools’, Escuela Caribe is viewed as a sort of last resort by many parents whose children are failing to embody the fundamentalist Christianity they espouse — a faith where homosexuality, depression, schizophrenia, and anxiety disorders are frequently written off as “rebellion” or “demonic possession.” This is not a place where children are helped, its a place where they are broken. The stressful environment coupled with no true accountability or regulation often creates an environment of systemic abuse, as the Newsweek report indicates:
Although Escuela Caribe was closed in 2011,it is but one among a host of New Horizons Ministries schools under scrutiny for abuse, as alumni have taken to the web to report their abuse. One such site, The Truth About New Horizons Youth Ministries, states its purpose as:
cont'
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/07/15/exposed-child-abuse-epidemic-at-christian-boot-camps/
Exposed: CHILD ABUSE Epidemic at Christian Boot Camps
The Christian Conservative movement is well known for evacuating its children to special “camps” should they show the slightest inclination of defying the family traditions, over things like their sexuality. A whiff of rebellion and they are disappeared for anything from a semester to a year. Newsweek has this week covered the story behind Escuela Caribe, a Christian reform school in the Dominican Republic that’s the subject of a forthcoming documentary called Kidnapped for Christ -which reveals an epidemic of child abuse at these camps.
Like so many of these ‘schools’, Escuela Caribe is viewed as a sort of last resort by many parents whose children are failing to embody the fundamentalist Christianity they espouse — a faith where homosexuality, depression, schizophrenia, and anxiety disorders are frequently written off as “rebellion” or “demonic possession.” This is not a place where children are helped, its a place where they are broken. The stressful environment coupled with no true accountability or regulation often creates an environment of systemic abuse, as the Newsweek report indicates:
By her second day at the school, [Deirdre] Sugiuchi’s image of a nurturing Christian boarding school was shattered when her “house father” made her perform exercises for hours.
“According to him, I had ‘an authority problem’ at home. He made me do bear crawls, pushups and duck walks. He had me hold my arms out balancing books until I cried from pain,” she wrote on a website dedicated to collecting the stories of survivors of the school. “We had 24-year-old male house fathers in a house full of teenage girls. I had a house father that used to watch me change clothes. I was constantly either being abused or seeing people be abused,” she tells Newsweek.
Swatting, or being struck on the rear with a wooden paddle, was among the disciplinary practices at the school, along with a “quiet room” where students deemed particularly insubordinate would be isolated for days with only a thin mattress. A system of points based on obedience kept students on different levels, and low-ranking students would be forced to ask permission to perform any task, and supervised at all times by higher-ranking students, including in the shower, Sugiuchi says.
“When I was there, at 17, I was a high ranker, and it was my job to make sure [low rankers] were properly washing their private parts in the shower. I had to make sure they soaped. That was how I spent my senior year,” she says. Phone calls to parents were recorded, and written letters were monitored. “They would do anything to keep you there.”
http://www.newsweek.com/where-american-teens-abused-name-god-258182?piano_t=1
“According to him, I had ‘an authority problem’ at home. He made me do bear crawls, pushups and duck walks. He had me hold my arms out balancing books until I cried from pain,” she wrote on a website dedicated to collecting the stories of survivors of the school. “We had 24-year-old male house fathers in a house full of teenage girls. I had a house father that used to watch me change clothes. I was constantly either being abused or seeing people be abused,” she tells Newsweek.
Swatting, or being struck on the rear with a wooden paddle, was among the disciplinary practices at the school, along with a “quiet room” where students deemed particularly insubordinate would be isolated for days with only a thin mattress. A system of points based on obedience kept students on different levels, and low-ranking students would be forced to ask permission to perform any task, and supervised at all times by higher-ranking students, including in the shower, Sugiuchi says.
“When I was there, at 17, I was a high ranker, and it was my job to make sure [low rankers] were properly washing their private parts in the shower. I had to make sure they soaped. That was how I spent my senior year,” she says. Phone calls to parents were recorded, and written letters were monitored. “They would do anything to keep you there.”
http://www.newsweek.com/where-american-teens-abused-name-god-258182?piano_t=1
Although Escuela Caribe was closed in 2011,it is but one among a host of New Horizons Ministries schools under scrutiny for abuse, as alumni have taken to the web to report their abuse. One such site, The Truth About New Horizons Youth Ministries, states its purpose as:
We are a group of former students who have reconnected through the Internet and wish to share our collective experience at New Horizons. We range in age from our teens to our late 30s, and attended “The Program” between the mid-1980s and 2002.
New Horizons Youth Ministries Inc. purports to help adolescents through “Christian milieu therapy” but in fact does more harm than good. Most of our complaints center on Escuela Caribe, the boot camp located in the Dominican Republic, where we witnessed and experienced physical and emotional abuse, were subjected to young, untrained staff, and had our communication home monitored to keep us from divulging the truth to our families.
http://nhym-alumni.org
New Horizons Youth Ministries Inc. purports to help adolescents through “Christian milieu therapy” but in fact does more harm than good. Most of our complaints center on Escuela Caribe, the boot camp located in the Dominican Republic, where we witnessed and experienced physical and emotional abuse, were subjected to young, untrained staff, and had our communication home monitored to keep us from divulging the truth to our families.
http://nhym-alumni.org
cont'
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/07/15/exposed-child-abuse-epidemic-at-christian-boot-camps/
July 14, 2014
Tea Bag Koch-owned motor-mouth Rick Santelli gets owned by Steve Liesman................
.,...
If you’re at all familiar with CNBC’s Rick Santelli, you know he almost never appears on the network without a shoutfest ensuing. The financial commentator — long considered the godfather of the tea party movement for his 2009 remarks — tends to battle with his colleague Steve Liesman over wonky monetary policy questions involving the Federal Reserve, government intervention, and inflation. During a Monday afternoon debate, the CNBC panel — including Liesman — tore into their famously outspoken colleague by telling him that all of his dire predictions about the Fed’s actions have been proven wrong.
After a series of rants from Santelli on Fed Chair Janet Yellin possibly risking inflation, host Scott Wapner intervened to say that “the jury’s still out as to whether the Fed is going to help.” This set Santelli off: “Jury? Who are you talking about? Who’s the jury specifically? Academia? Professors? That valet you let park your car?” Co-panelist Josh Brown piled on: “Rick, you already decided this wasn’t going to work five years ago. Is some of your anger about confirmation bias?” “I was right! I was right!” Santelli shouted, walking off-camera to applause from Chicago floor day traders. “End of conversation. Hasta la vista!”
But he returned when Liesman began torching him:
Santelli shouted a rebuttal throughout Liesman’s rebuking.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cnbc-reporter-torches-rick-santelli-nothing-youve-predicted-has-ever-come-true/
Steve Liesman TORCHES Rick Santelli
Tea Bag Koch-owned motor-mouth Rick Santelli gets owned by Steve Liesman................
.,...
If you’re at all familiar with CNBC’s Rick Santelli, you know he almost never appears on the network without a shoutfest ensuing. The financial commentator — long considered the godfather of the tea party movement for his 2009 remarks — tends to battle with his colleague Steve Liesman over wonky monetary policy questions involving the Federal Reserve, government intervention, and inflation. During a Monday afternoon debate, the CNBC panel — including Liesman — tore into their famously outspoken colleague by telling him that all of his dire predictions about the Fed’s actions have been proven wrong.
After a series of rants from Santelli on Fed Chair Janet Yellin possibly risking inflation, host Scott Wapner intervened to say that “the jury’s still out as to whether the Fed is going to help.” This set Santelli off: “Jury? Who are you talking about? Who’s the jury specifically? Academia? Professors? That valet you let park your car?” Co-panelist Josh Brown piled on: “Rick, you already decided this wasn’t going to work five years ago. Is some of your anger about confirmation bias?” “I was right! I was right!” Santelli shouted, walking off-camera to applause from Chicago floor day traders. “End of conversation. Hasta la vista!”
But he returned when Liesman began torching him:
"...It’s impossible for you to have been more wrong, Rick. Your call for inflation, the destruction of the dollar, the failure of the U.S. economy to rebound. Rick, it’s impossible for you to have been more wrong. Every single bit of advice you gave would have lost people money, Rick… There is no piece of advice that you’ve given that’s worked, Rick. Not a single one… The higher interest rates never came. The inability of the U.S. to sell bonds never happened. The dollar never crashed, Rick. There isn’t a single one that’s worked for you...."
Santelli shouted a rebuttal throughout Liesman’s rebuking.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cnbc-reporter-torches-rick-santelli-nothing-youve-predicted-has-ever-come-true/
July 14, 2014
Hmmm...........
....
..... ..... ..... ....
.....
...........NO, I DON'T!!
Remember that bit in the Bible where Jesus refused to heal the leper because he didn’t have health insurance? No, me neither. Yet, according to a new YouGov poll, Republican Jesus would have done just that. The poll, conducted July 1-2, covered 1,000 U.S. adults using a sample selected from YouGov’s opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population. On a wide range of political issues, from healthcare to gun control, from raising taxes on the rich to climate change, respondents were asked what Jesus would support or oppose. Funnily enough – Jesus mostly agreed with their own views, never mind the Bible. While the majority of Democrats saw Jesus as a figure of acceptance, charity and compassion. Republicans appeared to conflate Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged with the Bible.
82% of Democrats and 52% of independents said Jesus would support universal healthcare.
Yet, just 23% of Republicans believe Jesus would support healthcare for all.
Republican Jesus says no HMO? Hell no.
So, while Ayn Rand counseled her acolytes via Atlas Shrugged:
Yet, Jesus was a Marxist before Marxism had a name. He distrusted the rich. Surely Republicans should be denouncing the Jesus that said:
Just 18% of Republicans believe Jesus would support higher taxes on the rich; taxes that benefit the funding of the common good – schools, hospitals, and safety nets for those the capitalist machine leaves downtrodden. (63% of Democrats believe Jesus would support raising taxes on the rich.) The Christian Right continues to misuse the Gospel to champion unfettered capitalism, with Republicans trumpeting an Ayn Randian philosophy where God rewards the faithful with material wealth. The logic running that poverty is the consequence of a deficit of faith and character. This is a pretty convenient philosophy if you’re stinking rich and not keen to share. It’s pretty damn stupid if you’re one of the millions of Republican voters with barely a buck to your name.
cont'
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/07/14/most-republicans-believe-jesus-would-have-opposed-universal-healthcare/
Remember That Bible Bit When JESUS REFUSED TO HEAL THE LEPER Because He DIDNT HAVE Health Insurance?
Hmmm...........
.... ..... ..... ..... .... ..... ...........NO, I DON'T!!
Remember that bit in the Bible where Jesus refused to heal the leper because he didn’t have health insurance? No, me neither. Yet, according to a new YouGov poll, Republican Jesus would have done just that. The poll, conducted July 1-2, covered 1,000 U.S. adults using a sample selected from YouGov’s opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population. On a wide range of political issues, from healthcare to gun control, from raising taxes on the rich to climate change, respondents were asked what Jesus would support or oppose. Funnily enough – Jesus mostly agreed with their own views, never mind the Bible. While the majority of Democrats saw Jesus as a figure of acceptance, charity and compassion. Republicans appeared to conflate Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged with the Bible.
82% of Democrats and 52% of independents said Jesus would support universal healthcare.
Yet, just 23% of Republicans believe Jesus would support healthcare for all.
“I was sick and you looked after me….I tell you the truth, whatever you do the least of my brothers, you also do for me,” Jesus said in Matthew 25:31-46.
Republican Jesus says no HMO? Hell no.
So, while Ayn Rand counseled her acolytes via Atlas Shrugged:
“Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter.”
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/817219-atlas-shrugged
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/817219-atlas-shrugged
Yet, Jesus was a Marxist before Marxism had a name. He distrusted the rich. Surely Republicans should be denouncing the Jesus that said:
“It’s easier for a camel to walk through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter Heaven,” forewarned Jesus.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth.”
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth.”
Just 18% of Republicans believe Jesus would support higher taxes on the rich; taxes that benefit the funding of the common good – schools, hospitals, and safety nets for those the capitalist machine leaves downtrodden. (63% of Democrats believe Jesus would support raising taxes on the rich.) The Christian Right continues to misuse the Gospel to champion unfettered capitalism, with Republicans trumpeting an Ayn Randian philosophy where God rewards the faithful with material wealth. The logic running that poverty is the consequence of a deficit of faith and character. This is a pretty convenient philosophy if you’re stinking rich and not keen to share. It’s pretty damn stupid if you’re one of the millions of Republican voters with barely a buck to your name.
cont'
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/07/14/most-republicans-believe-jesus-would-have-opposed-universal-healthcare/
July 10, 2014
Here's to making Todd Akin the never-ending face of the Republican Party!...........Salute!........
Todd Akin is back talking about rape in his new book and Republicans have a message for him: Shut up. The Missouri Republican’s memoir offers no apologies for his comments on “legitimate rape,” his bruising loss to Sen. Claire McCaskill or the effect many Republicans say his remarks had on the 2012 field — when the Senate slipped through their fingers. Several operatives, consultants and politicians didn’t waste any time responding to attacks in the book, “Firing Back: Taking on the Party Bosses and Media Elite to Protect Our Faith and Freedom,” set to be released July 15. A copy was provided to POLITICO early.
The GOP has vowed to prevent the stumbles on social issues that plagued Republican candidates on the trail last cycle. So its overwhelming reaction to Akin: his five minutes of fame need to be over. In his book, Akin serves up harsh words for Mitt Romney, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and GOP operative Karl Rove for abandoning him following his now infamous line about rape and pregnancy, that “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
Akin puts Romney in his cross hairs over the 2012 presidential candidate’s decision to not defend him. He argues that Romney should have pivoted on the issue to attack Democrats and former President Bill Clinton in particular. But former Romney aides say it sounds like a lot of sour grapes from Akin. “Todd Akin has no one to blame for his loss but Todd Akin,” said Kevin Madden, a former senior adviser to Romney. “Anyone looking at the question reasonably would conclude it doesn’t make any sense for a former candidate to just assign blame to a long list of rattled off names. Mitt Romney, from Massachusetts, won Missouri by 10 points. Todd Akin lost by 16 points. It’s fairly simple.”
cont'
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/todd-akin-gop-says-shut-up-108768.html?hp=t1_3
GOP To Todd Akin: SHUT UP!
Here's to making Todd Akin the never-ending face of the Republican Party!...........Salute!........
Todd Akin is back talking about rape in his new book and Republicans have a message for him: Shut up. The Missouri Republican’s memoir offers no apologies for his comments on “legitimate rape,” his bruising loss to Sen. Claire McCaskill or the effect many Republicans say his remarks had on the 2012 field — when the Senate slipped through their fingers. Several operatives, consultants and politicians didn’t waste any time responding to attacks in the book, “Firing Back: Taking on the Party Bosses and Media Elite to Protect Our Faith and Freedom,” set to be released July 15. A copy was provided to POLITICO early.
“Todd Akin is an embarrassment to the Republican Party and the sole reason Claire McCaskill is still part of Harry Reid’s majority,” said Brian Walsh, who served as communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 2012 cycle. “It’s frankly pathetic that just like Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell in 2010, he refuses to take any responsibility for sticking his foot in his mouth, alienating voters and costing Republicans a critical Senate seat. Worse, he’s now trying to make money off his defeat. The sooner he leaves the stage again the better.”
The GOP has vowed to prevent the stumbles on social issues that plagued Republican candidates on the trail last cycle. So its overwhelming reaction to Akin: his five minutes of fame need to be over. In his book, Akin serves up harsh words for Mitt Romney, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and GOP operative Karl Rove for abandoning him following his now infamous line about rape and pregnancy, that “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
Akin puts Romney in his cross hairs over the 2012 presidential candidate’s decision to not defend him. He argues that Romney should have pivoted on the issue to attack Democrats and former President Bill Clinton in particular. But former Romney aides say it sounds like a lot of sour grapes from Akin. “Todd Akin has no one to blame for his loss but Todd Akin,” said Kevin Madden, a former senior adviser to Romney. “Anyone looking at the question reasonably would conclude it doesn’t make any sense for a former candidate to just assign blame to a long list of rattled off names. Mitt Romney, from Massachusetts, won Missouri by 10 points. Todd Akin lost by 16 points. It’s fairly simple.”
cont'
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/todd-akin-gop-says-shut-up-108768.html?hp=t1_3
July 10, 2014
I Love The Smell Of Republican Heads Exploding In The Morning.......It Smells Like........Victory!!...
President Obama is such a fail. First he wins a Nobel Peace Prize and now he’s been nominated for an Emmy for the interview he did with comedian Zach Galifianakis on his Web series “Between Two Ferns”. This is proof that the entire world hates Republicans. That web based Funny or Die clip has been nominated for an Emmy Award in the Outstanding Short-Format Live-Action Entertainment Program category. Really, Republicans deserve the credit for this Emmy nod (which is good since they can’t credit Obama for anything except blaming him for things they did), because if they hadn’t been fear-mongering about Obamacare in the first place, the President never would have had to take such extreme measures to get the word out.
But Republicans told Americans that Obama was going to kill their babies with death panels and the government was taking over their medical decisions. In contrast, to show you their idea of American freedom, Republicans have successfully fought to let your boss/faceless corporations with an agenda make your medical decisions. That’ll show Obama! So Obama did an interview with comedian Zach Galifianakis on his Web series “Between Two Ferns” and together, using satire and wit, they increased views to Healthcare.Gov by 40%. The President and Zach Galifianakis have some stiff Emmy competition, facing off against a Super Bowl halftime clip and a Parks and Rec mini episode. (Vice President Joe Biden was on Parks and Rec, by the way, and the show pays obvious homage to Hillary Clinton as a role model for female politicians). The Right wing will be beside themselves over this, after all, they went nuts over his mere appearance in the show, as they feel he should not be mentioning the law in public or something:
Right wing media declared the Emmy nominated President “desperate”:
Oh, yes. Everything Obama touches is such a glitch fail. Why can’t he be more like former President Bush? Republicans sided with the Taliban when Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, so there’s really no telling how this Emmy nod about a show he did to help get the word out about affordable healthcare will impact them. Brace yourselves.
cont'
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/07/10/obamacare-fail-president-obama-nominated-emmy.html
LOL!! - Another BAD DAY For Republicans As President Obama Is NOMINATED FOR AN EMMY
I Love The Smell Of Republican Heads Exploding In The Morning.......It Smells Like........Victory!!...
President Obama is such a fail. First he wins a Nobel Peace Prize and now he’s been nominated for an Emmy for the interview he did with comedian Zach Galifianakis on his Web series “Between Two Ferns”. This is proof that the entire world hates Republicans. That web based Funny or Die clip has been nominated for an Emmy Award in the Outstanding Short-Format Live-Action Entertainment Program category. Really, Republicans deserve the credit for this Emmy nod (which is good since they can’t credit Obama for anything except blaming him for things they did), because if they hadn’t been fear-mongering about Obamacare in the first place, the President never would have had to take such extreme measures to get the word out.
But Republicans told Americans that Obama was going to kill their babies with death panels and the government was taking over their medical decisions. In contrast, to show you their idea of American freedom, Republicans have successfully fought to let your boss/faceless corporations with an agenda make your medical decisions. That’ll show Obama! So Obama did an interview with comedian Zach Galifianakis on his Web series “Between Two Ferns” and together, using satire and wit, they increased views to Healthcare.Gov by 40%. The President and Zach Galifianakis have some stiff Emmy competition, facing off against a Super Bowl halftime clip and a Parks and Rec mini episode. (Vice President Joe Biden was on Parks and Rec, by the way, and the show pays obvious homage to Hillary Clinton as a role model for female politicians). The Right wing will be beside themselves over this, after all, they went nuts over his mere appearance in the show, as they feel he should not be mentioning the law in public or something:
"...During Fox & Friends, Elizabeth Hasselbeck said, “Some would argue that it’s inappropriate for the president of the United States to be advertising a law, an insurance plan.” This was after co-host Brian Kilmeade stated it was inappropriate for the President to be sitting down for a fake interview that was really a comedy skit. This is really rich. Somehow, Hasselbeck feels that President Obama should not be saying anything positive about the current health care law or encouraging people to sign up for health insurance..."
Right wing media declared the Emmy nominated President “desperate”:
"...The Daily Caller and Washington Free Beacon, both conservative news hustlers, got columns up right away declaring how awful and agenda-driven the interview was. Laura Ingraham, Katie Pavlich and Martha MacCallum, all Fox News personalities, took to Twitter and made sure to advance the narrative of the day that this was a very, very bad thing that the President did..."
Oh, yes. Everything Obama touches is such a glitch fail. Why can’t he be more like former President Bush? Republicans sided with the Taliban when Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, so there’s really no telling how this Emmy nod about a show he did to help get the word out about affordable healthcare will impact them. Brace yourselves.
cont'
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/07/10/obamacare-fail-president-obama-nominated-emmy.html
July 10, 2014
A new report argues that the Bush tax cuts actually cost Americans $6.6 trillion in personal income — more than enough to pay for every student loan, car loan and credit card debt in the U.S. In an Al Jazeera America column on Wednesday, investigative reporter David Cay Johnston calculated the average income of Americans between 2001 and 2012 — the years President George W. Bush’s tax cuts were in effect. After adjusting for inflation he compared that income with the average income in 2000, and determined that $6.6 trillion was missing.
Speaking to MSNBC host Chris Hayes on Wednesday, Johnston recalled that President George W. Bush had promised during his 2000 campaign that his tax cuts would lead to greater prosperity. And the investigative reporter pointed out that tax cuts not only damaged personal wealth, but they also took a toll on government services.
cont'
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/10/report-6-6-trillion-lost-on-bush-tax-cuts-could-pay-all-student-loans-car-loans-credit-cards/
Report: $6.6 TRILLION LOST ON BUSH TAX CUTS Could Pay ALL Student Loans, Car Loans, Credit Cards
A new report argues that the Bush tax cuts actually cost Americans $6.6 trillion in personal income — more than enough to pay for every student loan, car loan and credit card debt in the U.S. In an Al Jazeera America column on Wednesday, investigative reporter David Cay Johnston calculated the average income of Americans between 2001 and 2012 — the years President George W. Bush’s tax cuts were in effect. After adjusting for inflation he compared that income with the average income in 2000, and determined that $6.6 trillion was missing.
“Consider what $48,000 of additional income over those 12 years would have meant to you,” Johnston wrote. “It is the equivalent of $11 appearing in your wallet every morning from the start of 2001 through the end of 2012.” “Had that $6.6 trillion shortfall been realized as income, it would have been enough to pay off all the student loans in United States ($1.26 trillion), all the automobile loans ($892 billion) and all the credit card debt ($827 billion),” he noted. “After paying all that debt off and taking taxes into account, Americans still would have more than $2.4 trillion left in their pockets and bank accounts.”
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/7/economy-bush-taxcutsgrowthjobs.html
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/7/economy-bush-taxcutsgrowthjobs.html
Speaking to MSNBC host Chris Hayes on Wednesday, Johnston recalled that President George W. Bush had promised during his 2000 campaign that his tax cuts would lead to greater prosperity. And the investigative reporter pointed out that tax cuts not only damaged personal wealth, but they also took a toll on government services.
cont'
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/10/report-6-6-trillion-lost-on-bush-tax-cuts-could-pay-all-student-loans-car-loans-credit-cards/
July 6, 2014
GOVERNOR OOPS, THE TEXAN CLOWN!!!..........................
Gov. Rick Perry tried to push his claim that the humanitarian crisis involving an influx of Central American children on the border was an Obama conspiracy, but ABC’s This Week called him out on it and ended the interview when Perry added an imaginary hurricane.
Apparently, President Obama is sending these Central American children some sort of subliminal message, because, according to Rick Perry, this influx of immigrants is all a vast conspiracy to….fill the country up with illegal immigrants? The conspiracy and the attempt to blame the president for a humanitarian crisis that was triggered a 2008 law that George W. Bush signed is absurd. It was good to see Martha Raddatz of This Week call out Perry on his nonsense. It was also nice to see a Republican being held accountable for the lunacy that they push on Fox News every day.
Usually, news networks will let Republicans like Gov. Perry ramble on even if the segment runs a little long, but This Week’s producers seemed to see that the segment was going nowhere, so they kept the show running on schedule. In typical conspiracy fashion, Perry claimed that President Obama is either inept or hiding an ulterior motive. When Perry added an imaginary hurricane to the scenario, ABC decided it was time to go.
....BUH-BYE!
In reality, the person with the ulterior motive is Rick Perry, who desperately wants to be the 2016 Republican nominee, and he is clearly planning on running on a platform of conspiracies and immigrant bashing to get it.
ABC TRANSCRIPT
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/07/06/abc-news-cuts-rick-perry-middle-insane-obama-conspiracy-rant.html
ABC News CUTS OFF RICK PERRY In The Middle Of An INSANE Obama Conspiracy Rant
GOVERNOR OOPS, THE TEXAN CLOWN!!!..........................
Gov. Rick Perry tried to push his claim that the humanitarian crisis involving an influx of Central American children on the border was an Obama conspiracy, but ABC’s This Week called him out on it and ended the interview when Perry added an imaginary hurricane.
Apparently, President Obama is sending these Central American children some sort of subliminal message, because, according to Rick Perry, this influx of immigrants is all a vast conspiracy to….fill the country up with illegal immigrants? The conspiracy and the attempt to blame the president for a humanitarian crisis that was triggered a 2008 law that George W. Bush signed is absurd. It was good to see Martha Raddatz of This Week call out Perry on his nonsense. It was also nice to see a Republican being held accountable for the lunacy that they push on Fox News every day.
Usually, news networks will let Republicans like Gov. Perry ramble on even if the segment runs a little long, but This Week’s producers seemed to see that the segment was going nowhere, so they kept the show running on schedule. In typical conspiracy fashion, Perry claimed that President Obama is either inept or hiding an ulterior motive. When Perry added an imaginary hurricane to the scenario, ABC decided it was time to go.
....BUH-BYE!
In reality, the person with the ulterior motive is Rick Perry, who desperately wants to be the 2016 Republican nominee, and he is clearly planning on running on a platform of conspiracies and immigrant bashing to get it.
ABC TRANSCRIPT
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/07/06/abc-news-cuts-rick-perry-middle-insane-obama-conspiracy-rant.html
July 5, 2014
~snip~
Among the matters included under this rubric are whether he is more likely to run for president or not: “Oh, who knows. I don’t want to get into which way I am leaning. I am giving serious thought to it.” Also, Hillary Clinton and her possible presidential campaign: “If I run, it doesn’t matter whether Hillary runs. We have a message, and I’ve got to make that determination. But I don’t want to get into Hillary gossip.” And, more specifically, the latest Beltway scandal du jour, about Clinton proclaiming past poverty while she rakes in six-figure speaking fees from Goldman Sachs: “I could care less. And I don’t want to go there. I am not going to get into media gossip.” The senator also is curt on the subject of the D.C. political magazine that scores the votes of every member of Congress. It finds Sanders the most liberal, except in election years, when the Democratic nominee has to take a number of base-pleasing votes and so finds himself—as John Kerry was in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008—tarred by his GOP opponent as “even to the left of the socialist Bernie Sanders”: “That’s just the stupid National Journal. Every year they come up with a formulation of what is liberal and what is not.”
~snip~
“It’s one of the oddities of New Hampshire,” one audience member told The Daily Beast as Sanders made his way up to the podium to applause. “The further out the candidate is, the more on time they are. We used to wait hours for Hillary Clinton. Dennis Kucinich would show up early.” Sanders is dressed in a blue oxford shirt and ill-fitting creased khaki dress pants. He launches into the latest version of his stump speech, a litany of all that is wrong with America: the Koch brothers, the decline of the median income, corporations offshoring their profits, climate change, student debt, unequal access to health care, the minimum wage. Strands of unkempt white hair wave above his head like an anti-surrender flag. He more than once signals that he is finished—“And so my final point here today”—and then goes on and on and on, the speech becoming not so much a call and response in the manner of a preacher tending to his flock but of a teacher drilling his students for a quiz they know the answer to.
“And do you know where those profits are going?”
“The one percent!”
Or again, at another point: “And who is the largest private employer nowadays?”
“Walmart!”
“You are the majority! Do you know who is not the majority?”
“THE KOCH BROTHERS!”
~snip~
It is not an unfamiliar pitch. Close your eyes, and it could easily be John Edwards or Kucinich or Ralph Nader or Bill Bradley or Jerry Brown. But still, the crowd gathered next to a bookstore that boasts that it is the second in the country to be powered purely by solar energy treats Sanders as if he is the only thing that can save the party from the specter of a Clinton coronation. “She is center-right, she always was center-right,” said Marcia Moody, a local state lawmaker who was passing out fliers urging Sanders, who is officially an independent but identifies as a socialist and caucuses with the Democrats, to run in a Democratic primary, to avoid playing a spoiler like Nader in 2000. “She may try to talk an everyman’s game, but she was DLC from the beginning,” she added, referring to the Democratic Leadership Council, the Bill Clinton-affiliated outfit that dragged the Democratic Party to the center after a series of electoral defeats.
~snip~
For Democrats, the question becomes what kind of impact Sanders will have on the 2016 race. He has a message that not only meets the moment but points to a key vulnerability of Clinton’s: that her economic policies would be similar to her husband’s, which Sanders argues unshackled Wall Street and led to unfettered free trade, a shredded social safety net, and a widening gap between rich and poor. And Clinton’s early stumbles on her high-end speaking fees and her “dead broke” days after the White House have not helped matters. Sanders could serve as an ever-present reminder of those vulnerabilities, much as the host of conservatives who clogged the 2012 GOP primary campaign—Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, and all the rest—were able to plant doubts in the minds of Republicans that Mitt Romney was really the best they could do. And while those candidates had million-dollar benefactors, Sanders seems ready to do it on the cheap, much as he has done already, barnstorming through New Hampshire, Iowa, and South Carolina at every bookstore, community center, and union hall that will hold him, preaching his gospel of the modern-day robber barons stealing from the public.
cont'
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/02/can-this-ornery-socialist-spoil-the-clinton-coronation.html
Can This Ornery Socialist SPOIL The Clinton Coronation?
The Vermont senator doesn’t want to talk about Hillary—or any ‘political gossip.’ But even as his fans pooh-pooh his 2016 odds, he has other ways of derailing the Democrats’ Chosen One.
~snip~
Among the matters included under this rubric are whether he is more likely to run for president or not: “Oh, who knows. I don’t want to get into which way I am leaning. I am giving serious thought to it.” Also, Hillary Clinton and her possible presidential campaign: “If I run, it doesn’t matter whether Hillary runs. We have a message, and I’ve got to make that determination. But I don’t want to get into Hillary gossip.” And, more specifically, the latest Beltway scandal du jour, about Clinton proclaiming past poverty while she rakes in six-figure speaking fees from Goldman Sachs: “I could care less. And I don’t want to go there. I am not going to get into media gossip.” The senator also is curt on the subject of the D.C. political magazine that scores the votes of every member of Congress. It finds Sanders the most liberal, except in election years, when the Democratic nominee has to take a number of base-pleasing votes and so finds himself—as John Kerry was in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008—tarred by his GOP opponent as “even to the left of the socialist Bernie Sanders”: “That’s just the stupid National Journal. Every year they come up with a formulation of what is liberal and what is not.”
~snip~
“It’s one of the oddities of New Hampshire,” one audience member told The Daily Beast as Sanders made his way up to the podium to applause. “The further out the candidate is, the more on time they are. We used to wait hours for Hillary Clinton. Dennis Kucinich would show up early.” Sanders is dressed in a blue oxford shirt and ill-fitting creased khaki dress pants. He launches into the latest version of his stump speech, a litany of all that is wrong with America: the Koch brothers, the decline of the median income, corporations offshoring their profits, climate change, student debt, unequal access to health care, the minimum wage. Strands of unkempt white hair wave above his head like an anti-surrender flag. He more than once signals that he is finished—“And so my final point here today”—and then goes on and on and on, the speech becoming not so much a call and response in the manner of a preacher tending to his flock but of a teacher drilling his students for a quiz they know the answer to.
“And do you know where those profits are going?”
“The one percent!”
Or again, at another point: “And who is the largest private employer nowadays?”
“Walmart!”
“You are the majority! Do you know who is not the majority?”
“THE KOCH BROTHERS!”
~snip~
It is not an unfamiliar pitch. Close your eyes, and it could easily be John Edwards or Kucinich or Ralph Nader or Bill Bradley or Jerry Brown. But still, the crowd gathered next to a bookstore that boasts that it is the second in the country to be powered purely by solar energy treats Sanders as if he is the only thing that can save the party from the specter of a Clinton coronation. “She is center-right, she always was center-right,” said Marcia Moody, a local state lawmaker who was passing out fliers urging Sanders, who is officially an independent but identifies as a socialist and caucuses with the Democrats, to run in a Democratic primary, to avoid playing a spoiler like Nader in 2000. “She may try to talk an everyman’s game, but she was DLC from the beginning,” she added, referring to the Democratic Leadership Council, the Bill Clinton-affiliated outfit that dragged the Democratic Party to the center after a series of electoral defeats.
~snip~
For Democrats, the question becomes what kind of impact Sanders will have on the 2016 race. He has a message that not only meets the moment but points to a key vulnerability of Clinton’s: that her economic policies would be similar to her husband’s, which Sanders argues unshackled Wall Street and led to unfettered free trade, a shredded social safety net, and a widening gap between rich and poor. And Clinton’s early stumbles on her high-end speaking fees and her “dead broke” days after the White House have not helped matters. Sanders could serve as an ever-present reminder of those vulnerabilities, much as the host of conservatives who clogged the 2012 GOP primary campaign—Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, and all the rest—were able to plant doubts in the minds of Republicans that Mitt Romney was really the best they could do. And while those candidates had million-dollar benefactors, Sanders seems ready to do it on the cheap, much as he has done already, barnstorming through New Hampshire, Iowa, and South Carolina at every bookstore, community center, and union hall that will hold him, preaching his gospel of the modern-day robber barons stealing from the public.
cont'
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/02/can-this-ornery-socialist-spoil-the-clinton-coronation.html
July 5, 2014
Elizabeth Warren's Rally With Alison Grimes Is A HUGE SMASH
Here's the best proof that the Republican caricature of Elizabeth Warren is utterly bunk. Warren just headlined a rally over the weekend with Alison Grimes, the Democrat running to defeat Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, and it was a smash hit:
The Warren appearance was greeted by an overwhelming crowd that with a line that stretched at least three blocks Sunday morning from the campus venue, the Red Barn.
cont'
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/30/1310627/-Elizabeth-Warren-s-rally-with-Alison-Grimes-is-a-huge-smash-w-photos
July 4, 2014
Speaking at a conference in San Diego last week for the world’s largest trade organization of biotechnology firms, potential presidintial candidate Hillary Clinton backed GMOs and Big Ag, further displaying her allegiance to the industry in the eyes of sustainable food and organic advocates. While trumpeting her endorsement of GMO seeds when she served as Secretary of State, Clinton told the crowd that the term “‘genetically modified’ sounds Frankensteinish,” and thus turns people off to GMOs. “Drought resistant sounds really like something you’d want,” she said, encouraging the industry to improve their semantics. “There’s a big gap between the facts and what the perceptions are.” “If Hillary Clinton intends to run for office in 2016, she should think carefully about supporting a food and farming system that is proven to be detrimental to public health.” —Katherine Paul, Organic Consumers Association
Clinton’s certainty concerning the safety of GMO foods stands in stark contrast to public opinion. A Consumer Reports poll in June found that 92 percent of Americans favor labeling the foods. U.S. campaigners rejecting the industry’s push for genetically-modified crops have been pushing hard to get states to pass labeling laws. “Hillary Clinton’s views on GMOs are disappointing, but not surprising,” said Katherine Paul, associate director of the Organic Consumers Union, in an email to Common Dreams. Unfortunately, Paul continued, Clinton’s positions are “no different than those of previous administrations, including the Bush, Clinton and Reagan administrations, and they are taken straight from the biotech industry’s talking points.”
“Credible scientists, backed by independent (not industry-funded) studies are clear about the fact that foods containing GMOs are linked to a host of chronic illnesses,” Paul continued. “The American Medical Association has called for pre-market safety testing and a recent pilot study found unsafe levels of glysophate, the key ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, in the blood, urine and breast milk of American women.” During the hour that Clinton addressed the conference she also addressed fears that current subsidies and tax breaks aren’t enough, or won’t continue to be there in the future. “I don’t want to see biotech companies or pharma companies moving out of our country simply because of some perceived tax disadvantage and potential tax advantage somewhere else,” she assured the crowd, receiving vigorous applause in response. “We should have an intensive discussion,” Clinton said. “Maybe there’s a way of getting a representative group of actors at the table” so that the federal government can help biotechs with “insurance against risk.”
Clinton’s ties to biotech have surfaced before, particularly her history with industry heavyweight Monsanto. The Rose Law Firm where Clinton worked in the 1980s represents both Monsanto and Tyson Foods. Mark Penn, who served as CEO for one the world’s largest public relations firms, Burson-Marsteller, which has also represented Monsanto, was a White House advisor under Bill Clinton and served as chief strategist and pollster to Hillary Clinton in her 2008 presidential campaign. During Hillary’s tenure as Secretary of State, the State Department heavily pressured other countries to use GMOs through a variety of methods, including bringing foreign journalists to the U.S. to “participate in a one-week biotech tour” so that they could help shift public opinion in their home country.
cont'
http://www.popularresistance.org/hillary-clinton-goes-to-bat-for-gmos-at-biotech-conference/
Hillary Clinton GOES TO BAT For GMOs At Biotech Conference
And as Mother Jones reported in 2012, Scheib said that while Clinton’s rooftop garden at the White House wasn’t “certified organic,” everything in it “was absolutely grown without pesticides and fertilizers. I guess it’s what these days we call ‘natural.’” “If Hillary Clinton intends to run for office in 2016, she should think carefully about supporting a food and farming system that is proven to be detrimental to public health,” said Paul, “unless she and her family are willing to give up eating organic and eat the same toxic food that she promotes to the general population.”
Speaking at a conference in San Diego last week for the world’s largest trade organization of biotechnology firms, potential presidintial candidate Hillary Clinton backed GMOs and Big Ag, further displaying her allegiance to the industry in the eyes of sustainable food and organic advocates. While trumpeting her endorsement of GMO seeds when she served as Secretary of State, Clinton told the crowd that the term “‘genetically modified’ sounds Frankensteinish,” and thus turns people off to GMOs. “Drought resistant sounds really like something you’d want,” she said, encouraging the industry to improve their semantics. “There’s a big gap between the facts and what the perceptions are.” “If Hillary Clinton intends to run for office in 2016, she should think carefully about supporting a food and farming system that is proven to be detrimental to public health.” —Katherine Paul, Organic Consumers Association
Clinton’s certainty concerning the safety of GMO foods stands in stark contrast to public opinion. A Consumer Reports poll in June found that 92 percent of Americans favor labeling the foods. U.S. campaigners rejecting the industry’s push for genetically-modified crops have been pushing hard to get states to pass labeling laws. “Hillary Clinton’s views on GMOs are disappointing, but not surprising,” said Katherine Paul, associate director of the Organic Consumers Union, in an email to Common Dreams. Unfortunately, Paul continued, Clinton’s positions are “no different than those of previous administrations, including the Bush, Clinton and Reagan administrations, and they are taken straight from the biotech industry’s talking points.”
“Credible scientists, backed by independent (not industry-funded) studies are clear about the fact that foods containing GMOs are linked to a host of chronic illnesses,” Paul continued. “The American Medical Association has called for pre-market safety testing and a recent pilot study found unsafe levels of glysophate, the key ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, in the blood, urine and breast milk of American women.” During the hour that Clinton addressed the conference she also addressed fears that current subsidies and tax breaks aren’t enough, or won’t continue to be there in the future. “I don’t want to see biotech companies or pharma companies moving out of our country simply because of some perceived tax disadvantage and potential tax advantage somewhere else,” she assured the crowd, receiving vigorous applause in response. “We should have an intensive discussion,” Clinton said. “Maybe there’s a way of getting a representative group of actors at the table” so that the federal government can help biotechs with “insurance against risk.”
Clinton’s ties to biotech have surfaced before, particularly her history with industry heavyweight Monsanto. The Rose Law Firm where Clinton worked in the 1980s represents both Monsanto and Tyson Foods. Mark Penn, who served as CEO for one the world’s largest public relations firms, Burson-Marsteller, which has also represented Monsanto, was a White House advisor under Bill Clinton and served as chief strategist and pollster to Hillary Clinton in her 2008 presidential campaign. During Hillary’s tenure as Secretary of State, the State Department heavily pressured other countries to use GMOs through a variety of methods, including bringing foreign journalists to the U.S. to “participate in a one-week biotech tour” so that they could help shift public opinion in their home country.
cont'
http://www.popularresistance.org/hillary-clinton-goes-to-bat-for-gmos-at-biotech-conference/
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