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Kid Berwyn
Kid Berwyn's Journal
Kid Berwyn's Journal
June 6, 2023
Because it matters to democracy?
I dunno, news of contact with an unknown and possibly other-wordly intelligence seems a matter worthy of discussion.
As for locking a post, that seems to be the long-time aim of one group of DUers. An example from 2013, when I posted as Octafish:
https://upload.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2386270
June 4, 2023
Yes, Dwight D. Eisenhower was the last good Republican president.
By "good" I mean a man of integrity, the kind any Democrat would be proud to call "My President." Not the treasonous warmongering greedheads who've done all they could to destroy democracy and centralize power and money since Nixon was a veep.
From Kitty Kelly:
Senator Prescott Bush, representing Connecticut, known then as the Hat State, adjusts a straw Panama he gave to Vice President Richard Nixon on May 6, 1953, after a weekly lunch of freshman Republicans in the U.S. Senate. Bush, who favored jaunty brown-and-white spectator shoes and plaid double-breasted blazers, was known as one of the best-dressed men in the Senate.
From Ike:
"Government can do a great deal to aid the settlement of labor disputes without allowing itself to be employed as an ally of either side. Its proper role in industrial strife is to encourage the process of mediation and conciliation." -- State of the Union Message, Washington, DC, 2/2/53
June 4, 2023
Detention of more than 30 senior figures in hotel highlights how kingdom depends on tribal loyalty to secure royal family’s reign
Martin Chulov, Middle East correspondent
The Guardian, Nov. 6, 2017
At 11pm on Saturday, guests at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh got a rude awakening. Businesspeople and consultants who were staying in one of Riyadh’s most opulent digs, along with diners and visitors, were all told to assemble in the lobby with their bags. No one knew why.
As guests made their way to buses to be taken to other hotels in the Saudi capital, senior officials were making plans for new arrivals who weren’t prepared for a night away from home, let alone a spell in a five-star hotel. They were soon to become the highest-profile prisoners in the modern kingdom’s history. And the most pampered.
From midnight, buses arrived in the sprawling complex disgorging princes, business leaders, other royals, their guards and their captors. The arrivals marked the start of an extraordinary episode that exposed the kingdom’s elite to rare public scrutiny and showed that, even when accused of high crime, the powerful maintain privileges.
By dawn on Sunday, more than 30 of Saudi Arabia’s most senior figures, among them blood relatives of senior rulers, were locked inside the hotel, accused of corruption. Their ignominious arrests were the talk of the country, and so too was the fact that they were far from a prison cell, where most citizens facing similar charges could expect to find themselves.
The arrests had been decreed by the monarch, King Salman, and carried out by his powerful son and heir, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), who has committed to overturning most of the established order in his heady six months in office. But even for the ambitious crown prince, taking on the establishment to this extent was a risky step – and he needed to take precautions.
Continues…
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/06/how-saudi-elite-became-five-star-prisoners-at-the-riyadh-ritz-carlton
Wow. What timing.
Crown Prince Bonesaw knew who to shake down.
How Saudi elite became five-star prisoners at the Riyadh Ritz-CarltonDetention of more than 30 senior figures in hotel highlights how kingdom depends on tribal loyalty to secure royal family’s reign
Martin Chulov, Middle East correspondent
The Guardian, Nov. 6, 2017
At 11pm on Saturday, guests at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh got a rude awakening. Businesspeople and consultants who were staying in one of Riyadh’s most opulent digs, along with diners and visitors, were all told to assemble in the lobby with their bags. No one knew why.
As guests made their way to buses to be taken to other hotels in the Saudi capital, senior officials were making plans for new arrivals who weren’t prepared for a night away from home, let alone a spell in a five-star hotel. They were soon to become the highest-profile prisoners in the modern kingdom’s history. And the most pampered.
From midnight, buses arrived in the sprawling complex disgorging princes, business leaders, other royals, their guards and their captors. The arrivals marked the start of an extraordinary episode that exposed the kingdom’s elite to rare public scrutiny and showed that, even when accused of high crime, the powerful maintain privileges.
By dawn on Sunday, more than 30 of Saudi Arabia’s most senior figures, among them blood relatives of senior rulers, were locked inside the hotel, accused of corruption. Their ignominious arrests were the talk of the country, and so too was the fact that they were far from a prison cell, where most citizens facing similar charges could expect to find themselves.
The arrests had been decreed by the monarch, King Salman, and carried out by his powerful son and heir, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), who has committed to overturning most of the established order in his heady six months in office. But even for the ambitious crown prince, taking on the establishment to this extent was a risky step – and he needed to take precautions.
Continues…
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/06/how-saudi-elite-became-five-star-prisoners-at-the-riyadh-ritz-carlton
Wow. What timing.
June 4, 2023
To Save US Democracy, Tax the Rich at 90%
Thom Hartmann
CommonDreams, June 3, 2023
Wealthy people in America screamed and yelled when FDR said he would do it, claiming a hike from 25% to 90% would crash the economy, but instead that top tax rate kicked off the first middle class to encompass more than half a nation’s population in world history.
SNIP…
America’s billionaires (and soon to be trillionaires) pay an average of around 3.1 percent as their functional income tax rate; as a result, America is the most unequal developed society in the world. The last time severe poverty and extravagant wealth coexisted in such extremes as today in this country was during the 1920s and 1930s.
SNIP…
FDR raised the top income tax bracket from 25 to 90 percent. Wealthy people in America screamed and yelled, claiming it would crash the economy, but instead that top tax rate kicked off the first middle class to encompass more than half a nation’s population in world history.
As Roosevelt noted in 1936:
FDR created America’s first widespread middle class with a combination of high taxes on the rich and strong unions for working class people. He broke the politically corrupt power of organized wealth for two generations.
SNIP…
So, here we are in a situation much like the one that FDR faced when he first came into office in 1933. Homelessness stalks the nation; three morbidly rich individuals own more wealth than the bottom half of Americans; gun crime is at Bonnie and Clyde levels; and workers are terrified of their employers, who force them to sit through anti-union indoctrination sessions or lose their jobs.
CONTINUES…
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/to-save-us-democracy-tax-the-rich-at-90
Thom Hartmann has a really good idea there. Rich will still be rich, just paying their fair share to maintain the nation that lets them stay rich.
To Save US Democracy, Tax the Rich at 90%
To Save US Democracy, Tax the Rich at 90%
Thom Hartmann
CommonDreams, June 3, 2023
Wealthy people in America screamed and yelled when FDR said he would do it, claiming a hike from 25% to 90% would crash the economy, but instead that top tax rate kicked off the first middle class to encompass more than half a nation’s population in world history.
SNIP…
America’s billionaires (and soon to be trillionaires) pay an average of around 3.1 percent as their functional income tax rate; as a result, America is the most unequal developed society in the world. The last time severe poverty and extravagant wealth coexisted in such extremes as today in this country was during the 1920s and 1930s.
SNIP…
FDR raised the top income tax bracket from 25 to 90 percent. Wealthy people in America screamed and yelled, claiming it would crash the economy, but instead that top tax rate kicked off the first middle class to encompass more than half a nation’s population in world history.
As Roosevelt noted in 1936:
“A number of my friends who belong in the very high upper brackets have suggested to me on several occasions of late, that if I am reelected president, they will have to move to some other nation because of high taxes here.
“Now, I will miss them very much...” (audience breaks into laughter)
FDR created America’s first widespread middle class with a combination of high taxes on the rich and strong unions for working class people. He broke the politically corrupt power of organized wealth for two generations.
SNIP…
So, here we are in a situation much like the one that FDR faced when he first came into office in 1933. Homelessness stalks the nation; three morbidly rich individuals own more wealth than the bottom half of Americans; gun crime is at Bonnie and Clyde levels; and workers are terrified of their employers, who force them to sit through anti-union indoctrination sessions or lose their jobs.
CONTINUES…
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/to-save-us-democracy-tax-the-rich-at-90
Thom Hartmann has a really good idea there. Rich will still be rich, just paying their fair share to maintain the nation that lets them stay rich.
June 2, 2023
Manchin needs to remember his Truman.
“Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time.” — Harry S. Truman
May 31, 2023
In March 2022, I toured the school / residence in Scottsdale when it housed a number of pieces by Dale Chihuly.
Wright's homes are where -- and how -- we should all live.
Taliesin for Everybody!
In March 2022, I toured the school / residence in Scottsdale when it housed a number of pieces by Dale Chihuly.
Wright's homes are where -- and how -- we should all live.
May 31, 2023
Maya Boddie
Alternet.org, May 27, 2023
Right-wing host and Turning Point USA Chief Executive Officer Charlie Kirk' second-annual Pastors Summit, held in Nashville, Tennessee, was sponsored by "a registered sex offender," Rolling Stone reports.
Rolling Stone notes Kirk has been outspoken amid conservative-led criticism of Target for selling transgender-inclusive youth apparel, alleging the corporation shows "support for grooming kids."
The publication reports:
CEO (of) Rightside Up — a "Christian 'lifestyle apparel' company" — Bergstrand is "a registered sex offender in North Dakota," after being "convicted in 2014 for attempted 'coercion and enticement.'"
CONTINUES (unfortunately for the nation and planet)...
https://www.alternet.org/registered-sex-offender-charlie-kirk/
Place must've been filled with "My Little NAZI" types.
Charlie Kirk's "Pastors Summit" Funded by Registered Sex Offender
'Beyond hypocritical': Charlie Kirk’s recent Pastors Summit was funded by a 'registered sex offender'Maya Boddie
Alternet.org, May 27, 2023
Right-wing host and Turning Point USA Chief Executive Officer Charlie Kirk' second-annual Pastors Summit, held in Nashville, Tennessee, was sponsored by "a registered sex offender," Rolling Stone reports.
Rolling Stone notes Kirk has been outspoken amid conservative-led criticism of Target for selling transgender-inclusive youth apparel, alleging the corporation shows "support for grooming kids."
The publication reports:
Rolling Stone has learned that one of the TPUSA summit's corporate sponsors is a Christian fashion company that is led by a registered sex offender, Shawn Bergstrand, who served time in federal prison for attempted 'coercion and enticement' after trying to persuade 'a minor female” to 'engage in sexual activity.'
CEO (of) Rightside Up — a "Christian 'lifestyle apparel' company" — Bergstrand is "a registered sex offender in North Dakota," after being "convicted in 2014 for attempted 'coercion and enticement.'"
CONTINUES (unfortunately for the nation and planet)...
https://www.alternet.org/registered-sex-offender-charlie-kirk/
Place must've been filled with "My Little NAZI" types.
May 31, 2023
By Joey Roulette and Steve Gorman
Reuters, May 31, 2023
WASHINGTON, May 31 (Reuters) - A NASA panel formed last year to study what the government calls "unidentified aerial phenomena," commonly termed UFOs, was due to hold its first public meeting on Wednesday, ahead of a report expected in coming weeks.
The 16-member body, assembling experts from fields ranging from physics to astrobiology, was formed last June to examine unclassified UFO sightings and other data collected from civilian government and commercial sectors.
The focus of Wednesday's four-hour public session "is to hold final deliberations before the agency's independent study team publishes a report this summer," NASA said in announcing the meeting.
The panel represents the first such inquiry ever conducted under the auspices of the U.S. space agency for a subject the government once consigned to the exclusive and secretive purview of military and national security officials.
CONTINUES...
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/nasa-panel-hold-first-public-meeting-ufo-study-ahead-report-2023-05-31/
The panel starts at 10:30 a.m. today: Wednesday, May 31.
LINK TO NASA WEBSTREAM:
https://www.nasa.gov/live
NASA Panel to Hold Public Hearing on UFO Study Today
NASA panel to hold first public meeting on UFO study ahead of reportBy Joey Roulette and Steve Gorman
Reuters, May 31, 2023
WASHINGTON, May 31 (Reuters) - A NASA panel formed last year to study what the government calls "unidentified aerial phenomena," commonly termed UFOs, was due to hold its first public meeting on Wednesday, ahead of a report expected in coming weeks.
The 16-member body, assembling experts from fields ranging from physics to astrobiology, was formed last June to examine unclassified UFO sightings and other data collected from civilian government and commercial sectors.
The focus of Wednesday's four-hour public session "is to hold final deliberations before the agency's independent study team publishes a report this summer," NASA said in announcing the meeting.
The panel represents the first such inquiry ever conducted under the auspices of the U.S. space agency for a subject the government once consigned to the exclusive and secretive purview of military and national security officials.
CONTINUES...
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/nasa-panel-hold-first-public-meeting-ufo-study-ahead-report-2023-05-31/
The panel starts at 10:30 a.m. today: Wednesday, May 31.
LINK TO NASA WEBSTREAM:
https://www.nasa.gov/live
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