Meteor Man
Meteor Man's JournalPelosi Helps GOP In House Races
Bernie, because fuck that shit!
The DCCC suffered another stunning defeat by local Democrats Tuesday. Once again their handpicked recruit-- this time some guy named Cory Simpson in West Virginia-- was rejected by local voters in West Virginia's second congressional district, who voted to nominate former state legislator Mark Hunt and tell Steve Israel and his corrupt Beltway party bosses to stay out of their affairs.
. . .
Next week, the DCCC may see another slap in the face from voters, this time in Oregon, where progressive Bernie-backer, Dave McTeague, is running against the very right-of-center head of the Blue Dogs, Kurt Schrader. Schrader has over $1.5 million in cash on hand and has already spent $442,433 to McTeague's modest $30,629 in expenditures (and mere $991 cash on hand.) Blue America has endorsed McTeague.
. . .
After Oregon, the DCCC faces stiff opposition to some of their most corrupt and conservative candidates in New Jersey, where Alex Law is challenging that state's most right-wing Democrat, Donald Norcross; Iowa, where Republican-masquerading-as-a-Democrat Monica Vernon is the DCCC candidate against Pat Murphy; California, where the DCCC parachuted in some Orange County lawyer, Bryan Caforio, to sabotage the official Democratic Party candidate, progressive Lou Vince; and then in Florida, where progressive hero Tim Canova faces off against venal bribe-taker Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Extra! Extra! Breaking news! Pelosi and DCCC sabatoge progressive Dems! Read all about it at Down With Tyranny:
[link:http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2016/05/how-pelosis-incompetent-dccc-guarantees.html?m=1|]
[http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2016/05/how-pelosis-incompetent-dccc-guarantees.html?m=1]
(Link looks good, but doesn't work. Thursday May 12th Down With Tyranny)
The End of The Democratic Party
Over at Counterpunch Robert Urie explains Charles Koch's endorsement of Hillary and why it spells doom for the Democratic Party:
As Bill Clinton, whose policies Mr. Koch preferred to those of George W. Bush, and Barack Obama have demonstrated— it is socially liberal Democrats who have been the better proponents of Wall Street’s neo-capitalist takeover precisely because they accomplish with stealth economic policies what Republicans attempt more straightforwardly through politics.
. . .
As Charles Koch’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton suggests, Mrs. Clinton’s role is to keep the unwashed masses in their place, not to affect substantive political ‘change.’
. . .
The question back for both Democrats and Republicans is: how responsible is it to put forward an ossified political order as the only choice in the face of its four decades of conspicuous political and economic failures? Hillary Clinton is the candidate of this failure— just ask Charles Koch.
[link:http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/06/hillary-clinton-and-the-end-of-the-democratic-party/|
Obama harshes on Black Lives Matter
[link:http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-04-23/obama-chides-black-lives-matter-group-for-yelling-down-leaders|]
(link probably won't work)
Story at Bloomberg News (Hat tip to Naked Capitalism: 4/24 links)
Summary from Naked Capitalism link: We hear you, we just don't give a damn about you.
Question du jour
Over at Down With Tyranny (I gave up on links) Gaius Publius asks if questioning Hillary's character is fair or foul.
According to polls the answer appears to fair. Gaius Publius believes that the distinction between a question or "artful smear" is "a fairly subtle question".
Would you vote for a Democrat who supports TPP?
From Down With Tyranny:
Would You Vote For Someone Working To Destroy America? Most Members Of Congress Are Doing Just That-- TPP
[link:http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2016/04/would-you-vote-for-someone-working-to.html?m=1|]
Click on the link (if it works) to see 28 Democrats who gave Obama and the Republicans the votes required for Fast Track Authority on TPP.
The Rescue Game
From the April 13th Archdruid Report:
Here's how it works. Each group of players is assigned one of three roles: Victim, Persecutor or Rescuer. The first two roles are allowed one move each: the Victim's move is to suffer and the Persecuter's move is to make the Victim suffer. The Rescuer is allowed two moves: to sympathize with the victim and punish the Persecuter. No other moves are allowed and no player is allowed to make a move that belongs to a different role.
That may seem unduly limited. It's not . . . In the Rescue Game, in other words, whatever a Victim does must be interpreted as a cru of pain. Whatever the Persecuter does is treated as something that's intended to cause pain to the Victim and whatever Rescuer does, by definition, either expresses sympathy for the victim or inflicts well deserved punishment on the Persecuter . . .
In a well played Rescue Game, quite a bit of ingenuity can go into assigning every action it's proper meaning as a move.
The Rescue Game is based on Transactional Analysis. The pop psychology book "I'm OK You're OK" is based on Transactional Analysis. One of the popularized images that emerged from "I'm OK You're OK" was the description of two distinct personality types: Warm Fuzzy and Cold Prickly.
Check out the whole post at The Archdruid Report.
Skid Row Wins!
Read all about it . . . tomorrow!
The L.A City Council has been debating extending Municipal Code 56.11 to homeless residents for a year or so. The current ordinance applies to merchants blocking the sidewalks with bulky merchandise displays.
Mayor Garcetti signed an amended ordinance that would prohibit homeless residents in L.A. from possessing more than a large trash bin of personal property on city property.
The Legal Aid and pro bono lawyers working with LACAN (a Skid Row homeless advocacy organization) were granted a temporary restraining order prohibiting enforcement of the ordinance.
The ordinance, referred to as the bulk property law, would have allowed the LAPD to seize and destroy all of the property of any homeless resident who had acquired too much property. No notice of violation was required. If a LAPD officer determined you possesed excessive property you could be cuffed and incarcerated and all of your personal property could be disposed of.
Imagine being limited to the total amount of property that would fit in a large residential trash bin that you push out to the curb for pick up. All of your clothing, bedding, food and day to day survival goods had to fit inside or you were in violation and the LAPD/Street Services patrol could immediately throw your property in a dumpster and drive off.
No judge or hearing. A cop says you have too much stuff and it all gets tossed in the dump truck for disposal. That was the L.A. City Council and L.A. Mayor's solution to the "homeless crisis". A city wide cleen sweep leaving homeless residents with the clothes on their back.
Read all about it tomorrow in The L.A. Slimes. Or google LACAN (Los Angeles Community Action Network).
So I was smoking a cigarette during the break .. .
at an AA meeting. Two Old Timers got in an argument over whether you "work" the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous or you "take" the steps.
Brief issue summary: The 12 Steps are included in a chapter of the AA Big Book titled "How It Works". The sentence preceeding the 12 Steps states "These are the steps we took".
Several people had to step between the Old Farts to stop them from engaging in a fist fight over the correct description of how to implement the 12 Steps and recover from the "pitiful incomprehensible demoralization" of the alcoholic's emotional collapse.
This was a graphic example to me of how people who put on a good pretense of being full grown mature adults can descend into immature emotional responses over trivial concerns.
I have no doubt that both parties were absolutely convinced of the righteousness of their opinion and felt very deeply that the outcome of their disagreement was vital to the survival of AA.
I also resolved never to "be that guy". So far so good. For the most part, I have managed to avoid over reacting to trivial slights that threaten my ego.
Full grown mature adults do not let minor events or trivial transgressions trigger an emotional response. As the saying goes:
Don't sweat the small stuff!
AND
It's all small stuff.
Privilege, Feminism and the Class Struggle
Another excellent report from The Archdruid, dated April 6th.
When a working class sister asked a question about improving the conditions of working class the response was crickets. American feminism was made a political issue by white women for white women.
Modern American feminism is about the glass ceiling oppressing women in the salary class. Improving economic conditions for women in working class industries would mean "paying more eachmonth for daycare, hairstyling, fashionable clothing and the like."
I am not able to make links operate. You all know how to find The Archdruid Report.
Go . . .read .. . learn.
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