{"id":18785,"date":"2016-01-05T21:05:43","date_gmt":"2016-01-06T05:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=18785"},"modified":"2016-01-05T21:05:43","modified_gmt":"2016-01-06T05:05:43","slug":"squatchs-open-thread-05012016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/05\/squatchs-open-thread-05012016\/","title":{"rendered":"Squatch&#8217;s Open Thread 05\/01\/2016"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\">Yesterday I woke up to about 2.5 centimetres of snow on the ground while today it was freezing rain for a short time. The temperatures warmed up during the day so no more ice or snow, at least not on the ground about me. &nbsp;But a quick look upwards yields a beautiful sight . . . more snow on the mountains behind me. &nbsp;What a glorious view!&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\"><strong>Short Takes<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\"><strong>Common Dreams <\/strong>&#8212;<strong>&nbsp;<\/strong><\/span>Speaking just blocks away from the belly of the beast, presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders on Tuesday gave a major policy speech during which he laid out his plan to take on Wall Street and end the era of &quot;too big to fail&quot; banking.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;To those on Wall Street who may be listening today, let me be very clear,&quot; Sanders said. &quot;Greed is not good. Wall Street and corporate greed is destroying the fabric of our nation. And, here is a New Year&rsquo;s Resolution that we will keep: If you do not end your greed we will end it for you.&quot;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"695\" height=\"391\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/R6e47vJ89p0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\">A great speech from Bernie, and he is so correct . . . the US needs Glass-Steagall. &nbsp;The world needs&nbsp;Glass-Steagall in the US.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/canadians.org\/tpp\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\">Council of Canadians<\/span><\/a><\/strong><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\"><strong> <\/strong>&#8212;&nbsp;<\/span>On October 5, 2015, Canada, the United States, Mexico and nine other countries &ndash; together representing more than 40 per cent of the global economy &ndash; announced the conclusion of negotiations on the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership &ldquo;free trade&rdquo; deal.<\/p>\n<p>The Council of Canadians opposes this deal because it includes an investor-state dispute settlement provision that allows transnational corporations to sue governments over legislation or policies made in the public interest, it extends the patent length (and profits) of pharmaceutical corporations by delaying the introduction of lower cost generic drugs, it slashes the domestic content requirement for automobiles, putting thousands of autoworker jobs at risks, and it undermines family farmers by opening up the Canadian dairy market to imports without creating new export markets for Canadian farmers.<\/p>\n<p>The TPP could be voted on in the new Parliament early in 2016 and is expected to face a U.S. Congressional vote in the spring of 2016.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\">Read on in&nbsp;<\/span><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/canadians.org\/tpp-info\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\">Council of Canadians<\/span><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The TPP directly threatens:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Public health and access to medicines<\/strong>: The U.S. is using the TPP to push for excessive patent protections and other intellectual property rights that are guaranteed to make medication much more expensive in Canada and even inaccessible to the poorest countries involved in the negotiations. Across the world, health advocates claim it is a matter of life and death that we say no to these changes in the TPP.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\">Click through for more details. &nbsp;The video below is followed by a RootsAction petition if you haven&#39;t already signed it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"695\" height=\"391\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Rw7P0RGZQxQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size:18px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/act.rootsaction.org\/p\/dia\/action3\/common\/public\/?action_KEY=11690&amp;tag=PR151009&amp;track=PR151009\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#FF0000;\"><strong>Petition to Stop the TPP<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\"><span style=\"font-size:12px;\">My objection to this deal can be summed up in three words: <strong>People not profits! &nbsp;<\/strong>Just before Christmas, my student received news from her family in South Sudan . . . a close friend,&nbsp;who was like a sister but younger than her, died. &nbsp;She had been ill a short time but with no doctor nearby and no money to buy medicine, her fate was sealed. &nbsp;Her aunt&#39;s daughter-in-law who is very ill, will likely meet the same fate. &nbsp;In the US, how many people cannot afford life saving drugs and medical treatment, even with Obamacare. &nbsp;You generally can thank Republicans for that . . . and their corporate masters!&nbsp; But the TPP affects more than just pharmaceuticals. &nbsp;<strong>People before profits!<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/news\/2016\/01\/05\/surprise-corporate-america-throwing-down-tpp\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\"><strong>Common Dreams<\/strong><\/span><\/a> &#8212;&nbsp;American big business has now officially endorsed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/tag\/tpp\">TPP<\/a>), giving many all the proof they need that the 12-nation deal&mdash;poised to be the largest ever&mdash;is bad news for people and the planet. &nbsp;<span style=\"color:#000000;\"><strong>&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>That endorsement followed Monday&#39;s announcement from the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) that it is throwing its weight behind the pact. &quot;<em><strong><span style=\"color:#000000;\">Open markets encourage cooperation and prosperity among nations and governments, rather than conflict<\/span><\/strong><\/em>, <span style=\"color:#000000;\"><strong>&#8230;&quot;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\">And if you believe that highlighted line, have I got a bridge over swamp land to sell!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\"><strong>YouTube <\/strong>&#8212; Two videos from John Oliver,<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"695\" height=\"391\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/umqvYhb3wf4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\">And now a lighter look at resolutions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"695\" height=\"391\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pxM3tvHowaM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\"><strong>My Universe<\/strong><\/span> &#8212;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com\/736x\/f5\/15\/30\/f51530567f7ff83a280f05f5c006cafb.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\"><strong><span style=\"font-family:comic sans ms,cursive;\">And you thought it was only in Narnia and Lord of the Rings that trees showed their faces!<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday I woke up to about 2.5 centimetres of snow on the ground while today it was freezing rain for a short time. The temperatures warmed up during the day so no more ice or snow, at least not on the ground about me. &nbsp;But a quick look upwards yields a beautiful sight . . <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/05\/squatchs-open-thread-05012016\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-thread","category-politics","category-35-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18785\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}