Skip navigation

Monthly Archives: June 2017

Drinking The Koolaid


Everything coming out the white house is riddled with almost and alternate facts. No “poor people” in the cabinet, these are rich people who have nothing in common with the neediest people who are and have been under represented by Congress (the people they elected to serve them) , now they (the “poor people”) are served by Rich people who have no interest in serving people they have exploited for years and now have even less interest in serving them. All of the past administrations have been attempting to better the conditions of the oft cited “American people” but instead the long serving Congress has short circuited those efforts whenever they could and making the American People drink the “poison Kool-Aid” while telling us it is good for us. If you are an ardent Trump supporter it may be too late for an antidote. The campaign for the office is over , it is time to govern not tweet us into more problems. Most people who do not know something, will look it up, ask for help and learn what needs to be done but that cannot be done on social media from possibly a Loo. The main issue is that many Americans with justification are fed up with Government’s lack of or poor administration. This issue has been around d for many years before President Obama yet the blame was placed on him because of skin color. Too many people have allowed their personal bias to get in the way of facts and these biases were stirred up by the lesser an among us who have not gotten past post civil war feelings. If we as Americans do not or chose not to understand that we are the actual “illegal aliens” since we decimated the Native American populations through wars, disease and attrition. It is time that we as Americans understand that our “leaders (on)” will mouth any homilies or quotes that will get them what they need , whether it’s a political office or just the purchase of their products. The loss of jobs has more to do with the involved Companies need for maintaining revenue than anything else. The coal companies did not want to upgrade facilities to insure the safety of the workers and allow for pay increases to insure the workers ability to care for families. Think about the runoff or slag that pollutes the air and water supplies. This administration is a dream come true for industries but a larger boot on the backs of Americans. Do not drink the Kool-Aid!

Please Donate

AP FACT CHECK: Trump and missions unaccomplished


Trump supporters and others have been led down the garden path to the Mad hatter’s tea party where the available quaff is “poisoned Kool-Aid”. All of this with the financial and media outpourings of the people who own conglomerates whose sole purpose is to keep the flow of money to themselves and away from the people. TOTUS has assisted with this because he in a smaller way is one of them. In my opinion the TOTUS wants to play with the “big Boys” but does not have the wealth so acting as surrogate will do whatever it takes to gain favor.MA

AP FACT CHECK: Trump and missions unaccomplished
JIM DRINKARD and CALVIN WOODWARD,Associated Press 21 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has a way of presenting missions as accomplished even when they’re not.
So it was when he told Iowans he’s put farmers back at their plows, secured a historic increase in military spending and empowered homebuilders to swing their hammers again. Those all remain aspirations, not achievements.
Trump is also known to propose something already in effect, as when he declared “the time has come” for a welfare moratorium for immigrants. President Bill Clinton signed such a moratorium into law in 1996.
A look at a variety of Trump’s statements from the public square over the past week:
TRUMP: “We’re thinking about building the wall as a solar wall so it creates energy and pays for itself. And this way, Mexico will have to pay much less money. And that’s good right? … Pretty good imagination, right? Good? My idea.” — in Iowa on Wednesday.
THE FACTS: His idea? Others came forward with such proposals back when he was criticizing solar power as too expensive.
The notion of adding solar panels to the wall he wants to build along the Mexico border was explored in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in March. Vasilis Fthenakis, director of the Center for Life Cycle Analysis at Columbia University, and Ken Zweibel, former director of the Solar Institute at George Washington University, concluded it was “not only technically and economically feasible, it might even be more practical than a traditional wall.”
They said a 2,000-mile solar wall could cost less than $1 billion, instead of tens of billions for a traditional border wall, and possibly become “wildly profitable.” The writers were studying a concept laid out by Homero Aridjis and James Ramey in the online World Post in December.
The idea also was proposed by one of the companies that submitted its design to the government as a border wall prototype. Las Vegas-based Gleason Partners proposed covering some sections of the wall with solar panels and said that selling electricity from it could eventually cover the cost of construction.
Trump repeatedly described solar power in the campaign as “very, very expensive” and “not working so good.”
___
TRUMP: “So, we’ve achieved a historic increase in defense spending.” — Iowa speech.
THE FACTS: He hasn’t. He is proposing a large increase but Congress is still debating — and is nowhere near deciding on — more money for defense for 2018.
All that’s been achieved is a $25 billion increase for this year and there’s nothing remotely historic about that. The Pentagon has received annual budget increases equal to or greater than $25 billion seven times in the past 15 years alone.
___
TRUMP: “The time has come for new immigration rules which say that those seeking admission into our country must be able to support themselves financially and should not use welfare for a period of at least five years. And we’ll be putting in legislation to that effect very shortly.” — Iowa speech.
THE FACTS: A federal law passed in 1996 already has that effect. It bars most foreigners who enter the country on immigrant visas from being eligible for federal benefits like Social Security and food stamps for the first five years. States typically have the authority to determine eligibility for local programs. As for people in the country illegally, they are generally prohibited from those benefits altogether. Same with foreigners who are in the U.S. on nonimmigrant visas.
___
TRUMP: Addressing why he raised the possibility that his Oval Office conversation with fired FBI Director James Comey might have been recorded: “When he found out that I, you know, that there may be tapes out there, whether it’s governmental tapes or anything else, and who knows, I think his story may have changed.” — Fox News interview aired Friday.
THE FACTS: There’s no evidence of any change in what Comey testified on June 8 before the Senate Intelligence committee. In that appearance — the only time Comey has publicly addressed the subject — his story was consistent. He said that on three occasions beginning in January he’d told the president that he was not then the subject of an FBI counterintelligence investigation on him as part of its work to probe Russian influence on the 2016 presidential election.
Since then, it has been reported that Trump is under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller over his May 9 firing of Comey and whether that or other actions by the president constitute obstruction of justice.
___
TRUMP: “You see what we’ve already done. Homebuilders are starting to build again. We’re not confiscating their land with ridiculous rules and regulations that don’t make sense.” — Iowa speech.
THE FACTS: Housing starts as tracked by the Census Bureau have actually fallen over the past three months. Trump seems a bit mixed up on deregulation. Some of the biggest constraints on homebuilders come from local governments, rather than federal rules.
___
TRUMP: On cutting regulations to help farmers: “Farmers are able to plow their field. If they have a puddle in the middle of their field, a little puddle the size of this, it’s considered a lake and you can’t touch it. And if you touch it, bad, bad things happen to you and your family. We got rid of that one, too, OK?” — Iowa speech
THE FACTS: He didn’t get rid of the regulations he’s talking about. He signed an executive order in February directing the Environmental Protection Agency to review a rule protecting clean water. The rule can stop some farmers from using pesticides and herbicides. It’s still in place, pending the review.
___
TRUMP: “Former Homeland Security Advisor Jeh Johnson is latest top intelligence official to state there was no grand scheme between Trump & Russia.” — tweet Thursday.
THE FACTS: Johnson did not state that conclusion. He was homeland security secretary (not adviser) from December 2013 to January 2017. He was asked at a House Intelligence committee hearing Wednesday whether he knew of any evidence of collusion with Russia by the Trump campaign.
Johnson said he was not aware of any information beyond what’s been reported publicly and what the U.S. intelligence community has gathered. That is not a statement of belief that no collusion took place. Pressed on the matter, he said Comey probably had some information to go on when the FBI opened an investigation into possible collusion.
___
TRUMP: “Unemployment is at a 16-year low.” — Iowa speech.
THE FACTS: Unemployment is indeed that low, at 4.3 percent.
___
TRUMP: “We are 5 and 0, as you know, in these special elections. And I think the Democrats thought it would be a lot different than that. 5-0 is a big — that’s a big margin.” — Fox News interview aired Friday.
THE FACTS: Wrong score. Right score: 4-1. Republicans won open House seats in Kansas, Georgia, Montana and South Carolina. Democrats held onto a seat in California.
Trump’s miscount wasn’t a one-time gaffe. It was also a line that roused supporters in his Iowa speech. “So, we’re 5 and 0. We’re 5 and 0,” he said to applause Wednesday night. “Five and 0. Five and 0,” he said at another point.
___
TRUMP: “Since I was elected, illegal border crossings — and this is without the wall, before the wall — have decreased by more than 75 percent, a historic and unprecedented achievement.” — Iowa speech.
THE FACTS: That’s overblown, according to government figures about the Mexico border. The decrease in his first four full months in office is about 59 percent, still substantial but not more than 75 percent.
More than 56,600 foreigners have been caught crossing from Mexico illegally between February and May, down from 137,800 people in the same period during President Barack Obama’s last year in office.
The number of illegal crossings is not known because some people slip in undetected. Officials consider the number arrested to be representative of the broader trend of attempts to cross illegally.
In bragging that the numbers are down “without the wall,” Trump omits the fact that there already are roughly 650 miles of fencing along the nearly 2,000-mile long Mexican border.
___
TRUMP: “We’re working really hard on massive tax cuts. It would be, if I get it the way I want it, the largest tax cut in the history of the United States of America. Because right now, we are one of the highest-taxed nations in the world. Really on a large-scale basis, we are the highest tax nation in the world. … And I think it’s going to happen.” — Iowa speech.
THE FACTS: The overall U.S. tax burden is actually one of the lowest among the 32 developed and large emerging-market economies tracked by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Taxes made up 26.4 percent of the total U.S. economy in 2015, according to the OECD. That’s far below Denmark’s tax burden of 46.6 percent, Britain’s 32.5 percent or Germany’s 36.9 percent. Just four OECD countries had a lower tax bite than the U.S.: South Korea, Ireland, Chile and Mexico.
It’s not clear Trump will sign the largest tax cut in U.S. history. His administration has yet to settle on enough details of any planned overhaul to make that claim. To put the claim in context, President Ronald Reagan essentially cut taxes during his first term by slightly more than 2 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. For Trump to surpass that, his tax cut would essentially have to be more than $400 billion a year.
___
TRUMP: “We have Gary Cohn, who’s the president of Goldman Sachs. That’s somebody. He’s the president of Goldman Sachs. He had to pay over $200 million in taxes to take the job, right? … This is the president of Goldman Sachs, smart. Having him represent us. He went from massive paydays to peanuts. … But these are people that are great, brilliant business minds. And that’s what we need.” — Iowa speech.
THE FACTS: Trump appears to be confusing taxes paid with stocks sold. Cohn and his family members held about $220 million in Goldman stock, which he had to divest in order to resolve possible conflicts of interest before becoming White House economic adviser. He would have had to pay taxes on any capital gains from the sale, but that sum would only be a fraction of the figure cited by Trump. Moreover, Cohn had to divest the stock in pieces, so the final tally from his sales is unclear, as the stock has declined from highs in March.
It’s also worth noting the president’s about-face praise for Wall Street. His campaign routinely criticized Goldman Sachs and its ties to Hillary Clinton, even using it as a villain in a political ad that included video of the bank’s chairman and CEO.
___
TRUMP: “You have a gang called MS-13. … They do things that nobody can believe. These are true animals. We are moving them out of the country by the thousands, by the thousands. … We’re getting them out, MS-13.” — Iowa speech.
THE FACTS: There is no publicly available evidence to support this claim about the violent gang. In recent weeks, federal authorities have arrested hundreds of suspected MS-13 gang members. Many of those arrested have been identified by the government as immigrants, but it is unclear if they have yet been deported. Any suspected gang members who are U.S. citizens cannot be kicked out of the country. The gang was formed decades ago in Los Angeles and has spread.
Overall arrests of immigrants in the country illegally have increased in recent months, but deportations have declined slightly, according to the most recently available government data.
___
SENATE DEMOCRATIC LEADER CHUCK SCHUMER, on Republican health care legislation: “They want to bring the bill to the floor, rush it in the dark of night, for a simple reason — they are ashamed of their bill. They don’t want anybody to see it, least of all the public. … They can’t even whisper what it’s about they are so, so ashamed of it.” — Senate speech Tuesday.
THE FACTS: Both parties resort to secrecy in Congress at times, especially when hard-fought legislation is at stake. When Democrats grappled with a conservative uproar over President Barack Obama’s health care bill, they held private meetings to iron out details and reach agreements to clinch the legislation’s approval. That said, they also held scores of hearings and staged many days of debate in 2009 and 1010. The Senate’s Republican leadership has held no hearings on its legislation, the contents of which are unknown. It’s unusual for such a major bill to be written from scratch behind closed doors then rushed through Congress in a few days.
___
VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: “I like that line that says, you know, the Internal Revenue Code is twice as long as the Bible, with none of the good news.” — speech Tuesday to manufacturers.
HOUSE SPEAKER PAUL RYAN: “You know, there’s this old line about the tax code. Our tax code is about five times as long as the Bible but with none of the good news.” — speech to the same group Tuesday.
THE FACTS: Ryan has the ratio about right: The tax code runs nearly 4 million words, according to a 2013 government report, while the Bible has 700,000 to about 800,000, depending on the version and variations in translation. Pence understated the difference. Both got laughs.
A number of Republicans over the years have compared the size of the texts to make the point that Americans are under an unholy burden from the IRS.
___
Associated Press writers Josh Boak, Alicia A. Caldwell, Jill Colvin and Catherine Lucey contributed to this report.
___
Find AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd
EDITOR’S NOTE _ A look at the veracity of claims by political figures

Donors to GOP: No cash until action on health care, taxes


Another reason to pay attention to your representatives, this article points out the real government controllers.MA

Steve Peoples, Associated Press 18 hours ago

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — At least one influential donor has informed congressional Republicans that the “Dallas piggy bank” is closed until he sees major action on health care and taxes.
Texas-based donor Doug Deason has already refused to host a fundraiser for two members of Congress and informed House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., his checkbook is closed as well.
“Get Obamacare repealed and replaced, get tax reform passed,” Deason said in a pointed message to GOP leaders. “You control the Senate. You control the House. You have the presidency. There’s no reason you can’t get this done. Get it done and we’ll open it back up.”
Indeed, there was a sense of frustration and urgency inside the private receptions and closed-door briefings at the Koch brothers’ donor retreat this weekend in Colorado Springs, where the billionaire conservatives and their chief lieutenants warned of a rapidly shrinking window to push their agenda through Congress and get legislation to President Donald Trump to sign into law.
No agenda items mattered more to the conservative Koch network than the GOP’s promise to overhaul the nation’s tax code and repeal and replace President Barack Obama’s health care law. At the moment, however, both are bogged down by GOP infighting that jeopardizes their fate.
At least one Koch official warned that the Republican Party’s House majority could be in jeopardy if the GOP-led Congress doesn’t follow through.
“If they don’t make good on these promises … there are going to be consequences, and quite frankly there should be,” said Sean Lansing, chief operating officer for the Koch network’s political arm, Americans For Prosperity.
Deason, who is keeping the “Dallas piggy bank” closed for now, said he was recently approached by Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C. and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, about hosting a fundraiser.
“I said, ‘No I’m not going to because we’re closing the checkbook until you get some things done,'” Deason said, noting he’s encouraged nearly two dozen major Texas donors to follow his lead.
“There is urgency,” said AFP president Tim Phillips. “We believe we have a window of about 12 months to get as much of it accomplished as possible before the 2018 elections grind policy to a halt.”
The window for action may be even smaller, some Koch allies warned at the three-day donor retreat that drew roughly 400 participants to the base of the Rocky Mountains. The price for admission for most was a pledge to give at least $100,000 this year to the  broad policy and political network. There were also at least 18 elected officials on hand.
Some hosted private policy discussions with donors while others simply mingled.
In between meetings, Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., predicted dire consequences in next year’s midterm elections should his party fail to deliver on its repeated promises.
“If we don’t get health care, none of us are coming back,” he said in a brief interview. “We said for seven years you’re gonna repeal Obamacare. It’s nowhere near repealed.”
It’s the same for an overhaul of the tax code, Brat said: “We don’t get taxes through, we’re all going home. Pack the bags.”
While some donors threatened to withhold campaign cash, Koch’s team outlined a broader strategy to help shape the debate.
Already, Americans For Prosperity claims a paid staff of more than 400 full-time activists in 36 states. Koch officials said that the network’s midterm budget for policy and politics is between $300 million and $400 million.
The group is actively lobbying Senate Republicans to change their current health care proposal, which it views as insufficiently conservative.
“We are not committed to the Senate bill in its current form, but there is still time to make changes and we’re actively working to improve it,” Phillips said.
At the same time, Koch’s allies are aggressively pushing forward on taxes.
The network is running what it describes as “a first wave” of digital ads calling on more than 50 House and Senate Republicans in both parties to overhaul the tax code. Later in the summer, Philips said, his organization will begin hosting rallies and other events to generate momentum for a tax overhaul in all 36 states where they have full-time operations.
Another Koch donor, Chris Wright, of Colorado, predicted Republicans have a 10-month window before any chance of major policy action is suffocated by next year’s midterms.
“If we don’t get anything done by then, the elections probably don’t go very well,” Wright said. “They may not go well anyway.”

Modern Day Lethal Combo


Political Science

Political science is a social science discipline that deals with systems of government and the analysis of political activity and political behavior. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics which is commonly thought of as the determining of the distribution of power and resources.

Advertising

Advertising (or advertizing) is a form of marketing communication used to promote or sell something, usually a business’s product or service. In Latin, ad vertere means “to turn toward”. The purpose of advertising may also be to reassure employees or shareholders that a company is viable or successful.

These two areas appear to have merged into a combination that rivals the Hitler like verbal barrage of pre World War 2 days. The modern day slickness of advertising has allowed for seemingly credible campaign slogans, photos and out of context sound bites to reach the masses via all media sources. This spread of information does not allow for discourse or discussion until after airing or printing. This short circuit makes for  an under or uninformed public. It is unfortunate that too many of us do not or will not gather as much information as possible on what our elected officials tell us and what is in the media. There are exceptions in both areas but in order to determine that one must look a several sources. An elected office does not make a person truthful and honest. Looking at the ongoing attempts to repeal and replace “Obamacare” aka  “ACA” which many people are receiving Health care under is now under threat but not many Trump supports are rising up against it. The same idiots who have for years laid a path of lies up to the last election and after. What we are seeing now is that our “representatives” are feathering their own nests while tearing ours down. It is within the power of the people to correct this by merely ignoring the rhetoric and reading more. The least trustworthy (and leaders) of our Congress are the prime movers of this harmful bill and will continue to stick it to us unless we get “woke”.

Please Donate

“No, White Friend – You Weren’t ‘Embarrassed’ by Barack Obama,”


Politics

John Pavlovitz,

Popsugar US 11 hours ago

I remember the day after the Election, a friend of mine who happens to be white, remarked on social media that he “finally wasn’t embarrassed of America and our President.”
I sprained my eyes rolling them and they have never fully recovered.
Since then I’ve heard this sentiment echoed by more white folks than I can count, especially in recent months; supposed relief at once again having a leader who instills pride.
Since I don’t have the time to ask each of the individually, I’ll ask here:
So, you were embarrassed for the past 8 years, huh?
Really?
What exactly were you embarrassed by?
Were you embarrassed by his lone and enduring twenty-five year marriage to a strong woman he’s never ceased to publicly praise, respect, or cherish?
Were you embarrassed by the way he lovingly and sweetly parented and protected his daughters?
Were you embarrassed by his Columbia University degree in Political Science or his graduating magna cum laude from Harvard Law School?
Maybe you were embarrassed by his white American and Black Kenyan parents, or the diversity he was raised in as normal?
Were you embarrassed by his eloquence, his quick wit, his easy humor, his seeming comfort meeting with both world leaders and street cleaners; by his bright smile or his sense of empathy or his steadiness – perhaps by his lack of personal scandals or verbal gaffes or impulsive tirades?
No. Of course you weren’t.
Honestly, I don’t believe you were ever embarrassed. That word implies an association that brings ridicule, one that makes you ashamed by association, and if that’s something you claim to have experienced over the past eight years by having Barack Obama representing you in the world – I’m going to suggest you rethink your word choice.
You weren’t “embarrassed” by Barack Obama.
You were threatened by him.
You were offended by him. You were challenged by him. You were enraged by him.
But I don’t believe it had anything to do with his resume or his experience or his character or his conduct in office – because you seem fully proud right now to be associated with a three-time married, serial adulterer and confessed predator; a man whose election and business dealings and relationships are riddled with controversy and malfeasance. You’re perfectly fine being represented by a bullying, obnoxious, genitalia-grabbing, Tweet-ranting, Prime Minister-shoving charlatan who’s managed to offend all our allies in a few short months. And you’re okay with him putting on religious faith like a rented, dusty, ill-fitting tuxedo and immediately tossing it in the garbage when he’s finished with it.
None of that you’re embarrassed of? I wonder how that works.
Actually, I’m afraid I have an idea. I hope I’m wrong.
Listen, you’re perfectly within your rights to have disagreed with Barack Obama’s policies or to have taken issue with his tactics. No one’s claiming he was a flawless politician or a perfect human being. But somehow I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about here. I think the thing President Obama did that really upset you, white friend – was having a complexion that was far darker than you were ever comfortable with. I think the President we have now feels much better.
Because objectively speaking, if what’s happening in our country right now doesn’t cause you great shame and doesn’t induce the continual meeting of your palm to your face – I don’t believe embarrassment is ever something you struggle with.
No, if you claimed to be “embarrassed” by Barack Obama but you’re not embarrassed by Donald Trump – I’m going to strongly suggest it was largely a pigmentation issue.
And as an American and a Christian committed to diversity and equality and to the liberty at the heart of this nation – that, embarrasses me.

Please Donate

Trump’s New Immigration Law That Already Exists.


N’dea Yancy Bragg

USA Today

 

No fact checking just Shoot from the lip and Tweet. MA

President Trump called for a new law barring immigrants from receiving welfare for at least five years at a rally on Wednesday. But neither Trump nor nearly 6,000 of his die-hard supporters seemed to realize that the law has already existed for more than 20 years.
Trump received a standing ovation and pledged his administration would put the legislation into effect “very shortly.”
“I believe the time has come for new immigration rules which say that those seeking admission into our country must be able to support themselves financially and should not use welfare for a period of at least five years,” Trump told the crowd in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
As The Hill reported, President Bill Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act in 1996. The law prevents immigrants from receiving federal benefits, such as food stamps, Medicaid, and Social Security for five years after entering the country.
There are some exceptions, however, for children and pregnant women, refugees, and active duty military or veterans. It’s possible Trump could introduce tougher limitations and regulations on top of the existing law.
Trump also came under fire for telling the rally crowd in Cedar Rapids that he doesn’t want a poor person to run the economy. He was defending his selections of billionaire Wilbur Ross and multimillionaire Gary Cohn as parts of his economic team.
In addition to the cheering crowds, Trump’s rally also drew about 250 protesters who voiced their dissent from about a block away.

Please Donate

Disfunction


These past election years has brought the most vicious elements of politics to the front. Most of us do not harbor the seemingly deep hatred of one another over Race, gender, politics or any other differences. These appear to be points used by Radicals on all sides to get our attention. These are the same tactics used to excite Germany’s people to rise up against the Jews and other “non Aryans”, then go against the rest of the world in a mad man’s quest for World domination. We all know the result of that. There have been the same types of actions in many other countries over the past 10 to 15 years which have created mini wars and strife all over Europe and Asia. If we as Americans do not pay attention to what our elected officials are saying and doing (or not) we could have the negative forces assuming power and putting us on a “CIVIL War” footing. It is our duty to monitor these activities and reject them as “against the interest of the country”. This uncivil discourse among parties and by extension the party faithful amounts to a minor civil war right now. Each side has convinced their followers that someone else is responsible for their problems-this is not the case! The issue is that we as voters are not happy with our government yet we are the reason it is so dysfunctional. We have demanded actions that do nothing to improve the lives of all and accepted actions that benefit everyone above  the middle class including the people we elected to take care of us. All of the 535 members of Congress are covered under the affordable care act yet their plan is not affected by changes like the ones proposed in the upcoming plan (which we still have no idea what it will provide for us). Our anger has brought us a demi god as Commander In chief with dubious abilities to govern. This inability to command  has allowed the Majority party to do what  ever they want in our names and continue the lies they have fostered for the past 15 years. Neither side is winning me over and they should not be winning you either. What we as voters need to do is stop looking to be entertained by the news and look at the facts, this requires broadening our scope of information in all available sources- comfortable and uncomfortable. Forget the labels assigned by the media and become a voter who is informed.

btn_donateCC_LG

Please Donate

Education


Education
A valedictorian went rogue in his final speech. His school tried to shut him down.

By Avi Selk

June 20 at 3:47 PM

Peter Butera veered off the preapproved speech at his graduation ceremony on June 16, to criticize Pennsylvania’s Wyoming Area School District for its handling of the student government. (Wymoning Area School Distrcit)
Peter Butera, class president for the entirety of his life as a high school student — all four often-frustrating years of it — took the stage at Friday’s graduation ceremony after the recital of the class poem, which had offended no one.
When the principal of Wyoming Area Secondary Center in Exeter, Pa., had finished applauding the poem, Butera walked up and laid his speech on the podium: the lines he’d dutifully cleared with administrators, and those he had not.
Butera was 18, bound for Villanova University in a few months. He was his class valedictorian, and he was beginning to get nervous about his plan to go rogue at the last possible minute.
“Good evening everyone,” Butera began, innocuously enough. “The past four years at Wyoming Area have been very interesting, to say the least.”
Across the field, by the running track, Butera’s family watched with his girlfriend, who was taking video. In front of the stage sat nearly 200 classmates, nearly all of whom Butera said he knew well, for he had lived here his whole life.

On the chair to Butera’s left sat the principal, Jon Pollard, who barely looked up at him.
“To everyone here today, we cannot thank you enough for everything you’ve done for us,” Butera said.
Pollard scratched his face. So far so good. Butera kept thanking people for a while: Teachers he was close to, “a couple great administrators as well.”
He did not name Pollard among them — an omission not lost on one of the few people there who knew exactly how his speech would end.
“It was always Dr. Pollard,” Albert Sciandra, Butera’s friend and vice president in the student government, told The Washington Post. “He was the one who kept shooting everything Peter wanted to do down.”
The day before the ceremony, Sciandra said, the school had put on a talent show. Butera wanted to do a comedy skit: poke fun at the only teacher who ate the cafeteria lunch, stuff like that.
But such jokes were deemed too extreme, Sciandra said. “Peter rewrote them so many times. Pollard said, ‘You’re not doing it because I said so.’ ”

[A teacher’s decision to be ‘visibly queer’ in his photo with President Trump]
All of high school had been like that, Sciandra told The Post. No matter that they’d both been in student government every single year, he said — any idea that went beyond decorations for some school-approved event got shot down.
So when, a week or so before the ceremony, Butera told his friend that he’d written a secret end to the approved speech — that he planned to expose a system he saw as a sham — Sciandra understood it had to be done.
Though as he sat on the field Friday, Sciandra still doubted his class president would go through with it.
Butera’s speech was now nearing its end. “I have pursued every leadership opportunity available to me,” he told the crowd. He’d been repeatedly elected class president. An honor each time.
“I would like to thank you all for that one final time,” he said. “It really means a lot.”
But it hadn’t meant much to the school, he was thinking, Butera later told The Washington Post. He was remembering the past summer, when he and Sciandra organized protests of a proposed dress code.

“Me and Peter, we went to every council meeting and school-board meeting,” Sciandra said. They packed the seats with students and parents and made speeches, and filled a petition with signatures.
And none of it mattered, the students said: The dress code passed anyway.
“It really means a lot,” Butera continued from the stage.
“However …”
Pollard still was not looking at him, but Sciandra braced in his seat.
“At our school, the title of class president can more accurately be class party planner,” Butera said. “Student council’s main obligation is to paint signs every week.”
At that moment, from his chair, Pollard made what may have been a grimace and finally turned to watch the valedictorian as he hit the climax of his speech.
“Despite some of the outstanding people in our school,” Butera went on, “a lack of a real student government combined with the authoritative attitude that a few teachers, administrators and board members have …”
The principal mouthed something to someone offstage.
” … prevented students from truly developing as true leaders …”

A mechanical bang interrupted his words as the microphone shut down. When Butera spoke his next line, his voice was naked. He had not expected that.
“Hopefully this will change,” he said, speaking louder, trying to be heard.
“Hopefully, for the sake of future students, more people in this school — ”
Butera would have said more. He would have said he hoped future classes would have more educators who valued empowering students as much as they valued educating them. That leadership is a hard thing to learn within the strictures of a public school system.
“It is not what we have done as Wyoming Area students or athletes that will define our lives,” he had written on the paper his principal had not seen, “but what we will go on to do as Wyoming Area Alumni.”
[A congressman said making a man get maternity insurance was ‘crazy.’ A woman’s reply went viral.]
Butera didn’t get to say the last lines. Now Pollard was on his feet, tapping the student’s elbow, mouthing something above a dead microphone.
“He said, ‘Alright Peter. You’re done,’ ” Butera told The Post.
But neither man could be heard now. The field was erupting with cheers, boos and screams: “Let him speak! Let him speak! Let him speak!”
In the back, by Butera’s mother, father, girlfriend, grandma, aunt and uncle, someone said: “I’m so proud.”
The rest of the ceremony would go more or less as officials had planned. The faculty would take turns making speeches. Pollard would give the Class of 2017 his advice: “Read good books and watch bad movies,” and “Clean your room and learn to do you own laundry. And “watch what you put on social media.”
Irony. A few days after the ceremony, a grainy video of Butera’s speech spread wildly across the Internet — more than 75,000 endorsements on Reddit alone. Then came the news stories. While Pollard didn’t immediately respond to The Post, superintendent Janet Serino defended his silencing.
“The young man submitted his graduation speech to his principal and delivered a speech different than the speech that was submitted,” she wrote. But she had since reached out to Butera, requesting a meeting to discuss his concerns.
Wyoming Area Secondary Center’s valedictorian for 2017 had not called out his principal or superintendent or anyone else in his speech — not the approved version, or the rogue ending, or even the part he didn’t get to read.
And Butera declined to criticize any school authority by name when he spoke to The Post. He said that hadn’t been the point of his final act as class president.
“I’m supposed to represent the students,” he said.
And on his last day of high school, when the principal cut off his microphone and waved him off the stage and he walked back to his seat through a standing ovation, he felt that he finally had.

Please Donate

Colin Kaepernick is making his choice: Activism over the NFL


Is football any better?, No but we as a nation are, Many high profile celebrities worry  about future profits over truth.MA

Dan Wetzel,
Yahoo Sports 16 hours ago

Colin Kaepernick wears a T-shirt depicting the late Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black Panthers and a proponent of African-American militancy in the 1960s. (Getty)
In a flurry of tweets and retweets Monday night, Colin Kaepernick used his sizable social media platform (1.1 million-plus followers) to comment and promote issues concerning police violence involving minorities and the prison-industrial complex, notably the use of inmate labor.
This isn’t new. His Twitter feed is a near daily display of activist messages and arguments. Last weekend he retweeted a couple images that compared modern police officers to slave catchers of the past. To some it was a history lesson. To others who see the many honest and fair members of law enforcement that are trying to build a better future, it was an insult.

Maybe you agree with his posts or maybe you don’t. Maybe they cause you to think about the issue for a second. Maybe you’re bored with anything Kaepernick has to say.
This column isn’t about changing any opinions. You can take it up with Kaepernick. He doesn’t seem to mind the debate.
What Kaepernick hasn’t been tweeting about, or speaking about, or granting interviews about is that he remains an unsigned free agent as NFL training camps creep closer and available jobs are being filled. Kaepernick, who once started in a Super Bowl but is most famous for taking a knee during the national anthem last year, is unemployed.
No one says he should replace Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers or even be slotted in as a starter. He is undoubtedly better, however, than some of these third-stringers with camp invites.
As team after team passes him by, the obvious conclusion is that his high-profile political stances have made him, in the minds of NFL decision-makers, a liability greater than the perceived value he would bring to the team. Make no mistake, if Kaepernick completed 69.9 percent of his passes for 38 touchdowns against just 7 interceptions last season (MVP Matt Ryan numbers), he could tweet whatever he wanted.
After all, there are plenty of other players who joined him on one knee during the anthem who will be suiting up next season.
When your perceived-negatives outweigh your perceived-positives though, you’re done. This is pretty much how it works in every profession, let alone one as cutthroat as the NFL. Kaepernick completed just 59.2 percent of his passes while starting for a 2-14 team. He’s a back-up at this point. So here we are.
Yet he doesn’t seem to care … or at least care enough to change his behavior in an effort to ease fears from clearly skittish teams who tend to like quiet, compliant back-ups. The simplest advice for Kaepernick if he wants to play in the NFL next season is to just be quiet.
He won’t be quiet. He won’t back down.
Whether you agree with his stances, disagree with his stances or find some reasonable and some not, it’s worth offering at least a nod of respect for a guy willing to risk so much for what he believes in.
On this, he is putting his money where his mouth is.
(This is in addition to what his website claims is already $700,000 in donations – out of a pledged $1 million – to “organizations in oppressed communities.” Each donation, most to grassroots organizations, is carefully noted.)
If you look at the website kaepernick7.com, other than the jersey number in the domain name, there is very little acknowledgement that he is even a football player – it’s all about his foundation and its “Know Your Rights” campaign. There are links to pro-Kaepernick sports columns under “media,” but that’s about it.
And he’s yet to come out and complain or even comment about how his NFL job hunt is going.
“He is a starter in this league and I can’t imagine somebody won’t give him a chance to play,” Seattle coach Pete Carroll said earlier this offseason.
Carroll is wrong; it’s pretty easy to imagine that no team will give Kaepernick a chance to play. NFL coaches dread so-called “distractions” and Kaepernick is clearly considered one of those. For different reasons, so are Tim Tebow or Johnny Manziel, although neither of them ever led a team to the Super Bowl.
In Seattle’s case, Carroll said he didn’t sign Kaepernick because his contract demands were more than Seattle could handle for a back-up position … which is also a major factor here.
To say politics isn’t a factor here for at least some teams, though, is disingenuous. You can blame the teams for this or you can agree with it. That’s reality, and Kaepernick is very well aware of that fact.
When he chose to make a political statement by sitting, and later kneeling for the national anthem, he knew that he was creating a major stir. His handling of the attention wasn’t always smooth – he was willing to speak at length and with great passion about his positions and how it did or didn’t effect the San Francisco locker room, but he also struggled with details at times and famously decided to skip out on voting (even for ballot initiatives) last November. Becoming a national activist isn’t easy.
Whatever, he decided to try and so he tried. He decided this was important to him, so he made it important to him. He decided that he couldn’t be silent about what he believes, so he spoke out, presumably well aware of the potential repercussions, like being out of the league at age 29.
And now, faced with reality, he hasn’t changed his course at all. He’s Colin Kaepernick, take him or leave him.

Please Donate

Gaze in Awe at What Mitch McConnell Hath Wrought – Is Trump even the worst we have to offer?


This article from Esquire explains a lot.MA

By Charles P. Pierce
Jun 19, 2017
2.8k

One day, when this is all behind us, and Canada has done us the supreme sacrifice of friendship by annexing us for a spell until we’ve regained our sanity, I predict that the primary delivery device for the virus that drove us mad in 2017 will not be reckoned to have been Donald Trump but, rather, Mitch McConnell, a carrier of the creeping death. It was McConnell who best saw the opportunity inherent in the process of installing an arrogant dingbat at the head of the executive branch, and it is McConnell whose personal politics were as cruel and venal as they had to be to take advantage of it.

What he’s trying to do to the healthcare of millions of Americans should be enough to send him to hell on a bus ticket. And, as we see from The Hill on Monday, it’s actually getting worse.
The proposal would start out the growth rate for a new cap on Medicaid spending at the same levels as the House bill, but then drop to a lower growth rate that would cut spending more, known as CPI-U, starting in 2025, the sources said. That proposal has been sent to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) for analysis, a Senate GOP aide said…The aide said that plan has been described as a “consensus option that has been sent to CBO,” though no final decision has been made yet. Another aide said there are still other options in the mix. Democrats and some more moderate Republicans were already warning about Medicaid cuts in the House-passed bill, which reduces Medicaid spending by more than $800 billion over 10 years.
Almost as bad as McConnell are these so-called moderate Republicans who are so terribly troubled about it all, but who can’t seem to do anything but wring their hands. Doesn’t one of them have the guts to leak the secret plan to fight good health? Three of them could stop the whole train, especially now that Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has called the majority’s bluff.
Almost surely, McConnell—and his Freedom Caucus gunsels—don’t care about the damage they’re preparing to do, in secret, and are full of the confidence of knowing that there isn’t a big enough vestige of a conscience left anywhere in their party to stop them short of doing as much damage as they can. The real barbarians—not the gold-plated ones—are at the gate.

Related Story :   Nobody Can Say Why They’re Passing This Bill ( story in Esquire)

 

Please Donate