March 12, 2015

It's Fresh! It's New! Clinton-Castro 2016

Still the most unbeatable combo we have. The fact that so many Republicans are all over Clinton---i.e. three separate House committees--proves that they are scared of her.

The latest little bit of pathetic criticism which I read here at DU was that Clinton looked old. And tired.

Dudes and Dudettes, you think women in office is "old and tired" because you are Democrats. You will not determine the outcome of the general. That will be the unaligned so called Independent voters who have to have something fun and new given to them in order to capture their attention and get them to the polls. Well, to them, Clinton/Castro will be extremely new and lots of fun. When a woman with a real shot at winning is at the head of the Democratic ticket, it will be the hottest ticket around. We will see a national debate on gender. We will see a few NASCAR dads vote against her out of fear of a strong woman. We will see even more Soccer moms and GOP women vote for her in disgust at the wretched behavior of the NASCAR dads.

We will discover who really wears the pantsuits in this country.

And with Castro on the ticket, we beat the GOP once again when it comes to the ever growing Latino vote---and pave the way for President Julian Castro in 2020 (I am betting she won't run for re-election) or in 2024.

If we can only persuade Al Franken to run a (pretend) campaign so that he can take part in each debate and drive up the ratings, the Democratic primary will be even more fun and more new. We also need a couple of uber-lefties to get out there and scare middle America with their uber-lefty talk, so that middle America realizes that Clinton is not the Marx spouting Lesbian witch that the Republicans will try to portray her as being.

I can not wait.

March 11, 2015

1968/2016: Humphrey/Clinton

Here's a lesson that I learned in 1968. Back then, I knew people who loved Hubert Humphrey, LBJ's VP and the eventual Democratic nominee after the food fight on steroids in Chicago. The folks who loved him were often (but not always) Black. They loved him because of all the things that he had done for Civil Rights. As LBJ's VP, he had worked like a dog to gather the necessary vote to pass the Voting Rights Act and other legislation.

However, equal rights under the law were not the only issue on the table in 1968. The other big topic of concern was the draft. Young men were dying in Vietnam, in a war which LBJ could not win but from which he could not extricate the country, either. Realizing what a mess Vietnam was, LBJ decided not to run again, so that he could concentrate on ending the war. His man, Henry Kissinger, conspired with the GOP candidate Nixon to derail the peace talks and keep the war going, because the war was Hubert Humphrey's big weakness among Democratic voters.

You see, all those young men subject to the draft and their friends and family members hated LBJ as much as Blacks folks loved him. I remember, in the same week, going with my 3rd grade teacher (Black) to greet LBJ when he arrived in Austin and attending an anti-war rally where he was vilified by my mother's UT friends.

The hatred of LBJ rubbed off on Humphrey. Being LBJ's VP, he could not run against the war---it would have been disloyal. So, he was labeled a hawk. He was reviled. A man whose focus had always been on domestic equality under the law was suddenly transformed into some kind of war criminal. No one cared about the good he had done at home for underprivileged people. They looked at him and saw only WAR. They were convinced that his only reason for being in politics was to promote war.

Humphrey lost by the narrowest of margins. Nixon, who ran on a campaign of "Four years is enough to end a war" promptly escalated the war and illegally invaded Cambodia and Laos. He is responsible for many more deaths of young US men. No doubt, some of those men stayed home in 1968 as a "protest vote" against Humphrey the Hawk. Some of them probably voted for Eugene McCarthy. And their votes may well have cost them their lives.

What does this mean in 2016? Be very careful of labeling any Democratic a "hawk" and deciding that a protest third party vote or stay home vote is the best way to turn the party to the left. Those protest third party votes in 2000 did not turn us to the left. They gave us eight years of Dumbya and then a middle of the road Obama. Those protest third party votes in 1968 did not turn us to the left. They gave us the Killing Fields of Cambodia. The Washington Post (briefly) turned us to the left because Nixon/Mitchell threatened some of Katie Graham's media holdings and so she turned loose two of her reporters on Nixon in order to get even. That is not likely to happen again, not with our current MSM. If we buy another GOP Neo-con we will be at war in Iran. If the Dems keep the White House, we won't. It is as simple as that.

March 10, 2015

How Gout Pill Went from Pennies to $5 by the Greed of Big Pharm and the Generosity of the FDA

Colchicine is one of those ancient drugs that doctors have been using forever. Like aspirin and morphine, no one has a patent on it, because it is so old that its use predates patents---

That was until 2009 when a wily pharmaceutical company conducted clinical trials to see if colchicine was effective in treating gout. No surprise about the outcome. Doctors had been using the medication for decades to successfully treat gout. The surprise came when URL Pharma---which was later purchased by Takeda---applied for an exclusive patent on colchicine based upon their low cost no risk trial---they knew that it was going to work. The FDA gave URL Pharma--and later Takeda--the sole right to sell the gout medication in this country.

Prior to the FDAs decision, colchicine was available as a low cost generic made by over 20 companies. Once URL Pharma/Takeda got the patent, they were able to raise the price so high that average Americans could no longer afford it. The ugly truth is spelled out in the amicus brief filed by the American College of Rheumatology

http://www.rheumatology.org/Advocacy/Hotissues/ACR_Advocacy_Update/

What's next? Will Pfizer do a trial, discover that aspirin prevents strokes and heart attacks and apply for a patent so that they can get the exclusive right to sell it at $5 a pill? Maybe Sandoz can do studies of marijuana's affect on nausea and get a patent to control all weed that is sold in the US. Marijuana would get a lot more expensive, but we could be assured that it would be available. The government would never ban a drug that could make Big Pharm a ton of money. Maybe someone should patent water--you know, H20. Has anyone done an official trial to see what effect oral rehydration with H20 does for heat exhaustion? Maybe Smith-Kline could become the sole licensed water dealer in the US---and we could pay $5 for a glass of water.

March 6, 2015

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Hillary Witch? We Are!

That's right. DU is frothing at the mouth, demanding that Some---no make that Any Democrat play Dorothy and throw a big bucket of water on the Clinton Witch and dissolve her before she has her witchy way with us. How do I know? Because I read the posts here, which commonly ascribe Clinton with superhuman---magical, witchy powers.

1. Hillary " the War Hawk" Clinton: Funny, I thought that was Rand Paul's name for her. So why is that DU's favorite name for her? Guess a lot of us just love the wit and wisdom of Rand Paul. Anyway, Hillary singlehandedly started the war with Iraq because hers was the only Senate vote that counted. She is so all powerful that if she had voted the other way, every other Senator would have followed her lead. Plus, she is responsible for Afghanistan, too. Obama was lying when he said he would escalate the war in Afghanistan if elected. He was trying to appeal to the independents. He would have been a total peace-nick.... except that Hillary used her witch powers and her position as SOS force him to commit more troops to Afghanistan and to invade Iran---oh, wait. She didn't seize the opportunity to invade Iran. I wonder if that was part of some super-tricky Hillary witchiness.

2. Hillary "the Lawless" Clinton: Hillary never met a law that she did not break. Just to prove she could. Using her crystal ball, she looked ahead in time, saw that there would be a law in the future requiring government officials to use their government email accounts and so she deliberately and maliciously used her own email account just so she could brag later that she broke the law--and got away with it.

3. Hillary "The Bankster" Clinton: Know why the Obama Administration did not indict Goldman Sachs? It's because Hillary would not let them. To quote from a recent Greatest DU thread. "She is snuggled up good and tight with organized crime crews like Goldman Sachs that stole our future." Never mind that Clinton was SOS and Holder was Attorney General. It was her job---as the Universal Mom--to protect us from the Banksters and she blew it. And while we are on the subject of a recent Greatest Thread...

4. Hillary "She Who Squashes Our Civil Rights Beneath Her Stiletto Heels" Clinton: That witch! She voted for the Patriot Act in 2001, forcing every single other US Senator at the time--except Russ Feingold--to vote for it too. She must have an awesome magic wand. I want one of those. And---OMG!---she forced Obama to vote in favor of reauthorizing the Patriot in 2006! How dare she!

5. Hillary "She Who Is Just Asking for It" Clinton: My all time favorite friendly fire criticism. It goes something like We can not support her because she is too divisive. She deliberately forces people to hate her. It is her own fault that the press plants phony stories about her. She should be nicer, then people would like her more and they would stop saying all those mean, false things about her. If she was not so mad with her own witchy power, she would stop trying to get people to hate and fear her by doing all those awful things she does. You know, like



Ooo! Scary

All this Hillary Has Witch Powers talk is not new. The Press, Republicans and Democrats commonly ascribed supernatural powers to her during the 2008 election. Every time an opponent stumbled, it was because Hillary stuck a pin in a voodoo doll. Every time Matt Drudge slimed a Democrat it was because Hillary Made Him Do It! She turned the ultra-left of left wing New Hampshire Democratic primary voters into white hood toting KKKers who voted not for her but against Obama. Her cackle was the subject of months and months of MSM debate. She was accused of using her sexuality to try to sway the minds of weak willed men---MSNBC spent 23 minutes talking about her cleavage. Her tears were crocodile tears. She was a "whore" (to quote Randi Rhodes) who slept her way to the top---nice trick considering that the press also labeled her frigid and a Lesbian. She was Medea, according to Chris Mathews, the evil mother who wanted to "crib death" her opponent's campaign. Oh, and then there was her magical, witchy stare. A quote from Comedy Central that sums up all the craziness of those who fear the Big Bad Hillary Witch

Of course he didn't. How could he? Hillary, that cunning laserist, amplified her powers by propping her chin in her hand and refusing to blink. It is a miracle she didn't leave singe marks on the Senate chamber wall.

In this undeclared war between the candidates, there was no stronger weapon at Clinton's disposal than the Stare. In the first Democratic debates, Obama seemed visibly uncomfortable with being the object of Clinton's gaze, and avoided eye contact.

But there were nine ageing white males between McCain and Clinton -- including his great friend and fellow supporter of the Iraq war, senator Joe Lieberman -- which perhaps diluted its power.

Yes, only a doughy mass of ageing white males can block the deadly impact of Hillary's Stare.
That is because its energy comes from her vagina

.

March 5, 2015

Clinton Hatred Fatigue

At the start of this year, I had no particular opinion about Sen. Hillary Clinton except that I knew that she was the front runner for the Democratic nomination for president in 2016, and, if nominated, would probably win the general.

Two months later, after reading the never ending stream of crap that keeps getting written about her, I must say that I hope that she is the party nominee. I pray that she is the nominee. America needs Hillary Clinton. DU needs Hillary Clinton. The House GOP really needs Hillary Clinton.

The anti-Hillary rhetoric is so shrill and so mindless that at this point, I firmly believe that giving in to it would be like giving in the Catholic Church when they insisted that the sun revolved around the earth and anyone who said different was a heretic. The only way to convince those suffering from pathological Hillary Hatred (I think this may be a DSM category) that their unreasonable fear of the woman is not justified is to let them observe her as president. Maybe, if they see that she does not invade every other country on earth and does not strip us all of our Social Security and Medicare and does not force men to wear veils and walk seven paces behind their wives and does not use her legendary witch powers to control our minds and sap us of our precious bodily fluids---

Maybe then they will find something more interesting to talk about. Like slime mold. Or golf handicaps. Anything but yet another Hillary Clinton conspiracy theory.

March 3, 2015

From the Folks Who Brought You "Gore Is a Liar"....

Be extremely careful about anything that the corporate media says or does about any Democratic presidential candidate. Seriously. If you do not believe me, go read the Rolling Stone piece about the Press V. Al Gore. Remember, Kerry Was a Waffler, NBC beat the Drums of War for Iraq, and we had 24-7 panty sniffing when Clinton was president. Oh, and "America Held Hostage" during Carter.

March 2, 2015

The Heaven and Hell of Colonialism or the Dangers of Economy First, Women and Children Last

For many in the third world, western Europe---Germany, France, Italy, Great Britain seems like heaven compared to the places where they were born and live. The irony is that some of these hellish places are the hellholes which they are because Western Europe and later the United States continue to enrich themselves by plundering the resources of their colonies. Yes, the little Colony that could, the U.S. has become a colonial superpower itself. Go figure. Apparently the right to life, liberty and happiness--and property rights---only applied to white men who could trace their ancestry to Europe.

One hundred twenty-five years ago, the so called Plains Wars ended when the U.S. stole yet another chunk of Lakota territory, slashed rations for the Lakota on the reservations, then turned around and outlawed the Ghost Dance by which the Natives hoped to reclaim their land, their buffalo herds and their freedom. One hundred-twenty-five years ago, Tatanka Iyotake (aka Sitting Bull) was murdered and then Spotted Elk and 300 his followers were killed as they attempted to surrender. The dead at Wounded Knee included woman and children who were chased down and murdered up to two miles from the initial battle site, giving the lie to the soldiers' claim that they fought in self defense.




Wounded Knee was no accident. It was an object lesson. Indian Agents across the west then advised their own Natives to settle down---with the implied threat that what happened at Wounded Knee could happen to them. It was Colonialism's last stand in the United States. After that, our government was careful to maintain at least a semblance of fair play when depriving Americans of their land and lives. Abroad, anything still went and no excess was too excessive, especially if we could claim that we were fighting the scourge of communism. Hey, the South China Sea was full of oil and gas.



Ironically, colonialism abroad helped the poor, downtrodden workers of Western Europe to improve their own lot. When dock owners in London decided to cut the already pitifully poor wages which they paid to day laborers for unloading cargo, the laborers balked. And 100,000 stevedores, firemen and other workers balked with them. They staged the Great Dock Strike of 1889. One year before, the women who worked making matches at Bryant and May in London staged the first ever successful strike as the public realized that British women were working in conditions akin to slavery. The Great Dock Strike was much bigger. The dock owners knew that hunger would eventually force the workers back to their jobs. All they had to do was wait---

And that is when colonialism turned around and bit the capitalist hand that fed it. Australian workers, no doubt remembering the poverty and tyranny that forced many of them from their home country, gathered enough money to keep the striking workers fed. The dock owners capitulated. Labor had one of its early, great victories. And today, if you are a British citizen, you have all kinds of rights and benefits, because of the efforts of those early union organizers and those early strikers and their compatriots in the colonies who made their fortunes depriving Aboriginal Natives of their land. Today, if you are a United States citizen you have all kinds of rights, privileges and advantages because we sent the Cherokee on the Trail of Tears and stole the Black Hills of Dakota when gold was discovered.

I present this slice of history from 1889 to prove a point. If you get too fixed on a single problem and a single solution to the problem, you lose sight of the big picture. London's East End workers rose from third world living conditions thanks to colonialism. That same colonialism committed cold blooded theft and semi cold blooded genocide against the Natives of North America. Colonialism abroad quickly turns to colonialism at home as the rich realize that they can use colonial tactics on their own countrymen. Once any one of us starts treating anyone anywhere in the world as expendable, the door to hell is opened and we all end up burning.



Those who say that there is only one issue that matters this election---the economy--had better think about whose economy they are referring to. The economy of the guy who lives in Detroit? The economy of the child soldier in Africa? The economy of the infant girl being exposed because she is not wanted in India? The economy of the Silicon Valley engineer? The economy of those who still languish on Reservations in our country? Because what makes one of them money may cause the other to starve to death or to die at the hands of right wing paramilitaries.



So called Women's and Children's issues---making sure that no policy is unfair to or kills any child anywhere so that someone else can have more money than he or she needs---are not merely optional. So called Women's and Children's issues are essential if we are ever to end the hopelessness that breeds war. No one anywhere will ever be able to build a tower high enough or secure a mortgage with interest low enough or accumulate a pension fat enough to protect him or her from the devastation that can happen when a single child anywhere is treated as expendable. Karma is not an esoteric concept. Karma is what happens when our own lack of love for others comes back to bite us on the ass.

If you think you can have economic security while ignoring the plight of women and children, you are delusional. But don't feel too bad. You are only parroting what your corporate masters have told you. Get your own slice of the pie, first. After you are set for life, then you can begin to do something for the_____

Welcome to hell. Enjoy your stay. Count your money. Pay no attention to that nagging little itch at the back of your mind. That's just your conscience speaking to you. No one ever suffered for not listening to their conscience.

February 27, 2015

Some People Can Not Afford to Lose the Next Presidential Election

In 2000, when some liberals sat out the election by claiming that Bush=Gore (bad math) and others voted Green as a protest and then Brother Jeb disenfranchised Black voters in Florida and the Supreme Court broke the law by voting based upon the identities in the case, it was bad for our democracy.

It was even worse for some of the most vulnerable members of our democracy.

At the time, I thought--and wrote an angry letter to Nader---in which I predicted another war for oil (We got two and an attempted coup in Venezuela!), delays in universal health care, negative action in reducing the world's dependence upon fossil fuel and global warming and a run on the bank, with the rich being allowed to plunder middle class wealth. It all came to pass, just as I and many others predicted.

2016 and here we go again. "Winning does not matter," we are told. "It is better to make a statement and lose than to support a candidate who is not liberal enough."

I am glad that so many people are doing so well that they can afford another 4 to 8 years of Bush style economics, environmental policy and war. Many of us are not doing quite so well. Some of us will probably die if we do not win the next election. These include:

The people who will lose their affordable health coverage right in the middle of treatment for their heart disease, cancer etc because the GOP Congress will not have a Democratic president to veto the bill when they get rid of the "no pre-existing clause" allowing insurers to drop policies for anyone who is sick.

The members of the military (including the National Guard and the military reserve) who will be shipped to Iran to fight another war for someone else's oil.

Children and adults with asthma who will die of pneumonia, because clean air standards will be rolled back once again in our major cities.

Everyone who lives on the coast, who will be at risk for rising waters and more violent storms like Katrina---which the GOP will exploit for social cleansing as they did in NOLA and Galveston.

Those who just barely scrape by on their Social Security and Medicare who will not get by at all when those program are "privatized" and benefits slashed to create more corporate profit.

Unions, which will see a decrease in membership as so called "right to work" laws become the rule of the land---which will cause all wages of all workers to drop.

Latinos, who will lose any chance of ever being more than underpaid, disposable citizens.

American born children of Latinos who will become the slaves of the 21st century, with no citizenship anywhere, they will be forced to work for any wage the employer sets in any condition the employer sets. And everyone else's wages will fall again.

Minorities will find that the DOJ is once against waging war on anyone who is not white.

Veterans will become sitting ducks again, easy targets for budget cuts.

Gay rights will be rolled right back to the Reagan era, when HIV was considered God's rightful curse on gays.

Women will lose their contraceptive options and end up stuck in pink collar ghetto jobs as they struggle to support children they were not prepared to have---

I am glad that some of us are doing so well that 4-8 years of another corporate fascist state won't impact our lives or our lifestyles. But some of us will not survive. Some women. Some children. Some old folks. Some immigrants. Some disabled people. Some folks really need to keep a Democrat in the White House to keep Congress in check and swing the Supreme Court back to the left and keep the military from being used as the private mercenary force of Big Business and to force the EPA and HHS and other agencies to enforce the law. Someone to follow in the footsteps of Barrack Obama, rather than the footsteps of Bush/Cheney.

Do not be like Nader, who back in 2000 declared that a Bush presidency would be good for the country, because it would mobilize the left. That is a fascist point of view which treats the most vulnerable of us as expendable. Instead, work to make sure that the GOP does not steal another election with voter intimidated, election fraud, Citizen United Money. Work to find and support the candidate who has the best chance of winning in the scary new post Citizen United election world of 2016---

If you aren't worried about your own future, do it for the women, the children, the elderly, the soldiers, the veterans, the immigrants, the unions, the gays, the minorities. They are just barely crawling out of the hole Bush/Cheney dug for them. They can not afford to lose.

February 26, 2015

A Few Modest Suggestions for Making DU's Presidential OPs More Friendly to Women

Since some may claim that they do not understand when they are denigrating women with their posts, here are some suggestions:

1) If you feel yourself tempted to call a woman candidate or political leader of either party witch, bitch, bimbo, slut, whore or cunt---DON'T.If you have a specific complaint, take a few minutes to clarify and put into words your complaint. Do not resort to sexist name calling, even if you think that "everyone" will know what you are really talking about. Everyone will know what you are talking about, and trust me, it is not something pretty. If you must use profanity, try gender neutral profanity like asshole, dirtbag, shit for brains.

2. If you feel yourself tempted to say of anyone "She is good on women and children's issues, but---" DON'T. You have just marginalized women and children who make up over half the world. If you have some specific issue for which you think the candidate deserves phrase but not elected office--for instance, helping to broker peace in Northern Ireland--say "She helped broker peace in Northern Ireland, but that does not qualify her to tackle______ at home." And then tell us which issues the candidate can not tackle at home.

3. If you feel yourself tempted to write "She only got where she is because of some man"---DON'T. Politics is an expensive and time consuming business. Every politician got ahead thanks to the help of someone else. Jack Kennedy had his dad and his dad's fortune. LBJ had Brown & Root. W. had his dad and Karl Rove. John Kerry has his wife's money---you wouldn't say "John Kerry is where he is today only because of his wife" would you?

4. If you feel yourself absolutely compelled to criticized clothing, hair or ankle width---ask yourself when was the last time you did a scathing piece about Mitch O'Connell's wardrobe malfunctions? Yes, we all talk about Boehner's fake tan and Trent Lott's atrocious rug, but that is because they are so obviously fake. Tell you what, if a female running for office puts on a pair of huge fake breasts and huge fake derrière and wears them to a public event, you have my permission to make fun of that--the same way you would if a man stuffed socks down his underwear. But do not make a political point about normal street clothes. Clothes do not make the man and they do not make the woman.

Keep these four rules in mind, and the discourse will still be heated but at least it won't offend as many women. And really, if you absolutely despise a certain female candidate, do you want to encourage all other women to rally around her just because they perceive that she is the target of a sexist attack?

February 19, 2015

"Women's and children's issues": Marginalizing Over One Half of the World

I'm gonna make this short and not so sweet. When we say that Clinton is good on "women's and children's issues" but not acceptable on other issues and therefore not a good choice for president, what does that say about the position of women and children in this country? The world? Keep in mind that "women and children" make up the majority of people everywhere. Women and children are more likely to live in poverty everywhere. Poverty and inequality start in childhood--when kids are denied education, healthcare, home, nurturing, because the "Village" does not value them. Women are universally underpaid, under represented in government, too often treated as chattel, scapegoated, brutalized----

Basically, if you say Clinton is good on "women's and children's issues" but not qualified to be president, you are saying that the needs of women and children are not important.

If we are gonna fix the world and this country, maybe we should start by fixing the way that we marginalize women and children. Maybe if we treated women and children better, we would create a better world.