Race Cards

Interesting juxtaposition over at Men For Hillary

Referring to yet another race baiting article about Hillary written by a BObot, Mark writes:

I will tell you who should be ashamed of himself -- Mr. Herbert, for being willing to ignore the many statements of Senator Obama which were not only similar to Clinton's recent musings about exit polls, but were much more arrogant. Herbert either has a convenient short memory, or his biases are more than showing.

Either both Clinton and Obama are race-baiting or they both are not. They are either both racists or they both are not. Make up your mind. They have been entirely equal in their statements that can be construed as anti-black racism or anti-white prejudice. Obama, all along, has been able say things such as he said in he said in August of 2007:
"I'm probably the only candidate who having won the nomination can actually redraw the political map," Obama told a Democratic voter skeptical that he could defeat a Republican candidate.

"I guarantee you African-American turnout, if I'm the nominee, goes up 30 percent around the country, minimum," Obama said.

"Young people's percentage of the vote goes up 25-30 percent. So we're in a position to put states in play that haven't been in play since LBJ."

"If we just got African-Americans in Mississippi to vote their percentage of the population, Mississippi is suddenly a Democratic state," Obama said. He said Georgia would also turn Democratic and South Carolina would be in play.

What dumbfounds me is that analysts (apparently, such as Herbert) will read Obama's comments and say "Well, Obama didn't say 'Clinton can't turn out the black vote' now did he? He just said he could turn out more black and young voters than anyone else, if he is the nominee." Context is everything. When you say "I guarantee a certain turnout, if I am the nominee" you are saying that NO ONE ELSE CAN DO THAT. In other words, you are saying Clinton will have a negative effect on black voter turnout. In addition, when you talk about black voter turnout based on you being the nominee and you are a black person and you don't explain on what basis you believe that will take place, on its face, it is clearly a statement of racial preferences.

On top of that, please note the words "if I'm the nominee." Given the context, one could conclude that if Obama isn't the nominee, he WON'T work to increase black and young people turn out. Interesting, don't you think? Mr. Herbert?

Not once in this entire campaign has Clinton made such an equally arrogant and clearly divisive statement about women voters, even if it may be true or it is supported by the data. She has never made such a divisive claim. But, of course, Clinton gets no credit for that.

More here...

How many states are there in the U.S.?

There are fifty (50) states and 1 district, Washington D.C.

The 50 states are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia*, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming.
The last two states to join the Union were Alaska (49th) and Hawaii (50th). Both joined in 1959.

Washington D.C. is a federal district under the authority of Congress. Local government is run by a mayor and 13 member city council.

Washington DC is represented in Congress by an elected, nonvoting Delegate to the House of Representatives and residents have been able to vote in Presidential elections since 1961.

Puerto Rico is a commonwealth associated with the U.S. Its indigenous inhabitants are U.S. citizens. Puerto Ricans are unable to vote in U.S.Presidential elections but they do elect a nonvoting resident commissioner to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Dependent areas: American Samoa, Baker Island, Guam, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Midway Islands, Navassa Island, Northern Mariana Islands, Palmyra Atoll, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Wake Island.

Note: from 18 July 1947 until 1 October 1994, the US administered the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, but recently entered into a new political relationship with all four political units:

the Northern Mariana Islands is a commonwealth in political union with the US (effective 3 November 1986);

Palau concluded a Compact of Free Association with the US (effective 1 October 1994);

the Federated States of Micronesia signed a Compact of Free Association with the US (effective 3 November 1986);

the Republic of the Marshall Islands signed a Compact of Free Association with the US (effective 21 October 1986)

Source: The CIA Factbook 2003Detailed information about each of the territories can also be found in this CIA publication.

They never quote these types of articles: The Fight Stuff

...If anyone has been guarding the rules this election, it’s been the press, which has been primly thumbing the pages of Queensberry and scolding her [Hillary] for being “ruthless” and “nasty,” a “brawler” who fights “dirty.”
But while the commentators have been tut-tutting, Senator Clinton has been converting white males, assuring them that she’s come into their tavern not to smash the bottles, but to join the brawl.
Deep in the American grain, particularly in the grain of white male working-class voters, that is the more trusted archetype.

Whether Senator Clinton’s pugilism has elevated the current race for the nomination is debatable. But the strategy has certainly remade the political world for future female politicians, who may now cast off the assumption that
when the going gets tough, the tough girl will resort to unilateral rectitude.
When a woman does ascend through the glass ceiling into the White House, it will be, in part, because of the race of 2008, when Hillary Clinton broke through the glass floor and got down with the boys.

Susan Faludi is the author of “Backlash,” “Stiffed” and “The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America.”

Greenconsciousness notes: No Susan, it is NOT "particularly in the grain of white male working class voters" that the tough fighter is admired. Almost all people who have had tough times admire someone who does not give up when times get tough.

This is the ethic of our best people, the soldiers, protectors, the people you can rely on - the heroes. Hillary has not been "brawling". She has been conducting a skilled, tough, political campaign which has revealed her character as being solid gold - admirable.

That is why she has won the respect of almost everyone except the BO cultists. I saw a AA man who voted for BO say he wished he could have voted for both of them ..."because that Hillary, she's a sweetheart."

Community Organizing? Not Really.

Everything asserted in this article is proved by the nature of the comments accompanying it which you should also read.


From The Progressive:

...It may be instructive to look at the outfit where he [Barack Hussein Obama]did his “community organizing,” the invocation of which makes so many lefties go weak in the knees.

My understanding of the group, Developing Communities Project, at the time was that it was simply a church-based social service agency.

What he pushed as his main political credential then, to an audience generally familiar with that organization, was his role in a youth-oriented voter registration drive.

The Obama campaign has even put out a misleading bio of Michelle Obama, representing her as having grown up in poverty on the South Side, when, in fact, her parents were city workers, and her father was a Daley machine precinct captain.

This fabrication, along with those embroideries of the candidate’s own biography, may be standard fare, the typical log cabin narrative. However, in Obama’s case, the license taken not only underscores Obama’s more complex relationship to insider politics in Daley’s Chicago; it also underscores how much this campaign depends on selling an image rather than substance.

There is also something disturbingly ritualistic and superficial in the Obama camp’s young minions’ enthusiasm. Paul Krugman noted months ago that the Obamistas display a cultish quality in the sense that they treat others’ criticism or failure to support their icon as a character flaw or sin.

The campaign even has a stock conversion narrative, which has been recycled in print by such normally clear-headed columnists as Barbara Ehrenreich and Katha Pollitt: the middle-aged white woman’s report of not having paid much attention to Obama early on, but having been won over by the enthusiasm and energy of their adolescent or twenty-something daughters. (A colleague recently reported having heard this narrative from a friend, citing the latter’s conversion at the hands of her eighteen year old. I observed that three short years ago the daughter was likely acting the same way about Britney Spears.)

Princeton Professor Sean Wilentz, a Clinton supporter, noted that the Obama campaign advisers have tried to have it both ways on the race question. On the one hand, they present their candidate as a figure who transcends racial divisions and “brings us together”; on the other hand, they exhort us that we should support his candidacy because of the opportunity to “make history” (presumably by nominating and maybe electing a black candidate).

Increasingly, Obama supporters have been disposed to cry foul and charge racism at nearly any criticism of him, in steadily more extravagant rhetoric.

The campaign’s accusation that the Clinton team made Obama look darker in a photo or video clip than he actually is—and what exactly are we to make of that as an accusation?—and the hysterically indignant reaction to Geraldine Ferraro’s statement that much of Obama’s success stems from the fact that “the country is caught up in the concept” of a black candidacy are no different from the campaign’s touting its “historic” character.

Obama supporters fulsomely attacked even Clinton’s attempts to portray him as inexperienced, which is standard fare in political campaigns.

They also charged that she was playing to racism. See most recently Harvard sociologist Lawrence Bobo’s characterization that she was “disrespecting” black people, a leftover canard from Jesse Jackson’s campaigns (which, lest amnesia overtake us, were also extolled as historic firsts).

More Here

Beloved Community

Hillary bloggers you don't know about - join hands.

Feminist Bloggers Won't Quit

Brilliant writing - evolving analysis

Riverdaughter (Confluence) on the Creative Class
Sometime Girls
and Are you telling me I turned...DD Ape?

Anglachel's Journal Revolution of the Saints

I DECIDED YOU DESERVE AN ENTRY ON THE CREATIVE CLASSES BY ONE OF THEIR OWN - THE DEFINITIVE STATEMENT - here it is - read it and be educated you bitterers.

Changing Of the Guard
by: Chris Bowers
Thu May 08, 2008 at 15:15

Just like Mike earlier today, I would also like to compliment Matt on his outstanding Obama's Consolidation of the Party article last night. Unlike the previous two Democratic presidential nominees, Al Gore and John Kerry, Obama has not only won the nomination campaign, but he has actually built a huge infrastructure within the party. The Obama infrastructure is enormous, and is the first intra-party movement to have surpassed the infrastructure built up by the Clintons over the past two decades.

The Dean movement from five years ago was the first major threat to the Clinton power base in the party, but only the Obama movement actually surpassed it. This build-up was a necessary move on Obama's party, since otherwise it would have been impossible to defeat Clinton in a grueling, virtually 50-state campaign.

So, unless Obama somewhat surprisingly does not become the next President of the United States, the Democratic Party will experience its first changing of the guard since the late 1980's. What differences will be in store? Here are the three major changes I expect:

Cultural Shift: Out with Bubbas, up with Creatives:

There should be a major cultural shift in the party, where the southern Dems and Liebercrat elite will be largely replaced by rising creative class types.

Obama has all the markers of a creative class background, from his community organizing, to his Unitarianism, to being an academic, to living in Hyde Park to shopping at Whole Foods and drinking PBR.

These will be the type of people running the Democratic Party now, and it will be a big cultural shift from the white working class focus of earlier decades.

Given the demographics of the blogosphere, in all likelihood, this is a socioeconomic and cultural demographic into which you fit. Culturally, the Democratic Party will feel pretty normal to netroots types. It will consistently send out cultural signals designed to appeal primarily to the creative class instead of rich donors and the white working class.

Policy Shift: Out with the DLC, up with technocratic wonks.

My sense of Obama and his policy team is overwhelmingly one of technocratic, generally less overtly ideological professional policy types.

We should see a shift from the more corporate and triangulating policy focus of the Democratic Party in the 1990's, and see it replaced by whatever centrist, technocratic policies are the wonkish flavor of the month.

It will all be very oriented toward think-tank and academic types, and be reminiscent of policy making in the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's. A sort of "technocratic liberalism" that will be less infuriating than DLC style governance, but still not overtly leftist.

Coalition reorganization: Out with party silos, in with squishy goo-goos.

In addition to a shift in culture and policy focus, I also expect a different approach to coalition building.

A long-standing Democrats approach of transactional politics with different issue and demographic silos in the party shift toward an emphasis on good government (goo goo) approaches.

We will see lots of emphasis on non-partisanship, ethics reform, election reform instead of on, say, placating labor unions, environment groups, and the LGBT community by throwing each of these groups a policy bone or two.

Now, the focus will be on broad, squishy fixes that are designed to appeal to several groups at once. George Lakoff wrote about this a couple months ago.

I know this is all pretty vague, but it does sum up my basic sense about the coming Obama administration and Democratic Party. Overall, instead feeling like Blue Dogs, Joe Lieberman and media pundits are running the party, it should feel kind of like PIRG, but a bit more right-wing, academic and well-to-do.

In other words, PIRG without seeming like DFHs run the show. That should be an upgrade from the 1990's, but expect quite a few times where progressives will need to take oppositional stances.

Chris Bowers :: Changing Of the Guard

The Creative Class Part 3

A example of the work of the Creative Class can be found at "Alas a Blog", which is a blog with feminist pretensions, owned by a male. AAB posters often initiate attacks on women for being racist or Islamaphobic or insensitive to class issues. This is what passes for cutting edge feminism on our left.
The latest example is an attack on Hillary by Ampersand. Hillary said:

"There was just an AP article posted that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”

“There’s a pattern emerging here,”

Then what follows is quotes from various members of the left creative class finding that Hillary has called blacks lazy watermelon eating scum. Seemingly, any compliment from Hillary about her white supporters is an insult to the AA race and People of Color everywhere.

The Creative Class views complimenting white people, especially white women, to be understood as an insult to POC. This is one way the Obamabots play the race card. They first race baited when Bill Clinton referred to Jessie Jackson doing well in a state with a large black population.

This is simply demographic referencing in political campaigns - done by Obama as much as the Clintons, done by every media analyst discussing and planning the campaign.

But when the Hill does it, and (horror) compliments the white working class which is part of the dems base, the BOFB misogynists call her (or Bill) a racist. How convenient and how especially unifying.

Hillary has an actual track record of political accomplishments for POC from Selma, through voter registration onward whereas BO has his identity. Yet, the AAB left "feminists" of the creative class, whose credentials as to institutional change for POC are a mystery, feel free to gather their evidence of Hillary's racist implications. That evidence consists of the opinions of other left members of the creative class. We used to call this trashing but nowadays I guess it is called analysis. By the creative class anyway.

It is not what Hillary means that counts, it is how you can twist what she says. This is the new Politics of Unity.

Yeah, I BELIEVE.

The Creative Class Part 2

Please, Please, Please go to Angry for A Reason and read

What is wrong with the Party

...Want to hear my theory? I'm sure you do. Democrats nowadays don't think of themselves as that. Look at our recent nominees, excluding Bill. Kerry, Gore, Dukakis. What do they all have in common? They are seen as elites. No matter what Jon Stewart says, people don't want someone like that in the WH. Even if they do have progressive reform for working class and poor people (which I firmly do not believe that Obama has) they're going to take it as you telling them what's best for them. The reason that Bill was not painted as such is because he grew up working class, he went to public school, even though he eventually made it into the power elite.

And of course last night there was Donna Brazile on CNN

BRAZILE: "Well, Lou, I have worked on a lot of Democratic campaigns, and I respect Paul.*** But, Paul, you’re looking at the old coalition. A new Democratic coalition is younger. It is more urban, as well as suburban, and we don’t have to just rely on white blue-collar voters and Hispanics. We need to look at the Democratic Party, expand the party, expand the base and not throw out the baby with the bathwater."

(Sidenote here: Except you can't depend on blue collar and Latino voters. If they don't feel that you are working, and I mean actively working, for their financial well-being (health-care, unions, etc), then they will be values voters. You are one of the people IN CHARGE OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. HOW THE HELL DO YOU FORGET ABOUT "REAGAN DEMOCRATS" AND THAT OBAMA'S SUPPORT BASE IS THE SAME AS (10 state) DUKAKIS!!!! Stop blowing off the people the dems need to win in the fall, ffs. )

...this above is only a small part of one of the best posts all year -- so long I have been trying to say this ... so brilliantly Angry for a reason does say it

Are you part of the creative class ?

From Lambert at Corrente an excellent post pointing out that $30.00 buys a lot of school lunches but not many lattes and croissants. All of Corrente's posts are really informative including one with pictures of Eight Belles down on the track looking at the camera, see Au revoir, cherie.

I was struck by one of the comments under Lambert's post on eating for a month on $30.00 Submitted by FrenchDoc on Mon, 2008-05-05 21:18. FD said something I have been trying to articulate about the left for many years now. Said it better than I have done. Think about this and go over to Corrente - there is much there worth reading.

Let’s face it, the “creative class” is part of what Leslie Sklair calls the transnational capitalist class, at least, its ideological component. They focus more on process and identity politics and are not the least interested in bread and butter issues.

Another sad realization of this primary.

Another comment, Submitted by elixir on Tue, 2008-05-06 09:48.
at Corrente under, "Must be my Irish Guilt":

...Taylor Marsh, “With Right Props and Stops, Clinton Turns Into Working Class Hero ”
This piece highlights a subtle but critical point about HRC, even though she doesn’t live the working class life, doesn’t pump her own gas, doesn’t make her own coffee and hasn’t had to worry about a paycheck for years - she gets it. She understands what people are going through and connects with them. That’s the difference between being “elite” and not. Elite is a mindset not a balance sheet.

For more go to Blue Lyon

I am afraid for Hillary

Two prostitutes, one a pimp, who had the names of men of power in their black books and threatened to tell if they were convicted, are both found HANGED after they are convicted. The cops immediately conclude BOTH committed suicide. One told a radio station there is a contract on her and she is being followed. Nothing happened to their customers who are Congress members and Generals as well as other members of the wealthy elites, not even a municipal fine. Spitzer's prostitute is in hiding.

Women, especially the abused and the poor are witnesses to the outrageous fascism of the patriarchy, the lie of the rule of law. And if they talk too much, they are silenced - one way or another.

Today in the Kentucky Derby a female horse, 8 BELLS mysteriously went down at the finish line, both ankles just broke while the 20 to 1 pick BIG BROWN won. They killed 8 Bells on the track. On board ship, eight bells signified the end of one watch and the beginning of another

It was a warning.

I have said before that there is very big corporate money supporting the untested BO because corporate interests feel they will be able to manipulate him more successfully than the battle scarred Clintons.

Do you know what the male left bloggers are doing to WI Representative Tammy Baldwin, who is a lesbian, because she will not abandon Hillary? Do you know what they are telling her and post to her voters about the Clintons? They are saying the Clintons are homophobic and organize politically against Gay people. Yet it is BO who has the Baptist homophobe on the stage with him. There are videos of it and speeches that are on tape.

Here is the cite to the left boys on the Clinton's alleged gay people hatred with even hints that the Clinton's deliberately did "nothing" about AIDS. Read the left boys lies posted as facts and ask yourself if such hysterical desperation is not being PAID for by some very big money - left progressive money. Ask your self if it sounds like Democrats or corporate big money talking through the Daily Kos?

And to other segments of the democratic party, BO supporters claim the Clintons are doing black voter suppression in black majority states. No one is being prosecuted. They just repeat the charges in multiple posts until people believe it because "everyone" is saying it.

In the meantime Howard Dean angrily demands that this be over - that Hillary gets out of the race and leaves it to the men who are serious and have a "real" chance. He moans that Hillary is hurting BO's chances. See Rad Geek for how the convention is threatened if the Democrats don't toe the line.

Be careful Hillary. They kill uppity women in this country just as they do all over the world. But here they make it look self inflicted. Women are made to look crazy or criminal or have bad bones. If they cannot shout you down, marginalize you, shut you away in the crazy house or prison by unequal and selective prosecutions or destroy your credibility and reputation or bury you in poverty by taking all your material possessions, make you unemployable, or neutralize you with grief, if you remain a threat, they will kill your animals and they then they will kill you.

Be careful my heroine Hillary, you are the hope of the people against the wealthy elite in the US. Big money here, left and right, is unchecked in the US. We have seen over and over, from the women who fought big nuclear to big lumber to big coal that they will kill with car "accidents" and beatings, false suicides and political assassination. Then they will close the investigation files for 50 years for the "good" of the country.

A Health Care Premium WE Can Afford

This is from Uppity Wisconsin and floored me. These oligarchs are always worse than I think.

"First, it helps to understand the Cadillac healthcare coverage members of Congress receive. They pay no deductibles, no co-pays, and only a $35 monthly fee is taken from an annual salary of $158k. Oh, and they're covered until they die, no matter when their congressional tenure came to an end.
Second, their premiums have remained stable while their coverage has expanded.
Now, consider this recent quote from Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, and" ........MORE HERE

Feminism 2008

Feminist Daily News Wire
May 2, 2008
Army Specialist Monica Brown, recipient of the prestigious Silver Star, was removed from combat because of Army restrictions on women in combat. Brown, a 19-year-old medic, used her body to shield wounded soldiers. However, the Washington Post reports that days after she saved her fellow soldiers, the Army removed her from combat.

Lieutenant Martin Robbins, a platoon leader with the cavalry unit in which Brown was serving, told the Washington Post that they were not supposed to take Brown with them on missions but that they had to because there was no other medic. When she was pulled out by the Army, Lt. Robins said that the cavalry unit had wanted to keep her as their medic.

Staff Sergeant Aaron Best, a gunner on the day Brown heroically protected the wounded soldiers, said, "I've seen a lot of grown men who didn't have the courage and weren't able to handle themselves under fire like she did. She never missed a beat."

In a comment on the Washington Post story, one person wrote that Brown's story indicated "why the policies of the testosterone laden military needs to change. If she can do the job and willing to put herself in danger, then why is she being removed?"

Army regulations of women in combat is a hurdle to the passage of the Equal Rights Ammendment (ERA).

Media Resources:Feminist Newswire 03/12/08; Washington Post 05/01/08, 05/02/08; ERA.org; Feminist Majority


US Circuit Court Hears Asylum Appeal in Female Genital Mutilation Case

A panel of judges for the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments on Tuesday in the case of three women who were denied asylum by the Board of Immigration Appeals after undergoing female genital mutilation (FGM) in Guinea.

According to the Associated Press, the judges were disturbed by the Board’s decision to allow the women’s deportation back to Guinea since the mutilation had already occurred and therefore the women could not suffer further persecution.

One woman testified that she feared her daughters would face FGM if they are forced to return to Guinea, where, according to the women’s lawyer, as many as 95 percent of women are subjected to the practice, reports the Daily Women’s Health Policy Report.

The UN launched a campaign through UNFPA and UNICEF in February to combat the prevalence of FGM. UNICEF defines FGM as partial or total removal of external genitalia.

The UN News Centre says that FGM leaves "physical and psychological scars" and increases health risks especially during childbirth. The UNFPA program works to eradicate FGM through educational programs in schools as well as training for health and social workers. The program also advocates reform on the government level.

Only the Men Survive : The Crash of Zoe Cruz
Media Resources: Associated Press 4/29/08; Women’s Daily Health Policy Report 5/1/08; Feminist Daily Newswire 2/22/08

If that meeting in Mack’s office had been the meeting she was hoping for, Cruz would have made history: No woman has ever been CEO of a Wall Street firm. Now it looks like that won’t change for a very long time—there are no other high-ranking women in serious contention for a top job.

If women across Wall Street viewed Cruz’s firing as a blow, there were men at Morgan Stanley who seemed almost gleeful about it. The woman they had nicknamed the “Czarina,” the “Wicked Witch,” and, most famously, “Cruz Missile” was out of the picture. They joked that it was worth the $9 billion loss to have her gone.

In her rise through the company, Cruz had become not just one of the most powerful women on Wall Street but also the most loathed. It’s a matter of opinion whether those two things are inextricably linked, but for Cruz the same qualities that propelled her almost to the top also prevented her from reaching it.

More...

The Equal Pay Act FAILED TO PASS.

Sanctuary

Special thanks to Earthsip in Madison

Retirement Security:How Do Investment Managers Stack Up

A publication of the AFL-CIO

AFL-CIO Retirement Security Report

The Report Categories
The report categorizes investment managers on such factors as whether they have supported groups attacking Social Security, traditional pensions or corporate governance safeguards, how direct their contributions and involvement have been, and whether firms have been accountable for their leadership roles in industry associations that support pro-privatization groups. More information can be found at www.wallstreetgreed.org. Below is a summary of how firms are categorized.

Category 1 (Direct Links to Retirement Security Privatization)
This category is for companies and their senior executives that have either directly contributed to or participated in campaigns to privatize Social Security, eliminate defined benefit pensions, or weaken Sarbanes-Oxley, the crucial corporate governance law enacted in the wake of Enron & WorldCom. Companies and their managers with direct memberships or contributions to such lead organizations as the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security, CoMPASS, the Cato Institute or the Reason Foundation are included, as well as substantial funders of the anti-pension initiative campaign in California (Citizens to Save California and the California Recovery Team). Note that most companies on this list have joined or funded these groups even while stating that their firm has not taken a position on these issues. Failure to be honest and transparent when asked about these issues is seen as a factor causing more alarm about the role of the firm, and therefore influences the firm’s report rating.


Category 2 (Indirect Links to Retirement Security Privatization)
This category contains companies and their senior executives that have contributed to advocacy groups or think tanks that have promoted anti-retirement security initiatives, but are not known to have directly backed the lead anti-retirement security campaign organizations. This category includes companies and their managers that have leadership roles in industry associations that have backed privatization groups, if the firm has not made it clear in its leadership position that it dissents from the association’s involvement.


Category 3 (Neutral or Supportive) (- -)
A dashed line indicates companies which have publicly and credibly declared their neutrality, or who have been supportive of retirement security systems. Companies that have shown such positive support are noted by an asterisk in the accompanying chart. Note that a company’s neutrality statement is not treated as credible if it has contributed to or joined an anti-retirement security effort.


Category 1 (Direct Links to Retirement Security Privatization)
(See accompanying "thumbnail" descriptions of these companies known involvement in anti-retirement security initiatives.)

American Financial Group
Charles Schwab
Citigroup (Smith Barney)
Dimensional Fund Advisors
Dodge & Cox
Dunn Capital Management

Fidelity
JP Morgan Chase
Marsh & McLennan (Mercer)
Raymond James
Wachovia (Evergreen)

READ ALL ABOUT IT HERE.

WI rep tries to shoot cats from a federal bill since it failed in state

New Bill May be Used to Target Feral Cats

FROM: Ally Cat Rescue

Introduced by Representative Ron Kind (D-Wisconsin), HR 767 is titled the Refuge Ecology Protection, Assistance, and Immediate Response Act, or REPAIR Act. The purpose of the bill is "to protect, conserve, and restore native fish, wildlife, and their natural habitats at national wildlife refuges through cooperative, incentive-based grants to control, mitigate, and eradicate harmful nonnative species, and for other purposes."

Although the bill does not specifically mention cats (or any other animal), the broad wording of the act leaves for a "broad" interpretation. Ultimately, if the bill is passed it will allow the "control, mitigation, and eradication" of any animal demeaned a "harmful nonnative species." Allowing such interpretation and not providing clear definition could pose threatening to feral cats; especially, if someone makes the argument feral cats are a "harmful nonnative species" and a detriment to other native species.

On October 22 of this year, the H.R. 767 bill was passed by the House of Representatives and it is now being reviewed by the Committee on Environment and Public Works. Once reviewed by the Committee, the bill will go before the Senate. If passed, the REPAIR Act will allow for the mass killing of numerous species, including cats, all at the tax payer's expense.

GREENCONSCIOUSNESS ASKS: Who elected this guy? Swans are considered an invasive species by the WI DNR. Yes, the WI DNR shoots SWANS. The local people are outraged. The DNR ignores their protests and like a fascist authority is determined to wipe out the loving relationship between citizens and swans who have nested on their lakes over generations. The DNR just walks out of meetings where town people scream at them and Mayors tell them to stay out of their towns.

You cannot let the Man decide what an invasive species is or is not. Especially the kind of men whose answer to every ecological problem is to kill something.

Iowa Caucus Organizers Admit They Just Make Results Up

FROM: OPINIONS YOU SHOULD HAVE

Iowa Caucus Organizers Admit They Just Make Results Up
Dane Goodman, official overseer of the Iowa caucuses, admitted today that no one really understands how the Iowa caucuses are supposed to be conducted, and that every four years, he and two other state officials just "make up some results."

Goodman explained the procedure that the caucuses were supposed to employ. "People gather at chosen locations, group themselves by candidate, and somehow they exclude some of the candidates or something, and then they call us and try to tell us what happened. But in the end we just pick some numbers out of a hat," he said.

Goodman admitted that he and his fellow officials usually don't even wait for the caucuses to report back to them, but instead just read the latest poll, change the numbers a little and fill out some forms indicating the alleged results.

He defended his committee's procedures. "Let's face it, this is just as democratic a process as the caucuses ever were."

MORE HERE

BE SURE TO READ: Bitter People Increasingly Bitterer, Study Shows

REALLY FUNNY - TRUE BUT FUNNY

How the Rich get Richer

Offshore Tax Loopholes Defended By GOP
by Louis Kaye

As we enter the final days to file our tax returns, you may think you’re paying off the tax obligations for just your household. But you'd be wrong. You're also footing the bill for American companies that are legally dodging billions of dollars in taxes thanks largely to the Republican tax policy

Read more here.

But the Equal Pay Act would be too complicated for them and bankrupt them. Thank You Rocknet Roots

Dust

Thank you for this Blue Lyon

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Rise, Hillary, Rise. ~ Maya Angelou


Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise

I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise
I rise
I rise.

Maya Angelou


For a beautiful description of poetry's transformative power go to Super Weed

The Need for Class Warfare

I was reading at No More Apples today and thinking, what if she doesn't make it and the ruling class, who BO represents, does win his nomination. And as usual after nominating one of their effete snobs the Democrats lose again. They will of course blame Hillary for daring to not kiss their ass and withdraw from the race.

Maybe despite BO's total lack of experience, blacks, the young and the corporate elites manage to get him elected president. And then it will not be just gas, living wage/benefits and housing the working class will not be able to afford but food as well. The same tactics will be used, beautiful phrased excuses as to why we need to genetically modify crops, import slave labor for agri-business, destroy wetlands and environmentally sensitive areas bla bla bla.

Face it, Bo is a phenomena manufactured by the wealthy elite in this country to defeat their real threat, the Clintons. He is all sweet talk image and no substance. BO will be their mouth, spewing their excuses for nuclear power instead of green energy and Genetically Modified toxic crops. He will make it all seem so necessary while prices go up and predatory lenders take the few resources still held by the middle class.

The stock market bankers/traders, global free traders, Muslims/Persians/Arabs and other foreign interests buying US property, jobs and media, the nuclear industry and others own him and will run him while he lies and our rights and standard of living erode from under us. Regulations designed to protect US resources, (media, telecommunications,consumers) not already gutted by Bush will be further disassembled. Then, they Will privatize Social Security saying there is no money in the govt coffers. Who will stand for us?

The only thing we will be able to see clearly is that the wage gap between those who own resource and those that produce product grows wider. Citizens at this point cannot even pronounce the exorbitant salaries that management in every field are paid while they gut any legislation that makes it hard to cheat ordinary consumers and workers.

Say they steal the election from Hillary (See the last post at Reclusive Leftist about what Hillary won and BO won). What about a working class party for equal rights and ecology?

Oh Yeah, give BO a few years to bomb and then Bill and Hill start the real third party. Call it The Union and let it be the party for working and poor people and their allies. Let it be a party for the environmental concerns specific to people who cannot buy resources but must share them.

Hillary already represents all the positions of that party, The Union. Let it fight for clean air, clean water, small businesses, organic farmers, equal pay, strict regulation of consumer providers, green energy, etc. Let it end illegal immigration and safeguard the borders of this country and our democratic traditions. Let it end businesses and trade treaties built on slave labor. Let it reform Foreign Policy to elevate human rights globally and emphasize economic development for women world wide. Let The Union reform immigration policy to admit those who are fleeing the gender slavery and discrimination of the Muslim theocracies. Let it send Human Rights Workers to help workers in foreign countries form trade unions with the protection of US lawyers and economic policies. Let the Union bring back the Fairness Doctrine and forbid foreign interests from owning our airways and broadcast media.

Let affirmative action only apply to those whose family income is under $36,000 a year for a single individual or 42,000 for a couple. It is time for class warfare in this country. The only thing the working poor have is our numbers, our union, so lets form a party and fight the economic interests of the wealthy elite of Harvard and Yale who own us the way masters owned slaves and who are gutting our rights and our standard of living with deliberation through their political policies.

Is polygamy always abusive?

This is a new entry at Muslim Hedonist

One of the things that seems to go along with blogging about polygamy is that I get all kinds of comments supporting polygamy and/or polyamory, as well as the odd person who finds threesomes interesting. Goes with the territory, I suppose, but as a polygamy survivor, I continue to find reading such comments painful.

So, for a while I have tried to avoid thinking too deeply about such comments: just take your poly-whatever and shove it, ok? I just don’t even want to deal with it. At all.

Shouldn’t be too difficult not thinking about it, I had thought, as long as I stay away from conservative Muslims—which I do as much as possible, anyway. That’s not too hard where I’m now living.

But when I went to Pride last year, what did I see but a woman wearing a “poly and proud” T-shirt. I tried to look at the Indigo Girls performing up on stage instead, but my eyes kept returning to her shirt despite myself.
And, those pro-polygamy comments are still now and again posted to my site.

And, my older daughter brings up the subject of polygamy nowadays. She wants to talk about how it has affected her.

READ MORE ON HER WONDERFUL BLOG

SHE HAS A VERY INTERESTING SECTION ON WHATS IT IS LIKE FOR HER TO LIVE WITHOUT A VEIL OVER HER FACE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HER LIFE HERE.

Her posts pointed me to a sister, Danielle Crittenden, who did a series about what it was like wearing the traditional female slave garbage bag clothes of Muslim women which are now so familiar in the US since we decided it was OK for Muslim males to hold women in slavery in the US as well as in their homeland. Read, Why the Veil Is a Threat.

The US immigration system even allows Muslims in the US to practice polygamy and set up polygamous colonies in the US just like the FLDS in Colorado and Texas. The Muslim slave children are home schooled just as in the Mormon cults or sent to Muslim schools. The African Muslims send the girls home to have their genitals mutilated. And when they are of age, they vote.

Maybe the women who wrote comments on DC's series about the veil
(how D C is racist, culturally insensitive bla bla or the other crap of the male left in their Auntie Tom fembot talk) would be interested in the news that the Equal Pay Act failed in Congress yesterday. Maybe they should understand that the sexism displayed by the media to Hillary is really directed at all women including them. Maybe they should think about the fact that the Equal Rights Amendment failed and women are not guaranteed equal rights in the US. Maybe women should think before they eagerly proclaim veil hatred to be "racist", and their own ignorance progressive.