Reuters - In a year in which Republicans look likely to make sweeping gains in congressional and governors' elections, New York Democrats are more concerned with fighting each other.
My music friend, Dave Edwards, was inspired on King’s birthday – right after the SCOTUS Citizens United decision – to write this song tracing the historical background of the corporate personhood debacle, and registering a ringing protest of same. He plays his banjo, and asked me to backup on cello (that’s me on cello). I was honored to do so, as I believe this court ruling, if left to stand, will turn out to be one of the most significantly damaging ones in our time.
I told Dave he had channelled Pete Seeger . . .
Davedwards1 says this about writing the song:
A few railroad lawyers got together after the Civil War, conspired to get two elected to congress where they both sat on the joint committee to write the 14th amendment freeing the slaves and argued for revising the traditional language of natural persons and artificial persons to be “persons.” This land mine could then later be used in court to steal human rights from “We the People.”. On MLK b’day, these words came streaming into my head – I feel from the collective divine creative.
Just when you thought right-wingers couldn't get any worse, the Conservative Political Action Conference came to town.
Some of what went on was the same kind of silliness partisans of all stripes engage in, such as the doormats with photos of Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews captioned "Stomp Out Liberal Media." Rachel Maddow was bemusedly irked that they hadn't made one of her.
And some of it was so grotesquely outlandish you had trouble keeping your meal down. As with Dick Armey's claim that there is no "crisis in health care." And the standing ovation for the self-confessed war criminal Dick Cheney who told the crowd he wasn't going to run for the Presidency in 2012. An announcement that Richard Adams lamented would deprive us of a primary pitting Cheney against Palin in a real-life version of Alien vs. Predator.
And then there was the truly vile. In this case, there was Jason Mattera talking about recruiting young people into the conservative movement with a comment about the CPAC gathering that he likened to "our Woodstock":
"Except that unlike the last gathering, our women are beautiful, we speak in complete sentences and our notion of freedom doesn’t consist of snorting cocaine," he said, "which is certainly one thing that separates us from Barack Obama."
Later came the coke-snorting Baldwin brother, the youngest of the clan, Stephen, who was on hand to recruit "Next Gen" conservatives by means of a snazzy social/entertainment lounge. He had this to say to ABC:
"I am not happy about the way things are. I pray for President Obama every single day. But tell you what. Homey made this bed, now he has got to lay in it."
ScienceDaily (Feb. 18, 2010) — Childhood leukemia rates have more than doubled over the last 15 years in the southern Iraq province of Basrah, according to the study, "Trends in Childhood Leukaemia in Basrah, Iraq (1993-2007), published in the American Journal of Public Health.
The authors, three of whom are from the University of Washington, say they hope their calculations can now pave the way for an investigation into reasons why the rates have climbed so high, and why they are higher than found in nearby Kuwait, or in the European Union or the United States.
The study documents 698 cases of leukemia for children aged 0-14 during the 15-year period, with a peak of 211 cases in 2006. Younger children had higher rates than older ones.
"Look around," the drill sergeant said. "In a few years, or even a few months, several of you will be dead. Some of you will be severely wounded or so badly mutilated that your own mother can't stand the sight of you. And for the real unlucky ones, you will come home so emotionally disfigured that you wish you had died over there."
"It was Week 7 of basic training ... eighteen years old and I was preparing myself to die," said Michael Anthony in "Mass Casualties: A Young Medic's True Story of Death, Deception and Dishonor in Iraq." The book is more than a simple memoir about a difficult experience. It is an insider's scathing testimony of an ongoing illegal and unethical military action in a distant, once-sovereign state, by the US. Perhaps, this fresh account will raise some outcry over an issue that has all but dropped out of the American public's radar.
Following the family legacy of military service, Anthony enlisted in the military at 17. The image he had nurtured of the idealism of military life, however, ran aground upon his arrival in Iraq, where he served as a medic in an operating room (OR) at a US military base.
"Mass Casualties" is a collection of Anthony's personal journal entries from his time in Iraq. It includes his introspections on and insights into the inherently irrational and meaningless nature of military life. The rawness of the narrative reveals how the occupation broke down the young soldier's spirit and almost desensitized him into believing "my job isn't to feel." Read more.
AP - Toyota president Akio Toyoda says he plans to seek the understanding of American customers and lawmakers when he appears before a congressional hearing next week in Washington on the automaker's massive recalls.
CBN News.com says it has a major exclusive: "
CBN News has learned exclusively that five Muslim soldiers at Fort
Jackson in South Carolina were arrested just before Christmas and are
in custody. The five men were part of the Arabic Translation program at
the base."
Huge -- if true. Damaging and politically sensitive. Evidence of extensive infiltration of the U.S. Army by jihadists.
But the Army says it's not true. No one has been arrested. The National Security Council was not aware of any arrests, a spokesperson said.
