mitt_and_newt from media.salon.com

In the fierce battle between Next Gingrich and Mitt Romney for second place in this year’s presidential campaign, the two top Republicans have become the president’s best aides for his reelection. By attacking each others’ weaknesses, they damaged their image in the eyes of potential voters and provided an invaluable script for how to bring down the eventual Republican nominee.

The most useful attacks (for President Obama) have involved the giant mortgage lenders Fannie Mae (The Federal National Mortgage Association) and Freddie Mac (Federal Home Mortgage Corporation). Many people, especially anti-government Republicans, falsely believe that Fannie and Freddie were the causes of the mortgage meltdown. Until the Republican nominating campaign, these two lenders, who controlled 90% of the secondary mortgage market in 2003, have been viewed as a Democratic problem. However, Republican accusations over the lenders during their campaign for the nomination show that Republicans are complicit in the mortgage meltdown and both parties have been involved with these controversial lenders.

First, Mitt Romney pointed out that Gingrich earned $1.6 million lobbying for Freddie Mac and thus by association is partially responsible for the mortgage meltdown. This ad by the Romney campaign could just have well been produced by a Democratic media consultant.

The ad also accuses Gingrich of being a beltway insider, something he has been running from since the campaign began. If Gingrich wins the nomination, this ad will make it harder for him to project the “outsider” image that he is trying to cultivate.

For his part, Gingrich has accused Romney of profiting from Fannie and Freddie, “Ironically, apparently his tax return indicates he owns stock in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac…”  Gingrich wants to hide his role in Freddie Mac by making Fannie and Freddie an issue of the elite rich guy, Romney, making money off the mortgage brokers. Newt has been labeled a corrupt insider and Romney an elite opportunist, “I think someone who owns stock in a place that forecloses on Floridians has a lot of gall to start raising the issue,” he told reporters.” All this plays well for the President and his campaign who will use these labels to discredit whoever wins the Republican nomination.

Then there were the attacks on Romney from Rick Perry along with Gingrich for his involvement in vulture capitalism. Editor of the Nation, Katrina Van De Heuvel puts it well,

With their eyes set on Bain’s bane and Mitt Romney’s career, Perry and Gingrich have been astonishingly and appropriately brutal. “There’s a real difference between venture capitalism and vulture capitalism,” Perry told Fox and Friends last week. “I don’t believe that capitalism is making a buck under any circumstances.” Couldn’t have said it better myself. 

She continues,

Gingrich sharpened that point further on Bloomberg: “…Show me somebody who has consistently made money while losing money for workers and I’ll show you someone who has undermined capitalism.” Sing it, Brother Gingrich.

Gingrich further challenged Romney by releasing his tax returns early before the South Carolina Republican debate. This pushed Romney into releasing his own tax returns that show he paid less than 15% in taxes (half of what Gingrich reported). Obama gained yet another talking point that has resonance with the American people, the 99% versus the 1%. If Romney gets the Republican nomination, Obama can use the framing of the people versus the corporate elite represented by Romney to defeat the former CEO of Bain Capital. So much for Romney’s business acumen being an asset in the general election.

Romney counters by attacking Gingrich and his time as speaker of the House, “…Members of his own congressional team after four years of his leadership, they voted to replace him,” Romney said of Gingrich’s time as House speaker from 1995 to 1999. “This was the first time in American history that a speaker of the House has resigned.”

And Romney and other Republicans have criticized Gingrich on his appearance with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a climate change ad. There is no worse sin for Republicans than cavorting with the enemy, and Pelosi is enemy number two, right after President Obama. This might not hurt him with Democrats who will never vote for Gingrich, but Republicans may turn away from him in the general election for this sin.

The longer the Republican nominating process continues, the longer Gingrich holds on and convinces Republican voters he is the true conservative left with a chance, the better it will be for President Obama come November. And the more Romney has to spend attacking Gingrich, the less money he will have to go after Obama in the fall.

Peace,
Tex Shelters

from underthemountainbunker.com

Newt Gingrich has cheapened the institution of marriage through his behavior, and the people who support Gingrich and allow him to get away with his womanizing, divorces and multiple marriages are damaging the institution even further.
The vows of marriage say “til death do us part”, but that was too long to wait for Newt.

Newt Gingrich admits that he sinned and his first marriage failed because, “all humans sin”.  So, when it comes to marriage, Mr. Gingrich is an admitted sinner. Adultery is a sin, and the Republicans who accept Newt and his sin should understand that adultery leads to man on dog sex, sex between gerbils and cats and other unholy matrimonies.

Moreover, while Gingrich cheapened his own marriage with non-wife blow jobs, he was working in the House to impeach President Clinton for his non-wife blow jobs.

Newt’s second wife recently accused him of wanting an open marriage. But that’s okay with Republicans in South Carolina, where Gingrich won the latest primary. If you don’t see the hypocrisy yet, imagine if Secretary of State Clinton had said, “Bill wanted an open marriage”? Republicans would have been on this like crap on shit. Open marriages and the Republican acceptance of them are ruining the sanctity of marriage like vampire on human sex.

And how did Republicans, those willing to vote for an adulterer, sinner, and divorcee, feel about the Weiner bulge of 2011. No, the Weiner bulge wasn’t a German Panzer attack in WWII, it was the photo that Democratic Representative Anthony Weiner sent of the outline of his penis in underwear to a female college student he had met online. It became a massive issue for Republicans wanting to rid themselves of this brash liberal Representative. So a few sexual innuendoes and attacks later (even Democrats asked Weiner to resign) he resigned for doing less than Newt has done to ruin the sanctity of marriage. As far as we know, Weiner kept his penis in his shorts, Gingrich did not.

By mixing faith, redemption and adultery, Mr. Gingrich has created a new form of politics where sinning is okay. “Newt is apparently trying to create a new hybrid form, Christian adultery.”

And Republicans defend him by stating that his three marriages prove that Gingrich is qualified to be president. One example of this is from Dr. Keith Ablow  (yes, his name really is Ablow).

So, here’s what one interested in making America stronger can reasonably conclude—psychologically—from Mr. Gingrich’s behavior during his three marriages:

1) Three women have met Mr. Gingrich and been so moved by his emotional energy and intellect that they decided they wanted to spend the rest of their lives with him.

2) Two of these women felt this way even though Mr. Gingrich was already married. 

3 ) One of them felt this way even though Mr. Gingrich was already married for the second time, was not exactly her equal in the looks department and had a wife (Marianne) who wanted to make his life without her as painful as possible. 

Conclusion: When three women want to sign on for life with a man who is now running for president, I worry more about whether we’ll be clamoring for a third Gingrich term, not whether we’ll want to let him go after one.”

I have another conclusion to make from the idea that sexual encounters qualify you for president. Why not vote for Wilt Chamberlain for president, who claims to have had 20,000 sexual encounters with women? Now that’s qualification!

Let’s look at Newt’s own excuse for his affairs. He says that he felt so passionately about the United States that it caused him to leave his cancer riddled wife and later, “while he was leading a party that was making the case that a U.S. President shouldn’t be having on-the-job sexual encounters with interns, using his staff and appointees to cover it up, and lying about it under oath in court, to commence a second extra-marital affair of his own.” 

And now when the media asks about his marriages, (after helping Republicans attack Clinton in the drawn out impeachment hearings) Newt is incensed,

“I think the destructive, viscous, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to government this country, harder to attract decent people to run this country and I am appalled that you would being a presidential debate on a topic like that.” 

And Republicans in Congress have spent Obama’s whole term using destructive, viscous and negative attacks against the President, thus making it hard for him to govern.

Newt continues, “Every person in here has had someone close to them go through painful things, to take an ex-wife, and make it (an issue) two days before the primary a significant question in a presidential campaign, is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine.”

I am so glad the media and the Republicans didn’t treat Clinton or Weiner so despicably.

So Newt Gingrich and South Carolina’s Republicans support the adulterer while blocking marriage for homosexuals who might “ruin the sanctity” of the institution. In the meantime, I will be passing around my “Wilt for President” petition.

This post is not condone extramarital affairs nor does it care if candidates have them. I am more concerned with liars and hypocrites running for office and those that would keep rights from others because of their religious bigotry.

Peace,
Tex Shelters

Congress for sale from truenewsfromchangenyc.blogspot.com

Mitt Romney, in his finite wisdom, pointed out that Obama is using the politics of envy. “It’s a very envy-oriented, attack-oriented approach and I think it will fail.”  So, if you want corporations and the 1% to pay their share of taxes, and you’re in favor of job’s bills and regulating “too big to fail” banks, you are doing so because you are envious of Romney and the 1%. I am envious as well.

1. I am envious of the 1% because I too want to buy companies and send jobs overseas.

2. I am envious of Romney because I also want to lie and change my mind whenever it’s politically expedient.

3. Ignorance is bliss, and I am not nearly as blissful as Mitt Romney, whom I envy.

4.  I envy Romney because I too would like to be able to say one day, “Then, I get speaker’s fees from time to time, but not very much,” in reference to earning $374,327.62 in speaking fees from February 2010 to February 2011.

5. I am envious because I would also like to be able to joke like Romney about “fearing a pink slip” while knowing I had millions in the bank and daddy’s millions to back me up.

6. I am also envious because I am not ruthless and uncaring enough to run for president in a political party that would just as well see people die than raise a finger to care for the them.

7. I am envious of the 1% because I wish I could buy elected officials and write legislation for Congress.

8. I envy the Koch brothers because I wish I could fund a political movement like the Tea Party and get candidates elected under that banner to cut social programs while keeping my taxes low.

9. I envy BP, Exxon and other massive polluters who can make hundreds of billions off of energy and then only pay a couple of billion dollars in fines when our projects destroy a coastline.

10. I envy the mega corporations that have had the joy of laying off thousands of workers (like Romney has, that lucky dog!) and sending the jobs overseas under the aegis of free market capitalism.

12. I envy the 1% who have skillfully gotten their lackeys into Congress who in turn blame the 99% for being poor and unemployed.

13. I envy the 1% because when they screw up, somebody else pays.

Romney is right; it’s envy that motivates people to criticize the 1%, not justice, equality, common sense, humanism and compassion.

Peace,
Tex Shelters

It was exciting to see so many people at the the Forest Service meeting for the Rosemont open-pit mine in Sahuarita on Saturday, January 14th. I was also happy to see all support for the 1% by the proletariat.

I support the open-pit mine because I support America. Thus I support Korean company Kores and Canadian consortium Augusta who will be extracting ore and profit from us. Furthermore, Rosemont will be able to ship the copper anywhere, like China, after it’s out of the ground. Yea America!

The quaint America first taint of the comments in the Sahuarita public school is so heart warming in a time of globalization, global capital and free markets that demand corporations sell to the highest bidder. And all that love we received was overwhelming after our corporations sent so many jobs overseas, closed plants and have fought public spending on roads, schools, water treatment and so forth. Frankly, us millionaires are against lavish spending to pay for teachers, fill potholes or make bridges safe.

The open-pit mine is the best kind because they are fast and complete. You don’t miss the opportunity for maximum tailings when you dig a big, mile-wide hole. Moreover, I love the smell of tailings in the morning.

Besides the mile-wide hole to behold, there are other reasons I support the mine.

I am for the Rosemont open-pit mine because I hate birds. Who cares about bio-diversity and animals? Humans are the only animals that matter. And those bird watchers are dirty hippies that need to get a job! Or is that Occupy Tucson? Whatever the case, only Marxists put birds before open-pit mines and profit.

As bad as the bird-watchers are, there are the astronomers who are demanding that we keep the lights down. Like all liberals, astronomers are hypocrites. They get to have their science but they want to prevent Rosemont from using their mining science. So what if a little light leaks into the sky? I hate the stars too!

And all the “sky is falling” chicken little environmentalists need to shut up about water quality and look at the facts. Nothing went wrong with BP and Exxon who protected the environment in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. They followed the law completely, and so does Rosemont Copper and nothing will go wrong here either. Rosemont Copper has promised us, and corporations always follow through on their promises. Just ask the fishermen on the Gulf of Mexico.

Rosemont promises 500 jobs for 20 years in the mines. Some pessimists (liberals!) want to know what happens if the price of copper collapses. Don’t worry about us. We can just close the mine and take it as a write off.

I am in favor of the Rosemont Copper open-pit mine because despite the incomplete environmental impact draft study by the U.S. Forest Service, I am sure that we can trust corporations to do what is best for the people in the region. We need to start chopping into that mountain while the getting is good and before people realize there are better, cleaner ways to mine than using an open pit and there are other ways to create those 500 jobs Rosemont swears will be here for 20 years.

Besides, making millionaires money without risk to us is the best reason to support the open-pit mine. I can also support the Rosemont open-pit mine because I don’t live in area and I won’t have to look at it, drink the water or smell the air. I will only have to look at the wonderful cash I will make from my investment. And thanks again to all those at the meeting for supporting the billionaires’ mine.

Peace,
Tex Shelters

Buying the Election from Salon.com

Romney had 8 more votes next to his name in the Iowa caucuses, and that means everyone else lost. Romney has the lead in New Hampshire, the next Republican primary, and he has the lead in money. Only Barack Obama has more campaign cash on hand than Mitt Romney. Without a crushing defeat in Iowa, Romney’s path to the nomination is clear. No amount of evangelical enthusiasm for Santorum, or youth and independent excitement for Ron Paul, will make a difference. Unless hit by a huge scandal, Wall Street’s man won’t lose now.

The Political Action Committee, PAC, Restore our Future spent $3 million in attack ads against Newt Gingrich after Gingrich had taken a lead in the polls about a month ago. A look at their website makes it clear that they are a pro-Romney, anti-Gingrich PAC. Because they operate as a PAC, Restore our Future received well over the $2500 individual contribution limit from individuals, i.e. millionaires. In fact, the four top donors gave $1 million each. And even though this PAC clearly supports the candidacy of Mitt Romney, they don’t face the same scrutiny as individual donors do. By giving to a PAC, donors can donate as much as they want. In essence, political influence in D.C. is sold to the highest bidders.

When money wins a political campaign, Wall Street wins. And so it was in Iowa on Tuesday. Occupy Wall Street and other occupy movements all over our nation have been working for four months to end the influence Wall Street has on politics. Wall Street has been buying influence in the nations capital through a combination of lobbying, donating to campaigns, PACs, making back room deals, and giving largess through cushy jobs after Congress members end their public work for 220 years in the United States, since 1792. So don’t expect the Occupy Wall Street movement to change Wall Street’s influence in national politics overnight.

Wall Street has a lot invested in the Presidency, having already contributed $16,835,938 to the various presidential campaigns, more than any other sector. Almost half of that total has gone to Mitt Romney ($7,801,006) with about a quarter going to President Obama ($4,187,924).  That means that 75% of the money donated by Wall Street and financial institutions has gone to the front runners in the two major parties. The Presidential race is a win-win for them regardless of what party comes out on top, although Romney is clearly their number-one choice.

Why does Romney win though he has low favorability ratings within his own party? Money, Romney’s low unfavorable ratings, and the desire to have a chance to beat Barack Obama will propel Romney to the nomination despite being a former moderate Republican on many issues. “Some financiers, like Schwarzman, are Republicans who may have chosen Romney because they think he’s the candidate most likely to beat Obama.”

Only 10% of Romney’s donations are from small donors, and that is 10% more than Wall Street wants. That makes Romney the clear choice of the 1%. And because money largely determines the winners of national and statewide elections, Romney is in a good position to win the Republican nomination.

Mark Green, Author of Selling Out: How Big Corporate Money Buys Elections, Rams Through Legislation, and Betrays Our Democracy, writes clearly about how money is the determining factor in the election of politicians in America. Even in 1904, the influence money had on the Presidential race was dramatic, “Fearing defeat, Roosevelt rejected pleas by Progressives to rely on small individual contributions and turned instead for financial support to the very bankers and industrialists who had only recently supported Hanna as the most acceptable Republican candidate….Some of the country’s richest men-Cornelius Bliss, J. P. Morgan, and Andrew Carnegie among them-contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars, and once it was known that the President was accepting corporate money, other financiers flooded the campaign with contributions, many of which were never publicized. Roosevelt won the presidency by a landslide.”

Here is a list of the top donors to Romney’s campaign this election cycle. Note that these are almost all financial institutions; Romney is clearly in the pockets of those largely responsible helping bring about the recession.

Goldman Sachs $367,200
Credit Suisse Group $203,750
Morgan Stanley $199,800
HIG Capital $186,500
Barclays $157,750
Kirkland & Ellis $132,100
Bank of America $126,500
PriceWaterhouseCoopers $118,250
EMC Corp $117,300
JPMorgan Chase & Co $ 112,250
The Villages $97,500
Vivint Inc $80,750
Marriott International $79,837
Sullivan & Cromwell $79,250
Bain Capital $74,500
UBS AG $73,750
Wells Fargo $61,500
Blackstone Group $59,800
Citigroup Inc $57,050
Bain & Co $52,500
Total: $2,437,837

Bain Capital is Romney’s old firm. They made millions buying troubled companies and their assets, gutting them, sending any remaining jobs overseas, and then reselling the assets at a profit. Romney’s experience gutting companies and making millions for Wall Street is what the financial institutions look for in a candidate. They are unconcerned with social issues that preoccupy some religious conservatives, unless those issues can be used to divide the people amongst themselves and not against the plutocrats.

Romney also has more large donors than any candidate. “More than 8,000 donors have given Romney the maximum of $2,500, compared to less than 6,000 maximum donors for Obama…Romney’s big individual donors hail from major financial institutions. His top five companies are all banks or financial service firms: Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, HIG Capital and Barclay’s. Bank of America and PricewaterhouseCoopers help round out his top ten.”

Romney wants no limits on Wall Street donations. The more Wall Street can donate, the more the 1% wins at the expense of the rest of us, the 99%. With those donations, he will be able to outspend his Republican opponents and win the nomination for his Wall Street cronies. Mitt Romney might feel the satisfaction of garnering the most votes next to his name, but the victory is not his to celebrate. Clearly, Wall Street won the Iowa caucus.

Peace,
Tex Shelters

The legislative ban on ethnic studies classes in Arizona high schools was upheld in Administrative court in Phoenix, AZ in December by judge Lewis D. Kowal of the Arizona Office of Administrative Hearings. More accurately, the ban on Mexican-American studies in Tucson has been upheld. We can add Judge Kowal to the names of John Huppenthal and Tom Horne, who pushed this bill through the Republican dominated state legislature, as well as Joe Arpaio and others, who want to shut up Mexicans.

These white men are concerned that teaching Mexican, Chicano, and other children about Mexican-American history and ethnic studies would create a classroom environment that “demonizes white people as oppressors of Hispanics.”  This claim is ridiculous; one or two classes of ethnic studies can’t make up for 10 years of teaching the history of European Americans in the United States. Here is the language in the law addressing the concerns of Huppenthal, Horne and anti-ethnic studies groups.

The four activities identified by the bill that warrant fund withholding include classes that:

1. Promote the overthrow of the United States government
2. Promote resentment toward a race or class of people
3. Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group
4. Advocate for ethnic solidarity  

Ethnic studies has nothing to do with promoting government overthrow, and there are already laws against treason. This point is a ridiculous, fear mongering tactic. Moreover, the point of ethnic studies is to focus on one particular ethnic group. Hasn’t American history focused primarily on White Europeans for years? People who don’t want an educated populous fight against a diversity of knowledge. And what’s so scary about ethnic solidarity? It’s only scary if you are insecure and know that minorities working together means you will no longer be able to bully them, harass them with impunity and you, as a soon to be white minority, may no longer be elected to office.

And how about point number two, the idea that ethnic studies promotes resentment. Do our state officials not know that there is already resentment against White Europeans for the treatment of Mexican Americans?  And yes, there are historical reasons for this resentment.  Do people actually believe that banning the study of Mexican-Americn history will alleviate resentment minority students feel toward a White, Eurocentric school system? And more to the point, don’t the anti-ethnic studies groups understand that teenagers have more to be concerned with than historical oppression. There’s grades, work, family, relationships and dozens of other issues students are facing and one ethnic studies class won’t create groups of revolutionary Mexicans. Once again, right-wingers overreact and create a bigger problem for themselves.

Here are a few facts that might lead to resentment:

Mexico controlled the land that is now Arizona for almost four decades until the United States, mostly white folks of Protestant faith, moved into Texas, and through guile and the gun, cajoled Mexico into a war with the United States (1846-48). Half of Mexico was ceded to the victorious United States, mainly the lands north of the Rio Grande. This U.S. victory led to oppression of many Mexican-Americans, the kind of oppression Judge Kowal wants us to ignore.

Thousands of Mexican citizens lost their land after the war due to the difference between land ownership laws, manipulation by white judges (again with the white judges) and through violence. “Two generations later, most Mexicans living in the U.S. no longer held title to their lands and found their cultural way of life increasingly under attack as U.S. white supremacy came to predominate.  In California, as land transferred from Mexican to Euro-American hands, a very racially-motivated Workingman’s Party dominated the call for a Constitutional Convention.  In 1879, that new Constitution not only made Chinese immigration illegal (the primary cause of the Party), but it also destroyed the legal protections Mexicans once enjoyed, rights promised to them in the 1848 Treaty. ”  

So, promising Mexican nationals U.S. citizenship and title to land they owned before the war and then later taking the land doesn’t constitute sufficient “oppression” of Mexicans by whites, thus we shouldn’t teach our students this history. It’s not oppression, it’s just inconvenient facts that some Whites want to hide from us.

What about segregation of Mexicans and white Europeans in the Southwest akin to black segregation in the South? Does that count? White men in power like Horne, Huppenthal, Kowak and others want to hide this history of discrimination behind a wall of reverse discrimination nonsense. Are they afraid that when Latinos become a plurality or majority in this state that they will go after the whites? Don’t worry guys, class will still keep us separate after the Mexican reconquista. Or will it?

Then there is the legal exploitation and not so legal abuse of workers of Mexican descent.  These workers get paid subpar wages, some live in company like towns on farms in squalid conditions, many work more dangerous jobs, they have no rights as workers, get no insurance, and don’t benefit from their contributions to Social Security. We complain about “illegal” workers from Mexico, but we target the victims of this labor situation, the Mexican workers. Seldom do we go after companies that benefit form this illegal labor, and seldom do we realize how our economy benefits from this cheap supply of labor.

Mexican workers have been used in the United States ever since the United States won the war over Mexico. First, there was a rush to fill the labor needed to build the railway from the United States to Mexico. Thousands of Mexican workers filled that labor gap. Mexican labor was utilized to fill the farm jobs left vacant when the United States government passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. In times of war, predominantly WWI and WWII, Mexican labor was brought to work in the fields as U.S. soldiers went off to war. Then when the Mexicans had been used to fill our needs, they were blamed for job loses and legal steps were made to exclude them. The Bracero Program passed in 1942 brought more than 4 million Mexican workers for the growing agriculture industry in the West, main California, and for the war effort.

Mexican labor today is also utilized in poultry and pig farms and all sorts of back breaking work. This kind of labor exploitation can easily be labeled “oppression”, and I am sure that ruling white men would be against labor history as well as Mexican-American studies, because labor history discusses oppression of workers by the ruling classes.

Dr. Amster of Prescott College, writing at Truthdig explains their motivation, “There’s a word for what Arizona is attempting to do here: ethnocide.”

Martin Luther King Jr. famously wrote in his landmark essay “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” following the teachings of St. Augustine, that “an unjust law is no law at all.” King further reminds us, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” calling upon us to recognize the interlinked nature of destinies and, indeed, the inherent solidarity of our struggles, and further counsels that in this effort “one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”

None of the excuses for banning Mexican American studies in Tucson holds up to the reality in the classroom. In Fact, an independent audit of the program found the program didn’t violate the criteria laid out in the law.

“No observable evidence exists that instruction within Mexican American Studies Department promotes resentment towards a race or class of people. The auditors observed the opposite, as students are taught to be accepting of multiple ethnicities of people. MASD teachers are teaching Cesar Chavez alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi, all as peaceful protesters who sacrificed for people and ideas they believed in. Additionally, all ethnicities are welcomed into the program and these very students of multiple backgrounds are being inspired and taught in the same manner as Mexican American students. All evidence points to peace as the essence for program teachings. Resentment does not exist in the context of these courses.”

So, fearful people who brought you the war on drugs and the Iraq war are now spreading their paranoia to education to keep information of uncomfortable facts, discrimination against Latinos, from our children. If the truth sets you free, the superintendent and many in the state legislature in Arizona want to imprison our minds.

For more information on defending ethnic studies, visit http://saveethnicstudies.org/meet_us.shtml

Peace,
Tex Shelters

Flaming Peace from growabrain.typepad.com

Need a reading list for 2012? Well, here you are.

These articles have been chosen among the best of 2011 based on originality, quality of writing, and importance of the topic. I chose some because they are funny or at least they gave me a laugh. They are not ranked, they are chosen chronologically and are only numbered for ease of reading.

1. Stop the Race to National Standards and Race to the Top
http://texshelters.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/stop-the-race-to-national-standards-and-race-to-the-top/

This is one of a few articles where I go after high stakes testing as a failed policy (No Child Left Behind) from the Bush administration, given a white wash, and renamed Race to the Top.

Reasons to read: It’s an amalgam of various criticisms of Race to the Top, criticisms that need to be understood before we let corporations ruin our schools beyond repair.

Excerpt: So, teachers’ pay has to be based on how well little John or Sally or Juan or Chin or Liliana does on a standardized test that is only valid if you don’t considered the cultural and economic variations of all students everywhere. And, RTTT gives extra points for creating more charter schools.

2. Michelle Rhee, Wisconsin, and the Attack on Teachers
http://texshelters.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/michelle-rhee-wisonsin-and-the-attack-on-teachers/

Why this is worth a read: In this article, I discredit the super-hero of education “reform”, Michelle Rhee. I understand people such as Rhee and Secretary of Education Duncan are symptoms of a greater problem, but like a viral infection, it helps to remove as much of the disease as possible. I also criticize merit based pay that is centered on high stakes testing.

Excerpt: Can you imagine someone going into a hospital, looking at a few charts and then firing half the doctors because they weren’t performing to a set of medical testing data? Most members of Congress would lose their jobs if they had to perform to criteria many of them want to impose on teachers, and they would not put up with it.

3. The Senate is the most Democratic legislative body in the World
http://texshelters.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/the-senate-is-the-most-democratic-legislative-body-in-the-world-update-for-linking/

I wrote this article because I was sick and tired of the Senate blocking useful reform and I wanted to explain how undemocrat the Senate is.

Reason to read this: People need to learn facts about the Senate you might not have known. Note the sardonic tone of the piece used to deride this anti-democratic institution.

Excerpt: The latest example of the Senate’s love and support of democracy, though there are so many, is health care reform. By its very nature, the Senators in the finance committee are democratic. They represent a small part of the country, and they can stop health care for everyone.

4. Other Official State Items We Need in Arizona
http://texshelters.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/other-official-state-items-we-need-in-arizona/

I wrote this after the Arizona state legislature, in its finite wisdom, decided we needed an official state gun. Arizona is a microcosm of politics in the United States. It’s an example of how a few crazy people can ruin a good state for the rest of us.

Reasons to read: You might laugh and cry and groan all at the same time.

Excerpt: The official state border crossing; changes weekly.

5. Accepted Assumptions that are Wrong: A Healthy Stock Market Means a Healthy Economy
http://texshelters.wordpress.com/2011/03/20/accepted-assumptions-that-are-wrong-a-healthy-stock-market-means-a-healthy-economy/

Reason to read: It goes to the very core of misguided economic news, the stock market. It is also one of my best pieces on this myth and a good read, and if I were to give an award for best written, this piece gets the Golden Texy.

Excerpt: Americans outside the brokerage and banking industries, outside of the Forbes 500 and their cronies in D.C, are suffering. The stock market doesn’t gage if average people are doing well, it is a gage of what speculators think they can make from betting on, or against, a certain stock. It is a false indicator of prosperity, unless you look at the holders and manipulators of large stock portfolios.

6. Where is the Proof that Obama is even Human?
http://texshelters.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/where-the-proof-that-obama-is-even-human/

Reason to read: In this article, I mock the birthers and those that would take political advantage of birthers by taking it one step further, questioning Obama’s species credentials. If he were a dog, I would want to see his papers.

Excerpt: First, I want to see a copy of Obama’s physical examinations to prove that he is human. The Constitution clearly states that you must be a human to be president, and I have yet to see proof that Obama is. Why won’t any of Obama’s supposed doctors come forward? Perhaps he’s not really a human?

Why hasn’t Michelle Obama come forward with proof Obama is really a man. How do we know that Obama didn’t have a sex change and was really a woman? What proof do we really have? Until I see a photo of Obama’s penis, I can’t believe Obama’s a man. Why won’t Obama come forward with his penis?

Best Line: Why won’t Obama come forward with his penis?

7. How Republicans “Win” Elections or Support the “Voter Shooter Law”
http://texshelters.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/how-republicans-win-elections/

Reason to read: A very important article for the year 2012 and the elections. It’s a run-down of the voter suppression and election tactics that make it possible for Republicans to win elections. Then I add a list of suggestions of how to suppress the vote further, as seen in the excerpt below.

Excerpt: 3. Charge neighborhoods with the hiring of employees, the buying of voting machines, and rent in order to have polling places in their neighborhood. That should keep voting down to only those that contribute enough to society to deserve a vote. However, we will not have a poll tax,  for that is un-American.

Memorable line: Voters are easily manipulated by nationalistic symbolism and the Republicans count on it to win elections.

8. How to Promote High Stakes Testing: Lie
http://texshelters.wordpress.com/2011/05/30/how-to-promote-high-stakes-testing-lie/

Reason to Read: This article features examples of teachers, schools, superindendents and school districts so desperate for funding that they lied about their test results. This story is important and not enough people know about it.

Excerpt: In the movie Waiting for Superman, charter schools based on the KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) model are touted as out performing public schools. However, this model leaves children behind and thus their stats are gamed,

“Taxpayer-funded KIPP schools, praised in the film ‘Waiting for Superman,’ succeed in sending poor graduates to college because the lowest-performing students drop out or don’t enroll at all, a study found.”

Important line: So, the high stakes testing regimen faced by schools all over this nation was based on a lie, and that lie has produced millions in sales for CTB/McGraw-Hill, makers of testing materials and friends to President Bush.

9. Obama Shows his Hatred of Israel by Admitting Palestinians are Human
http://texshelters.wordpress.com/2011/05/28/obama-shows-his-hatred-of-israel-by-admitting-palestinians-are-human/

Reasons to Read: The article directly discredits the big lie that “Obama hates Israel” in an alternating serious and sardonic style. I wrote it after a well educated Jew I know asked me, “Why does Obama hate Israel?”, and then she refused to debate me on it because instead of using her analytic, scientific brain (she is studying medicine), she told me that she was “too emotional” to talk about it. Well yea.

Look at the facts and learn that Obama wants peace, and that includes for Palestinians too. Sorry, but Obama thinks Palestinians are also human. Some paranoid Jews and Republicans who want to attack Obama don’t even bother to look at Obama’s complete speech and stick to the big lie about Obama’s hatred of Israel that Republicans have pushed since Obama ran for president. Also, look at the map and the borders. The 1967 border is almost exactly the same as the current borders.

Excerpt: Clearly, Netanyahu wants no peace. And there are Arab governments, namely Iran, that don’t want to see a peace between Israelis and Palestinians either. If nothing else, pissing off Iran and other Muslim nationalists in the region should move Israel to peace talks. Furthermore, I am sure there are multinational arms dealers selling weapons to Israel and Muslim jihadists that will suffer greatly if peace breaks out in Israel and Palestine.

Memorable line: How Dare Obama hate Israel by stating their need to be secure!

10. Stop the Socialist FEMA Takeover of the Midwest
http://texshelters.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/stop-the-socialist-fema-takeover-of-the-midwest/

Reason to Read: Republicans hate the government, until they need it. This article mocks the tendency of hypocritical Republicans to take government money when it helps them but cut funding when it might help someone else.

Excerpt/Memorable Line: Yes, the state legislature refuses aid for the unemployed caught under the dual tornado of joblessness and state cuts, and they should stick to their guns, and pull them out of their holsters, to refuse socialist FEMA funds to help those affected by the recent tornadoes.

11. Every Day, I’m More Gay
http://texshelters.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/i’m-more-gay-every-day/

Reasons to read: Sometimes the only thing you can do to fight homophobia is to amuse those that realize most homophobes are scared and ignorant, and laugh at them. I write like a confused homophobe, and exaggerate the fears these people must be feeling to humorous effect. There are too many good lines to quote here, so read it.

Excerpt: Then another shocking revelation came my way when I learned that Freddy Mercury was a gay man the whole time I was listening to his music and watching his videos, on MTV! Imagine a band named “Queen” having homosexual members in it. Who would have known?

Memorable Line: Yes, I know Broadway is not just for gays any more, but it’s the gayt way drug to homosexuality.

12. Defending the Power Elite in America Against the Interests of the People: The Case of the United States Government
http://texshelters.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/defending-the-power-elite-in-america-against-the-interests-of-the-people-the-case-of-the-united-states-government/

Reason to read: This article illuminates the undemocratic structures in our government and questions the firmly held beliefs of our elected officials and much of the population that we are a highly evolved democracy. And, it’s not a bad read.

Excerpt:  The form of our government in the United States is one that is not conducive to change and radicalism. It is set up to prevent big sweeping changes and thus promotes the interests of those in power, the moneyed and political elite. Elections for political office do little to change the underlying body politic, changing one face for another, and are only cosmetic in nature.

Line to Remember: As long as we have a two party system in the United States run by money and limited choice, we will never have a government by the people and for the people.

13. Facts about Class, Poverty and Downward Mobility
http://texshelters.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/facts-about-class-poverty-and-downward-mobility/

Reason to read: This article is a well written exposé about class in the United States and the lies the right-wing and political and economic elite use to defend their economic dominance, greed and the plutocracy.

Excerpt: If it was just a matter of working hard, why is poverty rising and wealth more concentrated at the top than ever before? Is it that 80% of Americans are lazy? There is a given amount of wealth in a nation and thus when more wealth is concentrated at the top, there will be more poverty at the bottom.

Memorable Line: The idea of the American dream is one of the most successful pieces of propaganda ever perpetuated.

14. Endangered Billionaire Job Creators

Video of the year by Tex Shelters done in the style of an endangered species ad. If you gag every time you hear the term “job creators” about mega corporations who are actually job cutters, this video is for you.

15. My Dream Christmas Letter From Obama to the Republican National Committee
http://texshelters.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/my-dream-christmas-letter-from-obama-to-the-republican-national-committee/

Reason to Read: The article is a letter I would love to see Obama send Republicans and it explains why he will win in 2012. It also highlights the faulty Republican candidates and how they are not qualified for the campaign trail let alone the office of the presidency. Moreover, it’s funny.

Excerpt: And Michelle Bachmann, what can I say? She thinks black families had it better during slavery than they do now. Thank you for that Representative Bachmann. Have you asked Herman Cain about that?

Memorable line: You know how to make a guy feel welcome, to four more years in the White House.

So there you have it, some of my choices for articles that deserve an addition read and issues that deserve further consideration.

Peace, and happy New Year,
Tex Shelters

Occupy the World from flyingnorth.net

To: The World and all its residents
From: Tex Shelters of Occupy Tucson, speaking for himself and not the movement
Re: Current Conditions and prospects

Dear World:

Happy New Year, World. I know we have had a rough year and not treated you well. I hope you forgive humanity and realize that many of us see some of what you are going through and want to help. I also want to acknowledge that “New Year” is a human construct and that the world has a different concept of time, living eternally in the moment and constantly in forever.

Sorry about the global warming world. I know you try to accommodate humanity, but at this rate, I wouldn’t blame you if you threw us all off for our continued burning of your forests, coal and oil fields. And sorry about the BP oil spill in the gulf, world. I only wish that the corporations that caused the spill weren’t getting so little punishment and that we would use that disaster to change our energy policy.

We are worried about your 1.4 billion that live in extreme poverty despite your bounty. It’s not your fault, world, but we have created a system that allows such suffering and depravity. The one percent hoard more than they need, and most of us have been accomplices to this plunder.

We occupiers and others are disturbed that the United States leads the way in incarcerating its people, and that the world far too often sees prison as an answer to social problems. I know that’s not what you want us to do with your resources.

We are upset about the continued war economy that puts money into weapons and their manufacturers, weapons that are created for the sole purpose of killing. Sorry world. We occupiers do want to end wars and the use of these weapons that protect the wealth of the 1%. We occupy because we don’t think it’s too late to end this endless war.

We are upset about all the foreclosures on homes, especially those that could be saved with some creative refinancing. Bankers are very good at finding creative ways to make money, hide their lack of liquidity, create credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations and other financial instruments to make money off the hard earned work of others. But neither the banks nor the government have been willing to work creatively to help people from losing their homes. And the efforts that have been made are inadequate to meet the needs of homeowners. This is not what the world needs.

We are upset by CEOs that make millions even when their companies lose money. The world would be a better place without these greedy people.

We are upset about the Washington, DC revolving door in which Congress members can get jobs making millions at Wall Street firms as Washington insiders and use their Congressional contacts to help their new companies get contracts, tax cuts, reduced regulation, and other benefits. We are upset by Congress selling our democracy to the highest donor for a few dollars and thus sell out everyone’s future. They are no better than dictators who rob their national treasuries. Moreover, we are upset that Congress can in essence practice insider trading, further selling out our democracy.

World, we are upset that many in Congress would rather cut programs that help Americans in a time of need than work with the president to create jobs.

We occupy because we don’t think it’s too late to help create positive change. So please dear world, help us educate the populous about the greedy few who want to ruin the planet for all of us and for far too long have not been challenged.

Peace,
Tex Shelters

from petliferadio.com

I ordered these for editorial reasons; they are not ranked. The list is not all inclusive, but they are issues I have experience with and might amuse you. So on with the winners!

Google
Google has slowly crept into almost every aspect of the blogosphere and internet. Soon, you will have to log-in to Google to take a shit in your own home.

The use of the term “pro-life” and “pro-abortion”
People who use the term pro-life to define themselves are usually just pro-fetus. Many of them don’t care if a woman dies as long as the fetus is protected and are the same people who support cuts to education, school lunch programs, immunizations, pell grants, ADFC, and other programs that aid children. And, the forced-birth crowd is often for the death penalty and against health care. So much for “pro-life”. Moreover, nobody is “pro-abortion.” No one is lining up to have an abortion as if they were lining up for Jay-Z tickets. The idea that anyone is pro-abortion is just a lie that ignores the reality of choice in the United States.

Certainly, this could be a pet peeve any year, but the forced-birthers are endangering the lives of half the population to a higher degree than ever by challenging legal and safe medical procedures.  And, the way the argument is framed is part of the reason they get away with it.

Congress
Congress ignores the needs of the people to pander to the 1%. Republicans in Congress spent much of 2010 talking about the deficit and trying to find ways to cut social spending, thus increase unemployment during a recession. In the first half of this year, Republicans spent much of the year still focused on cuts until Occupy Wall Street gathered steam and media attention and helped change the debate from deficits to equity, jobs, and bank criminality. As Republicans took charge of the agenda after winning a majority in the House, Democrats either cheerfully joined in or passively sat by. Let’s hope Congress listens to the people and their needs in 2012.

People who write about the Occupy Movement but have never been to a camp or read the literature provided by various movements
Would you trust a movie reviewer who never saw the movie they are writing about? Then why trust “journalists” who write about the Occupy Movement but have never visited a camp? These critics talk about something they haven’t even experienced, first or secondhand. This also goes for many members of the general public as well who buy into the lies about the movement. One of the most misguided comments I heard was “people only go to Occupy Wall Street to hook up.” Yes, that’s where I would go for a date too, cause all that talk about a widening income gap, buying on margin, and increasing poverty and homelessness gets the ladies and gentlemen hot!

Obampologists™ 
Anyone who refuses to look at conservative decisions and policies made by President Obama and then turns around and blames those who criticize Obama for his decisions are Obampoligists™. They criitcize anyone who disagrees with Obama on one policy area or another as misguided fools who don’t realize that a Republican would be worse than a Obama. Sorry folks, we know Obama would be better than the current crop of Republican candidates, but he’s not better than say, Reagan. Being better than a Republican doesn’t make you a good president any more than being a better singer than William Shatner means you should win a grammy.

People who write unsupported statements online as if they are facts and don’t provide links or evidence for what they are saying
If you don’t have anything nice to say, at least back up your comments with facts or links or posts or something. Otherwise, you are wasting everyone’s time. That also goes for positive but unsubstantiated claims as well.

The idea that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme
People who think Social Security is a Ponzi scheme know little about either. Let me make it simple: In Ponzi scheme, you put money into an investment and the money actually goes into the pockets of the schemer and you receive a portion of what you invest as “dividends” with promises that you will reap more later if only you invested more. Social Security taxes, on the other hand, are put into a low yield trust for later use and the money you put in is what you are guaranteed later. And unlike a Ponzi scheme, people are getting their money from the Social Security Trust Fund.

Ron Paul supporters
Ron Paul is apparently the best thing since sliced bread for his supporters. But he is a racist who has a few things correct. He wants to end the minimal wage, get rid of a woman’s right to choose, he wants to privatize education, and opposes the separation of church and state among other things.

Sure, I don’t like other Republican (or Democratic) candidates, but the blind allegiance people have to Paul is the real version of the fantasy Obama-messiah complex. However, no one goes anybody go around calling out the followers of the Paulist religion. No, that would be heresy.  People prattle on and on again and again about how Ron Paul is the answer to our problems. If he is the answer, what is the question? Paul is only the answer because the other Republican candidates have no credibility on any issue, and at least Paul can stand by his long held anti-war and fiscally conservative stances in the past. His positions on many issues are well thought out compared to the other GOP candidates. But hey, even I look tan next to an albino.

The use of the term Nazi
Republicans have called President Obama nearly everything, including “Nazi”. The IRS, Occupy Wall Street, all government, Democrats and Republicans have all been called Nazi this year. The Nazis were a one off historical organization and nothing will ever be like the Nazis. If you need a term, although I wouldn’t use this one without reason, use “fascist.”

Promoting the misuse of the term “Nazi” distorts history and promotes ignorance, as is exemplified when a fourteen year old boy was beaten by bullies in a suburban Denver school as they called him “Nazi” for being German and “Fag” for liking musical theater.    This is disturbing in many ways, and sidesteps the fact that Nazis killed homosexuals by the thousands in WWII.  But history seldom trumps racism and homophobia. Even Democrats joined the chorus of people misusing the label “Nazi” as Rep. Cohen (an ironically Jewish sir name), compared Republican tactics against health care to Nazi tactics. 

People who don’t read my online articles
No, seriously, thanks to my dozens of readers and I wish you all a happy New Year. Please post your own pet peeves below or link this to other social media sites with a click of your mouse.

Peace,
Tex Shelters

Dead birds, no big deal from griffyclan007.wordpress.com

On Rush Limbaugh’s show of December 19th, he stated that the BP Oil spill, the AP top story of 2010, “Ended up being a non-story”, and that few people remember it. We could spend years refuting all the misinformation and outright lies Mr. Limbaugh spews on his show, but I thought this a good opportunity to remember one of the worst man-made ecological disasters in U.S. history.

What Rush says about the BP/Deep Water Horizon story shows his contempt for reality. The importance of a story politically and historically often has little to do with how its remembered. Second, one of the reasons it is not remembered is that news outlets such as Fox, Clear Channel, CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC and the even the supposedly “liberal” counterpoint to Fox News, MSNBC, have done little reporting on this story since the BP/Deep Water Horizon Oil spill of 2010 stopped gushing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The BP media blackout during the disaster also reduced its coverage.

Limbaugh infers that if we don’t remember a story, it’s not important. How many people under the age of thirty can tell you about Watergate or the Cuban Missile Crisis? If we don’t remember, than it’s not important, right? I am sure few Americans can tell you about the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Turks, but does that mean it’s not important?  The Turks killed 1.5 million Armenians in a country the size of Maryland in 1915-16, but because we don’t remember it, it’s a “non-story” according to Rush. And what about the cracking of secret German codes in WWII that hastened the end of the war?   I guess that was a non-story too. Using Rush’s criteria, if he doesn’t report on it, it doesn’t matter.

Furthermore, it is the mass media that influences to a large extent what stories we remember and discuss. You might recall that only three short months ago, Occupy Wall Street began. For the first few weeks, there was nothing in the front sections of the New York Times about the occupation. Thus, the movement didn’t exist. Now, phrases like “occupy” and “99%” are part of our national discourse. You can bet if the movement disappeared tomorrow, our collective amnesia would set in and people like Rush will say, “The Occupy Movement was a non-story.”

BP and their executives tried to enforce a media blackout on the Deep Water Horizon spill. “In fact BP has hired security guards and someone has even instructed the military to prevent media access to the workers and oil spill cleanup operations.” They wanted to block the beaches and protect them from dangerous cameras that would film the tragedy and interfere with their media spin campaign about BP being good corporate citizens. They also prevented clean up workers from talking to the media. They denied this interference despite damning evidence from a local news outlet. The airspace above the oil spill was also shut off to traffic and media outlets.

First, BP said they were keeping the public away from the beach for safety reasons. However, they weren’t willing pay for the acoustic switch, a remote shut off valve that would have cost only $500,000. It would cost $560 million to replace the Deep Water Horizon oil rig. So much for public safety. Later, after keeping people off the beaches because they were oh so concerned about safety, they said they were closing off the area due to vandalism.

So, if this was a non-story, it’s because of censorship and the news cycle that won’t report things such as shut off valves, corporate culpability, and the need for regulation. Corporations own the mass media and a larger and larger portion of the Internet, and they don’t want to air their dirty laundry. Thus, they have mouthpieces like Mr. Limbaugh diminish ecological disasters and the economic catastrophe caused by the BP oil spill. This discourse fits right into the mind set of Limbaugh’s audience that small government is good government and liberals and environmentalists want to attack hard working oil companies like BP.

So let’s remember the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster of 2010. On April 20, 2010, the Deep Water Horizon Oil Rig exploded and spewed an estimated 200 millions gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Thousands of marine animals died and the economy of the gulf coast was in ruins. The well wasn’t capped and controlled until September, 2010. BP estimates the likely cost of its Gulf of Mexico oil spill to be $40bn. That’s a 80,000 times more costly than the $500,000 acoustic switch that BP failed to install. But when you put profit above the environment or the livelihood of people, and you can write off such losses on your taxes, what’s the big deal. As Rush would say, it’s a “non-story.”

What Rush and the corporate elite don’t want us to know is that it was operational short cuts taken by BP and Halliburton that lead to the oil disaster. Rush and the CEO of BP will never admit that not only were the regulations that could have prevented the disaster not followed, more regulation for deep water drilling rigs like the Deep Water Horizon is the only way to reduce the potential for future Gulf oil spill disasters.

And what is also lost in the conversation is that more offshore oil drilling in the United States won’t affect the cost of gas to the consumer. More drilling could damage our oceans for hundreds and thousand of years if we have more BP sized spills in the future. However, the mainstream media and Congress don’t want to upset their corporate benefactors, so policies that could prevent future oil disasters and lead to larger investment in sustainable energy are not part of the discussion.

By calling it a non-story, Rush encourages millions of his listeners to ignore the dangers of our energy policy because as Mr. Limbaugh wants you to believe, it doesn’t matter.

Peace,
Tex Shelters