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HHA-RUMMPH!
I can't believe I'm getting so many year-end emails from Congressmen and women who want my hard-earned coins as contributions. The vast majority of them didn't earn the pay they got and it was considered a high point in their year that they actually passed a crap budget and avoided shutting the government down. The government that they purportedly work in. That calls for a bonus? Wouldn't you love a job that consisted of shutting down your workplace at will? Of course, if we stopped working, we wouldn't get paid. Unlike them--they can fall back on what lobbyists pay them to shaft those of us to elect them. May their putridity subside in 2014 and beyond!
ALREADY, BILL?
Bill Deblasio campaigned on ending stop & frisk policies which unfairly target youth of color. So why is the progressive darling hiring Bill Bratton to head the NYC police force again? Bratton extended stop & frisk so that doesn't add up. As protestors whose kids had been shot noticed. More protests are scheduled for his inauguration.
"Everybody in the community which I live in feels betrayed," said protester Jose LaSalle. "My son Alvin, who was treated like he was an animal, feels betrayed because he believed him. A lot of people believed in de Blasio and the message he was saying. And to just do something like that, it took the faith away from us."
MORE: NY1
FAUXBAMA IS AT IT AGAIN
Obama is preparing to address income equality in 2014 because it's become a buzz issue of interest to many--the same way that public opinion forced him to make moving if empty statements on his "epiphany" on gay marriage and Trayvon Martin. Too bad he doesn't lead the country and address things until there is a public outcry. And it's insane that Obama's lame policies have contributed to income equality by refusing to tax the wealthiest and corporations who pay no taxes, not to mention abandoning unions and offering cuts to Social Security and veterans' benefits which widen the wealth gap. Greater income equality used to be a core policy of most Democrats. But under Obama, big businesses and CEOs have all done remarkably well. (We didn't vote for Mitt, but seem to have gotten his agenda anyway.) The majority of us are experiencing greater income equality than is seen in third world countries. And this telling article is correct--faced with a crippling recession, Congress's bizarre solution is to take from the poor. Get used to the term austerity. They're rioting over these harsh cuts in some countries. But we've got our panties in a knot because we're shocked that a fake redneck troll made anti-gay/racially insensitive statements to boost ratings. So we can't focus on the actual challenges most of us are facing. Which will get worse as we put our faith in bullsh(t non-leaders like Obama and our elected officials in Congress who work against the interests of those who elected them in favor of lobbyists who've bought them.
" It doesn't seem possible that one out of twenty American families could each have made a million dollars since Obama became President, while the average American family's net worth has barely recovered. But the evidence comes from numerous reputable sources.
Some conservatives continue to claim that President Obama is unfriendly to business, but the facts show that the richest Americans and the biggest businesses have been the main—perhaps only—beneficiaries of the massive wealth gain over the past five years.
1. $5 Million to Each of the 1 percent, and $1 Million to Each of the Next 4 percent
From the end of 2008 to the middle of 2013 the total U.S. wealth increased from $47 trillion to $72 trillion. And about $16 trillion of that is financial gain (stocks and other financial instruments).
Help us speak truth to power. Donate what you can afford to support NationofChange.
The richest 1 percent own about 38 percent of stocks and half of are non-stock financial assets. So they've gained at least $6.1 trillion (38 percent of $16 trillion). That's over $5 million for each of 1.2 million households.
The next richest 4 percent, based on similar calculations, gained about $5.1 trillion. That's over a million dollars for each of their 4.8 million households.
The least wealthy 90 percent in our country only own 11 percent of all stocks excluding pensions, which are fastly disappearing. The frantic recent surge in the stock market has largely bypassed these families.
2. Evidence of Our Growing Wealth Inequality
This first fact is nearly ungraspable: In 2009 the average wealth for almost half of American families was ZERO (their debt exceeded their assets).
In 1983, the families in America's poorer half owned an average of about $15,000. But from 1983 to 1989 the median wealth fell from more than $70,000 to about $60,000. From 1998 to 2009, about 80 percent of American families LOST wealth and they had to borrow as a way to stay afloat.
It seems the disparity couldn't get much worse, but after the recession, it did. According to a Pew Research Center study, in the first two years of recovery the mean net worth of households in the upper 7 percent of the wealth distribution rose by an estimated 28 percent, while the mean net worth of households in the lower 93 percent dropped by 4 percent. And then, from 2011 to 2013, the stock market grew by almost 50 percent with again the great majority of that gain going to the richest 5 percent.
Today our wealth gap is worse than that of third-world economies. Out of all developed and undeveloped countries with at least a quarter-million adults, the U.S. has the 4th-highest degree of wealth inequality in the world trailing only Russia, Ukraine and Lebanon.
3. Congress' Solution: Take from the Poor
Congress has responded by cutting unemployment benefits and food stamps along with other “sequester” targets like Meals on Wheels for seniors and Head Start for preschoolers. The more the super-rich make, the more they seem to believe in the cruel fantasy that the poor are to blame for their own struggles.
President Obama recently proclaimed that inequality "drives everything I do in this office." Indeed it may, but in the wrong direction.
MORE: NATIONOFCHANGE
AND WHO DOESN'T LOVE A GOOD BLOOPER?
LYPSINKA AT A VERY EARLY WIGSTOCK!
NEW YEAR, NEW CITY?
I am definitely one of those New Yorkers who gripes about the city becoming less cool. I've been here for a taste and there are plenty of alarming developments. Rents too damn high to permit new creative types moving in, an epidemic of national chain stores opening which drain the city of it's cherished local color, hospitals closing, unscrupulous landlords, a Disney-fied Times Square and bourgie clubs with bottle service catering to a clientele made up of Sex And The City wannabes--of both female and male varieties.
I travel a lot for work--sometimes to exotic places--yet am still always thrilled to get back home. Lately, I've been catching up with oodles of entertaining people--they still inhabit the area en masse and are chock full of riveting stories both outrageous and poignant. I've caught a few recent films that probably won't be released in the boonies. And my broken arm hasn't prevented me from hooking up with a few of the sexy rascals who have always been one of this permissive, sexually-charged city's premiere attractions for a card-carrying slut like me. When I tenderly reach out my cast to them while singing Mister Mister's "Take these broken wings" with bone-breaking sound effects edited onto my backing track, they bust a gut. And then they bust their nasty nuts. It's far more romantic than any poem by Shelley and you are welcome for that heart-warming imagery to jump-start your mornings. And I didn't even mention the 10 minute, erection-killing odyssey when I clumsily try to put on a condom with my good hand and the numb fingers sticking out the other hand in the cast.
Has the city changed? Yes. Has it changed for the worst? For me, yes. It isn't what it used to be but hell, neither am I! But it's still NYC, baby! When a city starts off with this much razzle dazzle, bohemianism, glamour and funkiness, it can lose some of it's mojo and still rule the US, in my opinion. Especially when we get out from behind our screens and re-connect with the people who made it great. (She noted, while typing on a screen to be read on other folks' screens.) All I'm saying is that I've made a point to enjoy what's still unique about this city while I'm recuperating and it's been richly rewarding and has reaffirmed why I'm here. It's easy to focus on what NYC's lost, or enjoy it as it currently is. Which ain't too shabby when you start to look at other possible destinations--it's still the end of the line for us thrill-seekers! And who knows? Maybe Deblasio will start to turn things around. He'd better hurry up and reduce that Stop And Frisk policy--before the pick up his damn daughter. Whoopsie!
WHAT SANTA IS DOING TODAY
HMMMM..
Holiday text messages. Because you care enough to send a generic greeting to everyone in your phone book, including a drag queen who blew you 5 years ago and it wasn't even good.
PEACE ON EARTH, GOODWILL TOWARD YEMEN.
AMY GOODMAN: "There has been yet another violent attack with mass casualties. This was not the act of a lone gunman, or of an armed student rampaging through a school. It was a group of families en route to a wedding that was killed. The town was called Radda—not in Colorado, not in Connecticut, but in Yemen. The weapon was not an easy-to-obtain semiautomatic weapon, but missiles fired from U.S. drones. On Thursday, Dec. 12, 17 people were killed, mostly civilians. The London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism has consistently tracked U.S. drone attacks, recently releasing a report on the six months following President Barack Obama’s major address on drone warfare before the National Defense University (NDU) last May. In that speech, Obama promised that “before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured—the highest standard we can set.” The BIJ summarized, “Six months after President Obama laid out U.S. rules for using armed drones, a Bureau analysis shows that covert drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan have killed more people than in the six months before the speech.” In a nation that abhors the all-too-routine mass killing in our communities, why does our government consistently kill so many innocents abroad?
One significant problem with assessing the U.S. drone-warfare program is its secrecy. U.S. officials rarely comment on the program, less so about any specific attack, especially where civilian deaths occur. As Obama admitted in the speech, “There’s a wide gap between U.S. assessments of such casualties and nongovernmental reports. Nevertheless, it is a hard fact that U.S. strikes have resulted in civilian casualties.” The BIJ’s estimate of the death toll from U.S. drone strikes during the past 12 years in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia is well over 4,000."
MORE:
GRRRRR….
To his credit, Obama is seeking diplomacy with Iran over their nukes. It makes absolutely no sense that the US is policing the world since we are the only country that has ever fired nukes on another--but I'll forget that and praise Obama's efforts. Even if they don't quite make sense, the president is going in the direction of peace. But guess who is obstructing Obama by threatening more sanctions which could lead to war? Is it the big bad Republicans who block everything he tries to do and always take a more hawkish stance? Of course. But why are 15 Democrats joining the GOP--including NY Senators Schumer and Gillibrand? Please check this list and see if yours are on the list. If they are, please email/phone them to let diplomacy have a chance. Earth is tired of war. Give us all the gift of peace, which sadly even Democrats have forgotten about. Remember that ol' Prince of Peace whose birthday we're about to celebrate?
Schumer: https://www.schumer.senate.gov/Contact/contact_chuck.cfm
Gillibrand: http://www.gillibrand.senate.gov/contact/ (Make sure you uncheck the box or you'll get her rotten newsletter.)
"A senior Obama administration official went further, telling The Huffington Post that Senate action makes it "far more likely that we'll be left only with a military option" regarding Iran."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/23/senate-democrats-iran-war_n_4493636.html
BAHAHAHAHA!
AND WHILE WE'RE ON THE CLASSIC GAY DIVAS, THERE'S A NEW BIO ON CHER OUT NOW BY MY FRIEND JOSIAH HOWARD. THE NY POST GAVE IT A WRITE UP.
MORE: PAGESIX
BUSHWIG
Brooklyn's Bushwig Festival Is Rethinking Drag Culture
HUFFPO
CAUGHT MY EYE
DREW DROEGE AS CHLOE SEVIGNY ON FRONTIERS LA COVER!
WHOOPSIE!
Small Alabama town accidentally hires black drag queens to dance in Christmas parade
(PS: THESE ARE NOT DRAG QUEENS. THEY ARE SISSIES WITH MAKE-UP IN MALE ATTIRE.)
MORE WITH VIDEO: RAWSTORY
NUTTIEST HOLIDAY VIDEO IVE SEEN
PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD WILL TOWARD MEN?
After a recent drone strike killing a bridal party in Yemen. Obama had no comment. Maybe he doesn't want to call attention to the fact that drone use is up 200% since he took office and he needs to return his Nobel Peace prize. Or that the US has another diabolical method of choosing targets--we LIKE bomb an area and then go back to bomb the funeral of those killed in the 1st strike.
"And yet no one here even thinks to ask how so many wedding parties in foreign lands could be so repeatedly taken out. Is the U.S. simply targeting weddings purposely? Not likely. Could it reflect the fact that, despite all the discussion of the “surgical precision” of American air power, pilots have remarkably little idea what’s really going on below them or who exactly, in lands where American intelligence must be half-blind, they are aiming at? That, at least, seems likely."
MORE: NATIONOFCHANGE
PREPARE FOR THRILLING BEAUTY!
While an anthem of rejection, Silly remains one of the prettiest songs I've ever heard. And it's perfect for Deniece Williams' fluttering songbird vocals. She gives you a bit more oomph in her live version--it's from 2012 and she had returned to her gospel roots for decades. But it's still an odd, majestic masterpiece in a waltz tempo. It almost has that irish feel that Patti's Look To The Rainbow gives you.
I was introduced to Silly when a drag queen performed it at club Alan Gold's in Chattanooga around 1980 when it came out. She was as electrifying as her number. We begged to know what the song was and struck up a conversation with her. She was from Knoxville, TN which to us was a bigger city that she made seem even more permissive and intriguing by claiming that she lived in drag working as a paralegal. We looked at the greasepaint which was not disguising the sea of large razor bumps and wondered if that was really true. I don't recall her name, but I forever thank her for turning me onto this r&b gem. Seems like queens used to introduce their audience to lesser known showstoppers which were not always on the radio. Like Millie Jackson, Yvonne Fair, Grace Slick, Liza, Bette Midler, Natalie Cole (live) and Shirley Bassey. Now many queens just go for the most obvious top 40 and I guess the hits make the most tips. But I miss the time when drag queens had their own hits.
BUYING THIS NOW!
YES SHE DID PUT A RHINESTONE TEAR ON HER VEIL! Do it, Miss Victoria Wilson James and House Of Wallenberg. Soulful vocal house below 18. Thank you!
IN NYC? DO NOT MISS!
One of my fave NYC venues ever! Anniversary this Sunday at Acme!
NICE NEW SONG FROM MELISSA ETHERIDGE
BARE WITH ME!
I HAVE NO IDEA WHY MY BLOG IS LUMPING ALL THE TYPED BITS TOGETHER OR WHITING OUT SOME SECTIONS OF TEXT COMPLETELY. IT'S NOT A HOLIDAY EFFECT. I'M CHANGING THE BLOG FORMAT OVER THE NEXT MONTH SO PLEASE BE PATIENT. I KNOW IT MUST BE ANNOYING!
OBAMA'S NUMBERS DESERVE TO BE DOWN!
Obama is a former Constitutional law professor who is shredding the Constitution. He had the nerve to proclaim 12/15 Bill Of Rights Day--a meaningless measure with a smokescreen title as backwards as Bush's Operation Iraqi Freedom. The next day, a judge called Obama's unrelentless spying on average americans "almost Orwellian." Does that Big Brother reference not creep you out? And Obama's own task force, staffed with at least one bold-faced liar came up with 46 recommendations which White House press secretary said the White House may implement some of.
A question for Obama @ss-lickers: Are the big bad Republicans forcing him to do this? Is he a kindly wimp fond of reaching across the aisle when he is seizing illegal powers for the executive branch which the people who voted for him don't want him to have? Or would like to keep blaming Obama's actions on Bush? Please don't wait until the end of his second term to realize what a snake he is. If you do, the country may never recover. So I beg you to check out this damning overview of how Obama is screwing all of us while we discuss a swamp creature from Duck Dynasty.
http://www.nationofchange.org/obama-wrongs-bill-rights-1387463575
YUP!
Air strike kills 15 civilians in Yemen by mistake: officials
MORE: < a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/12/us-yemen-strike-idUSBRE9BB10O20131212">REUTERS</a>
GO, EARTHA!
A fascinating moment in history. Earth Kitt dined at the White House and complained about the Vietnam war to Lady Byrd Johnson. Eartha was blacklisted from much of Hollywood as a result? The upside? During her blacklisting, the temptress appeared in a Pam Grier film as an over the top fashion designer. And no one could do over the top like this fiery beauty!
MORE: TUMBLR
I never knew any of this. Very sad, but I supposed it helped her to shine so brightly!
VICTORY!
GOOD NEWS! I was just in Australia where ultra-conservative Rupert Murdoch owns 70% of the media. And he wants it here, too, but was recently thwarted in trying to buy several huge newspapers. Thanks to everyone who signed petitions--we need to make sure that we have different viewpoints in the news.
"Rupert Murdoch just got some bad news — and it’s all because of Free Press members like you.
Thanks to your advocacy, the Federal Communications Commission is dropping its old plans to allow more media consolidation.1 This is huge. For the last year it seemed like the FCC was going to ditch the one rule that was stopping Rupert Murdoch from buying up the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and a handful of regional newspapers around the U.S.
Hundreds of thousands of you took action and it worked. First the FCC put its plans on hold; now it looks like it’s scrapping them altogether. And if the FCC starts this process all over again in 2014, we’ll be there, ready to fight.
This is the third time in the last decade that we’ve beaten back FCC attempts to open the door to more media consolidation.
And you can bet that media giants like Murdoch are getting sick of people like us. But we won’t stop speaking out — and standing up for our rights.
Thanks to you, momentum is shifting in our favor. Together we can keep the pressure on the FCC to put more local media back in the hands of local people.
Thanks for all that you do—
'
Josh (Freepress)"
WHAT THE DUCK?
I know that many of you were incensed by the anti-gay, racist comments of a Duck Dynasty cast member. Frankly, I'm more in shock over the fact that the show exists or that there's a demand for it. Many of your responses to his comments have been quite vicious. While I always love a good read, here's another way to look at it. The moron has freedom of speech--even when you don't like what he's saying. And if denouncing anti-gay sentiment really mattered to you, it seems to me that your efforts would be much better spent boycotting massive companies who give money to politicians who fight for anti-gay legislation any chance they get. Most of us use their products every day and don't even know it. What do you think does more good: insulting an anti-gay turd out in the boonies or cutting anti-gay politicians funds off where it hurts them the most? Money is all they understand. We're giving them ours. They could care less about our outrage until it hits their profits.
DAWN FRENCH AS CATHERINE ZETA JONES
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RUPAUL'S NEW DANCE SHOW!
FEATURES MUSIC BY YOURS TRULY!
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MIKE DIAMOND ON DUCK DYNASTY FLAP
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SIMON DOONAN ON MARILYN MONROE
Marilyn Monroe’s Two Secrets By Simon Doonan
What I learned about the icon by folding her capri pants.
In this season of holiday extravagance, it’s worth revisiting Simon Doonan’s take on Marilyn Monroe’s modest estate, which he helped Christie’s prepare for auction. The excerpt below, originally published in 2012, is from Simon Doonan’s Gay Men Don’t Get Fat.
There was, for many years, a big photograph of Judy Garland by the late, great William Claxton duct-taped to the wall of the Barneys display studio where I worked. In this compelling image, Liza’s highly strung mother is caught backstage wrapped in a towel. Her face is a festival of anguish. One rigor mortis hand claws the air. The other clutches at a bottle of rubbing alcohol which has clearly just been torn from her grasp. Judy is having a preshow meltdown.
Next to this picture is another, taken five minutes later by the same photographer. There is Judy, dressed in a black-sequined number, standing confidently onstage and belting it out to what one can only imagine must have been a sea of frenzied, weeping, and adoring homosexuals.
Needless to say, these images were, over the years, repeatedly defaced. Speech bubbles were added to Judy’s mouth: “L’chaim!” “Bring me a chai latte!” etc., etc. Fictitious liquor labels were applied to the bottle of rubbing alcohol. Despite the graffiti, the picture endured, a metaphor for the agony and the ecstasy experienced by creative types like us.
We gays adore a tragic woman.
MORE: <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/doonan/2012/01/was_marilyn_monroe_fat_her_secrets_revealed_.html?utm_content=buffer7ef22&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer">SLATE</a>
???
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HILAR!
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BERNIE SANDERS: ONE OF THE FEW WHO GETS IT
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QUEEN BEY AND LADY B
The lyrics on Beyonce's new album really speak to me since we are both wig-wearing, mature, Christian sluts. Unlike Bey I don't have any Skittles you can lick. Mine are a little further back and I call them Scat-tles. Now who's hard?
BLASPHEMOUS TREE DECORATIONS
TRUE CLASS!
MANY MORE: <a href="http://happyplace.someecards.com/12718/the-13-most-wonderfully-blasphemous-items-ever-placed-on-top-of-christmas-trees"happyplace</a>
TOO MUCH!
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R.I.P. JOAN FONTAINE
In her PEOPLE interview, Fontaine, who now leaves her sister as one of the last survivors of Hollywood's Golden Age, spoke of how she wanted to die.
"At age 108," she said, "flying around the stage in Peter Pan, as a result of my sister cutting the wires. Olivia has always said I was first at everything – I got married first, got an Academy Award first, had a child first. If I die, she'll be furious, because again I'll have got there first!"
MORE: <a href="http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20766598,00.html">PEOPLE.COM</a>
THE VATICAN'S OTHER MARY GETS THE BOOT!
THE VATICAN'S OTHER MARY GETS THE BOOT!
POPE BENEDICT CANS FANCY DRESSING VATICAN STAFFER WHO LIKES TO REGULATE WOMEN'S BODIES AND WEAR THEIR FINERY.
MORE: BILERICO
HOW AMERICA CREATED A LOW WAGE WORK SWAMP
SALON:Would you have huge employers like Walmart and McD's pay better wages or would you prefer for your tax dollars to pay for the costs of living that their employers don't?
Salon: "2013 is the year many Americans discovered the crisis of the working poor. It turns out it’s also the crisis of the welfare poor. That’s tough for us: Americans notoriously hate welfare, unless it’s called something else and/or benefits us personally. We think it’s for slackers and moochers and people who won’t pull their weight.
So we’re not sure how to handle the fact that a quarter of people who have jobs today make so little money that they also receive some form of public assistance, or welfare – a proportion that’s much higher in some of the fastest growing sectors of the workforce. Or that 60 percent of able-bodied adult food-stamp recipients are employed.
Fully 52 percent of fast-food workers’ families receive public assistance – most of it coming from Medicaid, food stamps and the Earned Income Tax Credit — to the tune of $7 billion annually, according to new research from the University of California-Berkeley’s Labor Center and the University of Illinois.
McDonald’s workers alone receive $1.2 billion in public aid, the study found. This is an industry, by the way, that last year earned $7.44 billion in profits, paid their top execs $52.7 million and distributed $7.7 billion in dividends and stock buyback. Still, “public benefits receipt is the rule, rather than the exception, for this workforce,” the study concluded.
Then there’s Wal-Mart, which as Salon’s Josh Eidelson recently reported, boasted to a Goldman Sachs conference that “over 475K” of its 1.3 million workers make more than $25,000 a year – which lets us infer that almost 60 percent make less.
Democrats on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce estimated that the giant low-cost retail chain benefits from many billions in public-assistance funding; one Wisconsin “superstore” costs taxpayers at least $1 million a year in public assistance to workers’ families. Remember, too, that six members of the Walton family own as much wealth as 48 million Americans combined.
But it’s not just fast food and Wal-Mart: One in three bank tellers receives public assistance, the Committee for Better Banks revealed last week, at a cost of almost a billion dollars annually in federal, state and local assistance. That’s right: One of the nation’s most profitable, privileged and high-prestige industries, banking, pays a sector of its workers shockingly low wages and relies on taxpayers to lift them out of poverty. In New York alone, 40 percent of bank tellers and their family members receive public assistance, costing $112 million in state and federal benefits.
Bank CEOs get multi-million dollar bonuses as profits soar, while millions of tellers are so poor they get welfare. Something’s wrong with that."
MORE: SALON
LESLIE JORDAN FOR DORITOS
BEYONCE: BLOW
This video is hot. The song's cute. I guess "a visual album" doesn't have to sound great.
GO, NIKKI GIOVANNI!
OBAMA ON SANDY HOOK'S ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY AFTER NOTHING'S BEEN DONE: "We have to do more to keep dangerous people from getting their hands on a gun so easily. We have to do more to heal troubled minds. We have to do everything we can to protect our children from harm and make them feel loved and valued and cared for. And as we do, we can’t lose sight of the fact that real change won’t come from Washington. It will come the way it’s always come: from you, from the American people."
NIKKI GIOVANNI ON OBAMA: "I think we need leadership. I thought that was a pitiful statement the president made. Washington certainly does make changes, and usually they’re negative changes. Washington says take off your shoes before you can get on an airplane. Or Washington says we’re only going to have, you know, so much fluoride. Washington makes changes. So why is it, when it comes to gun control, all of a sudden it’s "We need the American people"? No, we need leadership. We need the president, and we need our senators, we need the people who care, to be as strong in their views as the NRA is strong about wanting every American on Earth to have a gun."
Thanks for calling Fauxbama out on his hogwash. One moment he values the American people and the next he is spying on them, breaking his campaign promises to them to tax the rich/cut tax loopholes and begging to send more of their jobs overseas. In the following segment, Nikki goes on the claim there's no leadership on anything. Except maybe the pope.
ALSO ON DEMOCRACYNOW.ORG TONIGHT: DAVID CAY JOHNSTON ON CONGRESS'S BUDGET DEAL
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, this deal is a—actually, I think, a big win for the Paul Ryan Republicans. They will avoid the embarrassment, shame and political damage of shutting down the government, and they will obtain this from the—they obtained this from the Democrats without, as Congressman Pocan pointed out in his statement, touching at all the major issues. The corporate loopholes aren’t being closed. The tax-avoidance techniques of billionaires, who can legally live tax-free if they choose to, are not being shut down. The hedge fund and private equity managers will continue to be advantaged. And we’re going to kick 57,000 poor children out of Head Start, which means we’re going to narrow their economic futures and make all of us worse off in the future. We’re cutting a billion-and-a-half dollars from medical research to save lives. Why? Because the very richest people in America, those who have benefited most from being in this market, don’t want to pay for that kind of services. And by the way, being The War and Peace Report, the Pentagon is getting an extra $20 billion out of this deal. We already spend 42 percent of all the money in the world on our military. More money for the Pentagon? Seriously? While we are cutting off unemployment benefits and cutting medical research, reducing pensions for federal workers? This makes absolutely no sense. It will make us worse off.
AMY GOODMAN: What about the poorest Americans, David Cay Johnston? How are they affected?
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, there is a war going on in this country, and it’s on the poor. And we have all sorts of ways that we are doing this. We are restricting their access to Medicaid. We are cutting food stamps dramatically in this country, or will be very soon. There is a 90-day fix for doctors who treat people who are on Medicaid. That, I suspect, will not be continued. And why would we be cutting fees to doctors who provide healthcare to people, unless, of course, you just, as Congressman Grayson once said, want them to die?
AMY GOODMAN: The budget now heads to the Senate, where it has the backing of the Democratic leadership. This is Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois urging members to vote for it when it comes up to the floor this week.
SEN. DICK DURBIN: Vote for this. Let’s move. Let’s govern. Let’s not shut down this government again. This is an opportunity. And with this opportunity, we can have a stronger national defense, a stronger country, and we can save the taxpayers money.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Democratic leader, Senator Dick Durbin.
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, stronger national defense—I’m sorry, what? I mean, do we not have enough nuclear submarines to kill us all many times over with weapons against which no one is threatening us? It is just bizarre that we continue to stick to these memes that we’re not spending enough on national defense. We’re spending over $900 billion a year on national defense. Now, add to that that we—most of the world consists of our allies, who have a big military, and this just makes no sense whatsoever.
WHOOPS!
Beyonce suddenly releases interesting new experimental album. Beyonce fans suddenly realize that they aren't interesting enough to appreciate it.
ALL I WANT FOR XMAS IS JEW!
TROUBLE IN INDIA AND KENYA FOR GAYS
Two Indian Supreme Court judges just decided that gay sex is illegal. ILLEGAL!! But if we act fast we can help reverse this crazy backwards ruling.
Men and women in India now face police harassment and life imprisonment. This hateful decision is being met with outrage, and if we now show India that outlawing love is making them an international embarrassment we can get the Indian Parliament to fast track passing a law that the judges have to respect.
Sign now to help love conquer fear in India. When we reach 1 million we’ll get all our names written on hundreds of giant hearts ringing the Indian parliament, then place prominent ads showing that the world will no longer accept making love illegal.
PLEASE SIGN: AVAAZ
Shocking video of Kenyan gays savagely beaten: DANCEHALLOVERDRIVE
HOTNESS FROM PRODUCER LEROY BURGESS
GO, GRETCHEN!
I agree with Rachel Maddow that state senator Gretchen Whitmer deserves our respect and awe for sharing her very personal reasons why "rape insurance" is a dreadful idea. I can't find the Maddow interview footage--a shame since it's one of the most powerful ones of the week--but with Gretchen is strong, humble, passionate, lovely and touching. You can tell that it took a lot for her to tell the story of her own sexual assault. With a setback for reporting rampant military rape, unemployment allowed to expire by Congress and the anniversary of Sandy Hook, which gripped the nation for weeks, translating into zero gun reform legislation, you get the sense that the US is a very cruel and barbaric place.
MSNBC: "The Michigan state legislature yesterday finished passing a bill that requires women to buy separate coverage ahead of time for abortion if they want to have coverage for it at all. The measure applies to private health insurance, and it has no exceptions for rape or incest.
For that reason, opponents have been calling the new plan “rape insurance,” which is tough terminology, to be sure. As we’ve seen in places like Virginia, what you call something really matters."
MORE: MSNBC
ALSO ON MSNBC:
First up from the God Machine this week is a story out of Oklahoma, where state Republican officials were so eager to promote government-endorsed religious displays, they inadvertently opened the door to religious monuments they really won’t like.
A New York-based Satanic group plans to submit designs this month for a monument it wants to erect on the grounds of the Oklahoma state capitol.
The move comes after the state’s Republican legislature authorized a privately funded Ten Commandments monument to be placed on capitol grounds last year, according to the Associated Press. A spokesman for the New York-based Satanic Temple credited Oklahoma Rep. Mike Ritze (R) – who championed and helped to fund the Commandments monument – for clearing the path for his organization.
“He’s helping a satanic agenda grow more than any of us possibly could,” the spokesman, Lucian Greaves, said. “You don’t walk around and see too many satanic temples around, but when you open the door to public spaces for us, that’s when you’re going to see us.”
MORE: MSNBC
VA VA VA VOOM!
Betty White in her twenties!
CAN'T WAIT!
Daniel Nardicio presents Justin Vivian Bond and Carol Channing on 1/20 at Town Hall. Outrageous!
TIX: http://channingandbond.com
THE PIC'S A FAKE
But it did just snow in Cairo for the 1st time in 20 years.
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