December 29, 2017

Death threats are forcing professors off campus

Source: CNN

Comments weaponized

In the past year, more than 100 incidents of targeted harassment against professors have been reported on college campuses, according to the American Association of University Professors.
-- A California professor at Orange Coast College who was captured on video in the classroom criticizing President Donald Trump got death threats, according to The Washington Post.
-- CBS News reported a Princeton professor received death threats after giving a commencement speech in which she called Trump a "racist and sexist megalomaniac."
-- A University of Iowa professor was targeted after discussing white supremacy in the context of ancient statues and their use of white marble, InsideHigherEd.com says.

"Historically, it's been conservative professors who have faced retaliation and disciplinary threats, and harassment for offending people," said Ari Cohn, director of the Individual Rights Defense Program for the nonprofit Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
"I think over the course of the past year, as liberal faculty members have become increasingly outspoken with their criticism of the Trump administration, you have seen more professors on the left being targeted."

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/21/us/university-professors-free-speech-online-hate-threats/index.html

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Right from the start, Trump and the right wing have lied their asses off. Trump himself lies an average of 5.5 X per day. "Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it." Adolph Hitler

The right wingers have openly marched in our streets with their stinking swastikas and hooded robes. "The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence." Adolf Hitler

Regulatory agencies in the executive branch have been gutted. Scientific studies from the government have been silenced, and there is even a list of words they cannot use. We've lost net neutrality.

Now, we have right wing hate groups employing the same forms of intimidation that Hitler's nazis did back in the 1930s. It's fucking sick.

December 26, 2017

There's a good chance your holiday returns will end up in a landfill

Each year, I rail against the commercialism of Christmas. The first time I did was when Bush was asked what we could do to help troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, wars I was against anyway. Bush answered basically that we should keep spending, being consumers, buying things.

Sadly, because of our 'patriotic duty' to consume, every year at this time...WE SPEND MONEY WE DON'T HAVE ON SHIT WE DON'T NEED.

Now, we find out the returns mostly end up in landfills.

Here's the link. I don't have too much more to say because I've been disgusted about this for a long time. But it's sick. Surely in this society we stand for something besides flamboyant consumption?

http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/26/news/retail-returns-landfill/index.html

December 15, 2017

Late breaking OPINION from CNN. The silent majority of America just roared.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/14/opinions/alabama-virginia-suburbia-polarization-mitra-kalita-opinion/index.html

This is a provocative article. I live in the suburbs, am very active in the local political arena, and this article makes sense to me. I just don't see the polarization that we see from these nimrods in DC. Here, even the Republicans (mostly) are sane; by that, I mean we can sit down, hash out some solutions to problems we both can live with then roll up our sleeves and get things done.

I'm posting this because it is worthy of discussion. There are some really innovative and encouraging things happening at local levels. It has been an interesting study for me in terms of how local regions manage high economic growth. But I especially posted it because it makes us think in a new way - I get tired of people trashing certain groups, such as white working class people, because in my suburb WE ARE NOT ALL WHITE, BUT WE ARE ALL WORKING CLASS.

My hope is some of the heavy hitters on this site can maybe digest this information and see things in a new way.

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Here are four paragraphs from it as excerpt.

Most Americans are neither coastal elites nor inhabitants of flyover country (both objectionable tropes on their face). Most Americans live in the suburbs, a geographic term the US government is curiously loath to define. But suburbanites are not; a survey by an economist at Trulia, the online real-estate site, finds that 53% of Americans say they live in one. The suburbs mirror US demographic trends; minorities represent 35% of suburban residents, and in 2010, the share of blacks in large metro areas living in the suburbs surpassed 51%, meaning the majority of black Americans are suburbanites, according to Brookings.

The political upsets we've seen this year in New Jersey, Virginia and Alabama represent not so much a blue wave as an affirmation of moderation and civility and neighborliness. It's a far cry from the polarized America of tweets, headlines and political rhetoric. In fact, it is a rejection of that -- and a window into what the suburbs have become. Most Americans do not live in such extremes. Like Doug Jones, the incoming Democratic senator from Alabama, they might support the right to bear arms (with background checks). Or like Virginia's governor-elect Ralph Northam, they might not want to outright demolish Confederate statues but move them to museums.

...the collision of different groups of people eventually creates a certain fluidity and unity among them...A recent University of Pennsylvania study finds the use of political words on Twitter were concentrated among a small group of people who are either "very conservative" or "very liberal." Moderates simply do not wade in. This reticence on the internet could extend to voter turnout -- and perhaps it did in 2016.

But America does not live on Facebook, even if it sometimes feels that way. Americans live in places that care about jobs and schools and taxes. Issues such as health care and anti-corruption efforts seem to matter to suburban voters more than immigration. Brookings also reports the suburbs are growing faster than urban areas, partly because of the lack of affordable housing in cities, making them younger, more diverse. Their outlook -- and values -- feel increasingly cosmopolitan.

October 21, 2017

Let's go back a moment in time to the 'storm' Trump jokingly alluded to.

Friday night, last night, he quietly signed an executive order amending the one that allowed Bush to call up reserves and Guard for up to 24 months of service, and to call a limited number of military retirees back into service.

Here's his amendment: The consequence of this is the amendment to (Executive Order) 13223 signed by Trump, extends the state of emergency and allows the federal government to recall into service any “retired member of the Regular Army, Regular Navy, Regular Air Force, or Regular Marine Corps.

So...what does this mean? Will Trump attempt to play the 'war card' to stay in power?

Here's a link to an interesting opinion piece in Daily Kos: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/10/21/1708645/-Forget-the-war-of-words-the-EO-Trump-signed-Friday-night-anticipates-a-war-with-massive-casualties

I bring this to all of your attention not to encourage we all get tin-foil hats, but to make the point that we are being battled by the forces of the Mercers and Charles Koch on a thousand different fronts. The idea is to get us, and our sense of moral outrage, to become jaded, to numb us, and to make all this 'the new normal.'

Never have we been this close to losing our republic.

Never.

October 17, 2017

Trump and the double standard

This morning, I watched some CNN videos to get going.

I played the one where Trump solemnly intones that he met with 'the president' of the Virgin Islands.

After that vid had played, I turned it off, and thought about what would have happened if Obama had said this. I mean, the entire Republican noise machine would be in high gear, screaming about it.

But Trump says it, and we have a few jokes on late night...

October 14, 2017

Today is Friday, October 13.

Factoid for you:

On Friday, October 13, 1307, Knights Templar throughout France were rounded up for 'heresy.'

Just saying.

October 12, 2017

Today's evangelical 'christian' community seems insane to me. Even jerks like Torquemada or

Cromwell wouldn't recognize 21st century evangelical christianity.

You know why? Charles Koch and other radical libertarian billionaire freaks have used their very well-funded propaganda network to turn today's right-wing christians into social Darwinists.

Quite a twist for people who don't believe in evolution, eh?

September 29, 2017

Twitter briefs Congress on Russian-linked accounts

Source: The Hill

Representatives from Twitter on Thursday briefed staff from both the House and Senate Intelligence Committee on how Russian trolls and bots may have used the platform to influence the 2016 election.

Colin Crowell, Twitter’s vice president of public policy, led a group of four officials who trekked tight-lipped from one side of the Capitol to the other. The briefings took place behind closed doors and the officials after each left quietly through a back door, evading the press.

Twitter briefed investigators on the findings of an internal review into disinformation networks on its site — an issue that took on a new urgency after Facebook said roughly 470 Russian-linked accounts had purchased thousands of advertisements on its site, some of which were designed to inflame social tensions.

According to a public report issued Thursday afternoon, 22 of the accounts identified by Facebook had corresponding accounts on Twitter. The company also said that it had identified another 179 related or linked accounts. Twitter “took action on the ones we found in violation of our rules.” Twitter also provided committee staff with about $275,000 worth of ads bought by the Russian state media arm, RT, and targeted to the U.S. market in 2016. The campaigns were directed at followers of mainstream media and primarily promoted RT tweets related to news stories, according to the report.

Read more: http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/353002-twitter-briefs-congress-on-russian-linked-accounts

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When the Fairness Doctrine died, it opened the way for Fox, hate-talk radio and other right wing organs to use sophisticated techniques of swaying public opinion (brainwashing) that were learned in Korea and perfected in Vietnam and after.

In the meantime, we have Charles Koch, who has developed a fifth-column political structure dedicated to getting rid of democracy and imposing unrestrained capitalism on America.

Finally, we have Russians Aleksandr Dugin and Nikolai Klokotov, who wrote 'The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia,' back in 1997.

Here's what Dugin and Klokotov say to do to destabilize America: "Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics."

So there it is. Cold war ain't over, guys, and the traitors Trump, Pence, and most of Trump's administration are IN IT up to their nose hairs. Not only ignorant incompetents, but TRAITORS.

September 21, 2017

Republican lawmaker loses job for saying running over protesters is a movement we can all support

Source: Think Progress

“Nobody cares about your protest,” the post says. “Keep your ass out of the road.”

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DiSanto published that post, which has since been deleted, less than a month after an alleged neo-Nazi used his vehicle to murder a counter-protester and injure 19 others during a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The tactic has also been used by militant groups like ISIS.

DiSanto’s post largely escaped media scrutiny until this week. But following a number of reports about it, on Tuesday, her employer, Keller Williams Realty, announced it had severed ties with DiSanto, posting on Facebook that “...due to recent events, Lynne Disanto is no longer associated with Keller Williams Realty Black Hills.” The post won’t immediately affect DiSanto’s standing in the legislature, however — House Majority Leader Lee Qualm (R) told the Associated Press she’ll stay on as House Majority Whip despite the controversy.

As recently as August 15, Fox News’ website was home to a page glorifying running over protesters. A video on the page, which was republished from the conservative Daily Caller, was headlined, “Here’s A Reel Of Cars Plowing Through Protesters Trying To Block The Road.”

Read more: https://thinkprogress.org/lynne-disanto-south-dakota-loses-real-estate-job-for-posting-meme-encouraging-running-over-protesters-c81e74aede0a/

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They want protesting to be dangerous so no one does it.

They want us to be docile so they can empty the treasury for their profits.

They don't want us to vote.

They don't want democracy.

September 14, 2017

Clinton was very politic in her book about the Obama Administration's failure to...

...publicize the Russian cyberattack and Republican collusion to fix the 2016 election.

I'm not quite as 'politic.' I wish he had put it out there, trumpeted it from the rooftops. Had Obama done that, the Republicans and their idiot base, those disgusting, drooling, racist, nazi xenophobes, would have absolutely freaked out. They surely would have.

But...and here’s the big ‘but’: Treason was committed. Republican traitors colluded with a hostile foreign power to rig an election. An American presidential election. That hostile power hacked voter rolls in at least 38 states. That hostile power hired trolls to get on social media in swing counties, even down to the precinct level and sway opinion. Trump lost by 2.9 million votes, but the Republicans are also guilty of gerrymandering districts and instituting voter suppression measures specifically aimed at people of color. Now, Trump squats illegally in the White House. He has continued to enrich himself, starting 49 new businesses since his election. He has pulled us out of Paris. He has unleashed cabinet appointees that have the specific purpose of tearing our regulatory structure apart. He has overturned DACA and hundreds of thousands of young immigrants now will be deported. We’ve had nazis marching in our streets causing violence. But at the same time the people of color are being deported, Trump properties in the United States are being used by elite Russian ‘birth tourists’ to have babies that automatically have US citizenship. This, of course, if you look at Putin’s strategy in the long term, will be the US ruling class in 30 years. In fact, this whole situation couldn’t be going much better...for Putin. For us, not so much. We need to impeach this dirtbag and investigate his criminal administration and campaign organization, as well as about half the Republican party for TREASON. They will NEVER be able to assume the mantle of patriotism ever again. Nor the mantle of morality. They are amoral, sociopathic and indecent. I wouldn’t even want Trump in my state let alone in my house. He is a disgusting, vagina-grabbing TRAITOR to this nation we love.

So, as much as I love Obama, and I do, he was wrong in 2016. Treason is treason. There’s no politic time to bring it up, I suppose, but when he knew he needed to say. At this point, honestly, I don’t give a rat’s ass about the feelings that might have been hurt among the Republican base. Fuck them. This is my country, too. I was raised here, and I’ve worked hard all my life, over 40 years now. And I’ve enjoyed the political freedom we have. Now, the nazi scum are taking over and what will we have? Another Holocaust? Do you want to end your days in a fucking for-profit concentration camp? They are being built. Yes, they are.

No real American, and that most decidedly includes ALL of us, including the dreamers, regardless of racist laws, can afford to be complacent. RESIST all of this tooth and nail. Every minute. Every day. Call, email, write your legislators. Demonstrate and march. Donate money if you can. Sign petitions. Don’t either Trump and his nazi deplorables get away with ruining this country. Because they are. They are ripping apart our institutional, social and economic fabric.

We must work together as Americans to stop them and bring them to justice.