For My Sister Who Passed Away this Morning

She Hated corporate bullshit. Loved me like a son (she was 22 years older than me) and had a massive coronary. She loved music, everything from the Grateful Dead to the Beatles and Elvis. She loved Elvis. She would have loved these songs but I could never get her to accept (I build 'em) a damn computer so I could send music to her.

I love you Alice, and I will miss you so much it's hard to even think about it. The Greendayman family has had it's share of grief this year. But, no whining.

Here's some John Prine for my sister.

Happy Fourth of July

Here's Ray Charles with America the Beautiful



Grateful Dead US Blues



God, I'm Old

But wait, there's more...

The New War of Independence -- Against Corporate Politics

Via HuffPo

Excerpt:

"This is the age of corporatized politics. That means we may admire our leaders, but we can't depend on them. We're paying the price for Thomas Jefferson's unfulfilled desire to "crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

"That's why we celebrate July 4, not September 3, as our Day of Independence.""That will disappoint the history-challenged right-wingers whose patriotic posturing is limited to speaking in their odd pseudo-military lingo, that echolalic Esperanto for fantasy revolutionaries. They don't realize that war is a tactic, not a system of values. And "independence"? Today's "Tea Party" wasn't named for the tea-dumping patriots of Boston, but for some self-entitled commodities traders shrieking "losers!" on cable television. They were sneering at struggling homeowners, mocking middle-class people like the Tea Partiers themselves. And they were enraged at the idea that ordinary families might be rescued the same way their own financier class had been rescued."

"They won. Nobody's rescued the middle class yet. Unlike them, the Founders believed in common purpose. They shared George Washington's goal of "protecting the rights of humane nature and establishing an Asylum for the poor and oppressed of all nations and religions." They understood what conservatives don't: There's a difference between declaring independence and telling people they're on their own."

"We fought for the principles of self-representation and economic freedom. Those principles are under attack again today. But there's no place for rhetorical violence (or any other kind) in today's debate. When corporations intimidate us with economic pressure and distorted information, the best responses are communication and mobilization."

"We resisted Britain's state-sanctioned monopolies in 1776. Today's government-sanctioned corporations hang out on Wall Street, not by the chartered Thames. The spirit of the East India Company lives in the five banks which now control nearly 96% of the derivatives market in this country. Our financial oligarchs receive Treasury Department money, Federal Reserve giveaways, and get-out-of-jail-free cards for a corporate crime wave that would make Al Capone blush."

Read the rest here:

If They Want To Cut Services They Have To Raise Wages

What the fuck is wrong with these CEO asshats? Are they so profit driven that they have no humanity left? It's their fucking fault that working people are broke. They took all the money from increased worker productivity over the last 30 years and kept it for themsleves. Now they want to cut services ( through their bought and paid for Republican House) that feed people who are suffering because no-one (except hedge fund managers) can earn a living wage anymore. No labor, no unions, no minimum wage. Do we really want to be China?

How can we allow this to happen as a society? Are we not Americans? Where is that famous American Exceptionalism that we hear so much about but fails miserably when measured against facts.

People need to make money. Corporations do not want to pay money that cuts into their obscene profits. And now as a result of 30 years of conservative deregulation and tax reduction on the richest 1% Corporations have ALL THE MONEY which equals power and even free speech, according to the corporately owned SCOTUS, and the working class have next to none. Is this by design? I would hope not but the evidence is damning.

As a concerned citizen, a liberal, a patriotic American I can't help but feel that the betrayal of the social contract, a corporate conscience if you will, between the wealthy corporations that have done very well under our democratic system and the American worker has been shredded and they could care less if we fucking curl up and die. They don't need us anymore, they can sell to the newly minted middle class in China thanks to their new manufacturing base that the fucking assholes moved our jobs overseas for. They should all be lined up and shot as traitors. EVERY LAST ONE OF THE THEM. SHOT DEAD. For betraying this country. Traitors all.

Thom Hartmann explains in a less graphic way.

"Liberal talk show host Thom Hartmann went on a tear yesterday about income disparity in America, suggesting as President Harry Truman did 60 years ago that the Republican party is a wholly owned subsidiary of wealthy special interests."

“These CEOs are not job creators,” he said. “They’re stealing from the people who are the actual job creators: people like you and me, who actually buy stuff.

”Please take 5 minutes and watch this film.

A View on the Economy from the Reality Based Community

From HuffPo

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich knows what's wrong with the economy, and he says he can explain to viewers in less than three minutes.

Since 1980, the American economy has almost doubled in size. But adjusting for inflation, most people's wages have barely increased, a fact Reich notes in a MoveOn.org video on YouTube. Indeed, the average American worker in 2008 earned $400less than in 1988, when adjusting for inflation.

Concentration of wealth among the richest Americans have also drained the country of its economic resources, consequently dividing the middle class and weakening demand, Reich continues.

"The only way we can have a strong economy," Reich says, "is with a strong middle class."

This three minute video explains why the US economy is so screwed now, that DEMAND SIDE ECONOMICS is the only way to build a middle class, and more.

Elizabeth Warren is a Potential 'Serious Threat to Our Financial System'?

This is Crazy! This is Bizzarro world! This is unacceptable language coming from an elected official like Mitch (the bitch) McConnell who took an oath to serve the public and the citizens of the United States. ALL of us, not just the rich. He should be thrilled that finally someone can be on the side of 'the little guy'. What a crock of shit that line is. As read on "Evil GOP Bastards":

"Since the New Deal, Republicans have been on the wrong side of every issue of concern to ordinary Americans; Social Security, the war in Vietnam, equal rights, civil liberties, church- state separation, consumer issues, public education, reproductive freedom, national health care, labor issues, gun policy, campaign-finance reform, the environment
and tax fairness. No political party could remain so consistently wrong by accident.
The only rational conclusion is that, despite their cynical "family values" propaganda, the Republican Party is a criminal conspiracy to betray the interests of the American people
in favor of plutocratic and corporate interests, and absolutist religious groups. "

Prove.Me.Wrong.

What a sniveling weasel 'the Bitch' is.
Typical Republican in the pockets of Wall Street, he could give a shit about the people being robbed by financial institutions EVERY DAY of millions of dollars in what should be illegal tricks, spin and obfuscation. I get so disgusted watching this ignorant fuck work his way around the shit-sandwich that is a lie from start to finish that we do not need a Consumer Financial Protection Agency or Elizabeth Warren. Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Hate Media AND the MSM all serve the Financial Industrial Complex very well by adding to the negative noise. This is all about the money. They love the money.

Republicans are all about the money. No Altruism, No sharing, no community all 'Atlas' all the time. This has been my experience for years and years. This focus on money is what makes a Republican a Republican in the 21st century. Sad.

Gil Scott-Heron - Rest in Peace, Your Music Still Carries Your Message

The author of the song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" – which helped pioneer sounds that would fuse to become rap – has died in New York City. Musician Gil Scott-Heron was 62.

Scott-Heron recorded "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" in the 1970s in Harlem.



He mixed minimalistic percussion and spoken-word performances tinged with politics in a style he sometimes referred to as bluesology. He recorded more than a dozen albums. An American poet, musician, and author known primarily for his late 1960s and early 1970s work as a spoken word soul performer and his collaborative work with musician Brian Jackson. His collaborative efforts with Jackson featured a musical fusion of jazz, blues and soul music, as well as lyrical content concerning social and political issues of the time.

As an impressionable young man in the mid-70's, I was impressed by the frank nature of his writing and song composition, edgy at the time with no fluff to be found. I hated fluff in the 70's.

Here are a couple of my favorites from Gil:

"Johannesburg" - a call to action against Apartheid.



"The Bottle" - this song hits a little too close to home for some people of all colors including white.



Thanks Gil for your work and your music. You will be missed.

Well, this Is It.

I would gladly be proven wrong about "The Rapture" if it means all the Christo-fascists disappear today.








And for your "Rapturing" weather forecast, here's Bill Maher:

Negotiating with Republicans

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, U.S. Representative for New York's 14th District has taken a stand on the Elizabeth Warren nomination for the newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

She says: "Dear GOP: We Don't Negotiate With Hostage Takers".

Excerpt:

Last week, 44 Republican Senators signed a letter to President Obama declaring that they will refuse to confirm anyone as a director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) "absent structural changes that will make the Bureau accountable to the American people."

The changes they propose -- which match legislation being considered today by the full House Financial Services Committee-- would cripple the bureau and slow the reforms necessary to help avoid another financial crisis.

In other words, Senate Republicans have the CFPB, and if we ever want to see it alive, we have to meet their demands.

My good friend and colleague Barney Frank called this "the worst abuse of the confirmation process I've ever seen" and I couldn't agree more.

___________________________________________________________________

UPDATE:
Another Negotiation Technique.

How to Deal with Republican Hostage Takers: Make the GOP Cough Up the Details to Slash Medicare via C&L

Now is the time for Democrats to put all out pressure and make Boehner and McConnell cough up the details on their planned cuts. Make them caught up the details on how they envision gutting medicare and other programs, and hang those around their necks. We have already seen how these guys can get easily flustered if you put a little pressure on them and force them to deal with facts.

Democrats need to keep pushing them to cough up their plans on how they want to cut the deficit. Make them spell out the details on their plan to gut medicare. Now is the perfect time to turn that heat up even more.

Bush Failed - The Evidence is Overwhelming but Facts Have Never Stopped the Lying Bastards Before

The re-writing of history was a lot easier before YouTube. Watch this fucking moron try to work his way through explaining why the US or his daddy's company the Carlyle Group was not interested in finding bin Laden.

From ThinkProgress:

Politico reports that supporters of George W. Bush are “irked” that the former president isn’t getting more credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden, despite the droves of conservatives lawmakers and pundits who have been rushing to give Bush equal credit as Obama.

But this praise for Bush relies on rewriting history to obscure the fact Obama re-prioritized the hunt for Bin Laden after Bush had largely abandoned the effort to focus on Iraq.

While many conservatives are triumphantly replaying Bush’s September 2001 declaration that he would find Bin Laden, just months later, by Bush’s own account, he was unconcerned about the terrorist mastermind. Asked about the hunt for Bin Laden at a March, 2002 press conference, Bush said, “I truly am not that concerned about him. I am deeply concerned about Iraq.” “I really just don’t spend that much time on him, to be honest with you,” Bush added.

By 2006, the trail for Bin Laden had gone “stone cold” and Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes said Bush told him that hunting Bin Laden was “not a top priority use of American resources.” (Indeed, there was a flailing war in Iraq to fight.)

That year, it was revealed that the administration had he shuttered the CIA’s Bin Laden unit in late 2005. As the New York Times reported at the time, the move reflected a shift in resources to Iraq:

In recent years, the war in Iraq has stretched the resources of the intelligence agencies and the Pentagon, generating new priorities for American officials. For instance, much of the military’s counterterrorism units, like the Army’s Delta Force, had been redirected from the hunt for Mr. bin Laden to the search for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed last month in Iraq.

But Bush’s biggest misstep in the Bin Laden hunt occurred years before, in the early days of the war in Afghanistan. As a 2009 Senate Foreign Relations Committee report found, the Bush administration blew a critical opportunity to capture Bin Laden in 2001. Bin Laden was wounded and on the run, but top Bush national security officials rejected repeated pleas for reinforcements from commanders and intelligence officials fighting the terrorist leader in the caves of Tora Bora, despite the availability of resources:

Fewer than 100 American commandos were on the scene with their Afghan allies and calls for reinforcements to launch an assault were rejected. Requests were also turned down for U.S. troops to block the mountain paths leading to sanctuary a few miles away in Pakistan. The vast array of American military power, from sniper teams to the most mobile divisions of the Marine Corps and the Army, was kept on the sidelines. Instead, the U.S. command chose to rely on airstrikes and untrained Afghan militias. [...]

Even when his own commanders and senior intelligence officials in Afghanistan and Washington argued for dispatching more U.S. troops, [Commanding Gen. Tommy] Franks refused to deviate from the plan.

The report “removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora,” but that decisions made by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his deputies, and other top administration officials allowed Bin Laden to escape.

The consequence of this missed ooportunity are tremendous. As Lt. Col. Reid Sawyer, the director of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, told NPR yesterday, “if bin Laden had been killed in Afghanistan eight years ago in the caves of Tora Bora, al-Qaida might well have died with him. Now the organization is diversified enough it could weather bin Laden’s death — and hardly miss a beat.”

Moreover, as Rumsfeld himself acknowledged, Bush’s extra-legal torture and rendition policies did not help capture Bin Laden. Enhanced interrogation techniques did not work. Bush ordered one final push to capture Bin laden shortly before he left office, but this effort too was unsuccessful.

Facebook Still Sucks

My daughter posts a lot of her pics and art on Facebook, so I thought I'd check in and take a look. I have been deactivated for some time but by simply logging in - my account, full and complete, was still there like I had never left (slightly creepy).

After logging in, the first thing staring me in the face was a rant from one of my old classmates, forwarding a deceitful post on how Obama did not capture or kill OBL, Bush should get all the credit and if you believe this re-post it immediately!

I'm so sick of that shit. Juvenile, fact-free propaganda freely distributed designed to divide or make sure one complies or face the ridicule of the wingnuts on your "friends" list. Daughter, you'll have to e-mail me I am so done with Facebook.

Here is another reason:

Assange calls Facebook ‘the most appalling spy machine’ ever

In an interview with Russia Today (RT), Julian Assange explained that Facebook is “the most appalling spy machine that has ever been invented.”

“Everyone should understand that when they add their friends to Facebook, they are doing free work for United States intelligence agencies, and building this database for them,” he said.

More here.