Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Hillary Fills in For Speech To Bankers after W Pulls Out

You can't make this shit up: (via Sirota)
Former President George W. Bush was supposed to give a speech to Ameriprise Financial conference in Boston next week but had to bow out because he’s recovering from surgery on a bum knee. But the financial services firm was able to secure a prominent substitute speaker: Hillary Clinton.

Clinton’s speech, confirmed by two sources familiar with the event, is the latest in a series of paid speaking-circuit gigs for the former secretary of state and likely 2016 presidential contender, who charges upward of $200,000 to deliver remarks or take part in question-and-answer sessions.

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

100-0

The vote in the senate to give Israel a blank check on their actions in Gaza was 100-0. No Bernie Sanders, no Elizabeth Warren, no Sherrod Brown. No one. And this is why I am depressed that our support of this aparthied state will not change in my lifetime.

Monday, July 21, 2014

Speaking Truth To Power

This was particularly on my mind since finally watching the extremely underwhelming Chris Hayes interview with Netanyahu's spokesperson, but this was fairly amazing to see:

And sadly, the extremely predictable result:

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

"The fear in their faces"

Few things are as disgusting as human beings organizing to protest and yell at buses of unaccompanied migrant children, but this is America's right wing so I've kind of stopped being surprised. The sheer inhumanity and stupidity of the situation can be summed up by what happened here:
A Republican running for Congress in Arizona snapped a photo of a passing school bus full of children on Tuesday near a housing facility for undocumented minors. He posted the picture to Twitter with a stern warning to his followers: "Bus coming in. This is not compassion. This is the abrogation of the rule of law."

Adam Kwasman later spoke with a local reporter and described seeing "the fear" in the children's faces, urging authorities to abide by the law and enforce the border against the influx of child immigrants crossing into the United States.
But there was a problem with Kwasman's story. The school bus was carrying local children on the way to a YMCA camp not far from the migrant shelter. A reporter at the scene said he saw the children laughing and taking pictures with their iPhones.
The 'fear on the faces' of those YMCA kids they were yelling at...

Friday, July 11, 2014

Missing the Point


Most coverage of Israel's siege of Gaza has been horrific, even by the low standards I expect for the US media covering anything related to Israel. I think most of these problems come from the fact that the media is trying to report on events that occur while ignoring the context of the situation. The context is that Israel has been engaged in a military occupation of Palestinian lands and has been colonizing them for many, many years now. Objectivity fetish journalists seek out away to turn any story into he said/she said or "both sides are doing it" and while that type of coverage is bad for most political journalism, it is even worse in this case. The coverage of the conflict won't always be this bad, but it won't be getting better until they start acknowledging the history context of why we are here.

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Israel Begins New Gaza Bombing Campaign

This Majority Report podcast has a good summary of the events that led us here.




I was watching Chris Hayes' segment from last night and I didn't really agree with his point that this most recent violence would do anything further to change Israel's perception in the world or serve as a wake up call to the Israeli people. I think we're passed that point, and Israel's new bombing campaign they began today is a further sign of that. As was said in the podcast, there are multiple ways to get to a one state solution, and it looks like we're headed there in the most awful and bloodiest way possible.

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

What's Wrong With This Picture

Pretty amazing Fox News graphic on anti-immigrant protests. The statue's text is missing for some reason...