12/22 News Roundup & Open Thread
The comments are a little more functional again! There’s still work to be done… but it’s progress! As I catch up on the news (still without the net @ home) I’ll share the articles/videos that I find interesting or think you may in the comments and hope you can all join me.
Starting off today with some DemocracyNow!
Free Leonard Peltier: Obama Urged to Grant Clemency to Native American Activist Jailed for 40 Years (Transcript @ Link)
As President Obama’s last month in office begins, Amnesty International and other groups are calling on the president to grant clemency to Native American activist Leonard Peltier, who has been imprisoned for 40 years. The former member of the American Indian Movement was convicted of killing two FBI agents during a shootout on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1975. Leonard Peltier has long maintained his innocence. The shootout occurred two years after the American Indian Movement occupied the village of Wounded Knee for 71 days. The occupation of Wounded Knee is considered the beginning of what Oglala people refer to as the “Reign of Terror.” We speak to Peltier’s attorney, Martin Garbus, and Norman Patrick Brown, a longtime friend of Leonard Peltier’s. He survived the 1975 Pine Ridge shootout.
Clinton aides kept tabs on anti-Trump elector gambit
That’s the way things are done nowadays with some politicians, apparently – chickenshit cowardly leaving no fingerprints, creating plausible deniability, A cynical disrespect for voters, really the public trust.
And speaking of the public trust, I am soooooo disappointed in President Obama pushing against New Deal Bernie Democrat Keith Ellison for DNC Chair.
First they tried South Carolina DNC Chair and Podesta Group employee Jaime Harrison. I guess that fell flat because now they are pushing Labor Secretary Tom Perez who was on Hillary Clinton’s VP list.
I watched Tom Perez on Chris Hayes the other night (Hayes is the only show on MSNBC that I am still able to stomach, he understands the difference between the New Deal and the Neoliberal perversion of the Democratic Party.)
Anyways, Perez on “All In” was totally uninspiring and looked scared. He said he knows how to handle thousands of people.
President Obama should understand that we don’t need a people handler but someone who can rebuild the trust of working people in the Democratic Party and Keith Ellison has persuaded me that he would be one of the very few people who understands the New Deal and the destruction of the middle class in this country and would work hard to restore the Democratic Party to being a trusted New Deal institution.
LD, I know someone has linked to it here before but perhaps TPW can keep this “Keith Ellison Petition” reminder on a sidebar?
– Access to Bernie’s Our Revolution petition on behalf of Keith’s candidacy and a link to his recent inspiring speech:
https://ourrevolution.com
Thanks for all you do, LD!
Maybe it’s just me, but Tom Perez reminds me of a used car salesman.
My perception of him has forever been tarnished by his own words during the primary which taught us that he is more than capable of underhanded behavior.
I sent an email to Glenn Maxey at the TX Democratic Party expressing my views on why I believe that Keith Ellison would be an inspiring DNC Chair for ALL Democrats and even Republicans and Independents.
Used car salesman fits. He is selling something but I’m not buying.
So the SNL skit wasn’t far from the mark. ICYMI…
Critics see dangers lurking in framing of Clinton search warrant
White House rebuffed pre-election plan to combat Russian influence
Always look/read anything from POLITICO with a grain of salt. They’re a RW outfit.
These days I take almost everything I hear, read and see with a HUGE grain of salt.
This is one of the entities I follow on twitter. This is their bio (interesting that they have an Arabic version too!):
Baking transparency into our routines
“In 2017, let’s tell readers every day: Here’s what we learned, here’s how we confirmed it, and here’s how you can do the same.”
I heard Ray McGovern, past CIA, on The Brad Show, last night. He was quite sure that it was a leak of DNC info/emails and not a break in by the Russians. He was quite adamant that the White House knows but for some reason going with the break in story.
I’ve heard a lot of whispers, or ‘chatter’, as they used to say in Bush Jr’s years, that it was an inside leak. Whether it was by someone not happy with the DNC’s shenanigans, or someone in one of our intelligence agencies for their own reasons, not clear yet.
Some Dems resist new Russia select committee
Perhaps the Dems also think the data was a leak and not the result of a break-in by the Russians.
Remember in the early aughts when one was painted as unpatriotic if one was not ‘all in’ on retaliation against Iraq as somehow being culpable for 9/11? I’m getting flashbacks. But now it’s the Dems doing it.
Left, right prep for battle royal over Sessions
Alaska lawmakers mull legislation to block Obama drilling ban
FWIW:
(because why wait until at least 2017 to ask…?)
Poll: Majority of Dems want ‘someone entirely new’ to run in 2020
Trump wants appointments to ‘look the part’: report
Needless to say, that is totally ridiculous, shallow, and silly and of course there are many other, far more potentially impactful, reasons for not liking Bolton.
But this is a great opportunity for me to share a pic I saw yesterday.
I am glad he ruled out John Bolton no matter what was the reason!
Officer Involved 2016
In Major Privacy Victory, Top EU Court Rules Against Mass Surveillance
Hi LD, Thanks for all your efforts to keep TPW up and running. Sorry about your connectivity issues at home. The remaining Water Protectors at Standing Rock have a Christmas Donations drive going with 2 Act Blue pages set up.
Please follow this link to read and share an email message I received from Jane White Eagle
You can donate at links from the email or use the ones below.
Link to Act Blue Christmas Dinner Donation Page
Provide a Traditional Sioux & Lakota Christmas Diner for Standing Rock Water Protectors & Our Veterns
Link to Act Blue Christmas Gift Donation Page
They still have a long way to reach their goals and time is very short.
Please share the message and/or donate if you can.
Thanks for sharing @jbob! I’ll put this up on my personal fb and the TPW twitters
Thanks for helping to spread the word on this LD. I donated at both pages this morning. I hope lots of others will also share the story and donate if they can. I’m not on any social media and rely on others to share information in that way.
Thank you for your efforts on this jbob. You are a total sweetie.
Thank you LD for making it so that tweets can be seen again! But you probably noticed that they seem to post “upside down”. Which is really no biggie and doesn’t really matter at all in the whole scheme of things! But in the tweet above you will see that the ‘finger’ in the text part of the tweet is pointing down where the graphic is on twitter, so it looks kind of funny.
‘Brutal, amoral, ruthless, cheating’: how Trump’s new trade tsar sees China
Piss off the Chinese who the American FRWingnuts owe a ton of coin to. Real smart, constipated cretin, real smart. China will just amp up the economic war plus the war game in the South China Sea. T and R and hope you 2 are well, LD and JLD!!!
Weird, isn’t it? Looks like they want a political love affair with Russia (okay, call it a deal and a lot of profits for big oil) and some kind of war with China. Now how does North Korea fit into all this? We kinda need China to help keep them from blowing up all the rest of us….
It’s getting really crazy.
Oracle executive publicly resigns after CEO joins Trump’s transition team
Interesting. Putting his money where his mouth is, I guess you could say.
http://www.businessinsider.com/employees-at-ibm-oracle-angry-over-trump-2016-12
‘Mad Alex’: Donald Trump letters abuse Scottish ex-first minister
tRump is not just dumb as a rock, he takes imbecile to new heights.
How dare they ruin his views! …But now this becomes an international incident. He’s not divesting himself of his properties… how fast can we impeach him?
Bernie Would Have Won: Why We Need To Say It
I liked this excerpt from the article:
Why did she even use the “I’m With Her” slogan? She might just as well have had a photo of Trump at her rallies with the slogan “I’m Not With Him,” because that was really the essence of her whole campaign.
This is so true. If America never stopped being great, I guess it was also great in the Reagan years, the Bush 41 years, the Clinton years, The Bush 43 years, and the Obama years. But it’s not great. I’m worse off financially now than I was during the Bush 43 years – and I hated Bush 43. Maybe she meant America never stopped being great for the plutocrats, but it’s an altogether different story for the 99%.
OK crossing fingers this looks OK when I post it,
Good to see you Mike. Saw a lot of you back in the day that Bernie was running.
Since then the collapse of the dem party continues and not clear if they will learn or be replaced. They are not organized for the clear and present danger, the Trump coup along with the repubgs, but they are playing Russia card, looking for scapegoats, etc.
I just saw the next link by Liepar – turn party over to donors… can it recover?
I’m going to wait and see who they choose for DNC Chair. If It’s Ellison, then the party might have a chance. If not, I don’t think it can recover.
The Clintons turned the Democratic party over to donors. Can it recover?
I’ve missed those LSM! Did you do them??
Yes, I’ve done hundreds. I’m just not going to argue with establishment Democrats anymore. I prefer to laugh at and make fun of them. They sinply cant handle that.
Mike The Meme Machine!
@lonestarmike, I love your memes! I’ve missed them, too. 🙂
Here’s three more
Master Card
Election Night Victory Diner
How She Hid Her Emails
Keep’em coming LSM 🙂
Holy Rage: Lessons from Standing Rock
I didn’t know the history of Lake Oahe — thank you for sharing that, LD!
When the Army Corp of Engineers created Lake Oahe the Lakota lost their river front forests and all the animals and plants the Lakota have relied on as a food source…forcing them to give up their ancient hunter/gather way of life. They also lost all their fruit orchards and most fertile farmland.
Winter flooding is now bad in the Standing Rock/Mandan area due too increased sedimentation caused by the dams. Fishing was also adversely affected.
So all that was taken, and it’s the water too. Grrrrrrr.
Thank you for the additional background, @grapevines. It’s important to know.
Taking a stand at Standing Rock
Those lights were chilling and ominous even just in pictures. I can only imagine the effect in person! 🙁
..combine the chilling affect of those lights with the noise from the planes overhead recording every move a person makes. I think one of the most eerie things, while a person trys to sleep at night, is the constant deep rumble…of the pipeline drills.
The Water Protectors are made of strong stuff.
11 Charts That Show Income Inequality Isn’t Getting Better Anytime Soon
This wouldn’t help!
The dumbbells NEVER realize that these rich yahoos play them for suckers. The rich bozos want no taxes for themselves, not the sucker class.
That’s why they renamed it the “death tax” — it makes it sound as though it applies to everyone. 🙁
How Liberals Can Use the Tea Party Playbook to Stop Trump
This sounds good!
Why the Green Party Continues to Demand Presidential Recounts
I think that now that this can of worms has been opened, they need to follow through on it.
Otherwise, it might end up setting a bad precedent and promote the apathy and cynicism out there for the electoral process.
Bob Fitrakis here in Columbus OH is the atty for Jill Green. He is not the lead atty on the recount. He and Harvey Wasserman continue their fight on election integrity.
They also work with Greg Palast.
The two factions who have brought the coup on the country are not interested in exposing the election process and fixing it.
Since Hillary actually used tricks to steal election from Bernie, tricks in voting, they are less likely to press the issue. And dem party provided zero money for the recount.
So the broken system continues ….
As long as establishment Dems sit back and do nothing, whether to hide their own tricks and crimes or to preserve the fiction that there’s nothing wrong, they will continue to lose. If you can’t step up for the integrity of the vote, what do you stand for????
Big Money 🙁
Bingo. 🙁
An excellent interview with Tulsi Gabbard refuting Chris Cuomo’s talking points.
First protesters found guilty Tuesday
http://m.bismarcktribune.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/first-protesters-found-guilty-tuesday/article_aa894d70-1dd8-5af9-99ae-1f114147a984.html
Hopefully the fines will be paid with some of the donations in support of Standing Rock.
HOW YOU CAN HELP KEITH
This is a very badly written tweet, he and his campaign will need to do better than this. If you read the comments under the tweet most people are not bothering, apparently, to click through to the six action points and seem to be assuming that Keith is basically telling everyone to keep their mouths shut! Plus the action points don’t seem very strong to me.
This is the “very badly written” tweet, imo at least.
Oh…my……..
Rahm Emanuel might be my #1 most despised Dem. Toss up between him and Cuomo. I give Dems in red and purple states more of a pass. But Chicago and NY state–no way they should be led by such creeps.
Rahm is not exactly what I grew up thinking of as a liberal!
I gather there was some kind of data dump. My twitter feed is blowing up!
Here’s a link to a letter from the City of Chicago written by an Amber Achilles (!) Ritter to Council for the Better Government Association that begins almost 2,700 pages of documents!
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3245579/Rahm-Emanuel-Non-City-Emails.pdf
People are going through them and finding all sorts of things.
Grrrrrrrrrrr…..
The exact behavior one can expect from a GOP mayor.
…opps, that’s right he’s a DNC Dem.
A bill being written in California — and apparently another similar one is in the works in NY: http://patch.com/california/napavalley/s/fzbvh/california-state-senators-co-writing-presidential-tax-release-legislation?utm_source=alert-breakingnews&utm_medium=email&utm_term=politics%20%26%20government&utm_campaign=alert
The bill will be introduced in January.
Too bad no one thought of it before…. I hope it spreads to additional states. But at least California has enough electoral votes that it should make a difference, and with New York’s added to it …? (Of course, Republicans write off CA & NY as unwinnable anyway, but I’m sure they wouldn’t want to not even appear on the ballot.)
Emanuel releases private emails, ending court fight
All the President’s Generals
“Americans, who strongly admire their military, like to think that its most senior leaders rise on merit. This is not, however, the way the military promotion system actually works. Officers who reach the rank of general have usually been identified and sponsored at a young age, often when they are still company-grade officers in their mid-twenties. They are, in a word, groomed. Their careers are carefully “curated,” as a friend of mine (and colonel in the Air Force) reminded me recently. They’re placed on a fast track for early promotion and often given jobs in Washington at the Pentagon or as liaisons to Congress. Their sponsors and patrons, flying “top cover” for them, have found them worthy and they may indeed be talented and hard-charging. They are also judged to be “safe”—in the sense of being true believers in the professional military way of life.”
Astore’s take on Trump’s generals is right on.
I think that Joe Biden is confused in his assessment of Hillary’s campaign!
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/311591-biden-clinton-never-figured-out-why-she-was-running
LOL! The “Ready for Hillary” crap with her followers blessing really twisted her arm. (Give me a break Joe.)
You mean that it wasn’t her turn? HA! Her sense of entitlement was palpable!
74% of Texan Dems side with Ellison?? That seems significant.
Am sorry, sort of busy, this is in relation to a discussion above about flooding some first Americans now experience due to damming, in a very harmful way, in the Standing Rock area, and prob in other places too.
Always nice to report some what seems to be good news:
Mohawks become first tribe to take down a federal dam
The Mohawk territory extends into Quebec and there is a reservation near where I grew up in Montreal. I grew up feeling an affinity and fellowship with them. So this news was extra-welcome for me. 🙂