[mpen-dayton4] FW: "End Citizens United helps unveil shady SuperPAC donors" & "Juan Cole's Top Ten and Christian extremist by abagond" and more

FYI.     Best, Munsup

P.S. Please reply back to me with 'unsubscribe' on the subject line if you no longer want to receive my e-Newsletters. The convenient link to unsubscribe is no longer available due to security reasons to protect my email servers.
P.P.S. "He who dares not offend cannot be honest" - Thomas Paine
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·           (Dayton Event on 12/9) FW: Teach-in on Refugee Crisis

·           FW: Makes sense to me!!  &  FW: Debt Ceiling - Understand It!

·           FW: Pentagon global warming

·           FW: Mother Jones: End Citizens United helps unveil shady SuperPAC donors

·           FW: Health Center Physician Among Experts to Testify at Congressional Hearing on Rescuing Human Trafficking Victims

·           FW: Juan Cole's Top Ten and Christian extremist by abagond

·           FW: DFA's on the Hill today!

·           FW: Salon.com: "Bernie Sanders's refreshingly sane foreign policy" by Sean Illing

·           FW: The "sharing economy" is exploding

·           FW: Barbara Ehrenreich, America to Working Class Whites: Drop Dead!

·           FW: Petition: Tell Congress to pass a CLEAN budget free of ideological attacks

·           FW: Up to 20 shot in San Bernardino, Calif., 'active shooters' sought

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From: Theo Majka
Subject: Teach-in on Refugee Crisis

There will be a student-organized teach-in on Wednesday, Dec 9 on the current refugee crisis, with respect to those fleeing the violence and warfare in Syria and Iraq. It will be from 12 to 6 in Torch Lounge on the 1st floor in Kennedy Union on the University of Dayton campus. It is co-sponsored by Welcome Dayton. Free lunch beginning at 11:30. Panelists for the session on Dayton as an immigrant-friendly city at 3:35 includes Melissa Bertolo, Lieutenant Stiver of Dayton Police Department and yours truly. Attached is a flyer with the schedule of sessions.

 

 

From: Judy Burnette &
Subject: FW: Makes sense to me!!  &  FW: Debt Ceiling - Understand It!


I love it when a complicated situation can be explained in such simple terms!

Democrats don't understand THE DEBT CEILING

Republicans don't understand THE DEBT CEILING

Liberals don't understand THE DEBT CEILING

NO ONE understands THE DEBT CEILING

SO, allow me to explain.

Let's say you come home from work and find there has been a sewer backup in your neighborhood. Your home has sewage all the way up to your ceiling.

What do you think you should do?

1.   raise the ceiling, or

2.   pump out the shit?

Your choice is coming in November 2016!

 

 

 

 

 

From: James Lucas
Subject: Pentagon global warming

Global Warming's Unacknowledged Threat—The Pentagon
By Gar Smith on 26 November, 2015

During the November 15 Democratic Presidential Debate, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders sounded an alarm that "climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism." Citing a CIA study, Sanders warned that countries around the world are "going to be struggling over limited amounts of water, limited amounts of land to grow their crops and you're going to see all kinds of international conflict."

http://www.countercurrents.org/smith261115.htm

 

 

From: New Article (via EndCitizensUnited.org)
Subject: Mother Jones: End Citizens United helps unveil shady SuperPAC donors

We have some BREAKING news: Mother Jones just released a new report detailing how our research project -- Project Bright Light -- helped uncover some of the "dark money" funding SuperPACs in the presidential race. In Alabama, an anonymous corporation has been a major contributor to Jeb Bush's SuperPAC, but based on what we found, the company might not even exist. We knew anonymous Republicans were trying to influence our Democracy… And now we have the evidence to prove it. Munsup, our effort to expose shady Republicans is just getting started. But if we're going to continue to shine a bright light on the corrupting influence of Big Money in politics, we need you with us. Make another generous donation to the End Citizens United Research Fund today to help us keep holding Republicans accountable >> $50 >> $100 >> $250 >> Other >> http://act.endcitizensunited.org/Research-Fund Who's Behind the Ghost Companies Funding Jeb Bush's Super-PAC? Two shadowy outfits are helping to bankroll Bush's candidacy. By Russ Choma | December 2, 2015 In February, a limited liability company called TH Holdings LLC donated $100,000 to Right to Rise, the super-PAC supporting Jeb Bush's bid for the GOP presidential nomination. That's not extraordinary; quite a few LLCs have donated to the super-PAC, which has so far raised more than $103 million. But TH Holdings is a special case—one that represents the worst-case scenario in the post-Citizens United campaign finance landscape: untraceable corporations shoveling untraceable cash into the political system. Beyond this six-figure contribution, the company appears to have no history of doing business anywhere. And its incorporation records reveal no owners, managers, or officers. As far as the public record goes, this looks like a ghost company. So who is behind this contribution? There are a few clues. In connection with its donation, TH Holdings listed an address in New York City that has also been used by Neuberger Berman, a private investment firm, to register some of its funds. Coincidentally or not, Neuberger Berman's CEO is George Herbert Walker IV, Jeb Bush's second cousin. And Bush himself is a partner in one of the firm's private equity funds. A Neuberger Berman spokesman confirmed that the address associated with the donation is Neuberger Berman's, but said the LLC is not a Neuberger Berman entity. Walker, who made his own donation of $100,000 to Right to Rise several weeks before the TH Holdings contribution, told Mother Jones that he has no connection to the LLC. TH Holdings isn't the only mystery LLC funding the pro-Bush super-PAC. A few days after the TH Holdings contribution, Right to Rise received another curious donation. This time, an Alabama-based company called Heather Oaks LLC dumped $100,000 into the group. And Heather Oaks is even more ghostly than TH Holdings. According to Alabama records, the company hasn't existed for more than 10 years. It was originally founded as the holding corporation for an apartment complex, but the property was sold in the early 2000s. According to the state of Alabama, the company was merged into another limited liability company in 2004. That LLC, according to Alabama records, was dissolved a week later. So how does an out-of-business firm come to contribute $100,000 to a political outfit? These odd donations were first spotted by End Citizens United, a political action committee founded by former Democratic operatives to challenge dark money in politics, as part of its ongoing Project Bright Light research project. "Our campaign finance system now has loopholes big enough to drive a truck through, and anonymous donors are taking full advantage," says Richard Carbo, a spokesman for the group. "Donations through shell corporations are an easy way for these wealthy individuals to shield their identities and agendas from the public." Paul Lindsay, a spokesman for Right to Rise, declined to explain these two contributions, citing a policy of not discussing donors. Since the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision in 2010, corporations can legally donate unlimited amounts of money to a super-PAC. They don't have to identify the original source of the money, but the name of the company contributing the cash must be disclosed. Although a corporation can give money to a super-PAC, federal law prohibits a donor from using another identity to make a contribution. "If there is a human behind Heather Oaks LLC, and that human simply routed $100,000 through Heather Oaks to Right to Rise, because the human didn't want his identity known, that's illegal," says Paul Ryan, deputy executive director of the Campaign Legal Center. "But if it's sitting on real estate or other assets or cash—$100,000 or more in cash—and the directors of this LLC decided they want to support Right to Rise, that's not necessarily illegal." Both Heather Oaks and TH Holdings appear to be classic shell companies—business entities that often have no assets or business operations of their own and exist solely as a conduit for transactions by other companies or individuals. The people or person behind TH Holdings provided scant information when they incorporated the LLC in New York on June 9, 2010. They listed no registered agent and no information about the number or value of shares in the company. The forms did include a mailing address, which belongs to the office of Paul Freedman, a Manhattan accountant. Freedman did not respond to a request for comment. Heather Oaks LLC was incorporated in April 1994 to manage an apartment complex called Heather Oaks Apartments in Jasper, Alabama. Ronald Brown, one of the two men who incorporated Heather Oaks LLC, said the outfit is a distant memory: "It was sold to a group there in Jasper, Alabama." Brown said he didn't recall who had bought the company in 2004, other than that it was some type of real estate company. When it recently donated Right to Rise, Heather Oaks listed an address that corresponds to a shopping mall in Birmingham, Alabama. But the address does not specify a particular shop or office at the mall. A spokesman for Bayer Properties, the mall's owner, says the company has no information about the donation or Heather Oaks. "We are neither familiar with this donation nor do we know where it originated," he says. "The address is on a property we own and manage; however, there are many tenants from which the donation may or may not have originated." The cases of TH Holdings and Heather Oaks bear some similarities to a handful of mysterious donations made during the last presidential election cycle to the pro-Mitt Romney super-PAC, Restore Our Future. For example, in 2011, a shell corporation called W Spann LLC was founded, donated $1 million to Restore Our Future, and then dissolved, without ever showing any sign of business activity. Several watchdog groups, including the Campaign Legal Center, filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission and the Department of Justice. Following the public scrutiny, the true donor, a former Bain Capital executive, came forward and acknowledged making the donation. Election watchdogs, including Ryan's Campaign Legal Center, also filed complaints in 2011 against two other shadowy corporations, F8 LLC and Eli Publishing, that donated to the Romney super-PAC. Eventually, both companies were traced to the founder of the Utah-based multilevel marketing firm Nu-Skin. More than five years later, the complaints against W Spann, F8 LLC, and Eli Publishing have yet to be resolved. As of this summer, all three complaints appeared to still be pending before the FEC.     CONTRIBUTE >>

End Citizens United PAC P.O. Box 66005 Washington, D.C. 20035 PAID FOR BY END CITIZENS UNITED PAC (ENDCITIZENSUNITED.ORG) AND NOT AUTHORIZED BY ANY CANDIDATE OR CANDIDATE'S COMMITTEE.

 

 

From: AAPCHO
Subject: Health Center Physician Among Experts to Testify at Congressional Hearing on Rescuing Human Trafficking Victims

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE on December 2, 2015
Contact: Dr. Kimberly Chang; Physician, AHS, kchang@ahschc.org
             Beverly Quintana; Communications Manager, AAPCHO, bquintana@aapcho.org

Health Center Physician Among Experts to Testify at
Congressional Hearing on Rescuing Human Trafficking Victims

Testimony Highlights Need for Shifting Care for Victims from Criminal Justice to Health Care

WASHINGTON – A physician from Asian Health Services (AHS), a member health center of the Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations (AAPCHO), provided testimony to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe yesterday, in a congressional hearing on identifying and rescuing human trafficking victims. One-third of trafficked persons in the country are Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, comprising the largest group of people trafficked into the United States. The testimony presented highlights how health centers are essential in identifying and providing care for these and other populations at risk of being trafficked.

"Each trafficked patient requires care specific to their culture, migration and complex trauma experiences," Dr. Kimberly Chang, AHS physician who testified at the hearing, said. "Community health centers are essential in providing care for these individuals as they excel at cultural competency, and are uniquely positioned to identify patients who are victims and provide continuity of care for those exploited." Dr. Chang provided the following recommendations in her testimony:
   

• Create funding opportunities to strengthen the health care system response to trafficking through prevention programs and comprehensive health services in Federally Qualified Health Centers.
• Promote and fund incorporating health considerations for human trafficking across sectors, including law enforcement and criminal justice. Create and implement rules to incorporate health and trauma-informed care training across all systems that engage with human trafficking victims.
• Ensure that there is language and cultural competence accessibility for victims throughout all systems that engage with human trafficking victims (e.g., justice, health care, law enforcement, immigration, social services, homeland security).
• Fund enabling services (non-clinical services that help patients access care) essential in the health care system response to human trafficking. Health centers typically provide enabling services as part of their care model but these services are not reimbursed through health care payment models.

Since the Trafficking Victims Protection Act first passed Congress in 2000, and was recently reauthorized in 2013, there has been growing recognition that human trafficking is a health issue. Recent research shows that over 80 percent of trafficked victims have contact with health care providers, and over 50 percent have treatment in a clinic setting while in captivity. In this way, health centers and other primary care providers can play a critical role in identifying human trafficking victims within clinical settings.

"Human trafficking affects the most vulnerable in our communities including immigrants, refugees, and others in poor and unstable living situations—the very people served by our member health centers," said Jeffrey Caballero, executive director of AAPCHO. "We hope that this testimony helps to shed light on this growing epidemic, and that policymakers will provide health centers with additional resources to continue to care for patients who have been trafficked and to prevent others from becoming victims."

A copy of Dr. Chang's testimony is available at http://csce.gov. More information about the key role of health centers and the importance of identifying victims of human trafficking in clinical settings is available on AAPCHO's website at http://bit.ly/1PVbOPx.

About AHS
AHS is a community health center in Oakland, California, that offers primary health care and dental services, serving over 24,000 patients and over 105,000 patient visits annually. Our mission is to serve and advocate for the medically underserved, including the immigrant and refugee Asian community, and to assure equal access to health care services regardless of income, insurance status, language, or culture. For more information on AHS, please visit www.asianhealthservices.org.

About AAPCHO
AAPCHO is a national association of 35 community health organizations dedicated to promoting advocacy, collaboration and leadership that improves the health status and access of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders in the United States. For more information on AAPCHO, please visit www.aapcho.org.

 

 

From: khalfani718
Subject: Juan Cole's Top Ten and Christian extremist by abagond

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/top_ten_differences_between_white_terrorists_and_others_video_20151129

Top 10 Differences Between White Terrorists and Others (Video)

By Juan Cole, Posted on Nov 29, 2015
This post originally ran on Truthdig contributorJuan Cole's website.
   

1.    White terrorists are called "gunmen."  What does that even mean?  A person with a gun?  Wouldn't that be, like, everyone in the US?  Other terrorists are called, like, "terrorists."

2.    White terrorists are "troubled loners."  Other terrorists are always suspected of being part of a global plot, even when they are obviously troubled loners.

3.    Doing a study on the danger of white terrorists at the Department of Homeland Security will get you sidelined by angry white Congressmen.  Doing studies on other kinds of terrorists is a guaranteed promotion.

4.    The family of a white terrorist is interviewed, weeping as they wonder where he went wrong. The families of other terrorists are almost never interviewed.

5.    White terrorists are part of a "fringe."  Other terrorists are apparently mainstream.

6.    White terrorists are random events, like tornadoes.  Other terrorists are long-running conspiracies.

7.    White terrorists are never called "white."  But other terrorists are given ethnic affiliations.

8.    Nobody thinks white terrorists are typical of white people.  But other terrorists are considered paragons of their societies.

9.    White terrorists are alcoholics, addicts or mentally ill.  Other terrorists are apparently clean-living and perfectly sane.

10.There is nothing you can do about white terrorists.  Gun control won't stop them.  No policy you could make, no government program, could possibly have an impact on them.  But hundreds of billions of dollars must be spent on police and on the Department of Defense, and on TSA, which must virtually strip search 60 million people a year, to deal with other terrorists.

Christian extremist

Tue 1 Dec 2015 by abagond

A Christian extremist is here defined as someone who commits acts of violence because of their Christian beliefs. It is the Christian counterpart to "Muslim extremist".

The Western press is full of news of violence by "Muslim extremists" or "Islamic extremists", but not by "Christian extremists". The Economist website (according to Google in 2015) brings up "Islamic extremists" a hundred times more often than "Christian extremists".

It is not because Christians all turn the other cheek, as Jesus advised. It is because Western reporters and leaders play to a largely Christian audience: violence by an out-group (Muslims) seems more threatening than that by an in-group (Christians).

Prejudiced thinking plays up the worst of an out-group and the best of an in-group. It also sees the people of an out-group as being all the same – out-group homogeneity – while those from the in-group are seen as individuals.

Muslims, therefore, are stereotyped according to the most violent among them. So the beheaders of ISIS, not the scholars of Al-Azhar University, come to represent over a billion people. Their violence is seen as a natural outgrowth of their religion. That picture of Muslims comes not from a careful reading of (cherry-picked) verses of the Koran, but from prejudiced in-group thinking.

Christians, meanwhile, are seen as individuals. Even when some are driven to violence by their religious beliefs, they are not seen as representative. They are often written off as nutcases. Christian violence is commonly not seen as "Christian", even when it is. Homophobic hate crimes, for example, are not carried out by "Christian extremists", but by "hateful" or "homophobic" individuals – despite the applicable Bible verses.


The incomplete list of Christian extremism (there is some overlap between these):

·         international:

o    burning heretics at the stake

o    The Crusades

o    genocide and colonial wars – done in the name of "civilization", of which Christianity was seen as an important part.

o    enslavement of Africans – before racism, religion was the excuse

o    pogroms

o    War on Terror – which is driven by an appeal to Islamophobia

·         Bosnia

o    Srebrenica massacre

·         Britain

o    Bloody Mary

o    Guy Fawkes

o    Oliver Cromwell

·         Central African Republic

o    The Anti-balaka

·         China

o    Eastern Lightning

·         Egypt

o    lynching of Hypatia

·         France

o    Albigensian Crusade

o    French Wars of Religion

o    St Bartholomew's Day Massacre

·         Germany

o    Thirty Years' War

o    Holocaust

·         India

o    Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland

o    National Liberation Front of Tripura

·         Ireland

o    IRA

·         Lebanon

o    Lebanese Civil War

o    Karantina and Tel al-Zaatar massacres

o    Sabra and Shatila massacre

·         Spain

o    The Reconquista

o    Columbus

o    conquistadors

o    The Inquisition

·         Uganda

o    Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

·         US

o    Pilgrims and Puritans (the Mystic Massacre, for example)

o    Salem Witch Trials

o    anti-Catholic riots in Philadelphia

o    violence against Mormons

o    William McKinley

o    The Klan – which went after Catholics and Jews, not just Blacks.

o    Eric Rudolph

o    Neo-Nazis

o    Aryan Nations

o    Army of God

o    George Bush

o    Wade Michael Page (Sikh Temple shooter)

o    Robert Lewis Dear

o    hate crimes against Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, gays.

o    attacks on abortion clinics, mosques, temples, synagogues.

This list is incomplete. Russia and Ethiopia, for example, would no doubt make the list, but I do not know enough about their history.

 

– Abagond, 2015.

 

 

From: DFA HQ
Subject: We're on the Hill today!

Doctors for America, joined by National Physicians Alliance, Doctors Council, American Medical Women's Association, American College of Preventive Medicine, The Committee of Interns and Residents, Physicians for the Prevention of Gun Violence, American Medical Student Association, American Academy of Pediatrics and special guests Reps. David Price, Nita Lowey, Mike Thompson, Mike Quigley, Robin Kelly and Carolyn Maloney, just concluded a press conference calling on Congress to #EndTheBan on the ability for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to conduct research on gun violence.

We delivered a petition signed by over 2,000 doctors in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia urging Congress to remove these barriers to common sense research that have existed for nearly 20 years and include annual funding to identify causes and ways to prevent gun violence.

In addition to the petition delivery, Rep. Mike Thompson released a NEW letter at the press conference from former Representative Jay Dickey (R-AR), who authored the original amendment that put this ban in place.  In his letter, Dickey states that he regrets offering the amendment and urges Congress to fund this critically needed research. Despite Rep. Dickey's comments and President Obama's executive action in 2013 directing the CDC to resume gun violence research, Congress has provided no funding, and the restrictive language remains in place.

To continue building off the momentum from the event today, please join @drsforamerica in amplifying our message on social media using the hashtag #EndTheBan. Please see sample social media materials and an infographic below that can be used.

SAMPLE TWEETS
   

• CLICK HERE To Tweet: 2,000 physicians are calling on Congress today to #EndTheBan on CDC gun violence research pic.twitter.com/Z1gH4EHeuH

• CLICK HERE To Tweet: The original author of the gun violence research ban regrets it and wants to #EndTheBan: http://act.drsforamerica.org/go/1330?t=9&akid=1546.17467.Zhjdwz pic.twitter.com/Z1gH4EHeuH

• CLICK HERE To Tweet: It's time to stop letting the NRA prevent critical CDC research on gun violence. Tell Congress to #EndTheBan pic.twitter.com/Z1gH4EHeuH

• CLICK HERE To Tweet: Thank you @RepDavidEPrice @NitaLowey @RepThompson @RepRobinKelly @RepMaloney for call to #EndTheBan on GVP research! pic.twitter.com/Z1gH4EHeuH

• CLICK HERE To Tweet: Gun violence is a public health crisis. It's time to #EndTheBan on CDC gun violence research pic.twitter.com/Z1gH4EHeuH

SAMPLE FACEBOOK POST

Today, Doctors for America is delivering a petition on Capitol Hill signed by over 2,000 physicians from all 50 states urging Congress to end the NRA imposed ban on gun violence prevention research by the CDC. Gun violence is a public health crisis in America, and our leaders in Congress should not be blocking vital research that can save lives.

FOLLOW/RETWEET PARTNERS
  

• @drsforamerica
• @CAPgunsandcrime
• @NPAlive
• @DoctorsCouncil
• @AMWADoctors
• @ACPM_HQ
• @PPGVorg
• @RepDavidEPrice
• @NitaLowey
• @RepThompson
• @RepRobinKelly
• @RepMikeQuigley
• @RepMaloney

 

 

From: Anna, Joan, Matt, Alejandro, and the rest of the team, MoveOn.org Civic Action
Subject: The attack on Planned Parenthood

A police officer who was a pastor at his local church. An Iraq war veteran. A mother of two, accompanying a friend. Those were the three fatalities in Friday's shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado.¹

It's the sixth attack on a Planned Parenthood clinic since July, when anti-abortion extremists who've been linked to clinic bombings began releasing deceptively edited videos.² Those extremists have fueled outright hate for the organization among right-wing radio hosts, anti-choice state legislators, and Republicans in the U.S. Congress and on the presidential trail—and that culture of hate seems to have fueled this tragedy.

This short video briefly profiles the victims of the Planned Parenthood attack in Colorado and pushes us to re-think what we usually call "terrorism."

Will you help raise the outcry against attacks like these by watching and sharing this 1-minute video on Facebook or Twitter or by email?

Friday's shooting was an extreme act of hate-fueled violence, but it's not just Planned Parenthood that's been targeted by an alarming rise in vitriol from the right.

Just last week, apparent white supremacists fired at a group of Minneapolis residents who were protesting the police killing of an unarmed Black man.³ We're seeing fresh reports of attacks against Muslim-Americans—and people mistaken for Muslim—including a cab-driver who was shot on Thanksgiving Day by a man screaming about ISIS.⁴ And we saw a brutal beating of a protester at a rally for Donald Trump—an incident which the candidate himself incited and then dismissed.⁵

Right-wing extremism is on the rise against women, health care providers, refugees, Black protesters, and more. It's gotten out of control rhetorically—and, tragically, we're seeing these despicable acts of violence follow.

We need to stand for compassion and unity in a moment where they both seem in short supply. And we need to call these violent attacks what they are: acts of domestic terror.

Will you watch this short video and, if you're moved, pass it along?

And once you've watched, hit reply to let us know what you think we should do, together, to help stop this wave of right-wing vigilante violence. Your thoughts will help set our course in the coming weeks.

Sources:
   

1.    "Planned Parenthood Shooting Victims Identified," AJ+, November 30, 2015
https://facebook.com/ajplusenglish/videos/650623898412454/

2.    "The Link Between Anti-Abortion Rhetoric and the Planned Parenthood Attack," Slate, November 30, 2015
http://slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/11/planned_parenthood_attack_and_anti_abortion_rhetoric_the_undeniable_connection.html

3.    "2 Men Held in Shooting of 5 at Minneapolis Black Lives Matter Protest," The New York Times, November 24, 2015
http://nytimes.com/2015/11/25/us/minneapolis-shooting-protest-police-jamar-clark.html?_r=0

4.    "Passenger rants about Islamic State before shooting Muslim taxi driver in back," The Washington Post, November 30, 2015
https://washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/11/30/pa-passenger-rants-about-isis-before-shooting-muslim-taxi-driver-in-back/?postshare=601448897274981&tid=ss_tw

5.    "Donald Trump Approves Of Supporters Who 'Roughed Up' Black Lives Matter Protester," The Huffington Post, November 22, 2015
http://huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-black-lives-matter-protester_5651ea96e4b0258edb31dd7e

Want to support our work? MoveOn member contributions have powered our work together for more than 17 years. Hundreds of thousands of people chip in each year—which is why we're able to be fiercely independent, answering to no individual, corporation, politician, or political party. You can become a monthly donor by clicking here, or chip in a one-time gift here.

 

 

From: Judy Burnette
Subject: Salon.com: "Bernie Sanders's refreshingly sane foreign policy" by Sean Illing

salon.comhttp://www.salon.com/2015/11/25/bernie_sanderss_refreshingly_sane_foreign_policy/

Bernie Sanders's refreshingly sane foreign policy

(Credit: AP/Reuters/Joshua Roberts/Photo montage by Salon)

Bernie Sanders's economic populism and domestic agenda receive a lot attention, and they should – he's a unique and important voice on these fronts. But Bernie's refreshing sanity on foreign policy gets overlooked far too often. This is especially problematic given the most recent Paris attacks and the renewed emphasis on national security.

Sanders gave a major speech last week at Georgetown University, the central theme of which was democratic socialism. Understandably, much of the coverage focused on Sanders's efforts to situate his brand of socialism in the broader American tradition. However, Sanders also used his speech to talk about our foreign policy dilemma in the Middle East.

His remarks were what we've come to expect from Sanders: honest.

Because he doesn't spin the way other politicians do, Sanders brings a kind of clarity to this conversation, a clarity that's desperately needed in our current climate. Conservatives will likely dismiss Sanders as a dovish liberal who doesn't understand foreign policy, but that's because they don't want to hear what he has to say.

In the speech, Sanders makes clear that he both understands the crisis and the complicated political realities on the ground. "The United States must pursue policies to destroy the brutal and barbaric ISIS regime," Sanders said, and we must "create conditions that prevent fanatical extremist ideologies from flourishing. But we cannot – and should not – do it alone." [Emphasis mine].

The part about not doing it alone is critical. To begin with, unlike most candidates, Sanders concedes that we've being going it alone for decades now, with disastrous results.

"Our response must begin with an understanding of past mistakes and missteps in our previous approaches to foreign policy. It begins with the acknowledgement that unilateral military action should be a last resort…and that ill-conceived military decisions, such as the invasion of Iraq, can wreak far-reaching devastation and destabilize entire regions for decades. It begins with the reflection that the failed policy decisions of the past – rushing to war, regime change in Iraq, or toppling Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, or Guatemalan President Arbenz in 1954, Brazilian President Goulart in 1964, Chilean President Allende in 1973. These are the sort of policies that do not work, do not make us safer, and must not be repeated."

It's astonishing how many candidates on the Right in particular simply refuse to acknowledge that our previous encroachments around the world have done more harm than good (For example, our invasion of Iraq created the vacuum into which ISIS inserted itself).

Reminding Americans of our history is necessary, however. It's a good way to avoid repeating mistakes. This has to be part of the conversation about ISIS. Everyone agrees that ISIS is a threat, and that something has to be done about it. But this isn't a problem that American can or should solve on its own.

Sanders explains why:
"But let's be very clear. While the U.S. and other western nations have the strength of our militaries and political systems, the fight against ISIS is a struggle for the soul of Islam, and countering violent extremism and destroying ISIS must be done primarily by Muslim nations – with the strong support of their global partners…

What does this mean? Well, it means that, in many cases, we must ask more from those in the region. While Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, and Lebanon have accepted their responsibilities for taking in Syrian refugees, other countries in the region have nothing or very little."
We've wasted too much money and spilled too much blood fighting a war on terror that clearly isn't working. We're in a war, and we have to fight it, but we can't win it alone. "Muslims must lead the fight," Sanders declared, because "it is incumbent on Muslim nations and communities to confront those who seek to hijack their societies and generations with intolerance and violent ideology."

Countries in the region have arguably a much bigger stake in this fight than we do. As Sanders points out, Saudi Arabia (our chief ally in the region and a prolific fount of extremist ideology), Kuwait, Qatar, UAE and others are "countries of enormous wealth and resources" who "have contributed far too little in the fight against ISIS. That must change."

For too long these countries have sat idle while America has done the heavy lifting – this isn't sustainable and it's not working in any case. And yet Republicans insist that America has to play a larger role, that we have to shoulder more of the burden, and that we have to fight the tactic of terrorism without addressing its ideological fountainhead.

Indeed, the majority of Republicans – not all, to be fair, but most – refuse to see the connection between the Iraq War and the present destabilization of the region, without which ISIS would not exist. Donald Trump and Jeb Bush, for instance, are calling for more troops on the ground without any discernible plan to deal with the more fundamental causes of terrorism. Worse still, they want America to "lead the way" which means allowing the countries closest to and most invested in this fight to allow us to counter-productively wage it on their behalf.

We've tried this strategy. It failed. It's time to let the region police itself. That doesn't mean America doesn't have a role to play – surely we do. But unless we accept that this isn't merely an American fight, we'll continue to create more problems than we solve.

 

 

From: Robert Reich via MoveOn.org Civic Action
Subject: The "sharing economy" is exploding

The "sharing economy," also known as the "gig economy," the "on-demand economy," or the "uncertain economy," is exploding—think Uber and Airbnb—but few people are talking about what it'll mean for the social safety net built in this country over the past century. In five years, this new economic trend will encompass 40 percent of American workers.¹

That's why it's important that we take action now to figure out how to provide critical labor protections, even as our economy undergoes massive changes.

Can you make sure your family and friends are talking about what's needed in the "sharing economy" by watching and sharing my latest video with MoveOn?

We have to help make sure the changing economy works for workers by preventing the elimination of worker protections such as unemployment insurance, health insurance, worker safety, family and medical leave, and more.

Help jump-start this national conversation by watching and sharing this video now.

Source:

1.    "The secret number to the sharing economy," TNW News, June 25, 2015
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=308312&id=135818-1195276-KYZ034x&t=3

Want to support our work? MoveOn member contributions have powered our work together for more than 17 years. Hundreds of thousands of people chip in each year—which is why we're able to be fiercely independent, answering to no individual, corporation, politician, or political party. You can become a monthly donor by clicking here, or chip in a one-time gift here.

 

 

From: khalfani718
Subject: Tomgram: Barbara Ehrenreich, America to Working Class Whites: Drop Dead! | TomDispatch

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176075/

Dead, White, and Blue
The Great Die-Off of America's Blue Collar Whites

By Barbara Ehrenreich

The white working class, which usually inspires liberal concern only for its paradoxical, Republican-leaning voting habits, has recently become newsworthy for something else: according to economist Anne Case and Angus Deaton, the winner of the latest Nobel Prize in economics, its members in the 45- to 54-year-old age group are dying at an immoderate rate. While the lifespan of affluent whites continues to lengthen, the lifespan of poor whites has been shrinking. As a result, in just the last four years, the gap between poor white men and wealthier ones has widened by up to four years. The New York Times summed up the Deaton and Case study with this headline: "Income Gap, Meet the Longevity Gap."

This was not supposed to happen. For almost a century, the comforting American narrative was that better nutrition and medical care would guarantee longer lives for all. So the great blue-collar die-off has come out of the blue and is, as the Wall Street Journal says, "startling."
It was especially not supposed to happen to whites who, in relation to people of color, have long had the advantage of higher earnings, better access to health care, safer neighborhoods, and of course freedom from the daily insults and harms inflicted on the darker-skinned. There has also been a major racial gap in longevity -- 5.3 years between white and black men and 3.8 years between white and black women -- though, hardly noticed, it has been narrowing for the last two decades. Only whites, however, are now dying off in unexpectedly large numbers in middle age, their excess deaths accounted for by suicide, alcoholism, and drug (usually opiate) addiction.

There are some practical reasons why whites are likely to be more efficient than blacks at killing themselves. For one thing, they are more likely to be gun-owners, and white men favor gunshots as a means of suicide. For another, doctors, undoubtedly acting in part on stereotypes of non-whites as drug addicts, are more likely to prescribe powerful opiate painkillers to whites than to people of color. (I've been offered enough oxycodone prescriptions over the years to stock a small illegal business.)
Manual labor -- from waitressing to construction work -- tends to wear the body down quickly, from knees to back and rotator cuffs, and when Tylenol fails, the doctor may opt for an opiate just to get you through the day.

The Wages of Despair

But something more profound is going on here, too. As New York Times columnist Paul Krugman puts it, the "diseases" leading to excess white working class deaths are those of "despair," and some of the obvious causes are economic. In the last few decades, things have not been going well for working class people of any color.
I grew up in an America where a man with a strong back -- and better yet, a strong union -- could reasonably expect to support a family on his own without a college degree. In 2015, those jobs are long gone, leaving only the kind of work once relegated to women and people of color available in areas like retail, landscaping, and delivery-truck driving. This means that those in the bottom 20% of white income distribution face material circumstances like those long familiar to poor blacks, including erratic employment and crowded, hazardous living spaces.
White privilege was never, however, simply a matter of economic advantage. As the great African-American scholar W.E.B. Du Bois wrote in 1935, "It must be remembered that the white group of laborers, while they received a low wage, were compensated in part by a sort of public and psychological wage."

Some of the elements of this invisible wage sound almost quaint today, like Du Bois's assertion that white working class people were "admitted freely with all classes of white people to public functions, public parks, and the best schools." Today, there are few public spaces that are not open, at least legally speaking, to blacks, while the "best" schools are reserved for the affluent -- mostly white and Asian American along with a sprinkling of other people of color to provide the fairy dust of "diversity." While whites have lost ground economically, blacks have made gains, at least in the de jure sense. As a result, the "psychological wage" awarded to white people has been shrinking.

For most of American history, government could be counted on to maintain white power and privilege by enforcing slavery and later segregation. When the federal government finally weighed in on the side of desegregation, working class whites were left to defend their own diminishing privilege by moving rightward toward the likes of Alabama Governor (and later presidential candidate) George Wallace and his many white pseudo-populist successors down to Donald Trump.
At the same time, the day-to-day task of upholding white power devolved from the federal government to the state and then local level, specifically to local police forces, which, as we know, have taken it up with such enthusiasm as to become both a national and international scandal. The Guardian, for instance, now keeps a running tally of the number of Americans (mostly black) killed by cops (as of this moment, 1,209 for 2015), while black protest, in the form of the Black Lives Matter movement and a wave of on-campus demonstrations, has largely recaptured the moral high ground formerly occupied by the civil rights movement.

The culture, too, has been inching bit by bit toward racial equality, if not, in some limited areas, black ascendency. If the stock image of the early twentieth century "Negro" was the minstrel, the role of rural simpleton in popular culture has been taken over in this century by the characters in Duck Dynasty and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. At least in the entertainment world, working class whites are now regularly portrayed as moronic, while blacks are often hyper-articulate, street-smart, and sometimes as wealthy as Kanye West. It's not easy to maintain the usual sense of white superiority when parts of the media are squeezing laughs from the contrast between savvy blacks and rural white bumpkins, as in the Tina Fey comedy Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. White, presumably upper-middle class people generally conceive of these characters and plot lines, which, to a child of white working class parents like myself, sting with condescension.

Of course, there was also the election of the first black president. White, native-born Americans began to talk of "taking our country back." The more affluent ones formed the Tea Party; less affluent ones often contented themselves with affixing Confederate flag decals to their trucks.

On the American Downward Slope
All of this means that the maintenance of white privilege, especially among the least privileged whites, has become more difficult and so, for some, more urgent than ever. Poor whites always had the comfort of knowing that someone was worse off and more despised than they were; racial subjugation was the ground under their feet, the rock they stood upon, even when their own situation was deteriorating.
If the government, especially at the federal level, is no longer as reliable an enforcer of white privilege, then it's grassroots initiatives by individuals and small groups that are helping to fill the gap -- perpetrating the micro-aggressions that roil college campuses, the racial slurs yelled from pickup trucks, or, at a deadly extreme, the shooting up of a black church renowned for its efforts in the Civil Rights era. Dylann Roof, the Charleston killer who did just that, was a jobless high school dropout and reportedly a heavy user of alcohol and opiates. Even without a death sentence hanging over him, Roof was surely headed toward an early demise.

Acts of racial aggression may provide their white perpetrators with a fleeting sense of triumph, but they also take a special kind of effort. It takes effort, for instance, to target a black runner and swerve over to insult her from your truck; it takes such effort -- and a strong stomach -- to paint a racial slur in excrement on a dormitory bathroom wall. College students may do such things in part out of a sense of economic vulnerability, the knowledge that as soon as school is over their college-debt payments will come due. No matter the effort expended, however, it is especially hard to maintain a feeling of racial superiority while struggling to hold onto one's own place near the bottom of an undependable economy.
While there is no medical evidence that racism is toxic to those who express it -- after all, generations of wealthy slave owners survived quite nicely -- the combination of downward mobility and racial resentment may be a potent invitation to the kind of despair that leads to suicide in one form or another, whether by gunshots or drugs. You can't break a glass ceiling if you're standing on ice.

It's easy for the liberal intelligentsia to feel righteous in their disgust for lower-class white racism, but the college-educated elite that produces the intelligentsia is in trouble, too, with diminishing prospects and an ever-slipperier slope for the young. Whole professions have fallen on hard times, from college teaching to journalism and the law. One of the worst mistakes this relative elite could make is to try to pump up its own pride by hating on those -- of any color or ethnicity -- who are falling even faster.

Barbara Ehrenreich, a TomDispatch regular and founding editor of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, is the author of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (now in a 10th anniversary edition with a new afterword) and most recently the autobiographical Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Nick Turse's  Tomorrow's Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa, and Tom Engelhardt's latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World. Copyright 2015 Barbara Ehrenreich

 

 

From: Jen Herrick, Senior Policy Analyst, People For the American Way
Subject: Petition: Tell Congress to pass a CLEAN budget free of ideological attacks>>

It's become a routine: far-right members of Congress take a dislike to something, like funding for Planned Parenthood, or policies that protect the environment. So they add a line to must-pass budget legislation to strip its funding.

That's what's happening right now, as Republicans in Congress have just put forth a budget bill bloated with these ideological policy riders.

Our budget shouldn't be used by lawmakers to push extreme agendas and do favors for special interests.

Sign the petition: Tell Congress to pass a clean budget now>>

These harmful riders are a way for special interests to force policy changes that the American people do not support, and are also being used by Tea Party Republicans to serve up red meat to their base.

The December 11 deadline to fund the government is looming, and Congressional Republicans are still fighting to tack on as many ideological riders as possible. Currently on the table are four campaign finance riders -- one of them authored by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell -- that would seriously decrease transparency in election spending and open the floodgates to even more unaccountable outside spending in elections. Other proposed riders would defund critical women's health programs, gut clean water protections, and effectively prevent the United States from taking in Syrian refugees.

House Democrats have called on House leadership to bring a clean budget to the floor. But the Right Wing is unrelenting. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan even said that the budget will "have to" include some of these dangerous riders that undermine our rights, our health, and our democracy.

Our budget doesn't need to include inappropriate riders -- Congress needs to do its job.

Tell Speaker Ryan, and every member of Congress, to keep harmful ideological riders out of the approprations bill>>

The budget deadline is less than two weeks away, so please take action now and then share the action to help spread the word.

 

 

From: CLG_News
Subject: Up to 20 shot in San Bernardino, Calif., 'active shooters' sought

News Updatesfrom CLG on 02 December 2015

http://www.legitgov.org/

All links are here: http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news

Breaking: Up to 20 shot in San Bernardino, Calif., 'active shooters' sought --3 confirmed dead --Lockdown situation; 'multiple SWAT agencies,' armored police vehicles (BearCats), fire-fighters, ATF, FBI, and multiple agencies on scene --Nearby hospitals preparing for influx of victims --Suspect is wearing tactical gear, 'heavily armed' (MSNBC live) [I'm thinking that 'multiple agencies' were on the scene, long before the situation unfolded.] | 02 Dec 2015 | Up to 20 people were shot Wednesday at a social services office in San Bernardino, and officials said they were looking for one or more "active shooters." The San Bernardino Fire Department said the shooting took place on the 1300 block of Waterman Avenue, near Orange Show Road. Sgt. Vicki Cervantes, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino Police Department, told reporters at the scene up to three shooters were reported inside the Inland Regional Center. Officers have not secured the building and going door-to-door. The suspects, she said, are heavily armed and were possibly wearing body armor.

At least 12 killed in active-shooter situation near Los Angeles | 02 Dec 2015 | Police said there may be multiple victims in an active-shooting situation in San Bernardino Wednesday. Sources tell our sister station, KABC, that up to 12 people were killed...Investigators were searching the building and have yet to clear it. Police said there were reports of one to three shooters involved, and they were described to be wearing ski masks. A source confirmed to Eyewitness News that there were three shooters armed with rifles, and there were no suspects in custody. Shortly before noon, dozens of people were seen exiting the building with their hands up.

 

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