This blog will focus on political images I have found all around the Internet, though I will intersperse some commentary and quotes that I find interesting.
Monday, March 31, 2014
Your ass is Pwned!
Definition of CORPORATISM (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
: the organization of a society into industrial and professional corporations serving as organs of political representation and exercising control over persons and activities within their jurisdiction
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Oil Company's Restraining Order Bars Anti-Fracking Protestor From GroceryStore, Friends' Houses (Click here to read more)
By
Emily Atkin
March 26, 2014
.
In
October of 2013, Cabot Oil & Gas secured a court order that
effectively banned an anti-fracking activist from entering any land
owned or leased by the company. But because of the broad scope of the
court order, that activist is now claiming she legally can't go to
the grocery store, the hospital, restaurants, and even her friends'
homes.
.
"It's
tough to try to figure out, where can I stand? Where can I walk?"
Vera Scroggins told the Associated Press on Tuesday. "It's not a
pleasant thing to endure."
.
Cabot,
one of the biggest names in Pennsylvania's natural gas rush, had
sought a preliminary injunction against Scroggins in October after
alleging that she had repeatedly trespassed onto several of the
company's leased and owned properties, giving unauthorized tours of
their operations. After hearing testimony from employees and security
personnel, Susquehanna County Judge Kenneth Seamans granted Cabot's
request to have Scroggins legally barred from not only the land Cabot
owns, but from all the land it holds mineral leases on.
.
The
problem with that, according to Scroggins' attorneys, is that nearly
40 percent of Susquehanna County land is owned or leased by Cabot.
This includes the grocery store, the local recycling center, the
hospital that is nearest to her home, and several of her friends'
houses.
.
"In
short, the right to extract gas is, according to the company, also
the right to banish," Scroggins' attorneys said in a motion
asking Susquehanna County Judge Kenneth Seamans to undo his October
order.
If you don't think the GOP is mysogynistic, you don't have to look far to find evidence to the contrary.
Federal Judge Tells Women Lawyers Not To Dress Like 'An Ignorant Slut' (Click here to read more)
By
Ian Millhiser
March 27, 2014
.
Judge
Richard Kopf, a George H.W. Bush appointee to a federal court in
Nebraska, offered some strange advice to women litigators in a piece
posted to his personal blog on Tuesday: don't wear clothing that
would cause "the female law clerks" to call you "an
ignorant slut behind your back."
.
Kopf's
comments were a reaction to a Slate piece by Amanda Hess entitled
"Female Lawyers Who Dress Too 'Sexy' Are Apparently a 'Huge
Problem' in the Courtroom." Judge Kopf's piece has the more
provocative title "On being a dirty old man and how young women
lawyers dress."
.
Among
other things, Kopf's piece reveals that he has "been a dirty old
man ever since I was a very young man. Except, that is, when it comes
to my daughters (and other young women that I care deeply about)."
And it includes a description of a "very pretty female lawyer"
who practices in his court. "She is brilliant, she writes well,
she speaks eloquently, she is zealous but not overly so, she is
always prepared, she treats others, including her opponents, with
civility and respect, she wears very short skirts and shows lots of
her ample chest. I especially appreciate the last two attributes."
It must be a mistake - the Supreme Court got one right.
(I don't usually editorialize on the clips I post, but this heading is misleading. It should probably read, "Man convicted of domestic violence can be denied the right to own a gun."-Bozo)
Man Convicted Of Domestic Violence Can't Possess A Gun, Supreme Court Rules (Click here to read more)
By
Nicole Flatow
March 26, 2014
.
When
it comes to "domestic violence," even pushing or grabbing
can be sufficient to bar federal gun possession, the U.S. Supreme
Court concluded in a unanimous ruling issued Wednesday morning.
.
The
ruling could have significant implications in interpreting which
state domestic violence laws bar gun possession. For women in
particular, domestic violence is one of the biggest risks associated
with gun ownership. A Violence Policy Center review of 2011 FBI crime
data found that 94 percent of female homicide victims were murdered
by a male they knew, and 61 percent of those killers were a spouse or
intimate acquaintance. Female intimate partners were more likely to
be killed by a gun than any other weapon.
.
Because
of this relationship between gun ownership and intimate violence,
federal law bars those convicted of a misdemeanor domestic violence
offense from possessing a gun. But state crimes dubbed "domestic
violence" come with different definitions in different states.
And James Alvin Castleman seized on these differences to convince a
federal court that he was not guilty of illegal gun possession
because his guilty plea for a Tennessee domestic violence offense did
not qualify under federal law.
Okay - I'll admit it - sometimes we confuse us too.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Stop the nonsense - Romney was a bad choice for America
Obama: No, Romney Wasn't Right About Russia (Click here to read more)
Caitlin
MacNeal
March 25, 2014
.
President
Barack Obama on Tuesday said Mitt Romney was wrong in 2012 about the
extent of Russia's power in the world. Russia isn't the United
States' "No. 1 geopolitical foe" but rather a "regional
power," he countered.
.
Holding
a joint news conference with Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte at
the Nuclear Security Conference at The Hague, Obama was asked by
ABC's Jonathan Karl whether Romney had a point given Russia's recent
invasion of the Ukrainian Crimea and their position on Syria's civil
war.
.
"The
truth of the matter is, America's got a whole lot of challenges.
Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate
neighbors, not out of strength, but out of weakness," Obama
said.
.
"The
fact that Russia felt compelled to go in militarily and lay bear
these violations of international law indicates less influence, not
more," he added. "And so my response then continues to be
what I believe today, which is Russia's actions are a problem, they
don't pose the number one national security threat to the United
States."
This whole net neutrality thing - AT&T jumps in the fray and it's not good for you.
AT&T to Netflix: if you don't bribe us to do our job, you're asking for a "free lunch" (Click here to read more)
Cory
Doctorow
Tuesday,
March 25, 2014, 11:22 am
.
AT&T
Senior Executive Vice President of Legislative Affairs James Cicconi
has written a monumentally stupid attack on Reed Hasting's call for
Net Neutrality. Cicconi says, "there is no free lunch, and
there's also no cost-free delivery of streaming movies. Someone has
to pay that cost. Mr. Hastings' arrogant proposition is that everyone
else should pay but Netflix."
.
What
Cicconi ignores is that Netflix is paying its ISPs to be connected to
the Internet. And AT&T's customers are paying to be connected to
the Internet. And AT&T's customers are asking to have the service
they are paying for to be connected to the service Netflix is paying
for. AT&T is then demanding that Netflix pay it a bribe in order
to carry out the service that its customers are paying for.
.
If
you're an AT&T customer paying for a 4MB/s DSL line, you have
entered into a commercial arrangement whereby AT&T delivers you
the bytes you ask for as quickly and efficiently as it can. You're
not entering into an arrangement whereby AT&T can, if it notices
that many of its customers really like a service, charge that service
for the privilege of giving AT&T customers what they're already
paying for.
In school, these kids were the bullies
Republican Senator wants U.S. military commitment to Afghanistan, even without bilateral agreement (Click here to read more)
Rss@dailykos.com (laurence Lewis)Wednesday, March 26, 2014
.
Friends don't let idiots play foreign policy:
During a visit to Afghanistan, Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, a Republican, stressed that no American forces would remain in the country without a bilateral security agreement, but also said Obama should not wait for that to give an idea of what the US presence would look like after the Nato-led combat mission ends at the end of this year.
"I believe that it is time for our president to do this so that the people of Afghanistan understand that we remain committed in Afghanistan," Ayotte said, stressing that any post-2014 force would be contingent on the pact being signed. "He can no longer delay this decision."
Which makes perfect sense. Just because Afghanistan hasn't signed an agreement on a continuing U.S. military presence in Afghanistan shouldn't stop the U.S. from announcing the levels of its continuing U.S. military presence in Afghanistan. The U.S. doesn't need the permission or input of other countries when basing its troops on their land. The U.S. is exceptional, and can do what it wants!
The ACA - some people are waking up to the benefits
Former "naive, abandoned" Republican now calls them "narrow-minded, brainwashed, war-minded" (Click here to read more)
Gottalaff
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
.
In one of today's Los Angeles Times letters to the editor, a former Republican minces no words about how her party failed her. Elizabeth Warren mentioned a few of the worst corporate conservatives in my previous post, "Soon you'll have a Supreme Court that is a wholly owned subsidiary of big business."
.
On a more positive note, did I mention that more and more Americans are discovering the benefits of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare?
.
Re "Health law's winners in plain sight," Column, March 23
I was a loyal Republican for 30 years, yet once I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, every health insurance company told me "no coverage."
.
This was my wake-up call - knowing my party had abandoned me when I needed it most.
.
I am now an independent, and so proud that someone empowered the people to stand up to the big corporate healthcare companies.
.
How can we consider ourselves proud Americans when we abandon our own people because of a chronic disease? How can we allow corporate America to write our laws?
.
How do we allow our representatives to sign a pledge to the wealthiest people, forgetting the majority? I am ashamed that I ever was naive enough to consider myself a Republican; I find them narrow-minded, brainwashed and war-minded.
.
Laura Mellody
Riverside
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Religious rules - they get a little stupid
But, if the Supreme Court has its way, they will be the law of the land.
Elizabeth Warren on the Hobby Lobby case.
Warren:"Soon you'll have a Supreme Court that is a wholly ownedsubsidiary of big business." (Click here to read more)
Gottalaff
Wednesday,
March 26, 2014.
.
Senator
Elizabeth Warren is worried about our very corporate Supreme Court.
She's worried that they will rule in favor of Hobby Lobby, just as
they decided in favor of Citizens United. And that decision has been
a disaster.
[...]
The
following email from Senator Warren landed in my inbox today. As is
made painfully obvious by K.C. Boyd's weekly "Upchucks"
guest posts here at TPC, the separation of church and state is
narrowing daily. This growing trend is serious and is endangering our
dwindling democracy. We need to organize our voices and protest
immediately, loudly, clearly, and constantly.
.
Bolding
is mine:
.
Laffy,
.
Hobby Lobby doesn't want to cover its employees' birth control on company insurance plans. In fact, they're so outraged about women having access to birth control that they've taken the issue all the way to the Supreme Court.
I cannot believe that we live in a world where we would even consider letting some big corporation deny the women who work for it access to the basic medical tests, treatments or prescriptions that they need based on vague moral objections.
But here's the scary thing: With the judges we've got on the Supreme Court, Hobby Lobby might actually win.
The current Supreme Court has headed in a very scary direction.
Recently, three well-respected legal scholars examined almost 20,000 Supreme Court cases from the last 65 years. They found that the five conservative justices currently sitting on the Supreme Court are in the top 10 most pro-corporate justices in more than half a century.
And Justices Samuel Alito and John Roberts? They were number one and number two.
Take a look at the win rate of the national Chamber of Commerce cases before the Supreme Court. According to the Constitutional Accountability Center, the Chamber was winning 43% of the cases in participated in during the later years of the Burger Court, but that shifted to a 56% win-rate under the Rehnquist Court, and then a 70% win-rate with the Roberts Court.
Follow these pro-corporate trends to their logical conclusion, and pretty soon you'll have a Supreme Court that is a wholly owned subsidiary of big business.
Birth control is at risk in today's case, but we also need to worry about a lot more.
In Citizens United, the Supreme Court unleashed a wave of corporate spending to game the political system and drown the voices of middle class families.
And right now, the Supreme Court is considering McCutcheon v. FEC, a case that could mean the end of campaign contribution limits - allowing the big guys to buy even more influence in Washington.
Republicans may prefer a rigged court that gives their corporate friends and their armies of lawyers and lobbyists every advantage. But that's not the job of judges. Judges don't sit on the bench to hand out favors to their political friends.
On days like today, it matters who is sitting on the Supreme Court. It matters that we have a President who appoints fair and impartial judges to our courts, and it matters that we have a Senate who approves them.
We're in this fight because we believe that we don't run this country for corporations - we run it for people.
Thank you for being a part of this,
Elizabeth
Shooting report
Some gun owners have a legitimate reason to own and use a gun. Far too many gun owners don't - and that is why we need to strengthen our gun control laws.
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