Monsters Lurk Under Our Beds

"Compared to Watergate, on the basis of everything we know about what are the current “scandals”..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:12:45 -0500

“Compared to Watergate, on the basis of everything we know about what are the current “scandals” amount to a piffle. Watergate was a Constitutional crisis. It was about a pattern of behavior on the part of the president of the United States abusing power to carry out his personal vendettas. It was about whether the president was accountable to the other branches of the government; it was about whether the Congress could summon the courage to hold accountable a president who held himself above the law. It was about a president and his aides who were out of control in their efforts to punish the president’s “enemies.” It was also about, though this has still gone largely unrecognized, an attempt by a sitting president to determine the nomination of the opposition party’s presidential candidate. Potentially strong challengers were spied upon, their offices broken into and files disappeared, their campaign events disrupted by what were diminished by their categorization as laughable “dirty tricks.” It was about black bag jobs and paying criminals to carry out ideas that sprang from the fevered brain of a president who saw opponents, political and otherwise, as enemies, and then trying to hush the whole thing up. The attempt, not unsuccessful though not exclusively their doing, to try to get the opposition party to nominate its weakest candidate was a step along the road to fascism. It was a putsch by a head of state.”

- Why Obama Is Not Nixon (via azspot)

fvhumandignitycoalition: Go Minnesota! I am so proud to be a...

Tue, 14 May 2013 08:47:18 -0500

fvhumandignitycoalition:

Go Minnesota!

I am so proud to be a Minnesotan today! The irony is that this never would have happened this soon, except for the mean-spirited anti-gay marriage amendment that was placed on the ballot in November. Hateful bigotry that was soundly defeated by the citizens of this state in November, ended up being a vote for full equality in May!

Why Catholic Hospitals Could Represent The Next Big Threat To U.S. Women’s Abortion Access

Tue, 14 May 2013 08:21:28 -0500

Why Catholic Hospitals Could Represent The Next Big Threat To U.S. Women’s Abortion Access:

thisgingerisback:

Despite the fact that Roe v. Wade has been in place for over 40 years by now, women’s reproductive rights still aren’t safe. Anti-choice activists are chipping away at women’s access to reproductive health care from all angles — piling on dozens of state-level restrictions, driving up the cost of abortion services, and ultimately enacting […]

keep your goddamn rosaries off my fucking ovaries, assholes.

motherjones: Pima County, Arizona, is the only county in the...

Thu, 09 May 2013 11:02:49 -0500

motherjones:

Pima County, Arizona, is the only county in the United States that tracks migrant deaths. Here’s every one since 2001.

abaldwin360: mediamattersforamerica: What Dick Cheney’s...

Thu, 09 May 2013 10:12:25 -0500

abaldwin360:

mediamattersforamerica:

What Dick Cheney’s Benghazi criticism misses.

Not to mention that other thing that happened under Cheney’s watch on September 11th 2001 …

thepeoplesrecord: California farm workers fired for leaving...

Thu, 09 May 2013 09:40:04 -0500

thepeoplesrecord:

California farm workers fired for leaving fields during wildfire
May 8, 2013

More than a dozen farm workers in Southern California were out of a job after walking out of the fields last week, forced indoors because of heavy smoke from a massive wildfire burning nearby.

“Oh, yeah, the smoke was very bad. That’s no doubt about that,” said Lauro Barrajas, of the United Farm Workers.

As the blaze, dubbed the Springs Fire, continued to grow in Camarillo May 2, farm workers 11 miles south in Oxnard said they started to feel the effects of the smoke in the strawberry fields.

The ashes were falling on top of us, one of them explained, adding “it was hard to breathe.”

Air quality in the region was at dangerously poor levels and 15 workers at Crisalida Farms decided they could not handle it any longer. They left, even though their foreman warned them they would not have a job when they returned.

When they went back to the fields May 3, the farm fired them.

Barrajas, who is a representative of the UFW, said the workers contacted him for help, even though they were not members of the union.

Union representatives met with the farm’s upper management and applied a union rule.

“No worker shall work under conditions where they feel his life or health is in danger,” Barrajas said.

In a statement to Telemundo, the farm representative said the workers left without permission while orders still needed to be filled. The company offered to pay them for the hours they’d worked.

Later, the company settled with the union and offered to rehire all 15 workers. But only one worker returned.

The others took jobs on other farms.

One worker said while it hurts to lose work, one’s health is more important.

Source
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Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Explains Why He Hates Fat Chicks | Elite Daily

Thu, 09 May 2013 09:36:54 -0500

Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Explains Why He Hates Fat Chicks | Elite Daily:

goodreasonnews:

bluealienpro:

queriesofaqueer:

goodreasonnews:

“In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids,” he told the site. “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become totally vanilla. You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody, either,” he told Salon.

New. Worst. Person.

THAT TIME I ASKED FOR AN APPLICATION TO ABERCROMBIE AND FITCH IN HIGH SCHOOL AND THE MANAGER TOLD ME “WE ONLY HIRE PEOPLE WHO CAN FIT AND LOOK GOOD IN OUR CLOTHES”

That is horrible. -.- You can make exciting clothes for everyone.

I’d even be OK with if they didn’t make exciting clothes for everyone, but they at least weren’t complete poopstains about it. Their clothes are for jerks anyway. By the way, here’s the cool guy guru who thinks the rest of the world is too fat and dumpy for his $80, slave-made casual luxury sweater:

think-progress: Damn.

Thu, 09 May 2013 09:35:49 -0500

think-progress:

Damn.

Photo

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 11:03:05 -0500

Photo

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 10:12:38 -0500

liberalsarecool: Nailed it.

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:46:43 -0500

liberalsarecool:

Nailed it.

Photo

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:45:39 -0500

"Senators say they fear the N.R.A. and the gun lobby. But I think that fear must be nothing compared..."

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 14:30:03 -0500

“

Senators say they fear the N.R.A. and the gun lobby. But I think that fear must be nothing compared to the fear the first graders in Sandy Hook Elementary School felt as their lives ended in a hail of bullets. The fear that those children who survived the massacre must feel every time they remember their teachers stacking them into closets and bathrooms, whispering that they loved them, so that love would be the last thing the students heard if the gunman found them.

On Wednesday, a minority of senators gave into fear and blocked common-sense legislation that would have made it harder for criminals and people with dangerous mental illnesses to get hold of deadly firearms — a bill that could prevent future tragedies like those in Newtown, Conn., Aurora, Colo., Blacksburg, Va., and too many communities to count.

Some of the senators who voted against the background-check amendments have met with grieving parents whose children were murdered at Sandy Hook, in Newtown. Some of the senators who voted no have also looked into my eyes as I talked about my experience being shot in the head at point-blank range in suburban Tucson two years ago, and expressed sympathy for the 18 other people shot besides me, 6 of whom died. These senators have heard from their constituents — who polls show overwhelmingly favored expanding background checks. And still these senators decided to do nothing. Shame on them.

I watch TV and read the papers like everyone else. We know what we’re going to hear: vague platitudes like “tough vote” and “complicated issue.” I was elected six times to represent southern Arizona, in the State Legislature and then in Congress. I know what a complicated issue is; I know what it feels like to take a tough vote. This was neither. These senators made their decision based on political fear and on cold calculations about the money of special interests like the National Rifle Association, which in the last election cycle spent around $25 million on contributions, lobbying and outside spending.

Speaking is physically difficult for me. But my feelings are clear: I’m furious. I will not rest until we have righted the wrong these senators have done, and until we have changed our laws so we can look parents in the face and say: We are trying to keep your children safe. We cannot allow the status quo — desperately protected by the gun lobby so that they can make more money by spreading fear and misinformation — to go on.

I am asking every reasonable American to help me tell the truth about the cowardice these senators demonstrated. I am asking for mothers to stop these lawmakers at the grocery store and tell them: You’ve lost my vote. I am asking activists to unsubscribe from these senators’ e-mail lists and to stop giving them money. I’m asking citizens to go to their offices and say: You’ve disappointed me, and there will be consequences.

People have told me that I’m courageous, but I have seen greater courage. Gabe Zimmerman, my friend and staff member in whose honor we dedicated a room in the United States Capitol this week, saw me shot in the head and saw the shooter turn his gunfire on others. Gabe ran toward me as I lay bleeding. Toward gunfire. And then the gunman shot him, and then Gabe died. His body lay on the pavement in front of the Safeway for hours.

I have thought a lot about why Gabe ran toward me when he could have run away. Service was part of his life, but it was also his job. The senators who voted against background checks for online and gun-show sales, and those who voted against checks to screen out would-be gun buyers with mental illness, failed to do their job.

They looked at these most benign and practical of solutions, offered by moderates from each party, and then they looked over their shoulder at the powerful, shadowy gun lobby — and brought shame on themselves and our government itself by choosing to do nothing.

They will try to hide their decision behind grand talk, behind willfully false accounts of what the bill might have done — trust me, I know how politicians talk when they want to distract you — but their decision was based on a misplaced sense of self-interest. I say misplaced, because to preserve their dignity and their legacy, they should have heeded the voices of their constituents. They should have honored the legacy of the thousands of victims of gun violence and their families, who have begged for action, not because it would bring their loved ones back, but so that others might be spared their agony.

This defeat is only the latest chapter of what I’ve always known would be a long, hard haul. Our democracy’s history is littered with names we neither remember nor celebrate — people who stood in the way of progress while protecting the powerful. On Wednesday, a number of senators voted to join that list.

Mark my words: if we cannot make our communities safer with the Congress we have now, we will use every means available to make sure we have a different Congress, one that puts communities’ interests ahead of the gun lobby’s. To do nothing while others are in danger is not the American way.

”

- Former congresswoman and gunshot victim GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, writing in today’s New York Times. (via inothernews)

ihateallyourgods: Sarah Silverman by FCKH8

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 10:12:27 -0500

ihateallyourgods:

Sarah Silverman by FCKH8

Good Reason News: Family Research Council blames 'sexual liberalism' for Newtown, Boston murders. Really.

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 10:00:48 -0500

Good Reason News: Family Research Council blames 'sexual liberalism' for Newtown, Boston murders. Really. :

divineirony:

Tony Perkins: “If Congress wants to stop these tragedies, then it has to address the government’s own hostility to the institution of the family and organizations that can address the real problem: the human heart. As I’ve said before, America doesn’t need gun control, it…

skepticalavenger: Yeah, but Jesus was a white...

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 09:58:04 -0500

skepticalavenger:

Yeah, but Jesus was a white guy in a middle-eastern desert. God clearly special rules for him because white guys are special.

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Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:48:42 -0500

goodreasonnews: humanistpost: Maybe he should have tried...

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:07:27 -0500

goodreasonnews:

humanistpost:

Maybe he should have tried running with scissors instead.

The Humanist Post

Free Your Mind

humanistpost.tumblr

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I’m actually glad this fucker died this way. Now all the victims of this scam have an example of the consequences of this particular brand of ~~animal abuse~~ faith healing.

So…where’s your god now???

did-you-kno: Source

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:05:54 -0500

did-you-kno:

Source

liberalsarecool: #socialism

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:02:18 -0500

liberalsarecool:

#socialism