July 15

Lisa Longo - Those Were The Days

I woke up to a different world today. It is a world we all created. By our deeds, our misdeeds, our missteps and for some of us, those literal missed steps. We create our reality moment by moment. Each action with its equal and opposite reaction. The force of our intention sometimes enough to move mountains. And the inertia of our apathy the killer of ideals.

I cannot fully explain the depth of my disillusionment when I heard a jury found Zimmerman "not guilty". I cannot fathom how any reasonable person could for one minute excuse the murder of a young man by a grown man who stalked him against the repeated request of authorities with a gun he wasn't supposed to have according the rules of the neighborhood watch he used to fulfill his unfulfilled desire to be a police officer. The desire of this man to play cop forced a young man into his deluded game of cops and robbers. And at the end of the encounter a young man was dead.

To me this speaks of a devastating injustice. And I can't fathom how we ended up here.

Except actually I know exactly how we got here. What I don't know is why. Why did we allow our government and our laws to be underwritten by underhanded groups with ulterior motives? At what point did the GoP become the personal assistant to the Koch Brothers and ALEC? Why are our state legislators rubber-stamping cookie cutter legislation that infringes on my right to choose while insisting that any infringement of the right to bear arms is grounds for domestic insurrection? Is it really the will of the people? Or it the want of the few at the expense of the many? And why would a few very rich people want to subvert our government and convert our way of life from the pursuit of happiness to one where we stand our ground and shoot at each other? Who profits?

Because at the end of the day, this really is all about money for some people. How much has money infiltrated and destabilized our system of democracy? Who benefits from stand your ground? Gun manufacturers for sure, but is there something more subtle at work here. A form of intimidation? And who is being intimidated and why? Why are women's rights being trampled on by the same people screaming that we can't even discuss gun regulation because in their mind it is treason? And how is this all connected? Following the money I have to also mention the cuts in education, the increase in private for-profit prisons, and connection between the two. We have to recognize that there are factions fighting to freeze minimum wage while they are deducting their private jet and $500 lunches as "business expenses". We "limit" the Social Security wage base to the first $113,100 of wages, but allow unlimited corporate salary deductions.

Our system has become so skewed we are all screwed if we don't start speaking out. It is time for us to stand our ground, and we can start by insisting our legislators repeal stand your ground legislation. This ALEC drafted NRA protected Koch funded legislation is anti-American, it literally pits one American against another. It calls open season on young man walking home in the rain eating Skittles and wearing a hoodie.

I believe there is a common thread that connects all this bad legislation. The commonality is the way each piece of legislation erodes our way of life. The way it shreds our standard of living. The way it pits us against each other. Teachers are greedy. Police and firefighters are union thugs. Environmentalists are anti-business. Activists are radicals. Organic food is too expensive. Renewable energy is too expensive. Sustainability is a plot to turn the US over to global authority. And on the other side, the never-ending delusional magical thinking that somehow, despite all evidence to the contrary, this time, trickle-down economics is going to work. That somehow silly slogans can replace actual policy.

We can't just sit back and expect this is all just going to work itself out. The people who have orchestrated and funded ALEC and who write this legislation and push these policies are not going to just walk away without a fight. They are going to use all their might to stop us. They are going to make it difficult. They are going to make it unpleasant. They will try to convince us we are misguided, that they really have our best interest at the center of their efforts. They are going to make it so hard we will want to give up. They are going to have us arrested if they can, and maybe try to get us fired. They will call us names and they will use their millions and their minions to wage this war against us.

The world they want to create is one we cannot allow. They want us armed, dangerous, hungry, stupid and pregnant. They want us too tired to think and too busy to care. They want us to distrust each other and they want us distracted by nonsense they call news. They want us wrapped up in the latest scandals and sitcoms.

But the truth is, they are terrified of us. They know we possess the one thing all their money can't buy. Our vote. They know we can stop them by simply showing up. By attending meetings. By contacting legislators. By working for candidates and campaigns. This one simple fact, that this country was founded by a group of rabble-rousing community organizers, gives me hope.

We are not radicals. We are not extreme. We are patriots. And it is time for us to remember who we were. Because, those were the days my friends, when we understood that democracy was a gift, and we had to care for it or it would die.

And we have already let too many people die. It is time to stop them. It is time to stand our ground.

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New Missouri Law Would Allow First Graders To Take NRA-Sponsored Gun Class

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ThinkProgress: Arguing on CNN Sunday Morning that the jury in the George Zimmerman case "made the right decision from their standpoint," Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) dismissed any suggestion that America's justice system is unfair to African-Americans or other people of color. In Perry's words, "I think our justice system is color blind."…

Perry's claim that race plays no role in our justice system simply cannot be squared with the data from his own state. The most distinguishing aspect of Texas' criminal justice system is its penchant for the death penalty. Over one third of all U.S. executions take place in Rick Perry's state. Moreover, over 40 percent Texas' death row inmates are black (121 out of 300 total inmates), despite the fact that only about 12 percent of Texans are African American. So a black Texan is more than three times more likely to be sentenced to die than their representation in Texas as a whole would suggest.

Nor is Texas an anomaly in this regard. In Alabama, just six percent of murders involve black defendants and white victims, but but 60 percent of black death row inmates were convicted of killing a white person. In Colorado, African Americans make up four percent of the population and 100 percent of the death row. And, in North Carolina, prosecutors in capital cases are more than twice as likely to remove a nonwhite juror from a jury pool than to do the same to a white juror.

The statistics are damning enough, but you might've notice that — while conservative pundits have been gleefully politicizing Trayvon Martin's killing — Republicans have mostly managed to keep their big yaps shut about it. The reason is simple: Republicans are terrified of black voters. If they weren't, they wouldn't be pushing all these voter suppression schemes designed to keep minority voters from voting booths.

But those very efforts, combined with the open joy demonstrated when SCOTUS gutted the Voting Rights Act, were already encroaching on doing more harm than good. They've got this whole "missing white voter" plan going and it hinges on the idea that the size of the African-American vote drops when Barack Obama is no longer on the ballot. So they want to be really careful about riling up the voting block they're currently counting on staying home.

Now, here comes the bottomlessly gaffe-prone Rick Perry to talk about Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, race, and the justice system. And his completely unhelpful take is that everything's just fine and all these black people are getting all worked up over nothing. That we shouldn't change a thing and this is the best possible outcome.

From local school board members seeking reelection to presidential hopefuls, just about every Republican with any sort of brain at all must want to strangle Rick Perry right now.

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Voting Against Their Own Interests: The Common Story of the Republican Voter

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The FDA recently announced that the agency is going to reassess the way we monitor inorganic forms of arsenic in the food supply, in particular, apple juice– to bring it up to code with the way arsenic in the water supply is regulated– at 10 parts per billion.

The risk to inorganic arsenic consumption in apple juice is said to be low, but combined with immeasurable sources of arsenic in other areas of the food supply, it can't be good.

Consumption of "inorganic arsenic is associated with cancer, skin lesions, developmental effects, cardiovascular disease, neurotoxicity, and diabetes"– and food is a major contributor.

The FDA reports:

Possible sources of inorganic arsenic in apple juice include processing aids, prior use of arsenic based pesticides on land currently used for apple orchards, current use of arsenic-based pesticides in other countries, naturally high levels of arsenic in soil or water, and atmospheric deposition from industrial activities[...]

In 2008, FDA established a level of concern of 23 ppb for inorganic arsenic in singlestrength (ready to drink) apple juice as part of a hazard assessment. This level of concern focused on non-cancer endpoints and average consumption of apple juice with higher levels of arsenic for a limited (not lifetime) period of time.

In 2011, FDA initiated a new quantitative risk assessment for inorganic arsenic in apple juice for cancer endpoints and based on chronic and lifetime exposure. The new risk assessment models health effects based on average inorganic arsenic levels in apple juice when several hypothetical maximum limits for inorganic arsenic are in place.

The risks to children being slowly poisoned over time should, at the very least, be greatly reduced– now that long term exposure is being assessed by the proper authorities.

But monitoring sources of inorganic arsenic in the food supply in general is a little tricky because if your water contains arsenic, and your soil contains arsenic, and your pesticides contain arsenic– your apples will eventually rise up and kill you while you sleep.

So, I fully expect that if the Republican party catches wind of this they'll immediately call for the liquidation of the FDA– again– on the grounds that the agency is killing jobs! especially if it means one poison manufacturer is forced to use cleaner poison in the production and processing of food.

But with all their concern for keeping poor people from eating any food due to management's cutbacks in humanity and decency– I'm not sure they'll even notice.

There just seems to be no apple these days that the Republican party is not trying to poison.

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Over the weekend anti-gay Texas Attorney General officiallykicked off his bid to succeed Gov. Rick Perry. 

Hundreds of sweaty supporters in Plaza Juarez near the famous River Walk cheered while trying desperately to cut the heat with yellow-and-blue paper fans bearing Abbott's name over the words "Fast cars, firearms and freedom - it's a Texas thing." "With the money, the name ID, the political structure of the state right now, it's beautiful for Greg Abbott," said Bill Miller, a longtime GOP political consultant based in Austin. "It's absolutely his race to lose."

Abbott has sued the Obama administration 27 times during his tenure. 

RELATED: The above-linked article notes that Abbott was partially paralyzed in 1984 when a tree splintered at its base and struck him in the back. Abbott then won millions in a lawsuit against the homeowner and has since become an advocate for limiting the amount that can be won in very type of civil suits that he filed. Republicanism, in a nutshell.