Wake Up Guys

The Hobby Lobby decision has one thing to say to you:

The only birth control that's ok with them for you to use is a condom.

and 

Use a condom or pay for a child for 20 years - that's your only choice.

Open Letter

To the Ombudsman at the Washington Post (readers@washpost.com)


 Dear Mr Doug Feaver,

 I read George Will's column the other day with growing disbelief. At first I thought he must be doing some very snarky satire. I waited for the punch line. The only punch I got was a metaphorical left hook to the kisser.

 I had the horrible thought that he could use an object lesson, followed closely with the question - just why is it that conservatives cannot understand the pain and anguish that a human being who has been assaulted sexually goes through? They must be wired wrong in the head.

I thought, what editor in their right mind would print such rubbish? Never mind the dearth of empathy, The column ignores a real and growing problem in the US with rape in general and campus rapes in particular, and the way they are (not) reported, (not) investigated, and (not) punished. That an editor of a major national newspaper would publish a column written by anyone which makes light the burden of sexual assault - never mind a nationally known figure - 0h well, I just assumed that a big part of an editor's job is preventing their stable of columnists from embarrassing themselves and the paper they work for by making insensitive and factually wrong assumptions about people and situations they obviously know nothing about.

 The fact that George Will proceeded to double down on his idiotic statements in the next few days just shows how little he deserves his exalted position.

Do me a favor, please: tell George Will to STFU if he cannot make sense.

 His slip is showing. It's a particularly ugly one, one we've seen before, we're tired of it.

With all sincerity
Susan H


 send your own to readers@washpost.com if you want 

inspired by : Crooks & Liars Lisa Sendrow interview

Quote of the Day

"So forget all that rhetoric about how America is great because of people like you and me and Steve Jobs. You know the truth even if you won’t admit it: If any of us had been born in Somalia or the Congo, all we’d be is some guy standing barefoot next to a dirt road selling fruit. It’s not that Somalia and Congo don’t have good entrepreneurs. It’s just that the best ones are selling their wares off crates by the side of the road because that’s all their customers can afford."

Nick Hanauer, Billionaire via Amazon

Great Read:at Politico Magazine   

Save Our Tax Dollars: Leagalize Marijuana

"...hemp looks poised to be approved, albeit at a moderate “university study” level, in this year’s Farm Bill. It’s another huge victory that reflects the will of the people. Folks would do well to get their U.S. senators on board for the fight, because the lobbyists for the Drug Enforcement Administration, bless them, are still sending the old laughable untruths about hemp in memos to legislators: kids could smoke it anyway, it looks like psychoactive cannabis. "

Mark Karlin, Truthout | Interview

Well, cow corn looks like sweet corn, but the kids I knew back in the day only made that mistake once. Farmers don't have to worry about kids raiding their corn fields for an illicit corn feast, because cow corn is mushy and not sweet.

Kids who might raid a hemp field will get a nice headache, but they won't get high, and they'll never do it again.

There's a reason they call it "Going Postal"

Digby chronicles the rise of the militarized police force in the US.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2013/07/who-needs-posse-comitatus.html

The only thing I have to add: After Vietnam, the occupation that was the easiest to enter and the best compensation right away for returning soldiers was the Postal Service. Vets who could do well on the civil service exam got extra points for each deployment, and lots of them became mailmen. 

When their PTSD went untreated, many of them went bananas and started shooting up post offices across the nation. These mail carriers did not have access to combat weapons, most of which were banned for civilian use at the time.

These days, the combat vets are hiring on with police and the FBI and the private security forces across this nation. They are equipped with military style weapons and armament, they are used to controlling a civilian population that they either distrusted or despised or suspected of trying to kill them. They are used to having no compunction about damaging that civilian population. They are used to breaking down doors and shooting the first thing that moves.

 What happens when they start "Going Postal"? Do we really want to unleash that upon our towns and neighborhoods?

Seriously



.

WALMART

I haven't been in one for almost 20 years. ...And I stopped going there just because I couldn't find any American made products on their shelves. I am so disgusted with them now, I wish there was something else I could do besides boycotting them.

Open Letter to Nancy Pelosi

               House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi
                235 Cannon HOB
                Washington, D.C. 20515
                Phone: (202) 225-4965

                Dear Nancy Pelosi,

                No cuts to Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid please.
                No how, No way, Not ever!

                There is a perfectly good Progressive budget out (I
                understand the republican house won’t pass it, but why is it
                never mentioned at all?). I would urge you to tout that budget
                at every opportunity.

                If President Obama has his way and is the first Democrat
                to cut our entitlements (they are called entitlements because
                we already PAID for them, and we are ENTITLED to them),
                the Democrat brand will be degraded to the point that I will
                agree with the Villagers: the parties are both the same, and to
                bother getting up and going out to vote for the dems anymore
                is not only useless, but asinine.

                Social Security should be using a CPI that takes into account
                all the money we pay for medical care. I am 60, and I now
                pay a cool thousand dollars a month for health insurance. By
                the time I am old enough for Medicare, I will have spent
                enough to buy a house on the last five years of health
                insurance.  I am currently unemployed, and if I were
                unmarried and was dependent upon my savings and
                unemployment insurance, I would be unable to go to the
                doctor despite my gold and diamond encrusted insurance
                policy, because I would be unable to pay Copay/deductible.

                Medicare would be strengthened by allowing people younger
                than 65 to buy their way in. It would cost me half what I pay
                now to buy into Medicare, and I’d probably get better care for
                my money. That would leave me with the wherewithal to
                afford the Copay/deductible, and still leave some extra
                spending power that could do a little bit toward reviving
                the economy, rather than watch my money disappear into
                the bank account of the money grubbing president of the
                ECHN.

                Our economy would be better off if we expanded Social
                Security, rather than cutting it. It would stimulate our
                economy, if we let some people in their early sixties
                retire and let the youngers have their jobs. Businesses
                would profit from paying less for the same or better
                work, the economy would benefit from lower unemployment,
                the youngers would benefit from having the job. The govern-
                ment would not be paying out much more, and the stimulus
                would end up paying for itself.


                Enter the chained CPI – that which says that if our elders
                cannot afford chicken, they can eat chicken cat food,
               (Mmmmmm, Fancy Feast Chicken and Liver) and we all
                should take advantage of that when we are making out
                their social security checks.

                Moreover, if the President insists on making a deal that cuts
                Social Security and Medicare, even (or especially with the
                chained CPI) I for one am ready to chain myself to the
                White house fence to stop that.

                Please let President Obama know, since he reportedly does
                not read his own email anymore, that if he does go with the
                chained CPI, there’ll be a -storm, and it will not smell very
                nice from where he sits. He may not ever again need to win
                an election or depend on the trust of the Democratic party’s
                rank and file, but the rest of you in Washington DC
                will and do.

                Thank you for making sure that there are NO cuts to Medicare
                and Social Security.

               No cuts – NO how. NO way. NOT ever.

               Any prosperous, civilized country should have a robust social
               safety net; and we are the most prosperous, if not the most
               civilized country in this world.

                Sincerely
               SBGypsy
               Voting Democrat since 1970

Happy Holidays

More senseless shootings

What do you think, is it time to talk about gun control yet? Can we, huh, can we?

Open Letter to Obama's FCC Chair

FCC Head trying to change rules: Shhhhh..... do it now, secretly, while we're all talking about the Cliff.



Dear Mr Genachowski,

Media consolidation is dangerous to our democracy, and I urge you to back off on this subject. Please do not betray the American People by allowing Murdoch and his like to buy up all the TV and newspapers in America. 

Rather, we need the Fairness Doctrine reinstated. It would better serve American democracy to break up the already too consolidated media empires that exist to propagandize on American soil. Fox News is our biggest offender, but most markets in the US are already so much of a monopoly that we do not get the discussion on REAL issues that we need.

Case in point: the american people want 500 million jobs NOW. What do we get? We get all the bobble heads talking 24/7 about THE DEFICIT - we get Austerity in the form of "entitlement reform" by which we mean stripping the social services we have already bought and paid for down to nothing, and giving rich people tax breaks. We get states playing a zero sum game of musical chairs, trying to entice corporations to move minimum wage jobs from one state to another. This is crazy. One town in CT just paid over $100,000.00 per year each for a few tens of jobs, when they could have directly hired more than twice the number of teachers, firefighters, police and janitors to do real work for the townspeople, at a good remuneration rate. 

BUT Deficit deficit deficit, fiscal cliff cliff cliff!! ZOMG, we're gonna die!

The FCC tried to do this in 2003, then again in 2007. They were schooled in the idea that American citizens do care where their news comes from, do care if they are getting a balanced viewpoint, do care if they get all the information they need. 

That a chairman who was appointed by a Democrat should feel free to sneak this through without any feedback from the public, especially when the last two  times this was tried there was a s**t storm and lawsuits and a Senate resolution against this change, well, you're treading in Betrayus territory now.

Corporate America should not be allowed to take over the entire news production in the US - EVER.

Thank You 

SBgypsy

Update/ send your own email to:
Chairman Julius Genachowski: Julius.Genachowski@fcc.gov

Quote Of the Day

"Folks, since the brutal presidential election, there's been a lot of soul searching over at Fox News, and I am confident that they will eventually find one."

~ Stephen Colbert

Boehner Era

On my morning news they just pointed out that it's the Obama Era, not 
the  Boehner era. 

I smiled, imagining the future, wherein people doing research come upon
 the name. 

"Oh, look at that, the Speaker of the house was named John Boehner" 

Only they pronounce it the way it's spelled, and the way the rest of those
named Boehner pronounce their name. 

Man up, Boner, it only puts a big red line under the sucker.

Tax The Rich

Quote of the Day

"Four years ago, the Mitt Romneys of the world nearly destroyed the global economy with their greed, shortsightedness and – most notably – wildly irresponsible use of debt in pursuit of personal profit. The sight was so disgusting that people everywhere were ready to drop an H-bomb on Lower Manhattan and bayonet the survivors. But today that same insane greed ethos, that same belief in the lunatic pursuit of instant borrowed millions – it's dusted itself off, it's had a shave and a shoeshine, and it's back out there running for president."

Matt Taibbi 

from his article Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital

Stop Rush Now

There's a very good post over at KOS outlining the present status of Rush Limpdick and ClearChannel entertainment after the old Mittster socked it to them this spring:

Big Trouble in Limbaugh Land

it inspired this open letter to Pillowman.

Dear Pillowman,

I wonder if you realize that you are supporting a radio program which regularly includes abusive language that may negatively impact your brand, sales, and corporate image with millions of Americans. I'm talking about the Rush Limbaugh show specifically. His attacks on Sandra Fluke are not only ongoing, they are the worst kind of disgusting, victim blaming, barrage of garbage.

Rush Limbaugh looked at a decent young college student, who was engaging an issue that is serious and life threatening, and made up a fantasy that included sex, dirty slutty women who have sex ..and not much else. It says nothing about Sandra Fluke or her serious issue, but speaks volumes about Rush Limbaugh. It seems that's all he can keep on his mind these days. Moreover, his comments show that he knows little about what he's pontificating on.

It's not our goal to silence anyone. Broadcasters have a right to say what they please. But consumers have a right to speak too, and we are saying to those who offend us, "We've had enough of your ad-hominem attacks, vitriol and dehumanizing language." It' time to clear up the airwaves, and I would hope that your company would have enough sense to avoid the kind of controversy that this small man with a dirty mind insists upon creating.

Please stop supporting his garbage before the stink rubs off onto your product.

Sincerely

SB Gypsy

PS: If you have time to write a letter or three, stop over at Stop Rush . net and get the list of those who are still to this day advertising on his program.

Oh, it's Eddie Munster, all grown up!