November 16, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

Graham, McCain want to investigate Russian hacks of the DNC

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 26: U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) (R-SC) listens as U.S. Sen. John McCain speaks on the recent bombings by Saudi Arabia in Yemen during a press conference on Capitol Hill March 26, 2015 in Washington, DC. During his remarks Graham s

Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain might finally be doing something useful in the Senate.

WASHINGTON ― Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Tuesday said he wants Senate hearings to investigate whether Russian President Vladimir Putin interfered in the U.S. election, casting doubts on President-elect Donald Trump’s desire to improve relations with Russia.“Assuming for a moment that we do believe that the Russian government was controlling outside organizations that hacked into our election, they should be punished,” Graham told reporters on Capitol Hill. “Putin should be punished.” […]

Graham’s friend, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), also cautioned against Trump’s steps toward Russia.

“With the U.S. presidential transition underway, Vladimir Putin has said in recent days that he wants to improve relations with the United States,” McCain said in a statement on Tuesday. “We should place as much faith in such statements as any other made by a former KGB agent who has plunged his country into tyranny, murdered his political opponents, invaded his neighbors, threatened America’s allies, and attempted to undermine America’s elections.”

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Corker is decidedly less concerned, saying that basically this happens all the time. Sure, Russia interfered in the election. That was obvious. But: “In the world of covert activities, countries, large sophisticated countries do things against each other to understand what’s happening within those countries. I think people who have been around for awhile understand that’s what happens,” he said on MSNBC. Oh, but there’s more:

Intelligence officials believe Russia is responsible for hacking the emails of the Democratic National Committee as part of an effort to influence the election results. Russia has also been linked to hacking emails belonging to John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman. Despite this, Corker said the effort to interfere had “backfired” because the election appeared to be rigged for Clinton but Donald Trump won.

Um, Bob. You got that kind of backwards—they were trying to rig it for your guy. So it’s not entirely clear that there will be hearings, at least not in Corker’s committee. Relatedly, Corker has been floated as a possible secretary of state in the Trump administration and says he’s “in the mix” for the post. So, yeah, he’s not going to be too concerned about how this all came to be.

The upside in all of this is that Graham and McCain might use their hawkishness for good, for once, to block the Trump administration where they can. Maybe.

November 15, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

Trump Inauguration To Be Met by Mass “Women’s March on Washington”

Trump Inauguration To Be Met By Mass ‘Women’s March On Washington’

“We cannot allow ourselves to give up, put our heads down and not hold this administration accountable for any violation of human rights or women’s rights.”

KEVIN LAMARQUE / REUTERS

https://www.facebook.com/events/2169332969958991/

NEW YORK – Women anxious that a Donald Trump presidency in the United States could set back or destroy many of their rights are planning a massive march in Washington one day after he is sworn in, organizers said on Friday.

On Facebook, where the “Women’s March on Washington” is being organized, some 35,000 people said they would attend within the first 24 hours after it was announced, said Bob Bland, an organizer based in New York.

The march comes in response to Trump’s attitudes toward women that emerged during his campaign against Democrat Hillary Clinton, Bland told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The Republican Trump insulted female reporters, a female political rival and other women over their looks, and a video surfaced in which he could be heard bragging about groping women and making unwanted sexual advances.

The video prompted several women to say publicly that Trump had groped them.

Trump denied their allegations and dismissed his words as “locker room talk.”

During the campaign Trump also said abortion should be largely banned, that the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Roe v Wade legalizing abortion should be overturned and that he would appoint an anti-abortion justice to the nation’s highest court.

He said women who had abortions should be punished, but later retracted this, saying that doctors who perform abortions should be punished.

Bland said plans for the march kicked off on Thursday, two days after Trump won the U.S. presidential election in a widely unexpected victory.

“A lot of women got up the second day with the same idea” for a march on Washington, and they coordinated on social media, she said.

“We need to be working together in a coherent, supportive way over the next four years, to activate more women into leadership positions, to be more politically active,” Bland said. “We cannot allow ourselves to give up, put our heads down and not hold this administration accountable for any violation of human rights or women’s rights.”

The march is being organized state by state, said Fontaine Pearson, 54, a coordinator in Memphis, Tennessee.

“We have a huge groundswell of women,” she said. “This is growing faster than anyone expected.”

The march is planned for Jan. 21, 2017, the day after Trump is to be sworn into office, at Washington, D.C.’s Lincoln Memorial.

The Lincoln Memorial was the site of the famed civil rights march in 1963, when Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.

(Reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst, Editing by Ros Russell; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)

There are two huge marches being planned for Washington around Inauguration Day. The women’s march is organizing quickly. Buses are being supplied on the local level. FB has pages for your state. You can go on the pages and find other women and feminist men who want to attend. This will be a history making march. It will show Washington that we will not bow down under the tyranny of hatred, bigotry, sexism and racism.

Namaste

Barbara

November 12, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

The Path Ahead

Author and radio personality Garrison Keillor took to pen and wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post on Wednesday. Like many other political commentators, Keillor discussed the 2016 presidential results. Like few, Keillor infused wisdom and hope with some hardcore reality.

“So he won. The nation takes a deep breath. Raw ego and proud illiteracy have won out, and a severely learning-disabled man with a real character problem will be president. We are so exhausted from thinking about this election, millions of people will take up leaf-raking and garage cleaning with intense pleasure. We liberal elitists are wrecks. The Trumpers had a whale of a good time, waving their signs, jeering at the media, beating up protesters, chanting “Lock her up” — we elitists just stood and clapped. Nobody chanted “Stronger Together.” It just doesn’t chant.

The Trumpers never expected their guy to actually win the thing, and that’s their problem now. They wanted only to whoop and yell, boo at the H-word, wear profane T-shirts, maybe grab a crotch or two, jump in the RV with a couple of six-packs and go out and shoot some spotted owls. It was pleasure enough for them just to know that they were driving us wild with dismay — by “us,” I mean librarians, children’s authors, yoga practitioners, Unitarians, bird-watchers, people who make their own pasta, opera-goers, the grammar police, people who keep books on their shelves, that bunch. The Trumpers exulted in knowing we were tearing our hair out. They had our number, like a bratty kid who knows exactly how to make you grit your teeth and froth at the mouth. “

Keillor writes the Trump voters will see that the disasters he will bring onto this country will “fall more heavily on them than anyone else,” and adds that those “uneducated white males” will not like what happens next. He says, ”Resentment is no excuse for bald-faced stupidity,” and Keillor writes he believes America is still the land where “the waitress’s kids can grow up to become physicists and novelists and pediatricians—but whooping it up for the candidate of cruelty and ignorance does less than nothing for your kids.”

“We liberal elitists are now completely in the clear. The government is in Republican hands. Let them deal with him. Democrats can spend four years raising heirloom tomatoes, meditating, reading Jane Austen, traveling around the country, tasting artisan beers, and let the Republicans build the wall and carry on the trade war with China and deport the undocumented and deal with opioids, and we Democrats can go for a long , brisk walk and smell the roses.”

The left-leading NPR legend talks about the cruelty and the bullying many of us witnessed or experienced as school children on the playgrounds, but by our 20’s we should all be “done with cruelty.” Yet, Donald Trump was the cruelest candidate since George Wallace. Keillor says Trump won on fear and bile and that will make a great study on political pathologists, but adds even Trump’s own voters are tired of him and he is likely to become the most intensely disliked president since Herbert Hoover. “His children will carry the burden of his name. He will never be happy in his own skin. But the damage he will do to our country — who knows?” Keillor adds Trump supporters voted for change, “and boy, are they going to get it.”

In conclusion, Garrison Keillor brings us back to the goodness in America and in the human spirit as he talks about two of his former teachers:

“Back to real life. I went up to my home town the other day and ran into my gym teacher, Stan Nelson, looking good at 96. He commanded a landing craft at Normandy on June 6, 1944, and never said a word about it back then, just made us do chin-ups whether we wanted to or not. I saw my biology teacher Lyle Bradley, a Marine pilot in the Korean War, still going bird-watching in his 90s. I was not a good student then, but I am studying both of them now. They have seen it all and are still optimistic. The past year of politics has taught us absolutely nothing. Zilch. Zero. Nada. The future is scary. Let the uneducated have their day. I am now going to pay more attention to teachers.

Something about Keillor’s last line gave me a gush of hope. And being still shell-shocked from the election, most of us will take optimism wherever we can get it. Thank you, Garrison Keillor.

BJSquiggel

While I don’t agree with everything Keillor said. I like the optimism in his article’. As liberals, we need a dose or ten of optimism to make it through the next four years. The working class white male feels we left him behind. If he is behind, is that because his white male privilege made him think the world shouldn’t change to advance others as well as him, so he didn’t take advantages of the new opportunities in the world, didn’t take the chance to make himself improve with the rest of us? I know too many white men — I am related to too many white men — who believe that they are simply, by the right of their sex and color, entitled to a good job and a good life, and they should not have to work for it. I am not saying this is true of all white men — I do not believe in any stereotype, as those of you have been reading me for years hopefully know — but I do find it true of many white men, and I suspect these are the white men who voted for Trump.

The American Dream is still here for all who want to chase it. It is going to be a rough road for all but we come from tough stock. We came from immigrant stock or others who were marginalized. We overcame obstacles over the journey of our lives. The is an obstacle or series of land mines we must maneuver around.

Does this mean we should ignore the plight or suffering of others? No. Does it mean we should stand by and simply watch another being attacked on the streets? No. We need to be resourceful. If you are in school, finish your degrees. You need them. At work, get that promotion. You will need it. Spare time? Volunteer at a Domestic Violence shelter, the library, a rehab hospital. Perhaps at your neighborhood rec center, or food bank or homeless shelter.

Take the high road and help whoever needs help. This is what we have been talking to conservatives about for thirty years. One or ten of you could become the next Martin Luther King, Thomas Jefferson, or Abraham Lincoln. You could become the next Gloria Steinem, Susan B. Anthony, Ruth Ginsberg, or Michelle Obama. You could be the next Langston Hughes, Sojourner Truth, Alice Walker or Gandhi. Put the ideal of what you want to become in front of you and make it come true. Then, turn around and pull others up to join you.

I have a few words for those who did not vote. If you did not vote due to apathy, complacence, or simple laziness, I hope this is the last time you don’t vote. The vote is a gift, if you will, the Founding Fathers, left to future generations. Half of the American people didn’t vote. You are going to have to ride this same boat with the rest of us.

Bless America and all Americans

Namaste

Barbara

November 11, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

Trump Infrastructure plan hits speedbumps

Donald Trump’s Infrastructure Plan Faces Speed Bumps

Reliance on private financing could fall short of goals and still see political resistance

DAVID HARRISO

Donald Trump’s proposal to devote $1 trillion to new infrastructure construction relies entirely on private financing, which industry experts say is likely to fall far short of adequately funding improvements to roads, bridges and airports.

The president-elect’s infrastructure plan largely boils down to a tax break in the hopes of luring capital to projects. He wants investors to put money into equity for projects in exchange for tax credits totaling 82% of the equity amount. His plan anticipates that lost tax revenue would be recouped through new income-tax revenue from construction workers and business-tax revenue from contractors, making the proposal essentially cost-free to the government.

Mr. Trump has made a $1 trillion infrastructure investment over 10 years one of his first priorities as president, promising in his victory speech early Wednesday morning to “rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals.”

The Trump team’s thinking is laid out in a 10-page description of the proposal posted on the website of Peter Navarro, a public-policy professor at the University of California, Irvine, and an adviser to Mr. Trump. Top Trump aides couldn’t be reached to comment on the proposal.

Separately, a presidential transition website that went up this week said Mr. Trump planned to invest $550 billion in infrastructure, without offering details on where the funding would come from, a sign that the president-elect’s policy proposals remain in flux.

Experts and industry officials, though, say there are limits to how much can be done with private financing. Because privately funded projects need to turn a profit, they are better suited for major projects such as toll roads, airports or water systems and less appropriate for routine maintenance, such as repaving a public street, they say.

Officials also doubt that the nation’s aging infrastructure can be updated without a significant infusion of public dollars.

The plan “strikes me as sort of a concept paper or a thought piece as opposed to a real plan,” said Pat Jones, executive director of the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association, which represents private operators of toll roads. “These are sort of formulaic numbers that you could come up with to present something that looks like a plan.”

For now, members of Congress of both parties and transportation advocates say they are optimistic lawmakers can reach a bipartisan deal to provide some of the needed funding to update roads, power lines and airports. According to the McKinsey Global Institute, the U.S. needs to boost infrastructure spending by 0.7% of gross domestic product between now and 2030 to meet the demands of a growing economy.

Both parties have said they agree on the need for new spending on infrastructure, but the challenge has been finding the money to pay for it. An Obama administration proposal to use new revenue from a corporate tax overhaul didn’t get through Congress last year. In December, lawmakers cobbled together a $305 billion measure using a reserve account held by the Federal Reserve.

Mr. Trump’s plan would essentially sidestep the political funding squabbles by focusing mostly on private investment, a concept that both parties generally support.

But the plan could still face an uphill battle in Congress, where Democrats have been pushing for more public funding.

Industry experts note that private financing can complement public funding for some projects but is far from a perfect substitute. Historically low interest rates have made it very cheap for state and local governments to borrow directly on the municipal bond market, giving them less incentive to work with private funders.

At the same time, tolls have proved unpopular in much of the country, with toll-road operators in Indiana and Texas filing for bankruptcy protection in recent years.

“The real need is straight up funding, not additional financing tools,” said Bud Wright,executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

Only about 6,000 of the nation’s four million road miles are tolled. And only about 3.1% of the assets under management of U.S. investors are in infrastructure, of which some share is invested in projects abroad, according to Preqin, a research firm.

“Not every project is necessarily feasible,” said Patrick Rhode, vice president of Cintra, which develops privately funded infrastructure projects. “The public and state authorities have to make a determination as to what best serves the public good.”

It’s also unclear how Mr. Trump’s proposal would generate enough new revenue to offset the cost of the tax credits. If the construction workers hired on the new projects were previously unemployed, the proposal would indeed generate significant new tax revenue. But with the unemployment rate for construction workers around 5.7%, it is likely those workers would have found other jobs and paid income tax regardless.

“It’s unclear exactly what [Mr. Trump] has in mind for his infrastructure tax credit,” said Michael Sargent, a transportation policy analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “He says they’re deficit neutral, but I’m not sure how exactly they could pay for themselves.”

Heritage has been advocating reducing the federal government’s involvement in transportation and leaving it up to the states to fund improvements.

November 10, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

ACLU Declares War On Trump

November 9, 2016

NEW YORK — In response to Donald Trump’s election as president of the United States, Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, had the following statement:

“For nearly 100 years, the American Civil Liberties Union has been the nation’s premier defender of freedom and justice for all, no matter who is president. Our role is no different today.

“President-elect Trump, as you assume the nation’s highest office, we urge you to reconsider and change course on certain campaign promises you have made. These include your plan to amass a deportation force to remove 11 million undocumented immigrants; ban the entry of Muslims into our country and aggressively surveil them; punish women for accessing abortion; reauthorize waterboarding and other forms of torture; and change our nation’s libel laws and restrict freedom of expression.

“These proposals are not simply un-American and wrong-headed, they are unlawful and unconstitutional. They violate the First, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. If you do not reverse course and instead endeavor to make these campaign promises a reality, you will have to contend with the full firepower of the ACLU at every step. Our staff of litigators and activists in every state, thousands of volunteers, and millions of card-carrying supporters are ready to fight against any encroachment on our cherished freedoms and rights. diversity-and-inclusion

embrace-diversity

Diversity and inclusion

“One thing is certain: we will be eternally vigilant every single day of your presidency and when you leave the Oval Office, we will do the same with your successor.

The ACLU released its analysis of candidate Trump’s policy proposals in July, which can be found at: https://www.aclu.org/feature/donald-trump-one-man-constitutional-crisis

ACLU

November 7, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

For my US Friends still to vote…

I have been relatively quiet about the election here in the U.S. I’m sure it’s no surprise to anybody that I wholeheartedly support Hillary Clinton, probably the most qualified candidate in the last 100 years. I would support her regardless of who her opponent was, but I especially support her in contrast to Trump, who is the living antithesis of everything I have ever supported here on this blog. Trump is against equality for women, equality for all religions, respect for all people; he is against love and tolerance and saving our planet. Trump is against everything I find decent in humanity and I cannot understand how anyone would vote for the man.

Regardless of whom you support, if you are an American citizen over the age of 18, you need to exercise your Constitutional Right and your moral duty: VOTE.

vote

I found this letter from Jeremy Nix on Huffington Post, and could not have said it better. So forgive the digression into straight up politics:

Namaste,

Barbara

Jeremy Nix Citizen Journalist

I’m cool with you removing me from your friends list if you don’t like this post. You can even disown me if you like. But Donald Trump isn’t a good person, nor would he be a good president. I can understand a difference in politics. I can understand if you don’t like a government run by Democrats. I can understand if you don’t like certain ideologies, like Socialism. But I can’t understand why you would support someone as hateful, sexist, racist and ignorant as Donald Trump.

How do you support him so blindly? Ask yourself, are you a racist, sexist, hateful and ignorant person as well? I hear his supporters saying they like him because he tells the truth, because he’s so rich he can say whatever he feels like with no apologies. Just because Trump is saying these things doesn’t suddenly make them right. It’s not okay to discriminate against an entire religion based on a small percentage of its followers who have become terrorists by twisting the words of the religion to fit their crazy ideals. It’s not okay to marginalize an entire race of people, saying things like all the Mexicans are lazy, that they are all stealing our jobs and bringing drugs into our country.

White people also have bad apples. So does every race of people. We’re all human. Some humans are really bad people. Some are really good. And it doesn’t matter what color they are, it makes no difference whatsoever. Trump says he is just telling the truth. But whose truth? There are lazy people in every race and there are dangerous violent people in every race and every religion. Kicking all Muslims out of the country is not the answer, nor is it the acceptable behavior of a person in an extremely powerful position, like the President of the United States.

The Japanese Internment camps were wrong, Segregation was wrong, Slavery was wrong. We fought wars amongst ourselves to rise above racism and hatred. In WWII more than 60 million people died worldwide. Why? Because of twisted people who were whipping up the population into a frenzy and making ridiculous statements, killing innocent people simply because of their race or religion. The United States lost more than 400,000 lives fighting in that war, against the same ideas that Trump is pushing. The idea that certain religions are more dangerous than others and the idea that people should be judged based on the color of their skin rather than the content of their character.

“They always say it’s so important to make your voice heard, to get out and vote. But I’m not sure if it’s ever been more important than now.”

We’re still healing from the damage inflicted by the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Iraq and the War on Terror. And it isn’t just ISIS or Al-Qaeda. It’s our own people in this country killing their fellow countrymen over differences of opinion, like whether or not you believe abortion is okay or what kind of political ideology you support. And then there are just the plainly insane people who finally snap and go on shooting rampages for no discernible reason at all. They just went mad.

The kind of leadership Trump is displaying is irresponsible and dangerous. His virulent ideas are seeping into the brains of his supporters. Supporters who think it’s okay to say things like “light the mother@!$%#er on fire” while a protester is being dragged out of one of his rallies. Maybe the protester was wrong to be where he was at the time, but no matter what he did, there was no reason to set him on fire. In fact, there is NEVER a reason to set anyone on fire. Unless it’s because they are dead and they wish to be cremated.

Trump’s supporters are angry, and anger is infectious. I can tell you as a non-supporter of Trump I am just as angry. We need the kind of leader that seeks to bring us together, not tear us apart. Why do we have to fight against helping each other, against common sense, against a united Nation? The American Dream is a nightmare and we are feeding it, making it worse every day. Trump is a bully, a loud mouth, ignorant, sexist, racist, disgusting example of how horrible humans can potentially be.

He is the crazy person at your dinner table who won’t stop running his mouth. The only reason he is allowed to carry on with his ugly hateful rhetoric is because you have too much respect for Grandma to get into a fist fight in her home. He’s the guy you have to endure until he leaves, all the while hating every minute that you have to occupy the same space. Lucky for us, this isn’t Grandma’s house, so feel free to punch him in the mouth in the form of getting out and making your vote count.

They always say it’s so important to make your voice heard, to get out and vote. But I’m not sure if it’s ever been more important than now. Differences of political ideals are one thing, I can agree to disagree on many matters across a wide array of topics, but racism isn’t one of them, neither is hate, neither is the belittling of women or the judgment of others based on their appearance or their disability, or their sexual preference.

By supporting Trump do you think things will go back to the way they were? Back when gay people had to hide in fear, back when people of any other color than white had to worry about getting lynched, back when it was okay to openly hate? Do you think empowered women will suddenly quit their jobs and go back to the kitchen ? Because electing Trump won’t make any of that come true. We’re past that as a nation, or at least I thought we were.

“I can agree to disagree on many matters across a wide array of topics, but racism isn’t one of them, neither is hate, neither is the belittling of women…”

If you’re not a racist, bigoted, misogynistic jerk, then voting for Trump simply because you don’t like Democrats is wrong. If you are one of his supporters and you’re just a racist and you don’t care who knows it then vote for him, but know that the good people of America will not stand for it and he will never win a fair election. And please consider pursuing an education and work on your empathy toward your fellow human beings. Whatever led you to believe that racism is okay can be unlearned if you open your mind. I’m sorry that you were raised to believe that you deserve better treatment than the rest of the people on the planet that have different views than yours, worship different gods than you and have skin that isn’t white.

To all the people, of all the races and religions that Donald Trump stands against, to all the women that don’t meet his standards of beauty, to all the good Muslims, and Christians, Mormons and Catholics and Jewish, Italians, Irish and Asians, to the African-Americans and Native Americans, to anyone who has ever been persecuted, belittled, made to feel inferior or bullied based on ignorance like the kind that Trump is spewing, please, I implore you to get out and vote against him. Don’t let the progress of this great nation be halted. We’ve come too far.

votebooth

In this country we FIGHT and DIE for freedom, for Truth and Justice. We fight for what’s right. And what Trump is doing and saying isn’t right. Some have attributed the following statement to Abraham Lincoln*:

“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and cause me to tremble for safety of my country; corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in High Places will follow, and the Money Power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the People, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic destroyed.”

And he couldn’t be more right. Trump IS the one percent, he IS working on your prejudices, and he WILL destroy the Republic if he is elected, make no doubt about it.

If you don’t believe me, just look at the level of crazy coming out of his own mouth:

“[I am] calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on” — Donald Trump. That’s religious discrimination.

“An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that Barack Obama’s birth certificate is a fraud” — Donald Trump. That’s an outright lie.

“Arianna Huffington is unattractive, both inside and out. I fully understand why her former husband left her for a man – he made a good decision.” — Donald Trump. This is sexism, and just plain rude.

“You know, it really doesn’t matter what the media write as long as you’ve got a young, and beautiful, piece of @!$%#.” – Donald Trump. This is misogyny at its finest.

“I will build a great wall — and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me — and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.” – Donald Trump. The words of an arrogant hate monger.

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best. They’re not sending you, they’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists… And some, I assume, are good people.” — Donald Trump. Racist.

“Our great African-American President hasn’t exactly had a positive impact on the thugs who are so happily and openly destroying Baltimore.” — Donald Trump. Racist.

“If I were running ‘The View’, I’d fire Rosie O’Donnell. I mean, I’d look at her right in that fat, ugly face of hers, I’d say ‘Rosie, you’re fired.” — Donald Trump. The words of an @!$%#.

“The beauty of me is that I’m very rich.” – Donald Trump. So Vain.

“It’s freezing and snowing in New York – we need global warming!” – Donald Trump. Ignorant.

“My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body.” – Donald Trump. Gross.

“I think the only difference between me and the other candidates is that I’m more honest and my women are beautiful.” – Donald Trump. Sexist. As if women are possessions rather than people. And also a lie. A lie about how honest he is.

How can you support this man?

*I am aware of the fact that snopes.com claims the Lincoln Capitalism Prophecyquote is false. It’s a quote that has been going around for more than a hundred years. The quote has also been attributed to a letter that Lincoln supposedly wrote to Col. William F. Elkins in 1864. Scholars have cited The Lincoln Encyclopedia:The Spoken and Written Words of A. Lincoln Arranged for Ready Reference by Archer H. Shaw. Snopes still claims the letter referred to in this encyclopedia is a fraud, forged by Emanuel Hertz in his book Abraham Lincoln: A New Portrait. So in the interest of full disclosure, these may or may not have been Lincoln’s words. Whether they were written by Hertz or Lincoln, they were still written and they still pertain to the point I was trying to make. Income inequality is a serious issue in this country, and Donald Trump is working on the prejudices of the people.

vote-button1_web

November 5, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

A Day Off

We have had company from out of state. We have spent time exploring the Blue Ridge Parkway. I was a beautiful weekend here in the North Carolina mountains. We had sunshine, blue skies and the smell of Autumn in the air. I have included some of the photographs that I took in our travels. I hope you enjoy a peak of the color and beauty of the mountains.

Namste,

Barbara

BJSquiggel

A row of color. Photograph and coppright by Barbara Mattio, 2016

Bonsai in autumn. Photograph and copyright by Barbara Mattio,2016

Holly and berries. Photograph and copyright by Barbara Mattio, 2016

November 3, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

Protest

For months, people have gathered to fight the Dakota Oil Pipeline that will cut through sacred Native American land. This is life at the Sacred Stone Camp.

BJSquiggel

Our Native brothers and sisters continue to need our support and encouragement. Send messages via Facebook to let them know you continue to be there for them. If you haven’t written to Present Obama, i encourage you to to write and ask him to stop the building of this pipeline all together. The weekend will be a great time to fit it into your schedule.

Namaste,

Barbara

November 2, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

U.S. considering rerouting N Dakota Pipeline

Obama says U.S. mulling alternate routes for N. Dakota pipeline

By Valerie Volcovici | WASHINGTON

President Barack Obama said the U.S. government is examining ways to reroute an oil pipeline in North Dakota as it addresses concerns raised by Native American tribes protesting against its construction.

Obama’s comments late on Tuesday to online news site Now This were his first to directly address the escalating clashes between local authorities and protesters over Energy Transfer Partners’ $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline project.

“My view is that there is a way for us to accommodate sacred lands of Native Americans. And I think that right now the Army Corps is examining whether there are ways to reroute this pipeline,” Obama said in the video interview.

On Wednesday, protesters on the banks of the Cantapeta Creek confronted law enforcement, as they attempted to build a wooden pedestrian bridge across the creek to gain access to the Cannon Ball Ranch, private land owned by ETP, according to a statement from Morton County officials.

The U.S. Justice and Interior Departments along with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers halted construction on part of the pipeline in September due to protests by Native American tribes who contend the pipeline would disturb sacred land and pollute waterways supplying nearby homes. The affected area includes land under Lake Oahe, a large and culturally important reservoir on the Missouri River where the line was supposed to cross.

Construction is continuing on sections of the pipeline away from the Missouri River, one of the owners of the pipeline and a U.S. refiner Phillips 66 said.

The 1,172-mile (1,885-km) pipeline, being built by a group of companies led by Energy Transfer Partners, would offer the fastest and most direct route to bring Bakken shale oil from North Dakota to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries.

North Dakota officials are girding for a long fight. The state’s emergency commission on Tuesday approved another $4 million loan to support law enforcement during the protests.

David Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux, in a Wednesday statement lauded Obama’s comments and called on the administration and the Army Corp of Engineers to issue a stop-work order on the pipeline on federal land. He also called for a full environmental impact study.

“The nation and the world are watching,” he said. “The injustices done to Native people in North Dakota and throughout the country must be addressed. We believe President Obama and his Administration will do the right thing.”

LETTING THE SITUATION PLAY OUT

Obama said government agencies will let the situation “play out for several more weeks and determine whether or not this can be resolved in a way that I think is properly attentive to the traditions of First Americans.”

Morton County Commission Chairman Cody Schulz, in response to Obama’s statement regarding the pipeline, said that letting the situation play out “affords the opportunity to the out-of-state militant faction of this protest to keep escalating their violent activities.”

The Now This video, however, suggests that Obama was talking about the review process, not the protests. The president later in the interview says that he wants to make sure that both protesters and law enforcement are “refraining from situations that might result in people being hurt.”

The fight against the pipeline has drawn international attention and growing celebrity support amid confrontations between riot police and protesters. More than 140 people were arrested when a protest was broken up by law enforcement nearly a week ago.

Some have said an alternative pipeline route could be a way to get over the impasse.

In North Dakota, gubernatorial candidate Marvin Nelson, a Democratic state representative, said in an interview with Reuters last week that moving the route 10 miles north could make a difference.

“It would take some time to do that, but it seems to me to be a much safer route and it wouldn’t need to cross culturally sensitive land,” he said.

Environmental group 350.org urged Obama to reject the federal permit for the entire project.

“There’s no reroute that doesn’t involve the same risks to water and climate,” said Sara Shor, a campaign manager for 350.org.

“President Obama breaking the silence on Dakota Access is a testament to the powerful resistance of Indigenous leaders, but he shouldn’t sit back while people are facing violent repression from militarized law enforcement on the ground.”

This is an improvement. President Obama needs to stop big corporations from building the pipeline at all. It puts the environment at risk. Yesterday we saw an explosion of the pipeline in Alabama. Stop the pipeline! Save American land. Save our environment! Stand with the Native Peoples who are courageously protesting the immoral stealing of their sacred land. Write to President Obama and tell him what you think. America for our Native People.

Namaste,

Barbara

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November 2, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

An alphabet of woe

These say everything there is to say about a Trump Presidency. The illustrations are elegant in their approach.

Namaste

Barbara

BJSquiggel

In his 1963 abecederian picture book The Gashlycrumb Tinies, Edward Gorey recounted the increasingly gruesome deaths of 26 children. In this parody the US game designer Mike Selinker outlines an A to Z of similarly gruesome eventualities he expects will befall a world in which Trump is president – with each one illustrated by a favourite comic or fantasy artist.

‘Whilst listing all of the things that we would lose if Mr Trump ascended to Pennsylvania Avenue, I thought, “Why don’t people remember these things?”’ Selinker writes in the introduction. ‘And then I thought perhaps it was because they didn’t have a mnemonic to remember it by. Something catchy. Something horrifying. And so this book.’ afor-arctic