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Playinghardball's JournalBernie Sanders : Seniors citizens in America should not have to choose between food, medicine or...
...heating their homes.
Jon Stewart Ridicules Rand Paul’s ‘High Cigarette Tax Caused Eric Garner’s Death’ Argument (Video)
In an episode which focused on the Eric Garner choking death case in New York City, Jon Stewart started off his Thursday night Daily Show with an apology. It seems that on the previous night, he was wrong when he said that no one would be indicted by a grand jury for the choking death of Garner by New York City cop Dan Pantaleo. Someone DID get indicted: The man who filmed the entire exchange between 6 cops and Garner.
“Let that be a lesson to you kids out there,” Stewart said. “Photographing crime does not pay.”
Stewart then ripped the media for pointing out how much more Garner weighed than Pantaleo. Quipped Stewart: “He outweighed ONE cop by 150 pounds. What about the other 5 cops?”
“Or maybe that’s how much racial progress America has made,” Stewart pointed out. “It used to be that black people were only three-fifths of a white person. Now they are like 6.”
After picking on his favorite target of late, Sean Hannity, Stewart then turned his attention to Rand Paul’s ridiculous statement that a high New York cigarette tax is what led to the death of Garner. Paul had blamed the $5.85 tax on smokes for driving “cigarettes underground so as to not make them so expensive.”
“What the f*ck are you talking about?” Stewart asked after playing a clip of Paul’s comment. In a nod to Kentucky’s high rate of smoking, Stewart said, “I guess now we know what it takes for a senator from Kentucky to admit cigarettes can kill. I don’t know what to say. I appreciate the purity of your anti-tax dogma, but the cigarette tax is truly the least salient aspect of this case.”
More here: http://firebrandprogressives.org/jon-stewart-ridicules-rand-pauls-high-cigarette-tax-caused-eric-garners-death-argument-video/
Elizabeth Warren Doesn't Like This Treasury Nominee. Here's Why.
Last year, liberal darling Sen. Elizabeth Warren helped doom President Barack Obama's effort to nominate former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers to head the Federal Reserve. Now the Democratic senator from Massachusetts is leading the charge to derail another Wall Street-friendly Obama nominee: investment banker Antonio Weiss. Last month, the president tapped Weiss to become the Treasury Department's undersecretary for domestic finance, a position with immense power over big banks. If confirmed, consumer advocates fear, Weiss may not go to bat for average Americans while helping craft banking rules and battling Republican-led efforts to gut financial reform.
Weiss' job at Treasury would include overseeing the implementation of Wall Street reforms and consumer protection measures. He would help shape banking rules that the Treasury Department and other financial regulators must finalize over the next two years. And he would be in the room with congressional leaders and administration officials negotiating over GOP proposals that would water down financial reforms.
Weiss has spent the past 20 years at Lazard, an asset management firm that advises companies on mergers and acquisitions. He is now the firm's head of investment banking. Warren contends that Weiss is not the right man for the job because he has no experience in banking regulation and is too cozy with the financial sector. And she is leading the effort to take him down. In November, Warren vowed to vote against Weiss' confirmation, and her political operation blasted out an email ginning up opposition to him. In an op-ed in the Huffington Post last month, she said the Weiss nomination "tells people that whatever goes wrong in this economy, the Wall Street banks will be protected first."
A source familiar with the administration's thinking says that Weiss' background does not determine what policy positions he may take if confirmed. But since he has little regulatory experience and most of his relationships are with people in finance, a Democratic aide tells Mother Jones, those are the people he will likely listen to.
A White House spokeswoman declined to comment on how Weiss' connections to Wall Street might conflict with his mandate to protect consumers, noting only that "Antonio Weiss is a highly qualified nominee and we look forward to the Senate's consideration of his nomination and swift confirmation." Weiss did not respond to a request for comment.
More here: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/elizabeth-warren-antonio-weiss-treasury
Bernie Sanders: Protecting Our Postal Service...
America, you’re sick....
Michael Brown's funeral
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn’t a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
- Martin Niemoller
****
America, you’re sick.
There is much about you which is beautiful. But a part of you is diseased.
It’s the part which speaks about being “pro-life”, but then casts aside those who are already here.
It’s the part which sees someone different than you as a cancer to be cut out.
It’s the part which revels in violence, both at home and abroad.
We’ve had Trayvon Martin. We’ve had Mike Brown. We’ve had Eric Garner. And each time justice was denied.
But that’s okay, isn’t it? It was “them” who got it. “They” deserved it. “They” always deserve it. They’re lazy. They’re thugs. They don’t respect themselves. They’re animals.
But “they” is a funny idea. You can go along your whole life, confident in the notion that you’re “one of us”, that you’re of the elect, that the world is made to cater to you. And then, suddenly, one day, without expecting it, you’re no longer “us”. You’ve become “them”. You’re no longer needed. You’re expendable.
You weren’t a communist. You weren’t a Jew. You weren’t black.
But if you think that those who stoke racism to remain in power actually care about you, you haven’t studied history. (Of course you haven’t studied history. That’s also part of the plan.)
You can pretend you’re part of the Elect. You can pretend that nothing will change for you. You can pretend all this, as you work for Walmart, as your schools fall into a chasm, as your children have fewer opportunities than you. You can pretend all this as your water is poisoned, your air is fouled, and your health is disregarded. You can think that you’ll be taken care of, when all that’s happening is that you’re being taken for a ride.
Those of you who think “they” got what they deserved should realize that eventually you’ll be one of “them”. You’re useful now. You vote in those who plot your demise, gladly, with songs in your heart, because “they” will get what’s coming to them.
But when “they” are gone, when “they” are beaten down, do you think you’ll escape unharmed?
Either “they” will rise up, with nothing left to lose; or those whom you so blindly follow will put the final touches on the Great Work. You will find out that you were never really part of the club, but useful idiots, used to kill yourselves, used to kill what used to be a moderately good country.
When the niggers and the kikes and the fags and the chinks and the spics and the towel heads are all put in their places (maybe even beneath the ground), do you think you’ll escape? Do you think you’re that special? Do you think you’ll get all the goodies that you denied them? Do you think you’ll move out of that trailer park to a grand mansion?
You probably do. And that’s why you’re idiots. Useful, but idiots. And no one will speak for you, because those who should have been your allies will be gone.
There is an “us” versus “them” in this country, and you have it all wrong. You’re not on the winning side. The Kochs value you only for your acquiescence. Once that’s no longer required, expect the deluge. And you’ll wonder how things got so awful. The mirror will give you your answer.
If this country has any hope, it has to get the “us” and “them” right. The “them” are the few who think that the world is theirs by right. The “us” should be the mass who shouldn’t want to see a world not imagined by the most fervent dystopian writers.
But “they” know how to keep us separated. It’s so easy. It’s God and culture and tradition. It’s fear.
Fear is the soul killer. It has to be confronted and rejected. It has to be thrown back in their faces.
In these latter days it’s difficult to keep up hope. I find it difficult. But what else can we do? As the great Stephen Hawking said: “However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. While there’s life, there is hope.” Hope is our greatest weapon. We have to keep using it.
By Liberal Librarian
http://theobamadiary.com/2014/12/03/america-the-beautiful-2/
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