A while back, Sizemore got a series of initiatives placed on the ballot by using forged signatures. He also tried to bleed labor unions of money by forcing them to spend much of their money fighting his underhanded methods.
As a result of this, 2 teachers' unions sued Sizemore's organizations for racketeering. A Sizemore aide admitted that one of Sizemore's groups laundered money and falsified tax returns and campaign finance reports.
Jurors found Sizemore's organizations guilty of racketeering and fined them approximately $2,500,000. But Sizemore decided he wasn't going to pay up. He even changed the names of his groups to avoid paying.
Later, Sizemore was found personally liable, and almost $1,000,000 was added to the fine because of his refusal to abide by the original fine.
But now the Oregon Supreme Court has upheld most of the ruling against him. And guess what? He's still refusing to pay!
Damn, Bill Sizemore is making a real spectacle of himself, isn't he?
Not only is he refusing to accept his courtroom loss. He won't accept his electoral losses either: Now he's trying to qualify 5 initiatives for the November ballot, one of which is practically the same as a Sizemore referendumb that was already rejected in 2000.
Pining for a Conservative Fool Of The Day entry, Bill?
(Source: http://www.tdn.com/articles/2008/07/03/breaking_news/doc486d61b2e1178317229503.txt)
Monday, July 7, 2008
Right-winger loses racketeering suit, dodges fine
Minimum wage veto overidden
As the kid on 'The Simpsons' would say: HA HA!!!
Every time the federal minimum wage is increased, it needs to be raised again by the time it takes effect. But Connecticut lawmakers tried to make sure the minimum wage is only 7 years behind instead of 8 by increasing it to $8.25 an hour, effective in 2010.
Still, even this modest improvement was too much for the forces of loom and doom to handle. Republican Gov. Jodi Rell arrogantly vetoed the bill.
Uproariously, her veto was all for naught. Luckily, legislators overrode the veto. However, it was by only a 1-vote margin in each chamber, which must be especially stinging for the corporatists.
Tens of thousands of hard-working people in the Nutmeg State will see their wages go up as a result of this wage increase that Jodi Rell tried to deny them.
Now when is Kentucky going to finally raise the minimum wage?
(Source: http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-minimum0624.artjun24,0,1866295.story)
As promised...
I promised I'd start listing legislators who voted for draconian drug laws, so I'll start with the Patriot Act reauthorization that passed in 2006 (which includes the federal law to imprison allergy sufferers).
This is a reprint of an article from The Nation's Washington correspondent about the reauthorized Idiot Act. It lists the only 10 senators who voted against it:
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0303-35.htm
This is the Senate's webpage listing who voted for and against the law:
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00029
This is the House's webpage listing who in that chamber voted for and against it:
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/roll627.xml
Unacceptable then, it seems like even more of an outrage now.
Kentucky bans third parties from college boards
Kentucky's state universities and community colleges have governing boards whose members are supposed to reflect the 2 major parties. Because registered Democrats in Kentucky outnumber Republicans by almost 2-to-1, each board is required by law to have almost twice as many Democrats as Republicans.
Near the end of his reign, Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher illegally stacked the boards with his copartisans, which created Republican majorities on at least some of the boards. Now Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear is trying to correct this by appointing a host of Democrats to the colleges' governing boards. The board members' 6-year terms are staggered, so this may be just enough to bring the boards to their legally mandated partisan ratio.
Whither third parties and independents? We get nothin'. That's the law, unfortunately. It's been the law for some time now. Although a news article unwittingly implies that the boards have to reflect independents and third parties, the law actually only allows the 2 leading parties.
We need to take a serious look at this law. I don't think there's any doubt that it's unconstitutional.
In the Red Scare of the 1950s, public employees were often forced to affirm that they weren't in the Communist Party. However, I thought courts struck down these requirements. How are these requirements any different from Kentucky's requirement that college board appointees aren't a member of the Greens, the Libertarians, or the Natural Law Party?
I'm sure these third parties are in good legal standing - which is something I seriously question about the Republicans after the New Hampshire phone-jamming scandal.
We also have to ask how many of the Democratic powerbrokers who win these important appointments are actually DLCers - in contrast to what Democratic voters want. And some of them are.
You'd be amazed at what's considered liberal in Kentucky these days. Trust me, today's party leadership doesn't know liberal. The DLC/GOP unholy alliance must be a major factor in why Kentucky's university system has long been going out of its way to appease right-wing extremists.
(Source: http://www.kentucky.com/210/story/451850.html)
More censorship hypocrisy
I don't wish to defend any candidate in the cult-like two-party system these days, but exposing their opponents' hypocrisy is a different matter. Lately, at least 7 nearly identical anti-Obama blogs of the rightist strain have sprouted up. All 7 are linked to the same website (which looks like a poor DLC mash-up). Criticizing a candidate is protected from government censorship, of course. But a blogging service owned by a private company - in this case, Google - doesn't have to allow spam blogs - which is precisely what these were.
When the service's software detected that the blogs were almost alike, it barred the bloggers from making new entries until it could be confirmed that they weren't spamming.
Naturally, the right-wing bloggers went off half-cocked and claimed they were victims of government censorship based on their politics. For one thing, this wasn't government censorship, because the blogging service was run by a private company. For another, the blockage of their ability to post was prompted by their spamming that was detected by software.
In other words, this conservative death match between right-wing bloggers and the right-leaning corporate world is over nothing.
If the bloggers didn't know their spamming was against the rules, they must be total imbeciles. So I think they purposely set themselves up for trouble just so they'd have an excuse to accuse opponents of censorship.
I may have written this story off as sore loser ravings, except that conservatives who are rushing to the bloggers' defense think different rules apply to dissenters from their order.
They complain that Google supports 'Net neutrality but violated 'Net neutrality by cracking down on the spam blogs. That's not what the 'Net neutrality rules mean, brainiacs. The rules mean ISP's can't favor certain types of data. It doesn't mean blogging services can't block spam.
Where were the Freepers when I had a message board completely deleted by another company because I criticized Bush's FCC appointees? Where were the Timesies when my account was revoked on another website when I condemned the FCC's raid of Tantrum 95.7? They sure didn't rush to my defense on free speech grounds.
Or what about when my postings of The Last Word were deleted even though they were in a public venue funded by taxpayers? These were called "spam" even when they were posted just once and in only one place. What about at the start of the Iraq War when I had to get an account on a German server because my posts from my American account were being blocked?
What about the Air Force's policy of blocking blogs?
Why are these acts not considered censorship even though some of them occurred on government-sponsored media?
This isn't just a double standard but a complete reversal of the facts: Real acts of political censorship are glossed over, while acts that aren't political censorship at all are called just that.
The rightist pastime of manufacturing stories results from their own inability to win on the basis of their ideas. Their policies are failures, so they resort to setting themselves up for trouble so they can manufacture a cause. Just like that Republican operative in West Virginia who kept going to Democratic rallies and claiming he was attacked.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Time to go get 'em!
Why are we softpedaling this?
I just got this epiphany about the hated pseudoephedrine laws - the various state and federal permutations of the draconian new Rockefeller drug law against cold and allergy drugs.
I know what I implied the other day, and that was to be less concerned with the lawmakers who only voted for this affront to our natural liberty than with those who authored it outright. But now I've reached the point where I think we should really hold legislators' feet to the fire for their vote. I'm through fucking around, and we need to expose them. You be the judge as to whether their opponents are any better.
My anger was boiling a couple days ago when I last wrote about this, and I didn't quite know how to deal with it. I thought I was unindoctrinable, but I had grown so accustomed to this shit being supported by almost EVERY SINGLE LEGISLATOR that I was starting to think we just had to sit back and suffer all but the most arrogant supporters of the new laws.
But no more. This is where it ends. And since these are statutes passed by legislators, not just something suggested from a President's bully pulpit, there should be a clear record of who supported it.
And if you think I'm getting too worked up over this issue, we have to get off the slippery slope right now, because we're uncomfortably close to the bottom.
"But it's a hooooooooooooax!!!"
Are the conservatives going to stop insisting climate change is a hoax now?
I think those who deny climate change are a cult. Most scientists agree that the debate is over: Climate change is real and is caused by human activity. When the findings are explained, allowing us to weigh the facts, it's easy to see how.
But skeptics of these findings produce no facts. Just corporate-backed dogma that we're expected to believe "just because." One of the characteristics of a cult is that its ideas don't hold up under even minimal investigation.
The way they do it can be insidious, depending on their agenda of the moment. They'll cite one weather-related problem to deny another that's the exact opposite, like the last 2 years when they implied that the flooding rains we had were a hoax. (I bike around Cincinnati a lot, and I don't think I've seen an instance in which part of the downtown riverfront hasn't been closed due to high water in over 2 years.)
According to skeptics, last year's record heat wave was a hoax because it was "balanced" by this year's cold snap. They try to indoctrinate people into thinking that extremes "balancing" each other out is "proof" that climate change is made-up.
It doesn't work that way, brainiacs.
Yesterday another climate change item broke, this one from right out of our region. In Ohio, state parks have seen a stunning decrease in campers - even from within the state. You'd think they'd get more in-state visitors, because gas prices keep folks from traveling further. But the flooding rains have blunted recreation.
Campsite rentals were 13% lower this June than in June of last year. Even the Associated Press said it was due to "constant rain."
This drop in business cost the Buckeye State $300,000 in state park revenue.
Are the Movementarians going to say the AP and the state of Ohio made that up? If it rains like this again next year, are they going to say it's a "drought" that "balances" it out? (Mark my words: I'm giving odds of 80% they will say this regardless of how much it rains.)
It just goes to show there's a whole cult built on climate change denial.
(Source: http://www.kypost.com/content/wcposhared/story.aspx?content_id=f52b0d2b-e25d-414c-9d11-3dfacd3144ac)
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Limbaugh to make $38,000,000 a year
After inking a new contract with Clear Channel's Premiere Radio Networks, has-been right-wing radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh will make about $38,000,000 a year for the next 8 years - plus a 9-figure signing bonus.
They renewed this shit for 8 more years? Nobody's listened to Rush's diatribes in the past 5 years, so why are they giving him 8 more years to coast on the crumbs of his miserable career? And paying him hundreds of millions for it?
Maybe I should go right-wing too, so I can make 5,000 times the money as I do now for doing one-third the amount of work.
(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080703/ap_on_en_ot/radio_limbaugh)
GOP trying to stop people from voting (again)
Looky here, the Republicans are opposing an important voting bill!
A pair of Democratic bills in California would ease voting for the youngest voters by allowing voter preregistration for those ages 16 and 17 and by letting 17-year-olds vote in the primary if they will turn 18 by the general election.
Some states already let 17-year-olds vote in the primary under such circumstances. (When I was 17, I read in the newspaper that Kentucky did, but I assumed that was a misprint. If I thought it was true, Gatewood Galbraith would have gained an extra vote in the gubernatorial primary.)
But Republicans are so fearful of people (gasp!) voting that they're doing everything they can to block the California measures.
Republican Assemblyman Anthony Adams says he hates the bills because he thinks younger voters are more liberal. "You start to see problems as you get older. As you get older, you get wiser," Adams said.
Right. Which is why I've gotten more liberal as I've gotten older. Honestly, every time I was confronted with new problems and started to feel wiser, I always got more liberal.
I don't think it's true that younger voters are necessarily more liberal. If so, why has the country generally gotten more and more conservative for 25 years? Americans who are my age are quite often more conservative than their parents. We were brainwashed in school with Reagan crap. I mean that literally.
I think it's disputable what party the California bills will benefit in the long run. I also question why a voting age is even needed at all. There's a couple of states where even imprisoned felons can vote - but kids can't.
It must be because of the fear that kids might not be mature enough to make informed voting decisions. But obviously adults aren't either, judging by what happened in 2004.
So maybe - just maybe - it really is time to take a serious look at lowering or abolishing the voting age.
(Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/05/BA5A11F1L5.DTL&tsp=1)
Right-wing War on Fourth of July continues
In case you're celebrating Independence Day weekend today (because the rain ruined most of July 4 as usual), this is how far the war against the holiday has gone.
I'm told that in several places, police are now using ShotSpotters to detect anyone who sets off fireworks. A ShotSpotter is a brand of device that's supposed to be used by police to find out where gunfire comes from. I guess the country must not have a violent crime problem if the cops have enough ShotSpotters to use to bust up fireworks displays.
What??? It does??? Oh, I thought I was the worst lawbreaker in America for lighting an orange smoke ball back in 2006.
Still other cities are using their police helicopters to find people using fireworks.
All this because the government is so inept at dealing with its own inner turmoil.
Rally spied on by DHS agent
This is the type of Nazi shit we have to put up with in BushAmerica.
A May 30 rally in Eugene, Oregon, against herbicide use by highway officials went awry when police brutalized several participants. Now it turns out that the police were summoned by an agent of the Federal Protective Service - which is part of the Department of Homeland Suckyurity. Not only that, but the agent was also illegally spying on the rally from an unmarked vehicle.
Looks like now we've met the American KGB, doesn't it? This is nothing short of fascism, and the agent ought to go to prison. But get this: Federal officials won't even admit they did wrong! In fact, they say they do this shit all the time. (Gee, what a surprise.)
To add insult to injury, the feds bungled the whole Nazi surveillance operation to begin with. They thought the demonstration was organized by a local anti-pesticide group. But actually it was put together by University of Oregon students.
The rally was prompted by aerial herbicide spraying that has made many people sick.
As a result of the police intervention prompted by the agent's call, a police officer Tasered and mercilessly beat a young man who was participating in the protest, despite the fact that the participant was peaceful and was doing nothing wrong. Police threw the victim to the ground, pulled his hair, and repeatedly used the Taser when he was already subdued. Numerous witnesses say the victim of this assault had been doing nothing illegal and was not blocking traffic.
Two others were arrested when police accused them of interfering with the first arrest. However, this accusation is also a lie. Witnesses say these 2 detainees did not interfere or do anything else illegal. One of the men who was arrested was knocked unconscious by the officer, and his shoulder and back were injured. A guard at the jail later tried to choke him.
With all of this - the police brutality, the lies, the spying by DHS - we ask if the ruling regime is trying to top its own record of Nazism or if it's just on autopilot now.
(Source: http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/dt.cms.support.viewStory.cls?cid=121666&sid=1&fid=1;
http://eugeneweekly.com/2008/06/05/news1.html)
Friday, July 4, 2008
Theme parks think laws don't apply to them
Today I've highlighted individual rights more than the equally patriotic theme of reining in corporate power, but this is a story about both.
Recently, Florida finally passed a law that said corporations can't prevent employees and customers from storing legally registered guns in their cars parked on the property. The issue pits individual rights versus corporate power, so it should be clear where I stand. (My support of such a law also quiets those who might accuse me of supporting taking everyone's guns away - especially since I favored overturning the D.C. gun ban.)
The law was opposed by hackneyed Big Business interests such as the Florida Chamber of Commerce but it was favored by labor groups such as the AFL-CIO.
But now Walt Disney World says most of the law doesn't apply to it. In a memo about the new law, a Disney big shot bragged that "this law does not apply to Walt Disney World Co. owned and leased properties." Because of Disney's belief that it's above the law, employees may still be fired if they have a licensed gun in their car.
Now can you see why places with a theme make me run out of steam (as that old radio ad said)?
Disney's excuse is that the law has an exception for companies whose primary business is making, using, storing, or transporting explosives. Oh, so the Disney Co. took over Smoke Pot?
Do Disney World's execs really expect anyone to buy that reasoning? Last I checked, Disney World isn't a fireworks factory, nor does its primary business involve explosives.
Actually, the resort has been thumbing its nose at the law since 1966 with its Reedy Creek Improvement District bullshit. The Reedy Creek Improvement District is a scam that lets Disney World be exempt from zoning laws and do things like abuse eminent domain to condemn property for its own use. The creation of the district also let the resort accept state bonds for its own use - thus beating out Orange County's plan to use the bonds for low-income housing.
Disney isn't the only park guilty of trying to ignore the new gun law. Universal Orlando is pulling a similar scam by citing the fact that the resort features a work-study program staffed by the local school system. This program is only a tiny portion of the resort, however.
If Corporate America thinks laws don't apply to it, then honestly, what are we supposed to think? I think they're just being scofflaws. This is almost as bad as Starbucks deciding to disobey the court order that requires it to pay back the tip money it stole.
(Source: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/custom/tourism/orl-disneyguns0308jul03,0,4282076.story)
America's most anti-freedom law?
Another blogger said of this law, "What idiot thought this one up?"
Fourth of July is the best time to patriotically appreciate the unspoiled land that sprawls out before you. And it always makes me think how to best ensure that America's bumpy glide down the slippery slope of fascism is halted. In doing so, it behooves us to identify the issues so we can figure out how to reverse them.
Of any major law in America or any U.S. state, I'd nominate Oregon's version of the right-wing Patriot Act as the biggest threat to the country's freedom. Oh, it's related to the federal Idiot Act all right, because part of the reauthorized version of the Patriot Act is modeled on laws like this.
Oregon goes a step further though. In 2005 the state's right-wing new law began requiring a prescription for cold and allergy medicine that contains pseudoephedrine. Why is this such a bad law? Because these aren't prescription drugs! These are over-the-counter products. Some right-wing lawmakers in Oregon aren't the ones who get to decide that an over-the-counter drug that you need requires a prescription.
The excuse for the law is that it supposedly stops meth cooks from getting an essential ingredient. But I guarantee you they'll get it elsewhere - and they have. They can easily feign allergies just to get a prescription, so the only people who face inconvenience under this law are real allergy sufferers - who have to make a doctor's appointment just to get a drug they used to be able to pick up at most grocery stores. And that's assuming you can even afford to go to the doctor.
As far as I know, Oregon is still the only state that has the prescription requirement. But federal laws are otherwise just as harsh now (though they don't require a prescription yet).
Since these laws passed, meth has become more out of control than ever.
The existence of these laws makes us ask again: "Is America still the land of the free?" In addition to the constitutional questions raised by forcing buyers to sign a log (a rule found in other states), you also have to ask what the law's writers are really fighting. They're not fighting the meth cooks, obviously. Otherwise they'd repeal these laws once it became clear they weren't working.
They're fighting against freedom - and thus against nature itself.
It's really a price support for international drug cartels. I wonder which drug gangs are lining the politicians' pockets.
How do we fight those who'd fight against our liberty? The cities and counties need to step up efforts to make it illegal to enforce the Patriot Act and related feely-bad laws. A few cities did outlaw Idiot Act enforcement. More need to follow suit.
And we need to find precisely which politicians are behind the new laws. I'm not as interested in the ones who merely voted for it, though some were cajoled into cosponsoring it after someone else came up with the idea. I'm more concerned with ones who were originally responsible. And we need to impeach them and remove them from office.
Sure as Bush lied as an excuse to start a war with Iraq, these politicians lied to us when they said these laws would eradicate meth.
This is one of my top 3 issues, and we have to keep it alive until the tyranny of recent years is reversed.
(Source: http://www.redorbit.com/news/general/192284/oregon_antimeth_law_would_require_prescriptions/index.html)
America still the land of the free?
The U.S. and A. is a truly unique land with an attractive frontier spirit. But almost every year, I find myself shaking my head more and more at the country's direction. During the right-wing weirdo wave of the mid-'90s, I realized I was living in an America I didn't recognize, and just in the past few days I've noticed the situation is probably worse now that it's ever been in the modern era.
I'm a progressive populist, if you will, and I raucously meld small-l libertarianism with small-r republican socialism. And it's amazing these days how far some will go to deny us freedom.
As a hard-working guy, I dig down-home working-class populist celebrations full of hilarious bonfires, good eatin', and blowin' up soda cans with firecrackers. (Who can forget my uproarious campfires of the '90s in which I burned spoiled food, an old TV set, bubble gum, and a kitchen table?) But there's a right-wing War on Fourth of July out there, led by those who oppose fun and teem animosity against us working-class folks.
Yesterday, I told you about GOP efforts in Yonkers, New York, to jail and seize cars of anyone caught with fireworks. In most of New York state, possessing fireworks is only ticketable. But did you know that Ohio's tyranny puts most of New York to shame? According to a police official in southwestern Ohio, state law can bring up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine for mere possession of fireworks.
I knew that about Ohio, because the threat of zealous enforcement has spoiled my plans before. Ruined 'em all up, it did!
New Jersey has become another neurotic outpost of fireworks suppression. Lately, the Garden State has been sending agents to fireworks shops in Pennsylvania to watch for cars with Jersey plates pulling out of the parking lot. Then they call New Jersey authorities to stop the motorists when they enter the state. Their cars are then confiscated.
Unconstitutionally, I might add. Which I'm sure you knew.
If you live in New Jersey, keep this story on your mind now and in future years - so you can find a detour when you're returning home from buying fireworks in Pennsylvania.
BushAmerica is almost at the point where no fun or thinking of any description is allowed. (Ooh, an Allowed Cloud!) Everything these days is illegal or mandatory - unless of course you're a corporation, in which case there's almost no regulation to speak of. BushAmerica is shorthand for "regulation for thee, not for me."
Fireworks are visual, aural, and performance art all rolled into one! And they're educational. You can learn a lot about science and civics at an amateur fireworks gathering.
If you do go to an event this weekend, remember that it's your country too. Don't let Bush's Movementarians take America away from you. Learn a lesson from my experiences. Enjoy and respect life's finer things.
Former Sen. Jesse Helms dies
Helms died this morning at the age of 86 of undisclosed causes.
If you don't remember ol' Jesse Helms, let me put it this way: He was a, um, conservative firebrand. He wasn't exactly my favorite senator.
Helms is the man who suggested building a wall around the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill so the supposedly liberal-leaning university couldn't influence the rest of the state. David Broder once called Helms "the last prominent unabashed white racist politician in this country." Helms's controversial nature kept him from ever winning a Senate election with more than 55%.
Jesse Helms also influenced the house rules I created for the board game Monopoly: I mocked the senator by using one of the pieces to represent him. Helms would move around the board and create trouble for the players.
I didn't focus much on Helms near the end of his career, because by that time, the country was in such a sorry shape that his brand of conservatism seemed anticlimactic. But he was influential in conservatism's unasked-for rise.
(Source: http://www.wral.com/news/local/politics/story/1755723)
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Rove to defy Congress
And now Rove, the sleazy Bush adviser, is refusing to appear before a congressional panel to answer charges about Justice Department politicization and the politically motivated probe of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman.
Congress is not amused. A letter from Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan) and Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-California) warns, "We want to make clear that the subcommittee will convene as scheduled and expects Mr. Rove to appear, and that a refusal to appear in violation of the subpoena could subject Mr. Rove to contempt proceedings, including statutory contempt under federal law and proceedings under the inherent contempt authority of the House of Representatives."
"Could subject" him to contempt proceedings??? How about "will subject"? That would be more like it. If Rove refuses to appear, he's guilty of contempt of Congress, and Congress has the right to order his arrest. If anyone else had defied Congress like this, I guarantee you they'd have some explaining to do.
This follows the Bush White House's bogus claim of "absolute immunity" from having to respond to congressional subpoenas.
Karl Rove has gotten away with so much scumbaggery for so long that the American people have a right to see the little asswipe squirm.
(Source: http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0708/Rove_wont_appear_before_House_Judiciary_panel.html)
More post-hurricane meanness
Kevin Davis, a Republican, is the parish president (sort of like a county mayor) of St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana. That's the ultraconservative bailiwick where Mountain Dew got spilled down inside a TV set in a hotel room during my vacation last year. There's lots of Allowed Clouds in that parish.
Anyway, Davis decreed today that any hurricane survivors who are still living in FEMA or other trailers come August 30 are going to start facing penalties. He's giving them less than 2 months to find other housing.
Hey, why don't you leave 'em alone, will ya, Kevin?! Damn. There's nothing worse than spoiled, whiny politicians like Kevin Davis complaining about those who are less fortunate than them having it too easy.
It sounds to me like Davis also don't know much about math, calendars, or neither. He said that his "early announcement" provides hurricane victims with "3 months to complete the work on their homes or make alternative housing plans." Um, no. It's less than 2 months.
If you want to talk about someone with a sense of entitlement, it's these right-wing "leaders."
(Source: http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/06/fema_trailers_in_st_tammany_to.html)
Station refuses to run Democratic ad
Federal regulations say radio and TV stations can't selectively reject partisan political ads (unless something in the ad is factually wrong). But they do it anyway.
KYW radio in Philadelphia - part of the CBS empire - is rejecting a Democratic ad that features a Bush impersonator thanking Republican congressional candidates for supporting Big Oil. KYW's excuse is that the commersh might make people think the impersonator is the real Bush.
It's a bullshit excuse, of course. It doesn't fly with the regulations.
KYW bills itself as an all-news station, but its programming is full of conservative commentaries. So it's obvious where they stand.
Is the media still going to keep spreading this "liberal media" lie?
(Source: http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/philly-radio-station-refuses-to-run-democratic-ad-2008-07-03.html)
Doodoodoodoodoo...Viacon!
Listen to how out of control Viacom is.
Viacon is the right-wing media conglomerate that helped ruin MTV and owns numerous cable channels and film production houses. Last year, Viacom - already one of the richest corporations in the land - filed a lawsuit against Google, demanding over $1,000,000,000 (a billion) for failing to stop users from uploading copyrighted material to YouTube (which Google now owns).
Meseems YouTube's growing habit of deleting anything and everything because it made someone cwy is no longer enough to appease Viacom.
Now right-wing federal Judge Louis Stanton (a Reagan appointee) has ordered Google to turn over the records of every instance of videos ever being watched on YouTube to Viacom. So now, if you've ever viewed a video on YouTube, Viacom gets a record of it, along with your IP number and (if it was through your account) your name. The excuse for this is so Viacom can "prove" YouTube is used to watch copyrighted clips.
Turning these records over to Viacom violates a federal law that bars such data from being disclosed. Therefore, I withhold from Viacom permission to possess my data. They can't have it. But if Judge Stanton doesn't mind Viacon knowing how many times he viewed the Pop-Tarts commercial from 1976 to try to figure out how they got the toaster to talk, let him deal with it.
It sounds to me like Viacom's real goal is to collect the names of ordinary people who viewed videos and harass them.
Viacom also demanded that Google turn over copies of all videos marked private - which is exactly like going into someone's house and taking their family videos. The judge actually ordered Google to turn over data about how many times each private video was viewed.
What's really ironic is the role of Viacom and other media giants in prompting the recent writers' strike. The strike resulted largely because Viacom and other companies refused to pay writers for promotional Internet materials. So how can Viacom expect to recover for materials posted online?
(Source: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/07/judge-orders-yo.html)
Yonkers launches war on Fourth of July
Laws that ban fireworks are generally a losing proposition. If fireworks are legal, you can at least regulate them so they can be used safely. A total ban can't distinguish between safe and unsafe.
I think most people know this. So it's clear the main purpose of most laws to ban fireworks is to keep people from having fun. These laws are also motivated by economic classism, for fireworks are viewed as a working-class activity with very little appeal among upper economic groups. The laws have nothing to do with safety.
The illogic of fireworks laws is why they often weren't enforced until the '90s. They were considered relics like the laws against fornication. Enforcement these days, however, is rigid and getting worse. (This has failed to reduce fireworks injuries.)
The city of Yonkers (which has long been ruled by Republicans) is engaged in a right-wing war against the Fourth of July. The police commish announced yesterday that he's cracking down on fireworks. Anyone found in possession of fireworks will be arrested on sight. This despite the fact that possessing or using fireworks in the state of New York is only a violation - not even a misdemeanor. It is my understanding that arresting someone for a mere violation is illegal in New York. At most, you can receive a ticket.
The city is using both uniformed and plainclothes police to look out for fireworks possessors. Police plan to stop vehicles to look for fireworks - especially those traveling from Connecticut where the laws are less rigid. Cops also plan to seize vehicles found in violation.
That's unconstitutional, of course. Not like I expect that to matter when the country has spent the past 8 years being ruled by a Nazi dictator who insists the Constitution is "just a damn piece of paper."
So go ahead! Celebrate Independence Day! Don't let the America haters spoil your good times.
(Source: http://yonkerstribune.typepad.com/yonkers_tribune/2008/07/ypd-commissione.html)
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Nazis ban student from prom for violating...well, guess
Is it just my imagination, or is this trend actually getting worse?
In Bayonne, New Jersey - where the school system has already been sued over its right-wing uniform policy - a high school student violated the uniform rules. Result? They banned her from the prom. School officials just decided to march her into the office on the day of the prom and told her she couldn't go.
Because she couldn't go to the prom, her prom date's plans were ruined too - after he spent $500 for the event.
Does the Bayonne school system like being sued? Well, does it??? I wouldn't even hesitate about suing the school over something like this.
(And why the fuck was school still going on just a week ago anyway?)
(Source: http://www.hudsonreporter.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19803880&BRD=1291&PAG=461&dept_id=532622&rfi=6)
Governor threatens to withhold pay raises if teachers don't submit to drug tests
And now she's made a fool of herself yet again.
Last year, when the union representing Hawaii teachers was voting on a new contract, Linda Lingle ordered a clause added that would require teachers to take a drug test. The clause is clearly illegal, and it led the ACLU to prepare a lawsuit against Lingle.
Education officials now tell Lingle they can't pay for the drug tests without looting important classroom programs. So what's the Lingleberry's response? She's doing what every Republican does best: She's stamping her feet and throwing a big fit! She's threatening to withhold the pay raise that the teachers were promised.
She wants teachers to abide by an illegal clause in their contract that she forced them to sign? You're an idiot, Linda.
What's just as bad is how the schools end up being robbed to pay for this shit.
Lingle's temper tantrum also makes the Aloha State the only state in the U.S. to require teachers to take drug tests.
(Source: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080702/NEWS07/807020371/1012/LOCALNEWSFRONT;
http://www.jointogether.org/news/headlines/inthenews/2007/only-hawaii-requires-teachers.html)
Gas hits $5.30 in rural areas; nationalization or breakup needed
When you see stories like this, something has to be done.
The cost of gasoline in some rural American areas (especially in the West) has now reached $5.30 a gallon. This is of special annoyance because some communities don't even have utilities (let alone public transport), so they have to use gasoline and diesel in generators that power their homes. And they have to use more gas in their cars because the closest shops might be miles away.
Rural areas are much poorer than America's vast suburban expanses anyway, so it hits especially hard. While people in urban areas of New York and New Jersey spend as little 2.05% of their income on gas, folks in rural areas spend as much as 16.02%.
This issue is much more serious than a lot of people think. If people can't afford gas, they end up neglecting their medical and even dietary needs.
We long ago reached the point where nationalizing or breaking up the oil industry is our best option. I know the U.S. doesn't have as much oil as some countries that are a fraction of its size, but it has refineries and oil corporations. Thus it certainly is possible to nationalize. What's going on is really a form of exploitation - which is what led Mexico to institute nationalization.
But with so much consolidation in the oil industry, which has contributed to the high prices, perhaps the Justice Department should force a breakup of the industry before trying anything else. It happened once before, in the early automobile era, so why not now?
Communities today can't survive on gas that's $4 or $5 a gallon. They just can't, so action has to be taken now.
(Source: http://www.wbir.com/news/national/story.aspx?src=nletter-news&storyid=60313&catid=16&source=nletter)
Bush about to lose his shit (again)
I haven't seen much about it, but it's now reported that the Bush regime has escalated covert operations in Iran by unleashing more spies. The $400,000,000 campaign involves American special operations troops and Iranian dissidents.
This actually sounds like a pre-bubbling of another war. I've long believed that the Decider is determined to start a war with Iran just as he did with Iraq, but I think he's waiting until after the election so he can make his predecessor deal with it. (Bush is probably still fuming that his now-forgotten plan to call off the 2004 election didn't go over as well as he thought - which was probably the only time in his whole life he had to listen to anyone tell him he was wrong.)
(Source: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/06/29/us.iran)
Bush regime bans voter registration at VA hospitals
Another day, another instance of the Bush regime stabbing veterans in the back.
I'm about as antiwar as you can get, but at least I appreciate vets - which chickenhawks like Bush do not. It turns out that back in May, Bush's Veterans Health Administration issued a ukase to hospitals that are under its control. According to the directive, voter registration drives - even by nonpartisan groups - are no longer permitted at the hospitals.
Because of this order, a nonpartisan group can't come in and register veterans to vote. I guess Bush thinks it's fair that a soldier who was grievously injured fighting for their country shouldn't be able to exercise one of the country's most basic rights.
The directive cites the Hatch Act as the reason for this new rule. But that's not what the Hatch Act is for. The Hatch Act is to stop government employees from engaging in partisan activity. It says nothing about independent nongovernment groups engaging in nonpartisan activity.
The directive is here (watch out, for it's in PDF format):
http://www1.va.gov/vhapublications/ViewPublication.asp?pub_ID=1687
I don't understand why the media hasn't been all over this story. The directive clearly says that "voter registration drives are not permitted." They said it, not me.
So which option will Bush's apologists choose? Will they ignore this issue? Will they defend the directive (despite it being utterly indefensible)? Or will they say the directive doesn't really mean it?
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Indiana bookstore censorship law tossed!
This is a hilarious defeat that I saw looming for the social engineering distracters!
I told you in March that Indiana had passed a law requiring bookstores to post a hefty registration fee if they carried even one "explicit" book. It applied to bookstores even if they sold only one "dirty" title alongside thousands of G-rated volumes. The law was supposed to take effect today.
Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of American civics could see the law was unconstitutional on free speech grounds. And a judge agrees.
On the very day the law took effect, the federal judge ruled that the measure was too vague, too broad, and crimped reading materials that not only were perfectly legal but weren't even pornographic. The law was so broad that it may have applied to grocery stores selling an ordinary magazine with a sex advice page, a yard sale selling an old Playboy collection, or a video store selling a movie that's only R-rated.
But get this: Lawmakers are going to waste time trying to pass this law again next year. They never learn, do they?
(Source: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080701/NEWS02/80701048)
Nielsen wins tax breaks to hire local workers, outsources jobs anyway
You can't make this stuff up. You just can't.
The Nielsen Co. is the parent of Nielsen Ratings, the people who measure TV audiences. In 2001, the company got generous property tax breaks to construct a $100,000,000 global technology center in Oldsmar, Florida. This tax break was based on Nielsen creating high-wage jobs.
But now - only a few years after building this facility - Nielsen is laying off hundreds of these employees and outsourcing their jobs to India.
In other words, Nielsen took a tax break for local jobs, then eliminated those jobs.
Corporatism run amok? Absolutely.
Oldsmar city council is less than amused. One member observed that Nielsen is "making a joke of the tax incentive program."
Because of Nielsen's outsourcing, it has to give up some tax incentives. But it gets to keep most of the breaks. I call that corporate welfare. Imagine what the reaction would be if an individual of average means had gotten even a few hundred dollars in free money from the taxpayers. So corporations damn sure shouldn't be allowed to get away with receiving millions.
(Source: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9105518)
Candidate's house destroyed by fire
Darcy Burner is a Democratic candidate for Congress in Washington state. Burner is challenging the vile Dave Reichert, a Republican.
This morning, Burner's house was destroyed by fire. The candidate and her family made it out safely, but the home is a total loss.
You're suspecting the exact same thing I'm suspecting. And others are thinking it too, and they've already said so publicly:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3377269
I have to note that the blaze's cause is still under investigation. But after Paul Wellstone was murdered and Kalandra Wheeler's office was shot at, I'm strongly suspecting the worst. All it takes is one kook with a gas can and matches to torch a house. I've already discussed what right-wing terrorists did to the Peace Bus and to that family in Virginia that opposed the war, so we know they'd resort to arson.
Oh no! Sgt. Bill!
Corruption and impropriety seem to grow daily with the failed War on Drugs. And more and more hard-working people like you and me are at risk from this high-handed zealotry and sleaze - even if they've never touched drugs in their lives.
I'm not saying drugs are a good thing. Quite the contrary. I'm saying the execution of the drug war has been a failure since day one.
The town of Gerald, Missouri, was recently the site of a colossal crackdown against methamphetamine. It got under way when Sgt. Bill breezed into town. Sgt. Bill told folks he was a federal drug agent sent in to clean up the town Rex Banner-like. He ransacked houses, looked for contraband, and made arrests. Sgt. Bill told the folks that he didn't need a stinkin' search warrant, because he was a federal agent.
This is bullshit, of course. Federal agents need a warrant just as local police do. So that's one mistake you made, Sgt. Bill.
But it turned out that Sgt. Bill wasn't even a federal agent! The 36-year-old was a former small-town cop and trucking company owner who had once been convicted of sexually abusing a teenager. He wasn't a police officer at all when he made the raids.
Oops.
You know it's a federal crime to impersonate a federal agent, don't you?
The aftermath of this bungled campaign? Sixty percent of the town's police force got fired, and the mayor may be impeached.
And numerous pending drug cases are now ruined. They're blown. Shot to hell. All because of incompetence by city officials and Sgt. Bill's lies.
The stigma against the people who were wrongly accused by Sgt. Bill of drug involvement still lingers. One man has been harassed by having garbage (including empty Sudafed boxes) tossed in his yard, even though he hasn't been charged with a crime.
When you stick with failed policies, then sooner or later you're going to end up surrounded by con artists like Sgt. Bill. What's really ironic is how the Sgt. Bill scandal ended up blowing so many drug cases that may have involved people who were actually guilty of what they were accused of.
(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/us/01impostor.html)
More Terrebonne Parish right-wing extremism
Just guess. Yep. The Big U.
The so-called public school system has required uniforms since 1999! And it's one of the stricter policies too. It applies in high school, middle school, grade school, and even kindergarten.
And listen to how assholey the school is about enforcing it. After 5 or 6 dress code violations (depending on the grade level), the rule is: "Student will not be allowed to return to school until it is established that he/she will adhere to grooming and dress regulations." Uh, school is compulsory, stupid. You can't keep someone out of school as long as school is required.
But that's where the real fix is in. The school district deals with this conflict of laws by declaring, "Repeated violations of this policy will result in appropriate action, including, but not limited to, referral to court for violation of the compulsory attendance laws."
They charge you with truancy for violating a fucking dumb dress code? If the school system wouldn't keep a student out of school for not wearing the uniform, the student would be in compliance with the attendance laws. School officials can't cry that someone is truant when it's the school system that's keeping them out of school. Duh!
Here's the school's right-wing policy:
http://www.tpsd.org/main/uniform.php
And yes, that school system uses corporal punishment too.
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