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Archive for September, 2015

Here are the Oversight and Reform Hearing uTubes and documents. I hope they are complete, you never know with uTube:

Planned Parenthood’s Taxpayer Funding

All together, the uTubes are a few hours of listening and watching. The first part of Part 3 with Congressman Clay discusses how PP standards have been within the law and that the MO. investigation found no wrongdoing.

Yes, Planned Parenthood could probably survive without Federal Funds, but we all know this is about whether or not women, men and families would receive Medicaid service on the reduced funds.

Rep. Jackson Lee from Texas, spoke very well to the issue of mixing apples and potatoes, when it came to the loss of medical access versus abortion, and the overturning of the unconstitutional Texas Law. 25% of Texan women lost access, especially in rural areas, after July 2013.

David Daleiden, who was responsible for the edited PP videos, has been ordered to turn over the complete and raw videos for his PP sting.   According to Rep. Lee,  Daleiden may plead the 5th over his unwarranted (illegal) investigation, which was determined to provide no evidentiary basis against PP.

The House has been very busy making up new bills (See H.R.3495.)regarding women’s health care. centered around the idea that one way to reduce the impact of aPlanned Parenthood is to allow the states more latitude in determining whether they should allow federal funds to be spent on abortion providers. To be clear, federal funds already are not spent on abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the live of the mother. (Keep in mind  one point of attack has been to require proof meaning a trial or confession-something that could culminate after the birth. )

GovTrack.Us indicates that 49 abortion referenced bills have been introduced, referred to committee, and/or passed by the House THIS year. See: Abortion. That list doesn’t include H.R.3495 or H. Res. 444.

These current bills are specifically an attempt to eliminate the use of Medicaid funds by those folks who have no other way to pay for the range of health services, that PP provides. if you take Medicaid from Planned Parenthood, you prevent people on Medicaid from utilizing their range of services at 700 locations around the country. This is the worst kind of classist, sexist, racist evil.

HRC put out a “Briefing” today that includes a list of Republican candiates’ statements on Planned Parenthood:

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/p/briefing/statements/2015/09/29/gop-ppfa/

http://www.occupydemocrats.com/victory-judge-rules-utah-republicans-can’t-block-funding-for-planned-parenthood/

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This week acknowledges the continuing struggle in the US to provide reading freedom, which various booksellers, along with the American Library Association, promote.

Check out the link of 197 challenged books that Powell’s has provided, some recently: Powell’s Banned Book List.

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Did you register yet? If not, go HERE for information.

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If you don’t get CNN, or missed them, below find the annotated transcripts of the undercard and main debates as provided by WAPO:

Full transcript: Undercard GOP debate – The Washington Post

Wednesday’s GOP debate transcript, annotated – The Washington Post

Frankly I’d always rather read the transcripts. They might have actually said something you missed in the show.

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Update:150917 –  The advisory has been canceled.
Don’t go surfing tonight and maybe pick a route other than the Pacific Coast Hwy:

A tsunami advisory has been issued for a 300-mile stretch of the California coast after a powerful magnitude-8.3 earthquake hit off the coast of Chile.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued the advisory Wednesday night for an area stretching from the southern end of Orange County to Ragged Point about 50 miles northwest of San Luis Obispo.

A tsunami advisory falls short of a tsunami warning, and waves inundating the land are not expected.

It is expected to bring strong currents and dangerous waves to those in or very near the water, and the current could stay powerful for several hours.

The effects are expected to be first felt in Orange County at about 4:45 a.m. Pacific time Thursday, with areas further north feeling the effects in the following minutes.

Related Topics:

http://abc30.com/news/tsunami-advisory-issued-for-300-miles-of-california-coast/988352/

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(15091 – Reblogged fromHillarymen. Click the the darn link!!)

We are treated to yet another exercise in anti-Hillary vitriol from Maureen Dowd. As usual, Dowd’s writing seethes with Hillary hatred. What’s worse is that in this column, Dowd uses the tragic death of Beau Biden as a platform to smear Hillary. Dowd’s words are chosen meticulously – they fit perfectly into the narratives that have been developed to smear Hillary over decades. Delivering such excessive negativity in one piece is not opinion writing. It is not journalism.

Source: The Rovian Research Behind Maureen Dowd’s Anti-Hillary Screeds — #HillaryMen

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I hope pretty soon we will get beyond the flaming idiotic discussion of whether or not a perfectly competent human knows what to do with her email.

I hope too, that folks will start to understand most polls for what they are-useful tools of attack. NBC’s involvement in the recent New Hampshire poll represents a sad low for media.

What I want to talk about is a thing brewing around the edges of liberality-me being a liberal-that I have been stewing over a while now. (Or perhaps I should say I am a democratic socialist. Don’t muck about with me over this apparent political bifurcation; I believe many of us non-politicos are more fluid in their thinking in this area.)

I read a lot of different blogs. One I like is Dandelion Salad, because it provides an open format for a wide variety of writers who are on the left side of the political spectrum. I received a recent post, from a writer there, named StormCloudsGathering, entitled: “World War III, Who will be blamed?

Now, the posts for StormCloudsGathering may your cup of tea. They are not mine. Here is why. First, in going to StormCloudsGathering’s “Facebook “about” page, we learn that the person is a self-proclaimed “public figure” who identifies as an “it, or gender neutral”, interested in “truth”. Now I get that not everyone wants to be out loud and proud on FB. There are lots of considerations to be made, safety for one. However, “public figures” interested in “truth” typically want you to know who they are. In fact, he is Aaron Hawkins. (If I could find him easily, the NSA can, so he isn’t hiding from anyone but you.)

In his post Hawkins says:

[If you want to start a to war, the unwashed masses must be convinced to send their brothers, sons and fathers to die on the front lines. The specter of an external enemy must be etched into their collective mind through trauma, exaggeration and repetition. History must be whitewashed, twisted and cherry picked down to a politicized nursery rhyme. At no point should the real motives or consequences of such an endeavor be discussed. ]

Well, to start, most of us have been pretty well washed for a while. (Though the drought and global warming might affect that.) Second, If we ever have a third world war, the status of women will change how it is fought, who will fight it, and what will happen afterwards. Third, I find his pronouncements on mind bending and history changing troubling in light of what I found on his website.

Take for instance his 3-year-old uTube “The Road to World War 3”. I stopped listening when he said Iran had not attacked anyone since 1798, since my personal understanding of history includes the Iran/Iraq war 1980-1988. (It was kind of like hearing that the Holocaust never happened.)

Seriously.

This is male chest pounding in its worst form-disguised as tired, and old, rhetoric. It’s insulting to the audience that might otherwise listen and the rhetorical abuser is ignoring what might really be happening politically because HE just wants to push HIS own persona.

With the dingy music, and perpetually flashing images Hawkin’s uTubes wear you out. He doesn’t want you to think calmly and rationally about what you have just seen. There is no way to verify for yourself, without a mountain of research, how much he said is true. If you think you might believe some of it, then, he has just sucked you into some portion of his mythology. Where do you stop? This is no different than listening to the right wingnuts World Net Daily or following Judicial Watch for fun and profit.

With their format, absolutely, I think Dandelion Salad should have Hawkins as a contributing writer. Where was the discussion about his post? Only one of nine even addressed the sensationalism of Hawkin’s videos. I know you wouldn’t be reading the Salad if you were all sheepies.

I am beginning to wonder if it is possible for a man to be a liberal and feminist at the same time.

And that is sad for Bernie Sanders. As much as I admire him, I probably won’t be voting for him, because you all don’t get it yet. He represents YOU and you haven’t changed. You don’t see the future the way I do. You aren’t making amends to your 2008 past.

Women are closer to having a say in our government than they have been since the 70’s, maybe ever. The evolution is coming. There is still time for you male lefties to get your act together, imagine what the future will be with women as real partners and bosses, and start inventing words, speeches and behaviors that match.

http://christophercantwell.com/2014/04/02/anarcho-capitalism-storm-clouds-gathering-wrong/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zeitgeist_Movement

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacque_Fresco#The_Venus_Project_and_later_career

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Goldberg

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150911 – Mother Nature

Since it is Saudi Arabia, our allies, and because it happened on 9/11, I’m sure we are going to be buried with endless wingnut speculation. No doubt here will be an investigation. However, there was a big windy  dust storm, at Mecca, the day before, on Thursday. Cranes don’t like wind. (more…)

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Aggie’s Farm

Well, it’s Texas, and Eastern Texas at that. As a “Bay Area Native Californian” I have a few ingrained opinions about which I would have to be polite. Texans would have a few about me.

If, however, I were a little younger, or no..

If I had a partner who wasn’t tied to local medical needs..or..

if I had a enough money to hire some support..

I’d be looking at this place real hard:

Aggie’s Farm

This bi-coastal world we USAns are all living in is not sustainable-not environmentally, not socially, not politically. This new climate is going to require that at least a few of us develop a different kind of pioneering spirit, look to the past, and move. No. I’m not talking about being a “Prepper”, though self-sufficiency isn’t a bad thing. I’m not referring to all those urban Californians that made the move to Texas after 2009, because they thought there would be tech jobs.

Rural life can be a different kind of hard, especially if you need an outside job to sustain it. However, this farm is a chance to put sustainable/renewable living to work. It’s a chance to develop an alternative to a compartmentalized life. It’s a chance to away from the smog, noise, and missing starlight. If you have been building your personal expertise toward permaculture and a sustainable/regenerative lifestyle, now might be the time to jump.

Look at this place! This area gets 50″ of rain a year, Lou and Aggie have done a lot of the hard work already. They reached as high as they could, and would stay there if they could get investors. Maybe you could talk them into staying on to oversee the farm.

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