Detroit Woman To Mitt Romney

Raise The Minimum Wage

In this article, Chris Hedges discusses the Occupy movement and the minimum wage with Ralph Nader.  Nader suggests moving away from encampments and toward a nationwide push to raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour, an effort that would galvanize millions of workers and draw them to the movement.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Nader-to-Occupy-Help-Rais-by-Chris-Hedges-120227-753.html

Obama Said This In 2005

He Only Got One Term

He Doesn't Call, He Doesn't Write

Is this how SuperPacs work?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/opinion/sunday/the-long-suffering-super-pac.html?scp=1&sq=Trillin&st=Search

Henry Wallace Had It Right

Henry Wallace was Secretary of Agriculture under FDR and then Vice President 1941-January 20, 1945.  FDR died less than three months after Wallace left office.  He was right about a lot of things.

Republican Thinking

Who's Really Running?

Robert Reich says Santorum et al are not the real candidates in the primaries.  The real candidates are the billionaires who fund the campaigns.

http://www.truth-out.org/gops-big-investors/1329919572

The Last GOP Debate?

Gail Collins is always good reading.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/opinion/collins-four-dudes-and-a-table.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

Did The Nuclear Clock Just Move?

This is certainly worrisome news.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/22/world/middleeast/iran-says-un-weapons-inspectors-wont-visit-nuclear-sites.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha22

Small Business Not The Answer

Everyone is telling us how important small business is - the mom & pop stores that generate jobs.  This Inquirer article begs to differ, and it makes a good deal of sense.

http://www.philly.com/philly/business/homepage/20120220_Why_small_firms_aren_t_the_answer_to_recovery.html

Down With Austerity

Paul Krugman says austerity hasn't worked to recharge Europe's economy, and it won't work here.  What's needed is restoration of federal block grants to states to put thousands of teachers,  nurses, firemen, policemen, and social workers back to work.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/20/opinion/krugman-pain-without-gain.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

Letters About Re-instituting National Service

Sometimes the Letters to the Editor are among the best things in the newspaper.  This collection from today's New York Times seems awfully important and worth pondering.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/opinion/sunday/sunday-dialogue-uniting-america-through-national-service.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Santorum On Fracking: Nothing Will Happen

Rick Santorum says he's from Pennsylvania and so he knows nothing will happen when fracking really gets going.  The trouble: Santorum is no longer from Pennsylvania and the facts indicate that plenty will happen as the gas industry fracks the Marcellus
Shale.

http://www.salon.com/2012/02/13/santorums_well_compensated_love_of_fracking/singleton/

About Obama's Budget

Five interesting things about the new budget proposal.  From Mother Jones.

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2012/02/5-things-you-might-have-missed-obama-proposed-2013-budget

UFPJ National Meeting

Here's information on the UFPJ national meeting in Philadelphia February 24-26.

http://www.unitedforpeace.org/2012/02/12/meeting-goals-ufpj-occupy-peace-meeting-in-philadelphia-february-24-26/?pfstyle=wp

Behind The Goal Line

Once again Obama's budget proposals start his progress from behind the goal line instead of starting the game with a vigorous offense nearer mid-field.  We all know how that works out.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/02/14-2

What Would It Cost To Save The World?

David Swanson On Venezuela

Why is the US government so antagonistic toward Venezuela?  What has Hugo Chavez achieved and what should he do now?  Read David Swanson.

http://warisacrime.org/content/learning-la-venezuela

James Carville On The GOP

Old Dragon-Head has some thoughts for his Republican friends.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/09/opinion/carville-republicans/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

YOU ARE INVITED TO A SKILL-BUILDING WORKSHOP

HOW TO GET CONGRESS TO

REDIRECT MILITARY SPENDING TO MEET HUMAN NEEDS

SATURDAY AFTERNOON MARCH 17, 2-5 PM

(ARCH STREET UMC CHAPEL,

55 N. BROAD STREET, PHILADELPHIA)

MIKE PROKOSCH,

Nationally known community organizer,

New Priorities Network (www.newprioritiesnetwork.org)

PETER LEMS

Afghanistan desk, American Friends Service Committee

(www.afsc.org)

·       Why restoring funding has to come from the Pentagon budget

·       Congressional prospects to “move the money”

·       Resolutions campaigns locally and nationally

·       “Bird-dogging” candidates during election year

Connect with local

Starve The Beast - The DOD

We have a few little problems to work out - like lack of a steady oxygen stream to the pilot.

The new budget coming soon will try to keep "defense" spending at its present levels while cutting domestic programs.  Our job is to keep the pressure on our congresspeople to do the opposite.  An article from Mike Prokosh, New Priorities national coordinator, who will be part of a panel in Philly on Saturday, March 17, 2-5pm, at Arch Street United Methodist Church, 50 N. Broad Street.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/02/08-1

What Is It About CITGO?

CITGO is a US oil company owned by Venezuela.  Its profits are devoted to advancing health care and education there and to providing free or low cost heating oil to 400,000 poor people in the United States (cf. Joseph Kennedy).  If you are uneasy buying gasoline from the usual suspects - Exxon-Mobil (Valdez spill), Shell (Niger River delta pollution), Sunoco (closing the Marcus Hook refinery a few days before Christmas), BP (the Gulf of Mexico) - go to a friendly CITGO station.   To find a local CITGO station, click on the link.

http://www.ask.com/web?q=citgo%20gas%20station%20locations&askid=6880e9e7-de1f-4543-9cb7-0d8e8bceb4f4-0-us_gsb&kv=sdb&dqi=citgo%20gas%20station%20in%20Narberth%2C%20PA&qsrc=999&o=10480&l=dir

An Answer To The Warming Deniers

If you have a brother-in-law who gets under your skin by either denying global warming or claiming that it's not caused by human activity, this article is just what you need.  It is long, but it is well written and settles the controversy.  It also explains why the deniers say what they do.

http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/12-02-08/#feature

Save The Post Office

Some members of Congress want to pare the postal service down to minimal size by closing processing centers, shuttering local post offices, and cutting delivery days.  None of that is necessary as John Nichols points out in this Nation article.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/166103/post-office-not-broke

Finding The Cause Of Cancer

More and earlier screening is not the ultimate solution.  Finding the cause is.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/health/breast-cancer-screening-matters-but-prevention-is-the-real-goal.html?_r=1&ref=science

Progressive Talk Radio

Fans of progressive talk radio will be happy to hear of the birth of WPWC (1480am) in Washington, DC.  You can hear it on line at: http://www.weactradio.com/programs/monday-friday/

But What Causes Breast Cancer?

It is amazingly timely that a film called "Pink Ribbons" will be released in Canada this week (and later in the year in the US) that questions the hoopla about the Susan G. Komen Foundation.  For while the foundation claims to have spent more than a billion donated dollars on screening and treatment (and advertising and administrative costs) the breast cancer rate in North America has climbed to one in eight.  Is anyone stepping back and asking what causes breast cancer?  Could it be chemicals being released, corporate genetic changes to crops, radiation (nuclear or radio frequency)?  We're sure many of the donors to the Susan G. Komen Foundation would just as soon leave that area unexplored.  Here is a trailer for the new movie.

Save The Date - March 17, 2-5pm

YOU ARE INVITED TO A SKILL-BUILDING WORKSHOP

HOW TO GET CONGRESS TO

REDIRECT MILITARY SPENDING TO MEET HUMAN NEEDS

SATURDAY AFTERNOON MARCH 17, 2-5 PM

(ARCH STREET UMC CHAPEL,

55 N. BROAD STREET, PHILADELPHIA)

MIKE PROKOSCH,

Nationally known community organizer,

New Priorities Network (www.newprioritiesnetwork.org)

PETER LEMS

Afghanistan desk, American Friends Service Committee

(www.afsc.org)

·       Why restoring funding has to come from the Pentagon budget

·       Congressional prospects to “move the money”

·       Resolutions campaigns locally and nationally

·       “Bird-dogging” candidates during election year

• Connect with local activists

Growing Interest In Closing Overseas Bases

The Institute for Policy Studies says we could save $184 million over the next ten years by trimming our overseas bases, and this article identifies a growing bi-partisan interest in doing so.  More than 700 overseas bases not only cost money (when a serviceman is assigned over there he can bring his wife, his children, his car) but get us involved in international scrapes that could be precluded by closures.  One of the main reasons we withdrew our troops from Iraq was that nation's insistence that our men and women be subject to Iraqi justice.

http://truthout.org/bipartisan-strategy-takes-shape-close-overseas-us-bases/1328374712

Sierra Club The Bribe

John Muir is spinning in his grave.  It now seems that the Sierra Club took $26 million from Chesapeake Energy, the nation's second largest fracker, and "nuanced" its position on the issue.  In other words, they took a dive.  Is nothing sacred?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/science/earth/donations-to-sierra-club-raise-ire.html

First Friday Film "The Way" March 2

"The Way" is a 123-minute 2011 film starring Martin Sheen.  Written and directed  by Emilio Estevez.  Rated PG-13.  First Friday film at the Peace Center of Delaware County (Springfield Friends Meetinghouse), 1001 Old Sproul Road, Springfield, March 2,  7pm.  Free - Large Screen.

Bill Moyers On Sunday

Next on Moyers & Company

In Philadelphia, WHYY-TV Sunday at Noon.

Our country is more politically polarized than ever. Is it possible to agree to disagree and still move on to solve our massive problems? Or are the blind leading the blind — over the cliff?

This weekend on Moyers & Company, Bill and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt talk about the psychological underpinnings of our contentious culture, why we can’t trust our own opinions, and the demonizing of our adversaries.

“When it gets so that your opponents are not just people you disagree with, but... the mental state in which I am fighting for good, and you are fighting for evil, it's very difficult to compromise,” Haidt tells Moyers. “Compromise becomes a dirty word.”

Also, a Bill Moyers essay on why Newt Gingrich might be afraid of Saul Alinsky.


MORE

The NFL Is Like Socialism!

Pentagon Math Explained

Fracking Moves Forward

Governor Corbett and his legislative pals want to end townships' historic right to control their own zoning.  That would mean that local government can't tell the fracking industry to go away. A bill to this effect may be introduced in the legislature early next week.  Call your senator or representative and tell him or her that you want local control preserved and fracking to stop.   Fracking is bad in so many ways: it poisons our water, it causes natural gas to enter drinking water wells, its heavy equipment destroys country roads, it may cause earthquakes, it destroys the environment.  But the Governor and his pals continue to do the bidding of the industry.  One must wonder why.

http://www.pennfuture.org/UserFiles/PDFs/vol14no03_20120202.pdf

Rupert Murdoch And WSJ Deny Global Warming

The overwhelming majority of qualified climate scientists are sure that the globe is warming and it's man that is responsible.  The people quoted by the Wall Street Journal are either not qualified or are highly questionable.  After all, how much does it cost to pay off a third-rate "scientist"?

http://thinkprogress.org/green/2012/02/01/416078/climate-scientists-rebuke-rupert-murdoch-wsj-denier-op-ed-like-dentists-practicing-cardiology/

Support School Nurses

Philadelphia's schools' newest bright idea is to fire school nurses, leaving children and teachers on their own when accidents and illnesses strike.  The nurses organized Occupy 440, and they meet at the Board of Education Building, 440 N. Broad, every Wednesday at 4pm.  At yesterday's large gathering, a nurse told of being called by a principal in a nurse-less school and being asked to diagnose a child's rash from a cell phone photo.  This is Third World stuff.  Come join the nurses next Wednesday and every Wednesday at 4 until we can restore nurses in our schools.

http://www.thenotebook.org/blog/124455/pft-files-complaint-about-non-nurses-dispensing-medication

Repeal Citizens United

		Call your state Legislators and urge them to help amend the U.S. Constitution. Dear Friends,  We’ve just won our biggest victory ever! Yesterday, the New Mexico House of Representatives passed our bill, 38-29, calling on Congress to amend the United States Constitution to overturn the infamous Citizens United ruling* and return our democracy to the people. In a bi-partisan vote, a Republican and an Independent joined Democrats in supporting this bill, working together to make the New Mexico House one of the first full state legislative bodies in the country to officially endorse a Constitutional Amendment to reverse Citizens United.  The action goes next to the New Mexico State Senate, where a committee will consider an identical bill today, and, we hope the full Senate will soon follow. If you know anyone in New Mexico, please ask them to call their state Senators, urging them to join their House colleagues and support bill #SM3. New Mexicans can look up their state Senators here: http://j.mp/NM-sen. We also have terrific news from Massachusetts, where the state Senate President Therese Murray has just announced she’ll support a similar bill of ours, also calling for a U.S. Constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizens United. It’s just incredible to have so much momentum behind our campaign. This is a great moment to pick up the ball wherever you live and run with it. Can you call *your* state legislators now?  You can look them up, and even make free phone calls, here: http://j.mp/STcalls12 Urge your legislators to: “Please introduce or co-sponsor a state resolution calling on Congress to amend the U.S. Constitution, over-ruling Citizens United and restoring democracy to We, the People.”  If they ask for a sample resolution, you can refer them to: http://j.mp/StRes With your help, today’s good news from New Mexico and Massachusetts will be just the beginning.  Thanks so much for being part of our historic campaign. Sincerely,

Fools Or Frauds

Paul Krugman has it right again.

http://www.truth-out.org/today-republican-candidates-have-be-cynical-or-foolish/1328022587