I am so fed up with the Obama Administration’s limp, weak, corporate complicity that I don’t even watch TeeVee any more. No, really. Disgusting. Rahm? Where does the buck stop? Who is the leader?
Western forces fighting in southern Afghanistan had a problem. Too often, soldiers on patrol passed an older man walking hand-in-hand with a pretty young boy. Their behavior suggested he was not the boy’s father. Then, British soldiers found that young Afghan men were actually trying to “touch and fondle them,” military investigator AnnaMaria Cardinalli told me. “The soldiers didn’t understand.”
All of this was so disconcerting that the Defense Department hired Cardinalli, a social scientist, to examine this mystery. Her report, “Pashtun Sexuality,” startled not even one Afghan. But Western forces were shocked – and repulsed.
For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers. Some research suggests that half the Pashtun tribal members in Kandahar and other southern towns are bacha baz, the term for an older man with a boy lover. Literally it means “boy player.” The men like to boast about it.
Go here for the whole damm story. Disgusting. Sick!
Grassroots Support for Hooser Suggests LG Race is Not “Meaningless” to Many
The Hooser campaign for Lieutenant Governor is the first to report reaching the threshold for public financing. In the past month, small donations of $10 to $100 from voters statewide have taken the campaign past the $50,000 mark to qualify for matching funds of up to $85,000. Many pundits have characterized the position of Lieutenant Governor as “meaningless.”
“Apparently voters are more interested in who becomes Lieutenant Governor than the pundits would have us believe,” said Gary Hooser. “Students, retired people, those who care about the environment, teachers, nurses and ordinary, hard-working people who don’t make a lot of money have sent in donations, some for the first time, to ensure that they have an advocate who will fight for them,” said Hooser.
“We have had a Lieutenant Governor for eight years who has inappropriately brought Church into state matters. Is it meaningless that the position has been used to stand in the way of equality for all? We can do better. I am grateful for the many people who are helping to fund our advertising through donations from hard-earned savings because they believe I will be an advocate for all,” he added. “I will not disappoint them.”
Donors from Across the State
Small donors like retired teacher Odetta Fujimori from Honolulu or retired airline employee Winfield Chang from Kailua-Kona have dipped into their savings to support a candidate who they believe will look out for the average voter.
First time political donor Andrea Brower from Kauai is in her twenties and passionate about sustainability. In her personal appeal letter urging support for Hooser she said,
“Discouraged by what our political system has deteriorated into, I usually prefer to spend my time and money in what I view to be more productive ways. However, Gary Hooser is truly progressive and an agent of change — he challenges the status quo in a time when we desperately need politicians to question our failing systems. I am inspired by the thought of having such an honest and compassionate man leading our State.”
“Politics should be about the people, not about big money or entrenched special interests. Public financing is very much a part of my progressive outlook and I believe is one of the ways that my campaign stands apart from some of the others,” said Hooser.
The Hooser campaign has filed its papers for matching funds with the State. The State will issue its campaign funding analysis for all candidates shortly.
Gary Hooser has been endorsed by the Sierra Club Hawaii Chapter, the Hawaii State Teachers Association, Hawaii Nurses, Local 5, and others.
For more information, please contact Gary Hooser at 808-652-4279
And this is what the Florida ”Christian Minister” says about the issue whilst he disses our military and puts their safety in jeopardy.
Terry Jones, the pastor of a small radical church who plans to burn Korans on Sept. 11, said this morning that, although he takes the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan’s warning seriously, he will still go ahead with “Burn A Koran Day.”
Yesterday, Gen. David Petraeus said that Jones’ demonstration could endanger American troopsin Afghanistan. Geoff Morell, the Pentagon spokesman, echoed those concerns today on MSNBC, saying burning Korans would put troops in more danger throughout the Muslim world.
The Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, plans to mark the anniversary of al Qaeda’s September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington by burning copies of the Muslim holy book. The church insists the event is “neither an act of love nor of hate,” but a warning against what it calls the threats posed by Islam.
Now what was that the “dove” is supposed to symbolize? Peace and peaceful intent? Huh?
He was supposed to change Washington. But the president’s strategy in the Middle East and Afghanistan has lacked courage and creativity—and pales in comparison with Bush’s.
Just over three years ago, acclaimed author and campaign adviser Samantha Power published a memo outlining the foreign policy Barack Obama would pursue if elected president. It was called“Conventional Washington versus the Change We Need.” Power’s argument—aimed straight at then-candidate Hillary Clinton—was that merely replacing George W. Bush with a Democrat would not truly change American foreign policy. It would not truly change American foreign policy because many of Bush’s policies had been supported by “the foreign-policy establishment of both parties,” which remained enthralled to a “bankrupt conventional wisdom.” Obama, she suggested, offered something different. As with his opposition to the Iraq War, he would offer “fresh strategic thinking” undeterred by charges that he was “weak, inexperienced, and even naive.” He represented “a break from a broken way of doing things.”
School systems across the country have been misleading students and parents into thinking they are ready for college, the Secretary of Education said Sunday.
Arne Duncan told ABC’s Christiane Amanpour that the Obama administration’s Race to the Top program had reversed the trend of schools lowering standards.
“What we’ve done through Race to the Top is you’re seeing the vast majority of states, almost 40 states raise standards for every single child,” said Duncan.
“As a country we’re dumbing down standards and reduced them due to political pressure and we’ve actually been lying to children and parents telling them they’re ready when they’re not,” he explained.
Duncan said rewarding teacher excellence is part of the way that students will meet the new standards.
“There is no simple answer here. All of these things working together but, yes, we have to shine a spotlight on excellence. We have hundreds of thousands of teachers who are beating the odds every single day performing miracles. We have extraordinary schools closing the achievement gaps, great districts, great states. We have to learn from excellence. Answers are all out there,” he said.
This is a proposal from Robert Reich and here’s his blog post below:
So instead of playing defense, Democrats should go on the attack.
Accuse Republicans of being shills for the rich. And don’t stop there. Do tax jujitsu.In addition to ending the Bush tax cut for the rich, put forward another proposal for growing the economy that cuts taxes on lower-income Americans. Then he makes a understandable, fair and common sense idea.
Democrats should propose eliminating payroll taxes on the first $20,000 of income, and making up the revenue loss by applying payroll taxes to incomes above $250,000.
This would give the economy an immediate boost by adding to the paychecks of just about every working American. 80 percent of Americans pay more in payroll taxes than they do in income taxes. And because lower-income people would get most of the benefit, it’s likely to be spent.
Republicans are calling the Democrat’s proposal to end the Bush tax cuts on the richest 3 percent a “tax increase,” and demagoging that it will hurt the economy and small business. This is baloney, to put it politely. Let me count the ways:
- Bush’s ten-year tax cut was designed to end this year, so it’s not a tax increase.
- Ending it for the rich simply returns them to the Clinton tax rate, which was hardly confiscatory (reminder: the Clinton years were damn good for business).
- Small businesses would barely be affected. Only 3 percent of small business owners earn over250,000. And because it’s a “marginal” tax, the Clinton rate would apply only to the portion of their incomes over250,000.
- Yet extending the Bush tax cut to the richest Americans would give them a36 billion bonus next year. (31 billion of this would go to billionaire households.) And that36 billion would be added to the budget deficit.
- And it wouldn’t even stimulate demand and jobs, because the very rich save (rather than spend) more of their disposable income than the rest of us.
- Finally, ending the Bush tax cut for the top is fair. Income inequality has become so grotesque that the top 3 percent of households rake in almost a third of total income (the highest portion since 1928).
WAIPOULI — Three men were arrested Tuesday night in connection with a robbery Saturday in the parking lot at Kaua‘i Village, a county news release states.
They are currently being held in Police Cellblock in lieu of bail.
Hanama‘ulu resident Akoni Davis, 21, was charged with first degree robbery. His bail was set at $20,000.
Vicente Hilario, 23, of Anahola, was charged with first degree robbery. His bail was set at $100,000.
The debate on whether it is more appropriate to say that Obama has done a lot or that he has done too little regularly divides DailyKos, and I’d like to tackle it from a slightly different perspective, to say that this is not really about Obama, but about the views of the different groups about our civilisation.
I would like to propose that those who think that Obama has not done enough consider that the current system is profoundly failing, and that it is time for systemic changes, instead of the tinkering they see Obama doing, whereas those that tend to focus on what Obama has done think that the system is flawed, but mendable, and that Obama is doing just that, moving things back in the right direction.
And the fact is – we don’t know yet what group is right, and we may not know for a few more years.
First, I think there is a number of things that most here agree with:
Obama inherited a mess, and he has no responsibility in creating it. The financial meltdown, the economic recession, the budget crisis, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were all created by the policies of the Bush years (or the policies run since the Reagan revolution, if you want to look at the bigger picture);
he is facing a nastily partisan Republican party backed by a well-run and highly effective media / noise machine. They were bullies while in power, and they have adapted similarly shamelessly ugly behavior now that they are in opposition;
Obama ran on “change” – including a change in the way politics were run in Washington – that included going back to listening to actual experts rather than hacks, and it also included trying to move away from partisanship and trying to reconcile opposing view points. He’s done both of these
Now here’s a list of the points where fundamental disagreement pop up:
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