Going Rove

If you will be kind enough to indulge me, I would like to propose a toast: Here’s to Sarah Palin; may she never – EVER – go away.

I am going to go out on a limb here: No woman since Eleanor Roosevelt has done more to further the cause of progressive politics in the United States of America than has our Sarah. Don’cha just love her? I sure do!

A woman in Texas by the name of Stephanie Garcia has a blog called, Lady Steele, Modern Super Hero. Yesterday, in a posting aptly titled “Going Stupid”, she offered her readers five different variations on the definition of the word “rogue” – courtesy of the good people at Webster’s Dictionary:

1. Vagrant, tramp

2. A dishonest or worthless person: scoundrel

3. A mischievous person: scamp

4. A horse inclined to shirk or misbehave

5. An individual exhibiting a chance and usually inferior biological variation

This certainly begs the question: did she or any of the geniuses who surround her have the wit to even do a cursory look into into the definition of that word? And she wants to be president. Is this a great country, or what?

The lady is at it again.I have spent an unhealthy amount of time in the last fifteen months thinking about Sarah Palin. Is she for real? Does she actually believe the nonsense she spouts on a daily basis? Is she insane or merely dumber than dog shit? Her latest contribution to America’s shattered political conversation is her memoir, Going Rogue. The fact checkers who were given advanced copies of the book a couple of days before its publication seem to be unanimous in their opinion that it is drenched in distortions and baldfaced lies. She has picked up the fallen torch of Josef Goebbels and Karl Rove: The bigger and more outrageous the lie, the better it may be utilized to further the cause of one’s idiotic political agenda. She has learned more-than-a-few lessons from the masters of distortion.

For the record: I have not read Going Rogue, nor do I have any intention of doing so. I have enough political non-fiction to keep up with to waste any of my time on fiction. That is the reason I never read Gore Vidal’s historical novel on Abraham Lincoln. What’s the point when there are so many great biographies? Besides, it’s been quoted and dissected enough in the last twenty-four hours, that I’m able to draw a couple of conclusions.

One such conclusion that is unavoidable is the woman’s jaw-dropping shallowness. When telling the story of how she was confronted at one point with news reports that she and her husband Todd were going to divorce, one would think (indeed one would hope) that she would offer for the reader’s contemplation a heartfelt description of her abiding love for her husband; how their union could not be tossed aside like some disposable camera – that she and Todd took their wedding vows seriously. No, there was none of that….

“Dang, I thought. Divorce Todd? Have you seen Todd???”

TRANSLATION: If Todd gains fifty pounds, he’s toast.

Thirteen years into their marriage, Eleanor Roosevelt was confronted with her husband’s affair with her social secretary (and distant relative of mine – I come from a long line of home wreckers) Lucy Paige Mercer. After contemplating divorce, it was decided that they would continue their union. Years later, she confided to her friend, Joesph Lash, the reasons for saving their marriage. They were many and complicated. This, I can assure you, was not one of those reasons:

“Dang, I thought. Divorce Franklin? Have you seen Franklin???”

Ah, substance!

The book offers all sorts of lame explanations as to why the Republicans got their heads handed to them at the polls a year ago – and conveniently avoids the unavoidable: the choice of this idiotic woman to be “one heartbeat away from the presidency” will go down in history as the most profound political blunder of the era. The very fact that she was perceived as a viable, competent candidate is further proof (as if further proof is really necessary at this late point) that the Republican National Committee has been overtaken by maniacs. Did they actually believe that she was up to the task? You bet’cha!

“What do you read?”

That is not really much of a “Got’cha” question, is it? Obviously you would be able to answer it in a heartbeat: “Well, among other things I read ‘The Rant’ by Tom Degan.” (And don’t you dare deny that you read it. You’re reading it now, GOTCHA!) Ask me the question and I would be able to give you a fairly long list without batting an eye: Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, The Nation….I typed that out without a moment’s hesitation. And those are just some of the publications I read. So why is poor Katie Couric being condemned by the diva of the Klondike for making such an “unfair” inquiry?

I think that the more relevant question would be this: how come the Governor of Alaska and nominee for so high an office could not answer so basic and simple a question without the benefit of notes and Que Cards?

“What do you read?”

The fact that she was unable to improvise an answer is quite revealing. I mean, who the hell hasn’t heard of Time or Newsweek? She couldn’t even come up with “The National Review”! Even Mad Magazine would have been appropriate under the circumstances. If it weren’t so funny it just might be a tad disturbing.

The most interesting and intriguing thing about all of this is the total absence from the book’s pages of the name, Levi Johnston, Sarah’s none-too-bright, former/future son-in-law and the father of her grandson (whom he happily admits was named after the rock band, Van Halen, and his favorite hockey equipment company – genius). He says that his obviously ghost-written and devastating portrait of the Palins in last month’s Vanity Fair was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. This is one kid they really should avoid pissing off. Better to omit him from the text entirely.

It is a given that Sarah Palin will not be going away any time soon. Does she have a shot at the nomination in 2012? Unfortunately the answer to that question is: probably not. Oh! But what a gift that would be! The final nail in the coffin of the right wing as a viable political force in this country. But I believe in miracles, and I’m going to pray that the Republican base shrinks between now and then to such a horrifying degree that the nomination is hers for the asking.

Wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing? Can you even imagine?

Tom Degan
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

SUGGESTED READING:

Eleanor and Franklin
by Joseph Lash

It was also made into a two-part, television movie in 1975 starring Jane Alexander and Edward Hermann in the title roles. It is available on DVD.

Has “nation building” ever succeeded?

Michael Collins

November 21, 2009 was a bad day for Afghanistan if you look at the news reports.   That’s nothing new.  Afghanistan has had decades of bad days since the Soviet invasion and the civil war sustained by U.S. financial and intelligence efforts in partnership with the Pakistani intelligence community.

There are two assumptions that justify the essential role of the question in any further effort by the United States in Afghanistan.  100,000 of the finest troops in the world can’t subjugate  a nation of 31 million people indefinitely.  In order to achieve the “mission,” there must be a viable government with the motivation and ability to keep in check those forces dangerous to the U.S.  These two assumptions form the criteria for”nation building” (or “state building”).

If there are some examples of nation building as referents, then there might a justification for further military and political presence.  If there are no real examples of nation building, then the current administration’s  decision making process is based on an empty concept, one that merely justifies occupation and ongoing warfare based on deliberately unstated reasons.

Why did President Obama…fail so much in China?

Barack Obama, often portrayed as a change agent, changed nothing in his recent visit to China as the U.S. President. Heck, he didn’t even bring back a Panda, much less any freed prisoners of conscience!

Workers creating their own jobs

 

The Evergreen Cooperatives of Cleveland, Ohio are pioneering innovative models of job creation, wealth building, and sustainability. Evergreen’s employee-owned, for-profit companies are based locally and hire locally. We create meaningful green jobs and keep precious financial resources within our community. Our workers earn a living wage and build equity in their firms as owners of the business. 
The first Evergreen Cooperative businesses – Evergreen Cooperative Laundry, Ohio Cooperative Solar, and Green City Growers Cooperative – are launching in 2009–2010. Watch the video.

Evergreen is a partnership between the residents of six of our city’s neighborhoods and some of Cleveland’s most important “anchor institutions” – the Cleveland Foundation, the City of Cleveland, Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, and many others. Help us build community wealth to transform Cleveland and change lives. 
Support the growing network of Evergreen Cooperatives. Together, we can transform our community.

Related:

Introductory video to Mondragon:

 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7565584850785786404#

Steelworkers initiative: 

http://www.solidarityeconomy.net/2009/11/03/steelworkers-aim-at-job-creation-with-worker-owned-factories/

HHS Head Sebelius Says Ignore Panel, Get Mammogram

Cancer doc (left) tops bureaucrat (right) on cancer recs (WUSA).

Michael Collins

Also published at The Agonist

 “The (task force) recommends against routine screening mammography in women aged 40 to 49 years.” U.S. Preventative Services Task Force, Nov. 17, 2009

“My message to women is simple. Mammograms have always been an important life-saving tool in the fight against breast cancer and they still are today. Keep doing what you have been doing for years – talk to your doctor about your individual history, ask questions, and make the decision that is right for you.”  Kathleen Sebelius, Health and Human Services Secretary,  Nov. 18.

Talk about a short news cycle.  A Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) appointed “best practices” task force dismissed the value of “routine” mammograms as a cancer prevention technique for women 40 to 49 years on Tuesday, November 17.

A day later, Wednesday, Nov. 18, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued a statement dismissing the committee recommendations.

Hell Comes Home

By Robert C. Koehler

There’s no armor, it turns out, for conscience.

So our men and women are coming home from the killing fields wounded in their heads, used up, greeted only by the military’s own meat grinder of inadequate health care and intolerance for “weakness.”

“Frankly, in my more than 25 years of clinical practice, I’ve never seen such immense emotional suffering and psychological brokenness.” This is what whistleblower psychiatrist Kernan Manion wrote recently to President Obama about his experience counseling Marines at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, as reported by Salon.

Earth in a natural warming trend

by Oz

I strongly suggest that anyone who has any interest, and is NOT brainwashed so thoroughly that the Obvious cannot get through, watch this clip and the series of them.

Obama Promise

By CasaZaza

Obama Completely Snookered by the Chinese Regime

This is a repost, originally found on the Secret China web site:

China arranged fake ‘students’ to meet Obama
By Xia Yu /Secret China Staff Nov. 17, 2009

Rape and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Jamie Leigh Jones, left, a former employee for the military contractor KBR, told Congress that she had been gang-raped by co-workers in Iraq in 2005. Mary Beth Kineston, also a former KBR worker, said she was sexually assaulted by one driver, groped by another worker and fired after complaining. Left, Andrew Cutraro; right, David Ahntholz; both for The New York Times

By MoveOn

In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was working for a private contractor in Iraq when she was brutally gang-raped by coworkers.1 Four years later, Jamie is still being denied justice. Jamie can’t file U.S. criminal charges because the rape took place overseas, and a fine-print clause in her contract takes away her right to file a lawsuit in the U.S.2

Why? Because big corporations, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have worked for years to prevent workers from suing their employers in almost any circumstance, even sexual assault.3

RFK Laureate on hunger strike

By Monika Kalra Varma

Our 2008 RFK Human Rights Laureate, Aminatou Haidar, began a hunger strike on November 16th after being forcibly removed from her homeland of Western Sahara. And we need your help to support an investigation of her removal.

Last Friday, Aminatou was returning to Western Sahara from a visit to the United States and Spain. While in the U.S., she briefed Congressional staff on the human rights situation in Western Sahara, met with United Nations member states, and received the Civil Courage Prize from the Train Foundation for her bold defense of the rights and liberties of the Saharawi people.

A Very Diplomatic Town Hall Meeting

By Elise Potaka

Big expectations lead to big disappointments. That’s what some learned from Barack Obama’s Shanghai “town-hall” meeting this week with “future Chinese leaders.”

Hopes that the students in attendance might ask some vaguely challenging questions; hopes that Obama would directly criticise China’s human rights record; hopes that the event would be easily accessible online to Chinese citizens: all were crushed as Monday’s meeting progressed with no real deviation from … well, from what one might expect when a high-level leader addresses the public within China.

Capital flows to US surge despite dollar weakness

Bangkok Post Thailand

* Published: 18/11/2009 at 01:03 AM (Nov. 17 1:03 PM EDT)

Foreign investment for US bonds and other long term investments, including from China, rose beyond expectations despite concerns over the weakness of the dollar, official data showed Tuesday.

Net long-term capital flows to the United States climbed to 40.7 billion dollars in September from a revised 34.2 billion dollars the prior month, according to the Treasury International Capital Data (TIC) monthly report.

U.S.-China Policy ‘Still Lousy After All These Years’

By John Kusumi

#ObamaFAIL: U.S.-China Policy ‘Still Lousy After All These Years’

During Obama’s visit, China quietly sets a trial for Tiananmen Square student leader Zhou Yongjun
- Trial to occur Thursday, one day after Obama leaves China -

This is a newsbreak, coming to you from the China Support Network.

Crisis in Honduras: 100 Days of Resistance

Avi Lewis traveled to Honduras only days after Zelaya smuggled himself into the country and only 100 days after the country experienced only the second coup in Central America since the end of the Cold War. In this 24-minute Fault Lines program for Al Jazeera English, he chronicles how social movements are mobilizing in the streets, standing up to repression not just to bring their president back, but to re-found their nation on more equal terms.

Groveler-in-Chief

Chrylser scraps 3 electric cars promised for $12.5 billion bailout

Chrysler drops three electric vehicles despite having touted them to get billions in government bailout cash

By USA Today

If you believed all the talk from Chrysler about how our tax dollars would help finance its fast-track electric-vehicle future, you’re in for a big disappointment. Chrysler has disbanded the engineering team that was trying to bring three electric models to market as a rush job, Automotive News reports today.

Chrysler [had] cited its devotion to electric vehicles as one of the key reasons why the Obama administration and Congress needed to give it $12.5 billion in bailout money, the News points out.

Benefactors or Piranha? Our Foreign Friends

Michael Collins

Like Blanche DuBois, the United States is “down on its uppers.” We rely on the kindness of foreigners to finance our government.

A Whole Lot of Kindness

U.S. Department of the Treasury, Oct. 16, 2009

These customers must be extending kindness. How else do you explain the massive purchase of Treasuries Securities? They’re ignoring wars that we can’t afford and defense expenditures equaling 50% of the world’s total spending. They’re also ignoring the giveaways to failed Wall Street firms and others plus the forgiveness of the executives in charge by assuring their ongoing positions and bonuses.

It would be easy for an investor to look at the United States and say forget about it. But they don’t. As a result, we’re able to function, at least for a while, as though we’re not totally upside down. Of course, there’s self interest involved. If we hit the skids, they’re likely to feel the back draft.  Their self interest serves us well right now.

Obama Promise to End the War: ‘You Can Take That to the Bank’

Would that be the banks he and Bush bailed out with taxpayer dollars?

Expert Pediatrician Exposes Vaccine Myths

Dr. Joseph Mercola interviews Dr. Larry Palevsky

In this 93-minute interview, Dr. Larry Palevsky, a board-certified pediatrician in New York, discusses the myths and dangers of vaccines, including the H1N1 vaccines. One significant myth is that vaccines are effective in preventing diseases; but the science does not support this. Proper hygeine, clean water and uncrowded living conditions contribute more to the erradication or reduction of some diseases for which we vaccinate.  Also, the body’s immune system is better at “remembering” exposure and reacting safely to re-exposure.

Another significant myth is “herd immunity” which is the justification for mandating vaccines. But being vaccinated does not prevent you from carrying the disease. 

FILM: Challenging 500 Years of Globalisation

A Maasai community explains their fights for their traditional land. Credit:Image from “The End of Poverty?”

By Lucy Komisar

NEW YORK, Nov 14 (IPS) – To end poverty, you have to know how it began – with globalisation. No, not the 20th century variety engendered by multinationals and their friends at the IMF, World Bank and WTO. They just codified practices that kept developing countries poor.

Unsatisfactory Outcome in Activist Trial

By John Kusumi

In a jury verdict rendered Friday, political activist Charlie Grapski, facing five politically-motivated criminal charges, overcame three and lost on two.

If I Can’t Be A Muslim, First…

 

…and an American, second, then I can’t be a Baptist or other God-fearing Christian, first, and an American, second.

Personally I don’t have a problem with people exercising their freedom of religion, except as it relates to MY FREEDOMS as spelled out in the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution.  And understood by COMMON juris prudence.

Organic Bytes: Help OCA realize that swine flu vaccines (and others) are not organic but GMOs

By Linn Cohen-Cole

This posting below from Organic Consumers Assn is very interesting.  They are working to stop GMO vaccines for animals because they are not organic, but they have not recognized that swine flu vaccines contain genetically engineered organisms.  OCA is against nanotechnology but doesn’t realize there is a chance the vaccines will contain nanoparticles. 

They end with announcing a book, Poisoned Profits: The Toxic Assault on Our Children, being promoted on the Moms Rising http://www.momsrising.org/ blog. 

Both things made me think those opposing the vaccines might ask their groups to:

Virginia teen athlete in wheel chair after H1N1 vaccine shot

By Mike Adams

A teenage Virginia athlete is in a wheel chair now after suffering Guillain-Barre Syndrome within hours of receiving an H1N1 swine flu vaccine shot. 14-year-old Jordan McFarland developed severe headaches, muscle spasms and weakness in his legs after being injected. He will need “extensive physical therapy” to recovery, reports MSNBC. Plus, he’ll need the help of a walker for four to six weeks.

Che Guevara, until Victory Always

Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna (Photo by Alberto Korda)

By Fidel Castro

On 18 October 1967, 10 days after Che Guevara’s death, the details of the revolutionary hero’s last moments finally emerged. Before a nation in mourning, Fidel Castro gave this speech. In this emotive text brought to you by Pambazuka News, ‘El Lider Máximo’ revisits the journey of his comrade-in-arms, revealing Che’s human side, his military prowess, his philosophy and his great revolutionary pedigree.

A Plea from Tracy Murphy: Stop circus abuse of animals

Tracy Murphy has a smile that literally radiates love – love of life, love of humanity, love of animals – everything. It is a smile you can read at night by. She is an animal rights activist from Cheektowaga, NY, which is just outside Buffalo. Recently this good and decent woman became incensed at the presence in that city of the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus.

The Stealth Hard-Liner and the Stealth Liberal

By Robert Aber

STEALTH (stĕlth) n. 1. The act of moving, proceeding, or acting in a covert way.
2. The quality or characteristic of being furtive or covert.
3. Archaic. The act of stealing.
adj. 1. Not disclosing one’s true ideology, affiliations, or positions: a stealth candidate.

Veteran’s Day first occurred to me when it was called Armistice Day. The President’s speeches were filled with phrases like “I am a fighting liberal!” and “Even my little dog Fala hates whoa!”  This forever sealed my vote for his owner 15-years hence when I’d be 21. Things change. Like my continuing wish that Barack Obama turns outs to be a Stealth Liberal.

No Armistice in War on Poor

By Laura Flanders

Armistice Day reminds us that when wars end, the winners and losers are supposed to make peace. For the first time, in 2009, leaders of World War II enemies, Germany and France, commemorated the date together as a sign of new mutual respect. But this week also marked the ten-year anniversary of a different kind of war — a war on Americans’ assets and the poor. Ten years later, while the winners and losers are obvious, there’s no armistice in sight.

On November 12, 1999, after decades of banking deregulation, congress repealed the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, which up until that point had kept Main Street banks and commercial financial speculation apart. Glass-Steagall’s repeal unleashed a wave of derivative marketing that rewarded shameless loan sharks for selling the most vulnerable Americans into a bubble of debt.

Justice Dept. Asks for News Site’s Visitor Lists

By Declan McCullagh

In a case that raises questions about online journalism and privacy rights, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day.

The grand jury subpoena also required the Philadelphia-based Indymedia.us Web site “not to disclose the existence of this request” unless authorized by the Justice Department, a gag order that presents an unusual quandary for any news organization.

U.S. is doing no good in Afghanistan

By Malalai Joya

As an Afghan woman who was elected to Parliament, I am in the United States to ask President Barack Obama to immediately end the occupation of my country.

How We Got to Zero: General Eikenberry’s Hail Mary

Michael Collins

How did we get from McChrystal’s request for 50,000 troops in early October to Eikenberry’s “written reservations about deploying additional troops” just days before President Obama’s planned decision?

Isolated Incident

By Robert C. Koehler
Tribune Media Services

Moving forward from the latest massacre, three narratives — well, one of them is no more than the familiar, all-purpose shrug of experts, puzzled over yet another “isolated incident” — are vying to explain what happened and set the direction of our future.

Is Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged killer of 13 people at Fort Hood last week, A) a Muslim terrorist; B) a solitary guy who snapped; or C) a broken healer and victim of the misbegotten war on terror?

The Flu Viruses

[viral humor]

I’m really worried about swine flu. Here’s my concern.

Three years ago, Chinese calendar year of the cow . . .  Mad Cow disease.

Monsanto Withdraws High Lysine GM Maize from Europe, Safety Concerns

Monsanto withdraws maize from regulatory approval citing commercial reasons

By Dr. Mae-Wan Ho and Prof. Peter Saunders

In a dramatic move, Monsanto has withdrawn its genetically modified (GM) maize, LY038, from commercial approval in Europe after safety concerns prompted the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to request further evidence from the company [1].

Blackwater Said to Pursue Bribes to Iraq After 17 Died

Gary Jackson, left, then the company president, approved bribes for Iraqi officials, former executives say. When Cofer Black, then the vice chairman, center, learned of the scheme, he reportedly confronted the chairman, Erik Prince, right.

New York Times WASHINGTON — Top executives at Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, according to former company officials.

Healthcare Bill a $70 Billion Giveway to Insurance Industry

House Passes Landmark Healthcare Bill with Amendment Backed by Anti-Abortion Lawmakers

By Amy Goodman

The bill has been described as the biggest overhaul of the country’s healthcare system since the Medicare and Medicaid Act of 1965. Among those who voted no was Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich, a leading proponent of a single-payer, Medicare-for-all healthcare system. Reproductive rights took a hit Saturday night when the House also passed an amendment to establish limits on the funding of abortions within the new framework that would be established by the Affordable Health Care for America Act.

Guests:  Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Democratic Congress member from Ohio. He voted no on the healthcare bill that just passed the House. And Jane Hamsher, founder of Firedoglake blog.

BPA in Our Food, Our Bodies

By Nichoals D. Kristof

Your body is probably home to a chemical called bisphenol A, or BPA. It’s a synthetic estrogen that United States factories now use in everything from plastics to epoxies — to the tune of six pounds per American per year. That’s a lot of estrogen.

More than 92 percent of Americans have BPA in their urine, and scientists have linked it — though not conclusively — to everything from breast cancer to obesity, from attention deficit disorder to genital abnormalities in boys and girls alike.

Criminalizing Peace

By Brasscheck TV

It seems like in the years leading up to whatever it was that happened at Fort Hood on November 5, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was one busy guy.

Chavez tells Venezuela’s military to prepare for possible conflict with Colombia

By Telegraph UK

President Hugo Chavez has ordered Venezuela’s military to prepare for a possible armed conflict with Colombia, saying his country’s soldiers should be ready if the United States attempts to provoke a war between the South American neighbours.