Politics Plus

Today was one of those days dealing with time consuming medical issues.  As  a result, the monthly report will be delayed one day.  Tomorrow I have physio and then it is report time.  On the home front, I have a lady bug invasion! This one bug keeps dive bombing my computer.  I have yet to be successful capturing the little beast and the furbabes so far have been totally disinterested in helping.

Short Takes

Common Dreams — A new study confirms what many activists have suspected for a long time: The private courts set up by international “trade” deals heavily favor billionaires and giant corporations, and they do so at the expense of governments and people. …

A large anti-TPP demonstration took place in New Zealand in February. (Photo: Dominic Hartnett/flickr/cc)

The “investor-state dispute settlement” process, or ISDS, is built into treaties like NAFTA and the upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). It allows foreign investors to sue participating governments if they do anything that harms their investment in that nation. Corporations can sue governments through this process, but governments can’t sue corporations.  …

But that doesn’t appear to be the case. Virtually all of the financial benefits of the ISDS have gone to the rich and powerful. Nearly 95 percent of all award money went to giant corporations or extremely wealthy individuals.

The ISDS industry scored big, too. The authors found that ISDS “lawyers, arbitrators, experts and other actors” had earned an estimated $1.7 billion from these hearings by the spring of 2015.

You can read a copy of the York University Osgoode Hall study.  If for some reason you have trouble with this link, please click on the link within the article.  Many of us have known that the ISDS was problematic, especially in non US countries with other agreements like NAFTA.  The TPP and similar agreements must be stopped.  In the US, the wealthy and large corporations already have so much influence in government with the large sums they can use to "buy" politicians and elections.  They don't need more.

Huffington Post — But Ryan said he had to speak out when he sees "something that runs counter to who we are as a party and as a country."

"If a person wants to be the nominee of the Republican Party, there can be no evasion and no games," he said. "They must reject any group or cause that is built on bigotry."

Ryan continued on to say that Republicans should not "prey on people's prejudices."

"We appeal to their highest ideals," he said. "This is the party of Lincoln. We believe all people are created equal in the eyes of God and our government."

Ryan said that point was fundamental. "And if someone wants to be our nominee, they must understand this," he said.

When I read this, I had to speak out!  First, I seem to recall that during the 2012 campaign, Paul Ryan was the Republican VP candidate for Romney and they courted the white supremacist vote.  The difference, they weren't as loud mouthed about it as Trump.  Second, there are a lot of Republican Congress critters who are openly bigots. Thirdly, the current Republican Party is the party of Lincoln in name only.  I am sure you can add to the points.

Common Dreams — Reigniting calls for Rick Snyder's resignation, emails released Friday reveal that advisers to the Michigan governor knew that Flint's water was toxic as far back as October 2014.

"My Mom is a City resident. Nice to know she's drinking water with elevated chlorine levels and fecal coliform," the governor's chief legal counsel said in an email sent just three weeks before the Republican governor's re-election, according to the Detroit Free Press.

After examining over 500 emails released by the governor's office, the Detroit Newsreported that "[t]wo top advisers to Gov. Rick Snyder urged switching Flint back to Detroit’s water system in October 2014, after General Motors Co. said the city’s heavily chlorinated river water was rusting engine parts."

"There's no reasonable person who can believe at this point that every top adviser to Rick Snyder knew that there was an issue, but Snyder knew nothing," said Lonnie Scott …

Rachel Maddow comments on the ongoing saga.  Nothing short of Snyder's successful prosecution will be acceptable.  Snyder truly is a Republican.

My Universe — 

Arrggghhh!!!!!  The foot is still swollen and the redness is turning to bruising.  I RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation) it as much as possible and I use ultrasound on it while at physio.  But I still need to get around.  One thing is for certain, the manipulation that my physiotherapist has done really helps.Tomorrow is laundry day and I have a few loads to do.  I'll also be starting the monthly report tomorrow so I'll be busy.  To answer your question Lona about Lucia taking a class while her kids are not about, we did discuss it and I encouraged her to pursue it.  I want her to do the work so I encouraged her but she actually found a class that met her needs.

Short Takes

Huffington Post — John Oliver is finally taking on Donald Trump — and the “Last Week Tonight” host is not mincing words.

“At this point, Donald Trump is America’s back mole,” Oliver said on Sunday’s episode. “It may have seemed harmless a year ago, but now that it’s become frighteningly bigger, it’s no longer wise to ignore it.”

Oliver, who has largely avoided discussing Trump on his show, was unequivocal in his criticism of the Republican frontrunner.

I haven't laughed this hard and long in a long time!  John Oliver has out done himself!  I'll say nothing more except ENJOY!  

Robert Reich — An Open Letter to the Republican Establishment

You are the captains of American industry, the titans of Wall Street, and the billionaires who for decades have been the backbone of the Republican Party.

You’ve invested your millions in the GOP in order to get lower taxes, wider tax loopholes, bigger subsidies, more generous bailouts, less regulation, lengthier patents and copyrights and stronger market power allowing you to raise prices, weaker unions and bigger trade deals allowing you outsource abroad to reduce wages, easier bankruptcy for you but harder bankruptcy for homeowners and student debtors, and judges who will let you to engage in insider trading and who won’t prosecute you for white-collar crimes.  

All of which have made you enormously wealthy. Congratulations.

Click through for the rest of this open letter.  There are some billionaires, like Nick Hanauer, who agree with Reich.  But they are precious few.  The rest are too myopic to see what is happening.  As usual, the Reich on the left is right.

Mother Jones — Earlier this month, Esther Calhoun stood before the US Commission on Civil Rights in Washington, DC, describing some of the unlikely ailments that have been plaguing her and her neighbors these past few years. "I am only 51 years old and I have neuropathy," she said. "The neurologist said that it may be caused by lead, and it is not going to get better."

This is not a story about contaminated water in Flint, Michigan. Calhoun, who lives in Uniontown, Alabama, was talking about coal ash—a toxic byproduct of burning coal that has quietly become one of America's worst environmental justice problems. The ashes are typically laden with arsenic, lead, mercury, and other toxins, and multiple studies have found that the waste tends to be stored in low-income, minority communities. In Uniontown, where 90 percent of residents are black and about half live below the poverty line, an uncovered coal ash landfill sits "directly across the street from peoples' homes, and from yards in which their kids play," says Marianne Engelman-Lado, an attorney with the environmental nonprofit Earthjustice.

Environmental justice indeed!  I would love to see the reactions of the wealthy who make their homes around golf courses, to the water hasards being coal ash slurry ponds.  The poisoning of the poor and working class people is inexcusable.  Spend the money to dispose of the ash properly.  Or better still, don't burn coal . . . leave it in the ground.

My Universe — 

I have stayed low for the weekend hoping my foot would do some healing.  And it has!  Tomorrow is physio and teaching.  My physiotherapist will be taking another shot at my foot.  Starting 07/03/2016 Lucia will be taking an ESL class with other students and she won't have her 2 youngest to worry about.  I am going to see if I can sit in on a class or two so that I can tailor our Friday 1-on-1 to her classroom needs.  I am really excited for her as she will have a much better time learning without her 2 youngest children interrupting.

Short Takes

Huffington Post — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani won a strong vote of confidence and reformist partners secured surprise gains in parliament in early results from elections that could speed up the Islamic Republic's emergence from years of isolation.

Foad Izadi, an assistant professor at the Faculty of World Studies in Tehran University said the reformists' strong showing was prompted by Rouhani's success in reaching a nuclear agreement between Iran and international powers, the removal of most of the sanctions that had strangled the country's economy over the past decade and restoration of relations with the West.

"It is a sweeping victory for Tehran but for other cities it is not yet clear cut. It is beyond expectations," he added.

Etemad, a reformist newspaper whose managing-editor Elias Hazrati won a seat in Tehran, chose the headline of "clean up in the parliament."

Along with hope of a parliamentary clean up comes hope for better economic times.  As noted in a Foreign Policy article,

Hassan Rouhani had been president for almost a year, and Iran and the group of six world powers — the United States, France, Britain, China, Russia, and Germany — had inked an interim nuclear agreement in Geneva. For the first time in years, Kaveh no longer felt hopeless about the future of his country. Members of the business community, like him, believed Rouhani had the political grit necessary to fight corruption and bring economic change. The prospects of a nuclear deal had them revitalized, he told me. Kaveh had become a senior executive at a private aviation firm and was especially excited because sanctions for aviation had been relaxed; his company had launched talks with a European firm to buy new airplanes. International delegations were trickling in for business talks, and there was even talk of trade with America, Kaveh said excitedly.  …

… in 2016, Kaveh’s attitude has again shifted. Although there are glimmers of hope on the horizon of the Iranian economy, he tells me true change will take longer than he once thought.

There is change, but it will take time to reconnect economically.  When there are 2 intractable players like the US and the Iranian hardliners, it will take that much longer to repair the economic damage.  Click through for the remainder of these two related articles.

Right Wing Watch — After vowing to go after journalists who write critical stories about him at a rally in Texas today, Donald Trump bragged about the support his presidential campaign has received from conservative evangelical voters, touting endorsements from televangelist Paula White, Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, Jr., and Sarah Palin.

Trump even brought Robert Jeffress, the conservative televangelist notorious for his anti-gay, anti-Catholic and anti-Mormon preaching, onto the stage to sing his praises. Jeffress called Trump a patriot “who is truly pro-life,” unlike Hillary Clinton, whom he warned would be “the most pro-abortion president in history.”

“God bless Donald Trump,” Jeffress declared. Trump had a much bleaker message: “Christianity is under siege. Every year it gets weaker and weaker and weaker.”

He said he would restore Christianity to greatness by scrapping IRS regulations pertaining to church engagement in partisan political activity on behalf of candidates or campaigns.

Listening to this ass is frightening.  He panders . . . panders to the evangelicals and the haters.  He panders to their fears without true regard to the consequences.  In an Alternet article, "…McConnell reportedly told colleagues that the party will drop Trump “like a hot rock” if he is the nominee."  I guess we wait a little longer.

Truthdig — “There is a clear contrast between our two candidates with regard to my strong belief that we must end the interventionist, regime change policies that have cost us so much,” she [U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii] wrote. “This is not just another ‘issue.’ This is THE issue, and it’s deeply personal to me. This is why I’ve decided to resign as Vice Chair of the DNC so that I can support Bernie Sanders in his efforts to earn the Democratic nomination in the 2016 presidential race.”

From the beginning, it seems that the deck has been stacked against Bernie.  Not only has the press virtually ignored him, but the DNC has as well.  I question whether the chairperson of the DNC, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, has been equally concerned about neutrality since she was a Clinton 2008 national campaign co-chair.

My Universe —

I hate that animals are brutalised like Duffy was, but I love the transformations!

Now if people could only get the message that animals and people should not be brualised, not abused but LOVED!

I did not get out the Open Thread yesterday even though it was half done before I went out.  I was teaching Lucia when late in the afternoon son Jonathan had not come home from school.  I drove about  looking for him and did significant walking.  Turns out he went to a basketball tournament and forgot to tell his mother.  Once I found him safe at home, I went home to rest my foot.  I did too much walking during the search and aggravated my foot which had felt much better earlier in the day.  Today is better and yesterday's swelling has gone down.

Short Takes

Bloomberg Politics — At a campaign rally in Texas on Friday, Donald Trump laid into 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

Click through for the video.  For some reason I can't post it here but it is definitely worth watching for the humour!

Huffington Post — Bernie Sanders reeled in the endorsement of a prominent cabinet official from the Clinton years on Friday.

Robert Reich, who served as Bill Clinton's secretary of labor, announced on Twitter that he was throwing his support behind the Vermont independent senator rather than Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

In a Facebook post explaining the decision, Reich said Sanders was leading a "political mobilization" that would "get the nation back from the moneyed interests" that control the political system.

We all know how astute Robert Reich is.  This is very good news!

Alternet — …with that victory speech, delivered as news came in of the billionaire businessman’s trouncing of his rivals in the state’s Republican Party presidential caucuses, movement conservatism as the guiding force of the GOP came tumbling down.

By way of thanking a would-be mega-donor, the Republican frontrunner explained how difficult it was to turn down the offer of casino-owner Phil Ruffin to fund the Trump campaign to the tune of $10 million.

“[I]t’s hard for me to turn down money, because that’s not what I’ve done my whole life,” Trump said. “I grab and grab and grab. You know, I get greedy; I want money, money.”  …

I’ll bet his followers buy the notion he’ll make America as rich as he is by, as he said on Tuesday night, by bigfooting it around the world. “We get greedy, right? Now, we’re gonna get greedy for the United States,” Trump told a hotel ballroom full of caucus-goers. “We’re gonna grab and grab and grab. We’re gonna bring in so much money and so much everything, we’re gonna make America great again, folks.”

Sounds like that old 19th century American nugget "Manifest Destiny" which, as noted in Wikipedia, "… was an expression of conviction in the morality and value of expansionism that complemented other popular ideas of the era, including American exceptionalism and Romantic nationalism."  No doubt, he will face stiff opposition globally. Bullying is too prevalent and we have pink t-shirt days to stand against bullying.  And yet here is a Republican presidential candidate openly advocating bullying!

My Universe —