December 23, 2016

OK, MS RNC gives Kellyanne an HOUR of airtime, what did you learn?

don't buy into it DU, it was for eyeballs. Ratings and Money. We root for Rachel, they root for KA. What does it matter in the end? Would you not rather see something of import discussed with someone who doesn't lie? Update on Flint, update on Citizens United, update on anything that is important to us. Switch off corporate media and switch on Free Speech. We are better served. To me paying KA for an hour of her lying time was obscene and a grand waste of an hour.

December 22, 2016

The day Donald Trump gets abortion banned is the day we find out how many mistresses kept receipts

Rumor is double digits.

The day Donald Trump gets abortion banned is the day we find out how many mistresses kept receipts.

December 22, 2016

My Letter to the Editor got anther anonymous response from a Deplorable..ENJOY

I write letters, lots of letters for progressives. Well, if I ever debated not writing my letters to the editor anymore....that's over. The deplorables are ramping it up. Got this in the postal mail today:

DEAR STUPID, OLD, DIRTY, SMELLY, UGLY, CRAZY HIPPIE BITCH. EVERYTHING THAT YOU SAY NEVER MAKES ANY SENSE. WE HEARD THAT IS BECAUSE YOU BLEW YOUR MIND ON A BAD ACID TRIP IN THE 1960'S AND THAT YOU ARE BITTER BECAUSE YOUR HUSBAND IS IN PRISON FOR CHILD PORN AND RAPE.

P.S. OBAMA IS A PILE OF SHIT! ALSO THE LIBS ARE A WEAK SHELL OF WHAT THEY USED TO BE.

then there is a smiley face. This sour winner phenom is quite something. Below is the LETTER I published 2 weeks ago that he is referring to:


Barack Obama used "my" eliptical at the gym in 2009. He runs 3 miles some days, and plays basketball. The other guy said his fitness regime consists of shouting at rallies. When Senator Obama and his army of 10 volunteers marched in Chicago's St. Pat's Parade, they brought up the rear, right in front of the garbage trucks. The other guy was appearing on Howard Stern. Senator Obama debated a proposal to provide breakfast for preschoolers. The Republican said it would "crush their spirit of self-reliance". After passage of the bill, Barack wrote "Illinois preschoolers were saved from the debilitating effects of cereal and milk." The other guy appointed Betsy DeVos to destroy public education.

In campaign speeches Barack called for all to come together in a "united American family". The other guy mocked Mrs. Khan because she was too emotionally distraught to speak on stage. When Barack ran against McCain, he said self-effacingly, "war hero versus snot-nosed rookie". The other guy says "only I can do it." Barack has a Grammy and Nobel Peace Prize. The other guy has a golden potty. Barack's daddy was a goatherder. The other guy's granddaddy ran brothels and opium dens. Barack keeps a Bible in his glove compartment. The other guy, tictacs.

Barack is witty, and eloquent. The other guy is a vulgarian. Barack shakes hands, fist pumps and hugs. The other guy said on Dateline 1999, "I am not big fan of the handshake, it's barbaric." Barack's heroes are Dr. King, John Lewis and Lincoln. The other guy went to a "hero costume party" as himself. Barack, speaking in Vietnam this year, said Vietnamese Rap connects to his feelings and this is how we build understanding. The other guy:" I punched my music teacher in the head because I didn't think he knew anything about music. I am basically the same as far as temperament goes." he wrote in 1987's Art of the Deal.

When Barack learned of his half brother's death in Nairobi, he said "I felt as if my world turned on its head. The sun was blue in a yellow sky. I heard animals speaking like men." The election of the other guy makes citizens feel this way. Barack means "blessed" in Swahili. I can say with no fear of contradiction, Barack is the greatest president of my lifetime. His wisdom and grace, coupled with his basic human decency and understanding of what this country was meant to be, have elevated him into the upper echelon of America's Presidents.

The absurdity of the 2016 election has already lent Barack an out-of-time quality, as if he were a creature from another, loftier century. Whatever happens next, I feel in my bones, we'll look back at history, as new generations are zooming down the Barack Obama Hyperloop Transport System and think, that man was rare. And we were damn lucky to have him.

December 22, 2016

Canada passes universal Internet Law..world class speeds.....

Canada just passed a law: universal internet, world class speeds, city and rural, that everyone has state of the art, the fastest internet that exists. Everyone. Thom Hartmann said of course you will not hear this on any corporate tv...no CNN, MS RNC, etc. Cheeto and Newt said in the first year that the entire legacy of Obama will be destroyed. So good luck to us and our internet, such as it is.

http://dailyhive.com/toronto/broadband-internet-basic-service-in-canada-december-2009http://dailyhive.com/toronto/broadband-internet-basic-service-in-canada-december-2009

December 21, 2016

Nina Turner just said that we have lost over 900 legislative seats since 2010

On Ari Melber, he is good, the magnificent Nina Turner just said that we have lost over 900 legislative seats since 2010. Wow, we have got to go back to then to do our autopsy.

December 21, 2016

just like that video they put up when DU was hacked

Every future dystopia movie should have Trump's inauguration edited in before the opening credits.

December 21, 2016

Racist Bill O the Clown on FOX last nite

Bill O'Reilly became the chief Trump white nationalist mainstream propaganda mouthpiece with this deceiving rant meant to create political dissension. He gave what ought to be considered a very dangerous and misleading Talking Points Memo that must not go unanswered as it was tailored to rile up the uninformed.

"Abolishing the electoral college," O'Reilly said. "That is the subject of this evening's' Talking Points Memo."

Bill O'Reilly then proceeded with his provocative if not downright racist rant.

"After Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, the left in America is demanding that the electoral college system put into place in 1787 be scrapped," O'Reilly said. "But there is a hidden reason for this. As we reported, even though Secretary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.8 million, the progressive state of California provided all of that margin; Clinton defeating Trump there by about 4.2 million votes."

That is a flawed statement as the converse in several of the Red States is also true. California is a huge state. I randomly selected states that Trump won a significant percentage of the votes. One could then make the same flawed argument. Should we discount those states because they are conservative hubs?
Trump-Popular-vote-margins_1_.jpg


"So if the electoral college were abolished," O'Reilly said. "Presidential candidates could simply campaign in the largest states and cities, New York, L.A., Chicago, Houston, and rack up enough votes to pretty much win any election."

This argument is made constantly but it is nothing but a ruse. As it stands today, candidates ignore solidly Red or Blue states. They do not try to sell policies in most of the country instead battling only in swing states. That process is undemocratic and unhealthy. It does not expose the entire country to the policy arguments. These swing states get all of the informational ads while the others get virtually none. As such these Red and Blue states stay in their respective corners.

"That's what the left wants," O'Reilly said. "Because in the large urban areas, and in the Blue States like New York and California, minorities are substantial. Look at the landscape, Philadelphia, Dallas-Forth Worth, Miami, in all of these places, the minority votes usually go heavily to the Democrats. And to that New York City, L.A., and Chicago, San Francisco, you don't really have a national election, do you. You have targetted populations. The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times have editorialized to get rid of the electoral college. They well know that neutralizing the largely white rural areas in the Midwest and South will assure liberal politicians get power and keep it."

Abolishing the electoral college has nothing to do with neutralizing the white rural areas. It has everything to do with one person, one vote. As it stands today, more people supported Hillary Clinton's policies with their vote. Yet Donald Trump won. Why? Because the white rural vote is overrepresented in the 2016 electoral college because of the voter distribution. That is undemocratic.

"Talking Points believes this is all about race," O'Reilly continued. The left sees white privilege in America as an oppressive force that must be done away with. Therefore white working class voters must be marginalized. And what better way to do that, than center the voting power in the cities. Very few commentators will tell you that the heart of liberalism in America today is based on race. It permeates almost every issue; that white men have set up a system of oppression. And that system must be destroyed"

The above is a dangerous statement. White privilege can only be attained if that privilege is denied to others. Denied privilege is in fact, a form of oppression. Worse, if any group is entitled to a privilege not afforded another, then, that is the definition of supremacy. Bill O'Reilly is trying to justify giving the white rural vote more power than the urban vote or progressive vote. That is a form of white supremacy.

"So-called white privilege: bad," O'Reilly said mockingly. "Diversity good."

O'Reilly can mock it, but diversity is good and moral. White privilege should be something all Americans see as immoral. If we are a meritocracy, then indeed white privilege is bad.

"If you look at the voting patterns, it's clear that the Democrats are heavily reliant on the minority vote," O'Reilly continued. "Also on the woman vote. White men have largely abandoned the Democrats. And the left believes it's because of racism, that they want to punish minorities, keep them down. So that's what's really going on when you hear about the electoral college and how unfair it really is."

Bill O'Reilly sees a problem with women and minorities favoring Democrats in large numbers. And for that reason, he wants an electoral college that make their votes less valuable than one person one vote.

O'Reilly then makes an irresponsible racist statement.

"The left wants power taken away from the white establishment," O'Reilly said. "They want a profound change in the way America is run. Taking voting power away from the white precincts is the quickest way to do that."

Again, no one is taking votes away. We must count every American vote equally. Americans' race have nothing to do with it. We are all Americans.

December 21, 2016

Letter to Betsy DeVos

Patrick Kearney is an educator in Iowa. His focus and his family’s focus for decades now is the cultivation of public education for children.

He spent 25 years as a band director in private and public schools of Iowa, and is a past-president of the Iowa Bandmasters Association and past co-chair of the Iowa Jazz Championships. He was also a founding board member of the Jazz Educators of Iowa. His wife teaches in the Des Moines Public Schools and his son is studying education at Drake University.

With Donald Trump’s nomination of Betsy DeVos for the Secretary of Education position, Mr. Kearney and millions of other educators have had to take deep and calming breaths. DeVos is a privatizing, charter school-pushing billionaire. She isn’t interested in public schools as much as she’s interested in creating a private system that bilks money out of taxpayer pockets and gets to go to other billionaires. DeVos’s education resume includes her work in Michigan to send public education backwards both economically and socially—and with declining reading scores. Mr. Kearney’s letter addresses all of this and more.


Dear Ms. DeVos,

I don’t think we’ve really met yet; we are America’s public school teachers. There are about 3.1 million of us. We teach in large urban areas, we teach in the suburbs, we teach in small rural communities, and we teach in some really remote parts of our country. The most important thing to recognize is that we teach every kid who shows up. We don’t pick and choose the types of kids that we will teach, we teach ALL of them.

Because we haven’t really had much interaction, we thought it might be nice to share a little bit about the public schools we teach in. First of all, we are very proud of our schools. Public schools today have the highest graduation rate in American history. The Gallup Poll says that the rate of parents who are satisfied with their public school is the highest in American history. We are also very proud that our public schools offer more services to students with low socioeconomic backgrounds and special education needs than ever before. Not to be redundant, but we are proud that we serve ALL of the students in our communities.

Our communities are very important to us. We are taxpayers in our local communities and many of us have children of our own who attend the public schools that we teach in. We care deeply that our schools are safe and that they are providing a rigorous and relevant curriculum to EVERY student who walks in the door. We recognize that each of our communities have different needs and sometimes get frustrated with a “one size fits all” mentality.

We also know that our public schools face real challenges. Twenty-two percent of U.S. public school students live in poverty, 50 percent more than the next highest industrialized nation. English is a second language to almost 10 percent of the students we serve. Enrollment in teacher preparation programs has fallen more than 10 percent in the last 10 years. We are challenged to keep up with increasing state and federal mandates regarding standardized testing.

America’s public schools are here to serve EVERY kid. As the teachers who keep those schools ticking, all that we ask is that you listen to us.

So, I suppose we also need to address the elephant in the room. We are a little freaked out by your nomination to be secretary of education. You aren’t an educator. You haven’t ever attended or sent your children to a public school, yet you seem to have some pretty strong opinions about them. You don’t seem to have been involved in the study of curriculum or school standards. What you have done is lobby (and spend millions of dollars of your own money in advocacy) for taxpayer dollars to go to unregulated for-profit charter schools. As teachers we like to look at data. Interestingly, the data from Michigan (where you have been able to use your wealth to influence a lot of education policy) would suggest that the charter schools you lobby for aren’t really achieving any better than their public counterparts.

If you are confirmed by the Senate to become secretary of education (and we hope it doesn’t hurt your feelings that many of us will work to oppose your nomination), we hope that you will work to get to know us. It seems that anecdotes of ineffective teachers who get to hold on to jobs without accountability are popular these days. Those anecdotes really don’t match up with what we see in our schools. No one is going into education to get wealthy. We go into teaching because we care about young people. We go into teaching because a teacher in our lives inspired us. When you get to know us we think you will find that we desperately continue to work to improve our schools. If you were to meet us and find that you don’t think much of the work we are doing, we will be curious if you can find an army of better qualified people who want to do this work for less money, fewer benefits, and with more regulation.

The education of America’s young people is important. The challenges in front of us are real. Giving families “choice” in their education options is a worthy conversation, but let us not presume that using tax dollars to support those interested in turning a profit to open unregulated schools with no record of success will improve education in our country. How we use our resources is a reflection of what we value. The most unpopular thing a teacher can say is that there is a cost to providing the best possible education to our students, and yet like most things, you often get what you pay for. Many for-profit charter schools have gone out of business because they quickly discovered that the public schools they replaced weren’t the inefficient operations they assumed them to be.

America’s public schools are here to serve EVERY kid. As the teachers who keep those schools ticking, all that we ask is that you listen to us. You are new to all of this and we are here to help. Once we introduce you to the young Bosnian kid who translates letters home to his parents; the kid living out of the family car who does homework with only a street light to illuminate his textbook; the kids who wants to be sure their school offers great music courses, a world language program, and some advanced courses; and the special education students who love spending part of their day with their peers, we think that you will fall in love with our public schools.

Sincerely,

America’s Teachers

December 21, 2016

Snarkhead Paul Ryan made a movie smacking Obama

for using executive orders....Whoa nellie, wait till his sees his "president" go to town with them. Living in WI I detest all of the WI Republicans.

December 21, 2016

Perez is kind of a goofball

Did anyone else just see Tom Perez on Chris Hayes auditioning for DNC? He is kind of a goofball. Said he never had an original idea in his head, but is a good listener. Hayes was making some pretty good faces....