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. My own "man-style" recipes (Very straightforward and easy to prepare). I kinda like this as an anthem for the left these days. 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:
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Democrats of America - Conference Calls of the End Wars &
Occupations IOT Sep2013 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 6 December 12:00noon - 1:00pm Held at the corner of 19th & JFK Boulevard 1st & 3rd Fridays of each month - all are invited to attend link
Drone Free HorshamNext protest: Saturday 27 December 12:00noon to 2:00pm North corner of Horsham Air Base Intersection of Easton Road & W. County Line Road Facebook event page YouTube - Living Under Drones Our first, third and fourth protests.
Occupy Sandy RecoveryOccupy Sandy is a coordinated
relief effort to help distribute resources &
volunteers to help neighborhoods and people affected by
Hurricane Sandy. We are a coalition of people &
organizations who are dedicated to implementing aid and
establishing hubs for neighborhood resource distribution.
Members of this coalition are from Occupy Wall Street,
350.org, recovers.org, InterOccupy.net and many individual
volunteers. Donate 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. The organization ALEC seems to be doing pretty poorly lately. Good! We need to keep the pressure on! Neil Cavuto of Fox News feels that we're spending quite enough on infrastructure, thank you very much. The American Society of Civil Engineers disagrees and feels that infrastructure spending is woefully underfunded. Also, it's far from clear that most insfrastructure spending is stolen or "lost." It's not for love of big government that infrastructure spending should be boosted, it's that once you build it, it's irresponsible not to maintain it. Chuck Todd proves himself to be a true “Villager” by picking up Republican talking point about the private sector always being better and more efficient than public sector. The corporate wing of the Democratic Party, the group “Third Way” takes on the “populist political and economic 'fantasy'” of Democrats like New York Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). Senator Warren responds. After three years of the most unproductive Congress EVER, Republicans are trying to re-brand failure as success. How's the Affordable Care Act website doing? Doing pretty good, judging by the fact that Republicans have abandoned their attacks on it and have moved on to those ol' reliable standbys, Benghazi and the IRS. Further possible contributing cause to abandoning crusade is that Consume Reports has endorsed the website. November Wow! Pope Francis just gets more and more impressive all the time! Conservatives, natch, are furious with him. A piece on things progressives can be cheerful about. *Sigh*. Hannity "Goes Godwin" on us and invokes Hitler and Chamberlain. What are his positive, workable suggestions for getting along with Iran? No word on that, of course. And speaking of Hannity, Megyn Kelly replaced him in his slot, promising to be more balanced than he was. How's she doing? Her guests are measurably more conservative than Hannity's were. Her version of "Fair & balanced" is even less so than his was. From the piece: "Wisconsin and Minnesota offer a handy case study for competing approaches to governance – at the same time, in the same region, with roughly the same population." And Minnesota is currently WAY ahead! Worst nightmare come true for the Republican Party EVER! This fellow is in a solidly-red Republican district and getting Obamacare/ACA coverage affects him personally in such a positive way, that he's ready to switch and to vote for a Democrat! Good review of book by Chris Matthews on Tip 'n' Ronnie. I especially agree with:
Deal reached with Iranians! Woo hoo! Neocons VERY unhappy. Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu also quite unhappy about deal. Right-wingers want to grab some of the halo around John F. Kennedy by pretending that he was conservative. He wasn't. Excellent piece on the partial death of the filibuster. Yeah, it's a terrible thing, but no one seemed to have had any other sort of answer to Republican obstructionism. Good news on the ACA/Obamacare! It's "bending the cost curve" in the right direction. Uh! The stupid! It hurts! Good! Very happy to see this (Democrats exercise “nuclear option” to eliminate filibuster for most nominations) finally happen. And no, the Republicans have no one to blame but themselves. Thoughts on the demise of the filibuster. Oh good grief! First the traditional media (I refuse to use their preferred term "mainstream") compares a glitch website to Hurricane Katrina, now they're using the Iraq War?!?!?! To the trad med: PLEASE stop trying to come up with comparisons!!!!! Key Democratic Senators have finally had enough and appear ready to trigger “nuclear option.” CNN's Candy Crowley repeats the idiotic talking point that the glitchy ACA website is just like Hurricane Katrina. Paul Begala quite properly refers to people who say such things as bed-wetting chicken littles. Methodist Church trial of pastor who performed gay son's marriage ceremony reaches (bad) conclusion very quickly. A significant no-news story. Republicans were CONVINCED that the personnel that were present at the Benghazi tragedy knew important, damning details. Interviews took place and nothing meaningful was uncovered. Wow! How incredibly sad! Walmart store holds charity drive for employees as the company doesn't pay enough for them to purchase a good Thanksgiving dinner! What really struck me about Liz Cheney's refusal to support her sister's marriage was the complete lack of an articulable reason for doing so. Methinks political expediency is the real reason. Cheney family takes right approach. The polls on Wisconsin residents shows they're as Republican red as a state can be, but being against marriage equality is NOT a sure winner! In fact, Cheney's stance could very easily be a lose-lose scenario, a stance that BOTH makes her look like she's tossing family under the bus AND like she's behind the times! An absolutely adorable little kid plays Batman for a day and shows us the cultural strength of geeks and their superhero culture. Sarah Palin strongly suspects the media of misquoting Pope Francis. Considering the 1991 case of Masson v. New Yorker Magazine. I don't think deliberate misquotation is that likely. Usually, when prominent people are quoted (That is, people who will read your piece and will get back to you if you've wrongly quoted them), it's a pretty good bet the quote is genuine. Oprah definitely has a good point here, but if you look at how Clinton was treated back in the 90s, I think that a very large part of how Obama is treated is due to his just plain being a Democrat. Republicans demonstrate their true agenda concerning the ACA by rejecting consumer protections as part of a bill that fixes other problems (And contains "poison pills" that might sink the whole Act). Concerning criticism of the ACA website: Good advice in this post. Work the ref, politely but firmly. Comparing a glitchy website with Hurricane Katrina is an insanely inappropriate apples-to-oranges comparison. Good to see that Bob Woodward sets Fox News straight. Good! Many Democrats have learned the lesson of NAFTA, that "fast track" is merely a way for us to get less democracy in trade agreements. McClatchey Newspapers examines the late October 60 Minutes report on Benghazi and finds lots and LOTS of problems with it. I agree with this. To hold trials over highly controversial issues like the status of gay and lesbian pastors does nothing to encourage unity. Further trials can only divide and embitter us. Stop all such trials! Bill Keller strongly supports the TPP (An enhanced and strengthened NAFTA, which did the American people as a whole little to no good). Why? It's not really clear. Iran and US talking. Very cool! Back around the time the Iraq War was launched, we heard lots and LOTS of Hitler comparisons along with appeasement warnings. The right wing has apparently found a new comparison that they can beat into the ground. WaPo columnist Richard Cohen makes racist comment. He, of course, doesn't think his comment was at all out of line. Biracial families very offended. Amazingly, his supervisor praises his comment. Good, thorough examination of controversy. Good angry, bitter comment on Cohen. Incredibly destructive typhoon hits the Philippines. Where to send assistance. Video of typhoon in progress. Liveblogging from the Guardian. The storm saw 13-foot waves and winds up to 190 mph. 60 Minutes delivers its very poor, very brief correction to their deeply flawed Benghazi story, spending a mere 90 seconds on a correction that should have been more thoroughly covered. Experts weigh in and deem the correction “wholly inadequate and entirely self-serving.” As I said, complex projects like the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare have to be done in-house. The software team has to be part of the policy team from the very beginning and they have to develop the relevant website AS the policy is developed!
Okay, in 2005, G.W. Bush successfully won reelection and then pulled the idea of privatizing Social Security out of a clear blue sky. No one liked the idea and the more Americans heard about it, the less they liked it. It was a terrible idea then and remains a terrible idea today. Look, I can understand the feeling that: "We can't let this kid get away with not paying for lunch! Soon EVERYONE will be pleading poverty and the school system will go broke from all those freeloaders!!!!11!!!" They threw the student's lunch away (Right in front of the student) for failure to be able to pay for it. Uh, dude, we're talking about a $0.30 lunch. Seriously guys, get a grip! Politician holds other politician to ridiculous standard. I shot a lot at a range in summer camp and don't think we ever wore ear protection or gloves. I think I wore ear protection inside while qualifying at ranges in the Navy, but certainly not outside and certainly never wore gloves in either case. Good! Lara Logan of CBS admits on behalf of "60 Minutes" that they majorly messed up by uncritically running an interview that was deeply flawed. I've had a number of jobs in my career and an even greater number of bosses. The bosses I've respected the least are people like CBS News Chairman Jeff Fager, people who announce grand and glorious criteria for success and who then, at the moment when they're expected to live up to those criteria, fail and fumble the ball. Digby fills us in on the story behind the story, specifically on Lara Logan's biases. Nothing wrong with having biases, what's wrong is hiding them and then pretending to be an objective journalist. This is a repeated and continuous problem by the media. A customer for the ACA complains that they are not receiving satisfactory service and gets featured all over the media, then people independently research the case and voilà! Find that the customer can be covered for far less than they were paying in the first place! As the blogger points out:
Poor Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) is now being defended by Mike Huckabee for Paul's repeated plagiarisms. This unattributed theft of words and ideas is a repeated problem by Paul and many people have found many new examples, one of which occurred as little as a week ago. From the blogger: "On Monday, Republicans said the gubernatorial race in Virginia is 'a referendum on Obamacare.'" D'oh! That means the public has endorsed something even worse than a Democrat for Governor! Ooh! NOT good! Debris from Fukushima approaching West Coast. Woo hoo! Expected, to see McAuliffe make Governor of Virginia, but VERY cool! Cartoon on his opponent Cuccinelli. Media Matters points out that Cuccinelli was a heavy favorite of Rush Limbaugh and that MANY right-wing TV and radio hosts supported him. Seems to indicate right-wing radio has lost a lot of influence. Got my letter published in the Inky on the 22nd. Lots and LOTS of "hate and discontent" from people who disagreed with me. Lengthy, came out to 20 pages. Someone wrote that when the Nazis made lampshades out of human skin, they were "morally bankrupt." If the Republican attack on Food Stamps/SNAP isn't also morally bankrupt, I'm not sure what else would qualify. Wow! When a former Speaker of the House (Jim Wright 1987-89) doesn't have the necessary paperwork to vote in Texas, you KNOW that ID requirements there are WAY too strict! Over and over and OVER, Ann Coulter tries to convince us that birtherism is a "joke." Ha ha. No Ann, it's not. It's racism, pure and simple. Is it only a fringe phenomenon? Not when Mitt Romney and his son also say it! Sorry, but when a presidential candidate makes the same "joke," it's not just a fringe, way-out thing. The once-good 60 Minutes put out a really crappy report on Benghazi that got lots of criticism. Now it seems that the fellow who claims to have been in the thick of the fight there actually never got near the place. October David Petraeus tries hard to sell what was a temporary calming of Iraq as a permanent victory. If Edward Snowden had a strong case for permanent asylum in Russia before, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has now made that case iron-clad. Good, sensible rules on appropriate, tasteful Halloween costumes. Shorter guide: Stick with fantasy, stay away from political relevance and especially stay away from portraying anyone who died violently. Wow! Serious classy and praise-worthy reaction by the Pope. His handling of an overly-eager child was about as sensitive and intelligent as it gets. I guess her “dumb blond act” wasn't, erm, just an act. How bad was Suzanne Somers' editorial in the Wall St. Journal? So bad, they had to state that they "could not confirm" a (completely made-up) quote from Churchill. Hmm! Very interesting. Chechnya's tallest building caught fire and burned for 29 hours. 9-11 Truthers point out that WTC 7 burned for just seven hours and then abruptly collapsed. The Chechen building was gutted, but remained standing, WTC 7 collapsed at the speed of gravity (That is, it fell as though nothing but air separated it from the ground). Dick Cheney insists that the Iraq War prevented al Qaeda from getting bio weapons or nukes. No, the Iraq War didn't prevent Saddam Hussein from giving al Qaeda those things because Saddam didn't have either of those things to begin with Bwah-hah-hah!!!!! Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis vindicated!! Texas abortion law ruled unconstitutional. Excellent piece from Dionne about the terrible effects of austerity and the need to get the economy moving again. Excellent rant on privileged, healthy, insured journalists complaining about lack of "hold music" on the ACA website. Now, in some cases, there are problems that are indicative of larger problems. When Basra and Umm Qasr (port cities on the Persian Gulf) held out longer than anticipated in 2003, that was a foreshadowing of larger problems to come as the promise that Iraqis would greet US forces with praise and flowers was clearly false. OTOH, the complexities of the rollout for the ACA/Obamacare is largely the result of putting into place a really large and complex program. Truly gotta love it when a reporter does her job like this CNN reporter does and insists that the Congresswoman substantiate her claims. Yeah, I agree with this, that if a piece of software is really big and "mission critical," then the developers have to be internal to the organization. Seems to me this is Northern Italy in the Renaissance all over again. Those mercenaries looked really cool on the parade ground, but as soon as the job got really challenging, they took off for safer jobs. It's kind of the same with software, you have to be part of the organization and dedicated to the mission if you expect it to work. You can't just be in it for the money, you need to be dedicated to the mission. Lots and lots of polling on the political effects of the shutdown. The left came out WAY ahead, the Republican and Tea Parties, eh, not so much. Wow1 Who knew Girl Scout cookies could have such a subversive effect on the young women of America? Senator Wyden is someone I'd trust to tell the American people the truth about what's going on with the NSA. Your ridiculous false equivalence of the day. The Tea Party, Occupy and their respective Establishments. Yeah, I agree with this. If it was unacceptable for Bush people to ignore Congress, it should be equally unacceptable for Obama people to do the same. Interesting! Never would have thought that multiculturalism and patriotism were mutually exclusive concepts. If the GOP wants to go by "gut instinct," it may want to keep in mind that G.W. Bush did just that, and he had the WORST, crappiest instincts on, well, just about everything! Y'know, I read conservatives complaining about the ACA and how terrible it is, then I see things like this, where a conservative talk-show host desperately lies about it and I think "Gee, if the ACA was so obviously bad, why do people have to make stuff up in order to criticize it?" Let's recall and laugh at the pundits who got the shutdown wrong. USATodat disgraces itself by attacking Media Matters, quite obviously without having gotten a comment from them on the attack. Erm, newsflash folks! Persuading people not to buy a book and book-burning are two different things!!!! Fox News says "Oh pish tosh! Scoff, scoff, the American economy didn't suffer any damage as as result of the shutdown!" Good to see CNN's usually terrible Erin Burnett contradicting that. Cory Booker becomes NJ's latest Senator. Boo! Hiss! Republican PA Senator Toomey voted to filibuster the bill that re-opened government. And *sigh*, once again, CNN proves they're not much better than Fox when it comes to being a real news organization. They cut away from the Senate Minority Leader who just finished cutting a deal with the Majority Leader to cover the guy who made the Speaker of the House look ineffectual. Whew! Senate cuts deal at last minute! Update: Total cost of shutdown was $24 billion, probably shaving fourth quarter growth by 0.6%. GOP lawmaker breaks ranks with fellows (Oct 16) and calls for end to shutdown. ThinkProgress has a running liveblog on the countdown to impoverishment. And yes, the New York Times did its part to make the shutdown possible. Update: NY Times promises to change the way they do economic reporting! Interesting! I've placed the "Golden Age" of today's right-wingers in the 1870s. this fellow places it almost a century earlier, in the 1780s. Insane Congressman compares a US debt default to the American revolution. My comment on Krauthammer's column this morning: Problem is, Krauthamme never identifies a "simple, broadly popular set of demands to attach to the debt ceiling." That's because the GOP is not tackling any real or serious problems. There is no crisis that requires that Americans do anything about entitlement programs. We can afford them and there is no credible threat that we'll all be impoverished in the future should we fail to do so. The only problem that keeps creating long-term budget deficits is our health care system and the ACA is a good start to addressing that. The ACA is, of course, is the one element that Republicans want to eliminate. World confidence in US budgeting is eroding. The Fox Newsperson Megyn Kelly is replacing Sean Hannity (Hannity is being moved to a later time). Is she actually going to be "fair and balanced?" A look at Fox's coverage of the Kermit Gosnell case (He was a criminal, an outlier case who wasn't supported or cheered on by anyone) suggests that, no, we're going to get the same ol' propaganda, just propaganda presented by a more attractive spokesperson. Interesting to see that a Congressman approves of sharp cuts in the budget, but doesn't acknowledge the very real pain caused by those cuts. Some enterprising reporter should ask him about that. Good SNL parody on the shutdown. Almost too true to be funny. Some straight talk about the economy and entitlements. No, there's no need whatsoever to "reform entitlements," i.e., reduce Social Security or Medicare/Medicaid. NJ Governor Chris Christie tries blaming both sides for shutdown. No, but good political strategy on his part. Bwah-hah-hah! It's pretty clear that the smart people in this story are Dick Armey (Sold his stake in the group for $8 million) and the people who spent the group's cash on "luxuries like craft beer bars and thousand-dollar-a-night hotel rooms in Vegas." Yeah, Congressman King gives a really, REALLY unimpressive answer to a very good question near the end of this interview. Niall Ferguson, a terrible person responsible for awful things happening to milions of people, but who for some odd reason, is called upon to offer his opinions to a large audience. BTW, this piece includes an excellent description of our current economic situation. The Beltway Villagers are not on the side of the regular people of this country. Bob Woodward is very much a Villager. This is one of the really major, serious problems with the shutdown, this whole both-sides-are-to-blame bit. This actually, seems like a darn good question. Did Paul Ryan really win the 2012 election? And yes,states are really starting to feel shutdown pinch. Comments like this are why I have NO respect for this %^^$#@& Villager moron! CNN's Erin Burnett assures us that hey, no worries, with just incoming monthly taxes, we can pay this, that and "up to two-thirds of government activity." So hey, no need to worry, we'll just have to close down a third of the government! Will "moderate Republicans" do anything beyond sitting on their hands? Signs are not looking good. This is the sort of item that shows us all where the rubber hits the road and where the priorities of newspeople REALLY lie! President's speech and good summary of the shutdown situation. Archive - sidebar
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![Don't [eff] with our activists!](FBI-vs-activists.jpg)
