PRAWN
Philadelphia Regional Anti-War Network
PRAWN Philadelphia Regional Anti-War Network |
|
| PRAWN Blog Associated website: Economics Blog for UFPJ-DVN Veteran's resources. This page summarizes available governmental, organizational and other resources and makes them easily accessible to those searching for assistance. PRAWN Flyer (PDF) Updated 20Feb2010 Information sheet on Austerity
Ray Torres is the director of the short film Beyond Credit Unions The film is
available for groups to show. Contact Ray at 215 753 9022 Study guide available from Christian-Jewish Allies: “Why Palestine Matters, The Struggle To End Colonialism” Also: Press Release
PRAWN's mission is to:
Local Resource Organizations
National Organizations Marlene
Santoyo's Political Allies Newsletter
30 May 11 19 May 11 18 Apr 11 28 Mar 11 6 Mar 11 16 Feb 11 29 Dec 10 5 Dec 10 4 Dec 10 30 Nov 10 16 Nov 10 11 Nov 10 16 Oct 10 17 Sep 10 11 Aug 10 12 Jul 10 6 Jul 10 5 May 10 21 Apr 10 14 Apr 10 30 Mar 10 27 Mar 10 11 Mar 10 19 Jan 10 10 Jan 10 30 Nov 09 13 Oct 09 3 Oct 09 17 Sep 09 6 Aug 09 7 Jul 09 10 Jun 09 31 May 09 13 May 09 29 Apr 09 9 Mar 09 28 Feb 09 14 Jan 09 6 Jan 09 26 Oct 08 16 Sep 08 15 Aug 08 31 Jul 08 13 Jul 08 20 Apr 08 23 Mar 08 15 Mar 08 6 Mar 08 28 Feb 08 18 Jan 08 9 Jan 08 17 Dec 07 15 Nov 07 5 Sep 07 30 Aug 07 15 Aug 07 2 Aug 07 24 Jun 07 24 Apr 07 20 Apr 07 15 Apr 07 12 Apr 07 21 Mar 07 16 Mar 07 21 Feb 07 16 Jan 07 8 Jan 07 28 Dec 06 13 Dec 06 8 Dec 06 28 Nov 06 17 Nov 06 10 Nov 06 24 Oct 06 13 Oct 06 7 Oct 06 29 Sep 06 19 Sep 06 13 Sep 06 23 Aug 06 11 Aug 06 1 Aug 06 26 Jul 06 7 Jul 06 2 Jul 06 20 Jun 06 6 Jun 06 1 Jun 06 23 May 06 13 May 06 2 May 06 Commentary Archives 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005 Webspace provided by 1&1 Internet Webmaster: Rich Gardner |
Upcoming Events |
Info, articles, etc. Turns out there was another moment of silence, when VP Pence spoke with great apparent emotion about how the Trump Administration cared so deeply about the Iranian people. No one brought it.
So I puttered around a bit on the internet to check on Finland's "free money" experiment (Yes, I checked out the right-wing Bretbart News, among others). The woman pictured here did indeed take a job that otherwise would have provided insufficient income (and was desperate for what to do when the experiment came to an end), but no, there was no real effect on unemployment, meaning that people look for more than just money when they look for work. As my mom said, work "gets people out of the house each day."
The essential fact of the matter that Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) dances around, is that there is a long ago-established procedure for getting more money for a project. The President can't get "enough" through that procedure, so he is taking an un-Constitutional shortcut that completely betrays everything that Jordan allegedly stands for!
Not too happy about the fellow replacing Heather Nauert as the UN Ambassador, but very pleased to see Nauert won't be taking that position. At least Nikki Haley was a governor for a considerable period.
It's impossible to look at Trump Administration preparations for securing the 2020 election in any sort of innocent light. There’s no way to avoid seeing this DHS move as a treacherous betrayal of American democracy by President Trump. He’s inviting hostile foreign powers to invade our elections, the heart of our sovereignty. His oath of office meant nothing to him.
What's amazing about a WaPo piece they quote extensively from here is how much of his policy work the President delegates.
Heh! Oh yeah! The Munich Security Conference is off to a real good start! Bwah-hah-hah! The Vice-President delivered greetings to the conference from the President and got a few seconds of dead silence.
Fox News was controlled by the younger George Bush, but the combination of eight years of a Democratic president, followed by two years of a weak Republican one, means Fox News has taken the initiative and has assumed command of the Republican Party.
Ahhh! Very, very good to hear this! Europe is fed up with the President trying to undermine the perfectly-satisfactory Iran deal.
"How
Trump's Off-The-Rails Presser Will Play In The Court Fight Over His
Border Move"
I support Bill Weld's campaign for president for exactly the same reason I oppose Howard Schultz, the Starbucks executive who wants to run as a liberal independent. Both of them threaten to split the vote, Weld on the conservative/Republican side, Schultz on the liberal/Democratic side. Besides, Weld was a popular Governor of Massachusetts who foolishly gave in to the then-fashionable notion of term limits and thereby bowed out of running for several more terms.
"Trump’s
Emergency Declaration Shows He Is Unfit for Office"
Lou Dobbs, a Fox Business Network host who frequently speaks to the president both through the screen and on the phone, expressed the premise of using a emergency order to circumvent democratic debate. "I really believe that the way forward here is for him to declare a national emergency, and simply sweep aside the recalcitrant left in this country," he said on air last month. "They have obstructed, resisted, and subverted for far too long.” (emphasis added) So the President is being counseled to choose between the country's version of what would keep us safe, that is, to defend the Constitution, or "Trump’s version of it invests in his own office unlimited authority to define security and carry it out as he alone sees fit."
A look back at the Obama presidency, when Republicans engaged in a lot of silly, overheated, hysterical language about Obama being "lawless" and an "imperial" president and engaged in Constitutional overreach. Yeah, good times!
"Republicans
distance themselves from Trump’s border wall ’emergency’" This constitutes a rather serious legal problem, the President's admission that he really didn't have to make an emergency declaration, but just found it was more convenient that to go through the usual procedures of, y'know, building support, carefully designing the Wall so that it would cause as little disruption, etc.
Just because a Bedouin village is officially "unrecognized" doesn't mean that it hasn't been in existence since at least the time when the land of Palestine was part of the Turkish Empire. .
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reportedly
said this morning, “You
can’t achieve peace and stability in the Middle East without
confronting Iran.”
Is the President really 6'3"? It would make him seem a bit healthier and in better shape, but Jeb Bush is 6'3" and if you look at pictures of the two of them together, Trump is clearly shorter than Bush. In any event, the President is now officially "obese." That is not a sign of good health!
"Curtailing
Trump War Powers, House Votes to End US Help to Saudi's Yemen War"
Woo hoo! Republicans are trying really hard to embarrass Democrats over Representative Ilhan Omar, but Democrats and she have long since dealt with her statement and the Rs have a really serious hypocrisy problem over them.
With about 630 days to go until the election, the press is off to a poor start. It reminds me of a piece I read back in the 90s about celebrities and their wearing "day off" clothing. Back during the early days of movies, celebrities would appear in public as indistinguishable from their movie characters. During the 90s, they adopted comfortable, casual clothing to wear in public as these were their "days off" (Actually, they were still "on duty" and always ready with good quotes). No, you can't learn anything meaningful about a candidate by observing their personal quirks during campaign season. Hoo boy! 630 days until the 2020 election and we're
getting So
stupid
SO early! A radio host asks Senator Harris a question and gets the
audience confsed as to when she smoked pot and when she listened to
Tupac. These two things did not occur at the same time. If one follows
the conversation carefully, she
didn't claim they did!
So who is the President likely to go with? The fellow who's been claiming for two decades without much evidence that Iran is a deadly and immediate threat or the intelligence agencies? Update: So in a conflict between facts and evidence and what the President wanted to hear, what he wanted to hear won out
Republicans will pile on all kinds of horse**** in order to keep pumping carbon into the atmosphere. The fellow who talks at the very end is good but Representative Cheney (Daughter of Dick) proves the strength of the case aganst taking action on climate change by putting out lots of disinformation.
Many people from both parties criticized the remarks of Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) as anti-Semitic, but six Republicans had some serious hypocrisy problems in doing so.
The two-year period of time when Republicans held the Presidency, the Senate and the House saw one big legislative achievement, a tax break that mostly benefited the wealthy. That one achievement is in serious public relations trouble right now.
"Trump
claims he is hard at work during ‘Executive Time’" Slurring candidate Elizabeth Warren with the name of a famouu Native American is seen as okay, Some seem to think this is harmless, like Native Americans disappeared in the 1880s or something. There are over 5 million Native Americans today, roughly equivalent to the number of Jewish Americans.
With Virginians split 47% to 47% on the governors 80s blackface photo, he isn't going anywhere. Heh! President tries to put himself on the side of African-Americans and against Virginia's Governor Northam. It does not go well!
"Reeling
from the shutdown and Trump’s tax law, Americans see 8.4% drop in
average tax refunds"
Sounds pretty accurate. MSNBC just gave a precise explanation of Trump's thinking: 'He views The Rule of Law as presidential harassment' To comprehend this, remember Trump's life is built on the premise that there are no rules that apply to him. He even cheats at golf Everything follows from that
Representative David Cicilline (D-RI) teaches a master class
in how
to interrogate a hostile witness.
The President accuses Democrats on yesterday's committee of acting with "hatred and scorn" towards AAG Whitaker. I'd say they were severely provoked by Whitaker's insulting conduct.
Saw people on TV discussing this case last night. This is exactly how you'd describe the American idea of religious non-discrimination to a 3rd-grader (8-9 years old). People about to be executed should get their choice of religious representatives to comfort them in their final hour. That's just such a basic concept and so easy for everyone to understand! Very happy to see that some conservatives are upset by the Ray decision. This is a very, very basic and fundamental legal principle, that all religions are equal under the law.
Very interesting. The former FBI agent figures Matt Whitaker was auditioning for the President to take on another role in the administration.
For the last two-plus years, Donald Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner has had one item in his portfolio, the Israel-Palestinian peace plan. Piece looks at the complications and difficulties with that.
Republican Congresspeople make an extremely underwhelming case for presidential privacy. The Executive Branch is subordinate to the Legislative Branch, especially when the Chief Executive is suspected of having committed crimes. No, there's no "dangerous precedent" being set by insisting on transparency.
Sounds like the Green New Deal is off to a very promising start. The authors had to thread a lot of needles. Fox News freaks out about the AOC plan to save the human race.
Wow! Candace Owens, a very, very deeply confused young woman says that Hitler would have been fine had he just stayed in Germany! Part of the problem is that she doesn't define nationalism versus globalism versus the Third Reich's nationalism versus what the marchers in Charlottesville were standing for. Update: Candace
Owens says: "first, they ignore me and then they left
laughed at me now they're fighting me." *From Robert Paxton's The
Anatomy of Fascism: "the need for authority by natural chiefs
(always male), culminating in a national chieftain who alone is capable
of incarnating the group's historical destiny." This is about as far
from Globalism as one can possibly get.
Aww, but how do ya really feel about Hillary vs Donald? remember how Hillary freaked the fuck out and threw a twitter shit-fit because the House was investigating her? of course you don't. she sat and calmly answered questions for eleven hours, because she hadn't done anything wrong and she's not an erratic whiny-ass bloated man-child
"The
House of Representatives Is Under New Management. They Aren't Wasting
Any Time."
The President complains that the last president never received "presidential harassment." Actually, as the blogger documents, Obama got lots and lots of such investigations!
"House
Intelligence approves releasing Russia transcripts to Mueller"
"Grand
Ayatollah Sistani Slaps down Trump: You may not use Iraq against its
Neighbors"
Thanks to Democrats being in control of the House, they held the first hearing on guns since 2011.
Good! House Democrats will re-open the Trump-Russia probe that House Republicans prematurely abandoned.
Speaker Pelosi gives a hilarious "Oh, he's so cute!" response to the claim of "ridiculous partisan investigations." Still more SOTU reaction.
Interesting. No copy of the SOTU was distributed beforehand, making real-time fact-checking more difficult. Huh! Wasn't
aware of this. President's big line of the speech was very similar
to that of Nixon's: “If
there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and
investigation. It just doesn't work that way.” Very impressive! Stacey Abrams delivered the SOTU response and clearly wrote it all out beforehand, didn't change anything. Nice touch with having the people in the background. Lots of good ol' American sentiment. Speaker Pelosi said it would take DAYS to fact-check all the lies in the SOTU. A factchecker: “Not much was new. We were done by 11:30." Interesting criticism, reflective of the fact that the SOTU was written in a rushed manner. It was supposed to be about charging ransom for reopening the government. Lot of good critiques: Good summary of the SOTU. Our local paper headlined: "Bipartisan call amid rancor," and there was a bit of softening, but lots of areas where the President let his partisan flag fly.
"Howard
Schultz Has A Sad About Being Called A Billionaire"
"Welcoming
Girls, Boy Scouts Program Is Now Scouts BSA" More evidence that the President's a wannabe dictator. Why, with a rubber-stamp Republican majority in the Senate, does he need "flexibility" for his appointments?!?!?!?!
I was just short of being 30 years old when the Berlin Wall
fell in
1989. During the time before then I was very much aware that for a
person to escape from Eastern Europe was a PR problem for that region
as it made it impossible to portray the people on that side of The Wall
as living happy, fulfilled lives. Saudi Arabia now
has that problem, compounded by the fact that the recently escaped
Saudi teenager, Rahaf Mohammed, is
transmitting pictures of her new, happy life in Canada. Whoo wee! This is a "Baghdad Bob" level
of
obliviousness! What's the Press Secretary talking about "most
productive Pesident in modern history"?
Good! Democrats are making a fuss about climate change!
"U.S.
Announces Pullout Of Intermediate-Range-Nuclear-Forces Treaty With
Russia" "Trump
hands Putin gift in missile
treaty withdrawal"
“BREAKING:
Gov. Ralph Northam
yearbook page shows blackface and Klan photo." Governor Northam will
try to stay in office. Democrats have zero
motivation to keep him there as he has a good Lieutenant Governor who
would make a perfectly decent replacement.
"AOC
to Howard Schultz: Billionaires who want to be president should run
for city council first" "Top
Ten Reasons Saudi Women are Running away from their Country"
As a newsperson said the other day, this isn't just amazingly
unprecedented. We've
never had a president
who showed so little
interest in such an important presentation as the conclusions of
all of the intelligence heads. It's clear from reading
these other posts
that the President is getting all of his information on this second
and third-hand. January A look at the President vs our intelligence services. The UN sides with our intelligence services.
Long-time political journalist Ron Fournier has long been the punchline for "Both Sides," the idea that most political disagreements are unnecessary squabbles that can and should be settled by the "grown-ups in the room." Hey, whaddaya know? Fournier was a Republican all along!
Sure looks as though, as the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell just plain hates democracy. I sort of understand where he's coming from. When voting is light, that favors Republicans. When everybody and his brother votes, that favors Democrats. So the GOP is stuck with the bad optics of appearing to be against democracy.
Wow! The actor James Woods has some serious problems with misogyny! Also, this piece goes into the rumor that, before her political career started, Kamala Harris went out with a much older man. He probably did help her career a bit, but it was ultimately her own qualities that got her the first political position she ran for.
"Trump
administration’s claim that new sanctions won’t hurt ordinary
Venezuelans is ‘just a lie’"
You know that someone's case is really weak when his examples are “Huey Long in Louisiana” and “the Black Panthers in Philadelphia.” Long was a prominent figure from the 1920s and 30s. The New Black Panthers (The old Black Panthers of the 1970s considered them to be pathetic jokes) were a really tiny group that was featured far more more on Fox News than anywhere else.
Speaker Pelosi is trusted more than the President is. Historically speaking, for a Speaker of the House to be more popular than a President is utterly unprecedented.
The last three leaders of the Soviet Union before Gorbachev were all really old men whose thinking was stuck back in the 1930s. Likewise, the US is now being run by really old men whose thinking is still stuck on fossil fuels, as though renewable energy didn't exist.
Congratulations to the new CIA Director Gina Haspel and frankly, all of the intelligence agency heads for telling it like it is and not confirming any of the President's talking points.
Fred Kaplan's a long-time military writer for Slate. I agree. Getting involved in Venezuela could be a really bad idea.
Hmm. Okay. Bad prediction on my part. SOTU is set for the 5th.
"Fox's
Jeanine Pirro Attacks Mueller For Supposedly Tipping Off CNN On Stone
Arrest"
Well yeah. Fighting for children is a great thing, but as people here point out, the First Lady's crusade suffers from serious problems of hypocrisy and double standards.
First off, the Center for Disease Control does
not agree with this
doctor's central assertion, that it's always unnecessary to have an
abortion during the third trimester. "Remarkably there's a
group of female physicians and nurses who have come out very hard,
trying to threaten my career," Hamada explained. "I've
gotten some death threats, which I don't really take
seriously." Sorry, but I find it very, very highly unlikely that any doctor, woman or man, would make a death threat to another doctor over an abstract disagreement. I just don't find that this guy is the slightest bit credible.
Concerning the confrontation between the Native American drummer and the high school kids, people say that we should watch the whole set of tapes. I know people who did and bloggers have commented on them. No, Pink is right. The rest of the tapes don't tell us anything that wasn't already obvious. The punks who jeered at the Native American veteran were also witnessed yelling at women earlier because they were involved with the anti-choice march.
The President is acting to protect natural gas pipelines at the very moment when we really should be building fewer of them. Natural gas is fine as long as it doesn't escape into the atmosphere prior to having been burned. Problem is, when it does escape, methane is an even worse greenhouse gas than carbon is. Enough escapes on an annual basis that we're really better off not using it at all. We need to replace all fossil fuels with wind, solar, etc.
Three cheers for Qatar! Very cool! "Qatar Convinces Israel, Hamas to let it Aid 94,000 Poor Gaza Families" Hmm. I don't think what the President complains about is so much that Democrats are all loyal to their leader and Republicans were a bunch of "rats," but that Speaker Pelosi was able to convince her members that the President was playing a very weak hand and all they had to do was wait him out.
Very interesting. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin was asked
to
brief the House Ways and Means Committee on the impact that the
shutdown was having and failed to show up. But it appears that the
shutdown was very
expensive.
Seems Speaker Pelosi knows more than she's allowed to tell us.
So the Fascism Watch is now set at five minutes of. That's actually GOOD news as the previous setting was at one.
An examination of the President's concession speech on the shutdown. Heh! “Smart walls.” Uh-huh!
If it wasn't obvious before, the appointment of Elliot Abrams makes it quite clear that US action in Venezuela have nothing to do with democracy or the will of the Venezuelan people.
Whether you think the 2016 campaign coverage was excessively focused on "Her Emails" or not, Hillary Clinton's handling of classified information and email protocols was absolutely sterling and highly professional compared to the Trump Administration's security clearance process. Some guy in the administration essentially just rubber-stamped at least 30 clearances for people who probably should not have gotten them. This is especially glaring for the President's son-in-law Jared Kushner. Fortunately, we now have a Democratic House and this will be looked into.
Talking about all of the stars of Fox News: "Those prime-time personalities [on Fox News] for the most part have proven themselves over time to be more trouble than they’re worth."
So, why all the lies?
Seeing more of the "they are being arrested for lying, not for X crime" line. One, it's a start. Two, why lie about so many things if they weren't crimes? They lied because they knew the truth would get them in deep shit—and it probably still will.
A few weeks ago, the blog Daily Kos delivered a huge amount of roses for Speaker Pelosi. In this blog post, bloggers explain why. She gives off a flighty, confused appearance. Believe us, it's ALL appearance! Any appearance that she doesn't know what she's doing is all smoke and mirrors.
Nice, clear picture of Ultima Thule. That 20-mile long rock that's about six hours away at light speed.
"After vowing to never cave in shutdown fight, Trump caves" Complete cave. No wall. Saw Speaker Pelosi and Minority Leader Schumer at their press conference. Thought Pelosi was smart not to do a victory lap. The President's ego probably suffered a really hard blow. But hey, he was playing a very weak hand and it was just getting steadily worse. Right-wingers furious.
Any appearance that Speaker Pelosi doesn't know what she's
doing is all appearance.
"FAA
Shuts LaGuardia Due To Trump Shutdown" Jared "Kushner's
security clearance was rejected by security specialists—until they were
overruled" See, here's the problem. Immediately after World War II and
for a
substantial period afterwards, the US reigned supreme and was
unchallengeable. That's no longer the case. Russia
is warning the US not to try and overthrow the government of Venezuela.
Besides which, it's just as wrong for
the US to change the government of Venezuela by force as it was for
Russia to change ours by stealth and guile. It's now no longer the
case that the US can simply do as it pleases. Other countries "have
a dog in that fight" and will no longer watch helplessly as the US does
what it wishes.
Federal workers stage
a silent vigil Senate office building. "Trump:
Pelosi Cancelling State Of The Union Is 'A Great Blotch' On The
Country" A short while ago, a group of three people, Senate Majority Leader Mitchell, VP Pence and Jared Kushner, tried to come up with a solution to the shutdown. Democrats rejected their ideas out of hand. Now, the Trump Administration is trying to do in foreign policy what it did in domestic policy, to have a conference where only friendly participants are invited. It's working about as well as the previous proposed all-Republican working group did.
Lara Trump (Second son Eric's wife) says: "the president is
trying every single day to come up with a good solution here" Were voters impressed with Lara Trump's speech? Hah! Not
in the slightest.
Democratic Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, puts
herself on the
correct side of the issue by visiting the place where furloughed
federal workers are being fed. No one on the Republican side showed
anywhere near as much common sense. Wher
was Mitch? Trying to pull a bait-and-switch.
The "Both Sides" framing of the shutdown is very helpful to the hostage-taking President. No one else is helped by it. This is one of those things that appears to be neutral, but only the side that's plainly in the wrong is helped by it.
An accounting of all of the unarned protesters from Gaza killed by Israel sniper fire since March.
The blogger watches all the video on the confrontation involving Native American activist and elder Nathan Phillips and a crowd of high school students from Covington, Kentucky. He concludes that the detailed picture drawn from all of the videos is a bit different from the picture drawn by the initial viral video, but not by all that much. Mostly, the whole incident shows a complete failure of chaperoning. The behavior of the students before the confrontation shows
them to be just
a vicious set of thugs.
Sometimes, when I see someone in the media, I wonder a bit as to their ethnicity. I never worry too much about it. The "cosplay socialist" here gets all deep and serious about Senator Kamala Harris, who has just declared she's running for President. Is she an African-American? Ehh, close enough. I think when people meet her they assume she's black, so I just don't see much of a point in getting all specific about exactly what her ancestry is.
Sorry, I know that Representative Tulsi Gabbard gets lots of love from fellow progressives, but the blogger is right. Gabbard is a Joe Lieberman-style Fox News Democrat with a bad case of "Both-sides-ism."
"Trump,
Pence Honor MLK Day With Two-Minute Visit To Memorial"
Situation for furloughed federal workers on 30th
day of shutdown. Not good. Not good at all.
Fox News person Tomi Lahren makes
a really stupid comment
about how "useless" marches and rallies are. Twitter user responds "I
would really like to know how you, a woman, think you got the right to
work and vote."
Archive
- sidebar items
|
