Barack Obama

Reforma no racisma.

Walk Down Memory Lane to July 2013 When Boehner & #GOP Failed to ‘Govern’

by

Tonight, I had planned to write a highly poignant new blog post about why movement on immigration reform now (and not when the Republicans finally… maybe… get around to it) is a good idea.

When I went back to some old articles to grab links, I found this blog post and decided a history lesson was in order– since Republicans want Obama to delay an immigration executive order to “give them time to govern”. This post was originally published on July 10, 2013, on Tucson-Progressive.com, shortly after the US Senate passed their “comprehensive immigration reform” bill with bipartisan support, including both Arizona Senators, Lindsay Graham, Marco Rubio, and other Republican Senators. Where are they now when the House wants to stall further? [Related articles at the end. Go big, Mr. President. It’s the right thing to do.]

Boehner & the White Man’s Party Prepare to Kill Immigration Reform

partyofno

Knuckle-dragging Republicans in the US House of Representatives have said that they will NOT– that is NOT with capital letters– pass an immigration “reform” billthat includes a path to citizenship for 12 million immigrants living in the US.

After all, the Republican Party’s corporate masters are making big bucks exploiting and imprisoning undocumented workers; I guess their motto is: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” For big business, immigration ain’t broke (except that they would like easier access to  cheap, skilled labor from India).

The US Senate’s much-celebrated bill did have a path to citizen (plus lots of other stuff the Democrats agreed to in order to get a handful of Republicans to vote for it.)

In the spirit of full disclosure, I didn’t like the US Senate’s version of Immigration Reform for multiple reasons:

Read more

Obama Goes Bold on Net Neutrality, Calls for Public Utility (video)

by
Net neutrality protesters confront FCC chair Tom Wheeler at his house.
Net neutrality protesters confront FCC chair Tom Wheeler at his house.

President Thomas Jefferson valued a free press so much that he believed newspapers should be delivered free to all citizens, so they could be informed voters. How far we have fallen from our originals ideal of a “free press”. Corporate newspapers have dwindled in size and stature, thanks to the advertising-driven business model. Some newspapers are little more than collections of press releases, wire service stories, and display ads– with little or no original local content. They have devolved into corporate rags– far from the ideal of a “free” press.

As corporate news has degenerated, the Internet, with its egalitarian, free-range news and information, has thrived. (Yes, of course, the Internet has contributed to the demise of print media, but corporate decisions fueled the downfall.) For example, you can read stories on this blog that no corporate media outlet would ever print.

With an Internet connection, you get it all– the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, the brilliant, the stupid, the lies, and the truth. It is your job to sort through it and read what you want.

Telecom companies really want to stop all of that free information and free thought. They want to be able to charge big users– like Google, Amazon, Facebook– more money for a “fast lane”. They would push more corporate (paid) content our way and push other content– like blogs and non-corporate websites– to a “slow lane” or block them completely. (Good background here.) In other words, if the telecom companies win the net neutrality battle, good luck finding voices that don’t promote the corporate news and ideas.

On Monday, President Barack Obama announced his support for making the Internet a public utility. This is huge.

Read more

Oh boy, Bob Robb is explaining race relations again

by

Crossposted at DemocraticDiva.com

Bob Robb Raw This is not an actual picture of AZ Republic columnist Bob Robb but I found it when I was searching his name and it’s hilarious.

I meant to weight in on AZ Republic’s Bob Robb’s vomit-inducing column from last Wednesday but I see that Cynthia Zwick has responded beautifully to Robb’s outrageously offensive claim that poor black people shouldn’t be politically active and should instead quietly get jobs and stop having so many welfare babies and abusing drugs and alcohol.

Robb’s conclusion is truly disturbing. “Obviously children living in poverty aren’t there because they failed to check the right boxes,” he wrote. “But what serves their interests best: Telling them that poverty is a political issue to be addressed through activism? Or that poverty is a condition that can be escaped or avoided through education, hard work and not engaging in destructive behavior?”

Those questions are subtle directives towards those who are poor and, by association, those who are of color. His message is: go to school, work hard, and keep your head down and don’t bother wasting your time protesting and engaging in politics, protests and activism.

In truth, the exact opposite is needed.

Poor communities and communities of color must engage in activism. They must vote, hold their leaders accountable and demand systemic change through peaceful protest.

Read more

Obama Opposes Food Stamp Cuts, Threatens Veto of Farm Bill

by

by Pamela Powers Hannley

President Barack Obama has issued an official statement saying that he opposes the current form of HR1947, the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013 (AKA the Farm Bill).

Specifically, he opposes the deep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program(SNAP– food stamps) and the spending increases in the form of subsidies. Cutting food subsidies (in the form of food stamps) to the poor while increasing subsidies to agribusiness is immoral. (You’ll remember that, in public, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives is all “we gotta tighten out belts and reduce spending”, but in reality, they love spending money on pet projects– like war and corporate welfare. They passed the $640 Billion Pentagon Pork Bill last week. )

Will Obama’s statement and threatened veto give weak-kneed Blue Dog Democratsthe back-up to stand up for what’s right? I hope so. (The House of Representatives is still working on this bill; there is still time to call your representative and urge him/her topreserve funding for food stamps.) Read the President's full statement after the jump.

Federal Gov’t Spying on Citizens: Big Brother Really Is Watching

by

Keyboard-578-adj-crop-sig-sm72by Pamela Powers Hannley

Several weeks ago, after the US intelligence agencies found the Boston Marathon bombers in a matter of days, I posted this story: Who Is Homeland Security Watching? Off-the-grid Fertilizer Plant vs On-the-Grid Citizenry.

When I said that the federal government was watching “real people, not corporate people,” I had no idea how prophetic that statement was. In the few short weeks since that story, there has been one revelation about government spying on American citizens and news organizations after another.

Gov’t Obtains Wide AP Phone Records in Probe
First we learned that the feds obtained months worth of telephone records from Associated Press (AP) reporters. AP called this “a ‘massive and unprecedented intrusion’ into how news organizations gather the news.”

US gov’t collecting huge number of phone records
Although there was a huge media uproar over the AP story when it broke, it pales in comparison to what we learned this week. Senator Diane Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, confirmed that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been collecting cell phone records for millions of Americans on a regular basis for years. This ongoing surveillance of American citizens began during the warrantless wiretapping program initiated under President George Bush’s reign. Verizon, Sprint, and At&T have complied with court orders to provide customer data. Verizon alone has 121 million customers. More details and links after the jump.