Tag Archives: black people

Weekend reviews &some News

10/10/2010 Nativegrl77

I forgot to add that President Obama and VP Biden will be in Philadelphia today campaigning…reports of it being broadcast are great … so left coast be aware …the Band Roots will entertain…love them …FYI!!!The president spoke to more than 17,000 voters last week in Madison, Wis., where many more thousands watched on screens in an overflow area.

Weekend buzz … and rants include “the Media” screaming to all that will listen that it’s a tidal wave coming but if you are listening to the way the poll questions are configured and or how the hosts or commentators talk you start to get the sense that people have not been getting all the information so that they can make an intelligent decision when it is time to vote or maybe the question is skewed. Some days i want to wipe my nose with the stuff i hear from Political Pundits yet because i am not an insider some of it has to have some foundation and that is troubling. We are in the final weeks leading to the midterm elections and some interesting stories are coming out of the woodwork regarding a few candidates clearly on the extreme right and while it seems we cannot boot them out for their extreme ideology it is important to expose them on as many levels as possible: The fact that Meg Whitman or any other candidate would employ an undocumented worker while talking the political hard line against immigration is practicing hypocrisy at its worst…to be honest the whole wh**e comment does not bother me because Brown did not say it and why it was said proves Whitman is in fact buying votes and or endorsements which she is against right… sigh. The story about the guy who used to play Nazi dress up on weekends who is now running for a Public Service job is so outrageous as well the story about Governor Christie trying to dump the Hudson Tunnel Project which did not get enough airplay and it epitomizes why its likely we are not improving …how many other Republican officials have or are trying to lay people off or dumping projects and if so what do we assume their intent is and should they be responsible for paying back the money they took from the stimulus fund —that is a Hell yes! To continue …After the latest comments from Senator DeMint i wonder what his constituents are saying and what seems even clearer for me is DeMint definitely is telling Americans to do as we (Republican Tea Party) say not as we do and that truly is un-American. I am still trying to get over how DeMint was able to implement Universal Health Care but managed to give the rest of us the proverbial finger. I know that even though the people in Massachusetts hated the process, hated who was implementing HCR, some even protested what they call the sausage making yet while Congress was putting HCR together Massachusetts voted for a tea party guy into Congress complaining about HCR, but when you asked them 80% stated they wouldn’t give up the Universal Health Care that DeMint and others implemented but I guess they did not want the rest of us to have it. I believe the current dissent in the country is not just class warfare, race, religion so on and so forth it is because this Congress did not take a hard left and while that might be what we all want it is not what the office of President is all about. Unfortunately, Republicans refuse to let President Obama govern, refuse to be apart of the solution and well here we are – I blame the Republican Tea Party

I admit it …I feel tense when I listen to the opinion news but because I am listening closely they do fail to convince me that Congress will have a new look after Nov.2nd but if the scream of a tidal wave helps people do their civic duty -Vote for DEMS; then by all means scare us but with folks like ab stoddard all you get is democratic gloom and doom and that is tiring. I have faith that people will come to their senses even those in “the Media” because though they seem to exclude themselves from the inevitable …they too are apart of the voting consortium and should be concerned that crazy people actually have a chance to represent Americans. In the end do we blame “the Media” for what happens in November or the obvious side of the issues they seem to take because money does talk and what with major corporations owning all the cable and main stream stations can we expect them to tell the truth …food for thought eh? the comment below is from our President while at the Chicago rally.

“Sometimes I feel as if we had such a high on election night, and then there was the inauguration and Bono was singing and Beyonce,” Obama said at a fundraiser in Chicago last week. “That was the start, not the finish, of the journey. And it made each of you a shareholder in the mission of rebuilding our country and reclaiming our future.” -President barack obama -source: charles babington -AP

Saturday …For sure the 206 will be raining, cloudy with frequent bouts of wind… sigh it’s all good this weather could be worse right. The News Tribune reports heavier-than-normal traffic is expected for a holiday weekend at the U.S. -Canada border crossings because Monday is Columbus Day in the United States and Thanksgiving Day in Canada.

My rant today is about the extreme and somewhat silly behavior of the Republican Tea Party. If you are watching the news it is hard to look away from the ugly behavior but now they are becoming downright desperate and oh boy does Meg Whitman symbolize that on so many levels. The rumors that she has been buying votes seems to have become a reality …first of all it was an aid to not the next Gov Jerry Brown and while Whitman has been unleashing the conversation with out the full context or the entire conversation i would like Jeanne and Whitman to know that given the facts behind the comment i agree with the aid. It proves that you madam are definitely buying votes. The comment was bad for anyone to make but all we heard is what it meant on the surface and a lot of people in “the Media” came out saying oh no he did not say that on all sides of the aisle the facts remained undercover and by late last night most of us heard how and why the aid would say such a thing. My take is those quiet meetings, backroom deals if you will and include, if the talk is real – a sum of 45million dollars. It does prove once and for all that Meg Whitman indeed is engaging in desperate moves to get ahead of the competition by buying votes from at least the Police in California but then someone from the Police must have gotten greedy and called Brown’s camp … and i paraphrase -were giving Meg our endorsement unless you deal with our union pensions. bad behavior gone ugly

Last … some days you just have to share right maybe ask did that strike you as weird too but then i have this need to respond because the comment seemed extreme, the writer seemingly gothic and then again it could be all about sarcasm with a little bit or splash of threatening behavior at the same time. I have a choice of taking what the writer says seriously or decide that what the writer is sharing is that right of center love or rhetoric that so many of the Republican Tea Party members seem to engage in and spew at any given moment …always lurking under the surface. Well, i decided to share it with everyone, heck this blog is on the interwebs right …Anyway, the article Tattoo is getting some attention, actually the article from Speaker Pelosi received quite a few comments, most were nice and because we do have 1st Amendment rights folks use it and i choose to share it. The article is about the need for the Democratic Party to help support our candidates attack their opponents because clearly the Republican Tea Party has big maybe foreign Corporations funding their party not to mention the rhetoric is ugly at best, it is also filled with mis-information or their truths and should be challenged now more than ever. I have absolutely no problem with someone who wants to use their 1st Amendment rights, share their view or ideology but let’s keep it nice, play fair and don’t throw jabs that seem like threats eh? And btw stay away from my lady parts…. so …below is a comment in response to the article Tattoo

thank you for the comment from

… jonolan

Yes, Americans and American industry has arrayed themselves against the Leftist filth who want to destroy America.

Be thankful that, so far, it’s being handled through elections. Keep to your treasonous ways and we’ll have neither reason or desire to refrain from exterminating your ilk unto the last misborn crotch-dropping of unknown paternity.

For myself, I hope you continue; I look forward to the purge.

————————————————————

Other News …

**NOW has chosen to back Jerry Brown instead Meg Whitman -i am proud

**Queen of Gospel’ Albertina Walker dies at age 81

** Greenlake mtg w/ officials at library 10/16

**NYC/Fed charged tried and sentenced bungled time sq bomber to life in prison

**Tumwater -A 45million dollar prison sits empty due to budget cuts,lack of inmates and employee layoffs -yes they are trying to figure out what it can be used for in the interim

**The Federal home improvement Rebate will be over at the end of the year

**Did anyone hear Bill Maher say President Obama may get impeached -reckless use of time or does bill have an agenda?he certainly has the platform …people please remember he is a Pundit of fun, jokes ,sarcasm and a whole lot of mean barbs …the Prez

**Mercedes recalls 85thousand cars

**BofA stops home foreclosure activity for all 50 states

**Job employment 9.6% 95thousand govt jobs lost 80% due to temp census and i guess 20%layoffs, 64thousand Private Sector jobs gained –I would like to know the states and companies that laid folks off

**Asst Mgr Jeanne Cumming from Politico got on cable and stated how offended she was to hear about the Jerry Brown wh–e comment.

**Hurricane Otto is forming in the Atlantic Ocean

**John Lennon a music icon would be 70 this weekend

**Solomon Burke -king of soul/rock dead at 70

**Chile…drill reaches 33 trapped miners

**NRA supporting at least 58 democratic candidates …as well as Repubicans

CSPAN …

International Monetary Fund and World Bank News Conference
Saturday

Weekly Addresses
Saturday

C-SPAN Debate Coverage of Campaign 2010 – Friday, October 8, 2010
Friday

Supreme Court Oral Argument Snyder v. Phelps
Friday

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) Remarks on Economy
Friday

NPC Address by Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan
Friday

Pres. Obama Remarks on Monthly Jobs Numbers
Friday

Pres. Obama Remarks on NSA James Jones Resignation
Friday

Georgetown Law Symposium on Justice John Paul Stevens
Friday

Pres. Obama Signs 21st Century Communications & Video Accessibility Act of 2010
Friday

Defense Dept. Briefing with Sec. Gates & South Korean Defense Minister
Friday

Common Sense Media Press Conference on Online Privacy
Friday

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Job Tracker …

10/09/2010 Nativegrl77

Search Working America’s Job Tracker to find corporate traitors in your area.

Every day, more U.S. workers are told “You’re fired!” Not because they did something wrong—and not because the work they do isn’t needed anymore—but because their jobs are being shipped overseas.

So our friends at the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate Working America created Job Tracker—a website that exposes which companies are guilty of outsourcing our jobs. Just enter your ZIP code, and Job Tracker will find corporate traitors near you.

Search your area for companies that have sent jobs overseas, risked the safety and health of workers or violated their rights.

When we see the plant near us closing or mass layoffs in the next town over, it’s hard to know the disturbing scope of the problem—after all, corporations don’t want to publicize unpopular, anti-worker actions, and the government doesn’t track every job lost to outsourcing in one easily assessable place.

I was shocked to learn from Job Tracker that 13 companies right in my area are outsourcing jobs, and a shocking 6,515 companies have safety and health violations! Want to know what things are like in your community? Get the stats on greedy companies near you, and report any missing companies you know about.

By making this information public, Working America is putting greedy CEOs on the defensive. For the first time, working people have one place to see the real impact of outsourcing, bad trade deals and currency manipulation. Every corporate traitor Working America exposes—and every company you and your friends, co-workers and family add—makes a stronger case for holding corporations accountable.

So check out Job Tracker, and if any companies are missing, tell us about them. We’ll research your submissions and add them to the site when we verify the information.

In solidarity,

Manny Herrmann
Online Mobilization Coordinator, AFL-CIO

P.S. Corporations aren’t going to stop moving jobs out of America unless we force them to stop. That starts with compiling concrete information on just how much corporate greed is costing America’s workers. Check out Job Tracker, and help us take the first step by shining a light on outsourcing, safety and health violations and labor law violations.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Washington Democrats are Counting on YOU

10/09/2010 Nativegrl77

I know you are getting tons of emails. The truth is November’s election is in a little over three weeks and it all comes down to the actions we take right now to get out our message and turn out Democrats to the polls.

The margins of victory have no room for error for any Democrat to sit on the sidelines. If you care about the progress we have made for America, we must act now. Here are the three best ways you can get involved to help retain our Democratic Majority in November:

Sign up to Volunteer — We can put you in touch with a local campaign in your area who needs your help now, on the phones, knocking on doors and passing out literature. We urgently need volunteers on the ground. We know exactly which voters we need to target. We just need folks to make it happen.
Ask your friends to Volunteer — Post a link on Facebook, tweet it out, or simply press forward on this email and send to ten friends. Every committed Democrat needs to get involved and we are counting on you. The Republicans are counting on Obama Democrats to stay home — let’s prove them wrong.
Can’t volunteer? Donate! — Outfitting a grassroots campaign organizer with a kit costs $28 dollars – contribute that today and it could mean that one more campaign has one more volunteer who has the resources it will take for victory on Election Day. $100 could cover production of over a 1000 door hangers. We urgently need your support.

It’s all come down to these final three weeks.

We cannot wake up on November 3rd regretting we didn’t do more. I need you in this game. Stand with Speaker Pelosi and President Obama and let’s prove the Republicans wrong. They have underestimated us before but let’s show them this is their biggest miscalculation of all.

Onward to Victory,

Jon Vogel
DCCC Executive Director

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Washington State: Meet Dino Rossi …updated

10/09/2010 Nativegrl77

Running for U.S. Senate, Washington

Dino Rossi is a Republican candidate in the primary for the U.S. Senate in Washington. He is real estate investor who previously served as a state senator and twice ran for governor of Washington.

In the 1990s, Sen. Rossi developed a relationship with one of Seattle’s biggest real estate developers, Michael Mastro. In 1997, when Sen. Rossi was serving in the state Senate, he purchased a building from Mr. Mastro. Two of Sen. Rossi’s fellow investors were Washington state lobbyists, David Ducharme and his father, Richard Ducharme. Mr. Mastro loaned the threesome $2 million to purchase the $2.5 million property. Separately, Sen. Rossi borrowed $50,000 from Mr. Mastro for the purchase, which he did not report as required on his financial disclosure forms. Mr. Mastro was also a donor to both of Sen. Rossi’s campaigns for governor. In 2008, Mr. Mastro’s multimillion dollar empire crumbled after it became apparent he had been promising untenable returns to investors.

listen as Rossi dodges questions about unemployment 2010

Sen. Rossi’s relationship with the Ducharmes continued long after they sold the building they had purchased from Mr. Mastro. While still a state senator, Sen. Rossi turned to the pair once again and convinced them to invest in a bank that he had started. Sen. Rossi invested at least $75,000 of his own money in the bank and made David Ducharme CEO. In 2009, the bank came under investigation for “engage[ing] in unsafe and unsound banking practices relating to its strategic and capital planning, credit underwriting, credit administration, concentration risk management, and liquidity management.” David Ducharme is currently working to secure enough capital to appease federal regulators.

Following his defeat in the 2004 gubernatorial race, Sen. Rossi started the Forward Washington Foundation. Sen. Rossi used the foundation to pay himself $75,000 a year while traveling the state giving speeches but little else. Sen. Rossi treated the foundation much like his own campaign committee, but he didn’t have to abide by campaign contribution limits or disclosure laws. The Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) opened an investigation into the foundation but Sen. Rossi stepped down as president before the investigation was complete and declared his candidacy for governor. The Commission later ended its investigation because of insufficient evidence.

In his run for governor in 2008, Sen. Rossi was supported by the Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW). The BIAW spent $6.9 million largely to promote Sen. Rossi and criticize his opponent throughout the race. A complaint filed with PDC alleged that Sen. Rossi violated state law by coordinating fundraising with the BIAW, failing to register as a candidate in a timely manner, exceeding contribution limits and failing to disclose contributions. After an investigation, the PDC eventually cleared Sen. Rossi of any wrongdoing, but its final report revealed how closely the BIAW skirted the law in promoting his candidacy. Sen. Rossi’s close relationship to the BIAW shouldn’t have come as any surprise, though; Richard Ducharme is a former lobbyist for the BIAW.

Source: CREW

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

Dino Rossi running for US Senate and questions as well

below is a vid from 2008 about abortion

Watch dino Rossi questions on 9/21/10

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

ECONOMY: Fighting Back On Foreclosures

10/08/2010 Nativegrl77

Yesterday, with the first significant veto of his administration, President Obama rejected the “Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010” — a bill that would have forced states and federal courts to accept notarizations from any notary public in the country, as opposed to only those by state residents. What’s wrong with making paperwork easier? Usually nothing, except an increasing number of Americans are losing their homes via foreclosure due to paperwork errors by banks rushing to expedite the foreclosure process. Some banks aren’t even reading foreclosure forms, with the result being a large and growing number of wrongful foreclosures being pushed through the judicial system. The bill would have made such wrongful foreclosures even easier to accomplish, adding to the already problematic foreclosure problem Americans face. Since more Americans lost their homes in August than in any other previous month, the widespread problems plaguing the foreclosure business must be addressed. Moreover, systematic problems causing so many Americans to lose their homes needs to be tackled head-on.

PAPERWORK PLUNDER: Earlier this month, Nancy Jacobini called 911 in a panic from her locked bathroom after she heard what sounded like someone breaking the front door to her Florida home. When police arrived, they didn’t find a masked intruder, but rather someone hired by JP Morgan Chase, who said he was changing the locks because Jacobini had been foreclosed upon. There was a larger problem beyond the bank’s intrusive tactics, however: Jacobini was behind in her payments, but the bank had not actually foreclosed on her home. Sadly, paperwork snafus are plaguing the mortgage industry and the millions of Americans facing foreclosure. After several recent news reports about the work of “robo-signers” — bank officials who were routinely signing thousands of foreclosure applications without ever reading them — many banks were forced to stop foreclosures all together and re-evaluate their practices. Bank of America announced today that it is suspending foreclosures in 50 states, and PNC Bank, JP Morgan Chase and Ally Financial have also halted foreclosures. Stories abound about bank officials not even reading the foreclosure forms — Bank of America’s action came after the Associated Press reported that a bank official admitted in a bankruptcy case that she signed 7,000 to 8,000 foreclosure documents a month and “typically” did not read them “because of the volume.” A Chase official, Beth Ann Cottrell, said that she and her co-workers approved 18,000 foreclosures every month without any personal knowledge of the documents. The Washington Post reported the case of Jeffrey Stephan, a Pennsylvania man who signed detailed foreclosure forms for GMAC Mortgage at the rate of one per minute. And a Wells Fargo executive admitted in a deposition that he only checked the dates on the up to 150 foreclosure documents that he signed daily. Unsurprisingly, these tactics have led to a large number of wrongful foreclosures, where households who have not defaulted on their mortgages are foreclosed upon. Considering that the mortgage crisis was caused at least in part by predatory lenders snowing over consumers with excessive, complicated fine print, it’s ironic that the same industry is failing to read it themselves when taking away people’s homes. (Or, as Jon Steward acidly put it last night, “You’re the [expletive] people who came up with fine print in the first place!”)

GOVERNMENT TAKES ACTION: These banks shut down their foreclosures in the face of aggressive and appropriate government inquiry. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), joined by many Democratic and Republican members of Congress, are calling for not only an investigation into the banks’ practices but also a wider moratorium on foreclosures. A bipartisan group of attorneys general is also demanding answers — for example, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican, is asking 30 lenders to stop foreclosures until they can prove it’s being done legally. Even Congressional Republicans like Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby are demanding investigations. Obama’s veto of the notary public bill was almost surely motivated by concerns that too many people were already losing their homes under paperwork that was proceeding too quickly. The legislation has been languishing in the Senate for months and was likely not designed to help banks speed along foreclosures, but on September 27 it quickly and mysteriously was passed by unanimous consent. Salon notes that perhaps “mortgage lenders pressured their allies in the Senate to pass the notarization bill in the hope that it might provide some ex post facto protection for them from the avalanche of law suits that is about to pound the mortgage industry.” Obama’s veto seemed to consider the danger that speeding along paperwork used in mortgages would be harmful, and the President repeatedly cited the need for “consumer protections” in explaining his move.

MOVING FORWARD: These wrongful “paperwork foreclosures” are unfortunately not surprising, given the enormous scale of the larger foreclosure crisis our country is facing. While the banks must vastly improve the methods by which they foreclose on homes, other banks — notably Wells Fargo — should join in the moratorium. But there are larger issues that also need to be resolved. As the Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo notes in his column for the Center for American Progress today, there are serious flaws with the Obama administration’s signature foreclosure prevention effort, the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). For one, as Garofalo and former CAP Associate Director for Housing and Economics Andrew Jakabovics first revealed, some institutions like Bank of Americas siphoned borrowers off HAMP and into its own private modification program. CAP proposes taking the modification programs out of the hands of abusive banks: by allowing housing counselors and other public entities to approve mortgage modifications directly, and if the borrower’s servicer doesn’t challenge the modification in 90 days, it automatically becomes permanent. Mortgage mediation programs — in which a bank must meet with a borrower, in the presence of a judge and housing counselors, before finalizing a foreclosure — should also be expanded in cities and states that already have them, or begun in locations where they don’t currently exist. CAP also proposes modifying the rules for Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduits, or REMICs, those investment vehicles used to pool and securitize mortgages, in order to accelerate mortgage modifications.