Hate-spewing media responsible for sick brainwashed Adkisson

Holy cow! What a sick puppy! And misinformed too. The twisted Mr. Adkisson killed two adults and wounded seven others before being overpowered by congregants, authorities said, in a shooting at a Knoxville, KY church. According to the report on CNN.com:

"It appears that what brought him to this horrible event was his lack of being able to obtain a job, his frustration over that, and his stated hatred for the liberal movement," Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen IV told reporters Monday.

Authorities also discovered a letter from the state government telling Adkisson he was having his food stamps reduced or eliminated, police said.

How on earth could he blame "liberals" for his predicament? Must've been a Fox News watcher. Still, how could anyone, no matter how brainwashed by Fox and their ilk, think that food stamps being reduced is because of liberals? All I've heard for decades from the right is that welfare should be eliminated, including food stamps, while liberals are blamed for continuing the "welfare state." (Meanwhile, of course, the really huge "welfare" bill we pay year after year is for corporate welfare, which, as I write, has now grown to unfathomable proportions, as the corporate greedheads who caused our current economic meltdown get bailed out.

And his frustration at not being able to find work? Once again, the result of Bush and conservative policies, exporting jobs and destroying our economy in any number of ways.

I think Fox and the likes of Rush Limbaugh, etc., should be implicated in these murders, for brainwashing people and filling them with hate.

Fun summer viewing

If you missed the House Judiciary Committee's hearing Friday on impeachment, you might want to view these short clips.

Inspiring, right on testimony by Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL), Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Author/attorney Vincent Bugliosi (latest book: Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder), and a hysterical rant by conservative apologist professor Jeremy Rabkin make for some riveting viewing. Enjoy, and pass it on...

Highlights from "non-impeachment" impeachment hearing.

Dead Black Man Was Tasered Nine Times in 14 Minutes by White Cop

This is atrocious... tasers should be taken from cops... they use them too often, too easily. Even when it doesn't result in death, it is often used as an instrument of torture, thereby inflicting unconstitutional "cruel and unusual punishment" on unconvicted citizens.

Dead Black Man Was Tasered Nine Times by White Cop
By Steven D., Booman Tribune
Who happens to like using his Taser quite a bit. Read more »

Help make Guaranteed Health Care for All a reality in three easy steps

I (and the majority of Americans, according to numerous polls) feel that Guaranteed Health Care for All is a basic human right.

I like this idea from the Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), which has launched a nationwide effort to bring this core issue to the heart of the 2008 Democratic National Convention. The platform process is underway, and this is a great way to bring the issue to the forefront of the convention -- if we act as citizens, and contact the delegates. Here's how PDA wants to do it. I invite all to join in.

How you can help change history in three easy steps:

1) Click here and find the names of your area’s delegates to the Democratic National Convention.

2) Contact those delegates and urge them to join three visionary progressive members of Congress--convention delegates John Conyers, Jim McGovern and Lynn Woolsey--who are initial signers of the “Statement in Support of Guaranteed Health Care for All as a Plank in the Democratic Party Platform of 2008.” Any delegate can go online and become a signer at:
http://pdamerica.e-actionmax.com/takeaction.asp?aaid=3410

3) Pass this letter onto websites, listservs and other outlets to spread the word. Post it wherever you can. Think of this as a grassroots chain letter for Guaranteed Health Care for All.

If you contact delegates now, hundreds of them could soon add their names to this new statement. It urges the convention to adopt a plank in the 2008 party platform to “guarantee accessible health care for all” in the United States, to “create a single standard of high quality, comprehensive, and preventive health care for all”--and to “eliminate financial barriers that prevent families and individuals from obtaining the medically necessary care they need.”

Fresh evidence Diebold is tampering with our elections

Why we need open-source software, paper trails and automatic audits on electronic voting machines, if we must use them at all:

In the 2002 Georgia race, incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Cleland, who was five percentage points ahead of Republican challenger Saxby Chambliss in polls taken a week before the vote, lost 53% to 46%. Incumbent Democratic Governor Roy Barnes, who led challenger Sonny Perdue in the polls by eleven points, lost 51% to 46%.

Here's why: The election was stolen by good ol' Diebold.

Check it out: http://rawstory.com//news/2008/Cybersecurity_expert_raises_allegations_of_2004_0717.html

Gore steps up, now it's our turn

Al Gore, former vice-president and shoulda-been-president in 2000, but for the "activist" Supremes who took it upon themselves to decide the election for us, came out with a beautiful speech today, calling on us all to act now, or reap the consequences of procrastination, big time.

Check out a CNN video excerpt of the speech. He calls for a Kennedy-Moonshot-like 10-year national effort to end our addiction to oil with a real transformation to alternative energy and efficiency. Can it be done? Certainly not unless we put our national will to the task, and quickly. Will it be done? Not if the naysayers have their way, and stonewall the changes we need to begin working on.

One thing's for sure, a New Deal-type program building a new alternative energy system in this country would help the collapsing economy, putting people back to work, and would put America once again in a real leadership role. Not only that, it could begin the process of saving the civilization from total collapse, which could happen if we sit on our hands.

10,000 foreclosures per day

That's right, there are 10,000 foreclosures occurring every day in the U.S. Meanwhile food and gas prices escalate, making it harder for most to pay rent, let alone a mortgage. In spite of the unprecedented stress and suffering caused from this crisis, especially for children, it seems that the U.S. government is most concerned with spending possibly hundreds of billions bailing out Bear Stearns, Indy, Freddie, Fannie and any other Big Mac capitalist wanting a hand-out. These financial giants created the crisis. Communities of color and poor, working class white families were targeted with sub-prime loans that, at best, used misleading loan terms. The result, mortgage payments that more than tripled over time.

The devastation to whole communities is occurring from the East Coast to the West. But ...

So is the fight back!

The Michigan Moratorium Now Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions created a grassroots campaign which birthed a Senate Bill up for vote in the Michigan State Senate calling for a 2-year moratorium on foreclosures and evictions. They're building for a mass march on the State Capitol this September to persuade the powers that be to do the right thing.

And, in Los Angeles a grouping of neighborhood block clubs is working with the largest service employees union local in the U.S., along with anti-war organizations and sympathetic politicians pushing for a similar moratorium on foreclosures and evictions in the state of California. You can find out more about these campaigns by going to moratorium-mi.org and iacenterla.org.

-- the above is from the good folks at Leftbooks.com.

I hope communities all over the country rise up and fight this madness. In effect, these giant banks and mortgage companies are stealing houses from hard-working citizens. Do they get punished for their irresponsible lending practices? No, they get bailed out! This is unconscionable! We need legislation to stop the foreclosures now, rewrite the loans, and punish the real "evil-doers" -- the ones profiting off the backs of the lower classes.

Patriotism

We just celebrated Independence Day in the U.S., and everywhere people are debating what "patriotism" really means. As both major presidential candidates continue jabbing at each other on the subject, I was very touched by an article by Chris Satullo in the Philadelphia Inquirer titled "A not-so-glorious Fourth" – it may be a little after the fact, but I hope everyone reads it, as the message goes beyond the holiday itself.

Our great nation seems to be crumbling around us these days – morally as well as financially. Morally, as this administration has abandoned our high ideals and squandered our standing in the world by engaging in barbaric torture and pillaging our Constitution – all with the compliant approval of most of the media and Congress. As Mr. Satullo explains, we, the public, share in the blame as well, since we have not expressed sufficient outrage at these developments.

Financially, things are going downhill fast as well, but the case can be made that this was caused by our moral failings as well. Not because God is punishing us for our sins, but because there is a direct correlation between not playing by the rules and the long-term fallout that that causes. Financial institutions have been allowed to skirt the rules laid down after the Great Depression. And those rules have now been rewritten to accommodate the corporate behemoths that have grown so powerful, Congress seems to be their own private puppet theater. They pull the strings, and bought-and-paid-for politicians do their bidding.

Things must change, and fast, if we are to preserve this still-young democracy. And perhaps it starts with redefining "patriotism."