USA Amnesia

[trysail]

Founded in 1985, Enron Corporation...

Wrong from the git-go. Enron was the new name given to InterNorth, Inc., the surviving entity of a merger between Houston Natural Gas Company and InterNorth.

If you can't get the basic facts right, no one should expect much of anything else to be accurate either.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

"And no name change, no matter how clever, can save a company from bad management or scandal. The 1985
merger of Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth produced a new company called Enron. That name remains an
albatross for CrossCountry Energy, PipeCo, and Prisma Energy International--firms trying to
create new businesses from the ruins of the former energy-trading giant."

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2005/11/01/8362833/index.htm

*sigh* Have to double check everything.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Newt Gingrich's congressional career ended in 1998 when he abruptly resigned from Congress after poor showings
from Republicans in elections and after being reprimanded by the House ethics panel over charges that he used
tax-exempt funding to advance his political goals.

Gingrich Admits He Broke Rules and Misled Panel

After two years of vehemently denying wrongdoing, House Speaker Newt Gingrich made an about-face Saturday
and admitted that he had violated House rules in connection with several tax-exempt charitable organizations
and had also provided "inaccurate, incomplete and unreliable" information to the Ethics Committee.

By agreeing that he did not act "at all times in a manner which shall reflect creditably on the House of Representatives,"
the Georgia Republican avoided an embarrassing fact-finding hearing before the full House Standards of Official Conduct Committee.

Democrats called on him to step down from his leadership post, just
as Gingrich had demanded of former House Speaker Jim Wright
before he resigned in 1989.

We look forward to working with him as speaker following his reelection on Jan. 7," said a joint statement issued
by House Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas, Majority Whip Tom DeLay of Texas, Republican Conference Chairman
John Boehner of Ohio and four other GOP leaders.

Speaker Newt Gingrich has completed payment of a $300,000 penalty imposed for violations of House rules.

Gingrich made the final payment of $150,000, the committee said, and "has now satisfied in full" the obligation imposed in January 1997.

The outgoing speaker originally arranged a loan from ex-Sen. Bob Dole to help with the payments but decided
instead to handle the penalty from personal funds.

Gingrich, who also was reprimanded by the House two years ago, admitted he misled the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct and should
have sought better legal advice before using tax-exempt organizations to advance his political goals.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Frank Gregorsky, then a Gingrich staff writer, had worked for nine months on a paper which cited particularly controversial
Democratic statements on foreign policy in Vietnam, Cuba, and Nicaragua. According to Gregorsky, Newt said,
"We're going to read this on the record. We're going to pick a fight."

Democrats were apparently informed that Gingrich was to deliver a Special Order that afternoon.
"They just thought it was another Newt thing," says Gregorsky. At the close of the legislative day,
Newt read the incendiary paper --before an empty chamber and for the benefit of the C-SPAN audience.

He accused the Democrats of believing that "America does nothing right."

It was pure theater.

Yet the attack so violated the traditional comity of the House that then Speaker Tip O'Neill "lost his cool"
(in Gregorsky's words) and a few days later --in a full session of Congress --accused Gingrich of

"the lowest thing I've ever seen in my 32 years in Congress."

Representative Trent Lott demanded that O'Neill's words be stricken from the record, and the presiding
congressional officer ruled in his favor. Gingrich's tour de force made all the network news shows that
night --and a star was born. "I am now a famous person," Newt crowed to the press.

But in his mania for immediate headlines, Newt had drawn blood, and his enemies still swear vengeance.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newt/vanityfair1.html

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

George Bush ripped McCain into pieces, in order to win an election.

"....a campaign that would be modeled on Ralph Reed’s infamous, Atwater-like boast about his Christian Coalition work:
“I paint my face and travel at night. You don’t know it’s over until you’re in a body bag. You don’t know until Election Night.”
1.) The “revolting” e-mail—alleging that “McCain chose to sire children without marriage”—was from Richard Hand,
a professor of the Bible at Greenville’s Christian-fundamentalist Bob Jones University, Bush’s very first campaign stop,
on February 2.
2.) Mark Carman, who owns the Capitol City News & Maps store, told me of going to a candidates’ debate in Columbia,
“and when we got back to our car, there was a flyer under the windshield wiper saying something about McCain
having a Negro child. My wife is African-American—she just tore it up.”
3.) Sending faxes of a “a kind of cheesy Kinko’s pamphlet” with a photograph of the McCain family-
as proof of McCain's black illegitimate child-

The girl in question is Bridget. In 1991, when Cindy McCain was on a relief mission to Bangladesh,
she was asked by one of Mother Teresa’s nuns to help a young orphan with a cleft palate. Flying her
to the U.S. for surgery, Cindy realized she couldn’t give her up. At the Phoenix airport, she broke it
to her husband, and they eventually adopted the child.

4.) Attacking McCain's wife Cindy for being drug addict

In 1994 she’d admitted that she had a prescription-painkiller problem and blamed it on two spinal surgeries
and the stress of her husband’s role in the Keating Five scandal.
(He was rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee for intervening with
federal regulators on behalf of a disgraced financier.)

5.)The rumor that McCain had slept with prostitutes and given his wife V.D.
6.)The former Green Beret Ted Sampley, is behind the talk about McCain
having turned traitor in the “Hanoi Hilton,” or was mentally unstable from
his captivity, or was a Manchurian Candidate, brainwashed to destroy the G.O.P
(Swift Boat Veterans for Truth!)
7.) For just meeting with the gay Log Cabin Republicans, McCain was
labeled the “Fag Army” candidate.
8.) Confederate flag issue- McCain was unwise enough to say-
that it was- “a symbol of racism and slavery.”
9.) A Christian Coalition mailing told of “10 Disturbing Facts About John McCain,” warning that he was
too liberal on abortion and fetal-tissue research and that he favored casino gambling and
“the taxation of certain contributions to churches and charities.”
10.) distort McCain’s position and spread the fear
“it was almost like we were going to be living in a Communist country.”
(if McCain was elected)

State representative Jim Merrill, a political operative in 2000 who’d backed Dan Quayle before moving to McCain,
told me, “We caught a couple of kids red-handed putting flyers on cars outside a seniors’ center in Hilton Head.
One of the kids said a guy had paid him 50 bucks to do it.” Who was that guy? He had no idea.

Newt Gingrich

The 1978 victory closed a remarkably ugly campaign which foreshadowed the next chapter in the annals of Newt,
who had now begun his metamorphosis into the Che Guevara of conservatism. During a recent interview with
David Frost, Gingrich was asked about a leaflet-part of his '78 "Let Our Family Represent Your Family" campaign--
which said that if Newt's Democratic opponent, Virginia Shapard, were elected she would have to break up her family
to move to D.C. and hire a nanny to assume her maternal responsibilities.

Newt maintained that the leaflet was sent out without his knowledge by an operative he later forced to resign --
Kip Carter. "It was a mistake to have used it, and I would have told him at the time, frankly," Newt maintained.
Carter says that the candidate himself not only approved the leaflet but was also involved in television
advertising where a Virginia Shapard stand-in was shown "wearing an iron bracelet that looked
like she belonged to the SS."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newt/vanityfair1.html

Smears?

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Contraceptive mandate could face tough sledding in Supreme Court
January 30, 2012

The dispute stems from one of the more popular parts of the new healthcare law: its requirement that
all health plans provide “preventive services” for free. That category includes vaccines and such routine
screenings as cholesterol checkups and mammograms. Starting this year, it also includes coverage
of birth control pills, IUDs and other contraceptives.

http://www.latimes.com/health/la-na-court-contraception-20120131,0,4833667.story

During the past few years, some of you have had questions about the connection between some Komen Affiliates
and the Planned Parenthood-sponsored breast cancer health programs they partially fund.

But, the Komen organization will not talk about that, on their web site?
The members are talking up a storm about it.

January 31, 2012

As I wrote earlier, the Race for the Cure has decided to stop funding breast exams at Planned Parenthood clinics
after pressure from religious right anti-abortion activists and Republican House members. Is it a coincidence that
the Race for the Cure new senior vice president is a Republican anti-abortion activist?

2011: Republican politico and anti-choice activist Handel is hired by Susan G. Komen for the Cure,
an organization that runs the annual breast cancer fundraiser "Race for the Cure," and that gives
hundreds of thousands of dollars to Planned Parenthood to conduct breast exams on women
around the country.

In April 2011, after losing the 2010 Republican primary runoff in the race for Georgia governor,
former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel was named Senior VP of Public Policy of
Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Handel Campaigned for Governor in 2010 on Anti-Choice and Anti-Planned Parenthood Platform.
In a statement on her campaign website, Handel wrote, “I am staunchly and unequivocally pro-life.
…. since I am pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood.”

[Karen Handel Campaign Blog, 7/15/10]

“During my time as Chairman of Fulton County, there were federal and state pass-through grants
that were awarded to Planned Parenthood for breast and cervical cancer screening, as well
as a ‘Healthy Babies Initiative’…Since grants like these are from the state I’ll eliminate them
as your next Governor.”

[Karen Handel Campaign Blog, 7/15/10]

http://www.americablog.com/2012/01/komen-pro-life-vp-promised-to-defund.html

Dec 15 2011

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The president of LifeWay Christian Resources says the entity is pulling all copies of a
special pink-covered Bible that partially benefited Susan G. Komen for the Cure because some of Komen's
affiliates have given money to Planned Parenthood.

"As this project has developed, we realized it was a mistake," LifeWay President Thom S. Rainer said in a
statement released Wednesday (Dec. 14).

Earlier this year the pro-life group American Life League reported that 18 of Komen's affiliates had
given more than $600,000 to Planned Parenthood during 2009-10, the last year for which
stats are available.

"Though we have assurances that Komen's funds are used only for breast cancer screening and
awareness, it is not in keeping with LifeWay’s core values to have even an indirect relationship
with Planned Parenthood."

http://www.christianexaminer.com/Articles/Articles Dec11/Art_Dec11_23.html

7/13/2011

Toledo Catholic Bishop Leonard Blair's announcement that parishes and parochial schools in the diocese
can no longer raise funds for the Susan G. Komen Foundation could put lives at risk, according to the
leader of the breast cancer charity's local affiliate.

http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2011/07/13/Blair-edict-criticized-by-Komen-official.html

Catholic Pro-Life Group Launches Campaign Against Mandate
January 31st, 2012

Catholic Advocate, a leading grassroots pro-life organization for Catholics, today launched a nationwide
campaign providing resources for pro-life advocates wanting to speak out against the mandate the
Obama administration has put place forcing religious groups to cover birth control and drugs that
can cause abortions.

1/22/12

Obama Administration’s Obamacare-Birth Control Mandate?

January 31, 2012

Illinois Catholics rail against new national contraception requirement

Nationwide, Catholic and some evangelical Christian leaders are balking at last week's announcement
by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that starting next year, religious health care,
educational and charity institutions that employ and serve non-Catholics must pay for
"all FDA-approved forms of contraception" for their employees, even
if they have moral objections to doing so.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...raception-controversy-20120131,0,934811.story

"We certainly have great respect for religious freedom, but we believe neither government nor employers
should impede on an individual's ability to practice their own preventive health care," said Carole Brite,
president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Illinois. Brite hailed the mandate as a victory for
affordable health care for women.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

3,000 white Southern racists have murder on their minds. 3,000 attack 20 skinny young college students.

A strong tall fully grown Southern white man punches a small young college girl in the face.
Over and over again. A Northern news reporter saves her from death by pulling her into his car.

Martin Luther King as President of the United States of America? 50 years ago it was impossible.

FR Project - Jim Zwerg in Hospital

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQbqzaRAql8

The Magnolia State- Prepare to Meet Thy God

Move On Move On Move On OK You are under arrest for not obeying my orders.

Arrested in Jackson for breach of peace. "Agitators" violate the law- by being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

This bus stop is reserved for whites. College students sent to the worst prison in America for wanting freedom for everyone.

June 1963- a call to get rid of Jim Crow laws by The President of the United States.

Freedom Riders knew that someone might kill them for their beliefs.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Wishful thinking, on my part? What happened to the young college student and the car?

Because she was not saved by someone who cared, that someone was hit with a pipe, knocked down, and kicked under the car.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/freedomriders/about/transcript

Sangernetta Gilbert Bush, Montgomery Resident: The police were standing there, in their uniforms, just looking. They provided no protection for those students.

John Seigenthaler, Assistant to RFK: There was a skinny, young kid and he was sort of dancing in front of this young woman, punching her, and I could see, as she turned her head, blood from the nose and mouth. I grabbed her by the wrist over the hood of the car, had her right at the door and she put her hands up on the doorjamb and said, 'Mister, I don't want you to get hurt. I'm non-violent, I'm trained to take this. Please, don't get hurt. We'll be fine.'

And I said, 'Get your ass in the car, sister.' And at that moment, they wheeled me around and they hit me with a pipe. They kicked me under the car and left me there.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Slavery by Another Name

Slavery by Another Name is a 90-minute documentary that challenges one of Americans’ most cherished assumptions: the belief that slavery in this country ended with the Emancipation Proclamation. The film tells how even as chattel slavery came to an end in the South in 1865, thousands of African Americans were pulled back into forced labor with shocking force and brutality. It was a system in which men, often guilty of no crime at all, were arrested, compelled to work without pay, repeatedly bought and sold, and coerced to do the bidding of masters. Tolerated by both the North and South, forced labor lasted well into the 20th century.

http://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/

The slaves were freed from owners. But, the work in the South still needed to be done.

4 million freed slaves at the end of the Civil War.

40 million people benefit from the exploitation of the 4 million freed slaves.

So, they arrested men and women off of the streets. They put them into prisons, and then hired them out.

The prison could kill them by working them to death, or have them work in conditions that would kill them.

They died in great numbers, and very quickly. Before the Civil War good and complimentary words were said about freed slaves.

Saying defamatory words about freed slaves became the Southern custom.

Debt servitude, peonage, became illegal- 1903 a systematic scheme used on the people of Alabama to hold people in servitude.

Taking money away from powerless people through the law is an old Southern custom.

Your money or your freedom. No money? We will jail you and use you to make wealth for the South.

"Abject slavery." Convicted of crimes. Flimsy charges, flimsy proof. Utter corruption.

Tell lies, steal money and lives. "Work for me, or I will have you killed."

Federal Grand Jury looks into the issue. Judge Jones threatens the use of debt slaves and the Southern economy.

The Federal Government wanted to convict and move on. Judge Jones makes the southern exploiters fear arrest and conviction.

The Federal Government did not have the will
to break up the new system of slavery that supported the Southern economy.

30,000 pages of letters from people in forced labor kept in Washington D.C. Children, women, teens, men.

The enslaved people know there is a law against it. 1908- Another man is caught in the new Southern system.

Charged with vagrancy. Sentenced to hard labor plus fines. He was rented out for 12$ a month. 30 years of slavery for him in the mines.

U.S. Steel enters the picture-
1912 Woodrow Wilson puts new Southern slavery into place in the North
(Some kind of gentleman's agreement?)

World War I survivors come back to see that what they fought for, is not there.
1909 Activists fight for the rights to not be enslaved.

County government- state run enterprises. Chain gangs building roads.

Southern share croppers- Take out loans- 90% interest rates
The sheriff would arrest them and return them to the farm if they tried to leave.
Or send them through the prison labor system.

1921- The Federal law looks at the share cropping system.
A man is holding people in slavery. Share croppers were murdered in horrific ways.

It comes to light in 1921- First Southern white man convicted of killing a slave since the Civil War.
Would not happen again until the 1960s.

A leased labor slave is whipped to death. An uproar in the South.

1930- 1940 Exploitation of labor slavery still used. Franklin Delano Roosevelt changes labor rules.

13th Amendment- December 1941 it is enforced - involuntary servitude and peonage looked at.

Texas man convicted.

800,000 people forced into involuntary servitude.

9,000 known to have died while held by involuntary servitude.

{2012 and involuntary servitude has not ended. It just is not made public, anymore.}

 

[NeverEndingMe]

socialism didn't work in Russia, thank god that obama is a socialist

 

[NeverEndingMe]

Wrong from the git-go. Enron was the new name given to InterNorth, Inc., the surviving entity of a merger between Houston Natural Gas Company and InterNorth.

If you can't get the basic facts right, no one should expect much of anything else to be accurate either.

obama is more corrupt and greedy than Ken Skilling ever dreamed of

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Authoritarian Sociopathy: Part 1

http://www.gonzotimes.com/2011/01/authoritarian-sociopathy-part-1/

Authoritarian Sociopathy: Part 2: Power and Deception

“Power will lead to increases in intensity and frequency of lying.”
-Dana Carney, a professor at Columbia University

http://www.gonzotimes.com/2011/01/authoritarian-sociopathy-part-2-power-and-deception/

Authoritarian Sociopathy: Part 3: Power and Compassion

Low-power individuals respond to the suffering of others with emotional reciprocity,
but high-power individuals experience greater emotional regulation, or detachment.

According to self-reporting after the experiment high-power feel less compassion than low-power individuals,
which you might expect. But there were other interesting results in the post analysis.
High-power listeners were less accurate in their assessment of their partners’ emotions.
This could explain why high-power listeners don’t experience emotional reciprocity.
They simply don’t perceive other people’s suffering.

http://www.gonzotimes.com/2011/01/authoritarian-sociopathy-part-3-power-and-compassion/

Authoritarian Sociopathy: Part 4: Power and Hypocrisy

It has become almost a cliche that the most outspoken anti-gay politicians are in fact closet homosexuals themselves,
and the champions of “traditional family values” are engaged in extramarital affairs. Nothing is more common than
the fiscal conservative who demands ridiculous luxuries at the taxpayer’s expense, or the anti-war progressive
who takes campaign donations from the military industrial complex.

As expected, high-power subjects were more likely to bend the rules for themselves, but less likely to afford others the same leniency.

http://www.examiner.com/muslim-in-san-francisco/authoritarian-sociopathy-part-4-power-and-hypocrisy

Conservatives Without Conscience
John W. Dean

Preface

Chapter One: How Conservatives Think

Chapter Two: Conservatives Without Conscience

Chapter Three: Authoritarian Conservatism

Chapter Four: Troubling Politics and Policies of Our Authoritarian Government

In Conservatives Without Conscience, John Dean places the conservative movements inner circle of leaders in the Republican Party
under scrutiny. Dean finds their policies and mind-set to be fundamentally authoritarian, and as such, a danger to democracy.

By examining the legacies of such old-line conservatives as J. Edgar Hoover, Spiro Agnew, and Phyllis Schlafly and of such current figures
as Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich, and leaders of the Religious Right, Dean presents an alarming record of abuses of power.

His trenchant analysis of how conservatism has lost its bearings serves as achilling warning
and a stirring inspiration to safeguard constitutional principles.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Quentin Crisp, 1908–1999

Nov 30 1999

"Last week, Crisp, 90, died of a heart attack in his sleep while on the verge of launching his one-man show in Manchester, England.
(At a party I had last year, he smirkily complained that theatrical touring would kill him.) He had an aphorism for dying, too:
"I have always liked death, especially other people's death, but have recently been contemplating my own
with a certain amount of relish."

http://www.villagevoice.com/1999-11-30/nyc-life/quentin-crisp-1908-1999/

"I said that I dressed in such a way that the whole world could see that I was homosexual
but that this set me apart from the rest of humanity rather than making it easy for me
to form contacts with it. Who, I asked the magistrate, could possibly hope to solicit anybody
in broad daylight in a crowded London street looking as I did?"

Born Denis Charles Pratt in 1908 in Sutton, then part of Surrey.
Kingswood Preparatory School in Epsom
1922, he won a scholarship to Denstone College, near Uttoxeter.
1926, studied journalism at King's College London.
Failing to graduate, he then took art classes at the Regent Street Polytechnic.
Leaving home to move to central London at the end of 1930

Crisp attempted to join the army at the outbreak of the Second World War but was rejected and declared exempt
by the medical board on the grounds that he was 'suffering from sexual perversion'.
He left his job as engineer's tracer in 1942 to become a model in life classes
in London and the Home Counties.
He continued posing for artists into the 1970s

Crisp became a gay icon after the publication of his memoir, The Naked Civil Servant (1968), brought his exhibitionism
and refusal to remain ‘in the closet’ to the attention of the general public.
In 1975, a film adaptation of The Naked Civil Servant was broadcast on British and American television
making both actor John Hurt and Crisp household names.
Crisp declared himself one of the great ‘stately homos of England’.

Afterwards Crisp developed a one-man speaking show that toured Britain but he still felt like an outsider.
In 1981, Crisp moved to New York where, experiencing a fuller sense of social acceptance, he continued
his one-man show, ‘An Evening with Quentin Crisp’.

During his extraordinary life Crisp wrote a number of influential, controversial and provocative works, and acted
in a variety of television dramas, films and stage plays, the last being the film "Orlando" with actress Tilda Swinton.
(1992, Quentin Crisp played the part of the very old but sharp, Queen Elizabeth I - in the Orlando film.)

Just short of his 91st birthday, Quentin Crisp died in November 1999, in Manchester on the eve of a nationwide revival
of his show. With a minimum of ceremony his body was cremated and his ashes flown back to the US and scattered
across his beloved Manhattan.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

March 11, 2012

For profit prisons that line their pockets with cash from the tax payer- privately owned prisons using government money to oppose the tax payer's preferences
For profit schools that line their pockets with cash from the tax payer- privately owned schools using government money to oppose the tax payer's preferences

The for profit prison industry spent millions in lobbying dollars to push harsh criminal penalties and longer sentences in order to maximize their own profitability.

How does the insurance corporations increase their profits? Young and healthy clients with no prior health problems. Cherry picking.

How does the privately owned prison increase their profits? Young and healthy prisoners with no prior legal problems. Cherry picking.

How does a for profit school increase their profits? Location, opportunity, funding- Cherry picking

(Conahan’s role in the “cash for kids” scheme was to order the closing of a county-run detention center, clearing the way for
Ciavarella, once known as a strict “law and order” judge, to send young offenders to private facilities.)

Michael Conahan, a former jurist in Luzerne County, was sentenced on Friday to 210 months in custody by Senior U.S. District Court
Judge Edwin M. Kosik II. Conahan was also ordered to pay $874,000 in restitution. [...] As Main Justice reported in August, Ciavarella,
former president judge of the Court of Common Pleas and former judge of the Juvenile Court for Luzerne County, was sentenced to
28 years in prison and ordered to make restitution of $965,930.

Senate President Mike Haridopolos tried to fast track prison privatization last month — after trying to sneak it in through
the budget in 2011 — Senator Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey broke from the party ranks and helped kill the bill.

TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Commission on Ethics approved a settlement Friday with new Senate President Mike Haridopolos
in which he admitted failing to disclose assets as well as clients who paid him tens of thousands of dollars between 2004 and 2008.

That “the consulting business appears to be a very lucrative source of income. “Mike Haridopolos's
2008 ‘consulting’ income ($60,000) is twice his reported ‘senatorial’ salary ($30,000), and
even more than his reported ‘professorial’ salary ($58,000)”;

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2010/oct/27/ethics-commission-finds-probable-cause-to-back/?print=1

Haridopolos inflated the 2008 sales price of his Crooked Mile Road home, posted by Zillow at $1.025 million,
into a $1.2 million liability and $1.3 million asset;

Senator Mike Fasano (R) was stripped of his position as chair of the budget subcommittee overseeing prisons by
Senate President Mike Haridopolos after making anti-prison privatization remarks.

Sen. Fasano offered an amendment that would have gutted the bill and mandated a thorough fiscal analysis instead.
The 21 senators opposed to privatization -- the minimum number needed to pass an amendment -- stood by him. But then
a senator acquiesced, while promising to vote against the overall bill. Another senator defected, too, for a desired budget item.
Fasano’s amendment was defeated, 19-21, and leadership tried to persuade media the tide had turned.

Gov. Rick Scott tried to sway two former sheriffs, Sens. Charlie Dean and Steve Oelrich. One senator (who might be persuaded to oppose the bill)
was guarded by two other senators -- and had a posse of four large men at the door -- to keep proponents from getting to her. Another senator
avoided the Capitol until the start of session


Opponents laid out a persuasive case against the ill-conceived rush to privatize prisons. Proponents still promised a
“savings of 7 percent,” no matter the lack of analysis or historical evidence.

A bad bill, dressed with flimsy facts, went down to defeat.

Parent Empowerment Act- a bill that supposedly would have given parents a greater say in reforming public schools but which
looked suspiciously like a way for a national charter school company to line its pockets.
(In reality, the parents would have less oversight and less say.)

500,000 voters are hoping they successfully swayed the opinions of enough senators to get a negative vote on the Parent Empowerment Act
that would allow parents to take charge of a failing school and turn it over to a private company.

Senator Nan Rich, a Democrat (Weston, Florida)
Mar. 6, 2012
"This has nothing to do with empowering parents and everything to do with the hostile takeover of public education in Florida,"
Sen. Nan Rich said, adding that large for-profit charter school management companies are eyeing the billions of tax dollars
that could be theirs under the proposal.

Senate Rules Chairman John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, tried to fast track the bill to the Senate Floor. But the move was blocked by
Democrats led by Sen. Nan Rich and several Republicans led by Sen. Jack Latvala.

Like the Republican move against funding for birth control funding, and the maneuver that denied any woman to speak in favor for it,
Republicans structured the meeting to deny any parents from speaking against the Parent Empowerment Act

Senate Budget Chairman JD Alexander called for a time-certain vote.

"This is an important bill. We are putting a time certain on something that is going to affect our children’s’ lives forever? Horrendous."
-Republican Sen. Evelyn Lynn

An hour to tackle 13 amendements to the already controversial bill.

With five minutes left before the vote, Alexander asked if any parents in the room wanted to speak. A mom from Gainesville came forward
against the proposal. But she was cut off at 9:59 a.m. so the secretary could call the roll. There was no time for debate among lawmakers.

Sen. Alexander’s bait and switch
03.14.12

Senate Budget Chairman JD Alexander

"Alexander couldn’t have won a fair fight, and amendments to restore fair funding to USF would have been supported in the Senate —
but before any votes were taken, deals were made and senators swallowed the bait." Lakeland students flocked to Tallahassee
to oppose the measure, but their voices were drowned out by the budget chairman’s manufactured crisis. The Senate voted 35-4
to create the state’s 12th university without a campus, accreditation, faculty or students.

"I hope the governor vetoes the Polytechnic bill. It is a cost to taxpayers' unlimited amount of money," says Senator Fasano. "
(Alexander) pushed it through. He wanted to bring home a pet project. A pet project shouldn't cost taxpayers
hundreds of millions of dollars for years to come."

The professors at the Lakeland campus will be fired or, if they’re lucky, forced to relocate. The independent university,
without the connection to USF, won’t receive accreditation for years. Recruiters have to go as far as India
to find students interested in the university. And the proposed campus is a dirt lot.

For more than 20 years, the University of South Florida has operated a campus in Lakeland, giving thousands of students
the opportunity to earn degrees from a respected accredited university.

What persuaded Senator Alexander to change that?

Michael Long, the lone student member of the Florida Board of Governors, had just told the audience that Sen. J.D. Alexander
threatened to stop supporting higher education if the board didn't make the University of South Florida Polytechnic the
state's 12th public university. "He is leveling his power in the Legislature," Long said. "I do not feel very well
represented by J.D. and his comments."

In the weeks leading up to it, Long visited anyone who had voiced an opinion about the Lakeland campus's future,
including Alexander. He came armed with a list of questions.

One of them: What if this doesn't go through?

Alexander would later tell reporters that he never referenced any kind of "quid pro quo" and that he's sure the people of
Florida will see an independent polytechnic through even after he's out of power.

But according to Long, the senator answered like this:

Years ago, Alexander, who controls the state budget, wanted to bring a heart-health program to a hospital in his home district,
but it was derailed by someone from a university in another area. After that, he said, the school that fought against him
lost tens of millions of dollars.

The hearing-
The board had just heard from USF president Judy Genshaft, pleading to keep her campus together, and Alexander, who said
the school could not succeed under USF's thumb.

He (Long) went on to tell the packed house about a survey that showed a vast majority of USF Poly students wanted to graduate
with USF degrees and asked the board to vote down the split proposal.

But first, he leaned into his microphone and dropped a bomb.

"I met with J.D. Alexander," Long said. "And I had one question …"

(Long told the people gathered at the hearing what Alexander had said to him.)

Heading out of the room, Long said, the two (Long and Alexander) bumped into each other.

He said Alexander told him his actions were "highly inappropriate" and that he had just marred his future career.

They locked eyes for a moment, then went in separate directions.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/educat...counts-face-off-with-sen-jd-alexander/1201267

February 26, 2012

Florida's corporate tax-credit vouchers as an education reform that rapidly expanded beyond its original goal. The amount of
corporate taxes diverted statewide to private school vouchers for low-income students was capped at $50 million when the
program began in 2002. Lawmakers have repeatedly raised the cap. Benacquisto is sponsoring another $31 million increase
this year, pushing the voucher program up $250 million in diverted tax revenue.

The voucher expansion will allow 6,500 students to transfer out of public schools, shrinking their budgets.

At the same time, school districts are fighting legislation forcing them to turn over local property tax collections to charter schools.

Last year lawmakers allocated $55 million in state funds to charter school construction without providing any construction
money to traditional public schools.

But the largest pot of construction cash comes from local property taxes that districts are loath to share, especially after years
of declining tax collections that put many building projects on hold.

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20120226/ARTICLES/120229610/-1/entertainment?p=3&tc=pg

The results from the California-based Parent Revolution that successfully won a parent-trigger bill?

California was the first state to pass a parent trigger law, in January 2010. The primary force behind its passing
was Parent Revolution, which, according to its website, makes this promise to parents: “Organize half the parents
at your children's failing school to demand change, and we will stand with you and empower you to fight for the
great school your children deserve.”

Brownley got it half right: She wrote a provision that required parental involvement. But she forgot the part where you
actually give parents real power. Parents will not be fooled by patronizing measures and token gestures like this any longer.
Her provision serves the interests of bureaucrats and special interests, and it is an insult to parents and children in California.
It defends the status quo at the expense of children.

Brownley's actions make the case better than we ever could for why we need a parent trigger, and why we need a parent revolution.
Too often those in power stand for the interests of grown-ups, not kids.

It's not completely us against them. There are brave reformers on the inside such as Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles),
Senate President Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger,
L.A. school board member Yolie Flores and maybe even Assembly Speaker-elect John Perez (D-Los Angeles),
who gave a strong speech this week in favor of a real parent trigger.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/dec/16/opinion/la-oe-austin16-2009dec16

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Worker Laid Off By Mitt Romney Speaks In Boston

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj4YYhfqiRs

Mitt was happy! He got paid!

http://www.politicalruminations.com/images/gop2012/closeup-bain-capital-corporate-raiders.jpg

Raising money from outside investors
Use raised money to buy up struggling companies
Layoff workers/ Slashing worker benefits
Sell off pieces of the business
Sell the businesses for a profit
Leveraged buyout?
Borrow a huge amount of money to buy a company,
thereby weighing down the purchased company with debt.
See-
Romney's job- American Pad and Paper-
Bain bought the company in 1992, and seven years later, when Romney left Bain, American Pad and Paper
had seen two US plants shutter, lost 385 jobs, and was hobbled by $392 million in debt.

NBC's Brian Williams to Romney-
"Bain Capital, a company you helped to form, among other things, often buys up companies,
strips 'em down, gets 'em ready, and resells them, at a net job loss to American workers."

Mar 6, 2012

"The Real Romney," recent biography written by Boston Globe reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman,

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

March 26, 2012

Les Paul, born Lester Polsfuss in Waukesha, Wisconsin in 1915

1940s Epiphone Zephyr 7133 Klunker Guitar is part of Les Paul’s guitars and recording gear up for auction
Julien's Auctions in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Guitars from Les Paul's personal collection and recording equipment owned by the pioneering musician will be sold at auction.

Celebrity auctioneer Darren Julien says the sale includes rare guitars, effects pedals, mixing consoles and the
grand piano from Paul's home recording studio. Julien's Auctions in Beverly Hills, Calif., will host the sale June 8
and 9; June 9 would have been the Waukesha native's 97th birthday.

The guitars and equipment will be available for free public view at Julien's Beverly Hills location May 29 through
June 8, according to the auction house's website.

Julien's Auctions shows Les Paul’s 1975 original passport. This and other personal items owned by
the pioneering musician will be up for auction in June.


The auction benefits the New York City-based Les Paul Foundation.

http://www.jsonline.com/entertainme...ng-gear-up-for-auction-td4nvr4-144209875.html

http://www.artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=54428

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

The watercolor has remained in the private collection of the Eichenwald family for nearly eight decades

April 3, 2012

In the mid-1930s, the family fled the Nazi occupation of Europe and emigrated to New York.

Heinz Eichenwald joined the University of Texas Southwestern Medical faculty and later became chief of staff
at Children’s Medical Center and chief of pediatrics at Parkland Memorial Hospital. Dr. Eichenwald retired in 2006
as chairman and professor emeritus. September 12, 2011 Dr. Eichenwald, 85, died Thursday at his Dallas home.


"Dr. Eichenwald was a highly regarded specialist at Cornell University when he joined the UT Southwestern faculty in 1964."

- Dr. Kern Wildenthal, former president of UT Southwestern.

http://www.dallasnews.com/obituary-...tric-chairman-heinz-eichenwald-dies-at-85.ece


Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Joueur des cartes (A Card Player), 1892-1896. Watercolor on laid paper. Last seen in public in 1953

The watercolor study, Joueur des cartes, which was referenced in the exhibition catalogue but noted as
“whereabouts unknown”, is most closely linked to the two-figure version of the painting
that belongs to the Musée D’Orsay.

http://www.artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=54431

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

The Mike Wallace interviews-

Back to My Lai - 60 Minutes
Now, Colburn and Thompson return to My Lai with Mike Wallace to meet the survivors. ... Back to My Lai. March 29, 1998

Larry Colburn and Hugh Thompson, members of an Army helicopter crew, risked their lives in 1968 to save Vietnamese civilians from
American GIs during the My Lai massacre. Now, Colburn and Thompson return to My Lai with Mike Wallace to meet the survivors.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7380121n


And 30 years later, Mike went back to My Lai with Hugh Thompson and Larry Colburn, the two soldiers who put a stop to the massacre.

[A beautiful young woman and a very old woman approach]

[Mike Wallace said : "She wants to meet Mister Thompson. Well, here is Mr. Thompson."]

 

[NeverEndingMe]

When Wisc votes to keep their Gov, well, the world will be a better place.

Take that you union terrorist!

time to suck it up and pay for your own benefits! government fucktards must be fired!

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Asa (Ace) Earl Carter-

"In one eighteen-month period, his (Asa Carter's) followers joined in the stoning of Autherine Lucy on the University of Alabama campus,
assaulted black singer Nat King Cole on a Birmingham stage, beat Birmingham civil rights activist Fred Shuttlesworth and stabbed his wife,
and, in what was billed as a warning to potential black ‘trouble-makers,’ castrated a randomly-chosen, slightly retarded black handyman.

Wallace decides to keep Asa Carter at arm's length.

Asa Carter tries to get elected as Governor-"poor ol' redneck grandfather of ours, did not bow down and accept desegregation."
(He came in last.)

Carries a sign at the side of the parade route, where both races are parading, after 8 years of change. "White Children are being destroyed in our schools."

"Wallace is a phoney."

1974 he walked into FBI office- "I plan to make some money. I don't want anything to go wrong." He left Alabama.

He changed his uniform and "look." His sons become his nephews. He became an American stereotype of a Native American.

He changes his name, and writes something a bit different?

October 04, 1991
New York Times
Opinion page
The Transformation of a Klansman
Dan T. Carter

"What ye and me cares about has been butchered . . . raped,"(Josey) Wales
tells Ten Bears. "It's been done by them lyin', double-tongued snakes that run guv-mints. Guv-mints lie . . . promise . . . back-
stab . . . eat in youre lodge and rape youre women and kill when ye sleep on their promises."

Jackson Mississippi convention- He wrote a racist speech and it riled up the crowd enough for them to cheer and holler.
The speaker gave the racist speech everything he had.

ITVS.org/ PBS/ wgbh.org

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wallace/filmmore/transcript/transcript1.html

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Winter storm

Dec. 11, 1944.

21 Ontario deaths/ 53 deaths total

December 17, 2007

Freezing rain, snow and heavy winds smothered Eastern Canada on Sunday as a record-breaking storm slammed into parts of Ontario
and Quebec from the United States, cancelling flights, wreaking havoc on the highways and leaving at least one person dead.

Toronto usually receives approximately 30 centimetres of snow during the entire month of December. The snowfall likely trumped the
previous record of 28 centimetres set on Dec. 11, 1944.

Ohio Troubles

December 1944

The storm drops down into the United States, the huge Canadian cold front meets with a huge front from the South, full of moisture.

Temps drop to 30 degrees below zero. Greatest total December snowfall on record.

http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/073/mwr-073-01-0004.pdf

Cleveland temperatures dipped near record lows

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

McDonald's opened December 12, 1948. It was cheap food, but real food. In the early 1960s McDonald's came to the Boston area. It was cheap food,
but it was still real food. Real meat, real buns, real french fries. What was in the milk shakes? Real milk and ice cream!

My childhood taste buds told me the hamburger was not yummy like homemade BBQ. Something a little off-putting in the taste. (cheap waste meat?)
The bun was not delicious like bakery buns or grocery store buns. Squishy like Wonderbread. (What did Sunbeam do to the flour to make it so strange?)
The cheese was not appealing like grilled cheese. Sticky like glue and funny tasting. (the beginning of cheesefood?) The French fries were greasy
and floppy, but it tasted like a potato. (before industrial strength frying oil?) The milkshake was good and sweet, like ice cream. 45 years ago.

45 years ago, was the Golden Years of fast food. 45 years ago, farmers had their own farms and sold what they grew or raised. They were not powerless.
"The predominance of fast food restaurants changed the food supply chain all the way down to the farmer. McDonald's quickly became the single largest
buyer of beef, pork, potatoes and apples in the U.S. That gave them tremendous economic clout.

The message to new customers- Lets eat out! (1960–1965) Look for the Golden Arches! (1960–1967) Go for the Goodness at McDonald's (1962–1969)

The message shifts- You want it, need it, you gotta have a taste of McDonald's burgers (December 1, 2010 – present, Big Mac, Quarter Pounder, Angus )

translated- Our think tanks and chemical labs have turned you into Pavlov's dog- despite everything you know, you are too addicted to refuse.

Their parents ate McDonalds, they ate McDonalds, their children ate McDonald's, their granchildren ate McDonald's. Their great grandchildren are eating McDonalds?

45 years of profit for fast food. 45 years of human genetic shifting? You are what you eat? What happened to cow flesh you are eating?

What did the cow eat? What is in the flour? the veggies? The milk? The cheese?

Chemically modified fats,chemically modified sugars, highly processed, saturated with food processing chemicals, toxic substances,
hormones growth additives, antibiotics, Frankenfood, GMO. The flavorings are chemicals, because they are allowed to lie about that.

Ambulances are built to bear the extreme amount of weight, that some people are burdened with- expensive. Reinforced transport gurneys are built
to bear the weight- expensive. Mechanical lifting systems provided- expensive.

"Recently researchers from Cornell University found that obesity's health costs are much higher than previously thought. They reported
that obesity costs the nation $190.2 billion a year, or 20.6 percent of total U.S. health spending, doubling previous estimates. An
independent study reports that the Department of Defense spends more than $1.1 billion annually for medical care associated
with excess weight and obesity.

4.30.12

The additional medical spending due to obesity is double previous estimates and exceeds even those of smoking, a new study shows. "

Diseases- cancer, heart problems, diabetes. The poor are condemned to eat it. It is cheap. It is fast. It is available. What kind of health care do they poor get?

Where does McDonalds, and all of the other fast food corporations get their profits? Their employees?

How has employee rights and benefits changed at McDonalds, during the last 45 years?

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Does this sound familiar?

The corporate elite resort to using law enforcement as the violent arm of corporate power. Tear gas is used against American protesters.

Protesters brave bitter temps and snow, only to face brutal tactics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9inuaYlge0

Their signs read, "We Want Bread Not Crumbs," "Tax the Rich, Feed the Poor." The crowd was told to disperse.

None of the marchers was armed, but tear gas and fire hoses were used on the crowd.

Evictions were rampant throughout this period, and the previous week, marchers helped stop police from evicting an African American man from his home.

The 1% blames the 99% Some dislike paying into an unemployment fund. People who ask for a decent living wage, are labeled as greedy and lazy.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/...in-History-March-7-1932-The-Ford-Hunger-March

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

"To my astonishment, Jones skipped right past my introductory softballs and went straight for the hard issues. Almost immediately we
were discussing his techniques for resurrecting dead people. "I'd say, 'This is Jim. I love you,' " he told me. " 'We need you. Your family
needs you. We care.' " I asked what he was feeling at the time. "Deep concern. Deep empathy." With that, the dead -- all members of
his congregation -- would come back to life. Jones could sense "something in the eyes when they first begin to focus. They're tense.
And you say, 'It's all right. It's over."

"He acknowledged there had never been a doctor in attendance to verify a resurrection. It was his say-so that they had died,
and his say-so that they'd come back. When I heard the news six years later about all those dead people, I felt the weight of
a responsibility I hadn't fully lived up to."

- John Burks

"may carry threads of meaning for the millions who cannot comprehend the murders and suicides orchestrated by the Rev. Jim Jones."

- Tim Reiterman

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

The real motives behind Amendment One – it is against gays, not for marriage.

North Carolina approved a constitutional amendment Tuesday defining marriage solely as a union between a man and a woman,
becoming the latest state to effectively slam the door shut on same-sex marriages.

Underneath the amendment, other laws are saying that people who aren't married at all, they can't file for domestic abuse
cases, if they're living with their significant other.

North Carolina Same-Sex Marriage, Amendment 1 (May 2012)

The measure defines marriage in the state constitution as between one man and one woman, and bans any other type of
"domestic legal union" such as civil unions and domestic partnerships

North Carolina attitudes toward children- April 28, 2012

shawn harris/ baptist church/ fayetteville, north carolina

>> so if your son starts acting girlish when he's 4 years old and instead of squashing that (like a cockroach) and saying get outside
and dig a ditch because that's what boys do you, get out the camera and you start taking pictures of johnny acting like a female
and then you upload it to youtube and everybody laughs about it and the next thing you know, this dude, this kid s. acting out
childhood fantasies that should have been squashed.

can i make it any clearer? dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist , you walk over there and you crack that wrist.
man up. give him a good punch. (audience laughs with amusement) okay? you're not going to act like that. you were made by god
to be a male and you are going to be a male. and when your daughter starts acting too butch, you rein her in. and you say, oh, no.
oh, no, sweetheart. you can play sports. play them. play them to the glory of god. but sometimes you're going to act like a girl and
walk like a girl and talk like a girl and smell like a girl and that means you're going to be beautiful, you're going to be attractive.
you're going to dress yourself up.

crack that wrist
give him a good punch
rein her in

Violence and coercion- Join the church, marry in the church, conform and obey.

Freedom of choice?