PRAWN
Philadelphia Regional Anti-War Network
PRAWN Philadelphia Regional Anti-War Network |
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| PRAWN Blog Associated website: Economics Blog for UFPJ-DVN PRAWN Flyer (PDF) Updated 20Feb2010 PhillyIMC flyer (PDF) Updated 29Jan2011 Information sheet on Austerity Pampered Chef cooking supplies and treats. Brief history of PRAWN Contacting us: Sign up for our RiseUp unmoderated discussion/events list serve. It also has archives sokk you can also check up on discussions. Non-members can post to this list, but those posts will be moderated. Or sign up for our Yahoo events-only list serve. This is also unmoderated, so we depend on discretion being used when posting. Webmaster & miscellaneous questions. 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 "Political Allies Newsletter" email listserve which is sent out a few times a month. There are actions you may want to support & local, national & international articles, most of which are not printed in the Phila Inquirer or NY Times. Topic titles are listed. You may read any portion, file away for another time or delete any or all. To subscribe, if in the Philadelphia area: send a blank message to this address. To subscribe If OUTSIDE the Philadelphia area then send a blank message to this address. Webspace provided by 1&1 Internet Webmaster: Rich Gardner |
Upcoming Events March & Demonstration in Support of Public Schools
11:30am Wednesday 23 May MSB Plaza - 15th St & JFK Blvd Stand for Children! Stand for Public Schools! The School District is using the budget as an excuse to privatize our schools! seiu32bj.org Please sign up A timeline of right-wing violence and violent statementsstarting in
June 2008.
WikiLeaks - The Afghan War DiaryThis is an extraordinary secret compendium of over 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010. The reports describe the majority of lethal military actions involving the United States military. They include the number of persons internally stated to be killed, wounded, or detained during each action, together with the precise geographical location of each event, and the military units involved and major weapon systems used. Britain's The Guardian reports on
400,000 documents released concerning Iraq Huffington Post summarizes Wikileaks undergoes very serious battle for its corporate existence after revealing diplomatic secrets. 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 Just
look
at
what
the U.S.
Government
and
its
friends are willing
to do and capable of doing to someone who challenges or defies them --
all without any charges being filed or a shred of legal
authority. They've blocked access to their assets, tried to
remove them from the Internet, bullied most everyone out of doing any
business with them, froze the funds marked for Assange's legal defense
at exactly the time that they prepare a strange international arrest
warrant to be executed, repeatedly threatened him with murder, had
their Australian vassals openly threaten to revoke his passport, and
declared them "Terrorists" even though -- unlike the authorities who
are doing all of these things -- neither Assange nor WikiLeaks ever
engaged in violence, advocated violence, or caused the slaughter of
civilians.
The consquences of Bush Administration economic policies and of the Obama Administration's faiilure to reverse those policies  |
Info,
articles, etc.
It's becoming clear that JP Morgan made a bet that's only legal because the president of JP Morgan lobbied against precisely the rule that would have prevented that disastrous loss. Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren says: Restore Glass-Steagal!!!! (The Depression-era rule that banks that take consumer deposits aren't permitted to play finncial games with that money) Warren makes the case for "boring" banking policies. Yee-hah to that!!!! The claim is that Mitt Romney can run the US economy because he was such a great businessman. But as an Obama campaign ad points out: "...even when companies collapsed, Bain made money—and they often made it at the expense of employees and taxpayers." Very happy to see that the ACLU is challenging the "No-Fly List," which always struck me as a tyrannical overreach. Kind of amusing that after making a major stink about Obama "not being vetted," right-wingers are complaining that the "liberal media" is vetting Romney. Mitt Romney, seen here forcibly cutting the hair of a classmate. In a video that was shot a month before Republican Govenor of Wisconsin Scott Walker said he had to eliminate collective bargaining because the fiscal state of the state demanded it, he explicitly declared that he was against collective bargaining, period. Walker says he doesn't want to pursue an anti-union "Right to Work" law, but he was very clearly dishonest by refusing to reveal that he was going after public-sector unions to begin with. Oh, good grief! Now Roman Catholic bishops are opposed to the Girl Scouts!! Some blithering idiot who has been pulling in $100 million a year made a stupid trade and lost $2 billion for his company. Big problem is that the FDIC might have been on the hook to cover that loss. Did J.P. Morgan Chase break the rules? Their president isn't sure. Shouldn't the rules be much tighter? President Obama comes out in favor of marriage equality between gays and straights! What are Obama's motives? Who cares? He did the right thing, leave it at that. Update: Moving tribute as to what Obama's declaration meant to a lesbian. Senator Dick Lugar (R-IN) is now history as he lost his state's Republican primary. Good riddance to an old Confederate and why is bipartisanship such a big deal anyway? What we need less of is bipartisan compromise, what we need more of are sound, reasonable positions that are adopted out of principled self-interest. 93-year old PA woman gets purse stolen, thereby losing her photo ID. She therefore can't vote in next election. She's the lead plaintiff in lawsuit against state. Good Obama campaign ad. Demonstrates that government plays a needed and legitimate role in economy. Sorry, but I have absolutely zero sympathy for Colin Powell and his UN speech about having "irrefutable" evidence that Iraq had WMD. He has no excuse for not having known better. I'm sure we've all seen the map of military bases surrounding Iran, RT adds some narrative detail to the map. Mitt Romney - FAIL!!! Romney tries to make it sound as though he wanted the openly gay Richard Grenell to remain on Romney's campaign staff, but that Grenell wanted to leave. Yes, Grenell resigned, but that was because Romney failed to stand by his hired staff member, meaning Romney won't stand up to far-right wing people for anyone or anything. Update: Gay Bush ambassador piles on! President Obama makes surprise visit to troops and says US will be in Afghanistan two more years. United Methodist Conference (Happens once every four years) concludes that Israel is wrong to occupy Palestine as it does, but won't take any real action to stop the occupation. Truly pathetic. Americans Elect, the centrist group that's trying to find a conservative Democrat or liberal Republican to run against both parties, is facing massive indifference. Somehow, amazingly enough, they managed to spend $9 million on a website. Bwah-hah-hah!!! Mitt Romney FAIL! Romney appoints an openly gay fellow to advise him on foreign policy and national security, but completely blows opportunity to demonstrate that he's tough enough to stick by the guy. The Two Pauls - Krugman vs. Ron Paul. Major May Day actions around the country by Occupy movement. April
Mitt Romney slams stimulus, but doesn't
appear
to
have a firm grasp on just what it is that he doesn't like
about it. Romney claims that he played a decisive role in the
successful auto bailout. Erm, not
so
much, actually. Excellent piece on how Afghan
rebels
are
in
2012 while US Army is in Vietnam circa 1967. The Republican Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI)
desperately defends himself against the
charge
that
his
budget
is immoral as per Roman Catholic clergy. Europe begins
to
wonder: "Is austerity really what we should be doing?!?!?!"
Answer, of course, is "No!" Beginning of presidential campaign ends as Romney finishes up
primary campaign, establishes
firm
status as the Republican nominee and enters general election
campaign. Not at all clear what he stands for, though. Rush Limbaugh's latest attack on Sandra Fluke so ridiculous, even a Fox News panel laughs at him. Anti-feminist Katie Roiphe contributes weird essay and
Newsweek contributes cover photo to allegedly, supposedly, tell us what
women
and/or
feminists
really
want. Is that to have "physical
safety, economic security, political representation, and personal
autonomy"? Ha, ha, ha! Of course not. Newsweek deserves to cease to
exist for putting out crap like this. Hmm, lot's of people getting into trouble with relgious
authorities. Rep. Paul Ryan shrugs
off the Roman Catholic Bishops who criticized his budget proposals
as being un-Christian (Catholic Bishops then dishonored
themselves by suppressing group of nuns who dared take issue with
Church teachings) and Roger Ailes, who
runs Fox News, gets criticized by Jewish justice organization. Woo-hoo! Thomas Friedman wins the coveted "Wanker of the Decade" award! (I kid, of course. "Wanker" is an insult). Does Ann Romney "work" by raising children? Wel-l-l-, that
depends
on
who's
doing
the
work. If you're a wealthy, married
housewife, you're working. If you're doing it for someone else for a
salary, you're merely a minimum-wage worker. If you're monetarily poor
and/or unmarried, you're a burden on society, a welfare cheat. A round-up with
a
focus on Hillary Rosen's statement on Ann Romney. NROs John Derbyshire contributes a screed so blatantly racist
that even his NRO colleagues feel obliged to weigh in on how nakedly
racist it is. Angry Black Lady provides an
annotated
version so that we know what he's really thinking when he
says stuff like this. Gotta say, this is very,
very
good
news about ALEC, the right-wing, pro-corporate
group that's been writing legislative templates for right-wing
politicians to use around the country and that has been linked to the
death of Trayvon Martin. Also, supporters of ALEC take hits over ALEC's
support of Voter
ID
laws that act far more to suppress legitimate votes than
anything else. Now that Mitt Romney has the Republican nomination for
President pretty much in the bag, it's time to look at potential
Republican Vice Presidents. Not
looking
good. G.W. Bush's former budget director seems to be about
the best of a very sorry lot. Yowza! And we thought American conservatives hated their government! Russian wants to send Moscow to Siberia! President Obama gives a great speech. He finally seems to have realized that there's simply no percentage in trying to compromise with the other side. Of course, Rep. Paul Ryan, the guy in charge of the Republican budget, doesn't like Obama's speech at all. Gotta love that whole "pro-life killer" shtick. The "War on Women" is
taking
a
toll on the front-running Republican candidate. Romney
responds by
promoting
wife to "rock star" status. Romney claims
wife can defend Republicans better than he can. The original Black Panther Party wishes to make it clear that
the New Black Panther Party is an unauthorized pretender
that has absolutely zero
claim to having anything whatsoever
to do with the original BPP. Any deficit plan of the future is going to resemble the
Bowles-Simpson (B-S plan) plan because there just aren't that many
choices. The B-S plan is still an
awful,
crappy
plan that no one should support. Generally good timeline
of the Trayvon Martin case, but it makes assertions about George
Zimmerman being wounded on February 26th that are shown by April 2nd to
be completely false. Much better summary here.
Major
problem
with
the
case
is
that
Zimmerman
has
not
been
taken
into custody, apparently because of Florida's "Stand
Your
Ground" law, which at least Zimmerman believed, protected him
from any legal liability for the cold-blooded, shooting murder of an
unarmed teenager. Of course, racism plays a huge
role in the case. Mar Jonah Goldberg has put out a new book(Goldberg's previous big work was Liberal Fascism). Problem: Goldberg confuses progressives with centrists and Villagers and the Obama Administration. Hint: These things are not the same. American politics is not split into just two, binary pieces. There are numerous, distinct, political groupings. Paul Krugman's comments on ALEC. Man, these guys are behind just about every questionable legal movement that's occurred during the Obama Presidency. And no, as expected, Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) latest "budget plan" is nothing of the kind. Essentially, it's a campaign document, nothing that's meant to be taken seriously. Further commentary. Whuuh? Nine years after the US invasion of Iraq and things are worse than ever?!?!? Wow! What a surprise! [/snark] In aftermath of a US soldiers' slaughter of Afghan civilians, our "embedded media" is anxious to "disappear" a warning from the US Army's top commander in Afghanistan, General John Allen, that makes the massacre entirely explicable and not "deranged" at all. Afghan President Hamid Karzai plays a double game, denouncing US troops as "demons," but offering permanent bases. Very importantly though, the demand for an end to night raids appears to be a non-negotiable demand that could spell the end of US involvement in Afghanistan. Democrats robustly defend Medicare from Republican (And one Democrat) attack. Rick Santorum decides upon a jihad/crusade against porno. Slight problem: The consumption of porno grew at the same time that the incidence of rape/sexual assault shrank. Police very violently toss Occupiers out of Zuccotti Park. Bloggers give further thoughts on future of movement. Ever since the death of Andrew Breitbart, the right-wing media has been trying, unsuccessfully, to create some sort of scandal out of Breitbart's plans to "vet" Obama (Yes, "vetting" is normally done before someone takes office). BTW, the traditional media reporter Soledad O'Brien did some really good pushback to a Breitbart minion, only to get trashed by right-wing pundits. The catch-22 concerning Missile Defense and relations with Russia is that the US says MD is not aimed at Russia, but at the same time, the US will not share information on MD that would allow Russia to defeat MD. It's kinda hard to take US assurances seriously. Heh! It's pretty difficult to maintain the talking point about the "Obama bear market" when the market refuses to reman bearish. Rick Santorum dishonestly and dishonorably describes his professors at Penn State. And yup, really, truly, Santorum is "The finest mind of the 13th Century." It's long past time to simply leave Afghanistan. Not really sure exactly what's being accomplished there to begin with. Rush Limbaugh's advertising exodus becomes a flood as Limbaugh is left with drips and dregs of advertisers. Is Bill Maher even remotely comparable to Limbaugh in this respect? Not in terms of the length of his attack (Limbaugh launched 46 personal attacks on Sandra Fluke oer three days), Maher's insults were one-times, nor is Maher anywhere near as prominent on the Demcratic side of the aisle as Limbaugh is on the Republican side. BTW, the advertising exodus isn't only from Limbaugh's show. Advertisers are reconsidering right-wing hate talkers in general. The Inky is running the Doonesbury strip this week that concerns a woman trying to overcome numerous obstacles in order to get an abortion. Numerous papers aren't. HBO is running Game Change, about McCain's choice of Palin as his Vice-President. It's getting good reviews. Heh! John McCain gives his side of it. "I thought she was the best
qualified person," McCain insisted.
Rush Limbaugh apologizes to Sandra Fluke... sorta, kinda, ehh, not really. Notable statement: I think it is absolutely absurd
that during these very serious political times, we are discussing personal sexual recreational activities
before members of Congress. [emphasis added]
No, nobody except Limbaugh discussed "sexual recreational activities." That was his personal contribution to the discussion. Sandra Fluke's testimony very
specifically pointed to other uses for it, including treatment of
PCOS...
And his excuse, that he's an entertainer, might have some validity if his "jokes" were, y'know, funny. They're not, they're mean and cruel. And does Limbaugh really object to bringing up sex before Congress? Not so much, actually. Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) used her influence badly and will not be missed. She proved that moderation without principles is worthless. "Do not speak ill of the recently departed" would be a nice policy to uphold. Of course, Andrew Breitbart did no such thing. The refusal of traditional media to take any sort of stand on what he meant is becoming less and less of a safe stand. Update: Matt Taibbi has no respect for Breitbart and says so, gets his wiki hacked and receives prank phone calls in response by Breitbart fans. Sandra Fluke responds to the disgusting ad hominem attacks against her launched by Rush Limbaugh. "Slut-shaming" seems to be becoming official Republican policy. Speaker Boehner is asked to denounce Limbaugh's statements and well, he sorta, kinda does. Good to see Carly Fiorina, who ran on the Republican ticket, break ranks with Republicans to denounce Limbaugh. Archive
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